Ban Inter-Anything Marriage

It's sad to see that the Mormons, a religious group that has been discriminated against, that has had their own marriage practices shunned and criminalized, in violation of the First Amendment, is a driving force in not only legalizing discrimination in California, but mandating it. California's Proposition 8 is, simply put, shameful. What is wrong with this people? How insecure in themselves are they that they can possibly be threatened by people they don't even know getting married?

But, hey, if we want to enshrine discrimination, let's go for it! Here's my draft of a California proposition to accomplish this:

This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.

This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution by replacing a section thereof; therefore, revised provisions are printed in italic type to indicate that they are replacements.

SECTION 1. Title This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Real Marriage Protection Act."

SECTION 2. Section 7.5 of Article I of the California Constitution, is amended to read:

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between two people, wherein one person is a man and one person is a woman, and wherein both people share the same age, color, creed, disabilities, education, ethnicity, eye color, hair color, race, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and military/veteran status, is valid or recognized in California.

I know that it might be difficult to abide by these restrictions, and many existing marriages might suddenly be invalid, but it's the price we have to pay if we want to protect bigotry.

The Time of the Campaign

Estimates on the cost of the just-concluded presidential campaign are running around $1 Billion. That's certainly a lot of money, but, to put it in perspective -- it's only 3 days in Iraq.

A friend of mine recently lamented what she called a bigger travesty -- the consumption of time. I have to say that I disagree. Sure, there was plenty of time wasted, particularly the moments when the Republicans tried to call Obama a terrorist or a socialist, or when Sarah Palin went around telling people that only Republicans love our country.

But, as Barack said so eloquently on Tuesday:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.

So, too, is it the case that the few moments that we each spent voting were not the election. They say the Presidency is a bully pulpit, but Barack Obama has been using the bully pulpit of the campaign trail for a year. His victory -- our victory -- would not have happened without his leadership over that time. By educating people, by advancing his agenda, by helping people understand that we could talk about hope rather than fear, and by helping people learn why our country deserved a leader like him, he has already changed the country for the better -- and it is that changed country which elected him.

That change couldn't have happened without a lot of time -- time that wasn't wasted.

Vote Against All Initiatives

Just a short little political message. I generally vote against all initiatives and propositions. The spirit of our government is rooted in compromise. We don't all agree, but by discussing our disagreements and reaching a compromise that we can all live with, we move forward in the best way for everyone. Voter initiatives fly in the face of that compromise. It's winner take all -- and almost every initiative takes advantage of that, pushing the limits of what's acceptable and distorting the truth to imply that the solution proposed is the only possible solution to the problem.

I'd love to see a split system, in which every initiative gets two votes: "I agree with the problem" and "I agree with the solution." I think we'd find that far more people would vote for the first statement than the second -- and maybe then we voters would have the opportunity to direct our legislatures without tying their hands with poorly designed laws. After all, we elect them to solve complex problems for us.

This year, I might actually vote for an initiative or two. For example, I'll probably vote for I-1000 ("Death with Dignity"), which is an example of a law that could never pass the legislature -- they're all too scared that the "moral minority" will campaign against them if they support it, so it's up to us voters. I certainly hope that I never have to avail myself of I-1000's provisions, but I know that just the fact that it's available could be of great comfort to some people. I'll look at the rest of the initiatives, but my default vote is always No.

I'm Roy Leban and I approved this message.

Listening to ... the Homeless

One of the albums I've been listening to in the car lately is Give Us Your Poor from Appleseed Recordings, a fundraising CD of music featuring Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, Bon Von Jovi, Natalie Merchant, Bonnie Raitt, plus actors Tim Robbins and Danny Glover and many others. I would enjoy this album even if it were just a regular album, but here the proceeds benefit the homeless.

It's great music, including some from artists I would not normally choose to listen to. There are a couple of spoken pieces in addition to the music, but they fit in very well and are informative. I'm glad I've heard them and I don't skip over them while playing the whole CD (if I had created the CD, though, I would not have made one of the spoken pieces the very first track).

It's Not McCain's Turn

I don't get what it is about politicians where they think that it's "their turn" to be President. McCain's been around long enough, he's been a senior member of the US Senate, he's chaired committees, he's brought home pork barrel spending to Arizona, and now he thinks it's his turn to be President.

Let's compare McCain with Elizabeth Dole. Now, I happen to completely disagree with Senator Dole's politics, but she is far more qualified than McCain to be President. In addition to being a senator, she served in the Executive Branch, including as Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Labor under George Bush. She was president of the American Red Cross for 8 years. And, she's a former Presidential candidate herself. I'd take Elizabeth Dole on temperament any day over John McCain. But McCain didn't even consider Dole for the VP slot. Instead, he picked Sarah Palin, who is even more unqualified than he is.

