Happy Samhain!

A year of beauty. A year of plenty.
A year of planting. A year of harvest.
A year of forests. A year of healing.
A year of vision. A year of passion.
A year of rebirth.

This year may we renew the earth.
This year may we renew the earth.

Let it begin with each step we take.
And let it begin with each change we make.
And let it begin with each chain we break.
And let it begin every time we awake.

--Chant from the Reclaiming Samhain Celebration

The great thing about blogs

is that you get to read intelligent stuff like this. It's long, and tough to pull stuff from - it's historical and current and loaded with smackdowns of RWBS. Just to read it. (hat tip to Atrios)

Update: Summary courtesy of tbogg:

"Terry at Nitpicker looks deep within the soul of Victor Davis Girded Loins Hanson and finds VDGLH at war with himself...and losing."

Lee Corso is a penis

er, Florida 14, Georgia 10.

Saw that phrase in the background during College Gameday, shortly before Corso (and Herbstreit) picked Georgia to win today. Oops.

Today Florida almost looked like a real team. Their offense showed up (for the first half anyway), and their defense did the job the whole game. Except for one bad punt (though Wilbur made up for it with a 20 yard run on a fake), special teams performed well. They actually returned punts for positive yards this game.

On the first day of Fitzmas my true love gave to me

Err, no...



Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case.

One look at this map

and it's no wonder why our state (Florida) and our government is fucked up. Time to do something about it. Here's a website with petitions that will allow us to do what our representatives are too craven to do - make districts that make sense.

So are they gonna swift boat Miers?

That was my first impression when I read this post from Josh Marshall. Note the players involved.

(October 21, 2005 -- 05:13 PM EDT // link)

Earlier today, World Net Daily reported what it called a big development in the Miers story. That development involved a guy named Larry Littwin, a fellow who's been under a gag order and prevented from talking about his role in a scandal that took place on Harriet Miers' watch at the Texas State Lottery Commission.

Littwin wanted to investigate GTECH. And for that Miers allegedly fired him. For more detail on what this scandal was all about see this piece by James Ridgeway in the Village Voice.

According to WND, the Senate Judiciary Committee successfully pressured GTECH, the Rhode Island company which ran the state lottery.

The sourcing on the original story seem a little opaque to me. So I spoke to sources up on the Hill who confirmed that this is in fact true, that GTECH has agreed to allow Littwin to testify.

More on this soon.

Late Update: The original story at WND was written by Jerome Corsi, co-author of last year's notorious Swift Boat book, Unfit for Command. Like I said, I wanted to verify myself.

-- Josh Marshall

Oh, the irony

Thanks to Paula Jones and the right-wing attack on Clinton, this became possible.

Plame plans to sue White House officials

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame are preparing to file a civil suit against Bush administration officials.

Plame was the covert CIA agent allegedly unmasked by the White House. Now she is preparing to file a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration officials who may have disclosed her identity and scuttled her career, Salon.com reported Thursday.

"There is no question that her privacy has been invaded. She was almost by definition the ultimate private person," said the couple's attorney, Christopher Wolf.

Wolf said the couple would make a final decision on filing a lawsuit after special prosecutor Patick Fitzgerald has completed his investigation, Salon said.

If they do sue, Wilson and Plame could be the first litigants to depose senior White House officials since Paula Jones, an employee of the state of Arkansas, sued President Bill Clinton.

Fitzgerald must decide whether or not to return indictments by Oct. 28, the day the grand jury investigating the leak of Plame's name to the press is scheduled to be dismissed. Democrats in Congress have requested a report from Fitzgerald on his findings but legal observers say he is under no obligation to provide one if he decides that no crimes were committed.

(hat tip to John in DC

Love those pagans

Courtesy of DU

A Wiccan dies and is standing outside St. Peter's Pearly Gates. St. Peter looks into the book of life and he says, "Well I'm sorry. You're not listed. You'll have to go to hell I'm afraid." The Wiccan says, "Well that sucks, jolly good though." He steps into the elevator and descends downward.

He steps out of the elevator and out onto a warm beach. The wind is softly blowing the sand around him keeping him just cool enough to enjoy the weather. He looks out and sees people swimming in an ocean oblivious to life's problems.

Satan walks up to him hands him a drink and says, "Hey buddy, welcome." The Wiccan looks at the drink and Satan reads his mind, "Here you can drink as much as you want and you won't be feeling the effects in the morning."

