Good Morning. I’m guest hosting juliewolf’s Sunday Puzzle Blogging today.

As usual, please don't put spoilers or solutions in the subject line of comments. Instead, identify the puzzle in the subject line and put the answer in the comment. We like to engage in a communal effort for large or difficult puzzles, but to each his/her own. If you don’t want to see a solution before you have solved a puzzle, switch ‘expand’ to ‘shrink’ before you read the comments.

If you must read and run but intend to return, hotlist the diary or make a comment so you can more easily find the diary again. The solvers are a tenacious lot. We usually have solved the acrostic by Monday or Tuesday, although this past week we fell for misdirection and didn’t finish until Thursday. Relax, I don’t think this one is too difficult, so if you haven’t participated before, today is your lucky day.

Puzzles start after the break...

I just read an email that Julie sent yesterday asking me to guest host the puzzles today. I don't know if she made other arrangements or not, but I'll put up a puzzle and see if anyone is waiting for one. Just for fun, some political overtones, but no secrets of the universe. One acrostic for now, which I don't think is too difficult, but I have another if y'all manage to zip through this one quickly.

Rules, shmules! We're rebels, we don't need no stinkin' rules! Well, it turns out we do.

Our Most Important Rule: Don't put spoilers or solutions in the subject line of comments. Identify the row or column of the puzzle in the subject line and put the rest in the comment.

Personally, I like to engage in a communal effort for large or difficult puzzles, but to each his/her own. If you don’t want to see a solution before you have solved the puzzle, switch ‘expand’ to ‘shrink’ before you read the comments.

Sharpen your pencils. The acrostic appears shortly after the break...

Hello, puzzlers. Wayoutinthestix, here. I am guest hosting today for Julie, that multi-talented Renaissance woman, who is currently on vacation. Ah, vacations! It’s been a while for me, but in keeping with Julie’s tradition of starting off with a picture that says it in lights, here’s one of mine. I can take no credit for the display, I just happened to walk by and there it was. Unlike Julie, I only push the button and hope for the best. Sometimes it works!

As usual, don't put spoilers or solutions in the subject line. Identify the puzzle in the subject line and put the rest in the comment. If you don’t want to see a solution before you have solved a puzzle, switch ‘expand’ to ‘shrink’ before you read the comments. Personally, I like to engage in a communal effort for large or difficult puzzles, but to each his/her own.
           
Puzzles start after the break...

I shall mention a small tidbit of family lore because there have been several recent diaries about J. Edgar Hoover, but I’d also like to make public record of it for posterity.  I’m constructing a diary around shreds of information but it ties together some current events and evokes a memory of how society operated in past eras, some of it discreetly under the radar. What was once family lore has now turned into something of a mystery. As is common with family stories, some of the details are fuzzy, but now there is no one left to ask for clarification.

I’m as queer as a three-dollar bill. I’ve had my feathers in a twist for a year over comments made by friends of mine in the local LGBT community. But lately, here at DailyKos in connection with the whole Obama/McClurkin flap, I’m beginning to see the very same type of comments made by people who should know better.

A few people, even within the gay community, seem to be harboring the misguided notion that straight-acting gay men are somehow superior and more socially acceptable than effeminate gay men. Butch gay men’s lives would just be perfect if all of us nelly queens stopped embarrassing them and just disappeared. I can’t pass for straight even if I wanted to, but the larger question is, "Why should I?" I’ve only heard such sentiments from a small percentage of folks, both here and the local LGBT community, but I find it such a disturbing trend that seems to be on the rise I think we need to lay it on the table, hash it out and nip it in the bud.

More after the fold, I'm just getting warmed up.

Here’s an interesting court case that could broaden support for same-sex marriage.

http://www.latimes.com/...

In a nutshell, a California man and woman divorced. The woman entered into a relationship with a woman that is registered with the state as a domestic partnership. The man went to court seeking to end alimony payments to his ex-wife because she is now in a new spousal relationship. Man argued that domestic partnership, although called something other than marriage, was written to mirror the same rights as marriage. California law states alimony ends when the former spouse remarries. Orange County judge ruled registered partnership is NOT marriage, but cohabitation, and the man must continue to pay alimony.

More after the break...

I watched ABC evening news tonight and my blood is boiling. I know a lot of you shun network news or have already thrown your televisions out the window but Bob Woodruff has done some exceptional pieces on Iraq since he has returned to work from his own injuries he sustained while a reporter there.

Tonight he did a piece on blatantly fabricated medical discharges of soldiers who have had head injuries on active duty or have returned suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It seems the military has found a convenient means to deny these soldiers both care and disability by classifying their medical conditions as a previously existing Personality Disorder. Sounds like all the compassion and tricks of my HMO. More outrage after the break.  

I did a search and yes, there was a diary on this topic Saturday morning by BlogActive http://www.dailykos.com/... but I think the story deserves more attention than it received. I did some research and added some pertinent information and aspects to consider.

Michael Aaron Lay, campaign aide to Congressman Patrick McHenry R-NC, was indicted on May 7, 2007 on voter fraud charges. Lay was working for McHenry’s congressional campaign and getting paid for that with checks to a Tennessee address, but he registered to vote using the congressman’s Cherryville, NC address and voted in Gaston County, NC in 2004. When Lay received a traffic ticket in March 2005 in Gaston County, his driver’s license and auto registration still showed his Tennessee address. Well, no biggie on first sight, Lay at the time was a student in Knoxville, Tennessee. Students move a lot and no one is denying that Lay did spend a lot of time at the congressman’s residence. But a grand jury saw differently and Lay has been indicted for voter fraud.

I'm just the messenger. I was hoping somebody would diary this but haven't seen anything about it here. I posted a comment in the open thread but didn't get much attention.

Fire Dog Lake is reporting that Anonymous Liberal found a Goodling email in the DOJ Friday document dump that REQUESTS DELETION of previous documents after the investigation was started.

I received an email message Tuesday afternoon from Brian Winfield of Equality Florida about the murder of a gay man that occurred on March 15 in Wahneta, Florida near Winter Haven.

Ryan Keith Skipper, a 25-year-old Polk County man, was viciously murdered and his body left on the side of a road in what the Sheriff's office is classifying as an anti-gay hate crime.

Ryan was brutally stabbed at least 20 times and his car and a laptop computer were stolen. According to witnesses, two suspects drove Ryan's bloody car around and bragged to their friends about savagely killing him.

Every person will have his/her own list of qualities needed for the best place to live. Here’s mine: Kooky, Affordable, Progressive, Urbane with Transportation, also known by city planners as the highly transitional KAPUT neighborhood. Okay, I fudged that a little when I realized if I had a K instead of a D, I could spell a clever acronym, but it is true that nearly every wonderful place I have lived started out lowly, had its zenith and then became wildly popular, overpriced, and again went kaput, at least by my standards. Diversity (the lost D) is an important aspect of my best place to live so I include that in kooky, as I’m afraid there are large segments of the population that still find diversity to be a frighteningly kooky concept. Kooky also implies unique. When surrounded by Walmarts and fast-food chains, it all begins to look the same to me. Urbane is not necessarily urban, but a certain amount of street smarts and savvy that respects diversity.

I hope some of you will comment on the best place you ever lived, or still do, as there may be one more move in my future.