site of the day

women and gentlemen, may i present

DAHLER MENDHI




it's an oldie BUT a wicked wicked wicked goodie

click on the 'watch now'

you'll NEVER be the same. after years of practicing, i STILL cannot get his dance moves down pat.

cindy and OTHER moms too!

Why mothers push for peace ..........There is a long tradition of bereaved mothers campaigning for peace, both in the US and elsewhere in the world.........

MoveOn

new details on steven vincent's death

US reporter killed 'because he was to marry a Muslim

.........
AN American journalist who was shot dead in Basra last week was executed by Shiite extremists who knew he was intending to marry his Muslim interpreter, it has emerged.
Steven Vincent was shot a week before the planned wedding to Nouriya Itais and had already delivered a $2,500 dowry to her family.
The disclosure casts new light on the grip of Islamic religious sects in the British-run south- east of Iraq - raising concern that they will take control once troops start to withdraw. Mr Vincent was abducted from his hotel three days after writing a piece in the New York Times accusing British officials of allowing religious parties to infiltrate the Basra police. ..........

the infamous emails...........

most of this is work related but CAN be applicable to other venues.

there are three types of emails: the REPLY ALL, the ENDLESS EMAIL MISSIVE and the CUTESY/FLOWERY/CHAIN-MAIL(Y)/USELESS(Y) EMAIL: i do not wish to burst anyone's balloons or bubbles or bows or crack n**s, but the rest of the world does NOT really care if you signed up for the flu shot, the chair massage, the mortgage seminar or where you park your car. think carefully and note ALL the names on the distribution list. do you really want to hit that reply all button? is your answer necessary for the entire group to read? will we care? again, THINK BEFORE hitting enter. we will ALL thank you. this leads right into the never ending email: DO NOT thank the sender more than once. do NOT keep an email going for seven days. do NOT be cute (funny is one thing, cute is another. VERY FEW can pull it off). here is a portion of an actual potentially endless email:
EMAILER #1: EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 1ST supplies should be ordered from person XXX or person YYY.
EMAILEE #1:is this internal or external?
EMAILER: external
EMAILEE: THANK U
EMAILEE: (again) USUALLY WHEN I NEED ENVELOPES I GET THEM MYSELF, I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH PERSON XXX
EMAILER: i said EXTERNAL supplies only
EMAILEE: oh, ok, thank U
EMAILEE: (AGAIN) I DID FIGURE THAT OUT YOU KNOW.
EMAILEE: (AGAIN AND AGAIN): BY THE WAY, I LIKE YOUR OUTFIT
EMAILEE:(AGAIN AND AGAIN AD NAUSEAUM): CALL ME CRAZY, BUT NOT TOO LONG AGO DIDN'T YOU SEND OUT ANOTHER EMAIL ABOUT SUPPLIES?
ok, i then put an immediate halt to the above travesty.

please don't make up cute little words in your email. spell out YOU, ARE, ANY (not, u, r, ne) ahhhhhhhhhhhhh please don't send me a chain letter. i am bright enough to know i am not going to lose my house, my car, my friends, cause someone to die, or die myself if i don't forward it on. i know i will NOT inherit a million dollars. please don't tell me disney world has an email tracker (there is NO such thing) and i will win an all expenses paid vacation for 10 people for 5 weeks if i forward that email you just sent me to 25 of my nearest and dearest friends (who of course would NOT be afterwards). please don't tell me NOT to stick my finger in a pay phone coin return receptacle because there is a dirty disease infected syringe in it. hey, i have a cell phone anyway! please don't send me "inspirational" emails. i am very convicted in my beliefs and don't want yours thrust upon me. be safe be well dream in colors. an' it harm none, do as you will

manners (and the lack thereof)

i saw this article in the nyt A Minder to Mind Your Manners

it reminded me how so many people lack good manners. i'm not talking about getting rid of a stray eyebrow hair (as the woman in the article does) or using the shrimp fork for your salad (horrors!). i am talking about returning a greeting when one passes by another in the hall, or holding the door open for someone following right in back of you OR the WORST - NOT SAYING EXCUSE ME enough. not saying excuse me when you cut in front of someone or when you reach in front of someone (especially when you've not showered, it's hot out and you forgot your deodorant). i tend to scream the words EXCUSE ME out loud at someone as a hint they SHOULD have said it to me. most don't get it. they continue on their way.

