I got an email earlier today from one of my relatives who has ties to South Africa, which read:

Last week a 3 year old girl (in South Africa ) was beaten and raped. She is still alive. The man re­spon­si­ble was released on bail yesterday. He is walking the streets. If you are too busy to read this then just sign your name and forward this on. The Government is planning to close the child protection unit and this is a petition against it. This is a very important petition. It is an essential part of the justice system for children. You may have already heard that there’s …continue.

Well, fuck! The Washington State Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision today on the con­sti­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act. Somehow, they found that it didn’t violate the state con­sti­tu­tion’s Equal Protection clause.

No same-sex marriages in Washington state anytime soon.

I attended the rally at the First Baptist church earlier this evening. (Find me in the photo!) Some anger, some dis­ap­point­ment. Mostly upbeat. The young Latina couple were very affecting. The Serkin-Pooles invited everyone to join their club, as they announced their formal engagement to each other. One speaker pointed out that even if the court had handed down a favorable decision, the process would not have been over.

Tomorrow we fight …continue.

Sometimes spammers can be taken in by their would-be victims. Here’s a hilarious, if long, story of just such a case.

It’s even funnier if you’re already familiar with the character of Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter.

I hadn’t really planned to visit Ireland this year, but then my sister Michelle phoned the other day to say that her boyfriend, David Bowles, had just proposed to her. Not a big surprise. They had moved in together earlier this year, and we were all assuming that it was a question of when, not if.

They plan to get married quite soon, as his father has been given six-to-nine months to live, and they want him to be at the wedding. I don’t know if the date is firm yet, but the latest that I’m hearing is November-11th.

At SIFF 2004, I saw an acclaimed trilogy from Hong Kong, Infernal Affairs, Infernal Affairs-II, and Infernal Affairs-III on three con­sec­u­tive nights, Yan is a cop who’s been in deep cover for ten years, in­fil­trat­ing the triads. Lau is a triad who joined the cops about ten years ago, rising to the rank of inspector. Only their respective bosses, Su­per­in­ten­dant Wong and Big Sam, know who they are. Each becomes aware of the other about the same time, and the chase to find the moles is on.

It’s a tense and complex thriller and a meditation on good and evil. Yan has long blurred the line between cop and gangster. Lau is having second …continue.

I found an in­ter­est­ing piece on the NPR website about the modern anti-abortion movement:

In the 1980s, in order to solidify their shift from divorce to abortion, the Religious Right con­struct­ed an abortion myth, one accepted by most Americans as true. Simply put, the abortion myth is this: Leaders of the Religious Right would have us believe that their movement began in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Po­lit­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal leaders were so morally outraged by the ruling that they instantly shed their apolitical stupor in order to mobilize po­lit­i­cal­ly in defense of the sanctity of life. Most of these leaders did so re­luc­tant­ly and …continue.

I read a piece in yesterday’s New York Times about some useful lessons learned from animal trainers.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he’d drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

…-

I listened, rapt, as pro­fes­sion­al trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal …continue.

In May, I pounded out a record 31 blog posts. June draws to a close and this is only my third post.

In brief, here’s some of the highlights of June.

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle read the Cyclops chapter of Ulysses on June 16th. I read a part and I was also the script wrangler and webmaster.

My profile on my Windows XP laptop got corrupted. I decided that I would make flatten it and turn it into a dual-boot system. I’m now on my third week of running Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake). Quite easy to get going. Not so easy to get everything that I wanted running on it.

In …continue.

Aerobie AeroPress home page

CoffeeGeek thread

Adler’s American recipe

Luke­Seu­bert’s Smooth Americano recipe

I like my Americano made with 175F water to the top of the "2" oval, with our standard ten-second stir, and press with no steep time. Then diluted 1:1 after pressing.

Mark likes his brewed with much hotter water, with a 40 second steep time and he likes to push all of the water through the press, rather than diluting aftewards. His recipe has much more edge (which I might call bitterness).

Sweet Maria’s in­struc­tions

Lots of reviews

Lack of ‘soul’

Negative pressure

Neutral pressure

Espresso definition

Crema

"Espresso strength"

I find that the drip-through, even with long steep or long stir times, isn’t enough to affect the final brew. So I think you …continue.

Christy at Fire­DogLake has written a post about this year’s hurricane season, which officially started on June 1st.

New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf is still a disaster area: watch the video linked to above. Disaster pre­pared­ness is far from where it should be. The levee im­prove­ments are inadequate. Re­con­struc­tion is mired in bu­reau­cra­cy and stalled in in­com­pe­tence. The money promised has not ma­te­ri­al­ized. Only one-third of New Orleans residents have returned.

Christy links to a report put together by Nancy Pelosi, detailing the in­com­pe­tence and cronyism of the Re­pub­li­cans, both in the immediate response …continue.