And donating blood is fast, and easy, and almost entirely risk free to the donor, right?

Yet, donating blood is not mandatory. It’s entirely voluntary. Nobody forces you to go through the very minor effort of donating blood to save lives.

Nor is anyone forcing you to get tested for compatibility with people awaiting kidney, or liver, or bone marrow transplants. Those are not minor procedures, but they save lives at relatively little risk to the donor’s life (it takes several months to recover fully), yet nobody suggests that anyone should have to sacrifice their health or an organ to protect the life of someone else.

Unless that organ is a uterus.

You know what they say about legislation, it’s like how they make sausage…links.

• Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans – And who scores highest on a test about religions? Atheists. Awesome.
• Gimmie That Old-Time Tactic – A great diary on DailyKos draws the direct link through history from 19th century Confederates to the conservative Republicans of today.

Okay, this isn’t really political, nor did it make it onto the pop charts, but the song I’m featuring today was a favorite of mine back when I worked on my college radio station in the late ’80’s. It’s the B-side of Naked Raygun’s Vanilla Blue. It’s basically the best of Slim Pickens, set to a rollicking, rolling guitar and drum score.

And yeah, Slim uses language in this piece that I won’t let you use in comments. Autre temps and all that.

So now, without further ado, I bring you “Slim”

Click through for an important message from our sponsors.(Paradox13 posts the following at Doorbellqueen’s request.)

And here’s a special bonus, from Surviving The World.

Loudoun’s own David Waldman is leading the fight for filibuster reform, as he explained when he spoke before the LCDC earlier this year.

DailyKos is stepping up to help as well.

Last month, 21,000 Kossacks signed a petition asking all Democrats to support changing Senate rules with 51 votes. Along with our allies, we took that petition to Capitol Hill, and to Democratic campaigns. What we found is a big win: not a single Democrat who will be in the Senate next year is outright opposed to changing Senate rules. Even Ben Nelson isn’t a clear “no” anymore (seriously).

Two months ago, filibuster reform was declared dead because it lacked the votes. We have momentum now because you spoke up. On our end, it took hard work in the form of dozens of meetings with advocacy organizations and Capitol Hill staff to educate them on the issue. Reform of any sort, even filibuster reform, doesn’t happen without leaders putting their boots on the ground.

Our own David Waldman (Kagro X) is one of these leaders. He started this campaign 18 months ago, and it never would have gotten anywhere without him. For years, he has been the nation’s preeminent public voice on Senate procedure. Now, he is at the center of the emerging coalition of labor, civil rights, environmental, and netroots organizations that are working together on Capitol Hill to reform the filibuster.

As much as anyone, David helped make the campaign to reform the filibuster a reality. With three months left in this fight, he needs your help to keep up his excellent work. Progressive Congress has found a donor who pledged $5,000 to support David’s work over the next three months, but only if members of the Daily Kos community can match that with another $5,000.

To meet that goal, Daily Kos needs your contribution of $10 to keep up the momentum and support David’s work to reform the filibuster. You can contribute directly to Daily Kos on the Orange to Blue page, where every candidate supports reforming the filibuster.

Even if Democrats keep Congress, there won’t be any victory in November unless we fix the filibuster in January. We can’t do that unless there are leaders like David Waldman on the ground, in DC, working on the issue. Your $10 contribution to Daily Kos will make sure David is able to keep going.

Keep fighting,

Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos

Send your support, if you can.