Tired but smiling

I'm beginning with a fantastic quote by Eric Hoffer from the Pridelets File, an e-newsletter that presents tasty little bites of LGBT history: "Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do." I'm sure that goes for women, too.

My friend Yemaya O'Reilly finally got up here, and we think she's got a job as a chef! She, her partner (who'll become her wife if the New York Appeals Court goes our way), and her darling five-year-old daughter had dinner with us last night, and then Yemaya and I went out to a couple of clubs while our mates watched her daughter. She and a couple of my NYC friends seemed to like each other, which is always good. I'm tired, but smiling. I can't wait for them to make their stay permanent, I really can't.

The end doesn't always justify the means; that's how I feel about the death of Zarqawi. I think Ankush Khardori of the Huffington Post got it just right. Of course he was a horrible man who did horrible things. Of course we were right to take him out, since we were there. Simply listening to that Iraqi government press conference gave an idea of how some people there felt about it. But Al Qaeda and similar groups are like the mythical hydra--cut off one head, two more grow in. The Republicans were right to exult in their victory for a day, but Faux News and the Washington Times had to go a step too far, making up straw-Democrats to wag their fingers at and say "See, we told you so!" I also really, really, really, really don't need to see the "corpse-face" photo anymore. That thing's making me miss the pictures of Brangelina's big-lipped little baby girl!

The cervical cancer vaccine was approved by the FDA, and I am *so* glad. It disgusted me that Christian Nationalists opposed giving it to teenage girls on the grounds that it might encourage them to go out and do it. Let me be perfectly blunt--all that is is high-school slut-bashing that grew up and got renamed political discourse. The very idea of wanting to withholding a potentially life-saving vaccine, of wanting to sentence young women to die from their stupid mistakes in their middle age to teach them some kind of lesson, is appalling. I am so, so, so profoundly grateful that once again, they didn't get their way.

As if I haven't posted enough links already, I got more.

Another problem in Iraq is that women are losing their rights.

Some hilarious jokes about the gay marriage issue.

Mary Cheney's book bombed. Perhaps Simon and Schuster would be interested in an author who doesn't have a rich and powerful daddy or justify selling out her own community now?

Is your memory better than you remember?

Climate change could be sparking evolution.

And...next time Yemaya and I hit the clubs, we could try the new dance craze in the Ivory Coast--doing the bird flu!