it won't hurt you to be courteous. it won't hurt you to say HELLO to me in passing (i am not burning babies and animals in my basement contrary to popular belief). it won't hurt you to hold the door open for the person in back of you holding twelve bags. it won't hurt you to say excuse me if you bash into me with your grocery cart. it won't hurt you to say THANK YOU once in a while too. oh and don't snap your fingers at your servers in a bar or restaurant. TIP THEM WELL. it's how they make a living!

oh i almost forgot this........yesterday at work, i went to the loo to 'freshen up'. as soon as i entered i espied a woman standing there TALKING ON HER CELL PHONE. she wasn't going to move and i REALLY had to 'freshen'. i just faced her and glared at her. IF i had opened my mouth to speak, i surely would have been fired. i would have shot arrows and darts and bullets and chinese spiked stars at her. what an AZZ WIPE. she FINALLY got the hint and moved it outside. as far as i am concerned, the ONLY acceptable conversation she could have been having in that loo was, 'what hospital is he/she at, I WILL BE RIGHT THERE'. (and no she was laughing and generally yucking it up at something or other).

i have the same suggestion i had before....

there is NO need to segregate men and women. all that need be done is lock the male's genitalia up in a chastity device. problem solved! oh those evil women MAY tempt the stalwart men, but they would be unable to do 'the deed' if they are all locked up.

In Saudi Arabia, a high-tech way to flirt
Bluetooth gives segregated sexes a way to reach out, discreetly

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The restaurant, like all Riyadh eateries, has taken precautions to prevent its male and female diners from seeing or contacting each other.
Circular white walls surround each table in the family section, open only to women alone or women accompanied by close male relatives. Other male diners are on lower floors. ......
........The women would not give their full names when talking about communicating with the opposite sex — so strong is the taboo in this kingdom where men and women are strictly segregated. Unrelated men and women caught talking to each other, driving in the same car or sharing a meal risk being detained by the religious police. ........

wonder who gets in more trouble with the religious police??? let me take a wild guess - the woman???????????

sad, the nations we pick as our 'friends'

A total of 36 Bangladeshi children employed as 'camel jockeys' in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have returned home yesterday ending their prolonged sufferings in the oil-rich nation.....
...."Sometimes I had enough to eat, and sometimes not. Our employers used to torture us when we made mistakes," said Selim, who hails from Gaibandha. "The job is very tiresome. We had to work from morning till night, tending the camels, training them, cleaning their faeces and mounting the camels in the racing games." .......

arlo (and alice)

will always have a special place in my heart

Arlo Guthrie's Storied Career

HAD ARLO Guthrie known his "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" would be so popular
and enduring, he surely would have made it shorter.
After all, it took 18
minutes and 20 seconds, and one full side, of his 1967 debut album for Guthrie
to gleefully recount the saga of how two years earlier he and his buddy Rick
Robbins tried to help his former teachers Alice and Ray Brock clean their
Stockbridge, Mass., home -- a deconsecrated 17th-century church -- for
Thanksgiving dinner by taking a half-ton of garbage to the local dump in their
Volkswagen bus. Except the dump was closed, leading Guthrie and Robbins to toss
everything down a residential hillside.........
.......That could have been
the end of the story, except that it was the middle of the war in Vietnam, and
when the draft board called, Guthrie's misdemeanor proved a far greater obstacle
to his being inducted into the Army than his hilarious efforts to paint himself
as a bloodthirsty psycho. In fact, Guthrie's
littering rendered him unfit for military service...........

it is just NOT thanksgiving for me without hearing the song.

soldier's blogs

The New Ernie Pyles: Sgtlizzie and 67cshdocs
On Internet Blogs, Soldiers in Iraq Offer Up Inside Story on the War

BAGHDAD -- There were no reporters riding shotgun on the highway north of
Baghdad when a roadside bomb sent Sgt. Elizabeth Le Bel's Humvee lurching into a
concrete barrier. The Army released a three-sentence statement about the
incident in which her driver, a fellow soldier, was killed. Most news stories
that day noted it briefly.
But a vivid account of the attack appeared on the
Internet within hours of the Dec. 4 crash. Unable to sleep after arriving at the
hospital, Le Bel hobbled to a computer and typed 1,000 words of what she called
"my little war story" into her Web log, or blog, titled "Life in this Girl's
Army," at http://www.sgtlizzie.blogspot.com .........

