The Casper [Wyoming] Tribune published an interview with my old boss, Alan Simpson in today’s paper. While a McCain supporter, he had this to say:

Some Republicans have heralded the election of Barack Obama as a surefire disaster, but Simpson isn’t scared — even if he would rather have seen McCain and Palin elected.

“Somebody will say, ‘I heard Simpson isn’t afraid of Obama. He must be an old fart sitting there who doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore.’ But I’ll tell you, I still do,” he said. “And what I see is this: I think (Obama’s) a healer. And I think he’s going to do what he said he’s going to do, which is help heal the nation, and get rid of this stench of partisanship, which is unworkable.”

Simpson also expects that Obama, who he calls tough, resilient, and charismatic, will put together a solid cabinet and administration.

“I just know he’s going to put good people in,” he said. “Of course, if he puts Hillary in as Secretary of State and this article comes out, people are going to say, ‘This shows Simpson’s lost his marbles again.”‘

The Los Angeles Times published a story today about California Proposition 8’s acceptance for deliberation by the California Supreme Court.

This paragraph gives me hope — and is not a stretch from what happened in this current instance 42 years later:

Although the court tends to defer to voter sentiment on initiative challenges, it has overturned popular ballot measures in the past.

In 1966, the California Supreme Court struck down an initiative that would have permitted racial discrimination in housing. Voters had approved the measure, a repeal of a fair housing law, by a 2-to-1 margin. Opponents challenged it on equal protection grounds, not as a constitutional revision.

I had read horror stories about how difficult it was to upgrade/replace the hard drive in the 2007 Macbook Pro, but I was not ready to buy one of the new “unibody” ones yet and figured this was an inexpensive way to scratch the itch to do so, since my existing 160GB hard drive was the only real issue that I have (I was down to only 40GB free).

I bought a new 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.3 for $88, brought it home, cloned my old drive to the new one with SuperDuper and proceeded to carefully follow the instructions I’d found on iFixit.com.

Piece of cake. Took me less than 20 minutes.

7200 RPM is dramatically faster than the OEM 5400 RPM as well. Win, win for me.

Thanks to Bonnie for sending me the link for this. Keith Olbermann is a commentator on MSNBC. Here is his editorial/commentary on California’s Proposition 8:

My honey is a big fan of Christmas music and I stumbled across a CD I thought he would like, “A John Waters Christmas”.

The best of the worst is this gem by “Little Cindy” (who is grown up now and should be ashamed):

Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child’s Prayer)

It seems like things have not even yet begun to settle down after the California Prop 8 debacle last week (see article below), when Holocaust survivors get riled up against the Mormons for continuing to baptize their dead. See the CNN article HERE.
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And then yesterday Equality Utah held a press conference. Here’s a snippet:

“While we disagree with the LDS Church’s position on Proposition 8, we respect that their position is based on the guiding principles of their faith,” she said. “Throughout the campaign, while the LDS Church stated its support of [the measure], it also made repeated comments that the church ‘does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.’

“Just last week, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose ‘civil union or domestic partnerships,’ ” Pappas said. “We are taking the LDS Church at its word.”

Three of the bills would seek to secure equal treatment when it comes to hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment and probate rights (entitlement to insurance and inheritance upon a partner’s death).

A fourth, titled the Domestic Partner Rights & Responsibilities Act, would create a statewide domestic partner registry that would secure rights of insurance, inheritance and fair housing. A fifth would seek to repeal the second part of Utah’s own marriage-defining constitutional amendment, which Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy manager, said “has been misinterpreted to avoid any recognition of gay couples.”

The part in question reads, he continued, “no other domestic union; however, denominated, may be recognized as marriage or be given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.”

Equality Utah executive director Mike Thompson asked the LDS Church to continue “its willingness to engage in political issues” by stepping in to help.

“Is the LDS Church willing to assign a member of its Presidency of the Seventy to lead church efforts to secure these rights, just as it did with Proposition 8?” he asked. And, he continued, “will the First Presidency draft a letter to Utah Latter-day Saints in support of rights and protections for gay couples . . . [and] ask for this letter to be read to all Utah congregations on a specified date,” as it did in California?”

Besides the photos I shot at the Protest on Friday night, I shot a few scenes with my little Canon PowerShot A640. Here’s one (if you are bandwidth challenged, you may not want to click below):

video: LDS Prop 8 Protest - Salt Lake City

Last night a few of we gay and non-gay, Mormon and non-Mormon friends gathered in downtown Salt Lake City to protest the insertion of the Mormon church into the “proposition 8″ discussion in California, which amended the state constitution to allow marriage only between “a man and a woman”.

Yesterday the church sent out yet another press release questioning why they should be singled out, since they were only part of a “coalition” and how shameful it is that people would protest at LDS properties for “being part of the democratic process”.

Huh? Since when are churches allowed to exercise democracy? I thought individuals did so. I don’t recall a “super delegate” with the LDS name on it.

The former bishop of the Utah Catholic diocese has also now chimed in — also via press release — questioning why the Mormons are being singled out. It sounds like he’s more afraid that the Knights of Columbus won’t get their “due” on the credit for pushing this through rather than that only the Mormons are being “punished”.

Here are a few photos I took of the crowd, which according to most press estimates was in “the thousands”:

The Wall Street Journal has a newly-posted entry referencing the possible legal challenges that could stem from the passing of Proposition 8 in California, which constitutionally bans gay marriage.

We are going to Temple Square in a few minutes to protest the LDS church’s stance of mandating members’ resources in favor of changing the California constitution. My first protest in 50 years.

Tonight at 6:00.

Be there — at the Square.