The final witness in a trial challenging Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage and adoption, an economist who has authored 60 highly dubious gay parenting "studies," testified that he believes "unrepentant" homosexuals will suffer "eternal damnation" in the fires of hell - a belief, said one straight-faced state official, that's had “no impact on his research." Another star witness was a sociologist whose research shows children raised in same-sex families are  "disadvantaged," though under questioning he conceded nobody really knows and actually those kids could be just fine. So: the feeble, fading days of the culture wars. Closing arguments today.

Just in time for today's opening of the annual conservative confab known as CPAC - grisly details and video in More - Media Matters has launched Mythopedia, a "dictionary of conservative lies" featuring common right-wing misinformation, the truth and its sources, and helpful rebuttals. Eminently useful the next time your water-cooler neighbor brings up those beloved death panels.

Update: On CPAC's first day, Mitch McConnell gave Tom Coburn a gun as a lifetime award from the NRA. Because nothing says American values like guns on stage at large public gatherings.

The first medical marijuana ads have appeared, even as the legal status of pot evolves - medical use allowed in 20 states, though with some murky standoffs with federal law, and recreational use in Colorado and Washington - and battles over advertising heat up. Two magazines have sued Colorado for ad strictures modelled on alcohol that prohibit viewing by minors, arguing they violate the First Amendment. The first ads, airing late at night in New Jersey and Massachusetts, feature a sketchy street guy hustling questionable sushi. They are very weird.