• The very best thing to happen recently is Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, overturning prop 8 and granting homosexuals the right to marry in California.  The whole decision can be downloaded here, but there are articles all over the place dissecting the good bits.  The most important part, though, is this:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Thank you, Judge Walker, for doing your job well.  And, as C. E. Petit notes, for being willing to take a correct position that will probably make you permanently unable to ever be confirmed to an appellate court.

• It is not a good thing at all that Christopher Hitchens has esophageal cancer which has metastasized and will likely soon kill him.  But his essay in Vanity Fair on the experience of learning about it and getting treatment is as powerful as anything he’s written.  Speaking simultaneously about the side effects of chemotherapy and the militaristic language which is so frequently used when discussing cancer, he writes, “In the war against Thanatos, if we must term it a war, the immediate loss of Eros is a huge initial sacrifice.”  It’s a piece well worth reading.  “Tropic of Cancer.”

• Charles Stross has been thinking some very clever thoughts about the hard limitations of space colonization.  Most recently he has written an excellent explanation of why the practice is fundamentally incompatible with libertarian ideology.  It’s an important reality check against having read too much Heinlein.  (And yeah, I love me some Heinlein, but that joke is spot-on.)

• RadioLab is one of the best programs on the radio, and lately they are increasingly on the internet as well.  To go with a recent podcast they have released a beautiful video exploring the concept of a moment.  Utterly lovely.

An aside: I don’t recall having been explicitly introduced to the idea that the density of a black hole decreases as its mass increases before.  In fact I’m not sure that black hole density ever came up at all in my modern physics class, which is the only place I  worked with Swarzschild radii.  It’s obvious once presented, but when I got to that part of the video I was shocked to find I had been completely unaware of such a fundamental characteristic of black holes.

First, the wonderful 3 minute video that inspired it:

Then the meme:

Bold the women by whom you own books
Italicize those by whom you’ve read something of (short stories count)
*Star those you don’t recognize

Andre Norton
C. L. Moore
Evangeline Walton*
Leigh Brackett
Judith Merril*
Joanna Russ
Margaret St. Clair*
Katherine MacLean*
Carol Emshwiller
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Zenna Henderson*
Madeleine L’Engle
Angela Carter
Ursula LeGuin
Anne McCaffrey
Diana Wynne Jones
Kit Reed*
James Tiptree, Jr.
Rachel Pollack*
Jane Yolen
Marta Randall*
Eleanor Arnason*
Ellen Asher*
Patricia A. McKillip
Suzy McKee Charnas*
Lisa Tuttle*
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Tanith Lee
Pamela Sargent
Jayge Carr*
Vonda McIntyre
Octavia E. Butler
Kate Wilhelm
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro*
Sheila Finch*
Mary Gentle
Jessica Amanda Salmonson*
C. J. Cherryh
Joan D. Vinge
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Ellen Kushner
Ellen Datlow
Nancy Kress
Pat Murphy
Lisa Goldstein*
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough*
Mary Turzillo*
Connie Willis
Barbara Hambly*
Nancy Holder
Sheri S. Tepper
Melissa Scott*
Margaret Atwood
Lois McMaster Bujold
Jeanne Cavelos*
Karen Joy Fowler
Leigh Kennedy*
Judith Moffett*
Rebecca Ore*
Emma Bull
Pat Cadigan
Kathyrn Cramer
Laura Mixon*
Eileen Gunn
Elizabeth Hand
Kij Johnson
Delia Sherman
Elizabeth Moon
Michaela Roessner*
Terri Windling
Sharon Lee*
Sherwood Smith*
Katherine Kurtz*
Margo Lanagan
Laura Resnick*
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Sheila Williams
Farah Mendlesohn
Gwyneth Jones*
Ardath Mayhar*
Esther Friesner*
Debra Doyle*
Nicola Griffith
Amy Thomson*
Martha Wells*
Catherine Asaro*
Kate Elliott
Kathleen Ann Goonan
Shawna McCarthy
Caitlin Kiernan
Maureen McHugh
Cheryl Morgan
Nisi Shawl
Mary Doria Russell
Kage Baker
Kelly Link
Nancy Springer
J. K. Rowling
Nalo Hopkinson
Ellen Klages
Tanarive Due*
M. Rickert
Theodora Goss
Mary Anne Mohanraj
S. L. Viehl*
Jo Walton
Kristine Smith*
Deborah Layne*
Cherie Priest
Wen Spencer*
K. J. Bishop
Catherynne M. Valente
Elizabeth Bear
Ekaterina Sedia
Naomi Novik
Mary Robinette Kowal
Ann VanderMeer

Next, a digital version of the April/May double issue of Asimov’s, containing my story “Adrift,” is now available from Fictionwise. If you wanted to read “Adrift” but were unable to find a physical copy of the magazine, you can now download it here for about $5.

