I wrote Andrew Sullivan's e-mail of the day!
Despite what you'd assume from this blog and his, it's actually not about gay marriage, just political trivia.
Here is the post I replied to, and if you scroll down too far please ignore that other letter that claims to be E-mail of the Day for February 20th.
It's understandable, since it's a late addition.
A few hours ago, New Mexico joined the Coalition of the Willing.
First Massachusetts. Then San Francisco. Then Chicago. Next.... uh.... Cambodia??
King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia has announced that his nation should allow same-sex marriages, according to this hand-written entry posted to his official blog.
Quant aux homosexuels et aux lesbiennes, je les respecte. Ce n'est pas leur faute s'ils (elles) sont ce qu'ils (elles) sont, car c'est le BON DIEU qui aime la diversification des goûts et des couleurs, celle des especes humaines, animales, végétales, etc...
Mostly I mention this because I find it amusing that the 81-year-old King of Cambodia has a blog.
I've found a wealth of comprehensive data about pregnancy, abortion, and birthrates in the United States at the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The study is useful because it illustrates trends over time and in each of the fifty states.
Far fewer teenage girls are getting pregnant these days. Although a dwindling proportion of pregnant teenagers are having abortions, the overall effect is a lower birthrate among this age group.
We all sort of knew that this was going on from the demographics, but data are always welcome. The geographic breakdown is every bit as diverse as you expect.
Winter is starting to wind down, and that can mean only two things: Oscar predictions and weapon inspections. At this time last year, I was well on my way to correctly predicting Best Supporting Actor (and not much else) for the second year running, and former rally car driver Hans Blix was suffering through withering editorials like this number from the Post, which seems to have argued that Blix would not succeed in finding secret weapons, because Saddam had not admitted that he had any. I'm not quite sure I can still follow this logic, but then, 2003 was an odd year. I have the same problem when I try to watch The Goonies.
Blix is gone, but his cohort at IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, is still on the scene; today his agency has announced that they've discovered, in Iran, undeclared parts and plans (late of Libya, it is hinted) for a P-2 centrifuge to be used in uranium enrichment. This is not inconsistent with Iran's story that its existing centrifuges are part of an entrepreneurial scheme to sell nuclear fuel internationally, but it's also not entirely reassuring. (Then again, neither is the entrepreneurial scheme.) Even less reassuring is the news that Iran's judiciary is still acting like a bunch of jackasses.
There's a lot more to be said here, but it will have to wait. In the mean time, here's the nominee list. I haven't quite cracked the code yet this year, so I might as well start with a pick in a category where I haven't seen anything: NIBBLES for Best Short Film (Animated).
Why hasn't anyone gone up to one of those smug affirmative action bake sales and demanded a discount as a legacy, an athlete, or a geographic admit? What would the Young Conservatives say in response?
I would not assume that they have considered this issue already. I saw Harvey Mansfield debate Affirmative Action before a class of 1,000 in fall 1994 and he completely lost the audience because he felt compelled to stand up for legacies. His argument disintegrated. It was embarrassing to watch. I felt as if we lost an opportunity for an honest debate because Harvey C. painted himself into a corner defending the old privileges of the conservative.
I was not a legacy admit, I have the hand-eye coordination of a stalk of rhubarb, and New Jersey is overrepresented in every college and university in the country that is not explicitly Mormon. But if I were ten years younger, I'd be proud to walk up to the bake sale with my bass clarinet case in hand and demand my 95 cent cookie.
If anyone else is hoping for an early fall wedding and despairs of finding a location because all the good Saturdays were reserved six months ago, the Associated Press has discovered that there is extremely low demand for the second Saturday in September this year.
You can probably even negotiate a discount.
Susan visits Chicago, and Mayor Daley responds by proposing to follow San Francisco's example and start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Any plans to come back to Boston before March 11? We need all the help we can get.
Not only is Stephanie Herseth wicked cute, but the good people at Fox News indicate that she's single. I am proud of my vote for Georgy Russell last October and happy to throw my support behind Ms. Herseth's candidacy. And, in the interest of equal time, check out Virginia's Melissa Martin. She does have that conservative thing going on, but her slogan promises "LEADERSHIP AND INTEGRITY ... FOR A CHANGE." Who can argue with that?
Wonkette has been posting highly dubious Wisconsin exit poll data. Not only are these numbers highly divergent from pre-primary tracking polls (ARG and Zogby), they show a three-point drop for Kerry compared to earlier figures, but neither Dean nor Edwards seem to have benfitted from Kerry's stumble. I wrote:
That's only 88 percent. You're missing the big story here: one in eight Wisconsin voters gets the Kucin-itch!
The story no one wants to tell but everyone wants to hear ...
I get back:
that's all my tipster gave me. beggars can't be choosers (as a kucinich supporter, you should be familiar with this concept).
A Kucinich supporter! Me! This whole moving to Berkeley thing has affected me more than even I knew. Hope begins!
This is the second time Ms. Cox has taken me far too seriously in the past week. Potential correspondents should keep a few things in mind: I try not to follow serious statements with several exclamation points; when I use a phrase like "unrefutable evidence," I probably don't mean it, especially if the evidence is, in fact, quite refutable; and if I have dishy dirt on a presidential candidate, I probably won't wait for an internet contest to bring it out. In Wonkette's defense, I read more of the Blog for America than is healthy. If her mailbox is anything like that, she has every reason to be overly credulous around internet people.
For the first time since 1991, a Democrat has won a seat previously held by a Republican in a special election for the House of Representatives.
Rep. Ernie Fletcher resigned the seat after he defeated Attorney General Ben Chandler in the governor's race last year. Chandler turned around and ran for Fletcher's old seat in Congress. He appears to have won it handily.
Congratulations, Ben Chandler, the first of many Democrats who will help us reclaim the House of Representatives some day.
South Dakota votes on June 1 to fill the seat held by vehicular manslaughterer Bill Janklow. Stephanie Herseth, the cutest Congressional candidate of 2002, is our hope there.
There's all this stuff I'd forgotten about winter. The fact that it's dry, for one thing. Multiple applications of moisturizer and hand lotion, lip balm, the prickling skin-itching under all my clothes. Static. The blankets on this guest bed crackled with static, my hair stands straight up from my head when I try to brush it, my clothes cling to themselves. I've remembered a few things--not to lick my lips even if they're dry, because that only makes it worse. How to dampen the hairbrush just a little so that my hair stays still.
And then there's the whole issue of dealing with the outdoors. I've borrowed hats and scarves and mittens from my lovely hostess, but it's hardly enough. I'm still cold. I should be doing this dissertation on the history of places that are warm. What was I thinking?
I would like the world to function in a more sane and efficient way.
What this means in practice:
If I'm boarding a train or bus that is more than half-full, and there is room in the luggage racks, I will seek out the individual who has plopped himself down in the aisle seat with his bag in the window seat. I will ask him if he could move his bag so I could sit there.
I don't take offense at this sort of behavior, but I do consider pre-emptive seat blocking an emblem of the problems that will take down humanity in the long run.