House of 1000 Muppets

Yes, I know that I should be writing about something more pertinant to my life right now, but this is very cool. To those of you that I forced to watch House of 1000 Corpses with me, I am very, very sorry, and I promise to never do it again.

PMGA

Myself and a couple of friends have decided to steal an idea from my brother and start the PMGA, the Pro Mini-Golf Association. This is its first of hopefully many annual seasons. The PMGA is not as serious as it sounds. The general idea is for us to play at various mini-golf places around the area. The only difference is that now we're keeping track of the scores.

There have been two offical PMGA dates so far this year. The first was at Lang Farm in Essex. Yesterday we traveled to Danville to play Sugar Ridge, a very nice and well maintained 18 hole course. It could have used a few more obstacles on the courses though. Sugar Ridge was a last minute substitute for Lots Of Balls in Duxbury, which is unfortunately closed for the season due to construction on route 100.

So far Trav has come out ahead in both PMGA opens. Go Trav!

Breaking My Addictions

I've decided to give up caffeine and soda for a while. Now that the caffeine withdrawl has stopped, I find that one of the nifty side effects is that I'm really hyper and excitable. Yesterday I was so perky first thing in the morning that I was starting to annoy myself. Poor roommate. He has to put up with my shenanigans. Who would've thought giving up caffeine would give me more energy?

Decisions, Decisions

I'm torn. Two really good shows are coming to town, and they happen to be on the same night. On one hand, we have The Machine, a pretty cool Pink Floyd cover band, playing at Waterfront Park with a laser light show. Oooh...pretty lights. And on the other hand, there is Static X, in all their industrial thrashing glory, playing at Higherground. Egads, what's a girl to do?

Ridiculous Product Of The Day

Truck Nuts. Need I say more?

I had heard about these thing a while ago and then promptly forgot about them. They are little plastic testicles to hang from the back of your truck. Just in case you need to compensate a little bit more. Today I was treated to a sighting of Truck Nuts in the wild. They look as utterly ridiculous in real life as the picture shows. Obviously, this isn't the actual sighting (it's from a website called bumpernuts.com), but you get the picture. The plastic genitalia that I saw crusing down Route 2 was also on a large yellow truck. I wonder what is going through the minds of the people who put these on their truck. Personally, it made me want to install a rubber foot on a spring to continuously kick the damn things. Thoughts?

An Old Friend In A New Form

OK - file this under ridiculous products. Diet Coke has launched a new brand called Diet Coke Plus. It's Coke plus vitamins! Because, I know I look to my soda to give me all the nutrician I need. Now, I like Diet Coke in all its forms. I even gave Coca-Cola Blak, Coke's energy drink that is basically a mixture of Diet Coke and coffee, a try found it decent tasting. But Diet Coke Plus is just one of those things that makes me ask 'why?'

Happy Summer

Today is the first official day of summer, the summersolstice, and the longest day of the year. Yay. Happy summer everyone!

Some things I love about summer ...

• Warm weather! (Yeah, that was a no brainer. But I live in Vermont and it's cold most of the year, so cut me some slack.)
• The fact that it's still ligt out at 9pm
• Creemee stands. (Sadly I have yet to have a creemee this year. I must do something about that.)
• Barbeques. (Tasty!)
• Fresh fruit and veggies at the farmers markets
• Listening to the street musicians
• Going to the beach (I've yet to do this also)
• Not having to wear a jacket
• Iced tea and lemonade
• Minigolf
• Fun summer roadtrips
• Just sitting outside enjoying the weather and watching people pass by
• Free concerts at the waterfront
• Reading a book while sitting in the sunshine
• Drive-in movies

Some things I don't like about summer...

• Driving a car with no air conditioning (I bought it in January. I didn't think it would be a problem)
• My 3rd floor bedroom being to hot to sleep
• Trying to concentrate on work when I just want to play outside
• Not doing the billion things I need to do around the apartment (including unpacking) because I know there are only so many nice days before the snow flies
• Mosquitos and black flies
• Suicidal motorcycle drivers
• Trying to cram everything I want to do into a few short months
• Bathing suit shopping (the larger sizes are filled with horrible colors and patterns that even a skinny person wouldn't look good in)
• Sunburn

How I Know My Life Is Getting Really Boring

I had the most bizarre dream last night. It's not bizarre for being very strange. I've had plenty of strange dreams. No, this dream was bizarere for being so incredibly mundane, my subconscious really shouldn't have wasted its time creating it.

