Overturning Roe v. Wade.
Restricting marriage to straight couples.
Displaying the Ten Commandments in public parks.

Those are three stated goals of Focus on the Family. They want a Republican in the White House, since the next president will almost certainly appoint one or more justices to the Supreme Court.

This is a diary about garden seed catalogs, sustainable agriculture, and good old-fashioned liberal activists.

Some gardeners take seed catalogs very seriously. In 1958 Katharine S. White wrote "A Romp in the Catalogues," which began:

For gardeners, this is the season of lists and callow hopefulness; hundreds of thousands of bewitched readers are poring over their catalogues, making lists for their seed and plant orders, and dreaming their dreams.

I don’t believe this!

Bush was just on CNN now (no link yet). He says that he has seen credible evidence that Scout Finch, brownsox, and smintheus are connected to a violent radicalization movement. Bush claimed they are "adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of advancing political or social change." So he announced that he's nullifying their positions and is appointing his own front-pagers.

I emailed Santorum about the Enzi bill and got the following response. Naturally he brushes aside all concerns about the bill.

I'm not an expert on any of this stuff (this bill, health insurance, etc.). I'd like others' opinions on what he says.

If I were a troll and wanted to disrupt Daily Kos, I wouldn't bog down individual diaries with comments that could be troll-rated onto the hidden list. I wouldn't waste my time arguing with libruls.

If I really wanted to disrupt Daily Kos, I would clog the Recent Diary list with useless unsubstantial diaries. At present (as far as I know) there is no way to delete a diary unless the diarist deletes it.

If I were a troll, I would get together with a half-dozen trollish friends, set up 3 or 4 user-names apiece, wait around for a week, then start posting diaries.

* our diaries would be short (why waste our time)
* our diaries might not be obvious right-wing propaganda (why reveal ourselves and be banned)
* just for added fun, our diaries might have those irritatingly ambiguous titles (e.g. "Can you believe this?") that would disclose nothing of their contents, requiring people to open them.

<more below>

Another hilarious CitizenLink Alert from Focus on the Family: Kentucky Senate Bill 250:

New Bill Would End Lap Dances

[The bill] offers two overarching statewide regulations for sexually oriented businesses, has passed the Kentucky Senate and is now in the House Judiciary Committee.

The bill will bolster local regulations on sexually oriented businesses by placing a ban on total nudity and requiring that seminude employees keep a six-foot distance from patrons.

Tomorrow the PA House State Government Committee is going to vote on HB 2381, which proposes an amendment to the state constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman. So today I called most of that committee and asked them to vote against it.

There have been several diaries about this already. FISG has had several diaries, such as here and here, which have a variety of links to all kinds of information, and late last week I had a diary (here) that includes the phone numbers of everyone on the Government Committee.

Even if the measure passes tomorrow, it won't be the end of the story. The bill would then just go to Step 2 in the process. But I'd like to see my state kill this idiocy in committee. Slap it down here and now.

Just got a email alert from the ACLU of PA. The PA House State Government Committee is voting next Wednesday (the 15th) on HB 2381, which would add an amendment to the state constitution saying marriage is only between one man and one woman, yadda yadda yadda.

It would be wonderful if we could kill the bill in committee.

The ACLU of PA has all manner of helpful information here.

What does Focus on the Family say about rape and abortion? (Yeah, it's a rhetorical question--honestly, does anyone even need to ask?)

But if you do wonder what they say, go to their site and search for RAPE. It calls up dozens of pages on ABORTION.

An investigation by the Concerned Women for America (CWA) has come to a stunning conclusion: A United Nations report says that there is a direct correspondence between abortion rights and higher rates of maternal mortality.

"Pro-abortion activists frequently argue that abortion reduces the maternal mortality rate worldwide. However, a newly published United Nations (U.N.) report refutes this claim. . . . The data shows that those countries where abortions are performed most freely also have higher rates of maternal death."

If true, this would be stunning news. Luckily, I was able to arrange a brief interview with Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, and I asked her about the findings.

***NOTE: This interview never happened. This diary is snark. Leave now if it's going to make you get all snitty.

A fascinating article appeared this week on the website of the Concerned Women for America, "Narnia Gets Lion's Share of Box Office, While Critics Hail 'Gay Cowboy' Flick." It was written by Benjamin Frichtl, a student at Patrick Henry College and a CWA intern. He's also a hard man to get in touch with, but after several tries, I managed to get Mr. Frichtl on the phone for a brief interview.

[ n.b., this interview took place only in of my liberal and thoroughly demented imagination. The quotes, however, are taken directly from the very real article.]

I keep seeing dKos polls in which 75% or so of Kosmopolitans do not know much or anything about the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which is disturbing.

The Republican Study Committee is made up of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives. There are over 100 members.

RSC members have proposed legislation that would allow churches to make political endorsements.

And it is RSC members who have proposed an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

More about that and the Cliff's Notes they wrote for themselves below:

My father is concerned about the health care crisis. He's writing an op-ed about this for his local paper and wants to know what kind of health care benefits Senators and Members of Congress get (for the sake of comparison).

Does anyone know where I can find a explanation of this?

I'm looking for an explanation that is as simple and straightforward as possible.

I searched various .gov sites have a basic idea of some parts of it.

More below the flip.

This is Thucydides Night, it seems. I was inspired by pico's diary.

Thucydides wrote a famous account of civil war. It is horrifying--not in bloody details, but in how prophetic it seems. I (re)read this before last year's election and was stunned at how perfect it was as a description of current politics. This is what civil war and civil discord does to humanity, not just what it did in Greece 2500 years ago, but what is happening in the United States today. This is what civil strife is like . . .

. . . as happens and always will happen while human nature is what it is . . .

In many of these passages, most of you will think, "that's George Bush exactly" (witness the line "As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival.").

For Christ's Sake!   In the name of Zeus!   Apollo, Averter of Plagues, help us!

Religion is a very touchy subject. You think??? Some people are ticked off when people say you can't have morals if you don't believe in God. Others are sick of their religious beliefs being called "fairy tales." Let's stop insulting each other! I grant that the the hurt feelings on both sides and the insults thrown by both sides are important issues. I humbly propose that we get over our differences, unite, and get back to work.

ENOUGH ALREADY. It's getting like that Bloom County cartoon punchline, "I'm offended that you find me offensive."

The Christmas season is approaching, which means that those damned atheists are plotting to deny children their god-given right to tell their classmates about the birthday of Our Lord and Savior. And your kids' teacher might be one of them. But people are fighting back, wouldn't you know.

Liberty Counsel, a legal defense firm associated with Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the Christian Educators Association International have announced they're going to "stop the Grinch from stealing Christmas." Liberty Counsel has produced a "Christmas Memo" on Christians' constitutional rights regarding the holiday, which you can download as a PDF here. It outlines the legalities of displays on public property and in schools. The avowed subject of the Memo is Christmas, but it goes beyond nativity scenes and "Silent Night." Much of the Memo outlines court-tested methods of introducing religious subjects--and taking students to churches--throughout the school year.

More below.

In early October MoveOn had a campaign for people to ask their Representatives to return contributions they had received from the DeLay-affiliated ARM-PAC.

I called my Rep., Charles Dent (R-PA-15), whose assistant said I would receive a letter explaining his position on the money he got from Delay's PAC. Yesterday I got a letter from him (copied below). He never actually answers my question (are you going to return the money?), though the implication is NO. But what concerns me is that Dent suggests there was a grand jury that refused to indict DeLay.

See below.