....At least 200 active-duty soldiers currently keep blogs. Only about a
dozen blogs were in existence two years ago when the U.S. invaded Iraq,
according to "The Mudville Gazette" ( http://www.mudvillegazette.com ), a clearinghouse of information
on military blogging administered by an Army veteran who goes by the screen
name
Greyhawk............

seems like a good idea to check them out. they are/were there. i'm not (but neither are the bush twins for that matter)

i was just watching abc news

dino in the garden of eden
when i couldn't believe my ears! there is a museum in arkansas that says dinosaurs were on noah's ark. yes, you read it right. ..............
EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark., Aug. 11, 2005 — It can be jarring to see fossil replicas of dinosaurs and adjacent images of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Most museums do not posit that dinosaurs — adolescent ones, of course, for space reasons — were shepherded onto the Great Ark by Noah.......... well, at LEAST they believe dinosaurs existed. that's one baby step

live free or die

Hooksett is serious about litter 4-year-old learns
PEMBROKE - Police in Hooksett are serious about enforcing the local littering laws — even in the case of 4-year-old Natasha Fryou and her wayward bouncy ball.
Natasha's mother and stepdad, Tracy and Brett Carter of Pembroke, were caught off guard when Hooksett Police Officer Dan Bray knocked on their door Sunday morning with a $288 littering citation in hand.
or get a $288 dollar ticket because your four year old tosses out ball from your car window ............ geeze officer krupke

Acts of Antiwar: Operation Ceasefire Will Bring Music To the Mall

Operation Ceasefire, a newly formed coalition of musicians who oppose the war in Iraq, yesterday announced plans for a free, 10-hour music festival on the Washington Monument grounds that will be the centerpiece of a cluster of antiwar activities spanning three days, beginning Saturday, Sept. 24.
The concert, billed as a "cultural resistance" by event organizers, will feature acts including the Washington electronica duo Thievery Corporation -- who are also producing the festival -- country-western crooner Steve Earle, socialist rappers the Coup and punk rock/indie artists Le Tigre performing to urge lawmakers to bring the troops home............ ..........Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton said he felt compelled to do something to stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ever since "the day after 9/11, when they first started talking about bombing Afghanistan."
"I don't subscribe to the 'love it or leave it' doctrine," Hilton said during the briefing. "I'm American and I love this country, too. I just feel a moral imperative as a human being who happens to be a musician" to do something about the war..............

further proof i am behind the times

a friend sent me the following essay (thank you cass!). i went to look up it's origins and all i could find were millions of other blogs which had published it a WHILE AGO. well, better late than never. An Essay on President Bush and Death - by E.L Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. He is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of thetwentieth century. Doctorow has received the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the residentially conferred National Humanities Medal. Doctorow was born in New York City on January 6, 1931. After graduating with honors from Kenyon College in 1952, he did graduate work at Columbia University and served in the U.S. Army. Doctorow was senior editor for New American Library from 1959 to 1964 and then served as editor in chief at Dial Press until 1969. Since then, he has devoted his time to writing and teaching. He holds the Glucksman Chair in American Letters at New York University and over the years has taught at several institutions, includingYale University Drama School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of California, Irvine. I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear. But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life.... They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq. How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to. This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million of us who live in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does not feel.But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class. And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it. But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused over soul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time. But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war. The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble. Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective war-making, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves. E.L. Doctorow i have an idea georgie. SEND THE TWINS OVER TO FIGHT

they damn well better

BRING furio BACK FROM THE OLD COUNTRY!!!
'Sopranos' May Extend Final Run

more evidence of second class citizenry

mona Smile' producers accused of discrimination

........NEW YORK --Even as the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" explored stereotypes of female repression at a 1950s women's college, its producers discriminated against 19 female musicians who were paid less than their male counterparts, the U.S. government says....
.......The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Tuesday that the producers -- Revolution Studios and Smile Productions LLC -- agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing them of paying their female musicians less than men for the same work..........

site of the day

fried dough around the world

they're STILL dancing......

this is a GREAT article........(but the prosecutor is still doing the hustle)

Side Issue in the Plame Case: Who Sent Her Spouse to Africa?

.....that is NOT the issue being investigated.... geeze and crackers

.......................Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report..............

..............Senior Bush administration officials told a different story about the trip's origin in the days between July 8 and July 12, 2003. They said that Wilson's wife was working at the CIA dealing with weapons of mass destruction and that she suggested him for the Niger trip, according to three reporters...............

cd of the day

i was speaking to a new friend today and he reminded me of how wonderful this johnny cash cd is;

American IV: The Man Comes Around


play the hauntingly beautiful hurt video

johnny we miss you and june

women's issue

(A woman played with her child in her room in a shelter for abused women in Lagos, Nigeria)


Entrenched Epidemic: Wife-Beatings in Africa
........LAGOS, Nigeria - It was a typical husband-wife argument. She wanted to visit her parents. He wanted her to stay home.
So they settled it in what some here say is an all-too-typical fashion, Rosalynn Isimeto-Osibuamhe recalled of the incident in December 2001. Her husband, Emmanuel, followed her out the door. Then he beat her unconscious, she says, and left her lying in the street near their apartment....

