With a ruling scheduled today on Prop 8 — the California ballot measure that took away the right to marry from same-sex couples — Dave Fleischer has an in-depth analysis of all of the polling data on Prop 8, and his findings include some counter-intuitive numbers, like that the confusing wording actually ended up helping the No vote more than the Yes.
posted by klangklangston on Aug 4, 2010 - 619 comments

Meanwhile, Malawi Withers
After a poor harvest that brought in 1.3 million tons of maize (well short of the 2.1 million tons needed) the United Nation made an $88m (66 million pounds) food appeal for Malawi ten days ago but has not received a single penny or pledge of aid from any nation so far.

Woops, check that, Ireland's just pledged a million euros. Only 65 million to go.
posted by fenriq on Sep 9, 2005 - 19 comments

A Good Day for Video Games. Turns out that video games are protected by the First Amendment, at least according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today overturned a St. Louis ruling that video games do not constitue protected speech. A good quote from the opinion: "If the first amendment is versatile enough to 'shield [the] painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll,' we see no reason why the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games are not entitled to a similar protection. The mere fact that they appear in a novel medium is of no legal consequence."
posted by jscalzi on Jun 3, 2003 - 7 comments

On September 17, 1998, in response to an armed robbery call, Houston police burst in to the home of John Lawrence. The police didn’t find a robber (nor would they – the call was deliberately false), but they did find Lawrence having sex with another man, Tyrone Garner. Lawrence and Garner were promptly charged with “engaging in homosexual conduct,” a misdemeanor under Texas law. They paid their fine and began a long legal challenge to Texas’ anti-sodomy law. That challenge has finally reached the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, which today agreed to hear their appeal early next year. Standing in the way is the Court’s own 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, in which it held that anti-sodomy laws are constitutional. That may be about to change.
posted by pardonyou? on Dec 2, 2002 - 43 comments

Comic book retailer sentenced to jail for selling a book to an adult The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's lawyers are filing an appeal in the highest criminal court in Texas in the obscenity conviction of Jesus Castillo, manager of a Dallas comic book store. Castillo has received six months jail time, a year probation, and a $4000 fine. [more inside]
posted by dejah420 on Aug 21, 2002 - 36 comments

The Texas sleeping lawyer case is being submitted to the supreme court by the TX Attorney General in hopes of overturning the 5th Circuit Court's ruling that maybe the lawyer in question did doze a little too often during the trial. It seems the issue is " how often an attorney can sleep during a trial without violating his client's constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel."
posted by kittyloop on Jan 6, 2002 - 8 comments

U.S. Supreme Court denies Microsoft's appeal. Is anyone else surprised how long these U.S. v. Microsoft trials have gone on? Is there an end in sight? The longer the courts (and both parties) drag this on, the more moot this case will become.
posted by misterioso on Oct 9, 2001 - 6 comments

US Supreme Court denies the government's Microsoft appeal, 8-1, and sends it back to the goddam Circuit Court for yet another year of hysterical lies and bullshit. Score one for the enemy.
posted by Snarl on Sep 26, 2000 - 10 comments