she's been a strong advocate of gay rights

Unless, you know, gays think the constitution's clause on "equal protection" means our families should have the same legal protections that straight families do.

Strictly speaking, there's no explicit right that straights get to be married. I haven't seen a statement where she doesn't believe the equal protection rights don't apply.

She's said that there's no consitutional right to gay marriage. Frankly, there's not constitutional right to straight marriage either, because marriage and family law is not a federal issue. Family law is the purview of the states. The fed only gets involved when there's a conflict between state laws.

I don't think the confirmation hearings themselves are going to be ugly, but there's going to be a lot of ugly in the media. The repubs need to draw this out and make her sound like an irresponsible ultra-liberal activist choice to stir up their base right before the mid-terms.

The fed only gets involved when there's a conflict between state laws.

Or when the state laws prohibit marriage based on a suspect reason. Like race or having paid your child support.

I just walked into the men's room on my floor at work. Am mortified. Luckily the only person I saw was a man washing his hands and I was out in like 2 seconds. He's not in my dept thankfully. Horribly embarrassed.

Damn. The zombisat situation has just gotten much worse:

U.S. cable TV threatened by drifting satellite

Associated Press | A TV communications satellite is drifting out of control miles above the Earth, threatening to wander into another satellite's orbit and interfere with cable programming across the United States, the satellites' owners said Tuesday.

Communications company Intelsat said it lost control of the Galaxy 15 satellite on April 8, possibly because the satellite's systems were knocked out by a solar storm. Intelsat cannot remotely steer the satellite to remain in its orbit, so Galaxy 15 is creeping toward the adjacent path of another TV communications satellite that serves U.S. cable companies.

Galaxy 15 continues to receive and transmit satellite signals, and they will probably interfere with the second satellite, known as AMC 11, if Galaxy 15 drifts into its orbit as expected around May 23, according to AMC 11's owner, SES World Skies.

AMC 11 receives digital programming from cable television channels and transmits it to all U.S. cable networks from its orbit 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the equator, SES World Skies said. It operates on the same frequencies as Galaxy 15.

"That fact means that there is likely to be some kind of interference," SES World Skies spokesman Yves Feltes told The Associated Press. "Our aim is to bring any interference down to zero."

I almost had to go in the men's room at church on Sunday because Frisco wandered in there and Joe was ahead with Ellie. Thankfully, he came out voluntarily.

I am glad I missed the doggie links because I have been thinking hard about it. I think getting a dog (completely impractical) maybe my midlife crisis.

ETA: And of course, I want to get a Newfoundland. The hairiest, drooliest, biggest dog around.

I need to vent for a second. I'm reading various articles and posts about the Nashville flooding, and I keep encountering variations on "WE didn't whine about being victims, WE just helped each other." Am I totally addled to read this as a taking a shot at poor black Katrina victims? Because that's how I'm reading it and it is making me angry. (Please note: I do not mean to minimize the damage done or life lost in Tennessee and Kentucky, nor do I mean to imply that all Tenneseans are racist.)