pemBig/em is a movie about a kid who gets his wish to be a grown-up, emJack/em is a movie about a kid who looks like a grown-up, emYouth Without Youth/em is a movie about a grown-up who grows younger, and, well, the forthcoming stronga href="http://www.benjaminbutton.com/" target="_blank"emThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button/em/a/strong appears to roll aspects of all these films into one.br /br /Starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by stronga href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/" target="_blank"David Fincher/a/strong (emFight Club/em, emSe7en/em, emPanic Room/em), emButton/em looks to be quite the drama-rama-- which may explain why some savvy marketing person decided to soundtrack a TV spot for the film with a portion of the stronga href="http://www.arcadefire.com/" target="_blank"Arcade Fire/a/strong's grandiose, organ-saturated stronga href="/article/record_review/41377-neon-bible" target="_blank"emNeon Bible/em/a/strong closer "My Body Is a Cage" [via stronga href="http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2008/12/arcade-fire-featured-in-new-30-second.html" target="_blank"The Playlist/a/strong]. Check it:br /br / object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="480" height="295" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" / param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" / param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HpZGV_m0twgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HpZGV_m0twgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"/embed /object br /br /Big whoop, right? Songs are in movie trailers all the time. True, but the Arcade Fire have been especially particular about where and to whom they license their music, resulting in precious few crossover deals like this one. The Playlist report suggests the band made an exception in this case due to an admiration for director Fincher's work, something the Arcade Fire camp has yet to confirm. Oh, and lest there be any misunderstandings, the Arcade Fire are emnot/em doing the score for this one, stronga href="/article/news/50698-arcade-fire-clarify-involvement-with-new-kelly-film" target="_blank"either/a/strong.br /br /emThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button/em is due in theaters Christmas Day (December 25)./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/dDDXJDYPhqn2kkGk45YwD61S_nM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/dDDXJDYPhqn2kkGk45YwD61S_nM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/qLdPKT-uHqg" height="1" width="1"/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year over his involvement in a prostitution ring, will write a column for online magazine Slate.com about the economy and financial regulation.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=IjZoWQ9D"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=dnNpGgVr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?i=dnNpGgVr" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=nUR5nJLR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?i=nUR5nJLR" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/technologyNews/~4/UMhP-HzO4FU" height="1" width="1"/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year over his involvement in a prostitution ring, will write a column for online magazine Slate.com about the economy and financial regulation.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=CS9PIInZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=qM92cKZt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=qM92cKZt" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=Z3wPjNrq"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=Z3wPjNrq" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Reuters/InternetNews/~4/ebQetm-xzC8" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/41745?ns=guardianpageName=Media%3A+Disgraced+ex-New+York+governor+Eliot+Spitzer+to+write+for+Slate.comch=Mediac3=guardian.co.ukc4=Digital+media%2CPress+and+publishing%2CMedia%2CBusiness%2CUS+news%2CInternet%2CPoliticsc5=Press+Media%2CDigital+Media%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CMedia+Weekly%2CTechnology+Gadgetsc6=Jemima+Kissc7=2008_12_04c8=1128700c9=articlec10=GUc11=Mediac12=blogc13=c14=PDAh2=GU%2FMedia%2Fblog%2FPDA" width="1" height="1" //divpWhat next for the ambitious career politician who fell from the heady heights of strongNew York/strong governor after being linked with a prostitution ring? Journalism, apparently./ppMaybe no-one else would take him, but strongEliot Spitzer/strong has re-emerged a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081203/media_nm/us_spitzer_slate"on the magazine site strongSlate.com/strong/a a modest nine-months after the scandal of his involvement in a $1,000-per-hour prostitution ring./ppa href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderferret/125543849/" title="Front Door by wonderferret, on Flickr"img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/125543849_7c5a11958d.jpg" width="460" alt="Front Door" //abr /emNope, no prostitutes here. Photograph: a href="http://flickr.com/photos/wonderferret/125543849/"wonderferret/a/Flickr/a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en_GB"Some rights reserved/a/em/ppSpitzer has begun writing a column for the site on the economy and financial regulation, group editor strongJacob Weisberg/strong said last night. a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2205995/pagenum/all/#p2"The first column/a explains why the government should not bail out big financial institutions, and that that money could have been used to "increase the intellectual capabilities of the next generation". "Our dependence on entities of this size ensured that we would fall prey to a 'too big to fail' argument in favor of bailouts," he wrote./ppWeisberg said Slate approached Spitzer several months ago about writing the column, and would have hired him "even if he'd never been governor"./pp"He was the de facto national regulator of the financial industry. I think he just has a keen understanding and a shrewd perspective on those issues," Weisberg said of the former 'Sheriff of strongWall Street/strong' - who had developed a reputation for cracking down on prostitution and financial crime./pp/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digitalmedia"Digital media/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pressandpublishing"Press publishing/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet"Internet/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1GFB2kMkOKWwaq_f7SD0l15JIIY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1GFB2kMkOKWwaq_f7SD0l15JIIY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer has spoken out on his role in the passage of Proposition 8 in the aftermath of the ensuing protests, asking, "What is the way forward for all of us together? Even though we supporters of Proposition 8 did not intend to hurt or offend our opponents, still many of them, especially in the gay community, feel hurt and offended. What is to be done?"

