California Supreme Court Rules 4-3 For Marriage Equality

The California Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 in favor of marriage equality for same-sex couples!
The ruling takes effect in 30 days.

Edwards Endorses Obama

John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama for president Wednesday.

CA Supreme Court To Announce (Favorable?) Marriage Decision Thursday

Joe.My.God has a post up with a link to a bulletin that the California Supreme Court made available this morning, announcing that a written ruling in the "same-sex marriage case" In Re Marriage Cases will be made available at 10am on Thursday. Here's the bulletin in its entirety:

NOTICE OF FORTHCOMING FILING
The Supreme Court has indicated that the filing of a written opinion in the following
case(s) is forthcoming. At the filing time designated below, the filed opinion(s) will be accessible at the judicial branch web site (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/) and copies will be made available at the Supreme Court Clerk’s Office.

[Generally, the description set out with regard to each case is reproduced from the original news release issued when review in the matter was granted, and is provided for the convenience of the public and the press. The description does not necessarily reflect the view of the court, or define the specific issues that will be addressed by the court.]

IN RE MARRIAGE CASES
S147999 (A110449, A110450, A110451, A110463, A110651, A110652
San Francisco County JCCP – 4365)
Argued in San Francisco 3-04-08
This case includes the following issue: Does California’s statutory ban on marriage
between two persons of the same sex violate the California Constitution by denying equal protection of the laws on the basis of sexual orientation or sex, by infringing on the fundamental right to marry, or by denying the right to privacy and freedom of expression?

Opinion(s) in the above case(s) will be filed on:
Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.

The Los Angeles Times has also published the story on its website. It should be noted that heterosexual supremacists claim to have filed 1.1 million signatures with the Secretary of State attempting to qualify an Initiative Constitutional Amendment on the ballot, which if approved by voters on November 4th would ban sam-sex marriage in California and repeal any favorable decision released by the court tomorrow. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, while vetoing twice bills that would legalize same-sex marriage in California, has already announced his opposition to any ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.

Although previous rumors were that the ruling would be negative, the latest rumors in activist circles expect a positive ruling in favor of marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Of course all this is happening as Mad Professah is going on vacation to Puerto Vallarta Thursday thru Monday!

Clinton Wins West Virginia; Democrats Win MS-01

Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary yesterday.

But more significantly, the Democrats won a special election for a congressional seat in Mississippi which Bush had won by 62% of the vote ii 2004. Last night, Democrat Travis Childers won MS-01 easily 54-46. This is the third special election in a row, following IL-14 and LA-06, which were both deeply Republican district (IL-14 was held by the former Speaker of the House Denis Hastert!) but have now switched to the Democrats.

From now until November there will be 235 Democrats and 199 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hopefully by January there will be even fewer!

World #1 Tennis Player Announces Immediate Retirement

Justine Henin shocked the tennis world today by announcing her immediate retirement from tennis, less than two weeks before the start of the French Open which she has won the last three year in a row. Henin, a 26-year-old French-speaking Belgian won a record 10 tournaments and over $5 million in 2007. She is currently ranked #1 in the World and has held that spot almost continuously (except for a 7 week streak last year by Maria Sharapova) since November 13, 2006.

Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim discussed his reaction to the announcement:

Q: What do you make of today's announcement?

JW: It is, at once, stunning and not all that surprising. Any time the top-ranked player -- who's 25 years old and the three-time defending champion of the next Grand Slam -- abruptly retires, it's obviously a bombshell announcement. At the same time, Henin has really struggled this year. She's shown very little resemblance to the player who dominated the second half of 2007. She's never been motivated by the trappings of celebrity. I think in her mind, if she's not winning or playing to her expectations, there's little incentive to continue on.

Q: What's happened to her this year?

JW: You know, something just seems to have gone out of her. For as much as people rave, rightfully so, about her one-handed slingshot backhand or her well-rounded game, I always thought her biggest asset was her guts. She was just such a courageous player. Yet this year, she wasn't just losing but she was playing with a noticeable absence of fire and confidence. Most recently I saw her get blown off the court by Serena Williams in Key Biscayne. The score was 6-2, 6-0 and it wasn't that close. In the postmatch interview, Henin owned up to a lack of courage. I thought this was a stunning admission from her. Particularly given the opponent.

Interestingly, Henin retires almost exactly a year after her compatriot and fellow former #1 Kim Clijsters retired at age 23. Clijsters has subsequently gotten married and given birth to a baby. In the last year legendary players Martina Hingis and Monica Seles have also announced their retirements, while Lindsay Davenport has returned from semi-retirement following a year long hiatus from the WTA Tour to have a child.

In 2008, in addition to losing to Serena, Henin has lost to Sharapova, Francesco Schiavone and last week what turned out to be her last professional match was a loss to Dinara Safina at the Qatar German Open.

Karen Bass Sworn In As California Assembly Speaker

Karen Bass is being sworn in today as Speaker of the California Assembly, the first Black woman to head a legislative body in the United States.

The New York Times article on her elevation was entitled "Black Woman in Powerful Job in California":

Ms. Bass begins with a track record with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who has called her a terrific leader and with whom she worked on the foster care system.

“He’s a Republican, and I’m a Democrat,” Ms. Bass said in a telephone interview from Sacramento, where she lives half the week. “I would describe it as a positive relationship.”

Leading the Assembly “is not a job I’ve always dreamed of,” said Ms. Bass, who before being elected from the 47th Assembly District in 2005 ran the Community Coalition in South Los Angeles. “I have been a lifelong community activist and frankly did not dream of being in public office.”

