It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
So below is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I have been looking at into the weekend.
• San Francisco Chronicle's Judge to Prop. 8 backers: Turn over your papers:
A federal judge has ordered sponsors of California's Proposition 8 to release campaign strategy documents that opponents believe could show that backers of the same-sex marriage ban were motivated by prejudice against gays.Plaintiffs in a federal suit seeking to overturn Prop. 8 - two same-sex couples, a gay-rights organization and the city of San Francisco - contend that the measure's real purpose was to strip a historically persecuted minority group of rights held by the majority.
If the courts find that the ballot measure was motivated by discrimination, they could strike it down without having to decide whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.
"The intent or purpose of Prop. 8 is central to this litigation," Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Thursday in requiring backers of the November 2008 measure to give the opposing side their internal campaign communications...
This article, in all seriousness, is very, very worth the read. Please use the link at the top of this This & That item to read the entire piece on the SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle) website.
• A Contributing Editor for FamilySecurityMatters.org, Robert Weissberg, is emeritus professor of political science, University of Illino Illinois-Urbana and currently an adjunct instructor at New York University Department of Politics (graduate). He has a lot to say about women professors in colleges and universities in his Family Security Matters piece The Feminization of American Education - Destroying Western Civilization? From the last three paragraphs of his piece:
...[T]he male exodus from education, whether higher high school drop outs or shunning college altogether, is deadly serious. The loss of human talent is catastrophic enough but even worse, American schools are offering up an approach that is long on feelings and emotions and short on generating real knowledge. By shielding egos and sustaining self-esteem it is destroying western civilization on the installment plan.This trend has yet to enter the sciences and engineering, but relentless government pressure for "gender equity" may soon alter that. Don't laugh - one world-class physicist over a decade ago personally told me that his prestigious department was coerced into hiring a woman who took a "feminine" approach to physics! It also has the allure of making teaching hard subjects easy - soliciting everyone's opinion certainly requires less class preparation than precisely explicating a tough-nut topic. Woe to America when classroom discussion of how to build rockets come to resemble free-wheeling, everybody's opinion is worth hearing, ruminations on whether Jane Austin's voice reflected her bourgeois gender identity.
America's economic competitors undoubtedly love every minute of it.
Not a word from me. 
I'll let wiser feminists look at this piece and respond with depth.
• ALos Angeles Times' Lodi defends its public prayers; City Council, one of several threatened with suits, votes after hours of debate to continue the practice:
Reporting from Lodi, Calif. - Small cities in California are facing high unemployment, drained treasuries and now what some residents see as an assault on the only sacred moment in municipal affairs: the invocation at the start of city council meetings.Turlock, Tracy, Tehachapi, Lancaster -- all have been threatened in the last few months with lawsuits claiming that prayer at meetings breaches the wall between church and state.
Nowhere has the ensuing debate played out more dramatically than in Lodi, where, after a tumultuous five-hour meeting this week, the City Council voted not only to continue invocations but also to allow phrases such as "in Jesus' name."
"For whatever reason, Lodi seems to have become ground zero for deciding this issue," City Atty. Steve Schwabauer said at Wednesday's meeting, which drew a passionate crowd of more than 700...
Jeebus! 
So, defending against these lawsuits is a good use of taxpayer dollars? 
I wonder how many potholes this California city won't be filled because the Lodi City Council is spending tax dollars on defending these lawsuits.
Given this economy, it's just crazy to see what the spending priorities of this Lodi City Council actually are.
• GayNZ.com's Raped transwoman harassed via Facebook:
t;p>
A Welsh transwoman who was raped by an attacker who was jailed for eight years this week, says she was forced to move house after her identity was made public.Kiron Singh Chand beat her up, then forced her to perform oral sex on him.
She was then subjected to a harassment campaign including vilification on Facebook, being taunted in the street, and even humiliated in a poster campaign...
*Sigh*
• Wiener story of the day: James Hartline!
From the Orange County Register's Gay Days drum up business for Disney, others:
...Gay Days Anaheim began in 1998 with about 2,500 going to Disneyland and the group was soon greeted with protests and boycotts,saying the event was not family friendly. But Shapiro said he hasn't seen protesters picketing the area in recent years. Major groups, including the Southern Baptists and the American Family Association, ended official boycotts against Disney, partly because of Gay Days, in 2005.
Some conservative groups and individuals continue to boycott the event and Disney as a whole, said James Hartline, who runs the San Diego-based California Christian News and has an electronic newsletter with 60,000 readers. Hartline has written blog posts and stories against Disney, but Hartline avoids organizing protests because of the extremists they sometimes attract.
"I believe this is going to spread rapidly and quickly. For one, Disney is clearly going out of its way to violate what we believe in," Hartline said....
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo! 
(h/t Orion45)
The following letter was just received by Equality Across America. Supposedly a press release from Reid will be available soon:
Help Approve Referendum 71!
Yaay! The brilliant techies over at Washington Families Standing Together have figured out how to make ActBlue donations meet the stringent data requirements of Washington State's Public Disclosure Commission. Now you can help protect ALL Washington families right from the comfort of the Pam's House Blend front page!
Pam has graciously placed an Approve Referendum 71 ActBlue donation box in the left-hand column, directly below her video. You can also use the form above. Please contribute! And if you've done so already, do it again and double your satisfaction!
Here's a reminder of what is at stake for over 12,000 straight senior and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender domestic partners.
The areas covered by the law include labor and employment law, pensions, survivor, and other public employee benefits, family law, insurance rights, higher education, banks, financial institutions and loan agencies, creditors' rights and business licenses.
DIG DEEP! and THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
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