Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died. In a statement, his family said: "It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Paterno passed away earlier today. His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."

"My philosophy is pretty simple-any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven’t had many good days lately."

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae….

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands.

I am in LOVE with this series!

Karen Marie Moning builds her fairy world on Irish lore and I think succeeds in it. Her fae are interesting, with their various abilities to feed on humans' beauty, to make their unwitting victims sexually aroused, etc.

Barrons is a fascinating character, and the author did an excellent job of keeping us guessing as to who (or what) he is, and how the reluctant and wary partnership between he and Mac will develop. Just what is Barrons? Is he really human? Is he fae? Is he really good? Is he bad?

It is a series
1. Darkfever: The Fever Series
2. Bloodfever (Fever, #2)
3. Faefever (Fever, #3)
4. Dreamfever (Fever, #4)
5. Shadowfever (Fever, #5)

Also an added note....Karen Marie Moning is planning on writing 5 more Fever books

The proposed SOPA (and equally odious “Protect IP Act“) legislation is fundamentally flawed in how it works and the damage it is likely to do to the Internet, which has been the greatest platform for innovation the world has ever seen.

The Internet is a global creature. A “Made in the USA” solution will no more work to stop the problems talked of than would one made in any other single nation state. Worse, the US has been at the forefront of ensuring that the Internet has remained free and a platform for innovation for the last fifteen years. With SOPA, or ProtectIP, that leadership will effectively end and Syria, China, Iran and others will not only use the US as a role model, they will also use these actions as further evidence of US control of the Internet and justification for trying to turn it over to the UN/ITU. This is best described by Susan Crawford.

Worse, the legislation itself is fundamentally corrupt. It is bought and paid for by big media, trying vainly to protect anachronistic business models. This has been demonstrated clearly in all of the hearings and the very conduct of the debate. Listening to how deeply uninformed those being asked to legislate this issue are has been nothing short of scary. Watching how support and opposition has lined up has been disheartening. This is the worst example of the kind of fundamental corruption that is at the heart of the US political system currently and is well defined by Professor Larry Lessig. If you have ten minutes please watch this video on the subject. If you have an hour please watch this one.

The Internet is not a corpus, it is not a thing. It is a series of protocols, which are really agreements on how computers will behave when connected to the Internet. Treating the Internet like a thing to be legislated and controlled is as ill conceived as treating “Intellectual Property” like physical property and leads to even greater perversions. If governments squeeze too tightly, the Internet as we know it will simply get up and walk away. It will fracture and split with a “clean” Internet and a much larger Darknet. than there is today, but not one used mainly for file sharing. Instead the Darknet will become the real Internet. Brands will sell things and Media will offer content on the “Cleannet”, but the Darknet will be where ideas are shared, plans are made, memes are propagated and where most of the cool people, including most of our children, will be.

Prohibitions have never worked to change behaviours. They simply make people who fear things feel good and create a new mini-industry for fear mongers to make money off of. They do not change behaviours.

 Join The Strike!

Learn More: Watch the video · American Censorship page · View the Infographic
Read SOPA on OpenCongress · Read PIPA on OpenCongress

I woke up to this one this morning (didn't see it last night)

@Kristenmomof3 - You've changed your religious beliefs, your friends, and your take on political issues so many times that giving anything you say here any credit is about as worthwhile as farting down-wind of yourself.

I really miss the times when you were a rabid enforcer of the Mosaic laws. I miss those 2,000 word postings of Old Testament scriptures, and I really miss how you used to bash Atheists, and liberals. But now, I guess you think you've got a better chance fitting in with that crowd instead. That's fine. We all need friends...

But most of all, I miss your burqa clad days. Good grief, Sinead, cover that thing up.

1/16/2012 3:56 PM
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I actually giggled when I read it. I find it so interesting.

Also did you know I am the reason some people hate xanga??

http://jeremy-sheer.xanga.com/pulse/13799630/item.html yeah exactly why i hate xanga.. @kristenmomof3 trying piss off 90% of xanga because Christians are a population.way go throw up  xanga

Just two of the things that I woke up to today that were written by "wonderful" "godly" "bible following" people. Yeah, makes me wanna be a christian soooo bad.... yeah right.

