Arkansas Act 1 Striken Down

Arkansas judge strikes down adoption ban:

A circuit judge Friday struck down a state law banning unmarried couples from adopting and serving as foster parents.

Act 1 unconstitutionally burdens non-marital relationships and acts of sexual intimacy between adults by forcing them to choose between becoming a parent and having any meaningful type of intimate relationship outside of marriage, Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled in a lawsuit challenging the initiative voters approved in 2008.

“It infringes upon the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed to all citizens of Arkansas,” the wrote in a two-page order in the suit brought by the ACLU.

Knowing the intelligence level of people here, or rather the lack of it, I’m sure it will be challenged and go to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Seriously.

The Husbear and I have been together longer than MOST married peoples we know (for each of the many marriages they have had). And yet somehow we’re the ones who don’t have a stable relationship?

Until next time...
Erik

Drip, Drip, Drip, Goes the Water.

So… the day ended with it raining in the kitchen:

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The hot water pipe going into the upstairs bathtub popped. It flooded the upstairs bathroom, then seeped through the tongue-and-groove flooring into the crawlspace, then through the tongue-and-groove ceiling down into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, it ran through the cabinets and onto the floor. It also ran through all the overhead lighting.

So, the kitchen got an unscheduled bath today.

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And we think we know why it popped: too much pressure. We moved the hot water heater and the washer and dryer to their new alcove today. While doing so, we added a check valve on the cold water supply going into the hot water heater. With no ability to back-flow as it had been doing before, the heated water system over pressurized, and found the weakest link.

Anyway, here’s what the alcove looks like with it’s bits in place:

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The alcove had to be completed first so we could move the washer and dryer from their previous locations. With that done, we could start gutting the rest of the old laundry room and bathroom, which ended up looking like this before the previously mentioned internal rain interrupted said gutting today:

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While gutting the area, we discovered something ugly. Well, uglier than all the mold we found? And uglier than the fact that we found absolutely no insulation in the North-facing walls? We found that the back wall of the house is not sitting on the slab at all. It’s sitting directly on the ground.

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Can you say NOT FUCKING GOOD? Yes. I just cussed.

How did we not notice this on the outside, you ask? The previous owners had glossed it over with siding. Just like so much other stuffs we’ve found that they, and even more previous owners, had done.

So, what started out as a leak in the main water line, turned remodel, has now turned into a major structural undertaking!

Frak.

Until next time...
Erik

Apparently, criticism is only allowed in one direction.

Those against the National “Day of Silence” have published their directions for parents who are against it.

Note how easily these reasons of why parents should tell their children they are against it can be easily altered to fit the thoughts of the rest of the free-thinking world towards those who profess to be Christians:

a. Homosexual Christian behavior is not an innate identity.
b. No matter what factors may influence homosexual Christian feelings, freely chosen homosexual Christian behavior is immoral and should be resisted.
c. Homosexuality Christianity is not equivalent to race.
d. Disapproval of homosexuality Christianity is not equivalent to racism; nor is it hatred; nor is it bullying; nor does it constitute an incitement to violence. It is permissible and ethical to express disapproval of homosexuality Christianity. Just because someone may feel bad when hearing that someone disapproves of homosexuality Christianity does not mean that disapproval is cruel or wrong.
e. No school should support a view of homosexuality Christianity that is unproven and controversial, and that is physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive to individuals and society.
f. No school should allow instructional time to be politicized.

And yet, try to talk with most who profess to be Christians and you get the whole “don’t bash my religious freedoms” speech. Ironic that they don’t allow others to express their own views.

This has been my biggest beef with organized religion and a majority of those who follow it. It’s truly rare to encounter someone who will actually listen to and entertain counter-arguments without throwing up the defensive walls immediately.

(Hat tip to Joe. My. God. for the info on the H8rs.)

Until next time...
Erik

All this noise about iPhone OS 4.0

Well, the Twitter cloud and about every Tech blog I read is flooded with news on the iPhone OS 4.0. One would think the world has come to a stand-still. I guess for certain fan boys it has. All this excitement for an operating system upgrade. Makes one wonder. At least it makes me wonder.

It’s nice to see people so “juiced” over technology.

My question is, why isn’t there an app that just does this yet?

Oh wait, there is…. The phone itself has become that.

Until next time...
Erik