I Hearby Pronounce You Doomed Media Whore

Clearly pandering to a significant voting block here in San Francisco and never one to pass up a PR opportunity, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city hall to start handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples today. The timing is suspect, considering what’s going on in Massachusetts right now, but if it works then I’ll shutup and congratulate him.

I’m all for gay marriage, but this doesn’t strike me as productive political discourse. Marriage licenses are issued by the state, not local municipalities, and these licenses are in defiance of the state law. Translation: it wouldn’t hold up in court.

Someone tried to tell me the other day that he’s a closet case and the marriage to his plastic wife is a sham. But then again, that’s said of anyone straight in this city who isn’t a troll.

The first two at the alter today were a lesbian couple, one 83 the other 79. I hope they didn’t wait for their wedding day.

SFGate’s got the story and pictures.

Here Comes the Comment Spam

Been getting some comment spam lately. It’s not enough to matter, and they certainly aren’t the brightest, targeting old entries which rarely get any traffic. The comments themselves are fairly innocuous, some BS like “I agree” or “I like that,” intended to fly under the radar of the blog overlord (me!), but the link is clearly spamvertised.

MT’s got problems, and this is one of them. Will need to investigate a fix…

Repubs love ’em that Dem Dick

With Clinton’s penis of no particular interest any longer, the Republicans have moved on. Different guy, same appendage. It almost worked before, so why not try again? And before he gets into office. Genius!

This time, the Drudge Report claims a woman that Democratic Presidential hopeful John Kerry recently had an affair with has fled the country at the nudging of the Kerry team.

This one has the rank stench of smear. Fleeing the country? Ludicrous. But whatever, we’ll see how this plays out once the media majors get ahold of it. Natch, FOX’s already pushing it.

He also goes onto speculate this is the reason for Deans’ waffling about getting out based on Wisconsin’s outcome.

Maybe Matlock Can Help

Since the CIA can’t seem to find any Iraqi WMD, they’re hoping you can — and that you’ll be more than happy to tell them.

The Iraqi Rewards Program promises swag for information on imminent attacks, WMDs, Ba’thist leaders, insurgencies and missing coalition personnel. No word on whether they can keep the power on in Baghdad long enough to submit the form.

If you have information relating to Iraq which you believe might be of interest to the U.S. Government, please contact us through our secure online form. We will carefully protect all information you provide, including your identity.

To help us confirm and act quickly on your information, you must provide your full name, nationality, occupation and contact information including phone number. This allows the U. S. Government to grant rewards for valuable information. We will maintain strict confidentiality.

Apparently, a tip-off to the whereabouts of an Anthrax vile will get you 50 tickets redeemable at any Chuck-E-Cheese. Or a FastPass to Gitmo.

I Need a Theme Song for my Shooting Spree

A BRITISH-based company is selling MP3 players which can be attached to an assault rifle.

The “AK-MP3” player is built into the ammunition clip of a Kalashnikov and can be swapped with the real magazine.

Yep, that’s right… an MP3 player for your AK-47. Full story.

Speaking of sprees, Kevin Cooper is up for execution tonight at 12:01. In 1983, I lived a few miles from the scene of the massacre he’s to be put to death for, and even went to school with Christopher Hughes, the 11-year old neighbor that was spending the night. He was hacked to death along with 3 members of the Ryen family. Three former jurors have come forward urging postponement, and that may happen based on a stay issued by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this morning. I was only 10 at the time, but I remember the incident causing considerable regional panic, but a lot of that already existed because of the proximity to the infamous Chino Prison, which Cooper had escaped from shortly before the murders.

Like It Matters Now

NEW YORK — It probably means little now to Howard Dean, but CNN’s top executive believes his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean’s “scream” after the Iowa caucuses.

Full story.

Dipshits. Tell CNN to apologize already.

Meanwhile, Michael Powell wants a licensing hearing over Nipple Gate, akin to a murder charge in FCCland.

Ah, priorities.

Firebird vs. Safari

It may seem basic, but I’m seriously thinking about switching to Firebird from Safari for browsing. Mute issue in many circles, but it’s a damn fine browser… aside from it’s blazing speed, it’s feature packed, including configurable pop-up blocking. It uses XUL (“Zool”) for Theming, a previous liability, which seems to have come of age. It’s not slowing down Firebird one bit.

Before Safari, I extensively used Camino (previously Chimera), the Cocoa wrapped Gecko engine from the Mozilla Project. It was a great browser, and still is… but Safari won out when Apple finally flushed the sucker out and got it up to speed. Camino is lagging behind, and well, Mike Pinkerton et. al. talks more than he produces. No one man can conquer the world. C’est la vie. (But yes, I should contribute.)

Now, Firebird, even in it’s pre-1.0 stage, is significantly faster. Oh, yes, significant I tell you. Furthermore, it’s support of XHTML and XML/XSL stylesheets is mostly complete where as Safari’s is not. There’s some discussion around that on Surfin’ Safari and XBL vs. XSL, and it’s only somewhat valid saying XSL stylesheets are before-the-fact, when in fact they don’t need to be. But whatever. Moreover, we need to be honest about standards: most aren’t adopted for years despite their viability and ease, so the more the better. Elitist implementation policies have little effect in real world usability.

At any rate, Mozilla Firebird is worth a significant look, be you Windows or be you Mac. And trust me, this isn’t coming from some biased point of view, as I’m now an ex-employee of AOL. (Well, so are all the Mozilla folks, kinda.) If you want Mail & News, there’s Mozilla 1.7 which offers everything in one package (still in beta, 1.6 here), and Thunderbird the Mail & News companion to Firebird. (Mozilla is moving towards the Firebird, Thunderbird model where functions such as browsing and mail exist as separate applications. And rightly so.)

Microsoft has effectively stopped development on MSIE and has said the next version will only be available as part of Longhorn — a pay-for upgrade. The Mac version of MSIE is completely dead, for understandable reasons. The modern features of Firebird have been available for years (in Mozilla, Camino, Safari, etc.) but here’s you real chance to kick MSIE to the curb knowing it’s sitting stagnant and undeveloped. Oh, and that you’re getting something much better, and faster, and more feature complete, and more configurable…

Safari’s a damn fine browser for the Mac. It’s probably right for your Mom and for your untechnical brother, but if you’re a bit more savvy than the norm, check out Firebird.

Perspective on Dean

In 1992, Bill Clinton:

1. Lost the first 10 primaries/caucuses until Georgia in March
2. Wasn’t sealed up as the real front-runner until June
3. Beat King George I in the November Election

‘Nuff said.

West Needs Earlier Primaries

Predictably, Kerry has won Washington, but more interesting is the rest of the results:

Obviously, the “left” coast isn’t like the rest of America. Were California (the largest state in terms of population and delegates) or even Washington allowed to vote earlier, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Let’s face it, and I think few will argue here, Kerry isn’t winning because he’s so fantastic, he’s winning because of the “safe vote” factor present in middle-of-the-road states like Iowa, and the friggin’ endless — and entirely premature — media attention on “Dean’s Downfall” following those early primaries.

All things considered, Dean’s showing in WA is respectable. Let’s see how Michigan shapes up. I suspect Dean won’t do so well there.