I almost don't even know what to say about this. Chaplain Drollinger, of Capitol Ministries, holds Bible study meetings for lawmakers in Sacramento at the Capitol. Recently, however, he has taken it upon himself to denounce another fellowship group, insisting that their interfaith composition is "disgusting" to God. I have to admit overwhelming curiosity as to Drollinger's opinion on the same-sex marriage decision expected in the coming weeks. If he is this upset over other worshiping Christians, I can only imagine the dim view he takes of allowing the queer community any social dignity. To their credit, lawmakers from both...

The Serbian province of Kosovo, or the Republic of Kosova as the majority Albanian Kosovar population calls it, declared independence last Sunday, February 17th. The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is moving out, and a European Union force is preparing to move in to help with the political transition. On Thursday, February 21st, the US Embassy, as well as the embassies of other countries supporting the declaration of independence, suffered attacks in the Serbian capital city of Belgrade. On the UN Security Council, Russia and China are supporting Serbia's claim that Kosovo's declaration violates international law. Meanwhile, the UN force...

As unimaginable as it may have been a year ago, we are now presented with a new front runner in the democratic primary race -- a once in a generation candidate, Barack Obama. His novelty as a candidate brings much to the imagination. A blank slate, he is like a fun coloring game to a 3-year old. You can throw anything at him and it will be good. He transcends race, when he gains support amongst southern white voters. Yet he also does not transcend race, when at least 80% of african-americans persistently vote for him. He is to the...

This week GSPP first year MPP students had the opportunity to prove their research chops in the rite of passage called the "48 hour project," wherein we had between 0930 Tuesday and 0930 Thursday to write a policy memo on a randomly selected topic. I had the great luck of getting the policy issue of Berkeley's traffic circles, on which almost no person in Berkeley is lukewarm. Everyone is fired up about these European invaders to our conventional grid-pattern streets and intersections. I had the continued great luck of getting on the phone the Berkeley mayor's chief of staff, the...

By S. Moore with Julia Caplan and Lena Hoffman. There are many things that you can do with a Master of Public Policy degree, such as starting your own rock band! Here are some of the best possible econometric band names that we could derive. The Corner Solutions (i.e. will not enter the workforce for any price) The Free Riders The Regressions Loss Function Errors Normally Distributed or E.N.D. -- a la 80's band O.M.D. The Marginal Curves (a girl band) The Homoskedastics (a queer band) The Heteroskedastics (a hair band) The CoVariants Hot solo nightclub / economist soul singer...

The California Supreme Court is set to make a landmark ruling on same-sex marriage rights, within 90 days after a hearing scheduled March 4 in San Francisco. The court will convene for 3 hours to hear arguments from both sides of the issue. At stake is an October 2006 state court ruling affirming California's law barring same-sex marriages. The issue came to a head after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's controversial 2004 decision to ignore the marriage law and grant marriage licenses to thousands of same-sex couples. With the timing of the hearing, such as it is during a contentious...

Isaac Chotiner of The New Republic claims that Obama has not made a significant effort to capture the sub-sub-group voters. In the California primary on February 5th, Hillary Clinton won by a 3-1 margin in the Asian American vote. More publicized was her victory of the Latino vote. Chotiner offers up various reasons for Obama's inability to get more Asian American support: the Clinton's popularity in the '90's, California's battles over affirmative action, and immigrants' desire for stability over "change." The most interesting reason to me was that in his effort to become a post-racial candidate, Obama uses dichotomous language...

Tuesday’s primary marked the beginning of the end for some Republican candidates and the clearest indication yet that the Democrats will have to wait for some time to inaugurate their candidate. I stuck with CNN for all my coverage since they’re the only major network that broadcasts on the internet (no TV for me). CNN’s coverage of the election was consistent with what you’d expect based on their history. For the Republicans, the network anchors appeared shocked when Mike Huckabee won delegates in Southern States even though his personality and policies align closely in that region. It’s disappointing that the...

...or, how I suffered at the hands of the ambiguous authority behind a flashing LED display and decided to speak truth to power (or AC Transit)... Last night I had a chance to participate in a monthly ritual that has been ongoing since the inception of the Class Pass program in 1999: the Class Pass Advisory Committee. Over the course of two hours representatives of the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly, students such as myself who had pressing questions, and UC administrative officials got to ask representatives of AC Transit questions about campus bus service. Well, it wasn't all about putting...