That’s the AJC headline on a story about an appearance by retiring chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Leah Ward Sears, at the Atlanta Press Club Tuesday: Asked whether the U.S. Constitution would require Georgians to recognize the marriages of gay Iowans if they moved to the state, she first deferred to a lesser document: The state constitution banned gay marriage in 2004. Pressed on whether the federal parchment —- which says states will accept public acts, records and judicial...

A friend, family really, the sister of my life-partner who passed from AIDS in 1988, writes: What a wonderful victory in NH today!!!  I am so proud of our state for supporting equal rights! Indeed: Gay marriage legislation became law in New Hampshire this afternoon. Gov. John Lynch signed the bills just after 5:20 p.m. before dozens of enthusiastic supporters of same-sex marriage. New Hampshire’s law takes effect Jan. 1. Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, the church’s...

Maybe. Maybe not: [I]t is…pretty clear that Cheney was talking about a “shot” at seeking marriage equality in their state, which everyone has, rather than a “shot” at marriage equality itself, which most people don’t have currently. This much is clear: Cheney is more progressive than Obama on marriage equality, because he does not — and has never in the past decade — said that he believes marriage should be limited to one man and one woman.  Obama has.  That is not a development…that...

In a NYTimes OpEd Barr says: THERE is no abuse of government power more egregious than executing an innocent man. But that is exactly what may happen if the United States Supreme Court fails to intervene on behalf of Troy Davis. … I am a firm believer in the death penalty, but I am an equally firm believer in the rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution. To execute Troy Davis without having a court hear the evidence of his innocence would be unconscionable and unconstitutional. Just...

Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington says Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit: Last week everyone got to see the demo video and a few of us were actually able to access Bing for our reviews. Most everyone, though, just had to wait to actually try the service. Initial reader comments tended towards the negative on announcement day. Microsoft got heat for having nothing but a landing page up (and not even that for a while after the announcement). The “Bing stands for But It’s Not Google”...

Significantly: The vote on Senate Bill 283 came following a dramatic speech by state Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, who said he had received many vulgar and even threatening calls from people who demanded that he vote against the bill. Those kinds of calls do not mesh with “the Christian beliefs I was brought up with,” Nolan said. Emphasis mine. Via Towleroad.

“It was a mystery to me that Al Gore never talked about food because what happens on your plate represents your most important engagement with the natural world and the biggest impact you have on climate change.” Michael Pollan on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Michael Arrington summarizes the evolution of search: Before Google, search engines like AltaVista determined relevance based on how well a web page matched the query. Then came Google, which views the web as a network of documents. Today, all search engines analyze linking behavior around the web. When a web page is linked to a lot, it’s given more influence than other pages competing for attention around the same topics/keywords. Jeff Jarvis summed it all up nicely in 2005 “In this new world,...

With the Sonia Sotomayor pick set to be announced, now we wait for the California Supremes’ decision on Prop 8. The Los Angeles Times has a Q&A on the latter: The state’s top court will rule on whether to uphold or strike down Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The justices will also decide whether the state will continue to recognize the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages carried out in 2008. I’ll be most interested to watch how these two...

While on the topic of closed car lots, I have to say I’m surprised at the speed with which Americans have gone from loving their SUVs, pick-up trucks and Hummers to declaring our auto industry obviously bloated, inefficient and to be building vehicles that nobody wants. Ralph Nader began his testy relationship with the auto industry in a 1959 article, “The Safe Car You Can’t Buy.” Today Nader says Congress should intervene in the auto industry bailout: “The government-led...

The Chronicle: Liberty University, the conservative Christian institution founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, has revoked its recognition of the student Democratic Party club, reports The News & Advance, in Lynchburg, Va. The university had officially recognized the group in October. The club’s president, Brian Diaz, received an e-mail message last week from the university’s vice president for student affairs, telling him that the club must stop using Liberty’s name and holding or advertising...

We got one in our little town. No doubt you’ve got at least one in yours. Woot: With GM and Chrysler closing almost 2,000 dealerships between them, and with car dealers generally suffering from the collapse of new-car sales, America’s going to have a huge lot of huge lots sitting empty. And the current commercial real-estate market isn’t exactly crying out for more unwanted property. Sure, we could just sit back and let the crackheads and feral dogs take the places over, but the...

Two months ago, Union Square Ventures convened a group of educators, entrepreneurs, and researchers to talk about “hacking education.” The event went on for six hours and last week Brad Burnham posted what his partner, Fred Wilson, says is the definitive take on the event. I sent this excerpt to a brilliant student I mentor; a student who is bored by much most of what we in the the academy have to offer today. A student who is not heard, understood or reached by anything faculty or administration...

The headline in The Chronicle, Millennial Generation Will End Culture Wars, Researchers Say. The story is on two new reports released today by the liberal Center for American Progress: “The story throughout this survey is one of conservative decline and progressive ascendancy among young people,” says the first report, “The Political Ideology of the Millennial Generation,” which identified 17 liberal and four conservative values and beliefs supported by a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds....

A recent study looked at liberal and conservative reactions to Stephen Colbert’s satire. Heather LeMarre, one of the study’s authors, was a guest on On The Media Friday. She explains that both liberals and conservatives actually think Colbert shares their political beliefs: You might watch that and you might think that’s hilarious, he’s making fun of conservatives, look how funny that is, which is what we found for liberals. However, if you’re conservative, you might look at that...

In internet time this is old news. But the irony that earlier on the very day that the NY Assembly voted a bill to legalize gay marriage still more photos of Carrie Prejean were revealed makes it too hard to resist. That last batch — taken when “Carrie was the ripe ol’ LEGAL age of 20″ — came after she was the featured event in a press conference held by The Donald in the city of Sodom. There he announced his ruling, Miss California can keep her crown: Once again,...

NYTimes: The State Assembly approved legislation on Tuesday night that would make New York the sixth state to allow same-sex marriage — a pivotal vote that shifts the debate to the State Senate, where gay rights advocates and conservative groups alike are redoubling their efforts. In a sign of how opinion in Albany has shifted on the issue, several members of the Assembly who voted against the measure in 2007 voted in favor of it on Tuesday. The final vote was 89 to 52, including the backing of...

The Chronicle’s Wired Campus had a nice wrap-up of the goings on in the supposed post-mass-lawsuit era at the RIAA: Ray Beckerman, a lawyer in New York who writes the blog Recording Industry vs. the People, went looking for new lawsuits against alleged illegal file-sharers, found three, and called the Recording Industry Association of America’s stated end of its mass-litigation campaign a “total fabrication.” Ars Technica characterized the RIAA as cagey, for fudging the definition of...

Doodle 4 Google is a competition where Google invited K-12 students to play around with their homepage logo. This year’s theme what “What I Wish for the World.” It’s time to vote for your favorite: [W]e’re pleased to announce the approximately 400 state finalists and the 40 regional winners. They were chosen by a panel of independent judges, all experts in design, but now it’s your turn. We invite you to help us select the four national finalists by voting on...

Kirby Dick, director of the new film Outrage, was interviewed on Fresh Air this week by Terry Gross. She asked what level of hypocrisy merits ruining, somebody’s life and career? Mr. DICK: I looked at their voting records… and if their voting records were substantially anti-gay, I think in the case of all the politicians I had focused on, they were anywhere between zero and 25 percent pro-gay, the rest was anti-gay. And that to me, over oftentimes a two-decade career, was certainly an...