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"The F.D.A. said it decided to take the action after years of warnings and even a visit to Chinese fish ponds that resulted in no signs of improvement..."

"The seafood announcement comes after a string of reports in recent months about Chinese imports that have failed to meet American health and safety standards: pet food ingredients, toothpaste, toy trains and tires..."

"The seafood move, however, may have the broadest impact on China, the world’s biggest producer of farm-raised fish. The country is also the biggest foreign supplier of seafood to the United States, accounting for 22 percent of the total imports..."

Hiya All,

I just had a thought: perhaps we could have a music swap at Artisans next week.

...I got the apple & a 'pod, so maybe bring some discs and swap tunes?

HATC (Housing Authority of Thurston County) finally received notice June 22nd from the US Dept of Housing and Urban Development concerning funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program 2007. HATC was then able to send out letters to local participants passing on the good news. Housing assistance amounts will not be reduced as was previously expected.

Quote from letter:

Our staff was pained by the need to reduce benefits and now is ecstatic to be able to bring the benefits back up to the previous level.

I'm impressed with how HATC has dealt with all this. And it is a pleasure to pass on good news that affects so many low income people locally.

From the 1980s

From PrideSource.com:

"That's against company policy."

"We have to follow our regulations."

"I'm not authorized to authorize that."

"The rules are the rules."

We've all heard these excuses at some point in our lives. Often they are the result of when a seemingly reasonable request on your part reaches the height of impossibility after being sent through the corporate-speak bullshit filter. Receiving one of these responses is incredibly annoying, but the result is usually a minor inconvenience, like being told you can't take your Starbucks Cafe Au Lait on the airplane even though you bought it after the security checkpoint.

I haven't done a scientific survey or anything, but I'm willing to bet that gay and lesbian couples are subject to these kinds of excuses more than their heterosexual counterparts. After all, same-sex couples aren't legally recognized and so there's a whole host of benefits, exemptions, policies and the like that we're either cut out of or that are made specifically to cut us out. Not being able to get a family membership at the local gym, for example, isn't going to be the end of the world, yet each one of these incidents foreshadows far more devastating possibilities for same-sex couples.

Couples like Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond of Olympia, Washington, for example. The 18 years they'd spent together, the domestic partnership status they had in their home state and the three legally adopted children between them meant nothing to officials at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami when Pond was admitted after a brain aneurysm.

The couple's three children, who were with Langbehn and Pond en route to a family vacation on an R Family Vacations cruise ship, were not allowed to be at Pond's side and Langbehn's right to make medical decisions wasn't recognized.

Read more.