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Threat Levels Explained

Here's General Patrick Hughes, assistant secretary for information analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, explaining that department's color-coded threat level system to a House subcommittee. It's a spinner! We've had this system in place for over two years now and it's been yellow 95% of the time and orange the rest. I once won a gold medal at the Al Kalfus Long Island Math Fair for my work on probabilty theory, and I know that's pretty unlikely.

So what's the problem? I blame the thumbtack-hole placement. That thing's been hanging on Secretary Ridge's wall with yellow at the bottom for way too long! Can't some enterprising fed turn the spinner so orange is at the top? I say we let gravity take care of Osama. Maybe then they'll finally re-open those BART restrooms.

President Bush, 5/17

First:

The habits of racism in America have not all been broken. The habits of respect must be taught to every generation.

Second:

The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges. All Americans have a right to be heard in this debate. I called on the Congress to pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and a woman as husband and wife. The need for that amendment is still urgent, and I repeat that call today.

...

Ryan Lizza has a rundown of highlight from Zogby's latest. The key bit: "Bush and Kerry are tied in the red states (45-45)."

I've heard a lot of concern from the left about Senator Kerry's inability to capitalize on the hits Bush's popularity has taken over the past few weeks. But this poll seems to indicate that while no part of the country has gone whole hog for the challenger, the incumbent is dangerously weak even among his base. And, if one believes in trends, this chart is pretty encouraging.

Dispatch from the Front

They tell us that there were 10,000 of us there. When I first got there, around 9:30, there were already people gathered on the lawn in front of Cambridge City Hall, and the line of marriage applicants snaked all the way down the steps and onto the sidewalk, but it didn't feel like such a huge number yet.

It was maybe 11:00pm when I looked back and noticed that the crowd had spilled off of the sidewalks and into the streets. The police, incongruous in their angry black riot gear, had closed off Mass Ave from Central Square to Harvard to make room for everybody. The street was packed, body to body, as far as you could see. There were a smattering of hand-made signs speckling the crowd -- Mazel Tov, and We Are Equal, and my favorite of the night, one that simply read Yay!

Far on the other side of the street, there were maybe 50 or 60 protesters, holding up signs of their own. There was "God Hates Fags", of course. But then there were ones that just didn't make any sense. "Fags Doom Nations," like that's something we do in our spare time. ("Hm. I've got half an hour until my next class. Hey, I know. I think I'll doom some nations.") And then there was the one that said, "God Blew Up the Space Shuttle." (What? Are you at the right protest?)

The bunch of flowers I was handing out was gone within half an hour or so, long before they started the digital clock that was counting down the seconds until the clerks began issuing licenses. At midnight, the crowd let up a huge cheer and started chanting, "We Are Equal!" I don't usually like the chanting shit very much, but there was a kind of mad euphoria that swept the crowd, and I found myself screaming aloud with the rest of the crowd, pumping our fists in the air like little revolutionaries.

We kept singing and clapping for the couples as they emerged from City Hall into the glare of the flashbulbs and floodlights. There were indiscriminate showers of rice and confetti, and somewhere on the other side of the crowd a brass band started playing Mendelssohn's Wedding March. Some couples held their licenses up for us to see. Some flashed us a quick smile and kissed on the steps. Others just seemed to float down the steps, completely oblivious to anything but one another.

It was the best. It was like Pride and New Years and Christmas and your birthday all at once. I saw all these people I knew, including straight friends who came out to support our community and be counted as allies. We cheered, we chanted slogans, we sang every song about marriage we could think of, and whenever a couple emerged from the building, we cheered and sang all the more.

I couldn't stay until the end. At 1:30, there were still couples streaming out of City Hall, but my legs threatened to give out from under me.

When I woke up in the morning, my pillow was covered with rice and confetti.