It is a long standing policy to mention the name of every Reader who publicly admits to Reading the Holabird Advocate. Recently we have come into contact with two such folks. They are Bill and Rose Gingrich of Pierre, South Dakota. They sound like good folks too. They ride at least one Harley around the Black Hills in their spare time, and they are PITA members to boot. They never mentioned it, but unless I miss my guess, they both test EIB positive. Bill is retired, but does volunteer work (no doubt he knows Marv Paulson, and if not, he should). Rose works for the Dakota Radio Group at KGFX (a station that would be the perfect place to originate a talk show with our courageous dynamic Publisher as the host).

Bill has met former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. It is not known if they are related, but if you shook the family tree all kinds of folks get loose in there. Bill found and article that he sent to us claiming Mr. Newt may run for President in 2008. Maybe Cooter will run against him too.

The Holabird Advocate G-mail has been collecting every bit of junk mail and spam that it can to see if we can cram it full. So far we have collected 27 MB since April of last year. There is capacity for 973 MB left so we're just getting started. Perhaps you Readers have junk mail you want to get rid of. Maybe some stuff you want stored for a while. Just send it to the Holabird Advocate G-mail account at our address publisher@gmail.com .
Statehouse Committee Kills Abortion Bill
An effort to outlaw nearly all abortions in South Dakota failed in the South Dakota Legislature on Monday. The Senate State Affairs Committee killed a bill that was similar to a measure that also failed last year. Senator Frank Kloucek (D- Dist. 19) of Scotland offered this year's bill, which would have fixed a problem that caused last year's bill to fail after a technical veto from Governor Rounds. Several people testified in favor of Kloucek's bill. They say abortion is wrong and legislators should willingly favor any bill that would end abortions in South Dakota. Others pointed out that the anti-abortion movement was divided over last year's bill, and the movement has come together this year on legislation that would at least make some progress by increasingly restricting abortions. Opponents of Kloucek's bill to outlaw abortion say it would not pass a constitutional test. The State Affairs Committee killed the bill on a seven-to-two vote.

All of us here at the Holabird Advocate are curious about just one thing. How big is the abortion industry in South Dakota? Oh yes, we believe that one murdered baby is one too much. Yet we don't know how many abortions would have been prevented had this bill, or last years been passed. We will pray that while abortions are "safe and legal" in this state, that the need for them is rare. We here that someone representing the ACLU claimed that abortions were safer for women than the birth process. We don't know if that's true or not, but we know that can't be said from the baby's point of view. Still, we can't make the choice for the mother. We just hope every mother makes the best choice possible, and leave it up to God to sort it out.