The Wiccan and Satan continue to talk and Satan is a lovely man. The Wiccan can't believe all of the hype he's heard.

All of a sudden lightening cracks and the sky opens up. The Wiccan looks up in shock. Through the hole he sees a man falling. He's on fire and screaming.

He plunges toward the earth and at the last second the earth swallows him whole with a belch of fire and brimstone.

The Wiccan is stunned, "What the hell was that?" He asks Satan.

Satan looks at the Wiccan and says, "Christians. They wouldn't have it any other way."

BINGO!

Make Your Own Fitzmas Bingo Card

Explain to me why they made her a cylon?

Grace Park (from Battlestar Galactica) in character:


And out:


Here's a link to more of Grace.

I did not know this about Fitzgerald

Patrick Fitzgerald bio

The 1993 WTC attack was prosecuted by... Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was then assigned to prosecute, yes, the Al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.

Fitzgerald was building a case against Osama Bin Laden five years before 9-11.

Them's a lot of talking points

The right wing wurlitzer never sleeps, and keeps throwing out the same old shit, no matter that it's been debunked. Think Progress provides a good rundown of the Right-Wing Myths About The Leak Investigation. There's a bunch...go there.

Great pics

Extreme Instability

Krugman sums it up nicely

Courtesy of not the New York Times:

...

Right now, with the Bush administration in meltdown on multiple issues, we're hearing a lot about President Bush's personal failings. But what happened to the commanding figure of yore, the heroic leader in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that the commanding figure never existed: Mr. Bush is the same man he always was. All the character flaws that are now fodder for late-night humor were fully visible, for those willing to see them, during the 2000 campaign.

...

I feel dumb

for not coming up with this idea for a blog:

Americans are Dumb

The GOP has become the party of treason.

Yep, that quote pretty much sums it up.

Sounds like a great idea

Of course that means it will never happen. Drug companies have too much control, too much money, and too much power. All the same, if they were all de-chartered (is that a word?), I would be fine with it. Everyone knows that drug companies have no interest whatsoever in seeing people cured of their disease - that would mean no more profits for them, and they can't have that.

From maxspeak:

THE SHORTER DEAN BAKER

I urge everyone to read Dean's longish post below, under my weekend artwork. To that end, let me provide a quick-and-dirty version:

For the relatively modest cost of about $25 billion annually, the U.S. Gov could finance the same volume of drug research currently done under the aegis of private companies, and by virtue of that expenditure, be able to place all discoveries in the public domain, thereby reducing the price of drugs for consumers to zilch. All the discussion about the necessity of patents (with prohibitively high prices and short supply) being essential incentives for research is a giant pile of avian doo-doo.

I would add that given such a new regime, there would be no downside to rescinding all existing patents and placing all drug formulae in the public domain as well. Go ahead, call me a communist and sacrifice yourself on the altar of Pfizer.

The alternative is George Bush preemptively blaming liberals for over-regulation of drug companies and babbling about martial law to deal with an emergency pandemic. And we know how good the Bushists are dealing with emergencies.
Posted by max at 02:06 PM Comment (1) | Trackback (0) Other blogs commenting on this post

Two more calendar additions

LSU 21, Florida 17

Is it possible for a team to get worse as the season goes on? Offensively, Florida is offensive. The phrase "totally inept" comes to mind, as does "can we have Zauenbrecher back?"

I understand that it is a new system, with a learning curve, but WTF? Even with five turnovers handed to them by the defense (congratulation on another fine performance from them), they still could manage only 17 points?

Chris Leak has regressed to the point of not knowing how to be a QB (or the QB position in Meyer's offense is so different that he's essentially starting over). He is obviously not adapting well, and it's up to Meyer to make adjustments so Leak doesn't have to. Like Spurrier, Meyer is reluctant to make changes (which used to drive me nuts with Spurrier). Unlike Spurrier, he doesn't have a system that puts up points anyway. And Leak is paying a heavy price. Oh, and he needs to find another receiver. When you only throw to one guy (Dallas Baker), the defense pays attention to that guy. Pick someone else, work with him in practice, and have two go-to receivers.

Once again, kudos to Wilbur and the punt coverage team, and once again, shame on the punt return team. How can one group get it, and the other be completely oblivious?

What this 13 year veteran said

This Stinks
Of course, now there are questions about the authenticity of the letter found in Iraq.