Niederauer, who is credited with bringing in the Mormon church and the massive finances of its donors, urged people to tone down the rhetoric: "Tolerance, respect, and trust are always two-way streets, and tolerance respect and trust often do not include agreement, or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken. We need to stop hurling names like 'bigot' and 'pervert' at each other. And we need to stop it now."

The SF Chronicle reports:

"During the campaign, Niederauer issued statements, sent flyers and gave a videotaped interview posted at www.marriagematterstokids.org. But Niederauer's most prominent action was drawing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members responded with intensive grassroots organizing and an estimated $20 million in campaign contributions from individuals that accounted for half of the Yes on 8 campaign's total. Niederauer noted that many other Christian denominations supported Prop. 8, including evangelical Protestant, Orthodox and historically African American churches. The Mormon church has said Niederauer, previously the bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years, played a pivotal role in its joining the cause. 'We were invited to join the coalition,' Michael Otterson, managing director of public affairs for the church, told The Chronicle in an interview shortly after the election. 'We didn't unilaterally go into the battle.' Otterson said Niederauer's letter persuaded the Mormon church that they wouldn't be fighting this battle alone, a status that would have made them vulnerable."

Niederauer wants everyone to accept the procreation argument for the family and the "marriage" label, and wants gays to accept "a contract for the benefit of a relationship between adults" but not call it marriage.

He forgives "single parents, grandparents, foster parents and others" who "fail to realize" the ideal procreative one man-one woman model but doesn't deny them his permission to marry, because they are heterosexual.

Basically, Niederauer wants gays and lesbians (many of whom do procreate through surrogates, etc, I might add) to accept our status as second-class citizens and move on.

Read his full message, entitled "Moving Forward Together," AFTER THE JUMP...

S.F. archbishop defends role in Prop. 8 passage [sf chronicle]

***

SAN FRANCISCO CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP NIEDERAUER - "MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER"

“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” In the weeks since the adoption of this amendment the media have carried many speculations about the role of the Catholic bishops in California, and about my role in particular, in the passage of this proposition. It is my wish to clarify here what was done and why it was done, and offer some thoughts about the way forward amid so many misunderstandings and hard feelings.

Five years before my appointment as Archbishop of San Francisco, in the year 2000, Proposition 22 was placed on the California ballot. This statute, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, passed with 61% of the vote. On May 15th of this year, the California State Supreme Court declared that statute unconstitutional and legalized same-sex marriage in California. Around the same time, Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment qualified for the ballot.

The Catholic bishops of California, organized as the California Catholic Conference, and speaking through their office of public policy in Sacramento, endorsed Proposition 8 and urged Catholics, and organizations of lay Catholics, to work for its passage, by means of grass roots activity and contributions from their resources. We bishops also endorsed Proposition 4, regarding parental notification of a minor child’s intended abortion (defeated at the polls) and we opposed Proposition 6, a “tough on crime” initiative inconsistent with the principles of restorative justice (defeated).

The Archdiocese of San Francisco did not donate or transfer any Archdiocesan funds to the campaign in favor of Proposition 8. As far as I know, that is also true of other Catholic dioceses in California. The Archdiocese did pay, and appropriately disclose, printing and distribution of flyers to parishes.

Last May the staff of the Conference office informed me that leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) had given their support to the campaign for Proposition 22 in the year 2000, and were already considering an involvement in connection with Proposition 8. Accordingly, I was asked to contact leaders of the LDS Church whom I had come to know during my eleven years as Bishop of Salt Lake City, to ask them to cooperate again, in this election cycle. I did write to them and they urged the members of their Church, especially those in California, to become involved.