My life must be getting really boring if this is the best I can dream up. I actually dreamed that I was cleaning the bathroom. In my apartment. And it looked pretty much the same as it does everyday. It wan't like I was cleaning the bathroom and the shower turned into a giant snake. That would have been worth dreaming about. Nope. I was just ordinarily cleaning the bathroom. And in the same order I tend to do in real life. Start with the toilet, then the bathtub. I must have woke up before I got to the sink.

And do you know what the real sad thing is? After I woke up, I realized that I had been dreaming. And the thought that popped into my head? I found it strange that in the dream I was using a powder cleaner and in real life I tend to use a liquid.

Yeah. My life must be getting pretty boring.

A Busy Few Weeks

Whew! It's been a very busy few weeks at work. I've been on the road nearly every day for a little over a week now. The road trip has culminated in 2 trips to upstate NY and a weekend long conference in Boston.

The conference wasn't too bad, other than being Saturday-Monday and eating up precious weekend hours. As always, some of the workshops were interesting and useful, others not so much (Yes, I realize the importance of good communication. Thank you for your insight.) More than a couple of times I found myself drifting off into space or my own thoughts, having to pull myself back into reality. You know the feeling. Someone is droning on about something that you really should be listening to. Must...pay...attention. Subject...so...boring. Concentration...fading. Diet Coke...only...hope...

I did get a chance to do some fun things. We were in Boston, after all. My boss decided that he wanted our internfrom Colombia to attend as well, so we roomed together and generally hung out together throughout the weekend. We got a chance to talk and she expressed a lot of the same feelings over being overwhelmed on stepping out into a career for the first time; she has the added stress of doing so in a foreign country. We had a good talk about being young and female in clinical engineering, a profession made up predominantly of older men.

She had never seen Boston, or any other large US city for that matter, so it gave me the excusae to do some real touristy things. She wanted to take a tour of the city, so we took the Duck Tour. I highly recommend this for anyone in the Boston area, even those who know the city well. You get loaded into an old WWII amphibious vehicle and are taken on a tour of the city and then into the Charles River. I even bought the tourist photo they snap of you prior to boarding. Later on we took the Ghosts and Gravestones tour. This is also highly recommended. The tour takes through Boston's not so happy past with a trolley tour and a walking tour through a couple of cemetaries.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. We stayed very busy all day long between the conference and the sight-seeing. I don't think I could have kept up the pace for much longer. It is good to be home.

The Decision To Double Post

Well. I said I wasn't going to do this, but here I am. I've finally decided to double post over at my MySpace page. I had this blog before I had my MySpace account and didn't really feel the need to run two blogs, mainly because I barely keep up with this one. It seemed silly to me at the time to double post, and I admit that it still seems kind of silly. I have enough friends that read MySpace but don't read the blog here, partly because I update so infrequently, and partly because this site isn't as popular. An interesting aside, my sister is the person who convinced me to get a MySpace account so we could keep in touch more easily. We never did use it to communicate with each other. I'll continue to post here and this blog will probably have more content than the MySpace blog as I don't think I can put pictures or video up on the MySpace blog.

Generic Cereal

I went grocery shopping the other day (yes, I know, I don't know how my life got so exciting either). In an attempt to save money, or perhaps because I'm just cheap (No, frugal. The word is frugal!), I buy as much store brand stuff as possible. It's a habbit I picked up in my college years and I see no reason to break it now. One of the things that always makes me chuckle is the names of generic cereals. Some of my favorites have been Fruity O's (generic Fruit Loops), Rice Greats (generic Chex), and Oats and Honey and More (generic Honey Bunches of Oats). The other day I came home with Crispy Hexagons, the generic version of Crispex. Mmmm. Tastey!

Goonies of the Caribbean

This is so very awesome.

Back On Line

After a trip to Best Buy, the roommate set up a small wireless network in our apartment, so now I can connect to my computer upstairs. Yay! Now I won't have to leave you all on the edge of your seats wondering what shenannigans will happen next, depriving the world of my witty commentary. Yeah... Anyway, I'm back on line now. It's good to have a computer guy for a roommate.

