Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 5 August 2010

Good morning, everybody. Sandra Bullock is Hollywood\’s highest-paid actress and Lily Allen is having a baby. Now, your morning constitutional:

California \”has no interest in differentiating between same-sex and opposite-sex unions,\” ruled U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, striking down California\’s state ban on same-sex marriage. According to Walker, the ban violated the federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection and of due process. The complete 138-page opinion can be found here.

FiveThirtyEight: Kennedy, Olsen and the right side of history.

Some delightful initial responses to Walker\’s ruling.

The House will return to work next week to vote on the state aid package that passed the Senate this week.

Transocean, the owner of the oil rig in the Gulf that exploded and leaked for months, has had safety issues at three other wells.

Pakistan, already suffering from its worst flooding in decades, is getting more intense rain, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is urging Americans to give to relief efforts.

Germany looks at tightening its public drinking rules.

Google and Verizon are discussing an agreement which would allow Verizon to speed up content from certain web sites that are willing to pay for the privilege.

Is 2010 an anti-incumbent election year? Not really.

The Senate will take up extensions to the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire this year, in September. The question will be whether all the tax cuts will be extended, or just for those making under $200,000 a year.

Google Wave is history.

\”From an environmental and food policy standpoint, it\’s probably for the best that HFCS is going down. But the mechanism by which this battle is being won is a scary one.\”

Finally, Lawrence Fishburne is not too happy that his daughter is breaking into the \”adult\” film business.