This is so I can link to it from elsewhere...

** First legislation, the HOPE Act, which increased Pell Grants to $5100, and later joined Senator Kennedy on the Higher Education legislation that passed July 20, by a vote of 78-18. It also creates the Teaching Residency Act which will create a school-based teacher preparation program in high needs schools to provide each teacher with a mentor, content instruction, classroom management skills, a master’s degree and state certification, and a 2 year follow-up program.


**The Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006
is an act that requires the full disclosure of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2007 on a website maintained by the Office of Management and Budget.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Funding_Accountabi...


**The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act
Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department's ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction.
Signed into Law on January 11, 2007.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/chrisblas...


**The 2007 Government Ethics Bill
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_17/news/19664-1.html?...
http://www.commonblog.com/story/2007/9/14/164837/331

** The “Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2125

** S116 - Summer Learning demonstration project to provide summer learning grants and encourage new teaching methods.
http://www.pasesetter.org/demonstrationPrograms/nasd.ht...

and this one, moved out of committee just a few days ago:
Obama's Global Poverty Act of 2007, passed out of committee just a few days ago
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) today hailed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's passage of the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), which requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs. This legislation was introduced in December. Smith and Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sponsored the House version of the bill (H.R. 1302), which passed the House last September.
http://obama.senate.gov /



Amendments, that have all passed:

S.Amdt.159 to S.Con.Res.18 - To prevent and, if necessary, respond to an international outbreak of the avian flu.

S.Amdt.390 to H.R.1268 - To provide meal and telephone benefits for members of the Armed Forces who are recuperating from injuries incurred on active duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.

S.Amdt.670 to H.R.3 - To provide for Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) refueling capability at new and existing refueling station facilities to promote energy security and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

S.Amdt.808 to H.R.6 - To establish a program to develop Fischer-Tropsch transportation fuels from Illinois basin coal.

S.Amdt.851 to H.R.6 - To require the Secretary to establish a Joint Flexible Fuel/Hybrid Vehicle Commercialization Initiative, and for other purposes.

S.Amdt.1362 to S.1042 - To require a report on the Department of Defense Composite Health Care System II.

S.Amdt.1453 to S.1402 - To ensure the protection of military and civilian personnel in the Department of Defense from an influenza pandemic, including an avian influenza pandemic.

S.Amdt.2301 to H.R.3010 - To increase funds to the Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity Program and to the Office of Special Education Programs of the Department of Education for the purposes of expanding positive behavioral interventions and supports.

S.Amdt.2605 to S.2020 - Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should immediately address issues relating to no-bid contracting.

S.Amdt.2930 to S.2349 - To clarify that availability of legislation does not include nonbusiness days.
S.Amdt.3144 to S.Con.Res.83 - To provide a $40 million increase in FY 2007 for the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program and to improve job services for hard-to-place veterans

S. Amdt 41 to S. 1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.

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Barack has Written a total of 890 Bills and Co-sponsored Another 1096 since he started serving in the U.S. Senate.

Sappiness

Somebody tell me what is better than holding your baby's soft, warm self against your chest and rocking him to sleep, 'cause I don't know. He's so SWEET. I can't stand it.

Pics of Kwame

OK since the demand is high (ok, one commenter), here are some more pics of Kwame.

San Diego birth story

Wow! I'm not pregnant anymore. Anyone who reads this blog already knows that, I think. No time for a big update, but yeah, our little sweet boy was born on Wednesday, September 24, 2008, at 9:30 p.m. That kinda hurt. Of course, it was all worth it. I didn't have any drugs so that made me happy. Anyway, I am so in love with him. He is so perfect and sweet and beautiful and cute. He has black curly hair and the cutest little face and cutest everything. He makes the funniest faces. He is really a good baby -- he's not keen on sleeping much after the sun goes down, but he doesn't seem to cry for no reason -- he just likes to eat a lot and cries if he is separated from his source of nourishment for any length of time. (Like 5 minutes.) Here are some pics for your convenience.

amazing Sri Lankan birth story

So since mostly all I think about is birth these days, I was remembering a story that a friend told us about his uncle. Some of you all might have heard of him or known him -- I won't put his name on here, but we'll call him "L." "L" was a very kind, gentle, Sri Lankan man who I believe had been a tailor. He was a widower visiting the States from Sri Lanka and he met and married an American widow, very late in life. I believe they were both in their 80's when they married. Amazingly, they had around ten wonderful years together if I'm not mistaken. He sewed his wife's wedding dress and after that he sewed all her clothes. They were beautifully done. I know he was in his 90's when he died. I know some of his family, but I never knew him. Because of circumstances, I was present at a small memorial service to bury his ashes. (His wife is still alive but in a rest home.) Afterward, some were telling stories about him. This is the story of how he was born:

His mother was giving birth at home, as usual in that day, and for some reason, the midwife could not get there in time. So she sent an assistant who had much less experience. The birth went fine -- a baby was born, the placenta was delivered, and later, the midwife arrived. When the midwife got there, she told the assistant "show me and tell me everything you did." The assistant recounted the details of the birth -- how the labor went, the timing of the birth, the birth of the placenta. The assistant had taken the placenta outside and put it in a hole to be buried. The midwife said, "Show me the placenta." So they went outside and the midwife looked at the placenta in the hole -- and it MOVED. She picked it up -- and there was another baby in the membranes! Apparently that part of the membranes had not broken apart and it was not obvious that there was a baby in there! The mother had had twins and she didn't know it!!!! That baby was L. They took him inside, cleaned him off, and he lived for 93 or so years. He used to say, with a twinkle in his eye, and in his lilting accent, "Truly God brought me out of a horrible pit..."

sucking on the placenta

Not me, the baby. Today I had this test (unnecessary but I didn't feel like fighting them) where they make sure you have enough amniotic fluid. So I had my second ultrasound. The baby was sucking on the placenta! I saw his little lips moving. The nurse said he was probably just bored. Also, because of the sucking reflex, if something comes near their mouth, they just suck on it. They suck on the cord too sometimes, I guess. It was funny watching him.

You have to admit placentas are pretty cool. For the baby's entire stay in the uterus, the placenta gives the baby nutrients and oxygen, and disposes of CO2 and his waste products. The placenta is the only organ with its own life cycle. (Hmm, maybe skin has its own too, now that I think of it...) You can do cool stuff with it, like plant it under a tree, make a placenta print with it (see above), give it to your Bradley class teacher so she can show it to her students, or even...eat it! Yum! My mom sent us recipes for Placenta Lasagne and Cold Placenta Blended With Tomato Juice (mom named that one the Bloody Mary). I think she was joking about the recipes... The site I got this picture from was in Russian (Cyrillic, anyway), so I'm not totally sure, but I think this is what I think it is...

Anybody want to come for dinner?

the Marines washed my car today

And they did a really good job, as I thought they might. Being Marines and all -- I think they have to be good at like cleaning things and detail and stuff, right? I was wondering, though, why they were having a carwash. Sounds like they do it every week or every other. It's too bad that after we have borrowed/spent 700 billion dollars since 9/11 for military endeavors that the Marines would still have to have a carwash, isn't it? Maybe we should have thought our strategy out...

Or maybe they do it for fun for extra money? I wanted to ask them but I didn't have the nerve. What if they didn't like the question and they decided to do a civilian Code Red on me or something. Just kidding, they were really nice.