My New Digs

Well, moving day has come and gone. Now I am left with just a bit of cleaning left to do in the old apartment and a pile of boxes in the other. Other than the usual annoying unpleasantness that is moving (you never truely know how much stuff you have until you try to put it in a box), I have to say this has been by far my easiest move yet. First, I only moved about 50 feet to another apartment in the same complex, so there was no truck involved. The weather cooperated and was absolutely perfect - sunny but not overly warm. I also had a great bunch of people come up and help me move heavy objects down two flights of stairs and up another two flights. Marge and Scott, Yomper, Travis, Kevin, and of course the new roommate Brian - you guys rock. Thanks for moving heavy objects with me. A special thanks to Wendy and the Captain who showed up with a vehicle to take the couch away. And many, many thanks to Jenny, my now sister-in-law, for helping me clean the old place.

More later when I get settled in.

Cool Shoes

The preperations for my brother's upcoming wedding is eating up a lot of my time, and so I'll blog about it. And you have to read it. So there.

The wedding is mostly under control. It always amazes me the amount of planning and prep that goes into even a relatively small wedding. Small is a relative term; she's related to the entire town of Danville and probably most of Caledonia county. The ceremony is Saturday and the clock is quickl running down. At this point if anything has been forgotten, it's going to have to remain forgotten (with the exception of my panyhose. I'll pick up a pair on my way out tomorrow).

The bride's maids (myself included) decided that we didn't want to buy shoesdyed to match the dresses that we could never wear again. I looked around online and I found a pair of uber cool clear lucite shoes with hollow heels. The bottom of the chunky heel unscrews and you can fill it with whatever. The idea to fill them with something unique or something to match the outfit, though I suppose in a pinch you could shove your carkeys in there if you didn't have any pockets. I'm a very big geek so I filled mine with tiny blue dice, to match my dress. Oooh, I feel girly and geeky all at the same time. For those of you keeping count, there are a total of 288 5mm dice in the shoes (144 in each shoe) that I bought in various places around ebay as the local game shop didn't really understand the concept of what I was trying to do. I didn't get more complicated than basic 6 siders. Maybe I can try to get the happy couple to role for initative before they walk down the aisle.

Well This Is Just Depressing

So, in an attempt to overcome my hermit like existance, and after being inundated by their ads on tv, I decided to sign up for eharmony. I spent quite a while filling out the gazillion pages of personality questions. They don't kid around when they tell you that they're detailed. Unfortuantely, after all was said and done, I came up with no matches. Not a single one! God, that is just depressing.

Bagpipes

This is so cool in a geeky kind of way.

Strange Bruises

Do you ever find bruises you don't remember getting. Maybe it's just me, but I do all the time. I'm a bit of a clutz and I have really pale skin, so if I accidentally whack my arm or something, I'm going to goet a bruise. Usually it's no big deal. This morning while washing up, I noticed I have a sore spot and a small bruise right above my right eye. You would think I would remember whacking my head on something. Again, whacking my noggin is not an uncommon event in my life (I have an amazing ability to protect my body from harm by blocking with my face), but I tend to know when this happens. Weird, huh?

Ring Pillow

As I mentioned before, my brother will be getting married soon. I thought I'd be all crafty and nice and make the ring pillow for the ceremony. This was my first attempt at a pillow and my very first attempt at embroidery. I think it came out great and you'll just have to excuse me while I pat myself on the back. You could too, if I can ever get the picture to upload.

Peep Show

This is so cool! The Washington Post's Sunday Source organized a Peeps diorama contest, with many of the dioramas showing famous movie scenes (someone even did a Reservoir Dogs diorama, we might want to keep an eye on him). This is such a cool idea. I love Peeps! I love movies! I don't have nearly as much time on my hands as these guys did.

Tax Time

Ahhh, tax time. That special time of year when everyone is stressed out. For those of you waiting until the absolute last minute to file, we get a couple of extra days this year since the 15th falls on a Sunday. I did mine way back in February (thank you, free e-file!) and since then have helped several people file theirs, including my mom, my brother, and a few friends. One of the oddest questions on the federal form is that space where the IRS asks for your occupation. It has absolutely no bearing on your tax status, so what gives? I can only assume it's for demographic purposes, but with the space left blank as a fill-in, I can only imagine some of the smart-ass answer they might get.