It is important to point out here that a wide range of churches became active in favor of Proposition 8: in addition to Catholics and LDS members, evangelical Protestant churches and churches with many African-American members joined the effort, and, among the Orthodox churches, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of San Francisco and three other Orthodox bishops signed and published a joint statement in favor of Proposition 8.

That is what was done. Why was it done? Some voices in the wider community declare that there could be only one motive: hatred, prejudice and bigotry against gays, along with a determination to discriminate against them and deny them their civil rights. That is not so. The churches that worked in favor of Proposition 8 did so because of their belief that the traditional understanding and definition of marriage is in need of defense and support, and not in need of being re-designed or re-configured.

Some of our opponents respond with this question: Even if these churches saw the California State Supreme Court decision in May as damaging to the institution of marriage as they understood and valued it, shouldn’t they have kept quiet and stayed on the sidelines? Some would say that, in light of the separation of church and state, churches should remain silent about any political matter. However, religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy. Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith.

Indeed, to insist that citizens be silent about their religious beliefs when they are participating in the public square is to go against the constant American political tradition. Such a gag order would have silenced many abolitionists in the nineteenth century and many civil rights advocates in the twentieth. Quite a number of important political issues regularly touch upon the ethical, moral, and religious convictions of citizens: immigration policy, the death penalty, torture of prisoners, abortion, euthanasia, and the right to health care are some such issues.

Members of churches who supported Proposition 8 sincerely believe that defining marriage as only between a man and a woman is one such issue. They see marriage and the family as the basic building blocks of human society, existing before government and not created by it. Marriage is for us the ideal relationship between a man and woman, in which, through their unique sexual complementarity, the spouses offer themselves to God as co-creators of new human persons, a father and mother giving them life and enabling them to thrive in the family setting.

Are there many instances in which this ideal fails to be realized? Of course there are. Single parents, grandparents, foster parents and others deserve praise and support for their courage, sacrifice and devotion in raising the children for whom they are responsible. Still, the proponents of Proposition 8 subscribe to a definition of marriage that recognizes and protects its potential to create and nurture new human life, not merely a contract for the benefit of a relationship between adults.

Whatever others may say, the proponents of Proposition 8 supported it as a defense of the traditional understanding and definition of marriage, not as an attack on any group, or as an attempt to deprive others of their civil rights. The fact remains that, under California law, after the passage of Proposition 8, same sex couples who register as domestic partners will continue to have “the same rights, protections and benefits” as married couples. Proposition 8 simply recognizes that there is a difference between traditional marriage and a same sex partnership.

What is the way forward for all of us together? Even though we supporters of Proposition 8 did not intend to hurt or offend our opponents, still many of them, especially in the gay community, feel hurt and offended. What is to be done?

Tolerance, respect, and trust are always two-way streets, and tolerance respect and trust often do not include agreement, or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken. We need to stop hurling names like “bigot” and “pervert” at each other. And we need to stop it now.

For our part, we churchgoers need to speak and act out of the truth that all people are God’s children and are unconditionally loved by God. While we argue among ourselves, the people who need our help with hunger, unemployment, homelessness and other problems wait for us to turn together toward them. More particularly, we Catholics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco need to minister to the needs of all Catholics in this local Church. Whoever they are, and whatever their circumstances, their spiritual and pastoral rights should be respected, together with their membership in the Church. In that spirit, with God’s grace and much prayer, perhaps we can all move forward together.

***END OF STATEMENT***

Sleaze Roxx recently conducted an interview with guitarist Alex Grossi (HOOKERS 'N' BLOW, ex-QUIET RIOT) about his involvement with ADLER'S APPETITE, the band led by former GUNS N' ROSES drummer Steven Adler.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year over his involvement in a prostitution ring, will write a column for online magazine Slate.com about the economy and financial regulation.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=LyRVN5cP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=okqq3zrA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=okqq3zrA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?a=nLJUyaOC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Reuters/InternetNews?i=nLJUyaOC" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Reuters/InternetNews/~4/_GUcQIlWgIo" height="1" width="1"/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year over his involvement in a prostitution ring, will write a column for online magazine Slate.com about the economy and financial regulation.

The Giants are still gathering information on linebacker Antonio Pierce's involvement in a shooting incident that led to the season-ending suspension of star receiver Plaxico Burress.