Ken Katzman, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service -- the in-house think-tank of the U.S. Congress -- said the letter contained elements that raised doubts about its authenticity.

"The purported letter has Zawahri admitting to certain things that it's not realistic for him to admit, because he would know there's a potential this letter might be intercepted," Katzman said.

He said they included a request for money from Zarqawi, an admission that Pakistan's army is hunting for al Qaeda and how the arrest of a top operative affected the network.

Look, you can't help but question these guys. Their intelligence is too often either wrong or made up. Are those words too harsh for you? Then how about "inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading" as Colin Powell put it?

On top of that, it just seemed too well-timed to go along with Bush's recent terror speech. There's a lot of that going around, though.

In the end, I can't say whether or not the document is real or not, but neither can any of the conservative bloggers who will trumpet this as an excuse to "stay the course." As a 13-year veteran of the armed forces, though, I find it repulsive that veterans like myself are put in the position where we're forced to decide whether our commander-in-chief is lying or al Qaeda is--and it's actually a hard decision!

However, what I find even more disgusting is this administration's use of the military as a wing of its party's propaganda machine. No, I'm not talking about the embarrassing bit of theater this morning (and, trust me, I know exactly how those things are put together), I'm talking about this web site that CentCom runs. Here's a snippet.

...

Update: As I said, I know how b.s. photo-ops are run in the military and, yeah, this sounds about right. (Link via Atrios.) Trust me, anyone who's ever even considered voting for a Democrat would be kept miles away from that little set-up. In fact, I was also ordered to stay away from Rush Limbaugh when he made his drive-by lying trip to Afghanistan. I was told by a Major that I couldn't disagree with the Commander-in-Chief on air. I said that the regs say nothing of the sort, but, anyway, I was going to disagree with Limbaugh if given the opportunity, not the president. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to stay away. Limbaugh, she said, didn't want to deal with that on this trip. Like Bush, he's not only scared to serve, but scared of the honest opinions of those who do.

Go there for the links. Stay for awhile and poke around.

You know this is true

Thanks to KO for putting it out there...

The Nexus of Politics and Terror (Keith Olbermann)

Secaucus - Last Thursday on Countdown, I referred to the latest terror threat - the reported bomb plot against the New York City subway system - in terms of its timing. President Bush’s speech about the war on terror had come earlier the same day, as had the breaking news of the possible indictment of Karl Rove in the CIA leak investigation.

I suggested that in the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences - a political downturn for the administration, followed by a “terror event” - a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning.

We figured we’d better put that list of coincidences on the public record. We did so this evening on the television program, with ten of these examples. The other three are listed at the end of the main list, out of chronological order. The contraction was made purely for the sake of television timing considerations, and permitted us to get the live reaction of the former Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Asa Hutchinson.

We bring you these coincidences, reminding you, and ourselves here, that perhaps the simplest piece of wisdom in the world is called “the logical fallacy.” Just because Event “A” occurs, and then Event “B” occurs, that does not automatically mean that Event “A” caused Event “B.”

But one set of comments from an informed observer seems particularly relevant as we examine these coincidences.

On May 10th of this year, after his resignation, former Secretary of Homeland Security Ridge looked back on the terror alert level changes, issued on his watch.

Mr. Ridge said: “More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert)… there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said ‘for that?’”

Please, judge for yourself.

Go there for the list of 13 "coincidences" - it's simply amazing.

What they said

From The Poor Man Institute for Freedom and Democracy and a Pony - That’s what I’m talking about

And now I'm...free fallin'

Bush in Freefall

On edit: The Editors are right, more satisfying than it should be.

You make the choice

The thought of this almost made me throw up, so I decided to put up our side, just to see who's full of crap.




And since the left has been pretty much shut out of radio and pundit positions, I'll throw in these for good measure. Pretty sweet calendar if you ask me.

Yes, once again I'm stealing

but John in DC at americablog has a great post on how the religious right wants to recreate Germany circa 1935.

Religious right calls on US government to regulate the ACLU
by John in DC - 10/13/2005 04:40:00 PM

The religious right wants Congress to pass laws curtailing the activities of specific civil rights groups like the ACLU.

Time to state the obvious: The religious right is filled with Nazis. You don't like the term "Nazi?" Well too bad. One good thing I got out of the Holocaust Museum this past weekend was an amazing lesson in how quickly Hitler consolidated power his first six months in office by banning the opposition and slowly (or quickly) whittling away at the rights of Germany's citizens in an effort to create a murderous totalitarian regime.

