Winter = Cold; Snuggling = Warm

This was the scene yesterday morning. The non-furry creature in the photo is me, sleeping, warmed and immobilized by massive amounts of felinity.

Happy Valentine's Day

Indeed:

Nearly 600 Mexican couples have tied the knot in a mass Valentine's Day wedding on the US border, many of them migrants working illegally in the US and unable to marry there.

The crowd of newlyweds, whose ages ranged from 16 to 65, took their vows in Tijuana, a short walk from the busy San Ysidro crossing into California.

More than three quarters of the couples were migrants returning from, or trying to get into, the US, Mexican authorities said.

It Belongs to Them

Let's give it back:

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque claimed today that suspects held in the US naval base in the southeastern tip of Cuba have been subjected to torture and face unfair legal treatment.

Cuba rejects "the violation of human rights, unjust incarceration of prisoners held there without charges, and their appearance in courts without guarantees and in which they are convicted in advance,'' he told reporters.

He did not directly refer to the case of six detainees facing charges that carry the death penalty.

"We demand again the closure of the indecent Guantanamo prison, the return of the territory illegally occupied to our fatherland,'' Perez Roque said.

Dildos for the People!

Texas has come to its senses:

A federal appeals court has overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas, one of the last states - all in the South - to retain such a ban.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Companies that own Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

Blood Chocolate

As my father-in-law has reminded me, blood diamonds aren't the only grotesque expression of Western "romance":

Labour rights campaigners will take some of the romance out of Valentine’s Day on Thursday by warning lovers that their traditional gifts of flowers and chocolates are often bought at an intolerable cost to those who produce them.

At a briefing hosted by the United Nations, they plan to highlight the suffering of farm labourers in Africa and Latin America, some of whom work in near slave conditions to supply goods to a ­predominantly western market.

Timely

That's FEMA for you. Wait, wait, wait, then hurry up:

After downplaying the risks for months, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it will rush to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of roughly 35,000 government-issued trailers because tests found dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes.

FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said the agency hopes to get everyone out and into hotels, motels, apartments and other temporary housing by the summer, when the heat and stuffy air could worsen the problem inside the trailers.

Fighting the Good Fight

I don't give them much of a chance, but more power to 'em:

A lesbian couple is seeking to overturn Colorado’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, in the first challenge to Amendment 43, reports The New York Times.

Faith Guy Ditches Other Faith Guy

I wonder what his motives might possibly be:

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party's presidential nomination and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the likely nominee.

"Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent," the former Massachusetts governor said, standing alongside his former rival at his now-defunct campaign's headquarters. "As a party, we come together."

Slashing the Forests

Bush is still working on his legacy of massive environmental destruction:

A Bush administration spending plan that would slash money for the Forest Service could lead to massive layoffs at the agency charged with managing 193 million acres of national forests, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday.

Spending for the Forest Service would be cut by nearly 8 percent next year, to $4.1 billion, in a budget plan submitted by President Bush.

The plan could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs - nearly 10 percent of the agency's work force - as well as reductions in dozens of non-fire related programs, from road and trail maintenance to state assistance, land acquisition and recreation, lawmakers said.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., chairman of the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee, called the budget plan "an unmitigated disaster" that "would cause real harm to our 193-million acre national forest system."

It's Over

They're officially coming back:

A devastating, three-month walkout that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill ended Tuesday when Hollywood writers voted to lift their union's strike order and return to work Wednesday.

Laura Ingraham Is Twisted

What a deeply messed up thing to say:

CODEPINK peace activist Medea Benjamin and pundit Laura Ingraham square off over a proposal to close down a Marines recruiting office.

The ballot initiative, which has already prompted retaliatory action in Washington, would ask the citizens of Berkeley, California whether or not to allow the Marines to continue to recruit within city limits.

Ingraham uses Benjamin's transgender status to counter such a proposal, suggesting that Americans are more accepting of war than they are of an upcoming transgender conference.

"A transgender conference is not killing people," Benjamin responds.

"Just killing the culture, maybe," Ingraham rebuts.

WTF?

Exxon Mobil Cut Off

Venezuela is not happy with the corporation:

Venezuela's state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the U.S. oil company's drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

Oklahoma Shoots Itself in the Foot

Too bad those immigrants were busy stealing all those jobs that no one here wants in the first place:

The splintered trees, downed branches and piles of wood still littering nearly every neighborhood of this sprawling city two months after a devastating ice storm stand as a testament to something more than the ferocity of nature.

The debris is also a sign of the effectiveness of Oklahoma's new law intended to drive illegal immigrants out of the state -- the strictest such statute in the nation.

The branches are still here, many of the law's critics say, because the undocumented workers who would have cleaned them up are not.

"You really have to work hard at it to destroy our state's economy, but we found a way," said state Sen. Harry Coates, the only Republican in the state Legislature to vote against the immigration law. "We ran off the workforce."

Luke Esser Hates Democracy

Which, to me, would seem to render him a rather poor choice for state GOP chair:

An amazing find by HorsesAss. Here's Washington state GOP Party chairman Luke Esser --- he who unilaterally stopped counted votes from Saturday's Republican Caucus at 87%, once McCain finally took the lead from Huckabee by just 250 votes --- from his earlier days as an aspiring vote-suppressor...

Like any sport worth its salt, in politics you have adversaries, opponents, enemies. Our enemies are loudmouth leftists and shiftless deadbeats. To win the election, we have to keep as many of these people away from the polls as possible.

Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.

Only the Best

What is wrong with the army?

A Fort Carson soldier who says he was in treatment at Cedar Springs Hospital for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse was released early and ordered to deploy to the Middle East with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

The 28-year-old specialist spent 31 days in Kuwait and was returned to Fort Carson on Dec. 31 after health care professionals in Kuwait concurred that his symptoms met criteria for bipolar disorder and “some paranoia and possible homicidal tendencies,” according to e-mails obtained by a Denver newspaper.