We were quite a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080709/1512331632.shtml"disappointed/a with Congress earlier this year, selling out the country and granting retroactive immunity to telcos for any involvement they might have had in any warrantless wiretapping program. The immunity basically gave the White House a a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080616/1351041424.shtml"get out of jail free card/a that it could hand to any telco -- even if that telco clearly violated constitutional rights. No matter which side of the political aisle you fall on, this should be extremely disturbing. It basically lets the President decide that certain companies don't need to obey the constitution. That, by itself, seems to be unconstitutional. br /br / Not surprisingly, the EFF and the ACLU a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080710/1931091645.shtml"sued/a over the granting of immunity, and the judge in the case a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10111870-93.html?part=rss#038;subj=news#038;tag=2547-1_3-0-20" target="_new"heard the arguments on both sides/a on Tuesday. While there was a lot of back and forth, at least part of the exchange suggested that the judge a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/feds-to-judge-d.html"agreed with the government's position/a, telling the EFF's lawyer that he should take up his complaint with Congress, not through the courts. br /br / Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't a large part of the reason for the judicial system to be a check on the power of Congress and the White House -- specifically on making sure they don't do anything unconstitutional? It's not clear when the judge will rule, but I've yet to see a single reasonable explanation for why telcos should be granted immunity. If what they did wasn't illegal, then there's nothing to worry about. If what they did was illegal, but they felt that it was in the best interests of the country, then let them explain that in court to mitigate the situation. Granting retroactive immunity goes against everything the rule of law should stand for.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081202/2351323001.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081202/2351323001.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081202/2351323001op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=0bac9a1232e6c3f843002521cbb494d2p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=0bac9a1232e6c3f843002521cbb494d2p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=0bac9a1232e6c3f843002521cbb494d2" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=SzWGo"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=SzWGo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/473647474" height="1" width="1"/

pOkay, so. We've long heard rumblings about a potential rock opera movie musical, presented in three glorious dimensions, based on the life of Cleopatra, directed by a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001752/"strongStephen Soderbergh/strong/a and soundtracked by former Guided by Voices frontman a href="http://www.robertpollard.net/"strongRobert Pollard/strong/a. But getting a firm grasp on all of it has proved a little tricky since the Pollard part of that equation hasn't exactly been forthcoming with the juicy details./p pThere's been an upswing in interest in the flick lately, including recent a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994550.html?categoryid=1050amp;cs=1"emstrongVariety/strong/em/a and a href="http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/12/01/exclusive-ray-winstone-cast-as-ceaser-in-cleopatra-musical-soderbergh-calls-it-viva-las-vegas-meets-tommy/#more-7192"strongMTV.com/strong/a articles that all but confirm everything we'd heard about the project. Apparently, the film is called emCleo/em, Soderbergh says that Catherine Zeta-Jones will play Cleopatra, Hugh Jackman's all but ready to go as Mark Anthony, and English actor Ray Winstone has been cast as Caesar. They expect to start shooting in April, in, it bears repeating, 3D./p pThe script for emCleo /emwas written by author/former Guided by Voices bassist Jim Greer. Soderbergh told MTV.com, "He went away for like six weeks and wrote this great script! It's like an Elvis musical in a way. It's not serious. I mean it's historically pretty accurate but its sort of like emViva Las Vegas/em meets emTommy/em."/p pOh, and Pollard? According to MTV, he's all in. emVariety /emreports, "The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices," but unless it was written before Pollard stopped using the GBV name in 2004, that probably means just Pollard.br /br /Pollard's people won't officially confirm anything specific about his involvement in the project, but note that a 2006 article in emthe New York Times/em describing the longstanding creative partnership between the Fading Captain and the acclaimed director gets Pollard's involvement in the then-incubatory emCleo /emproject right. We tracked down a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/movies/29olse.html"strongthe emTimes/em piece/strong/a, which says, "the two have started working together on another project, emCleopatra/em, which is being written by Jim Greer...the film is described by Mr. Soderbergh as emTommy/em meets emViva Las Vegas/em." Hey, two years later, he's still using the same soundbite!/p pAs a bit of background, Soderbergh wrote the introduction to Greer's Guided by Voices oral history/biography Gemuided by Voices: A Brief History/em, while a href="/article/record_review/20958/Robert_Pollard_Zoom_It_Happens_All_Over_the_World_EP_Music_Fr"strongPollard wrote the music for Soderbergh's 2005 film emBubble/em/strong/a.br /br /While we wait for more information about this whole crazy project, we'll remind you that Bob's new sensation a href="http://www.bostonspaceships.com/"strongBoston Spaceships/strong/a will released a href="/article/news/146459-pollard-preps-new-solo-spaceships-circus-devils-discs"strongemThe Planets Are Blasted/em/strong/a, their rather quick follow-up to this fall's fine a href="/article/news/51300-pollard-forms-new-band-with-gbv-decemberists-folks"strongemBrown Submarine/em/strong/a, February 17 from Guided by Voices, Inc./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/td_cJdxnAJMGzPaDk3JZ1kWp9aM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/td_cJdxnAJMGzPaDk3JZ1kWp9aM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/3AtumPpxQS0" height="1" width="1"/

