Eideard

Maryland governor Martin O’Malley after supporting same-sex marriage
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The Maryland Senate voted Thursday evening to legalize same-sex marriage, the latest sign of growing national recognition of such unions among gay and lesbian couples.

Gov. Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign the bill into law. “All children deserve the opportunity to live in a loving, caring, committed, and stable home, protected equally under the law,” O’Malley said in a statement after the vote.

New Jersey lawmakers approved same-sex marriage this month, but Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the legislation. He has said voters should decide the issue in a statewide referendum…

Proving once again what cowards Republican politicians may be.

…Lawsuits seeking to expand civil unions or turn back laws banning same-sex marriages are working through the courts in at least 12 states, including Hawaii, Minnesota and California, the organization said.

The flurry of activity is a stark change from two decades ago, when the issue of same-sex marriage first gained national attention. Just a decade ago, no states allowed such unions…

In November, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported a more divided public — 46% in favor of same-sex marriages and 44% opposed. But Pew also said the uptick in support seems to be gaining steam, having jumped 9 percentage points in two years.

The shifting attitudes have emboldened proponents of same-sex marriage.

“There’s no question that with so many Americans having changed their minds and opened their hearts as they’ve heard the stories of real couples and thought about why marriage matters, we now have tremendous momentum towards ending marriage discrimination,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, which favors recognizing a right to marriage for gay couples.

“We could see a nationwide victory as soon as one to two years. It could also take as much as 10 years.”

The homophobic Right will dedicate their money to referenda in parallel with the history of racists losing control of legal segregation in the United States during the rise of civil rights movements, civil rights legislation respecting the Constitution. Part of their dedication to green power rather than a constitutional dedication to civilization will be the bucks they will continue to spend on trying to save DOMA, the so-called Defense Of Marriage Act which took another just hit, today.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

When Susan G. Komen announced Tuesday afternoon it was pulling its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, the reaction from critics was fast and furious.

The move was called, in some of the nicer assessments: “disgusting,” “anti-women,” and an “act of cowardice.” The president of Planned Parenthood said she couldn’t understand how the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity “could have bowed to this kind of bullying,” alleging that the funding was cut because of pressure from anti-abortion groups. Planned Parenthood offers wide-ranging reproductive health care services, but its work is centered on pro-choice decision-making and sexual education.

Petitions were also started that called for the partnership between Komen and Planned Parenthood to be restored…

Komen explained its decision by blaming new rules that prohibit it from giving money to groups under federal investigation. Planned Parenthood, which is the subject of congressional inquiry over whether it spent public money on abortions, falls into that category. Critics of the Komen decision say that inquiry is a “faux” one, and not likely to turn up anything…

Komen for the Cure has been under fire before, a number of times. As Amanda Marcotte points out in Slate, Komen was already “under serious scrutiny” by critics who believe “the organization cares more about shoring up their image than making real progress in the fight for women’s health…”

The Post’s Melinda Henneberger, who once suffered from breast cancer, writes that she doesn’t feel betrayed by the decision because “Komen has for some time seemed to me to be run like any other big business…”

I’m rarely surprised over the actions of charities which have become a corporate entity unto themselves – instead of remaining focused on whichever need prompted their profitable beginnings. Nothing new about a “non-profit” that is very profitable for its administrators – in terms of dollars and political clout.

Poisonally, henceforth I will advise anyone asking — to avoid the Susan Komen charity like the political plague they are. There is no shortage of legitimate, good-hearted and courageous charities dealing with women’s health. I’d suggest starting with Planned Parenthood.

UPDATE: Mollie Williams, Komen’s top public health official resigned in protest. “Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right.”

Donors reacting to Komen’s decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood contributed $650,000 in 24 hours, nearly enough to replace last year’s Komen funding.

UPDATE 2: Mayor Mike Bloomberg — a longtime supporter of the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation — made a strong public rebuke of the organization Thursday by giving $250,000 to Planned Parenthood.

UPDATE 3: We won! Komen returns to profiding funds to Planned Parenthood.

