Brian's blog is so much prettier than mine, now that he changed up his template. He's got a kick-ass cheese graphic! Where's my cheese? And Zump's blog allows for user comments. I should really fix mine up sometime soon.

Brain prosthesis! Cool beans.

I love you, Lotte.

Apparently, although Lenny Kravitz is now voicing his opinion and has recorded the afore-mentioned antiwar song, he hasn't actually voted in years and years. Interesting link, Brian -- thanks. ;-)

Rock the Vote and Lenny Kravitz today announced a new song by Kravitz called "We Want Peace," which will be available exclusively at Rock the Vote's website. The song, which says, "There won't be peace if we don't try" is an urgent call from Lenny Kravitz for America to be a peaceful leader in the world. Kravitz wrote the song and performed it with Kazem Al Sahir, Iraq's #1 pop music artist, who is better known as the Iraqi Diplomatic Ambassador of the world and a true legend of Arabic Music. In addition, the song features Palestinian musician Simon Shaheen on strings and Lebanese artist Jamey Hadded on percussion.

Lenny Kravitz, teaming up with an Iraqi artist to create his own act of protest -- pretty cool. It causes me to have a bit more respect for the guy.

R.E.M, the Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow, Zach de la Rocha, and Greenday are also among those who have released anti-war songs. Good for them.

Because there are things I need to get done today, I spent much of my morning procrastinating and browsing the web. I like the NYTimes website, I've decided. It may be my favorite US news site at the moment.

NY Times articles of interest:

• More coverage of the US Supreme Court's Texas Sodomy Law case.


• Op-Ed: Casualties at Home. It's kind of scary what Congress is up to, and scary how it gets lost in the mass of war coverage.


• Another opinion piece on current Congressional activities...


• Washington Trying to Curb U.N. Role in a Postwar Iraq. Apparently, we're determined to continually snub the U.N. as best we can.

One more site that I was particularly impressed with:

• DigitalConsumer.org: Protecting fair-use rights in the digital world. These guys have got an impressive news section.

Today at the DMV, there was a group of people running surveys about travel on 520, gauging how we'd react if they were to make the 520 bridge into a toll bridge.

There was an age bracket question in the survey. I had to choose the 25-40 age bracket. I've moved up. Blah.

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NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the citizens of the State of Washington do hereby proclaim that Tim Eyman is a Horse's Ass.

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They didn't ask me today whether or not I wanted to be an organ donor. I forgot to explicitly tell them so. Now I'm afraid it won't be marked on my licence -- ptooey.

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Texas Penal Code section 21.06, the "Homosexual Conduct Statute,"...criminalizes sexual acts between homosexuals, even if the acts are consensual. Texas is one of only four states to have such a law targeting homosexuals...

...The defendants then appealed to the US Supreme Court to have their convictions overturned and the law deemed unconstitutional...

...Oral arguments were heard on March 26, 2003, and a decision is expected by June. Initial reports suggest that the justices were split on the issue, with Rehnquist and Scalia in support of upholding the law, Souter and Breyer in support of overturning the law, with the position of the other five justices unclear.

The Texas Human Rights Foundation: Lawrence & Garner v. Texas

Side notes:

• As recently as 1960, every state had a sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts.


• Four states -- Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri -- ban "deviate sexual intercourse" just between same-sex couples. There are nine other states with sodomy laws on the books, but they apply to everyone, instead of being targeted solely at homosexuals.

Geez. I can't believe that, here we are in the 21st century, and the US Supreme Court vote on this issue could go either way. How can educated people be so closed-minded and intollerant?

I heard some of Rehnquist's and Scalia's oral arguments quoted on NPR today. Crazy. It scares me that these people have so much power over our freedoms and civil liberties.

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TCPA - bad. Definitely not a fan.

I was telling my friend Chris the other day that my dog, on the rare occasion when he has an accident and dumps inside, will try to hide it. He'll cover it up with dirty clothes, papers, or whatever he can find.

Chris was amazed that a dog, whose world revolves around smell, would learn that sort of behavior. "Hiding" poo doesn't get rid of the smell -- to the dog, the presence of said poo is still quite obvious. The only reason to hide the poo is to confuse silly humans, who have a less acute sense of smell.

I was kind of amazed, too, once I thought about things in that light. My dog is so smart.

I'm now the proud owner of a WA State Driver's Licence. I ended up getting 100% on the test, which made me feel silly for having worried about it.

Happy birthday me.

Technically, I guess I'm not 25 for another 16 hours yet. But it's close enough.

The crew at Mike and Jared's place gave me a cake, lots of presents, and lots of wonderful cards tonight. I feel so loved. I'm sad that Kirsten and Kristen are moving to NYC this summer, that Tiff is moving to NV this fall, and that Mike and Jared are moving to AZ sometime next year. They're a wonderful group of people; I'll really miss them all.

Bummer.

Sigh.

On a semi-related note, I realized today that my driver's licence expires tomorrow. Gotta do something about that.