Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

Seattle recognizes gay marriages!

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Okay, so we’re not performing the ceremonies yet, but it’s a start. Mayor Greg Nickles issued an executive order today declaring that the City of Seattle will recognize gay marriages.

“Seattle has often been in the forefront of protecting all its citizens regardless of sexual orientation,” Nickels said at a news conference announcing the order. He also proposed an ordinance to extend protections for gay married couples throughout the city.

At the same time, six couples prepared to file suit to force the state to reconsider its discriminatory “Defense of Marriage Act” and allow them to marry.

The six couples here applied for and were denied marriage licenses Monday morning in King County, which includes Seattle. Ron Sims, who is the King County executive, a supporter of gay marriage and a candidate for governor, participated in a staged event encouraging the couples to sue him and other county officials. They did so, filing a challenge to Washington’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act.

“I have always said I will follow the rule of law,” Mr. Sims said. “I will not issue licenses, but I thought it was appropriate to have a challenge through the court system.”

Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women’s Law Center, one of the legal groups representing the six couples in the suit, said she thought it was more effective to mount a legal challenge to the state law, rather than encourage city, county or state officials to issue marriage licenses in defiance of the law, only to have them legally challenged later.

iTunes: “Ocean Size” by Jane’s Addiction from the album Nothing’s Shocking (1988, 4:19).

Avi Rubin vs. Diebold

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Avi Rubin, one of the primary authors of a highly critical look at Diebold’s electronic voting machines, decided to answer some of his critics, put his money where his mouth is, and spend a day as an election judge, working with the very machines about which he had expressed strong security concerns. In his very interesting recap of his day, he admits that some of his concerns may not be as much of a worry as he thought — but others may be far worse.

In our paper, we described how the smartcards used by these machines had no cryptography on them, and we made the widely criticized claim that a teenager in a garage could manufacture smartcards and use them to vote 20 times. I now believe that this particular attack is not a real threat — at least not in the primary I worked today. […] In general, multiple voting attacks during the election are not likely to work in a precinct such as the one where I worked.

[…]

There were also some security issues that I found to be much worse than I expected. […] The security risk I saw was that Diebold had designated which machine would be the zero machine, and at one point, all of the vote tallies were loaded onto that one machine in memory. That would be the perfect point to completely change the tallies. There is no need to attack all of the machines at a precinct if someone could tamper with the zero machine.

[…]

I continue to believe that the Diebold voting machines represent a huge threat to our democracy. I fundamentally believe that we have thrown our trust in the outcome of our elections in the hands of a handful of companies (Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S) who are in a position to control the final outcomes of our elections. I also believe that the outcomes can be changed without any knowledge by election judges or anyone else. Furthermore, meaningful recounts are impossible with these machines.

I also believe that we have great people working in the trenches and on the front lines. These are ordinary people, mostly elderly, who believe in our country and our democracy, and who work their butts off for 16 hours, starting at 6 a.m. to try to keep the mechanics of our elections running smoothly. It is a shame that the e-voting tidal wave has a near hypnotic effect on these judges and almost all voters. I believe that after today’s experience, I am much better equipped to make the arguments against e-voting machines with no voter verifiability, but I also have a great appreciation for how hard it is going to be to fight them, given how much voters and election officials love them.

(via Jason Kottke)

Getting closer!

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It’s still not Seattle, but it’s at least closer than San Francisco…

PORTLAND, ORE. – It has happened in Massachusetts, San Francisco and now it is happening in Portland.

The Multnomah County Clerk’s office plans to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples starting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at their office located at 501 S.E. Hawthorne.

Oregon’s marriage law states that marriage is a civil contract entered by males who are at least 17 years old and females who are at least 17 years old.

A statement issued by the county said simply: “Based on a legal opinion released today by the County Attorney, a majority of the Board of County Commissioners supports a policy change to allow the county to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.”

Congratulations, all you Portlanders!

(many thanks to Pops for pointing this out in the comments here!)

Nickels, Sims: Quit yappin’ and start doin’!

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When I wrote out the list of cities supporting equal marriage rights last week, it was a little disappointing to not have Seattle in that list, too. Living in the area of Seattle I do (lower First Hill, within easy walking distance of Broadway/Capitol Hill), walking by the clubs I pass on the weekends on the way to the Vogue (R Place, Neighbors, the Wild Rose), and having been out at the Gay Pride festivities for the past few years, it always seemed to me that Seattle would be a natural for supporting this kind of movement.