Germany’s Interior Minister has warned of a “new form of far-right terrorism” as details emerged of a grotesque film left by members of a neo-Nazi cell in eastern Germany, in which they claimed the murder of nine immigrants between 2000 and 2006.

Prosecutors said police had arrested a suspected accomplice of the group, which referred to itself in the film as the “Nationalist Socialist Underground,” and which is also thought to be behind the murder of a policewoman in 2007 and a bomb attack on a Turkish area of Cologne in 2004.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the murders were shameful for Germany. “We must assume that this is right-wing extremism in the worst form, and it is shaming that such a thing can happen in our country,” she told German television.

The revelations, which have caused shock and outrage across Germany, began after police found the bodies of two men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, both with far-right links, in a mobile home in Eisenach last week. Police believe they killed themselves after a botched bank robbery.

Shortly after the discovery investigators searched a burned-out house in Zwickau, used by the men and one woman, “Beate Z,” who later handed herself in to police. There they found guns used in the murder of the policewoman and of the nine vendors, eight of whom were of Turkish background and the other a Greek…

Protesters, many with Turkish roots, gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Sunday to protest against neo-Nazis. Opposition politicians expressed anger that the cell went undetected for so long.

“Beate Z” faces charges of murder, attempted murder, arson and belonging to a terrorist organization.

Throw away the key. That would be a start.

 
Silvio Berlusconi’s scandal-ridden premiership ended in ignominy as he was forced to hide from a jeering crowd in Rome after handing in his resignation at a late-night meeting with President Giorgio Napolitano. His departure followed a historic vote in parliament that paved the way for a new government tasked with shoring up the ailing economy.

Berlusconi was forced to leave the presidential residence through a side entrance, to chants of “buffoon, buffoon” from thousands of demonstrators outside….The protesters, including a choir singing the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah, rejoiced at his departure.

The 75-year-old billionaire brought down the curtain on a government that has become plagued by scandals and seemed increasingly helpless in the face of the economic storm that has taken his country and the euro to the brink of catastrophe. The dramatic end of his 17-year domination of Italian politics came as the lower house of parliament approved a package of savage cuts and stimulus measures demanded by the European Union to trim Italy’s massive €1.9 trillion debt.

After losing his majority in the house, a weakened Berlusconi had pledged to resign as soon as he had pushed the reform package through parliament. The reforms were passed by 380 votes to 26. Opposition parties did not participate…

Italy’s longest serving postwar prime minister raised a toast with ministers at a final cabinet meeting after the vote, only for his car to be chased by protesters shouting “Go, go, thief!” as he left for a second meeting with party officials at his Rome residence…

The questions facing Italy, today, are the natural result of leaving the Clown Prince of Populism in place all these years. Those who vote for nationalism, imperial lies, the histrionics of a Berlu or his counterparts throughout the Western world run the inevitable risk of getting exactly what they vote for.

An incompetent, a paper tiger who buried his nation in debt and disgrace.

Rick Santorum is the 8th dillweed from the right
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Former U.S. Sen. and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has a well-known Google problem.

For the uninitiated, if you Google Santorum’s name, the first result you’ll probably get is not his personal website but a fake definition of “santorum,” a sexual byproduct that’s a bit too graphic to talk about in detail here.

We’ll get into how that all happened in a second, but here’s what’s new: On Tuesday, the socially conservative politician lashed out at Google, saying the company could get rid of the sexual references to his name on the search results if it wanted to — and perhaps would do so if he were a Democrat…

Santorum contacted Google and asked the company about the issue, Politico said.

In an e-mail to CNN, a Google spokeswoman said, “Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly. Once the webmaster takes the page down from the Web, it will be removed from Google’s search results through our usual crawling process.”

She added: “We do not remove content from our search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content and violations of our webmaster guidelines…”

The lewd “santorum” definition popped up after the former senator compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press…

That angered gay rights supporters, including gay podcast host and sex columnist Dan Savage, who launched a campaign for his listeners to redefine Santorum’s name. Savage created a website to promote the winning definition and enough bloggers linked to it that the spoof site eventually eclipsed Santorum’s campaign website in search rankings.

