To what do you owe this pleasure? Nudging that this time it’s coming from someone other than Zeke. That’s right! I now have at least three readers! Wa-Who! Yes, it’s true. We need to welcome Don, one of the wonderful people I met while in Alabama, to the fold. I know you all will like him because he does not hesitate to let me know when I should be posting here. Keep up the good work Don, and we’ll all be happier.

Oh, right I was writing a post wasn’t I? I should have pointed this out earlier, but the aforementioned Zeke (AKA Doug) wrote an article about why people abandon blogs for the Times. Sound familiar? It should because I helped inspire that piece. Yes. I inspire the New York Times. Or at least one of its freelancers.

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. Some might think being a receptionist isn’t much of a gig, but being this receptionist would be pretty goddam cool. Check out Rotus: Receptionist of the United States at The New York Times.

Iowa’’s supreme court says gay marriage ban is unconstitutional! Iowa. Who knew? via Iowa Court Voids Gay Marriage Ban – NYTimes.com.

The best part is that the decision expressly says what I have thought about this stupid fight for years, that civil marriage has absolutely nothing to do with religious beliefs.

The justices said marriage was a “civil contract” and should not affect religious doctrine or views.

“The only difference is civil marriage will now take on a new meaning that reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law,” the justices wrote.

I your church doesn’t want to allow gay people to marry, fine. But nothing gives your church the right to keep an entire class of people from marrying.

There’s been a flurry of stories lately about salmonella in peanut products and how the outbreak relates to the organic industry since one of the offending Peanut Corporation of America plants was certified organic. Turns out many consumers assume that “Organic” means safer. Whoops. This is causing the Organic industry to launch a $500 million Web-based ad campaign assuring people that Organic food, in general, is safe.

But, I think the Organic industry would do better to explain to people why it’s important to choose Organic foods. Is it for the environment? Is it for personal health? Is it for food safety? (It is not for food safety.) Having people quoted as asking the following question in a NYTimes story about how “Organic” does not mean “safe” is not a good thing:

“Why is organic peanut butter better than Jif?” said Ms. Devlin-Sample, a nurse practitioner from Pelham, N.Y. “I have no idea. If we’re getting salmonella from peanut butter, all bets are off.”

A couple of quick environmental notes for you today, as I am heading out the door to go networking with other sustainability types. I’m heading to my first EcoTuesday event and I have high hopes for the smaller size format. (I like sustainability types but I hate networking. Can you tell I’m procrastinating?)

Anyway, an article in The Times today tells of a growing divide between Congressional Democrats who are splitting on Green-Brown state lines (read: coasts vs. midwest and South) over environmental legislation. The nut graph, as they say:

“There’s a bias in our Congress and government against manufacturing, or at least indifference to us, especially on the coasts,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. “It’s up to those of us in the Midwest to show how important manufacturing is. If we pass a climate bill the wrong way, it will hurt American jobs and the American economy, as more and more production jobs go to places like China, where it’s cheaper.”

Someone needs to tell all of these people that moving toward renewables and away from dirty industries doesn’t have to mean the death of Midwestern economies. In fact, it could be a renaissance for them. Do they think wind turbines and solar panels grow on trees? A few well-placed tax credits to spur new manufacrturing and you’ve got a lot of out of work steel and auto workers going back to the plant in Ohio, Michigan and more. Unfortunately, the Times doesn’t get around to talking about this till the last graph:

“Every single wind turbine takes 26 tons of steel to construct,” Mr. Markey said. “A lot of new jobs will be created if we craft a piece of global warming legislation correctly, and that is our intention.”

Finally, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor, news about the driving habits of Hummer owners. Not entirely related to sustainability, but it makes my hippie heart sing nonetheless:

An insurance research firm has found that drivers of that icon of climate-trashing excess, the Hummer, are more likely to get traffic tickets than drivers of any other vehicle.

Interstingly, the Hummer is the ONLY SUV to be in the top 10 on that list. Makes FUH2.com makes even more sense, doesn’t it?

It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate piece of news cropping up on this historic Inauguration Day than this one I found on the NYTimes Caucus Blog this morning.

Cheney in a Wheelchair | 8:11 a.m. Later today you’ll see an unfortunate metaphor for the departing Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney hurt a back muscle yesterday as he was moving boxes out of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory. And now he plans to attend the swearing in ceremony in a wheelchair. Lame duck metaphors are too easy; but consider that Mr. Cheney’s favorability ratings are about 13 percent, while President Bush’s hover in the low 20s. But Mr. Cheney’s mode of transport makes you think about what eight years in these jobs can do to a man. (Barack Obama, on the other hand, comes into office with approval ratings in the low 80s, the highest in a generation, edging out Jimmy Carter, who marked the clean break with the Watergate era in 1977.)

via Live Blog: The Inauguration of Barack Obama – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.