Friday morning open thread

Joe arrived in Paris early this morning for a sneaky birthday getaway that he planned for his boyfriend Carlos. They'll be there till Monday, and plan on having dinner with Chris (in Paris) and his wife Joelle, and the two cats Nasdaq and Sushi, Saturday night.

In the meantime, the big news last night was the passage of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise by Senate Armed Services Committee (the vote was along party lines, except for Jim Webb (D-VA) who sided with the bigots, and Susan Colins (R-ME) who sided with the good guys. The amendment was also successfully added to the House Defense authorization bill. We posted a number of videos of the speeches in the House here and here on AMERICAblog Gay. And you can watch the Republican bigots getting all upset about it here. It's important to remember that the legislation does not repeal DADT. Rather it provides for the future repeal, at an undetermined time, only if the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs certify a number of things. If that never happens, the law is never repealed.