chocolate covered strawberries

Driving home from my morning errands, I was tempted to stop and eat lunch at Luby's. However there were at least two ambulances, police and the fire department in the parking lot. Too much excitement for 11:30am. So I came home, ate a couple chocolate strawberries from Amy's and finished my reading assignment. I'm reading and evaluating short stories for a writing contest. It's pretty fun. I worked out the amount I'm being paid versus the time I spent on the stories and it comes out to nearly $30 per hour. Too bad it is just a few hours.

Currently I'm re-reading Poison by Kathryn Harrison. Her writing is lush without being baroque, and I enjoy it. I also picked up a couple books this morning so I'll have something to read on the plane on Friday.

I can haz valentinir?

Get your own valentinr

Ah, the fun. I <3 the interweb.

Amen, my friends and neighbors

Court strikes down Texas ban on sex toys
Federal appeals court says law violates right to privacy.

By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A federal appeals court has struck down a seldom-enforced Texas law making it a crime to promote or sell sex toys.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case originally filed in federal court in Austin, found that the ban in the Texas penal code on selling or promoting obscene devices violates the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices, government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution," said the opinion in the case considered by a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court.

The opinion relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which struck down a Texas law prohibiting private consensual sex among members of the same sex. That case established a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.

The sex toys lawsuit arose in 2004 when Reliable Consultants Inc., which operates four retail stores in Texas under the names Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, sued Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle challenging his right to prosecute under the law, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail. PHE Inc., doing business as Adam and Eve, Inc., intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs and the State of Texas, represented by Attorney General Greg Abbott, entered the suit as a defendant.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel dismissed the suit after finding that there is no constitutionally protected right to publicly promote obscene devices. The plaintiffs then appealed.

The Texas statute criminalizes the selling, advertising, giving or lending of a device designed or marked for sexual stimulation, according to the opinion. In addition to Texas, three other states have a similar obscene-devices statute —Mississippi, Alabama and Virginia. Obscene-devices statutes in Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia have been struck down by courts.

5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion
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I laughed with great joy when I caught this headline tonight. This means no more women being arrested for having a dozen dildos in her trunk on her way to a private Tupperware style party. This means that Forbidden Fruit won't have to label all the dildos as 'condom educational models' anymore. This means certain retailers will now be allowed to ship certain products to my home and not have to jump hoops to avoid weird, backwards, antiquated Texas laws. It means my beloved state is forced to take one more tiny step out of the dark ages.