So, my mind being what it is, I thought of a few things that would be funny to enter in that occupation space, if only to get a song stuck in the head of some accountant at the IRS who reviews your return. Again, feel free to add your own

• Smooth Operator (probably a better choice than Smooth Criminal)
• Paperback Writer
• Tourism Director of Funkytown
• Advocate For the Right to Party
• Yellow Submariner
• Boy of Summer
• Business Caretaker
• Tambourine Man
• Space Cowboy
• Gangster of Love (those two would work best if your name is actually Maurice)
• Banjo Dueler
• Dancing Queen
• Renegade of Funk
• Master of Puppets

Happy Easter

Well, it's a day late, but happy Easter anyway. I'm going to celebrate this weekend with left over Peeps and diet coke. Ahhh, a lovely combination of sugar, caffein, and aspartame.

Cold and Damp

Damn weather! I'm just lammenting in general about the lack of sunny, warm, spring weather. It's April. The weather should be turning warmer, but instead its gotten cold. Of course, we didn't really have snow on the ground unitl late January this year and most of the winter was unseasonably warm. I didn't wear a coat while Christmas shopping this year as it was in the 50's.

The irony of the situation is that we had a brown Christmas and a white Easter.

The Wedding Dress Saga (or The Evil That Is David's Bridal)

No, not mine, don't worry. My brother is getting married on May 19 and his fiancee, Jenny, has asked me to be one of the bride's maids. Jenny decided that she liked the selection that she had seen at David's Bridal online and decided that since she hadn't found a dress she really liked at the local bridal shops that we should trek down to the closest store. In our case, the nearest store happened to be 3 hours away in Nashua, NH. So last summer myself, the other two bride's maids and our lovely bride to be packed ourselves into a car and made the trip.

The sales staff at that time was fairly helpful, possibly because they work on commission and an entire bridal party walked in with credit cards, although they were a bit pushy with the accessories. Jenny found a dress she loved and we found dresses that went with it. We were then informed that all of the dresses that we had picked were discontinued and that if we didn't buy them that day, then the store couldn't guarantee that the dresses would still be available. And we took the bait and bought the dresses. They didn't have the bride's maids dresses in the sizes and colors we needed so the store would order them (yeah, I thought the dresses were discontinued, too.). Jenny walked out with her gown that day. It's important to note at this point that at the time of purchase, the dresses were supposed to be sent to Jenny's house and also the cost of alterations to the bridal gown was included in the cost of the gown.

The dresses did not get shipped to Jenny's house, instead they were shipped to the store, exactly what we didn't want to happen. The store refuses to ship them to us and required that we pick them up or they would be returned. Keep in mind, this is a 3 hour trip each way. This isn't running across town after work, it's six hours of driving. We really wanted to avoid having to do this and had explicitly asked that the dresses be sent to Jenny's house and not the store in Nashua. In addition to that, one dress came in the wrong size and mine was missing the shawl. We had to exchange the missized dress and reorder the shawl. I'm not sure if these actually got shipped to Jenny or if she had to make another trip to the store to pick them up.

In February we scheduled our fittings for alterations for Sunday, April 1. Upon arrival at the store, the woman at the front desk had no record of our appointment. She asked someone to check on us and after waiting for a while we discovered that that someone had gone to lunch before the mystery was solved. We eventually figured out that the front desk girl didn't understand that we were there for alterations and not to try on dresses. We were then directed to the alteration area at the back of the store.

The alteration area was small. It wouldn't have been too bad if we were the only party, but there was a long line waiting for alterations and people going in and out. It seemed like there was no order to process and it would have been real swell to have the seamstress's undivided attention. I thought that was the whole point of making an appointment. The seamstress's name was Evelyn and I soon discovered that Evelyn is evil. She told me that my dress did not need alterations. Now, I'm not a professional seamstress, but the dress felt way to loose on the bust and to be honest, I feel like I'm going to fall out of it if I happen to lean forward. Evelyn did not measure me, or anyone else. It seemed a little half-ass.

