From the Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign:
This campaign is a citizen-led initiative to ensure that every Massachusetts resident has access to affordable, comprehensive and equitably financed coverage for medically necessary health and mental health care services. The proposed Health Care Constitutional Amendment requires the Commonwealth to enact laws to accomplish this goal.
Some people have asked “Do we need the Health Care Constitutional Amendment now that we have a health reform bill?”
The answer is: “Yes, Now More Than Ever!”
We need the Health Care Constitutional Amendment now more than ever to make sure the promise of these current health reforms are fulfilled and that we have the tools to finish the job if we need them to ensure that comprehensive coverage for everyone is affordable and sustainable over time.
History tells us that legislation by itself is not enough. The employer mandate in the 1988 Universal Health Care Law was repealed before it was ever implemented. History also tells us that even a ballot initiative for a law may not be enough. The people enacted the Clean Elections Law only to be stalled and eventually repealed by the Legislature. The only major, progressive reform that has been fully implemented - education reform - has a constitutional anchor backed up by the Supreme Judicial Court.
The Health Care Amendment creates that constitutional anchor for affordable, comprehensive, equitable coverage. It will make sure that the promise of today’s reform is fulfilled and that if additional reform is needed tomorrow, we’ll have the political and legal tools we need to get the job done.
Sincerely,
Barbara Roop, PhD, JD :: Campaign Co-Chair
John Goodson, MD :: Campaign Co-Chair
Email: mcarr@healthcareformass.org
Phone: 617-868-1280
Web: http://www.healthcareformass.org
Yay 
They’re just really great people fighting for a good cause… I worked there for the past few summers and it is just a terrific place!
Kansas
Kansas is the only state with discriminatory penalties for consensual sex by minors… Convicted of sodomy for having sex in 2000 at age 18 with a 14-year-old boy, Matthew R. Limon was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. Had Limon’s partner been an underage girl, he could have been sentenced at most to one year and three months in prison
Wow, this is messed up.
And more nice news (a bit out of date, but I’m lazy and should be working): Feb, 2005 Washington Post.
A gay Montgomery County father is trying to overturn a court order that forced his partner to move out of their shared house as a condition for retaining custody of his son.
via sodomylaws.org.
Well, I just stopped by wrmc to see if there were any new stuff for me to review, and there was one curious album in the usual pile… “The Essential Judas Priest”. Now I consider myself as much an expert on Heavy Metal as anyone, but Priest are one of the few bands I really don’t know much about (and haven’t really heard much either). So I grabbed it and gave it a spin (or rather, it’s spinning right now). And its incredible!! That isn’t too say it’s anything radically different than I’ve heard before… (actually very similar to Hammerfall for those who are in the know) but I actually LIKE some of the songs! (Half these songs were written before 1980!!!!) They’re not even that cheesy, which is what I mostly expected from a band I thought was largely active in the 80’s (or whatever you call Manowar’s situation… they’re still stuck). I had no idea they were that old, but apparently they were formed in the late 60’s!!!! (Old for metal)
Well that’s all for now… just had to share it with someone!
Technorati Tags:
metal, music, judas priest, radio
Google Created EvilRank Scale To Decide On Chinese Censorship
So there you have it. Official confirmation that the motto can now be changed from “Don’t Be Evil” to “Try Not To Be Evil” or perhaps “Choose The Least Evil.”
Podcast Law and Policy Forum
Similarly, it finds that men are more likely than women to have MP3 players (13% versus 9%). But when one reads the report’s Methodology section, one discovers that “In each contacted household, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest male currently at home. If no male was available, interviewers asked to speak with the oldest female at home.” Well, if a household is called and the interviewer finds that Billy is too busy playing XBox Live to be interrupted, and then asks for Mom instead of Susie (who’s on her computer busily downloading), wouldn’t that tend to produce the reported result?
Whoah, kinda crazy that such a huge polling org would have such a gender-driven survey methodology (sexist? dunno enough to tell for sure)
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Podcasting Music - The legal implications - CBI
Podcasting Music - The legal implications - CBI
A rather depressing analysis of copyright law as it applies to podcasting, especially in the context of a radio station re-publishing in podcast form. Basically, you need to obtain a license to “perform” the work. Though I don’t think anyone is getting paid for the songs I play on-air…