The CIA is often credited with 'advice' on Hollywood films, but no one is truly sure about the extent of its shadowy involvement. Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham investigate

Lord Mandelson stoked up the row over the arrest of the Tory frontbencher Damian Green today by accusing the Conservatives of using it as a “smokescreen” to cover his involvement in a series of Home Office leaks.

The current issue of Rolling Stone has posted its Prop 8 article online, which takes to task the "No on 8" campaign for its failure to anticipate that it had a major opponent in the Mormon church and criticizes its strategies both on the ground, and on the air.

An excerpt:

"But evidence of entrenched homophobia and religious intolerance obscure a more difficult truth. Prop 8 should have been defeated — two months before the election, it was down 17 points in the polls — but the gay-rights groups that tried to stop it ran a lousy campaign. According to veteran political observers, the No on Prop 8 effort was slow to raise money, ran weak and confusing ads, and failed to put together a grass-roots operation to get out the vote. 'This was political malpractice,' says a Democratic consultant who operates at the highest level of California politics. 'They fucked this up, and it was painful to watch. They shouldn't be allowed to pawn this off on the Mormons or anyone else. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and now hundreds of thousands of gay couples are going to pay the price.' From the start, the leaders of the No on Prop 8 campaign and their high-priced consultants failed to realize what they were up against. According to Geoff Kors, who headed the campaign's executive committee, the No side anticipated needing no more than $20 million to stop the gay-marriage ban. The Yes side, by contrast, set out to change how initiative politics are played, building a well-funded operation that rivaled a swing-state presidential campaign in its scope and complexity. It also built a powerful, faith-based coalition that included the Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'The direct involvement of the Mormon church — moving donors in a very short window to give early — was stunning,' says Patrick Guerriero, who was called in to take over as campaign manager of No on Prop 8 in the final month. "It was unprecedented — and probably impossible to predict."

National Center for Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendall (katek), hit back at the magazine in a comment to the article online.

"When Dickinson called to interview me about the No on Prop 8 campaign it became obvious he wasn't interested in the facts about the campaign, he wanted only information that supported this hit piece. When he didn't like my answers, he just asked more leading questions. We lost. Yes, as in any campaign, mistakes were made, but to quote from unnamed sources and anonymous gay leaders running for cover in the wake of this devastating loss while ignoring all facts that don't support your assasination attempt against those who worked tirelessly for months is not jouralism, it's just trash. Dickinson should ply his 'blaming the victim' tactics with the National Enquirer."

Same-Sex Setback [rolling stone]

