My higher BP numbers this week have landed me on modified bedrest while we wait for Baby to show up.  No shopping, no putting away of messes and lots of sitting being done around here.  While I grow into my couch, I thought I'd share with you some examples of the political ads in our area.
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How well do we know Jack Smith?

We recently learned that Jack Smith plays golf with Satan every single Sunday.

Jack Smith kills puppies for fun.

And last week, Jack Smith said that he hated America.

We can't vote for Jack Smith, cause we don't know Jack.
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Jimmy Jones says that he's one of us, but did you know that his real name was Vladimir Lenin?

As a Congressman, Jones sponsored a bill that would end life as we know it.

Not only is Jimmy Jones a Democrat, he also hangs out with people in the Democrat Party.

Sorry, Jimmy, you're not one of us at all.
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Any crazy political ads being shown in your area?

ICLW - Day 6

I didn't stay up to watch Governor Jindal's response to President Obama's address. Wonder if I should have, as it's making big rounds on the political blogs as to how bad it was. Should try to see if I can find it on YouTube; or I could just watch Jon Stewart's take on it.

Comments Left At:
1. Maybe I Will Have a Glass
2. Who Shot My Stork?
3. A Mother in Israel
4. A Few Good Sperm
5. Antigone Lost

Comment Returned To:
1. Awake in the World

Global Warming Protest

Yes We Can

May G-D bless all of the United States of America and the people of the world,

each and every one of us.

Had to Share

Click to read the whole thing.

I Miss Tim Russert

Another Reason to Vote

If you weren't going to vote before, here's a good reason. Vote tomorrow and receive a free coffee at Starbuck's. Yeah, you got that right.

I don't care who you vote for (though I hope you vote for my guy), as long as you exercise this precious gift.

S.3142 and H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awarenesss and Research Act

Today marks Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. At 7 PM (your time), please light a candle in memory of those lost and in honor of those remembering. We'll light up the world.

There are no words that I can say that would be more graceful and eloquent than those written by Antigone.

With the presidential election and financial crisis eclipsing all else this fall, the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act will likely go unaddressed for another year.

Another Year. For another year, thousands of parents will leave the hospital with a list of funeral homes, no living child to cradle, and an unanswered question. Why?

The why will continue to go unanswered and potential treatments left undiscovered for another year. They will go unanswered and undiscovered because current research and funding are insufficient. Until S.3142 and H.R. 5979, the congressional bills for The Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act are passed, the problem will remain unsolved.

My son's name was Henry. His heart stopped beating on January 17th, 2008. On October 15th, and every day of the year, I remember him and thousands of others.

Please write or email your members of Congress and ask them to pass S.3142 and H.R.5979, The Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act now.

Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act

See those new shiny buttons on the right? They were designed by AK_Sapphire in honor of National Infertility Week (October 19th-25th) and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day (October 15th). You can get the codes for both buttons on her blog, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pregnancy.

You can help to raise awareness of these issues by reading and following some or all of the following, a gracious plea by Antigone.

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. More than 25,000 children are stillborn in the United States every year leaving mothers, entire families and communities devastated. Estimates of the rate of occurrence of stillbirth make it at least as common as autism.

Stillbirth is not an intractable problem. Greater research would likely significantly reduce its incidence, but good research requires good data. H.R. 5979: Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act is under consideration by Congress. This proposed bill would standardize stillbirth investigation and diagnosis, thus providing more data for the needed research. Better research means fewer children born still.

History and facts about H.R. 5979.
5/6/2008--Introduced.
Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act of 2008 - Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) more states should enact legislation that allows the issuance of a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth; and (2) the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should increase the allocation of funds and other resources for stillbirth research.

Amends the Public Health Service Act to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to establish and maintain a scientific registry of stillbirths in the United States, which shall include for each stillbirth information on the stillborn fetus and the mother's health and pregnancy as collected and submitted by states on the U.S. Standard Report of Fetal Death.