.....Ms. Isimeto-Osibuamhe, then 31 and in the fifth year of her marriage, had broken an unwritten rule in this part of the world: she had defied her husband. Surveys throughout sub-Saharan Africa show that many men - and women, too - consider such disobedience ample justification for a beating..........

in THAT part of the world? it's not like africa is the ONLY place this is happening. check next door to YOU. you may just be in for a surprise. WE as women (and men) should never remain silent. DO NOT go gentle............... you have a voice USE IT. STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

you can make up your own mind

i don't like ads that insight ........but

TV Ad Attacking Court Nominee Provokes Furor

.........WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - An advertisement that a leading abortion-rights organization began running on national television on Wednesday, opposing the Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. as one "whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans," quickly became the first flashpoint in the three-week-old confirmation process.......

....In this case, two lower federal courts had found that the clinic protests met that test because they were a form of discrimination against women. But Mr. Roberts argued that the demonstrators were not singling out women for discriminatory treatment but rather were trying to "prohibit the practice of abortion altogether." He told the court that even though only women could become pregnant or seek abortions, it was "wrong as a matter of law and logic" to regard opposition to abortion as the equivalent of discrimination against women...........
(this of course is bs, it IS discrimination against WOMEN and WOMEN alone)

...The administration's position initially attracted relatively little attention when it entered the case in the spring of 1991. But after a summer of violent protests at clinics in Wichita, Kan., during which Mr. Roberts and other administration lawyers opposed the authority of a federal judge there to issue an injunction, the situation had become politically sensitive. Mr. Roberts began his second argument by saying the administration was not trying to defend the demonstrators' conduct but rather to "defend the proper interpretation" of the statute........

sorry i didn't get to this yesterday

SOUR NOTE: Rap superstar 50 Cent is flanked by ex-crack dealer Young Buck (left) and Lloyd Banks, both of whom were busted

but it is JUST as good today


50'S DITTY DOZEN .........August 10, 2005 -- Twelve members of rap superstar 50 Cent's G-Unit posse — including top hip-hop performers Lloyd Banks and Young Buck — were arraigned on weapons charges yesterday after cops stopped their van and found two loaded guns.........
.........A swarm of fans greeted the posse as they left Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday, including one gushing female court officer who beamed at Lloyd, yelling: "Remember, Lloyd, get a [gun] license in every state!"
Lloyd then took off his shirt to reveal a wife-beater undershirt — his bulging muscles adorned with tattoos — as the fans went wild.

ya gotta love the post

another horror story for women

In Sudan, Sitting in One Prison to Escape Another
Women Commit Adultery, Serve Time To Obtain Divorces

........RUMBEK, Sudan -- Crouched in a dank prison ward, Ding Maker admits she broke the law by committing adultery. But she didn't do it for love, she says. Like many women in jail for infidelity in Sudan, she did it because she wanted a divorce. For three months, she has been sitting in a cell with 12 other women, hoping to shame her husband into repaying her dowry and leaving her......

....."He abused and beat me, never paying for my food or taking care of our sick children," Maker said, adjusting her shiny green shirt over her swelling belly. She is pregnant from the affair, but not worried about it.....

.....In patriarchal southern Sudan, as in much of Africa, only men have the right to file for divorce. The one legal loophole for Sudanese women is to commit adultery, a crime that is instant grounds for divorce. But even then, most husbands refuse to agree to one because they don't want to ask their relatives to return the dowry -- in Maker's case, 90 cows -- they have received from the bride's family and distributed as gifts..........

and on and on and on and on. once again, SECOND CLASS CITIZENS. well i take that back. far BELOW second class.

yum!

Shaved ice, sweet azuki beans, pounded rice dumplings, green tea ice cream, green tea gelatin and green tea syrup

recording artist and movie of the day

marianne faithfull

my personal favorite by her is; broken english

a PERFECT movie to go along with that is; montenegro

she's running

this is how i see her

this is how the rest see her

and
this is on her official web page (note the air brushing and filtered camera)

Rep. Katherine Harris starts Senate campaign

........SARASOTA, Florida (AP) -- Rep. Katherine Harris began her campaign for Senate on Tuesday, saying among the issues she plans to address are homeland security and health care.
The Republican, best known for her role as Florida's then-secretary of state during the 2000 presidential recount, is trying to unseat Democrat Bill Nelson, who will be seeking his second Senate term in November 2006.....

wonder how those ballots will turn out????????

site of the day

send someone a a virtual bouquet of flowers or learn how to dance or listen to his LOVE SONG to condi

or read the blog of zefrank

see, it CAN kill you

Man dies after 50 hours of computer games

.....SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing online battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said..