br /What it doesbr /br /Isn’t a chatroom enough for you? Do you need a further degree of interaction and involvement? If that is indeed the case, a visit to this online resource is likely to satisfy your craving. br brIn essence, Seesmic is a video site where people post their own files and you post yours in reply. The website, then, offers an alternative to IM services that could be deemed as more vital, or (in any case) as far more personalized. br brAs you can probably imagine, the main page touches upon items such as “Featured Videos” and “Most Active”, whereas the latest conversation that are underway have their very own space. br brThe opening screen also spotlights conversations one at a time, so that you can see everything as it is happening and developing upon stationing your browser at the site. br brIn final place, make a point of employing the “Feature request” link if you use the site and feel that there is something sorely missing that would give Seesmic and added edge and a better chance of making a stand.br /br /Some questionsbr /br /Is this service completely web-hosted or do you have to install anything?br /br /Why it might be a killerbr /br /Individuals looking for a more personalized way of connecting than IM might find such an approach interesting.br /br /In their own wordsbr /br /“Join the video conversation.”br /br /Link: a href='http://www.seesmic.com'http://www.seesmic.com/abr /Our Review: a href='http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/seesmic-com-video-conversations-over-the-www'http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/seesmic-com-video-conversations-over-the-www/abr /br / nbsp;div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=Tjtv9is2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=syn6DUNK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=5FXEGE6q"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=5FXEGE6q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=qSFhroAi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=qSFhroAi" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=5kxjYujJ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=pva42Ya7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=pva42Ya7" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/killerstartups/BkQV/~4/deo-dX2Jlj4" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/28273?ns=guardianpageName=UK+news%3A+De+Menezes+family+walk+out+of+inquest+as+coroner+rules+he+was+not+unlawfully+killedch=UK+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Jean+Charles+de+Menezes%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CUK+news%2CPolice+%28politics%29%2CPoliticsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Sandra+Lavillec7=2008_12_03c8=1127778c9=articlec10=GUc11=UK+newsc12=Jean+Charles+de+Menezesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FUK+news%2FJean+Charles+de+Menezes" width="1" height="1" //divpThe family of Jean Charles de Menezes walked out of his inquest yesterday as the coroner ruled the jury was forbidden from considering whether he was unlawfully killed./ppSir Michael Wright said he did not believe the testimony justified him allowing them to return a verdict which was tantamount to accusing police officers of murder or manslaughter./ppAs the De Menezes family and their supporters walked out the coroner said he knew the jury's hearts would go out to the dead man's mother, Maria Otone de Menezes. "But these are emotional reactions, ladies and gentlemen, and you are charged with returning a verdict based on evidence," he said./pp"Put aside any emotion - put them to one side."/ppOver the 10 weeks of the hearing jurors have heard from 100 witnesses, including the two specialist firearms officers, C12 and C2, who shot dead the Brazilian at point-blank range on a carriage at Stockwell station in London on July 22 2005./ppFor the first time, the public was given a full account of the incident from key witnesses on board the underground carriage where the shooting took place./ppPolice mistakenly believed he was Hussain Osman, one of a group of would-be suicide bombers who had attempted to set off bombs on a number of tube trains and a bus the previous day. De Menezes was living in a block of flats connected to one of the July 21 bombers./ppThe coroner is likely to send the jury out today with the instruction to consider a verdict of lawful killing or an open verdict. They have also been asked to answer a series of questions: yes, no or don't know./ppIn his legal ruling to the jury before he sent them out to deliberate, Wright said they could not find the firearms officers who fired the fatal shots or senior officers coordinating the operation liable under criminal or civil law for the death because inquest law prohibited any jury returning a verdict that would lay the blame at the door of an individual or individuals./ppHe told the court he had listened to submissions from the legal teams for all the parties before making his decision. "After hearing the submissions the conclusion that I have come to is that the evidence in this case taken at its highest would not justify my leaving verdicts of unlawful killing to you," he said./pp"This is so in respect of C12 and C2 concerning their direct involvement in shooting Mr De Menezes and also in respect of any of the particular senior officers in relation to their management and conduct of the operation."/ppWright said the decision did not indicate police did nothing wrong on July 22 2005, but he said all interested persons agreed that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be considered if jurors could be sure a very serious crime, such as murder or manslaughter, had been committed to a criminal standard of proof, ie beyond all reasonable doubt./ppEven if the jury concluded that a number of people made different mistakes which together resulted in the shooting of De Menezes, unlawful killing should also not be considered./ppExplaining his decision he said: "The accusation that is made against C2 and C12 on behalf of the family is an allegation of murder. That is to say the deliberate killing of another human being without any lawful excuse; that is the allegation of murder./pp"The response of the two officers to that accusation is that they were acting in lawful defence of themselves and of many other people in that they fired their weapons in order to prevent detonation of body-borne, improvised explosive devices."/ppHe said that given the evidence did not amount to proving a verdict of unlawful killing, the jury must consider lawful killing first and then an open verdict. They should find that De Menezes was lawfully killed if they believed it was probable he died by "deliberate application of force against him" and that the person causing the injuries used reasonable force in self-defence or defence of another person, or to prevent a crime, or to assist in lawful arrest, even if the result of the action was fatal./ppThe coroner added the jury may consider whether some witnesses were lying. As an example, he said they may consider the testimony of C12, who said he shouted a warning of "armed police" to De Menezes, which was contradicted by all the civilian witnesses./ppBut he urged caution on judging anything they viewed as lying too harshly. "You must decide whether the person has lied or made an honest mistake. If you can prove that the witness has lied you should bear ... in mind people tell lies for a variety of reasons, not necessarily to put their own part./pp"In the context of this case it might be to mitigate the impact of ... a tragic mistake or to support others in explanations they may have put forward."/ppHe added that if they found C12 had been lying, it would not automatically follow that C12 could not still have been acting in lawful defence of himself or others./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/menezes"Jean Charles de Menezes/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/OcfTeIwFZQ6YbD7G0m8VKUMD_Ec/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/OcfTeIwFZQ6YbD7G0m8VKUMD_Ec/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p