Getting back to the SUBJECT, folks, I would suggest if there is more to say about conkers on schoolgrounds it become a thread of its own; if there is more to say about how grandiloquent and Twainesque Little Hawk is or is not, it become a comic book somewhere.

If there are any further developments on the issues surrounding Proposition 8, or similar propositions in other states, I would love to be apprised of them here. For example, Don Firth mentioned reactionary efforts afoot in his state. New York's own equal-rights law was delayed by their endless procedural entanglements and congressional incompetence, but not on its merits.

On 17 July a Federal judge rejected pone action against prop 8: "In the July 17 ruling, U.S. District Judge David Carter removed the state of California as a defendant in the lawsuit against Prop 8 and DOMA. Only the U.S. government will remain a defendant when portions of the case will be heard Aug. 3 by the California Supreme Court.

Carter's ruling stated that because the gay couple who brought the challenge against DOMA in December 2008 were married during a short window of time when same-sex marriage was legal, they had no standing to challenge the measure. The California State Supreme Court already decided that marriages such as theirs would stay intact even after voters approved Prop 8. ".

It is ironic, to me, that the judge disqualified the action because the plaintiffs were legally married gays. Yet the right-wing factions announced this was a win for those in California who did not want gays to marry, as if other grounds had been cited when they were not. This is the sort of illogic that permeates partisan politics.

A