As I said before, Evelyn is evil. She made the maid of honor cry. I did not know what was said or how it was said, but I turned around and the poor girl was in the dressing room in tears. Apparantly Evelyn had made some kind of comment that her dress would look better if she lost a few inches. This just pissed me off. I'm a large person and I freely admit that I'm a fat chick. The other braid's maids are also large ladies. The girl in question has lost over 60 pounds and is doing very well on weight watchers but she will never be small and petite of frame. Like all large women, we all carry around negative body images. Some more than others and most women, large and small, are sensitive about their weight. Evelyn is a professional seamstress at a bridal boutique. She should know these things. Also, she is being paid to make these dresses fit wonderfully. If she has to add fabric, she has to add fabric and she should do so without making comments as to the figure of the wearer. Yeah, I'm a bit touchy about the subject.

In addition to that fiasco, both mothers wanted to try on some dresses. No one wanted to help us. The sales staff was all real young and seemed inexperienced. I understand that this was a Sunday, but if the shop is busiest during the weekends, wouldn't that be a good time to schedule more staff and maybe even your more experienced staff? We helped ourselves and then stood in line for the front desk girl to get a fitting room. We ran out of patience standing in a line that never moved while holding 4 or 5 dresses so we just had the moms try on their dresses in the alterations dressing room. On top of that, Jenny was charged for the alterations that needed to be done to her gown, the alterations that we were told would be free. And we have to drive back down to Nashua to pick up the dresses from alterations and steming on the 25th.

The whole experience was just irritating from beginning to end. We also had to wait at least 20 minutes to check out and pay for the Mom dresses and alterations. Jenny made a complaint to the store, but it did not get her anywhere. There was no manaager working that day and the girl at the front counter just said 'I wish there was something I could do'. Well, you know, honey, there is something you could do. You could not charge for Jenny's alterations as promised. You could give us a break on the cost of the other alterations or on the dresses we bought that day. Or you could go back there and give Evelyn a good bitch slap.

I'm planning to make a formal compalint to David's Bridal corporprate office. They did not list any contact information on their website. However, I was able to go through the Better Business Bureau to get some contact information. Again, there was no phone number, but there was an address for the corporate head quarters and some contact names, including the customer service director. A quick search through the Verizon Superpages with the business name and address finally turned up a phone number. Yeah, I was that mad that I spent that much effort getting the contact information. I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, if you know of anyone who is getting married, steer them clear of David's Bridal. The whole thing has been a headache.

International Pi Day

Well, yes, I am a geek. Thanks for asking. Seriously though, I've just been informed that today is indeed International Pi Day. For those not quite getting the reference, today is March 14, or 3.14. The Greek letter Pi is the symbol used to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi is approximately 22/7, and is often written in decimal form as 3.14. The actual decimal value of Pi continues into infinity without repeating.

Apparently there are quite a few people out there obsessed with Pi. The U.S. record for Pi memorization is 12,887 digits, and is held by Marc Umile, a Medicare biller from Philadelphia. The world record for Pi memoriztion is 67,890 digits and is held by Chao Lu, a chemistry student from China. At the height of my geekdom I only knew Pi to about 10 places.

In celebration of Pi Day, here's some Pi trivia

• Pi Day, 3/14, is also the birthday of Albert Einstein
• On Kate Bush's 2005 album Aerial, there is a song titled 'Pi' in which she sings Pi to the 137th decimal place.
• In 1897, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill from which it could be deduced that pi was equal to 3.2 or other incorrect values, including at one point 4. The Indiana Senate postponed the bill indefinitely, preventing it from becoming law.
• In the movie Scarface, the character Frank Lopez wears a necklace with the pi symbol.

And now I think it's time to celebrate this fine day by having some pie. I think pumpkin sounds good.

Freakin' Winter

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty snowy here in Northern VT. What can I say, winte always seems to have this way of sneaking in one more suckerpunch just when we start to think that the weather's warming up. 'Fooled you!'

Below, is a picture of the antenna ball on my car, after Friday's snow/rain storm. Mr. Pirate is looking awfully cold. Also not that I had been driving around for a while Friday evening before I noticed the little guy was carrying around some extra weight.

Ridiculous Product of the Day

Well, what can I say? Leave it to the marketing geniuses at Axe body spray to come up with this.



