Score one for our side.

Springfield abortion clinic closes

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - A Springfield abortion clinic leading a legal challenge against a new state law unexpectedly shut down yesterday, leaving abortion providers in just two other Missouri cities.

Clinic administrator Michelle Collins said the sudden decision to close the clinic after about 30 years of business "has nothing to do with the lawsuit whatsoever." But the lawsuit will be dropped as a result, she said.

Collins said the five-member board of the for-profit clinic, of which she is a member, unanimously voted Wednesday to close the clinic, effective yesterday. She described it as a business decision unrelated to finances. "It’s just so difficult to provide abortions for patients here when there’s zero support from the medical community," Collins said without elaborating more specifically about why the clinic closed.

One down, two more to go.

Too much information

This from today's Best of the Web:

"Hillary's Chest Gets Bigger as '08 Gets Closer"--headline, New York Observer, Oct. 24

I don't know about you, but I'm sure not observing Hillary Clinton that closely.

("This article ran in the 10/24/2005 issues of The Observer." Really? Already?)

It's Busch's fault

H-Wing

Somebody with a real Star Wars fetish and a way with cars made himself an "H-Wing" out of his Honda Civic, complete with R2 unit in the trunk. I dig those cannons mounted on the doors. (I'd dig them even more if they worked.)

This is totally like something I'd see at DataWhat .. I'm surprised I haven't yet.

On Harriet

This from Lucianne this morning:

Reply 35 - Posted by: Aitch748, 10/14/2005 9:22:11 AM
This whole brouhaha is like watching the popular clique in high school piling mercilessly on some short and dumpy (but loyal, honest, and smart) girl in glasses because the captain of the football team decided he wanted to go out with HER instead of one of the socially approved cheerleaders.

That might be true if we were talking about capricious things like who the football captain wants to date. But a Supreme Court justice does more than just go to parties with the President and make out with him in the back of his parents' car. ("Hide the salami," anyone?) This is a decision that affects all of us, and like it or not, the President's choice will be vetted not only by the Senate but also by the American public, and that includes the conservative "punditocracy" .. Limbaugh(s), Malkin, Coulter, Ingraham, Will, Noonan and the others .. others who we know to be brilliant, hit-the-ball-out-of-the-park conservative minds. These people didn't just wake up the morning of October 3rd and decide to capriciously hate the President. This is not a question of who is "cool" enough to be on the Court. This is part of the job we elected Bush to do: fight for the right nominee, not throw softballs at the judiciary committee in the hopes that it won't get bloody. Mr. President, it needs to be bloody if the left is going to be defeated!

I still believe in my President .. I just want the hearings to start, so that Miers can outshine all her critics, be installed on the Court and prove to be a sane, sober and conservative voice there for the rest of her career. I also want to see my stepdaughter again someday and for my ex-girlfriend to call or even email me once in a while. It's good to want things, isn't it?

Smurf-smurfing surrender smurfs

This is the funniest thing I've ever read at WSJ's Best of the Web:

Shell Those Smurfs!
London's Daily Telegraph reports that Unicef has produced an "adult-only episode of 'The Smurfs.' " But this isn't a blue movie; rather, it depicts a mass smurficide:

It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand in hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom-shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

The Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

Perversely, this film was shown on TV in Belgium, apparently with the idea of stirring up sympathy for the infuriatingly cloying figments--notwithstanding the Smurfs' history of aggression against Belgium. Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that but for American blood and treasure, the Belgians would be speaking Smurfish today instead of Belch. This is no laughing matter, as Smurf.com notes:

The Smurfs speak a very strange language. Some words are replaced by "Smurf," as well as some of the verbs. Instead of saying, "I caught a cold in the nose," they would say, "I smurfed a smurf in the nose."

No wonder the Belgians are known as smurf-smurfing surrender smurfs.

Be sure to check out that "aggression against Belgium" link.