THEY’RE FOLLOWING ME AGAIN
Here’s today’s horoscope, and I swear to God I’m not making this up:
It’s fun to sit around and be creative and wise and sexy and muse about your next life and all that, but what about the rent and the car payment and every other demand life makes on us if we [...]

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FETUS WORLD
This is wrong in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin:
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The state’s social services agency was granted a court order to block an abortion for a pregnant 13-year-old girl living in a state shelter, prompting an emergency appeal Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
***The girl learned [...]

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Jordan says it best:
Today, April 28, is Workers Memorial Day. Across the country, workers and labor unions will pause to remember the 15 Texas City employees and the more than 5,500 other workers killed in workplace incidents over the past year. Between 50 and 60 thousand workers perished from work-related illnesses caused by toxic materials [...]

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THE BUCK STOPS OVER THERE
Bob Herbert:
We learned last week that after a high-level investigation, the Army had cleared four of the five top officers who were responsible for prison policies and operations in Iraq. The fifth officer, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve, had already been relieved of her command of the military [...]

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THE GOOD OLD DAYS
More of the Right Type of social engineering the Republicans love. Choke off the highway funds so states are forced to privatize roads, and it’s a frigging libertarian wet dream:
The freeway in places is no longer free. From the backed-up pools of frustration in Chicago’s adjacent counties, to the farthest Virginia fringes [...]

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BACK TO THE FUTURE
This bill the House just passed is all too reminiscent of the Sixties - and not in a good way:
The bill, intended to prevent minor girls from going to different states to circumvent more restrictive laws in their home states, applies to adults who accompany girls 17 and under. It also, for [...]

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Figuring out how to make money from a blog is sort of the Holy Grail of the blogosphere. How the hell do you sustain a reasonable living from this insanity?
I think I’ve figured it out: Fantasy Blogging Camp.
Just as middle-aged men galore shell out big bucks to go to faux spring training with a bunch [...]

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DELUGE
When it rains, it pours.
I just got off the phone with a bill collector for AT&T, who told me Cingular is going to shut off my cell phone unless I pay the balance from my old account. (I wasn’t really aware there was a balance, but I’m not too good about keeping track.)
“How much is [...]

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Via Kos, Karl decided Bubble Boy should get back to his roots by making the commencement speech at a small Christian college.
Well, it turns out many of the Christians there aren’t too happy about it. They wrote to WashPo’s Dan Froomkin to protest:
Professor Kenneth Pomykala, chair of Calvin College’s Department of Religion.. wrote to me [...]

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WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “Love Throw A Line,” Patty Griffin, Impossible Dream:
Let’s write a story of a tidal waveWe run out of luckWe run out of daysWe run out of gas A hundred miles away from a stationThere’s a war and a plagueSmoke and disasterLions in the coliseumScreams of laughterMotherless childrenA witness and a BibleNothing [...]

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HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT
It’s not easy, living your life out in the open. Some days, I feel like the star of a reality show. It’s not always a pleasant thing.
Right now, my work situation is pretty tense. No new work is coming in, and my boss had no additional assignments for me this pay period. [...]

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RALLY ON
Don’t forget, the MoveOn rallies against the right-wing judicial takeover are today. Click here to find a rally near you.

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‘SHOOT ME NOW’
Quixote over at Acid Test has the nervewracking tale of her recent visit to the emergency room.
Isn’t it ironic? The time when you most want to trust someone else to take care of you is when you need to stand guard.

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UH OH
Just when you thought it was safe to surf:
An unpatched flaw in some versions of the Netscape browser could let an attacker into vulnerable systems, security company Secunia has warned.
The vulnerability is “highly critical,” according to an advisory released by the Danish company late Tuesday. Version 6.2.3 and 7.2 of Netscape are affected [...]

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COOTIES
I told you Microsoft is evil:
WASHINGTON — Microsoft Corp. is paying social conservative Ralph Reed $20,000 a month as a consultant, triggering complaints that the well-connected Republican with close ties to the White House and to evangelist Pat Robertson may have persuaded the company to oppose gay rights legislation.
***Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said the company [...]

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EXCELLENT
I feel so much better now:
President Bush is offering to make closed military bases available for new oil refineries and will ask Congress to provide a “risk insurance” to the nuclear industry against regulatory delays to spur construction of new nuclear power plants, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, [...]

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PICKY PICKY PICKY
What kind of ungrateful allies are these, refusing to condone our version of reality
WASHINGTON — While US investigators have concluded that American soldiers who shot and killed an Italian intelligence officer at a Baghdad checkpoint followed instructions for dealing with potential threats, Italian government said the inquiry will continue.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld [...]

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UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
Interesting interview with the new director of the Autism Research Institute via Wampum:
Q. What got you going on this line of thinking [about a vaccine-autism connection rejected by the mainstream]?
As you know, mainstream medical groups, including the American Association of Pediatrics, have firmly rejected the idea that vaccines played any role in autism or [...]

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BUYING GROWTH WITH DEBT
A post by Calculated Risk at Angry Bear takes a look at the real problem with current growth:
Instead of using total mortgage debt, Goldman Sachs senior economist Jan Hatzius suggests using “Mortgage Equity Withdrawal” (MEW), a measure that is used in England. This excludes the mortgage debt associated with buying new construction. [...]

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OH GIVE ME A HOME
One of those days:
A roaming herd of buffalo are back home, returned to their Baltimore County farm about seven hours after escaping early this morning and leading police on a slow-moving, meandering chase that ended with the animals corralled on a fenced tennis court.
The owner of the buffalo, Gerald “Buzz” Berg, [...]

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WHEN YOU’RE READY TO FIND THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE
Oh. My. God. [Via Duncan.]

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COOL
I just got my copy of “Management by Baseball,” the new book by my buddy Jeff Angus (of the blog of the same name). Because he knows I’m a fan, he sent one along - and included a Wes Covington baseball card (he played outfield for the Phillies).

Anyway, I was reading his chapter on the [...]

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WILD ABOUT HARRY
Kos:
Reid just engaged Frist in a game of chicken, and Frist blinked first.
Reid has been extrememly effective in whipping up opposition to the Nuclear Option, garnering strong grass- and netroots support, editorial board support, and popular support (as the latest polls show scant appetitite for ending the filibuster).
But in order to avoid [...]

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THE MIND OF A SMOKER
I swear to God, I had nothing to do with this:
Social scientists turned to a new quarry: understanding the mind of the smoker. What they have found has proved more controversial than most researchers expected: Smokers are more depressed and suffer a higher rate of anxiety disorders and other psychological maladies. [...]

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Little boxes, little boxes/ Little boxes on the hillside/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky/ And they all look just the same. - “Little Boxes,” Malvina Reynolds. 

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TERROR TIME
They’re going to have to come up with something spectacular enough to divert us from this:
NEW YORK Half of all Americans, exactly 50%, now say the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Gallup Organization reported this morning.
“This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found [...]

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EEK
Pretty funny - Ann Coulter slash fiction. Not safe for the workplace!

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The sky looks rather magnificent today, and I wanted to share with those of you stuck inside. 

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The local Catholic church is having a carnival this week. 

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EARLY BIRD
I was up early today to go get an echocardiogram - a lot earlier than I needed, but close enough to my wakeup time that I couldn’t go back to sleep.
It was freezing in my apartment, because the crazy Iraqi war vet and his wife moved out a few days ago and they were [...]

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