I can't imagine that mousepad is much good for gaming. Maybe it adds an extra demension to surfing for porn. Of course one of the implications of this is that you're sticking your hand up a lady's skirt and find something hard.

All Your Hearts Are Belong To Us

Yes, I know that I'm a geek. Happy Valentine's day.

Strange Dreams Indeed

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm normally a reasonably rational thinker. I do admit to enjoying reading astrology, horoscopes, and even having the occasional tarot card reading just for fun. I don't take that kind of thing too seriously.

Last night I had a series of bizarre dreams. I was woken up three times from a sound sleep, each time with a similar dream. So, if anyone out there knows anything about dream interpretation, feel free to throw out some ideas on the following. Heck, even if you don't know anything about dream interpretation, feel free to comment on my general level of insanity.

All three dreams involved something scary jumping onto my neck and/or face. The first was a large spider or possibly a tarantula. It was large (bigger than my hand), black and brown, and furry. It jumped out of some kind of clear (plastic?) cage and landed at the base of my neck on the lefthand side. I woke up when it landed on me. This may be some kind of retribution from the shoe spiders.

The second time it was some kind of frog, in the same situation as the tarantula. The frog was, again, larger than my hand, green and black, and slimy. It also jumped out of a cage and landed on the base of my neck. I have no idea why I would be afraid of a frog. Again, I woke up when it landed on me.

I don't remember the third time. I know it was a very similar dream. Same room, same people in the background (no one I know in real life), and same scenario. Except I can't remember what came out of the cage this time. I know I woke up when it landed on me.

Very bizarre. So, am I crazy? Or do I just need to stop watching wild discovery before bedtime?

The Greatest Tagline Ever Created

While watching TV the other day, I saw a commercial containing possibly the greatest tagline ever. The commerical was for ClearBlue pregancy tests.

The commercial was touting how accurate the test stick is, being made with advanced new technology. Exactly how advanced an over-the-counter pregancy test can get these days, is another question, but their tagline is one of the funniest things I've ever heard uttered in complete seriousness on television. Are you ready for this? The tagline is

'The most advanced technology you'll ever pee on'.

Seriously. I almost spit tea across the living room.

Roe v. Wade 34 Years Later

WARNING! Liberal political rant ahead

Today marks the 34th anniversary of Roe V. Wade, the landmark supreme court case that made abortion procedures legal in the U.S.

"The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies." -Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973

I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a world where abortion has always been legal. It is important to remeber that it has not always been this way to to not take for granted that Roe will not be overturned one day. Even though the South Dakota abortion ban failed at the polls this past November, it served as a stark reminder that the fight for women's reproductive rights are far from over. It also brough to the forefront the fact that many women still do not have reasonable access to abortion services. In South Dakota, there are no abortion doctors. There is one clinic where abortions are performed operated by Planned Parenthood and located in Sioux Falls; doctors travel from Minnesota to do the procedure. Think about the logistics of that situation. South Dakota is nearly 76,000 square miles. There is one clinic located in the southwest corner of the state that operates infrequently.

The proposed South Dakota ban was full of language indicating that abortion was bad for women. It also included no exceptions for rape or incest. It made abortion a felony. It defined life as beginning at conception, as opposed to implantation, leaving a back door open to chip away at contraception. In the aftermath, a handful of states passed trigger laws, anti-abortion laws that will take effect should Roe v. Wade ever be overturned.

As bad as the South Dakota ban was, an even scarier law has been proposed recently in Georgia. Bobby Franklin, a republican representative, proposed H.B. 1, a bill that not only takes the South Daktoa ban a step further, but that also makes some questionable claims about the effects of abortion. The proposed Georgia law is not a trigger law, so if it passes, it will be a direct challenge to Roe. Scarier still, is the fact that, unlike South Dakota, Georgia does not allow popular referenda on statutes. This means that if H.B. 1 does pass, voters won't have a chance to overturn it.

Let's take a look at some of the claims the bill makes. It's worth noting that the bill does not cite references for the these claims.