Hey Christians, is that how the bible says you are supposed to talk to people??? Are you being "Christ like"??? Such a great witness people. You too paige

 What others can you think of?

Here is hubby's new hair

You would never guess what I am doing today. I told @opticalnoise what I am doing today and I thought that ze was going to pass out from the shock

Today I am going to church! I watch my grandmother Monday through Friday. The weekends are supposed to be a rotation of her children and my one cousin. My aunt who was supposed to do it this weekend was unable to make it and so I am doing this weekend. Grandma hasn't gone to her church recently because no one is taking her on the weekend, so I told her that since I am watching her this weekend that I can take her to her church if she wants to go. So today, I am going to church.

Here are a few pictures of me dressed and ready to go before I have to go get grandma up and ready to go.

My sister shared these with me on Facebook.

My dad. He loved that car.

My Sister and I playing dress-up

Another picture of us

Three Indiana state senators, all Republicans, have introduced a bill that would allow schools to require the recitation of the Lord's Prayer every morning, if they want to.

The Lord's Prayer bill says the point is to help "each student recognize the importance of spiritual development in establishing character and becoming a good citizen," but you can get out of reciting it if you or your parents want.

The bill comes with a fiscal impact statement (pdf) so we can see the cost and revenue from introducing religion into the classroom. Expected expenditures are local, officials write: "There could be some minor impact in deciding the version of the Lord's Prayer to use; however, it should be able to be done within existing resources."

This is what theocracy looks like -- using public resources to decide whether school kids should recite the King James Version or a new-fangled edition. The original Aramaic one is kind of nice, but it might be a little cosmic-y, karm-y for whichever officials got the job of picking out a suitable prayer.

Perhaps Sen. Kruse, Sen. Tomes, and Sen. Holdman (who, believe it or not, is an attorney) forgot the words of the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Senators appear to have forgotten to text of Article I of the Indiana Constitution:

Section 3. No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.

Section 4. No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship; and no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent.

Moreover, these Senators also appear to have missed the fact that the United States Supreme Court ruled on the issue of government-mandated school prayer nearly 50 years ago (in fact, this year is the 50th anniversary of one of the two main cases on the issue of school prayer)! Furthermore, it is worth noting that most of the school prayer cases have dealt with (and found unconstitutional) non-denominational prayers. But these Indiana Senators want to impose a core Christian prayer upon Indiana’s school children.

I also want to note the red-herring contained in the SB251. Yes, the bill permits a student or parent to opt-out of saying the prayer. How realistic of a remedy is this? You try being an impressionable school child, burdened by peer pressure, your own insecurities as your learn who you are and what you believe, and the weight of a teacher or school administrator, and raising your hand to say, “No, I don’t want to say the prayer.”

These three think nothing of having the State of Indiana tell Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, and other children not only that they must pray but that they must offer a specific Christian prayer. What does that say about our society? About tolerance and diversity? To me it says, “Hey, if you’re not a Christian, you’re not a part of ‘real America’, so just fuck off and let our Christian country move backward.” I would just love to see the reaction of these Senators if a school district chose to require children to recite a Jewish prayer or … gasp! … a Muslim prayer.

Call Sen. Kruse, Sen. Tomes, and Sen. Holdman (each can be reached at 800/382-9467 or via email). And tell them what you think of their efforts to bring theocracy to Indiana. Oh, and you might also suggest that when they’re done reciting the Lord’s Prayer, they ought to go read Jesus’ thoughts on prayer (from Mathew 6:56):

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men … when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret…

Regardless of whether or not you are religious, why would you want your child to be forced to perform a rote recitation like this every day? 

The reasons we have Separation of Church and State are to make sure that the state gives NO preference to one religion over another (or over a lack of religion).  This was actually introduced to protect your religious freedoms, not to limit them: or would you feel this was an appropriate law if a non-Christian prayer were required every morning?