There goes another 27 million

i woke up this morning and started packing for my trip home to beaumont.
i think jeremy and i are pretty lucky that we both grew up in the same town and that "visiting home" means going to the same place. we're going to be attending a huge fish fry for his family reunion on the 4th. i doubt anyone will pop fireworks. maybe we'll go downtown and watch the city set off some good ones.

i hate packing. i'm sure to forget something. i know.

this makes me mad...what a waste of money by our government:

The thin line of separation...

WASHINGTON, July 2 (AFP) - The US government Tuesday awarded grants totaling 27.7 million dollars to promote sexual abstinence prior to marriage, health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced.
"Abstinence education programs create an environment within communities that supports teens in their decision to remain abstinent until marriage," Thompson said.
The 95 grants awarded to churches, schools and health centers are for community-based programs aimed at convincing adolescents between 12 and 18 to abstain from sexual activity as a way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, including HIV/AIDS.
Thompson said the money will be followed by a second bloc of grants in the fall.
President George W. Bush promised during his presidential campaign to promote abstinence and earlier this year said he would spend 138 million dollars on the campaign in 2003.
Members of the Democratic opposition in Congress said these programs should include information on contraceptives and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
In April, a committee of the Republican-dominated House of Representatives voted on a five-year renewal of a federal program promoting sexual abstinence, rejecting a Democrat-backed amendment that would have allowed each of the 50 US states to include information on contraception.
According to federal laws now on the books, the grants may not be used to teach contraceptive methods but only to convince adolescents that sexual teach contraceptive methods but only to convince adolescents that sexual relations outside of marriage may have dangerous consequences. Individual states are free to finance other programs that include contraception and disease prevention.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a government-funded research organization in Atlanta, Georgia, spends 50 million dollars annually to prevent AIDS in the United States.