Requires the Secretary to: (1) provide for the development of a standard definition of stillbirth and a standard protocol for stillbirth data collection and surveillance; and (2) carry out a national campaign to increase public and state awareness of such definition and protocol and public awareness and knowledge of stillbirths.
Information cited from GovTrack.us H.R. 5979--110th Congress (2008): Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act of 2008, GovTracks.us (database of federal legislation). Accessed October 2, 2008

On October 15th, remember the thousands of unfinished children lost and the families who remain to grieve them. Honor them by taking action. Let's help pass H.R. 5979.

Action Steps:

Step 1. Use Your Blog to Enlist Others
-Copy the contents of this entire post and publish it on your blog immediately.

GOAL: Enlist 10 of your readers to spread the word

Step 2. Use Your E-mail to Enlist Others
-E-mail 5 bloggers and ask them (nicely and in an unspammy way) to publish these action steps on their blog. Consider contacting celebrity bloggers, political bloggers, medical bloggers, or bloggers who are not part of your reading community.

GOAL: Enlist 3 bloggers outside of your normal blog sphere to spread the word in other online communities.

Step 3. Help Pass the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act
-By October 15th, publish a post on your blog supporting H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act. For maximum impact, title your post: "Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act."

GOAL: 1,000,000 Google results on October 15th when that term is searched for. Currently, Google only returns 20,400 pages - most of which have nothing to do with the bill.

Because We All Can

Fell asleep 6 minutes before the debate. Here's my atonement. Pass it on.

Jon Stewart - AWESOMENESS

I am so in love with Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's ability to skewer all politicians who are being hypocritical. This clip, which ran on Wednesday, is fantastic.

Then There Were Two

While listening to C-SPAN this morning, the host discussed the results of a new poll. It turns out that 8 out of 10 Americans believe that this country is going in the wrong direction.

John Dear's response? "That leaves Bush and Cheney. Yeah, that's right."

Oh, I so totally agree. I work as a lawyer for a housing company and it is a mess in my industry right now. Even though my company doesn't sell homes (we do rentals), we're still in the toilet and having to tighten our belts like everyone else out there.

There are two general sides to the housing bailout debate. One, let's help the poor people who were tricked into these subprime mortgages and have the banks forgive the majority of the loans. On the other hand, home buyers should be responsible for understanding the terms of their mortgages and aren't we just punishing those who have kept up with their mortgage payments all along?

I think both sides have merit (typical lawyer who won't pick a side, heh, heh, heh). I don't, however, think that it is "the rest of us" who are going to have to pay for this loan forgiveness. It's the people we are trying to help! Loan forgiveness is taxable income, people! The IRS will be going after the very people who don't have any money now to pay income taxes on the write-down of their loans.

I'm not sure where we go from here, but look forward to hearing ideas from both sides of the aisle. I just hope we come up with something that actually solves the problems and does so soon.

Indecision 2008

Margalit posted yesterday about the New Hampshire primary and discussed the conventional wisdom that many women are voting for Senator Clinton solely because she is a woman and that Black people are voting for Senator Obama solely because he is Black. She links to Gloria Steinem's op-ed in the New York Times, an essay I highly recommend for food-for-thought.

Margalit's post has inspired me to write one of my own.

First, I believe someone on C-SPAN yesterday said that if they had over 500,000 voters in New Hampshire, that would be more than voted in the NH general election in 2006. That kind of a result is pretty awesome. Didn't they have something like 65% turnout? That is wonderful for elections in the United States!

Back to gender and racial politics -- I thought the whole point of equality was that we shouldn't vote for the Black candidate simply because he's Black, or the woman candidate simply because she's a woman. Maybe we are not there as a country yet.

If we are to judge people by the "content of their character" alone, I don't think that I would vote for Senator Clinton. There were a lot of shady things that went on during President Clinton's administration (politics-wise, not even looking at the sex scandals) and she was right there in the thick of it.

(Attention, cynical moment approaching) Of course, Senator Obama may just not have been in national politics long enough to have a scandal attached to him. But, I don't think it is fair to label him with the inexperience brush. How much experience in foreign policy did either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush have when they stepped into the White House?

No matter who turns out to be the candidate in our general elections, I will almost certainly be voting for the Democrat. I align with the Democrats on social issues, and after the last eight years, I don't think that the Republicans can claim any sort of ownership of fiscal responsibility. (Check out Margalit's blog for a widget detailing what the expenses in Iraq could have been used for).