(randy watch out, ok?)

i say have him report to ME

Leak Investigation: An Oversight Issue?

it's NOT an oversight, it was 'forgotten' on purpose

....Aug. 15, 2005 issue - The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. .......

....Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale. One question: how much authority Comey's successor will have over Fitzgerald. .........

if heads don't roll here (i mean rove and novak's to name two) we, as citizens of this once great pb (pre-bush) nation ought to let the 'powers that be' know we don't sit well with traitors not being punished

somehow this doesn't come as a shock.....

U.S. may raise Iraq troop level before any cuts
Military wants extra security ahead of October referendum, December vote

.WASHINGTON - Before the Defense Department begins reducing troop levels in Iraq next year it probably will increase them this fall to provide extra security for a planned October referendum and a December election, a Pentagon official said Monday...."It's perfectly plausible to assume we'll do the same thing for this election," he said, while stressing that no decisions have been made.......

no decisions have been made? who the hell are they trying to kid?

whoops they did it AGAIN

Microsoft warns users of 'critical' security flaws

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. warned users of its Windows operating system on Tuesday of three newly found "critical" security flaws in its software, including one that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer.

The world's largest software maker issued patches to fix the problems as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problems affect the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)

i can hardly wait!

NOT! her acting is so vapid and insipid, i can only imagine what her film will be like (NOT!!!). i don't give a flying yoo hoo what her film will be like

Gwyneth Paltrow Takes Her Turn Behind the Camera

.......Gwyneth Paltrow yelled "Cut!" as if her life depended on it. Sipping hot green tea on one of the hottest days of the year, standing in a meandering Brooklyn apartment that had been transformed into a movie set, Ms. Paltrow was directing her first film, "Dealbreakers," a short about the dubious charms of dating, with no small measure of authority......

i wonder where apple was? well no i don't really.

a mystery

4-Star General Relieved Of Duty
Rare Move Follows Allegations of an Extramarital Affair

........In a rare move, the Army relieved a four-star general of his command amid allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a civilian, Army officials said yesterday.

Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, 55, led the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., where he supervised the recruitment and academic programs at 33 Army schools, from basic training to the war colleges. Byrnes, who several military sources said had a previously unblemished record, was set to retire in November after 36 years of service...........
........Having an extramarital affair can be deemed adultery and a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But such cases rarely go to court-martial and usually end in administrative punishment such as a letter of reprimand, according to military lawyers. Relieving a general of his command amid such allegations is extremely unusual, especially given that he was about to retire.
The Army has been hurt over the past year by detainee-abuse cases and has been accused of not going after top officers allegedly involved in such abuse. Army officials said relieving Byrnes was meant to show the public that the service takes issues of integrity seriously........

allegations of an affair..........that got him dismissed. yet all sorts of abuses are happening in the service and no one gets dismissed over THEM.........mmmmmmmmmmmmm odd odd odd

and from the nyt...... 4-Star General Is Dismissed Over Conduct

.............WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Army has abruptly relieved the four-star general in charge of training and recruiting after an investigation into unspecified "personal misconduct," Army officials said Tuesday.



well i'll await the FULL story (if we ever get it)

a new theory?

ice

a VERY good idea to program a contact (In Case of Emergency) into your cell phone! just put the letters ICE in front of your contact's name. i did it's easy it takes less than one minute, JUST DO IT

what if you're not young

or white or attractive..........


neal shapiro, president nbc news talks to correspondent josh mankiewicz
When a 'Dateline' story invites some self-criticism (Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline Correspondent)

.....Until I began to research this story, though, I had no idea how lopsided the numbers really were as pertains to missing Americans. Most aren't young, attractive, white women. In fact, most are men. About 30 percent are black, a much higher percentage of the missing than blacks are of the U.S. population. And they attract almost no coverage nationally.........

video............

An image taken of a roadside bomb targeting U.S. soldiers is shown in an al Qaeda video. (Photo via IntelCenter)

site of the day

one of my favorite groups

i go to see them just about every time they are in town.

wonderful fun witty nuts talented insane but they get me up and shakin' my moneymaker!

