Dude is just not having a good couple of days.

That's a couple of more women votes for Hillary next week, right?

h/t The Corner

UPDATE: Obama: I just called to say I'm sorry sweetie.

Apparently the Detroit reporter wasn't on the plane last week with the national level pros.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:07 PM | Comments (27)
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Can anyone say with a straight face that they expected this situation to last this far into the season?

I can't, and I'm 100% in the tank for both these teams.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:54 AM | Comments (6)
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Put on your best fighting face tomorrow. The California Supreme Court is about to piss somebody off.

These are consolidated cases brought by the City of San Francisco and civil rights groups who challenged California statutes that restrict marriage to a man and a woman. The Supreme Court's Notice of Forthcoming Finding (PDF) summarizes the issue:

This case includes the following issue: Does CaliforniaÂ’s statutory ban on marriage between two persons of the same sex violate the California Constitution by denying equal protection of the laws on the basis of sexual orientation or sex, by infringing on the fundamental right to marry, or by denying the right to privacy and freedom of expression?

Several weeks ago we discussed a rumor that the opinion would be written by the Chief Justice and would be "boldly" pro-gay marriage. However, the rumor was that the case would come down on Friday, May 23rd. If you're interested, extensive debate about gay marriage was had in the comments there.

I've got an event pretty much all day tomorrow and all day Friday, so you'll probably know how this goes before I do and I won't have time to post about it. One thing to keep in mind, there will be a traditional marriage amendment on California ballots this November. Even if the Court rules in favor of gay marriage, voters may put an end to it just six months from now.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:56 PM | Comments (25)
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Ouch baby.

It was a close, tough decision though.

Officials said NARAL's political committee board was about evenly divided among Clinton and Obama supporters and that the decision to endorse was hard fought. Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to support the Illinois senator.

Well, it was close until they actually voted.

I don't really think the endorsement does as much for Obama as it does for NARAL - hitching their little red wagon to the rising star. Still it's another stinger for Hill. We're going to see an awful lot of these body blows play out against her over the next few weeks. I might start to even feel sorry for her.

...

Ohh-kaaaaaaaay, that was bullshit. I can't pull it off that well.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:14 AM | Comments (13)
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Yeah, I know gravity is a force of acceleration, not speed. Shut up.

It's kind of cool that this guy straps on a wing loaded with rocket engines to his back and "flies," sort of. But a plane takes him up, he glides around a bit, and then he deploys a parachute.

So I'm not really seeing this as "vehicle-free flying" so much as "rocket-assisted falling."

Skip ahead in the video to see him, um, "flying."

If I'm grousing, it's because I see a diversion of resources that could be going into flyin' car technology.

Thanks to JackM.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (22)
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Chalk one up for the global warming crowd.

Several American activist groups, including Greenpeace and the Center for Biological Diversity, have also been lobbying hard to have polar bears listed as threatened. Experts now believe there are up to 25,000 polar bears remaining on the planet, and that number is in decline.

Listing the polar bear as a threatened species means all U.S. federal agencies will have to ensure that anything they authorize that might affect polar bears will not jeopardize their survival or the sea ice where they live. That could include oil and gas exploration, commercial shipping or even releases of toxic contaminants or climate-affecting pollution.

Hugh Hewitt took at look at what this might mean and the answer is, nothing good.

The short version: If the polar bear is listed, every activity that emits a greenhouse gas of any sort in the lower 48 AND which receives a federal permit or requires federal agency action of any sort --even if that permit or action is unrelated to the emission of the gases-- those activities will be subject to new review by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the approval may not be forthcoming, will certainly at least be delayed, and will almost certainly come with massive new costs attached.

Thus coastal building programs that require federal flood insurance or Army Corps of Engineers permits, highway construction that gets FHA funding, or joint NASA-private industry initiatives that result in launchings, all these and hundreds of thousands of additional federal permits and actions get gathered in under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

So ANWR? Forget about it.

Also at that link, the fact that the ‘science’ this decision is based on is less than, uh, settled.

Gee, I wonder why the Republican ‘brand’ is in such trouble.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:01 AM | Comments (78)
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Seniority (rank) to be indicated by color plates of red, gold, and.. lilac.

Um? Lilac? Why not just say blue and be done with it?

Also:

Out: Old fashioned William Penn white wigs

In: High-tech William Shatner brown wigs

No, but seriously, they're ditching the wigs.

Via Fark.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (17)
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We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. A lot of otherwise-normal seeming people seem to like Point Break. I don't get the attraction, unless you're just waiting for that slyly implied Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze gay sex sequence. (Toss Gary Busey into that mix and I admit, it's pretty combustible.)

So... Point Break 2. Because you, um, asked for it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:39 AM | Comments (25)
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It's been a rough few days in the comments to the political posts here as many place the blame for the generally downward trend of Republicans on a lack of ideological purity in our elected officials. I think a couple of events came together at just the right time to provoke the wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I have to admit that you guys are really depressing me.

So I went looking for something to cheer me up on the political front and hit paydirt with John Aravosis absolutely losing his shit over the Democratic nomination contest. No linky for Aravosis because he's, well, nameless, fatherless scum--a subcreature deserving of neither aid nor pity nor, for that matter, the traffic you bring. He's the fellow who, among other things, viciously attacked and mocked Mary Cheney when she was working with her father.

And I do so love to hear him cry in a Crockerian post entitled "Go away you horrible human being":

IT'S NOT CLOSE. YOU FREAKING LOST THE NOMINATION, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Good God. What is wrong with her? The Clintons and their campaign staff don't give a damn that they are now hurting our electoral chances in the fall against McCain and against the Republicans in Congress. Their campaign isn't happening in some vacuum, and they know it. Our candidates can't fundraise because of her. Obama can't focus on McCain because of her. Obama is wasting money on HER, rather than spending it on McCain, because of her. EMILY's List, and AFSCME, and the American Federation of Teachers and others are wasting their members' money on her now-failed race - money that they could be spending, should be spending, on other real races, races that haven't already lost. She can't win, the math says she lost the nomination, but she doesn't give a damn. She's going to stay in the race like some spoiled hateful egotistical brat.

Why is the media even covering her? The only stories that should be written about Hillary Clinton is how much damage she's causing our party. How she's hurting fundraising at the DNC - they even admitted it, they're not raising the money they need to fight John McCain because of this woman. Why don't you write some stories about how she is hurting our candidates who can't fundraise because of her? How she has forced EMILY's List and AFSCME and the AFT to waste their money because of her. How she has caused a civil war in the Netroots. Five months ago we all felt that we had 3 great candidates. Now, far too many of us loathe Hillary Clinton, and she has done her racist best to ensure that her supporters can't stand Barack Obama either.

Ahhh. Like soothing balm for my soul.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:09 AM | Comments (51)
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Genius.

Hot Air explains why the campaign's efforts to spin these gaffes as Received Truths is a load of horseshit.

Question: Is Obama a) dumb, b) too lazy to invest the minimum necessary amount of time in important questions, c) "intellectually incurious" and a practitioner of faith-based reasoning, i.e., if a premise aids my argument, it must therefore by necessity be true, or d) all of the above?

The answer is d, of course, but I'm starting to wonder if a -- dumb as a bag of retards -- isn't the most important factor here.

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (40)
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