Dole isn't the only potential candidate either. The Republicans had many candidates they could have picked from who are far more qualified than McCain, but I guess it's not their turn. It's McCain's.

The problem isn't unique to this year or the Republican party. Look at John Kerry in 2004, Bob Dole in 1996, George Bush in 1988 (oops, he actually won), and Walter Mondale in 1984. I'll admit that I actually liked Walter Mondale and I certainly voted for Kerry over Bush. But, in each case, the parties had better candidates they could have put forth, but it was as if the party leadership had anointed somebody instead.

I just hope the American people do the right thing this time around, and tell John McCain that it's not his turn.

Puzzazz is Live

At 12:01 Pacific Time, Puzzazz, a new puzzle web site went live on the internet. But there aren't many users yet. I guess I have to tell the world first. So, here goes.

I've wanted to create Puzzazz, which is a portmanteau word meaning Puzzles with Pizzazz, for a long time. For those who don't know, I'm a professional puzzle constructor and game designer (in my spare time). I've had puzzles published all over the place, including a recent book, and I'm one of the co-founders of the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt. As a game designer, I have a few games that have been well received, but I'm still waiting for one to get picked up by a publisher.

My vision for Puzzazz is a quick diversion. I don't want you to spend hours on my site. I want you to spend a few minutes every day. I want to make you smile. I want Puzzazz to become a part of your life. To that end, Puzzazz tracks your solve rate and your accuracy rate (which takes guesses into account). You can invite your friends and you'll get to compare how well they're doing to how well you're doing. If you use Twitter, you can set your preferences to auto-tweet for you whenever you solve a puzzle. Hopefully, all your Twitter followers will want to join Puzzazz too.

Puzzazz is mostly word puzzles and they'll get harder from Monday through Saturday. The Sunday puzzle will be a larger puzzle, with about the difficulty of a mid-week puzzle in a larger size, and they'll be a variety -- from word puzzles to sudoku to logic puzzles. If this progression sounds familiar, it's not accidental.

I'm interested in feedback on all aspects of Puzzazz, but mostly on the difficulty level of puzzles. As any puzzle constructor knows, gauging difficulty is one of the hardest things in creating puzzles. I've got it down for lots of puzzle types, but the puzzles on Puzzazz are different, so feedback from you will help me calibrate.

So, check out Puzzazz. And invite your friends.

P.S. If you want to read about the creation of Puzzazz, read this post on my thisDev blog.

You Are How You Manage

You know the slogan "You are what you eat"? Well, I think a lot of who you are is how you manage other people. There are lots of different styles, but my own encourages dissent. I don't want to foster competition, but I think that without dissent, without disagreement, you don't get the best solutions. I want the people who work for me to be better than me, at least at something. A few cases in point:

One time, I had an awesome tester working for me, one of the best testers I've ever worked with. A lot of people disliked him because he was a thorn in their side. But I loved him and encouraged him. When I really wanted to know the state of the world, I could ask him and he would give it to me straight. He made my job of managing the team easier. Years later, I happened to be called in as the "fix it guy" on a large project. He happened to be one of the testers on the project. He wasn't the test manager or even the lead, but he was the first guy I talked to and, in 10 minutes, I got a better lay of the land than I could have gotten in an entire day worth of interviewing other people. He made my job easier.

I've also managed a number of tech writers over the years, but I'm thinking of one particular guy who was a former writer. Now, I'm not a bad writer (one of my original majors in college was English, and I'm married to a former English teacher). But, I would regularly run important things I've written by this guy and he would almost always make it better. I made it clear that I didn't want him to pull punches and he didn't. I remember one occasion when I took him a two-page memo I'd written and the post-edit version turned out to be one paragraph. He made me a better communicator.

I once asked a guy who worked for me for an idea to present at an upcoming brainstorming session to make a particular decision. He had one suggestion that I thought was stupid, and I told him so. He argued with me, told me why it was a good idea. I stood my ground. At the brainstorming session, I presented his idea anway. After all, he was very confident that he was right. I also presented some of my own ideas. His idea won and, in the end, deservedly so. He did get the credit, but he made me look good.

In all these cases, and many others, if I hadn't encouraged dissent, I wouldn't have gotten the benefits. For me, this really works, though I'll admit that when I get new employees, they don't always believe me at first. It take some time. It doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me.

But I sure like it when I read a quote like this from Barack Obama on why he picked Joe Biden as his running mate:

"... if I'm in the room making the kinds of tough decisions that the next president's gonna have to make, both on domestic policy and on international policy, then I want the counsel and advice of somebody who's not gonna agree with me a 100 percent of [the] time. In fact, somebody who's independent enough that can push back and give me different perspectives and make sure that I'm catching any blind spots that I have. And Joe Biden doesn't bite his tongue."