The Rose's Grove

Drive-by links:

Fascinating piece on sex ed from the NYTimes (apologies if it shows a login screen - it works for me, but I can never tell when I link out to their stuff what it's going to do for other people)

And, also from NYTimes, We now have software to rate how drastically photos are retouched in magazines and so on. Seriously, check this out, it's a real eye-opener if you (like most people) have ever looked at a magazine cover and instantly felt your sense of personal attractiveness go down something like twelve points. "Why can't my skin be as perfect as hers? Why can't my stomach be that flat?" Well, because hers isn't either. Check out this gallery of photos before and after photoshopping to see some really fascinating examples of what's going on.

MoveOn.org has a petition to stop the current internet censorship bill that's being debated in Congress right now. Definitely worth putting your name to, for the American folks here.

Lastly, go check out all the glorious stuff that's being auctioned off to benefit Terri Windling and her family over at magick4terri. There's some seriously cool stuff over there, and a ton of it, so be sure to page through the previous entries. It's a great way to help out one of the grand dames of fantasy, and get some of your holiday shopping done to boot! Or, hell, just fabulously fun browsing to go through and coo over all the stuff wonderful people have donated to help out. ;) There's also a Facebook page, and please do spread the word!

HELL F♥CKING YES, ♥NEW YORK!♥ CONGRATULATIONS FOR JOINING THE CENTURY OF THE FRUIT BAT!

♥♥♥

Washington State, I hope you are planning to follow soon, damn it!

Hey, local folks - Westboro Baptist Church is planning to protest at SlutWalk and the Pride picnic in Volunteer Park in Seattle this weekend.

If you run into them, do be sure to give them a good concept of how little Seattle cares for having their nonsense peddled in our city.

House votes to cut off federal funds for NPR

Quote: [Republicans] also denied that the measure was a vendetta against NPR...

....While everyone who knows anything about the Republicans and NPR laughed their freaking heads off, and then collapsed to their desks in frustration and exhaustion.

Because between Planned Parenthood, Japan, and the local Humane Society and animal shelters, I obviously didn't have enough important things vying for my charity cash at the moment. Arrrrrrgh.

Gacked from seachanges: Pixar's "It Gets Better" video. Absolutely awesome. Tissues recommended.

Nrgh, embed code fail now fixed.

Tip of the hat to lizbee for linking to this.

Oh, look. FictionAlley seems to think that their need for server fees and shit is more important and worthy of charity dollars than... well, pretty much anything else, it looks like. Wow. I guess nobody told them that there might be more important things in the world than porn.

If you want to vote on Pepsi's site, please pick a different charity (by which I mean an actual charity, not a fan site who can't be assed to do a fund-drive among their own members to pay for their server fees). Want to do something for arts and culture? Check this list. Want to pick a charity that helps with education? Look at all of these. Or there are causes for the environment, or food and shelter, or health>. I'm pretty damned sure all of us could find something more interesting and important than helping out a fan-fiction site.

There's a thing on there, top of the health page, for students supporting brain tumor research. Competing against groups trying to actually do something to better the world in order to get money for your fanfiction site is just plain wrong, I'm sorry.

And if you feel like reading more about this, the email exchange that nextian had with them (copied in this entry here) is certainly an eye-opener re: the level of rationalization these people have about their entitlement. Wow.

No, Christine O'Donnell (the Tea Party senate candidate for Delaware) really haven't got the slightest fricking clue what's in the Constitution.

Quoted from the Washington Post description of the situation:

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked [her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons].

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

If you listen to the audio or watch the video, you will notice that she sounds utterly flabbergasted at this revelation. I can only imagine she was thinking "That isn't what Glenn Beck told me!"

If you want to be in the Senate, please at least demonstrate a vague awareness of what that Constitution that you will be swearing to uphold actually says, dumbass.

From windrose and cyranocyranoThe mayor of Gainesville, Florida, would like the rest of the world to know that most of the people in his city are not bigoted asshats. In fact, the church that's been planning to burn the Koran only has 50 members... in a city of 130,000.

"Mr Lowe [the mayor] has declared 11 September as Interfaith Solidarity Day, and will join a rally organised as a counterpoint to the Dove demonstration." Further: "Gainesville churches are planning a variety of interfaith activities of their own, including common readings of the Koran, Christian and Hebrew scriptures."

The kind of media attention given to groups that do things like this just to make another group angry feeds exactly the sort of hatred we should be combating.

And Mr Lowe has a good idea there, with "Interfaith Solidarity Day." Certainly more useful than tacking "Patriot's Day" onto calendars either as an empty remembrance or simply to stir up bad feelings.

Federal judge strikes down California's ban on same-sex marriage

"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians," the judge wrote. "The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite sex couples."

There is not enough *YES!!!* in the world for me to properly show my agreement with this statement. ♥♥♥

Potentially mitigating update on that screwed up situation with the two gay gentlemen in Sonoma county - apparently there may have been domestic abuse charges involved, which were the cause of the forced separation.

It looks to me like there's still no question that the issue was handled awkwardly, but if this is true it's not nearly as horrible as it originally looked.