taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

Hi,

I've just joined this community and after following some random links found something amusingly awesome

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x297/lithane4/mas/spider-mans-greatest-bible-stories.jpg

other than that, don't mind me...

"Under President George W. Bush , the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global leader in supporting family planning, driven by a conservative ideology that favored abstinence and shied away from providing contraceptive devices in developing countries, even to married women."

"When Congress reauthorized PEPFAR in July 2008 , to the tune of $48 billion over five years, religious groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops fought to keep the family-planning restrictions.

Conservatives equated birth control with abortion, U.S. officials said, even though aid agencies are prohibited from spending federal money on abortions, and the procedure is illegal in much of Africa . "

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3374340

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government -- but he doesn't believe in God. His political opponents say that's a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they've got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.

More here...

Perspective: It's North Carolina, and I'm not surprised. Stories like this only strengthen the stereotype of ignorance and religious fanaticism in that region. What does surprise (and disturb) me is to find my current residence of Pennsylvania also has a similar provision in its constitution.

This on the heels of Houston's election of its first openly gay mayor. I am under the impression that the GLBT movement is a couple of steps ahead of Atheists in terms of social acceptance, especially in the South. Maybe they have better PR.

Thoughts?

Or rather I'm talking to t'internet.

I know this isn't "On Topic", but I would value your opinion as vaguely like minded people.

Have you any good blogs or websites (apart from your immaculate own) you could recommend to keep me amused, entertained and informed in the forthcoming exciting, new decade.

By the way after allowing real people to name the last decade the noughties I have decided I will name the next decade.

It will be called Frank.