US Dept of Health and Human Services wants to re-define standard birth

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Methods to include the pill, the patch, the shot, the ring, the IUD, and emergency contraception.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/hhs-moves-to-define-contr_b_112887.html

Worse,

Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there's no test to determine if a woman's egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS' new science. (emphasis mine)

Do what you can here:

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/spp08adv2 - Letter to congresscritters via Planned Parenthood
https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000 - Donate to Planned Parenthood

https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=3253&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr009=dvijvhdh21.app45b - Letter to critters via NARAL
https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Donation2?1901.donation=form1&df_id=1901 - Donate to NARAL



Don't think this won't effect you if you don't use those methods of birth control - the pill is also used to help control fibroid tumors and to stabilize hormonal levels in the body for various reasons. If you're female, or care for a female, this is important.

It's aliiiiive....

Cornstarch and water mix, on a metal cookie sheet, on top of a subwoofer. Amazing stuff.

Book Memery

This is one of those "tag, you're it" kinda memes, and I was tagged by .

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next two or three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you

Mine:

Page 123 on my book didn't have five full sentences on it, so I went to page 124.

And now, O Lord God and King, spare thy people: for their eyes are upon us to bring us to nought; yea, they desire to destroy the inheritance, and hath been thine from the beginning. Despise not the portion, which thou has delivered out of Egypt for thine own self. Hear my prayer, and be merciful unto thine inheritance: turn our sorrow into joy, that we may live, O Lord, and praise thy name: and destroy not the mouths of them that praise thee, O Lord.

From the 1992 Barnes and Nobles edition of The Apocrypha.

Them as wants to be tagged, consider it done. Enjoy!

No Question

The Troll and I each got a Nintendo DS for Winter Holiday back in December, and one of the games we got with it is Brain Age 2. One of the more creative bits of BA2 is creating acrostics from words given. Since we each get the same words to work with, we occasionally (though not often) come up with something similar.

For the more recent one, one of the words was OAK. Without any discussion (or even knowledge, on his part, that I'd recently done one), and with more than 24 hours in between our two answers, we both came up with the following:

Original
Arborial
King

Yeah, we're a match, alright.

:)

Quote of the day:

"Guns make you stupid. Better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart."

-Burn Notice

Poison Ivy Update

Well, here we are, a week later. The Troll's ivy has bubbled, burst and is well on its way to healing.

Mine has gone systemic. Daily, I'm getting new 1 and 2 bubble pop-ups in random places.

Some days, I really hate my immune system.

Isabella Rossellini Stars in Bug Porn

Green Porno

Warning: this is a video, and has sound. Though it is about bugs, it does use human anatomy terminology. This might make it NSFW for some.


How is it that I just have to have the perfect icon for this already??