Danny Sullivan, who writes at the blog SearchEngineLand, notes that Google has a history of being hands-off when it comes to these controversies, regardless of the politics or sensitivities involved:

“Google is loathe to touch its results in any way, shape or form. That’s because if it does intervene in any way, there’s some interest group that will immediately claim a bias…

Just an example that reactionaries are as likely as anyone else to put in a claim for political correctness.

Yes, there are qualities of bigotry that I personally think should be shunted into the garbage can of discourse – but, I’m not in charge of anything in the public eye except this blog. Santorum is getting exactly what bigots like him deserve. A joking finger up his self-image.

The editor of a science journal has resigned after admitting that a recent paper casting doubt on man-made climate change should not have been published.

The paper, by US scientists Roy Spencer and William Braswell, claimed that computer models of climate inflated projections of temperature increase. It was seized on by “sceptic” bloggers, but attacked by mainstream scientists.

Wolfgang Wagner, editor of Remote Sensing journal, says he agrees with the criticisms and is stepping down.

“Peer-reviewed journals are a pillar of modern science,” he writes in a resignation note published in Remote Sensing. “Their aim is to achieve highest scientific standards by carrying out a rigorous peer review that is, as a minimum requirement, supposed to be able to identify fundamental methodological errors or false claims.

“Unfortunately, as many climate researchers and engaged observers of the climate change debate pointed out in various internet discussion fora, the paper by Spencer and Braswell… is most likely problematic in both aspects and should therefore not have been published…”

In essence, Dr Wagner, a professor of remote sensing at Vienna University of Technology, is blaming himself for this failing. But he also blames the researchers themselves for not referencing all the relevant research in their manuscript.

“The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted…, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers…

Scientific papers that turn out to be flawed or fraudulent are usually retracted by the journals that publish them, with editorial resignations a rarity.

But Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said Dr Wagner had done the decent thing. “It was a mistake, he’s owned up to it and taken an honourable course, and I think he’s to be commended for it,” he told BBC News.

“I think it remains to be seen whether the authors follow a similar course.”

Since the authors of the crap article have their strongest commitment to right-wing politics and a “Christian” view of science – I think there is little or no likelihood of honor and ethics straying into their path.

No more hugs from Bibi

The former head of Israel’s spy service has launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s current government, describing it as “irresponsible and reckless”, and has praised Arab attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Meir Dagan stepped down as the head of Mossad six months ago but has gone on the offensive in a series of briefings with journalists and public appearances because he feels that Israel’s security is being mismanaged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister.

One newspaper quotes him as saying that he, as head of Mossad, Yuval Diskin, the head of Sin Bet – the internal security agency, and Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the army, could prevent Netanyahu and Barak from making mistakes but all three have left their positions and have been replaced by men chosen by the current government.

“I decided to speak because when I was in office, Diskin, Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure. Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi [Netanyahu] and Barak,” said Dagan…

In his latest comments, he said that if Israel attacks Iran, it will find itself at the centre of a regional war that would endanger the state’s existence. Dagan’s intervention is dangerous for Netanyahu because it comes from the right wing of Israeli opinion rather than the left, where the prime minister would expect criticism…

Ben Caspit of the Maariv newspaper wrote: “He is one of the most rightwing militant people ever born here … who ate Arabs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When this man says that the leadership has no vision and is irresponsible, we should stop sleeping soundly at night.”

When the political course of a nation becomes wholly grounded in hatred and bigotry, imperial greed for lebensraum, it is time for conservatives to join the broader population and speak out against criminal politicians in charge.

It’s also years overdue.

A federal court has given the Obama administration the go-ahead to continue funding embryonic stem cell research. The controversial 2-1 decision Friday is a victory for supporters of federally funded testing for a range of diseases and illnesses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifted an injunction imposed last year by a federal judge, who said all embryonic stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health amounted to destruction of embryos, in violation of congressional spending laws.