The Niagaras

i don't like rodeos

or animals in the circus

i'm sorry this person died. perhaps we can learn from this. NO MORE RODEOS

......GRACE, Idaho A fluke accident has killed a rodeo rider in eastern Idaho.Authorities say a bull apparently tripped Saturday night at the Caribou County Fair and Rodeo in the town of Grace. The bull caught its horn in the ground and flipped over onto the rider.
The rider died yesterday of his injuries......

Marc Cohn shot in head during car jacking

not to worry, he was treated and released (whew)

...........DENVER - A Grammy-winning musician and husband of ABC news reporter
Elizabeth Vargas was treated at a hospital and released Monday after being shot
in the head during an attempted carjacking following a performance.
Marc
Cohn, who had a hit with the song "Walking in Memphis" and won the Grammy for
best new artist in 1992, was struck in the temple Sunday night when a man fired
into his band's van in a parking garage. A suspect was being sought............

little buddah

Artist Hiro Yamagata sits Aug. 1 inside a holographic cube built for an upcoming exhibition at his studio in Torrance, Calif. Yamagata plans to commemorate two destroyed fifth-century Buddha statues by projecting multicolored laser images onto the clay cliffsides where they once stood.



Bringing back Afghan Buddhas, with light
L.A. artist to ‘re-create’ laser versions of structures destroyed by Taliban

.........LOS ANGELES - When the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroyed two 1,600-year-old Buddha statues lining Bamiyan Valley’s soaring cliffs, the world shook with shock at the demise of such huge archaeological treasures.
Now, artist Hiro Yamagata plans to commemorate the towering Buddhas by projecting multicolored laser images onto the clay cliffsides where the figures once stood, about 80 miles west of Kabul...............
...........In March 2001, Taliban militants disregarded worldwide protests and used dynamite and artillery to blow up the original fifth-century statues, famed for their size and location along the ancient Silk Road linking Europe and Central Asia. The fundamentalist group considered the Buddhas idolatrous and anti-Muslim..........

you don't come back

the same man or woman..............





Theater of War
An Ex-Marine Brings Iraq Stateside at MetroStage


It's been a very bad week for the Marines in Iraq, and playwright Sean Huze is taking it personally. "Twenty-one Marines killed in the past 48 hours," he says, his voice rising in anger. "I wonder when we've had enough -- when we as a society will hold this administration accountable for getting us into a war unnecessarily.".........

..........Huze, 30, lean and tattooed, sips from a can of Red Bull and drags on his cigarette outside MetroStage, the small theater in Alexandria where he is overseeing rehearsals for his first play, "The Sand Storm: Stories From the Front." You might be tempted to dismiss him as another antiwar Hollywood liberal -- he is, after all, an actor and playwright from Los Angeles -- except there's this: Until a few months ago, he was Marine Cpl. Huze, a veteran of combat in Iraq. He also was one of those gung-ho young patriots who marched into recruiting offices on Sept. 12, 2001, itching for payback.........

.........."You don't come back the same man," he says, lighting another Natural American Spirit cigarette on an ovenlike evening last week after news broke that 14 Marines had died in a massive roadside bombing in Anbar. "So in essence, no one returns from the war."............

who's coming with me?

just don't get in back of me while we're in line going through the metal detector. what you can see on the outside, isn't even the half of it. (when i have been to court AS A PROPOSED JUROR mind you, they just make me go over to the side and wand me. they don't even bother making me walk through the detector).

Eccentric, Eclectic Fringe Festival Opens

...............EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Thousands of thespians, comedians,
musicians and even mimes descended on the Scottish capital Sunday for the
opening of the Edinburgh Fringe _ the world's largest arts festival, and
arguably the most democratic.
At the Fringe, anyone can register, pay a fee,
find a venue and put on a show. That means a raucously diverse program whose
1,800 shows encompass college revues, up-and-coming bands, star comedians and
avant-garde theater.
Where else could a U.S. high school production of
"Footloose" share a program with a rap version of "The Canterbury Tales" and a
musical about a presidential assassin?..............

...........Indeed, the program includes "Terrorism: The Musical,"
"Apocalypse: The Musical," "Lee Harvey Oswald: The Musical" and "The Brighter
Side of Alzheimer's" _ needless to say, a musical...........

you KNOW you want to go with me don't you????

i left my burka at home

no, it's not what you think it is

Branson, Mo., Looks Beyond RVs and Buffets
Prosperous Conservative Movement Has Blue-Collar Retreat Aiming to Go Upscale