First up is this gem:

A fetus is a person for all purposes under the laws of this state from the moment of conception

The bill defines all rights as a human being to begin at conception. That's right, conception, not implantation, not birth, but conception. That spem and that egg met? Full rights under law. This is scary in that it calls into question established forms of birth control. Emergency contraception, the morning after pill, as well as the common birth control pill both use hormones to prevent implantation, effectively preventing pregnacy. I'm sure there are other forms of birth control that use a similar method. As far as this law is concerned, hormonal birth control methods are now all aborificants and are illegal.

[legalized abortion has caused] a dramatic rise in the incidence of child abuse and a dramatic weakening of family ties

Huh? You know, because forcing a young woman to raise a child in poverty is a surefire way to cut back child abuse. Of course not all woman who have abortions are single and/or poor, but I digress. Intuitively, I don't see how allowing a woman to terminate a pregnancy when she is unwilling or unable to raise a child would cause an increase in child abuse. It seems the exact opposite should be true. Do women who have abortions somehow beat the crap out of the children they don't have?

women who have had an abortion require psychological treatment of such symptoms as nervous disorders, sleep disturbances, and deep regrets

This is just plain not true. The majority of women do not suffer from any kind of 'post-abortion syndrome'. Research has proven this again and again. While some woman do suffer from depression following an abortion, this may be due to the societal view that abortion is 'murdering your child'. A scared young woman who already has enough problems with an unplanned pregnancy does not need any added guilt thrown at her by hate spewing protesters. I wonder how much pshcological trauma is caused by these wing nuts standing outside the clinic and yelling obscenities at the women.

women who have had an abortion suffered from diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder

Again, this can't have anything to do with the amount of guilt lobbed at women for having the abortion, can it? Because first you're a dirty whore for having sex in the first place, and then you're a murderer for killing your baby. Also, it is estimated that 15% of women suffer major post-partum depression following a pregnancy.

Abortion results in increased tobacco smoking

Huh? I just can't see the logic in this statement. The only connection I can make is that perhaps increased anxiety causes smokers to smoke more. This is grasping at straws. I'd imagine that the stress induced by the unplanned pregnancy is far greater than the abortion itself.

Abortion is linked to alcohol and drug abuse

Remember kids, correlation is not causation. While it is probably safe to say that many unplanned pregancies are a result of drug and alcohol use, having an abortion does not cause someone to begin abusing drugs and alcohol.

Most couples find abortion to be an event which shatters their relationship, causing chronic marital troubles and divorce

Again, huh? Are there many instances when one person really wanted to have the child but the other didn't? I don't think that this is a very common scenario. I wouldn't say that the abortion 'shattered' the replationship, more likely the relationship was already strained and the unplanned pregnancy was the catalyst for the break up. Again, throw in societal pressures of sex, purity, and abortion into an already rocky relationship and you've got yourself a recipe for a disaster. Because, obviously most women who seek abortions are involved in loving, stable relationship, and what woman wants to bring a child into that kind of environment?!?

Abortion exploits women, treating them and their children as mere property, and abortion is contrary to feminist values, and the great suffragette Susan B. Anthony referred to abortion as 'child murder'

Anti-choicers love to quote Susan B. Anthony, twisting her words to meet their needs. Keep in mind, at the time abortion was a very dangerous and life threatening procedure. Given access to safe abortion procedures, Anthony might have had a different opinion. Also remember that not every feminist shares the exact same opinions. Allowing abortion as an option is not against feminist values. Feminists do not force all pregant women to have an abortion. Feminists understand that abortion is not the right choice for every woman when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Feminist values allow woman to pick the best option for her particular situation.

Thirty years of abortion on demand have resulted in an increase in breast cancer

This is just plain not true. The American Cancer Society states that 'the scientific evidence does not support a causal association between induced abortion and breast cancer.'

The practice of abortion has caused the citizens of this state an inestimable amount economically including, but not limited to, the costs and tax burden of having to care for individuals and their families for the conditions cited above, as well as a significant reduction of the tax base and of the availability of workers, entrepreneurs, teachers, employees, and employers that would have significantly contributed to the prosperity of this state.

Where does one even begin? This is just a silly statement. How much money would the state have had to pay for healthcare and education of these children? How many of these children would have been born into poverty and the mother forced onto welfare, most likely having to put school or career on hold to raise the child? How much money would be spent then? Would the poverty cycle be repeated with this next generation? Or how many of the children would have grown up and simply moved out of state?