Sublime Stitching‘s site says, “This ain’t you gramma’s embroidery!” And they’re quite right. With patterns for everything from tikis, sushi bars, goth patterns, mexican wrestlers, pirates and monkeys, they make a really boring craft into something fun and hip. Well, okay, about as hip as embroidery can get, anyway.
People were evacuated from the City-County building today at 12:20 due to a phoned in bomb threat. Hmm. I’m guessing people are a little upset at last night’s city-county council meeting.
In another article about the domestic spying on left-wing organizations, this time from the New York Times, the article mentions in passing:
One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.”
Wow. If they’re spying on vegetarians in Indy, what do you think they’re doing about all those crazy homos? I wonder how to file for the Freedom of Information Act.
UPDATE: Okay, the ACLU press release is a bit clearer on what this is about. Our local FBI was investigating PETA, and one of the group’s events was passing out vegetarian starter kits to students and faculty on the “University of Indiana” campus. (They mean Indiana University.)
Well, I guess that actually isn’t any clearer to me what the FBI was doing.
A link to the redacted PDF document that the ACLU obtained through the FOIA.
Proposition 622 passed at the City-Council this evening, 15-14. My councilor, Patrice Abduallah voted for the ordinance. And we’re on the fox news at 10 again.
I’m very tired, and I’m going to bed.
I discovered this via my friend Mikal…
Belief.net has an interesting quiz on personal beliefs about faith and religion.. Here’s how I stack up:
1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3. Liberal Quakers (88%)
4. New Age (87%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (86%)
See how the rest of my beliefs stack up below the jump…
One of the things that needs to be pointed out about Proposition 622 is that many of the people opposing it don’t live in Indianapolis and wouldn’t be affected by it.
For example, in today’s Indy Star, there are several letters from people opposing this ordinance. One of them is from Eric Miller, the director of Advance America. It’s signed Indianapolis, but Eric doesn’t live here in Indy. Neither does the guy who wrote the letter signed from Avon, Indiana.
And neither did half the people who got up to speak at the first City-County Council Committee meeting to discuss Prop. 622. Many of them were bussed in from around the state by the aforementioned Miller. The city-county council caught on to this eventually, and at the second hearing, they made people state their address or township before speaking to highlight that the testimony needed to be coming from residents. About half the opposition who planned to speak stepped down, because they were busted.
The city-county council members made it clear that they were only considering letters and phone calls from their own constituents, so the American Family Association, a group that is based outside Indianapolis, is pouring money into the Indiana Family Institute (also based outside Indy) to fund robot phone calls to blanket the houses of people in Indianapolis, asking them to do the dirty work of calling the council for them.
Don’t let people outside Indianapolis tell you how to live your life or conduct your business. Email your councilors (you can contact them through this form from Indiana Equality — a group that lives and works right here!!)
The News came to talk to us about Proposition 622, and I’m doing an action shot right now where they’re filming me at the computer, so I have do something. So I’m writing this blog entry. Say hi to the news!!
I’ll be on Fox 59 news tomorrow night at 10 p.m., so don’t forget to record it. Spike was a hit with Kara, the reporter, and Scott, the cameraguy, so he’ll probably show up on TV, too.
According to the New York Times, and later also reported by the Washington Post:
Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.
One of the groups they’re spying on the QUAKERS, and other local anti-war organizations. The Quakers are pacifists, people. They believe in NOT blowing shit up.
The Quakers are one of thousands of organizations on a 400 page list (that’s 400 pages not 400 groups) that the Administration has been spying on inside the United States. All of them are left-wing organizations.
None of the investigated are right-wing groups. You know, right-wing ones, like the guys who bombed the Olympic park and abortion clinics. Like the ones who sent Anthrax to the Democratic leadership. The ones who blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building. The ones who keep killing doctors. Yeah, nobody’s investigating them. I feel so safe.
I had this article on my site a few years ago while the State legislature was debating the hate crimes legislation. It was written by Chris Douglas. I’m re-posting it because he needed to find it again, and because it’s an informative and well-written piece.
It’s quite long, though, so I’m putting the body of the piece below the jump.
Washington, DC – Congressman John D. Dingell (MI-15) (original link, no longer active – http://www.house.gov/dingell/documents/press_releases/109th_Congress/12-14-05_2.htm) recited the following poem on the floor of the US House of Representatives concerning House Resolution 579, which expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected. “Preserving Christmas” has been a frequent topic for conservative talk show hosts, including Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly:
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House
No bills were passed ’bout which Fox News could grouse;
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near;
Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds,
While visions of school and home danced in their heads;
In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan,
Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran;
Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell;
Americans feared we were on a fast track to…well…
Wait— we need a distraction— something divisive and wily;
A fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly
We can pretend that Christmas is under attack
Hold a vote to save it— then pat ourselves on the back;
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger
Wake up Congress, they’re in no danger!
This time of year we see Christmas every where we go,
From churches, to homes, to schools, and yes…even Costco;
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy,
When this is the season to unite us with joy
At Christmas time we’re taught to unite,
We don’t need a made-up reason to fight
So on O’Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, and those right wing blogs;
You should just sit back, relax…have a few egg nogs!
‘Tis the holiday season: enjoy it a pinch
With all our real problems, do we honestly need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues I say with delight,
A merry Christmas to all,
and to Bill O’Reilly… Happy Holidays.