Book burning is Nazi. Demonizing minorities is Nazi. Using the organs of the state to attack civil rights organizations is Nazi. Having the state regulate the intimate relations of its citizens is Nazi. You don't like the comparison? Too bad. Some of us have learned the lessons of history and don't plan on repeating them again. Others are so blinded by history that they refuse to dedicate themsleves to truly ensuring it never happens again.

You can't stop history from repeating itself if you think what happened in Germany is so unique and so diabolical that nothing in the future could ever merit comparison. That would mean the Nazis were an aberattion, a fluke, a one-time thing, and that no one would even need to learn the lessons of history since "obviously" those tragedies will never be repeated. It's a dangerous lesson to teach.

It's sad that many of the very groups dedicated to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive don't even understand the damage they're doing to its legacy by insisting that it could never happen again while asking us to ensure that it never does.

It's amazing that nobody understands what the ACLU stands for - the Constitution. Anyone who wants the ACLU gone is anti-American in my book (yes, that means you Bill).

Judith Miller: 3 Decades of Disinformation

Grand Moff Texan over at DailyKos has a great post on everybody's favorite "journalist" Judy Miller. Seems she's been up to her antics for a VERY long time. Read it.

Florida 35, Mississippi State 9

Well, at least there wasn't a hangover from last week's debacle, though Florida started the game slow. A good defensive showing - of course this was against a poor offense with a red-shirt freshman starting at QB.

Special teams are improving, though they still can't seem to manage much in return yards, and the kicker STILL can't seem to reach the endzone on kickoffs. That's something that has got to change, to stop giving the other team good field position all the time.

And Chris Leak has somehow forgotten how to throw passes longer than 10 yards. The few he did attempt were overthrown or wide, or intercepted. Maybe he's not adjusting well to Meyer's system, but any QB should be able to learn a new system and still be able to throw long passes accurately. That's why they're QBs.

UPDATE: Kudos to Eric Wilbur and the punt coverage team - putting two punts inside MSU's one yard line. Good job.

For receivers with volume control static

I've got an older (~15 years) Yamaha receiver with an analog volume control...and it has static when I adjust it. Here's how an audiophile suggested to clean it:

1. Unplug the unit
2. Remove cover.
3. Find the volume pot (the thing that the volume knob adjusts. Usually a cylinder the diameter of a quarter, maybe an inch in height.)
4. Spray some contact or tuner cleaner in there (available down at Radio Shack)
5. Spin the volume knob about 20 times.

WD-40 might work in a pinch, but it also might gum up the works. Be advised that volume control pots are usually found in pairs (L&R), but are sandwiched together.

Osama sends emails

Osama and me (courtesy of the General)

I did not realize how much

Earlier I pointed out that Rep Steve King (R - nutjob) was horse's ass. But I did not realize how much:

From Joe Conason (in a review of Treason):

But somehow she [ed: Ann Coulter] neglects to mention McCarthy's first moment in the national spotlight. That was his infamous 1949 campaign on behalf of Nazi S.S. officers who were convicted of war crimes for the massacre of American troops in the town of Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. On their orders, 83 American prisoners of war had been murdered by Waffen S.S. machine-gunners. The S.S. officers were sentenced to death, but McCarthy insisted that the entire case was a frame-up, with confessions obtained by horrific torture. He intervened in Senate hearings on the case and lied repeatedly during his defense of the Nazi murderers. His most spectacular claim was that the American investigators had crushed the testicles of German prisoners as an interrogation technique. McCarthy was later shown to have served as the pawn of neo-Nazi and communist provocateurs who were using the Malmedy case to whip up anti-American sentiment in postwar Germany. The main source for his false charges concerning Malmedy was a Germany lawyer named Rudolf Aschenauer, whose closest ties were to the postwar Nazi underground and to American right-wing isolationists, but who has also been identified as a communist agent. Aschenauer testified at U.S. Senate hearings in Germany that he had passed information about Malmedy to McCarthy. The S.S. officers were guilty, as the Senate report confirmed -- although most of them later got their death sentences commuted in a gesture to former Nazi officials who aided the West in the Cold War. But McCarthy had succeeded in his larger purpose, winning publicity for himself and casting a negative light on the war-crimes trials.

