Good news!
 

Women seeking abortions in the state of Texas will not be forced to view sonograms before the procedure AND judges who grant judicial bypass to minors seeking abortion services will not be published in local witch hunt magazines!


ETA: At least, until the next legislative session.

I don't know how you people with sessions every year can handle it. Our yahoos meet for four months every other year, and it causes me much stress.

Good news!
 

We don't have your kind of yahoos.

Good news!
 

I think the fact that you let people vote long after they have died ensures a solid experience base in your voter pool to weed out the real crazies.

Good news!
 

Exactly. That and the fact that after you vote, the precinct captain calls your mother and asks her if maybe you weren't feeling well that afternoon and that's why you mistakenly didn't vote for Alderman Vrdolyak.

Huh. That doesn't look so good.

He's going through a hard time right now.
 

Shaha Riza dumped Paul Wolfowitz.

He's going through a hard time right now.
 

He is no longer any use to her after stepping down?

Good News (Finally)
 

From Time:

• There is good news from Iraq, believe it or not. It comes from the most unlikely place: Anbar province, home of the Sunni insurgency. The level of violence has plummeted in recent weeks. An alliance of U.S. troops and local tribes has been very effective in moving against the al-Qaeda foreign fighters. A senior U.S. military official told me—confirming reports from several other sources—that there have been "a couple of days recently during which there were zero effective attacks and less than 10 attacks overall in the province (keep in mind that an attack can be as little as one round fired). This is a result of sheiks stepping up and opposing AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] and volunteering their young men to serve in the police and army units there." The success in Anbar has led sheiks in at least two other Sunni-dominated provinces, Nineveh and Salahaddin, to ask for similar alliances against the foreign fighters. And, as TIME's Bobby Ghosh has reported, an influential leader of the Sunni insurgency, Harith al-Dari, has turned against al-Qaeda as well. It is possible that al-Qaeda is being rejected like a mismatched liver transplant by the body of the Iraqi insurgency.
  

Good News (Finally)
 

That is good news. Let's hope that it both holds and spreads.

Good News (Finally)
 

Sadly, Al Qaeda is not the fundamental problem there. It's not clear that many Iraqis would tolerate Al Qaeda at all if we weren't there. Meanwhile, there were reports this week that Al Qaeda is raising huge amounts of money in Iraq and sending it to Pakistan.

He's going through a hard time right now.
 

One commenter put it thus:

• Hilarious. She did not want people to think she just used a powerful man to get ahead, so she immediately broke up with him as soon as he lost power?

How does this policy continue to make sense?
 

U.S. military continues to discharge gay Arab linguists, and Congress members seek hearing. Three more were fired recently.

(Personal bias: nearly everyone I know personally who speaks Arabic is gay. I have a very good gay friend who is Egyptian, and he has a score of gay Lebanese, Palistinian, Egyptian and Jordanian friends. I love them dearly and don't see at all how they could possibly compromise national security.)

How does this policy continue to make sense?
 

What if someone threatened to blackmail them?

Thing is, He's Right
 

Primary Season Follies.
 

Politicians do, indeed, have it rough, having to meet untold numbers of people every day and actually try to remember who the hell some of them are. Even so, I found this screwup funny.

Slate

• If you want to know just how foreign Romney is to the conservative circles he now frequents, read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's account of his fund-raiser last week during the Georgia Republican Convention:
  
  
  Quote:

  Romney gestured to Ralph Reed and said, "Why it's good to see Gary Bauer here." Romney then caught himself. "Oh, I'm a little mixed up here," he said. But Romney still couldn't place Reed's face—and had to move on.

  ...
  
  To be sure, politicians shouldn't be expected to remember every person they meet. For example, here's a photograph of another Georgia Republican, Rep. Phil Gingrey, who appears to have put on a fake mustache simply to confuse Romney.
  
  But mistaking Ralph Reed for Gary Bauer at your own fund-raiser is like going to a Star Wars convention and mixing up Luke Skywalker and Yoda. Bauer is short, bug-eyed, and tight-lipped. No one noticed his 2000 primary bid until he fell off the stage at a pancake-flipping event in New Hampshire. Reed is lanky, with narrow, shifty eyes and a big, plastic grin.

Gattigap