And apparently, it could be…if only the local politicians would grow a spine, stop dilly-dallying, and actually do something.

When it comes to gay marriage, the difference between Seattle and San Francisco is the unwillingness of politicians here to push the issue. Although they would like you to believe otherwise, there is nothing stopping Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims from teaming up to make a San Francisco-style stand in favor of same-sex marriage rights.

[…]

Now is the perfect time for such a suit. Here’s why: Opponents of gay marriage would freak out, fearing a Washington ruling similar to the recent decision in Massachusetts ordering same-sex marriages to begin May 17. And their freakout would be well founded. The equal-protection and equal-rights language in Washington’s constitution is so strong, observers believe the state’s highest court would rule in favor of same-sex marriage. To head that scenario off at the pass, gay-marriage opponents would try to go above the heads of the Washington State Supreme Court justices by trying to amend the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage. But the amendment process begins in the state legislature, and the legislature is about to close up shop for the year, so the soonest anti-marriage forces could introduce their amendment would likely be 2005–which would give the courts enough time to rule on the Seattle/King County case, and gay-rights supporters enough time to rally the one-third of state senators or state reps that is needed to kill a proposed amendment.

[…]

Both Nickels and Sims do seem rather oblivious to the tipping point the gay civil rights movement in this country has reached. Political leaders in other urban centers with large numbers of gay people get it, and they are pushing hard in the right direction. (Witness Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, speaking last week in support of gay marriage: “Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don’t tell me about marriage. Don’t blame the gay and lesbian, transgender, and transsexual community. [They are] your doctors, your lawyers, your journalists. They are politicians. They have adopted children. To me, we have to understand that this is part and parcel of our families and extended families.”) When you consider that Seattle’s King County has a higher concentration of cohabitating gay and lesbian couples than Chicago’s Cook County, the fact that Nickels and Sims aren’t making a more forceful push for the marriage rights of gays and lesbians here becomes, quite simply, embarrassing.

It’s a shame that our elected representatives aren’t taking the initiative and using this opportunity to actually promote equal rights for everyone rather than just paying lip service to it.

iTunes: “Somebody Has to Pay” by van der Meer, Susie from the album Run Lola Run (1998, 3:25).

This bandwagon just keeps rollin’ on…

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I am loving, loving, loving one aspect of my newsreading these days.

San Francisco started it.

New Mexico is going to start.

Chicago, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City (!!!) and Plattsburgh, NY are also expressing support and talking about joining in.

Judges keep refusing to grant injunctions stopping the process — in one beautiful instance, the request was refused on the basis of a misused semicolon.

There are two things that really stand out to me about how wonderful this is. The first is that it’s suddenly happening so fast, and gaining so much support across the country. The second is how it all began…

It was only his 12th day as mayor of San Francisco, but Gavin Newsom decided that night — the very night he attended President Bush’s State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. — that he was going to defy California law.

And turn the nation on its ear.

Attending the president’s Jan. 20 speech as a guest of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Newsom listened closely as Bush voiced his strong support for outlawing same-sex marriage — with a constitutional amendment, if necessary.

Not long after the speech, Newsom called his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, a gay man who was at home with his partner and their two children. ”He told me that he wanted to do something,” Kawa said.

Two weeks later, during a staff meeting, Newsom dropped the bombshell on his top aides: He wanted them to explore how the city could start issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

Kawa said the mayor asked staff to gather legal briefs, news articles and other background information. Added his communications chief, Peter Ragone, ``He also wanted it done quietly.”

Within 24 hours, Kawa was on the phone with Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a San Francisco-based public interest organization.

Her reaction: ”Oh, my God, you’re kidding me,” Kendell said in an interview.

It was the first time, Kendell said, that a mayor of an American city wanted to take such an initiative. And Newsom, a straight Irish Catholic man married for two years, was the perfect politician to take on the fight, she said.

Thank God for people like Gavin Newsom — people who decide that it’s time to do the right thing, and do it.

And congratulations to every single one of the more than 3,000 brand-new married, loving couples.

It’s been a long time coming.

iTunes: “Bacchanalian Feast” by Original Love Tribe, The from the album Twisted Secrets Vol. 2 (1993, 5:46).