Turdgate Timeline

At least that's what it should be called. This isn't about Valerie Plame (the victim), it's about Karl Rove (the traitor), or about him as a surrogate for all the traitors in the White House. Larry Johnson has a great list of facts regarding this case that the wingnuttery simply wish would go away, and go to great lengths to ignore.

PLAMEGATE UPDATE

...

Here is the timeline with sources:

FACT 1--Vice President Cheney asked the CIA on 13 February 2002 to find out the truth about intel reports that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger.

FACT 2--Valerie Wilson did not hire her husband to go on the mission.

FACT 3--Ambassador Wilson arrived in Niger on 26 February and determined during the course of his visit that there was no substance to the allegation that Iraq was trying to procure uranium in Niger.

FACT 4--During early March 2002, Vice President Cheney asks his CIA briefer for an update on the Niger issue.

FACT 5--In the fall of 2002, CIA officials repeatedly warned Administration and Congressional officials not to accept as fact the claim that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium.

FACT 6--In his State of the Union Address in January 28, 2003, the President included information the CIA previously had refused to clear.

FACT 7--Instigated by Vice President Cheney, the White House pressed the the CIA for information about a claim in a NY Times column that the Vice President had instigated Wilson's trip.

FACT 8--Sometime in June 2003 the White House, with the participation of Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, conceived and executed a plan to discredit Joe Wilson.

FACT 9--Rober Novak, citing two Administration sources, identified Valerie Plame by name as a CIA officier on July 13, 2003.

FACT 10--Valerie Plame was still undercover when Bob Novak published her name.

Go there for the details.

Coincidence?

This morning's BS speech by Commander Codpiece was about one thing: terror terror terror. Since I can't stand listening to the moron (even though it was during Stephanie Miller), I muted the speech. I unmuted three times to see if he was still rambling, and here's what I heard: "terrible tragedy (in reference to NY on 9/11), terrorism, and Islam. While not a valid sample, it seems to be indicative of his entire speech (listening to clips).

Anyway, the SAME DAY as this speech, NYC has a terror threat concerning their transit system. Now, I'm at the point where they could have pictures of a dark-skinned individual setting explosives at the base of a subway car, and I would question the authenticity of the picture. So this latest "credible terror threat" just makes me wonder if ol' Rove is trying to distract from his upcoming troubles, Iraq, Delay, Frist, and all the other troubles the GOP is currently experiencing.

Cynical? You betcha.

Oh, and let's not forget Larry Franklin

What Does Larry Franklin's Plea Statement Today Mean?

Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who had direct ties into the office of the Secretary of Defense, pled guilty today to two conspiracy counts of providing classified information to AIPAC and the Israeli embassy, and a charge of retaining national security documents. In his plea bargain statement to the court today, he blamed frustration with the government for his actions, and said he did it because he thought that AIPAC could use its connections at the time with Condi's NSC to influence presumably more favorable policies towards Israel.

What? Why was someone with ties to Rummy's office giving documents to AIPAC and the Israeli embassy in the hope that they would lean on Condi? And did Franklin cut a deal with prosecutors to roll on someone higher up? Since his sentencing hearing has been put off until January 20th, it makes you wonder what he'll do for a favorable sentencing recommendation between now and then.

What Left Coaster said (yes, I'm lazy tonight)

ABC News Report: Spy Has Been Working In Cheney's Office For Three Years

...

So let me get this straight; the guy who told us that we would be at risk if John Kerry was elected has had a spy working under his nose for three years.

The White House that let a gay prostitute work the press room has now allowed a spy to work unimpeded for three years going through Cheney's office and all that goes through there.

And we were told that we had to give up some of our rights and privacy with the Patriot Act to fight terrorists, yet this same crew can't even secure the White House?

No wonder Osama is still running free and the Iranians knew everything we did about Iraq.

What mykeru said

The whole post is great, but this I wanted to highlight:

Form a more perfect Union? Nah, not with the sort of wedge-issue politics the right had to pull to make this presidency happen. Establish justice? Gitmo, baby! Patriot Act! Yeah, I got your "justice" right here. Insure domestic tranquility? Oh yes indeed, their campaign to "change the tone" is going gangbusters. Provide for the common defense? "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US"? What the fuck does that mean? Watch this drive! Promote the general welfare? Commie! Secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? Jesus fucking Christ, wait until the grandkids get the bill for all this shit.

