OMG SPORTS!: Apparently something really special happened at the Sounders game (a couple franchise records or something) and Seahawks fans are losing faith even before the season begins.

Dodged the Bullet: Irene is downgraded to a tropical storm as it hits New York.

Brother Leader’s Mansions: The New York Times profiles the deposed leader. While he wasn’t living in Saddam-style opulence, rebels that invaded his families’ villas said that they had never seen wealth like that before.

Murder-Suicide in Okanogan: Two notes have been discovered on the scene, and it’s unclear if the perpetrator actually planned to kill anyone else.

The Gays Start Plotting: To ruin marriage for everyone. It’s the usual suspects from the 43rd district again. If someone manages to file a referendum on a successful bill, does that mean we’d have an Obama-Inslee-Pot-Marriage ballot in 2012?

Romney Shows Up to His Super PAC’s Fundraiser: Campaign finance is starting to feel unethical in a more direct way than I’m used to…

What an Asshole: Someone stole a bike from a disabled man in Bellingham. Honestly, the guy probably didn’t realize who he was stealing from (I hope), but the disabled man sounds really crushed, and I hope he gets some help.

Slow News Day, Killer Massage Edition:The FDA releases a strangulation warning about the ShoulderFlex Massager. The machine has caused one death and one near-death already.

In Case You Missed It: Libraries are closed this week.

MLK gave the I Have a Dream speech on this day in 1963.

Strom Thurmond filibustered civil rights on this day in 1957.

6 replies on “The Morning News”

  1. Seems to me that with New York passing gay marriage, the effort is not longer state by state acceptance, because at this point, a NY Married couple could be legally challenged, or harassed in other states (similar to a miscegenation couple in the last century). So the legal tools are really at the Federal level to overturn the bans.

    Amazingly,

    In 1967, 17 Southern states (all the former slave states plus Oklahoma) still enforced laws prohibiting marriage between whites and people of color. Maryland repealed its law in response to the start of the proceedings at the Supreme Court. After the ruling of the Supreme Court, the remaining laws were no longer in effect. Nonetheless, it took South Carolina until 1998 and Alabama until 2000 to officially amend their states’ constitutions to remove language prohibiting miscegenation. In the respective referendums, 62% of voters in South Carolina and 59% of voters in Alabama voted to remove these laws.[26]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-misceg…

    The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision (dated June 12 1967), dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia’s argument that a law forbidding both white and black persons from marrying persons of another race, and providing identical penalties to white and black violators, could not be construed as racially discriminatory. The court ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In its decision, the court wrote:
    “ Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._V…

  2. From the NYT Qaddafi story:

    Muatassim, another of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons and the country’s national security adviser, surrounded himself with more luxury. He regularly arrived in a convoy of cars to a farmhouse in the Ain Zara neighborhood of Tripoli protected by high walls and gates on four sides that were made to look like cinder-block walls. A driveway with a fountain featuring four horse-drawn carriages led to an ostentatious pool bungalow, with Roman columns at the entrance and topped by gold domes that looked like Hershey Kisses.

    The way my mouse pointer was positioned over the text, I first read it as “convoy of cats.” Considering the fallen guanocracy being discussed, didn’t seem that farfetched.

    And now, as I’m posting this, the headline from the MudBay ad in the right column: “Free Class for Friends of Cats who Puke.”

    Hope the situation in Libya can improve to the point where soon cat vomit will be one of their major problems.

  3. Strom Thurmond filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes on this day to prevent a vote on civil rights, the longest filibuster by a single senator in history. Whattaguy.

  4. Fucking Seahawks need to go join the Sonics, someplace far away. Someplace in Flyover Jeebusland, where thanking The Lord for touchdowns is just as normal as Intelligent Design.

    …. and, take the Mariners with you.

    These millionaire welfare queen parasites need to find new hosts to bleed dry.

  5. Does it make me a bad person that all I could think of when I read the story of the stolen bicycle was the episode of the IT Crowd when Roy (while at Gay! A Gay Musical) claimed to have had his wheelchair stolen? “I’m disabled!”

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