I need a third thing. How about a weird Turkish knockoff of Star Trek? It is based on the first episode of the show, “The Man Trap,” and has English subtitles. It steals footage from the original for effects shots and when the opening credits run too long for the Star Trek theme, they cleverly borrowed music from other science fiction shows to make up the difference. And the description says that it features once popular Turkish character called Omer the Tourist.

(The video is of the “splash a literal picture of the lyrics” variety, and tries to be a little too cute, but it’s the music that matters.)

It’s even better now that the games are in Vancouver than it was when they were in Turin.

Very cool.  But at the end of it good Mr. Attenborough pronounces that dolphins are the only known species to pursue this fishing technique.  Yet right there in the related videos panel is an even more dramatic video of humpback whales using air bubbles to do essentially the same thing in deep water.

I wonder how widely known the “schooling fish are afraid to swim through churned up water” behavior is among ocean mammals.

(Video is about half prepared talk, half Q&A, and filled with both the brilliantly funny and the stunningly prescient.  Her comments about how the internet will change the political system speak directly to the events of the 2008 election.)

This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

This sentence is now a part of the state’s constitution.  So it is to be supposed that, for any existing marriages to be legal under Texas law, one must somehow make the argument that traditional marriage is neither similar nor identical to itself.

How I dearly wish Molly Ivins was around for this one.

EDITED TO ADD: For a sense of who Molly Ivins was, and for how absurd things sometimes get on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives, I recommend this nine minute excerpt from the documentary Dildo Diaries about the bizarre doublethink nonsense that underlies our state’s sex toy laws.  Which actually seem comparatively sane in light of this marriage thing. (Probably NSFW.)

“That’s where we’re heading in this country, my friends…. We got a buncha pastors who pee sitting down.  We got a president of the United States who probably pees sitting down.  We got a buncha preachers and leaders who don’t stand up and piss against a wall like a man!”

I particularly enjoy the Hunting-of-the-Snark-esque numerology subtext.  5 = death.  6 = man.  7 = completion.  He doesn’t mention it, but I think 8 = effeminate democrats who let their dicks dangle and elect Nancy Pelosi; 9 = homosexuality is a sin;  10 = good old-fashioned god-fearing MEN who hold their penises firmly in strong calloused hands as they piss against the goshdarned wall! Yes!

KatWithSword Have just learned that I am being nominated for a postdoc fellowship. Feeling very overwhelmed and honored.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword Woo! You are totally fellow material. I have always thought of you as a fine fellow.

glorioushubris Tomorrow I see the doctor. Today I stay in bed and practice trashcan basketball with sneeze-shredded tissues.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris Sympathy and empathy. Can we form a club?

glorioushubris @gralinnaea Let’s form a suicide pact, suicide pacts are way sexier than clubs. How about if we’re still sick come World Fantasy, we off it.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris Ok, check. I feel that this should be done in a dramatic and literary way. Hmmm …

ferretthimself @glorioushubris Not to horn in, but can I off myself, too? I think my body needs a deadline.

glorioushubris @ferretthimself @gralinnaea We need Gra’s ruling, but I think you’re welcome Ferrett. I conceive of this as a very egalitarian suicide pact.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris @ferretthimself Absolutely. Hmmm … how many people do we need before we can call ourselves a suicide cult?

glorioushubris Last night Facebook offers to make everything French for me. I decline. Today Facebook decides it knows what’s best, and I NEED French. Why?

glorioushubris In the preferences tab my language is still set to English, but everything is in French just the same. Why do you suck so hard, facebook?

ferretthimself @glorioushubris Dude, Facebook is frenching you. Don’t you know what that means when the most popular kid in town likes you that way?

glorioushubris @ferretthimself Shit! And here I thought I’d gotten less oblivious since high school!

KatWithSword @glorioushubris I don’t know whether I’m flattered, or full of the need to confirm you mean fellow in a nice, gender-neutral sort of sense.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword It’s no good desiring not to go among the fellows, for we are all fellows here.

gralinnaea @KatWithSword You’ll always be my favorite gender-neutral fellow … wait, that’s what you meant, right?

KatWithSword @glorioushubris @gralinnaea I just want to make sure that one can be a fellow, and still wear a bright pink breast protector while fencing.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword It would take some convincing to make me believe that anything says fellowship more forcefully than a barbie-pink breastplate.

Additionally, today’s being-vaguely-pissy music comes to us from The Kills.