No, the purpose of the Bush presidency, which can be termed the "any old dumbfuck the right can get in" presidency was to loot the treasury by big tax cuts for the rich and through crony capitalism, effecting a large transfer of funds from the working poor and middle class in order to finance their continued fucking over by people who define winning in life by how much money and power they have with no finish line, except death, in sight. And since extremely rich people and their corporations should be a law unto themselves, the efficacy of the federal government should, they think, be dismantled as much as possible, either through underfunding or putting rank incompetents in positions of power where they can do the most damage.

Problem is, the red state little people who whooped and hollered at the idea of striking a blow against "Big Gub'mint" found that they wanted governments to be small, just not too small to bail them out when it was their own ass in the sling.

The upshot of all this is that Bush may well be a puppet that has figured out that he's president, but only to the extent that he's also figured out that being president isn't all that fun anymore. After fucking up the presidency, the only place to go is to be appointed Pope, and he's not Catholic.

The Iraq War? Definitely no fun.

Hurricane Katrina? No fun, but still, after losing an entire country, losing a city can't be all that bad, right?

The Right Wing Agenda? Sucks to get your ass kicked by the ghost of some former president in a wheelchair, don't it?

The Miers nomination shows that we are solidly in the "I don't care anymore" phase of the Bush presidency. Filling the spot left by the death of Chief Justice Renquist was easy: Roberts was a plant, the Manchurian Judge, a guy that was a political shill all his life and was made a judge for a couple years for just this contingency. It was, quite literally as much of a no-brainer as the wingnutty plan that Bush has been following.

Miers, on the other hand, shows that left to his own judgment, Bush simply can't be bothered. In this case to fill an opening in the Supreme Court, Bush quite literally picked whatever lawyer happened to be standing near him at the time that would rubber stamp his "judicial philosophy" which is, of course, that the president, provided he's a right winger, and especially when he's George W. Bush should be able to do whatever he wants without the lowly law interfering.

...

I thought Indiana was a northern state

Apparently discrimination and stupidity knows no region...

Indiana Considers Ban On Lesbian Pregnancies
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: October 4, 2005 7:00 pm ET

(Indianapolis, Indiana) Legislation has been introduced in the Indiana legislature that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

The bill has the support of Senator Patricia Miller, the chair of the Health Finance Commission where the legislation is currently being considered.

Miller says that assisted pregnancy is totally unregulated. The bill would bar any doctor from assisting in a pregnancy through intrauterine insemination, donation of an egg, donation of an embryo, in vitro fertilization and transfer of an embryo, and sperm injection without making a number of "determinations" about the "suitability of the candidate.

Women seeking treatment would have to provide a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill.

Among the determining factors is a requirement that the women be married to a person of the opposite sex. The assessment would contain a description of the family lifestyle and automatically exclude lesbians. Women would also have to provide proof that they have participated in faith-based or church activities.

A judge could not establish parentage of a child born through assisted reproduction without the assessment certificate and a separate certificate from the physician involved.

Courts would be prohibited from granting a petition to establish parentage if the parents have been convicted of crimes such as murder, reckless homicide neglect of a dependent felony battery, or have a drug conviction.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana president Betty Cockrum calls it chilling and government intrusion on a person's private life.

The Health Finance Commission will vote October 20th on whether to recommend the legislation to the full General Assembly.

©365Gay.com 2005

Here's the (I believe) relevant legislation link:
Draft for Health Finance Commission

The history of life in 50 seconds flat

Guinness

When you vote GOP, you support this

There are many disgusting things that the GOP are trying to do doing to this country, but I didn't realize there was a TV reality show that actually showed one of them.

The most digusting show on TV

One of the benefits of the estate tax is to make sure that we don't end up like Europe of the 1800s, and even the early 1900s in this country. Wealth passed on to those who don't understand or don't appreciate it only begets a weaker country, and can there be any doubt that the whiney little rich brats that this show features make this America less than what it can and was intended to be?

Alabama 31, Florida 3

Now we see what happens when the offense is totally inept. And they were. Of course the defense gave up two big plays that, had they not, the game might have played out differently. And the refs blowing a Florida touchdown (why didn't they review that one?) didn't help. But in the end, it comes down to which team was better prepared, and which team was more emotional. And in both cases that was Alabama.

Meyer has some serious work to do, and hopefully he can make some adjustments before things get really bad. Defense can carry a team only so far, and yesterday we saw it's not very far.