Never used breaking before (I don't think), but due to the tireless effort of many of our legislators (Slaughter and Kennedy not least among them), the Genetic Information NonDiscrimination Act passed today, 95-0.

This act will make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to use personal genomic information for hiring, insurance pricing or acceptance purposes. Nor will these companies be allowed to require genomic testing for employment or insurance.

We've seen that food prices, especially staples such as corn, wheat and rice, have been skyrocketing to records the last couple years. We've seen that these rising prices have already started causing food riots across the world as seen in ApacheTrout's diary. Wheat has gotten so expensive, it's now more cost effective for Afghani farmers to raise it rather than opium poppies for heroin.

Well, buckle up folks, you haven't seen the last of the price rises, scarcity, famines and riots.

There are several trends that are occurring now and will continue that will bring the end to cheap and plentiful food. Follow me under the fold and lets delineate some of these trends, after which I will help you buckle up for the wild ride ahead.

The military has the "DADT" (don't ask, don't tell) policy and state and federal governments have DOMA amendments and laws. Anyway, these have lead to some sad and frustrating inequalities for military heroeswho die in battle and same-sex couples trying to live their lives.

When will 'we' get it? The news that comes out from scientific studies consistently and relentlessly reports that all indicators of climate change are worse, much worse, than most of our worst case scenarios.

Arctic ice, temperature change, CO2 rates, IPCC's worst case scenarios weren't bad enough.

Well, chalk another one up to 'not bad enough:' China's CO2 emissions are outpacing previous estimates by 2 to 4 fold.

This primary season has had a much more personal impact on our family than have any before. Impacts that intersect race, gender and sexual orientation. As a family of two fathers raising an African American daughter and with the two Democratic front-runners being an African-American man and a woman, the race could not have been anything but momentous in our family.

Both my partner and I supported Barack Obama early on. It was generally quiet support, an occasional online donation. The McClurkin incidence came and I wavered. But after his speeches where, in front of hostile (to gay rights) audiences, he spoke forcefully for our rights and after looking at his positions (supports the complete repeal of DOMA), we came to support him strongly.

Our daughter, 5 years old,  had other ideas.

(crossposted toDaddy, Papa & me and Family Equality Council Blog)

The Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have used a variety of excuses to dismiss Obama's huge wins.

It's the black people.

It's the caucuses.

It's the red states.

It's the latte-drinking over-educated liberals.

You can add another one now. Weather.

Ok, the new false meme out there, put out by Clinton supporters or Obama detractors, is that people voting for Obama are doing so with their heart and not their head, or that they are emotional, or that they are 'cultists'.

It's absurd on the face of it and an insult to 90% of us who are  voting for him for very calculated, thoughtful and rational reasons (and yes, he inspires too).

So, lets change the frame.

Over the last month I've been a precinct captain for the OBAMA campaign, called, canvassed, emailed, donated, stood on street corners, went to fund raisers. And yesterday's primary here in California is now over. My work is done.

Or so I thought. It's been stressful and took up a lot of time that was take n from my family and work. I was looking forward to resting and just giving it to the others now to do.

But, I've been thinking, I"m not done. There are a lot of things I can do (though hopefully they'll take less time). So follow me below the fold to see what I've come up with AND AM DOING and perhaps add your own ideas.

There are all the substantial reasons. The fact that he supports my family's rights. His understanding that we must fix health care system and stop global warming, and has good proposals to do so. His legislative experience that is longer and more substantial than Hillary Clinton's, and Kennedy's, and Clinton's, and Carter's, and Bush II's, and many others before they were president. His judgment in opposing the war when it was not popular to do so. On these and many other issues he has shown experience, judgment andgood ideas.

The polls show Obama virtually tied now with Clinton in California.

He has swept the California Newspapers' endorsements

He has gotten key endorsements in the state.

It all seems like the momentum is his, he could tie.

But I think my evidence says he will win. My evidence? Three elderly women in San Francisco.

I've had a strange couple weeks as politics go recently. I've mildly supported Obama the last few months, but over the last month have come to give more of my time and money to his campaign. Yesterday I became a precinct captain for the campaign. As such, his name has come up more in my conversations with friends and family, my Mormon friends and family to be specific. I'd like to recount a couple of these stories. This is not so much to praise Obama (though of course I would :), as much as it is to illustrate how badly Bush has hurt the Republican party and the conservative cause.

That's what my 5-year-old daughter, an African-American, said to me this weekend.

It hurt the the core of my heart. I, as the "whitest-man-in-America," and my partner work hard to raise our daughter with a sense of pride in her heritage, a love for herself and understanding of what it means to be "black" in this country and still remain hopeful.

We thought we were succeeding.

(quick caveat: I am a mild supporter of Obama.. given a bit of money, have his magnet on our refrigerator, but this diary is more about race than it is another candidate diary)

That's what I'm saving every year by making one simple change in my lifestyle.

Earlier this year my family made a pledge, cut our carbon emissions by 50% in 5 years. We are going to shoot for 80%. This year we made a lot of progress. All light bulbs in the house now are CFs, we insulated our home ala Mem in Somerville, our double-paned laminated windows are going in this week, we now carpool (there is no bus to her school) our daughter to school 3 days a week (working towards 5), I bought a grocery cartand walk to  do most grocery shopping.

We still have that hybrid to buy (I really really want the aptera), solar panels to install, etc. Those will have to wait.

But this month I made a simple change that is actually going to have a large impact in comparison to other changes I could have made.

For our family of four...

In 2006, the grocery bill was about 15% of our take home income.

In 2006, our health insurance bill was about 15% of our take home income.

In 2006, our gas and electric bill was about 3% of our take home income.

In 2006, our auto gas bill was about 2.4% of our take home income.

Those four things make up about 35% of our take home income.

2007?

WHEN WILL IT STOP!?!

I've written about this every hear now for three years.

In 2005 our health insurance (for two adults and a child) went up 11.3% and I wrote a diary "Health Care is Killing Us"

In 2006 our health insurance went up 21% and I wrote a diary "It can't go on. It must stop. Health care is making us sick"

So yesterday, 2007, I get the news, our insurance premium is now up 18% to 1033 a month.

Thanksgiving means a lot to me. A lot of that meaning comes from sitting at the feet of my Native American grandmother, who not only loved the holiday, but worshiped it.

This year Meteor Blades posted a Thanksgiving diary (Happy Birthday!) as he does every year. It is an excellent diary, and frankly, I don't disagree with it. And I love reading his views and perspective. My perspective might be somewhat different, my opinions a bit different, but in the end, I agree.

Please indulge my repost.

I also write because a recent book  claims that they didn't eat turkey in 1620something. But who cares really if they did or not. They didn't have fireworks on 7/4/1776 and St. Nick doesn't live on the North Pole either.  Turkey has become part of the tradition. It has been for a couple centuries. Whether or not they  at that or whatever food that one day, well, it's really not that important

Thanksgiving means a lot to our family and here is why.

Sorry for the short diary. I thought this was interesting considering my conservative libertarian-leaning brother left the Republican Party 3 years ago for similar reasons, and I can't find it in search or tags:

John Cole, prominent Republican blogger for Pajamas Media has registered as a Democrat.

It's been a long time in coming, but he's finally left the Republican party and has become Democrat. As he says... (below the fold)

There are two huge train engines headed down converging tracks towards catastrophic collision.

The first engine, Global warming, is much worse than even our earlier worst case scenarios suggested . The data proves it and the Earth is giving us anecdotal tastes of the droughts, fires, hurricanes and floods  we are in for.

The second engine, war, is on the track.