Legislation passed in 1996 prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in the creation or destruction of human embryos “for research purposes.” Private money had been used to gather batches of the developing cells at U.S.-run labs. The current administration had broken with the Bush White House and issued rules in 2009 permitting those cells to be reproduced in controlled conditions and for work on them to move forward…

Two scientists had brought a lawsuit to block further research. But the three-judge panel concluded in their 21-page ruling, “the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded” that the law does not ban research using embryonic stem cells.

Yes, the Right Wing nutballs in this land can always find one or two researchers who are academically-qualified to support some crap ideology. While the course of science overall proceeds along the traditional conservative, cross-checked methods of investigation and validation that have always been root and cause of progress.

And then there is Congress.

Which side are you on, boys – which side are you on?

A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled against a former death row inmate who sought damages from the state after prosecutors hid crucial blood tests that would have earlier proven his innocence. The 5-4 decision Tuesday involved John Thompson, who came within weeks of execution and had spent 18 years behind bars before being set free after the new forensic evidence came to light.

At issue was whether a district attorney’s office should be held liable, under a “failure to train” standard, when one of its prosecutors unconstitutionally withholds exculpatory evidence from a criminal defendant.

Then-New Orleans area District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. claimed his office should not be held fully responsible after one of his staff attorneys violated long-standing, accepted procedures on handling evidence in criminal trials.

Thompson’s lawyers said the DA’s office as a whole should be held liable for the poor training of prosecutors working under Connick…

A landmark 1963 high court ruling — Brady v. Maryland — said prosecutor have a sworn duty to turn over evidence that may show a defendant is innocent. But in a subsequent opinion, the high court said individual prosecutors cannot be sued for any constitutional violations in the courtroom.

The Thompson decision further limits when defendants can sue for so-called “Brady” violations.

In a rare oral dissent, Ginsburg spoke from the bench to strongly criticize the majority’s conclusions.

“The record in this case abundantly shows flagrant indifference to Thompson’s rights,” she said. “The conceded, long-concealed prosecutorial transgressions in Thompson’s trials were neither isolated nor atypical. They were just what one would expect given the attitude toward Brady pervasive in the district attorney’s office.”

Ginsburg was backed by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

At least there still are four judges left on the Supreme Court who believe in justice for ordinary people. The remainder are stuck in history with their corporate bedbuddies and apparently every incompetent prosecutor they can protect from responsibility for their actions.

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said on Monday that he would “love to know more” about where President Obama was born and claimed — falsely — that Mr. Obama was raised in Kenya…

Mr. Huckabee’s comments were prompted by the conservative radio host Steve Malzberg, who asked Mr. Huckabee: “How come we don’t have a health record, we don’t have a college record, we don’t have a birth certificate — why, Mr. Obama, did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate?”

The former governor responded: “I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough.” Mr. Huckabee, who is now a Fox News host, then talked repeatedly about his concerns that Mr. Obama was raised in Kenya…

“If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather,” Mr. Huckabee said.

First I’ve heard that the Brits weren’t imperialists. They had the honesty to brag about it – instead of crap lies about regime change.

Mr. Obama did not grow up in Kenya. According to his official biography, the president was raised primarily in Hawaii by his mother and maternal grandparents and spent several years in Indonesia when he was a young boy.

In a statement released Tuesday evening, Hogan Gidley, the executive director of HuckPAC, Mr. Huckabee’s political action committee, said that Mr. Huckabee “simply misspoke” and that “he meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia…

Mr. Obama’s father was from Kenya, but in his first book, Mr. Obama wrote extensively about the fact that he spent almost no time with his father, who left his mother and saw Mr. Obama only once, in Hawaii…

Face it. The amount of time Republicans spend playing kissy-kissy with the KoolAid types confirms they have turned over political strategy and tactics entirely to the nutball wing of the party. Yes, they’ll keep hold of the pursestrings, control of the legislation really important to the corporate backbone of the Party of NO.

But, TV time, ideology and insanity are in complete control of the bigots, birthers and balmy.