..........BRANSON, Mo. -- Here in the lush foothills of the Ozarks it is
barely 9 a.m., with temperatures inching toward 100, and already throngs are
pushing into Silver Dollar City. It's an 1880s-era theme park that launches
every day with the Pledge of Allegiance, hosts four packed Sunday Christian
services and requires customers to dress in appropriate
family attire.
This is the way visitors like it in Branson,
where 7 million people a year come for live shows at about 45 theaters -- more
seats than Broadway -- as well as camping, fishing and all-you-can-eat buffets.
Offering wholesome entertainment, Branson is a popular Middle America summer
destination for families, veterans, conservatives and others seeking affirmation
of traditional values with a strong Christian influence. "The best way we can
serve you is to offer prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ for any need you may
have," a bedside card at the Honeysuckle Inn offers.........

i am going to have to introduce branson to MY family! they (branson) have NO idea what appropriate means. tube tops and daisy dukes of course. well hell, i wish i could ban some people from me having to view their attire in public but i can't. branson isn't the vatican (yet). does anyone remember when disney land and disney world used to have a customer dress code? i wonder what is going on the deep dark bowels of branson. i am guessing the very SAME things that go on in the bowels of any city - and it AIN'T pretty

hober radio

google this

Google's Chief Is Googled, to the Company's Displeasure .......

...........CNETNews.com, a
technology news Web site, said last week that Google had told it that the
company would not answer any questions from CNET's reporters until July 2006.
The move came after CNET published an article last month that discussed how the
Google search engine can uncover personal information and that raised questions
about what information Google collects about its users.
The article, by
Elinor Mills, a CNET staff writer, gave several examples of information about
Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, that could be gleaned from the search
engine. These included that his shares in the company were worth $1.5 billion,
that he lived in Atherton, Calif., that he was the host of a $10,000-a-plate
fund-raiser for Al Gore's presidential campaign and that he was a
pilot.
After the article appeared, David Krane, Google's director of public
relations, called CNET editors to complain, said Jai Singh, the editor in chief
of CNETNews.com. "They were unhappy about the fact we used Schmidt's private
information in our story," Mr. Singh said. "Our view is what we published was
all public information, and we actually used their own product to find
it."..............

hey mr schmidt, i love your search engine and use it all the time, but don't you get the feeling BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU TOO?

hey awol, cindy is STILL waiting

Cindy Sheehan paces on a road Sunday near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. She vows to wait until he talks to her or leaves the ranch.



Of the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President


CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 7 - President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington State.
But when she was blocked by the police a few miles from Mr. Bush's 1,600-acre spread on Saturday, the 48-year-old Ms. Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., was transformed into a news media phenomenon, the new face of opposition to the Iraq conflict at a moment when public opinion is in flux and the politics of the war have grown more complicated for the president and the Republican Party.

THIS WOMAN IS BANGIN'

rest in peace peter

Peter Jennings Dies at 67


Aug. 7 — ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings died today at his home in New York City. He was 67. On April 5, Jennings announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
He is survived by his wife, Kayce Freed, his two children, Elizabeth, 25, and Christopher, 23, and his sister, Sarah Jennings.............."Peter died with his family around him, without pain and in peace. He knew he'd lived a good life," his wife and children said in a statement.
In announcing Jennings' death to his ABC colleagues, News President David Westin wrote:
"For four decades, Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him....

i rather like the nyt obit. they called him 'urbane'


Peter Jennings, Urbane News Anchor, Dies at 67 ......Peter Jennings, a high school dropout from Canada who transformed himself into one of the most urbane, well-traveled and recognizable journalists on American television, died yesterday at home. He was 67 and lived in Manhattan.......
.........In addition to reporting from nearly every major world capital and war zone, Mr. Jennings also managed to report from all 50 states, according to the network. He seemed to draw on that collective experience - as well as his practiced ability to calmly describe events as they unfolded live - not long after two hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Over the course of that day, and those that immediately followed, he would spend more than 60 hours on the air in what Tom Shales of The Washington Post, among other critics, praised as a tour de force of interviewing and explanatory broadcast journalism laced with undisguised bewilderment.
"This is what it looked like moments ago," Mr. Jennings said at one point that first morning, as he introduced a piece of videotape recorded moments earlier in Lower Manhattan. "My God! The southern tower, 10:00 Eastern Time this morning, just collapsing on itself. This is a place where thousands of people worked. We have no idea what caused this."...........

i'm only posting this

because the grey lady said, 'bling-encrusted'............A Money Scandal That's Rocking Hip-Hop