Now boarding Osama bin Laden…

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Feel safe yet?

Imagine if the world’s most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven, sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might he get? If he used aliases such as names of family members, he would be nabbed instantly and whisked away for questioning. That’s because many of his relatives are on the FBI’s secret “no-fly list,” according to intelligence sources.

But suppose he boldly decided to use his own name. Would he be cleared to fly? Insight recently learned that scenario was tested at a U.S. airport in the South during January. The result was troubling: America’s most-wanted fugitive is cleared to fly. According to airline-security documents obtained by this magazine, the name Osama bin Laden was punched into the computer by an airline official and, remarkably, that name was cleared at the security checkpoint all passengers must pass through before being issued a boarding pass.

Y’know, I knew the guy sitting behind me on the Memphis to Cincinnati leg of my trip home looked a little too clean cut to be believed.

More seriously, there’s some very interesting information in the article about how the current CAPS (and proposed CAPS II) system works, and how effective it really is (answer: not very).

iTunes: “Renaissance Affair” by Hooverphonic from the album Magnificent Tree, The (2000, 3:25).

Brain Drain

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There’s an excellent (as in must-read) article in the Washington Monthly looking at how the Bush administrations policies are driving creative talent away from America.

As other nations become more attractive to mobile immigrant talent, America is becoming less so. A recent study by the National Science Board found that the U.S. government issued 74,000 visas for immigrants to work in science and technology in 2002, down from 166,000 in 2001–an astonishing drop of 55 percent. This is matched by similar, though smaller-scale, declines in other categories of talented immigrants, from finance experts to entertainers. Part of this contraction is derived from what we hope are short-term security concerns–as federal agencies have restricted visas from certain countries after September 11. More disturbingly, we find indications that fewer educated foreigners are choosing to come to the United States. For instance, most of the decline in science and technology immigrants in the National Science Board study was due to a drop in applications.

[…]

…I’m convinced that the biggest reason has to do with the changed political and policy landscape in Washington. In the 1990s, the federal government focused on expanding America’s human capital and interconnectedness to the world–crafting international trade agreements, investing in cutting edge R&D, subsidizing higher education and public access to the Internet, and encouraging immigration. But in the last three years, the government’s attention and resources have shifted to older sectors of the economy, with tariff protection and subsidies to extractive industries. Meanwhile, Washington has stunned scientists across the world with its disregard for consensus scientific views when those views conflict with the interests of favored sectors (as has been the case with the issue of global climate change). Most of all, in the wake of 9/11, Washington has inspired the fury of the world, especially of its educated classes, with its my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy. In effect, for the first time in our history, we’re saying to highly mobile and very finicky global talent, “You don’t belong here.”

(via Tom Negrino)

Why gay marriage should not be legalized

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[Update:]{.underline}

When I originally found this piece, it was uncredited, and so I posted it as I found it. Thanks to Suchita for pointing me to the original source: the Gator Gay Straight Alliance at the Univeristy of Florida.

  1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.
  2. Heterosexual marriages are valid becasue they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can’t legally get married because the world needs more children.
  3. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
  4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if Gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
  5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are property, blacks can’t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
  6. Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.
  7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire counrty. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
  8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
  9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
  10. Children can never suceed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
  11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to things like cars or longer lifespans.
  12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “seperate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Seperate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as seperate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

Not the best I’ve ever read, but not terrible, and has its amusing moments. Its heart is in the right place, though.

(via Something Positive)

Help the CIA find those pesky WMDs!

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How wonderfully thoughtful — the CIA has posted a handy little online form so that people can submit tips on WMD locations (and other Iraq-related intel).

If you have information relating to Iraq which you believe might be of interest to the U.S. Government, please contact us through our secure online form. We will carefully protect all information you provide, including your identity.

To help us confirm and act quickly on your information, you must provide your full name, nationality, occupation and contact information including phone number. This allows the U. S. Government to grant rewards for valuable information. We will maintain strict confidentiality.

On the one hand, it’s definitely an interesting experiment. On the other hand, you can’t really help but get the feeling that they’re really stretching on this one.

(via BoingBoing)

iTunes: “Everything’s Cool (Safe as Milk)” by Pop Will Eat Itself from the album Two Fingers My Friends! (1995, 10:55).