Sources Confirm $20 Million Clinton Campaign Debt

The buzz around the political blogs this Monday is the confirmation of the rumored size of the Hillary Clinton campaign debt at the "eye-popping" figure of twenty million dollars.

As blogger DHinMI points out at DailyKos:

This creates serious problems for Clinton. At a time when her only appeal left is to superdelegates, she's just shown that she's managed to lose the pledged delegate contest AND mismanaged her campaign. If she can't at least balance the books of her campaign while getting beaten by Obama, why would superdelegates view her as the more viable candidate for November?

Furthermore, to use gambling terminology, Clinton had doubled down...which is often a sign that the person has a gambling problem. It usually makes it harder for the gambler to walk away, because then they're gambling to get back their losses. For over a month Clinton's debt has been seen as a possible impediment to getting her out of the race. There have been rumors that the exit strategy could include offers from Obama of helping her retire her debt. As I explained Saturday:

No money donated to Obama, in the past or in the future, will end up with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It is illegal for a campaign to accept more than $2,000 from another candidate's campaign fund for a primary. Any discussions about Obama helping out Clinton might lead to Obama appealing to some of his donors to contribute to Clinton after she drops out to help her with her debt, but it will not involve taking money donated to him and giving it to Hillary Clinton.

EYE CANDY: Wendell Lissimore

Hot damn.

Safina and Djokovic Win Titles

Dinara Safina beat Elena Dementieva 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 to win the Qatar German Open (her first Tier 1 title). She beat three Top 10 players on her way to the title.

Novak Djokovic won his second Masters Series title of the year by coming back to beat Swiss #2 Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 at the Rome clay tournament. He won two of his matches when his opponents retired and faced only one Top 10 player. Wawrinka jumped from #24 to #10 in the world on the basis of his play in Rome this week, marking the first time Switzerland has had two Top 10 players simultaneously.

Parvati Wins Survivor 16

Despite my previous prediction that Amanda should win Survivor, unfortunately the jury did not agree. Unlike previous seasons, the final Tribal Council involved a vote of the final 2, instead of the final 3. If the vote had occurred between the final 3 of Amanda, Cirie and Parvati, Amanda would probably have won.

In the final vote Erik, James and Ozzie all voted for Amanda while Eliza, Natalie, Alexis, Cirie amd Jason all inexplicably voted for Parvati. The votes I do not understand are Jason's and Eliza's. All though it is true that Parvati was more out front with manipulating the game, or better yet being known publicly as manipulating the game, really Cirie was the person who was mastermind (or at least co-mastermind) of all the moves to eliminate players from the game. Eliza hated Parvati and still voted for her to win $1 million. I understand Cirie not voting for Amanda, because she was hurt that Amanda chose Parvati over her to go to the Final 2. Natalie and Alexis were in an alliance with Parvati so their votes were never in question. Why Jason voted for Parvati is curious. I don't understand why he wouldn't respect Amanda winning the last two immunity challenges, while the only immunity challenge Parvati won was the one where she manipulated him to give up immunity in exchange for a promise by everyone else not to vote for him at Tribal Council in addition to getting a share of their food.

Amanda now holds the record for spending the most days ever on Survivor (78) but alas she still has not won. Part of that is due to her wretched performances before the jury; she has now had two opportunities and really didn't acquit herself very well either time. Still, Amanda was more deserving of the title of "Sole Survivor" than Parvati Shallow.

VIDEO: SNL on Obama-Clinton Race

(Best and) Dumbest Survivor Ever!

I got around to watching this week's episode of Survivor: Micronesia (Fans versus Favorites) last night and was stunned to see that Erik, the only guy remaining was somehow talked into giving up immunity from elimination by the four girls remaining, who them proceeded to all vote to knock him out of the game! This happened while hottie James (from Survivor: China) looked on and declared "Now, I'm no longer the 'Dumbest Survivor Ever'!"

Mad Professah agrees with Entertainment Weekly who declares that this season of the show has been the best one since the first season (which I didn't watch). Last season there was another openly gay winner (undeserving, I thought) and this season since the Final Four consists of all women, there will be a female winner.

The Final Four are: Parvati, Cirie, Natalie and Amanda. I would be fine with anyone winning the million bucks except for Natalie on Sunday night. I thought Amanda should have won Survivor: China but it's clear that Cirie has been in control of this game from the beginning (despite never even being close to winning a single challenge). Parvati used her (exceedingly over-rated) feminine wiles to attach herself to strong players (Ozzie and James and Amanda) to coast through the game and thinks that she has been in control of the game the entire time.

I predict that Amanda will win the final immunity challenge, and if she is smart she will eliminate Cirie from the game.

Mad Professah's prediction's

SHOULD WIN: Amanda

WILL WIN: Cirie

Red Death: Federer, Henin, Serena Lose On Clay

Yup, it's the red clay season in tennis. Roger Federer lost today to Radek Stepanek 7-6(4) 7-6(7) at the Roma ATP Master Series tournament, a few days after Rafael Nadal suffered a shock loss on clay. It was Federer's sixth loss of the year; in 2007 he lost nine matches.

Dinara Safina defeated World #1 Justine Henin and Serena Williams in consecutive matcheson consecutive days at the German Open. Henin had made the finals of this tournament 6 years in a row (winning 3 times) and Serena was on a sixteen match winning streak. Safina beat Serena 2-6, 6-1, 7-6(5) and Henin 5-7 6-3 6-1.

Eye Candy: Keep Your Eye On The Ball!

This is from a poster by United Kingdom rugby stars where the proceeds go to fight male cancers. (hat/tip TowleRoad)