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.

Full text here.

And save the day he did. You can find the transcripts, analysis, and data anywhere on the Internet, but in a span of about 40 minutes, Jobs was able to put the issue in context, show that it is an issue that all cell phones have, prove that Apple know what it is doing when it comes to design, and take steps to make sure that all customers are happy, including offering full refunds.

How well did Jobs do? By the end of his presentation, Apple’s stock, which had been up and down for the past week, was up over 1 percent.

Now I know that this post can be construed as another Apple fan boy gushing about a company that he thinks can do nowrong. While that may be partially the case, I think that Jobs framed my overall feelings about Apple when he said this at today’s press conference (as quoted on Endgadget):

In ending, I’d like to talk about how we make decisions. We love our users, we love them. We try to surprise and delight them… and we work our asses off. We have a lot of products that are pretty great for them, Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads… So we love our users. We also connect users with great apps and developers, and great content through iTunes, and really bring content creation and our users together. We love our users so much that we built 300 Apple retails stores for them to give them the best buying experience in the world… with Genius bars, and seminars. We had 60m people through our doors last quarter.

We do this because we love our users, and if we screw up, we pick ourselves up and we try harder. And when we succeed, they reward us by staying our users. We take this really personally. Maybe we should have a wall of PR people keeping us away from this stuff, but we don’t, we take it really personally. So we’ve worked the last 22 days on this trying to solve the problem. And we think we’ve gotten to the heart of the problem.

And that’s why I love Apple.

P.S. — To all the tech bloggers and pundits out there who are saying Apple doesn’t have any earned trust: Get over the fact that you weren’t invited to the press conference and realize that Jobs was right when he pointed out that you need a juicy (artificially inflated) story to get page hits.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

This was widely viewed a slap at Adobe, which had already announced a compiler that would allow developers to port Flash-based apps so they can run natively on the iPhone. Apple has been in an ongoing feud with Adobe regarding Flash on the iPhone: Apple has said no, Adobe keeps poking at Apple, saying that they are denying users the “full” experience of the Web.

The Inter-Webs have been consumed by a firestorm of bloggers sounding off on what is now open warfare between Apple and Adobe. A Flash platform evangelist who works for Adobe posted a virulently anti-Apple blog post, ending with the now infamous statement: “Go screw yourself Apple.” Steve Jobs has even gotten into it, citing a post by John Gruber on Daring Fireball as to why Apple is banning third-party compilers.

I am not a programmer, but I am an intense user of the Internet. To put it mildly, I am also an Apple fan-boy. However, I like to think that I have the capacity to be objective, at least as much as any human can be. For what it’s worth, in this debate I find myself siding with Apple. The reason for that has a lot to do with what is outlined in a post on MobileCrunch.

In addition, it comes down to the fact that Apple has an interest in controlling the user experience on the iPhone. One way in which to do that has been the App Store. However, this doesn’t always guarantee that iPhone apps will work they way they are supposed to. By setting guidelines for what programming language can be used, Apple is insuring quality while also increasing the likelihood of compatibility with the new and existing APIs in the iPhone OS, such as multi-tasking.

Adobe, which likes to paint itself as a victim, is trying to hold on to keep Flash at the forefront of the Web, despite the fact that it is a buggy, resource-hogging platform. Adobe has admitted that the exclusion of Flash from the iPhone and the upcoming HTML5 standard, which will enable a lot of Flash capabilities via a truly open standard not controlled by a single corporation, have the potential to hurt its business. In fact, there are accusations that Adobe has gone as far as to try to sabotage the HTML5 standard currently being hashed out by the W3C.

The next great battleground for the Internet and consumers will be mobile devices. This has been proven in another feud involving Apple and Google. Everyone is trying to stake their claim early. Ultimately, Adobe knows that it needs Apple, which is why it cannot just let the iPhone go.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This is one time when you can be both the river and the bridge. In fact, I strongly suggest that you make every effort to be both the river and the bridge. I’ll leave it up to you to interpret how this metaphor applies to your life, but here’s a clue to get you started. Be a force of nature that flows vigorously along even as you also provide a refuge for those who want to be close to your energy but are not yet ready to be inside it and flow along with it.

From Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter.

Does anyone actually think that the idea of running a state, or any government, like a business is a good one?

Original article: Whitman denies crowning herself governor, SFGate.com.

Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar’s number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.

Originally seen on Kenneth in the (212).

A Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse and in general animal herding. The Judas goat is trained to associate with sheep or cattle, leading them to a specific destination. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter, while its own life is spared. Judas goats are also used to lead other animals to specific pens and on to trucks.

In retrospect, anything with “Judas” in its name is most likely going to be involved in some bad sh*t.