GABRIELE T. SMITH seemed to carry an all-access pass to rap music's circles of power. Usually decked out in designer clothes, she vacationed with the music supercouple Jay-Z and Beyoncé in the Caribbean. She dined at Mr. Chow in Manhattan. She traveled in style to the N.B.A.'s All-Star game. In fact, Ms. Smith had nestled so comfortably into the bling-encrusted embrace of the industry's heavyweights that she established herself as the money manager to the stars. At major investment houses and then through her own company, Premier Business Management L.L.C. in New York, Ms. Smith built a client list that included the president of the Def Jam Recordings label, rap stars like Fabolous and DJ Clue, and an assortment of wealthy young music executives. These days, however, many of those same executives and artists are accusing Ms. Smith, a 35-year-old stockbroker and former talent scout, of running an elaborate hustle. In lawsuits filed against her and the banks where she maintained accounts, former clients say Ms. Smith stole more than $3 million, using some of their money to pay other investors and pocketing the rest.............

how about we just pull out and DON'T COME BACK............... two days, WTF??????????? .................................Security Fears Prompt U.S. to Close Saudi Embassy

.....DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Aug. 7 - United States diplomatic missions in
Saudi Arabia will be closed for at least two days in response to possible
threats against American buildings, embassy officials said today.
The embassy
took the unusual, but not unprecedented, decision to close the embassy in the
Saudi capital, Riyadh, along with its consulates in Dhahran and Jidda on Monday
and Tuesday, in response to intelligence suggesting an attack was imminent, an
embassy spokesperson said. The embassy also repeated advice for American
citizens to be especially vigilant and to take appropriate steps to increase
their security.

cocoa

Do Cocoa Plantation Slaves in West Africa Produce Your Favorite Chocolate?

...........Cocoa is the essential ingredient for making chocolates. A
significant proportion of the world production of cocoa is grown and harvested
on plantations by African slaves...........

Chocolate and Slavery:
Child Labor in Cote d'Ivoire

.............1. The Issue
There is a surprising association between
chocolate and child labor in the Cote d'Ivoire. Young boys whose ages range from
12 to 16 have been sold into slave labor and are forced to work in cocoa farms
in order to harvest the beans, from which chocolate is made, under inhumane
conditions and extreme abuse. This West African country is the leading exporter
of cocoa beans to the world market. Thus, the existence of slave labor is
relevant to the entire international economic community. Through trade
relations, many actors are inevitably implicated in this problem, whether it is
the Ivorian government, the farmers, the American or European chocolate
manufacturers, or consumers who unknowingly buy chocolate. Discussions have
arisen regarding how to respond to the problem. Issues mentioned include causes
of slave labor relating to the economic system and to the country's dependence
on an unstable export crop. There are also debates concerning the appropriate
response from the chocolate industry, government officials, and consumers
concerning whether there should be boycotting, establishment of government
legislation to put "made by slaves" labels on products, or whether some type of
international cooperation is needed to ensure improved working conditions. The
complexity of the problem makes finding an effective solution a challenging
task............

PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHICH CHOCOLATE AND COCOA YOU PURCHASE.

little goth girl

great little animations!

did i just hear what i think i heard?

( did someone just fart?)
(you go grrrl!)
just saw a soundbyte on the news. awol out there saying something like 'i hope they can take comfort that millions of citizens are praying for them'. he was referring to our troops. i hope they can take comfort when they are looking down the barrel of an 'enemy's' gun or when they hear the initial crunch after they run over a land mine. or when they come home with only one leg. the ONLY reason he was out there is he felt embarrassed that cindy sheehan (mother of a dead soldier) was out there protesting (note: aoHELL poll, 72% think her actions were appropriate 28% did not. total of 67,492 votes). the man is a trip. that's all i can say right now, a trip

good news

i wasn't going to post this before...........but it DOES have a happy ending. All 7 Men Alive as Russian Submarine Is Raised

...............MOSCOW, Sunday, Aug. 7 - A small Russian submarine was freed on
Sunday from its undersea entanglement off the Far East coast by an unmanned
British rescue vehicle that cut away the nets that had ensnared it. All seven
crew members were alive and rushed aboard a Russian surface vessel, where they
were being reviewed by a medical team, Russian news agencies and the United
States Navy said............................

teamwork, let's see MORE of it.

don't make promises

you aren't gonna keep.........oh i forgot who i was speaking about Military Plans Gradual Cuts in Iraq Forces .........WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - In a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce American forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring if conditions on the ground permitted, three senior military officers and Defense Department officials said this week. The assessment by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the military's Central Command, tracks with a statement made last week by the top American general in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the Pentagon could make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring and summer if the political process in Iraq remained on track and Iraqi forces assumed more responsibility for securing the country..........

what political process in iraq? isn't everyone running around KILLING EACH OTHER?