Having now had several months to watch the workings of DU3, can I just say...

KUDOS to Skinner and anyone else involved in the redesign! Despite doom & gloom predictions over the new jury system, based on my own jury experience and on watching the discussion boards generally, I think it has worked out extraordinarily well. There is still plenty of room for differing viewpoints, dissent, etc.

Bravo, Skinner!

Having now had several months to watch the workings of DU3, can I just say...

KUDOS to Skinner and anyone else involved in the redesign! Despite doom & gloom predictions over the new jury system, based on my own jury experience and on watching the discussion boards generally, I think it has worked out extraordinarily well. There is still plenty of room for differing viewpoints, dissent, etc.

Bravo, Skinner!

Glenn Greenwald: "The president deserves credit for his actions in this civil rights area"

I know there are some here who think Greenwald is the spawn of Satan, but he genuinely gives President Obama credit for his gay marriage stance, taking a more charitable view than even many folks here have taken. Well worth a read...


http://www.salon.com/2012/05/09/e_3/singleton/

R.I.P. the administration's purported commitmet to "evidence-based" sex ed curricula

Once again, this administration sacrifice a statement of principle by the President in order to pander to a constituency that will never in a million years give this President a single vote, and in fact will do everything within its power to block every initiative and to make sure he is not re-elected. Who the hell is the political genius in the Administration who is making these kinds of calls?

Speaking as a gay man, I don't think you can make a blanket statement like this....

What I think one can safely say is that homophobes are likely very conflicted about their own sexuality. Does that necessarily mean they are gay? No, but then again human sexuality runs along a spectrum, and is not the binary, black-and-white kind of thing many of us would like to think it is.

Some ideas/direction sought on a piece on privatization I'm working on...

I'm in the early stages of developing a blogpost I'm writing. The piece is intended to debunk, to the extent possible, the claims made by the right to the effect that private industry always delivers products/services more efficiently (i.e., at a better quality per price) than the government. One of the things I always try to do in pieces like this is to anticipate the counter-arguments and counter examples. And here's the point where I could use some ideas/direction pointers. Can anyone here, being as generous as you reasonably can to the right's argument, think of any example from U.S. history where a product/service that was originally a publicly provided and was later privatized, about which a remotely arguable case can be made that such privatization worked to the benefit of the public at large?

I'm not looking for folks to do my research for me here, but just for some examples I might use to anticipate the right's counter-argument. Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Raw Story: U.S. authorities crackdown on medical marijuana spots

The Catholic Leadership's Selectuve Use of Duct Tape

Love this send-up of NY's Cardinal Dolan!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-catholic-leaderships-selective-use-of-duct-tape/2012/04/08/gIQAEEhc4S_video.html

Truthout: White House to Delay Implementation of Key Anti-Discrimination Order

Seems I will need a still larger clothespin for my nose when I cast my vote in November...

After months of dodging questions about the progress of an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in federal contracting, the White House won’t issue the directive, but will instead study whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees require employment protections, ThinkProgress has learned. The news comes after White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett held a meeting with LGBT advocates to discuss the matter.

Existing studies suggest that 11 to 16 million additional employees would have gained protections as a result of the measure, since many “federal contractors do not currently have those policies, and they employ millions of workers.” Among them are Jarrod Scarbrough and Les Sewell, a gay couple who attended Monday’s Easter Egg Roll at the White House to ask Obama to sign the order. “Jarrod works for a company that the government contracts through, and we live in New Mexico — we’re actually protected, we don’t have to worry too much about being discriminated against. However, in June we’re moving to Florida where that protection, we’ll no longer have that,” Sewell explained during an appearance on MSNBC. “Without this administrative action, Jarrod could lose his job and then where would this family be?”

Equality advocates who had been working to advance the measure are asking similar questions. “Today’s news that the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors will launch a study to better understand workplace discrimination against gay and transgender Americans is confounding and disappointing,” said Winnie Stachelberg, the Executive Vice President for External Affairs at the Center for American Progress. “The President should use his executive authority to extend existing nondiscrimination requirements of federal contractors to include sexual orientation and gender identity,” she added.

Earlier this month, 72 Congressional lawmakers urged the administration to enact the order, noting that it would “extend important workplace protections to millions of Americans, while at the same time laying the groundwork for Congressional passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).” Data show that “43 percent of LGB people and 90 percent of transgender people have experienced workplace discrimination” and that the overwhelming majority of Americans — 73 percent — would have supported a measure prohibiting it.

Refreshing ruling in a student drug testing case...

... from a school approximately 40 miles from my hometown: