secondalto

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.

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”  [ emphasis mine ]

“The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.” [ emphasis mine ]

"I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)

naamah_darling

• i leave in 12 days for Tokyo
  
• how does the wallpaper i was up until 3 am making last night look in the morning?
• will every song we practice on Rock Band get stuck in my head that way or just the Oasis songs?
• It's time, far past time, for me to do laundry
• the dog is limping less, thank god, and she's going to be one of the people I miss a whole lot when I'm gone for a month
• the dishes are never ending
• My boyfriend is unhealthily interested in gameshows.  Unhealthily, I tell you.
• Leaving for Japan doesn't seem real, but it will be.
• we watch way too much reality TV - TLC, TLC, TLC.

• updated my graphics website with ... well, some of the stuff it needs updated with.  Especially fic tributes.
• rescheduled my trip out to Japan via California so that I can go see my dad and co for a couple of days before hand
• watched one of my netflix movies - The Machinist - which wasn't as cool as it should have been given Christian Bale starved himself for it.  It pretended towards Memento, but never quite reached the same kind of tension, and was instead all about hard edges and delayed fear and ... at least to me ... almost obvious ending.
• remembered it was father's day (not early enough to figure out a card and get it in the mail or anything, but ... i didn't forget to call dad)
• put almost half of the 2007 summer_of_giles entries into the memories.  It's something I've meant to do forever, but since lj has the dumbest system for doing it, it's tedious.
• had good movie night with good friends last night.  We saw the new special edition of Blade Runner and it was just as amazing (maybe even more so w/out the silly voice over) as I remembered.  And we saw The Prophecy which was, in two words, pretty fantastic.  I can't believe I'd never seen it.  Erik Stoltz!  Christopher Walken!!!!
• actually have a fic to rec on giles_fic_recs  (not that there aren't some great ones being produced at SOG, but I figure most people who watch one comm watch the other!)
  

• saw Indiana Jones tonight and quite liked it!  It did not spawn a deep seated need to break it into itty frustrated parts (like SitC).
• managed to get some work done this week, which was great!  And working from home definitely has fantastic bonuses.  Oh, and the temp job earlier in the week was fantabulous even if it was only for three days - lots of geeky engineers to say hello to, lots of time on my hands to read my own books, and some sorting of mail.
• I took a nose-dive into the sidewalk last night while walking the dog.  Nothing seems to be permanently broken, and I'm not really having any trouble walking.  I think I've bruised the bone though.  I'm the worst person for this type of thing because I bang my legs and knees all the time.  I've totally hit it three times since last night just by accident.
  
• took myself out to the coffee shop last night to take a break and just ... be.  It was fantastic.  I didn't get much done, but I did get to hang out, listen to Miles Davis, drink coffee and rose-lemonade, and play on the internet until about 11:30.  Refreshing, really, since most of my semester was spent needing to do *work* at the coffee shop.  Getting play time in made it even nicer.
• I don't know if you guys looked at my spring_with_xan redux post, but laazikaat, who runs the mega-Spike/Xander archive The Spander Files has awesomely added my fic graphics to the three fics I was so in love with:  Letters (by tabaqui ), Subleties (by anna_s), and Incident on the Bay of the Descending Dragon (by reremouse )
• finally, behind the cut I give you the first Friday Feedback List from summer_of_giles !!  It's been a seriously good first week, with a huge portion of talent being displayed (and not a little bit of smut, which always makes me terribly happy).  I think this bodes incredibly well for the entire summer.  So if you're not already on the SOG comm, or aren't tired of hearing me talk about it yet, check out what was posted this week...

I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood. Although I love my family, even the ones I grew up with, to me I've always felt that the people who treated you with respect and included you in their lives were your family and the people who were related to you by blood might happen to be those people but that correlation was a lot less [strong] than society believes it is.  ~ Joss Whendon

antennapedia

• Aerin, from Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown because not only does she fight dragons and wield a sword, she is funny and bright and quite often afraid and does everything (including falling in love twice) anyway.
• Lessa, from Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels (particularly Dragonflight).  She's tenacious, she builds her own family and life bit by bit, and she makes the big, crazy, scary decisions and then carries them out.
• Paksenarrion, from Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarrion (it's three books compiled together).  She's wounded doing something that she ought, and hurt so bad and so deeply but even at the very very worst she chooses not to hurt the people around her... and then chooses life.
• Eowyn, from Tolkien's LOTR.  It may be trite to choose a Tolkien girl, especially since one of the major complaints about his works were the lack of real women, but I've always loved Eowyn - she falls in love too easily, but she's the one person in all the world who takes down the Morgul king.  The one.  And the one who recognizes Merry deserves to be part of the fight too.
• Gina, from Pat Cadigan's Synners.  In some ways the most practical woman, the one who takes care of it all.  The one who... gets things done, even when the doing cuts out your heart.
  

khaoschilde

entrenous88

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick four/five of your userpics.
2. Make a post and talk about the icons I chose.  (OR write a fanku or drabble about each of the icons - inspired by icon mood, what it represents to you, or whatever)
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. (YAY)

• Got into the Southwest Regional Conference!!  With a panel, no less!  This took absolute days of revisions, believe it or not.  I've never worked this hard on 250 words in my life
• Finished all of the important classes, YAY!
• On the waiting list for the summer program I really want to do - now I have to figure out if I'm going to pay to go to Japan or wait for someone to drop out.  Not exactly a good idea to buy the tickets if I'm still deciding.  Wish this was an easier process, but it's my own fault for applying to better programs this year
  

spring_with_xan

1. Amnesia.  I love memory loss that starts everybody from a blank slate (and of course the resulting attraction that they never consciously acknowledged totally comes to the fore.)  So much love!
2. Soul bound.  Primarily I love it for Buffy/Giles, but ye gods I can't forget the great Tabaqui Spike/Xander fic Changes either.
3. Epistolary.  Give me letters, notes, diaries, emails (although I do prefer there to be something other than 100s of emails).  But... love.
4. Giles as a kinky sod who knows what he's doing in the bedroom and is comfortable with himself and his partner once he's made the decision that he wants them.  Gah.
   
5. Spike can bite even with the chip as long as someone wants him to.  I like it when Spike bites.  Nummy.
   

entrenous88

1. Cranium.  You get the mix of everything all in one game, and it goes fast.
2. Scattergories.  Even though it takes like three rounds for my brain to get into it, and even though every time the buzzer goes off I jump, it's great.
3. Uno.  Ok, it's not quite a board game, but it gets really hilarous when you start making alliances to crush the person with the least cards.
4. Apples to Apples.  Again, I know, it's a card gameish thing, but I'm always amused by it, so on it goes.  Best to play with as perverse as brains as possible though.
   
5. The Buffy Board Game.  Ha.  This is when I knew I was a fan, when I loved this game beyond reason.  Sadly people in my house will not play it with me - they say it's quite boring and I'm just gaga.