an amazing piece on the rights of the BORN

i have not read anne lamott before. i am going to now. what she has written here is simple yet beautiful and right on the mark. no rich white man (or man of any level for that matter) has a right to tell ME and MY SISTERS what we can and cannot do with our bodies (or our minds)

The rights of the born By Anne Lamott, ANNE LAMOTT is a novelist and essayist. Her most recent book is "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith" (Riverhead, 2005).
EVERYTHING WAS going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree — the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president's war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind. Or, at any rate, I did.
Maybe it was the way in which the man couched the question, which was about how we should reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the "murder of a million babies every year in America." The man who asked the question was soft-spoken, neatly and casually dressed. ...........


...............But I did the only thing I could think to do: plunge on, and tell my truth. I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor — but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.

I said I could not believe that men committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women. I thought about all the photo-ops at which President Bush had signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by 10 or so white, self-righteous married men, who have forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what. I thought of the time Bush appeared on stage with children born from frozen embryos, children he calls "snowflake babies," and of the embryos themselves, which he calls the youngest and most vulnerable Americans. .......

it seems japan has such an abundance of whale meat, they're selling it as DOG FOOD

(whaleburger)
what beautiful creatures these are. most countries have laws protecting them. i don't know the exact details, but i believe some native peoples of the united states are allowed to hunt whales. my heart tells me just because it is in someone's culture (i.e. spanish bullfighting) doesn't make it right in MY book.

Whale meat 'made into dog food' Meat from whales caught under Japan's "research" programme is so abundant that it is being sold as pet food, according to a UK conservation group.
Thousands of tonnes of whale meat has been stockpiled as more animals are killed each year, says the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
The Japanese government has attempted to sell the whale meat to schools but the price has continued to fall.
A company is selling meat on the web as "healthy and safe natural" dog food.
"A quiet whale meat boom is starting," says the website hakudai.com.
"The number of pet-owners who care about their animals' health are growing, recognising the nutritious value of whale meat," it adds.
"Now the demand and the sales are soaring."
Nutritious and delicious
We have heard many arguments from Japan... but they have never stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs Mark Simmonds
The website describes whale meat as "organic" and fished "freshly out of the water".
Mark Simmonds, director of science at WDCS, said: "Whaling is a cruel activity and the fact that Japan is killing these amazing animals to produce dog food is shocking.............

A moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since 1986. However,
Norway has a legal objection to the ban and has continued commercial hunting of
common minke whales, and Japan and Iceland are allowed to catch whales for
scientific reasons.
Some countries and organisations would like a permanent
ban on commercial and scientific whaling, while others seek a return to limited
commercial whaling of abundant stocks.

sedition: Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.

along with ms berg, i too would have been guilty of sedition EXCEPT THERE IS NO REBELLION. where are our leaders with morals? our elected officials in congress (and the senate). why aren't they questioning the lies, the aggressive illegal actions taken by the bushwhacked administration? republicans AND democrats. this is beyond party lines. don't our elected representatives take oaths? at the very least don't they promise to protect their constituents? ms berg, i'll light a candle for you


Published on Friday, February 10, 2006 by the Progressive
VA Nurse Investigated for Sedition for Criticizing Bush
by Matthew Rothschild

Laura Berg is a clinical nurse specialist at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, where she has worked for 15 years.
Shortly after Katrina, she wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly paper the Alibi criticizing the Bush Administration.
After the paper published the letter in its September 15-21 issue, VA administrators seized her computer, alleged that she had written the letter on that computer, and accused her of “sedition.”
HereÂ’s what her letter said.
“I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government,” it began. “The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!” She mentioned that she was “a VA nurse” working with returning vets. “The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she wrote, and she worried about the hundreds of thousands of additional cases that might result from Katrina and the Iraq War.
“Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence,” she wrote. “This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.
Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.”
After her computer was seized, Berg wrote a memo to her bosses seeking information and an explanation.
Mel Hooker, chief of the human resources management service at the Albuquerque VA, wrote Berg back on November 9 and acknowledged that “your personal computer files did not contain the editorial letter written to the editor of the weekly Alibi.”
But rather than apologize, he leveled the sedition charge: “The Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition,” he said. “In your letter . . . you declared yourself ‘as a VA nurse’ and publicly declared the Government which employs you to have ‘tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence’ and advocated, ‘act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.’ ”
Berg, who is not talking to the press, is “scared for her job” and “pretty emotionally distressed,” says Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico.
“We were shocked to see the word ‘sedition’ used,” Simonson tells The Progressive. “Sedition? That’s like something out of the history books.”
In a press release, Simonson also said: “Is this government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?”
The ACLU of New Mexico is working in Berg’s behalf. It has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to this incident. And it is asking “at the very least” that Berg “receive a pubic apology from Mr. Hooker to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics,” according to a letter from the New Mexico ACLU to the VA’s Office of Regional Counsel............

a new recipe-tofu avocado toppers

while shopping at the asian market on shield street in west hartford, i picked up a pack of frozen onion roti-paratha (an onion pancake-bread type of thing/ i must say they were UNBELIEVABLY EXCELLENT. great texture. crispy outside, they got puffy as you cooked them but deflated immediately. ). i also picked up some age tofu. i don't eat deep fried foods often, but the age is deep fried tofu and every once in a while i get a hankering for it. i was starving when i got home and so i wanted something quick AND easy. i came up with the following recipe:

tofu-avocado toppers
1 small ripe avocado - diced
2 onion roti/paratha (the brand i used was spring home - frozen)
1/2 block of atsu-age (deep fried tofu. you may also use 1/2 block of tofu which you had frozen for at least a few days - now defrosted of course) - cut in chunks
1/3 c frozen baby peas
hoisin sauce to taste soy sauce to taste
chili pepper or red pepper flakes if you'd like

place the tofu, peas and hoisin and soy in a microsafe bowl. cover with a paper towel and microwave for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring halfway through. meanwhile, heat a skillet with 1 T olive oil - or the oil of your choice (i used teflon although that is probably a no no). if you use anything other than teflon or a well seasoned cast iron skillet, you'll need more oil i'm guessing. fry the onion pancakes one at a time until golden on both sides (it takes NO time at all!!!). when the tofu-pea mixture is done, gently stir in the diced avocado and any additional spices you'd like. top the warm pancakes with the mixture and enjoy!


frozen paratha on left, cooked parantha upper right and cooked and topped parantha on lower right

call to action

i'll cross post this with my connecticut site as well

over at act for change you can send an email to your congress person (it's an auto email, you just have to fill in your name, address and email, it's VERY easy) asking them to support congress person heather wilson's REQUEST FOR A FULL CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY into this ILLEGAL wiretapping program

oh by the way, congresswoman wilson is a REPUBLICAN

a horror story

why ms mayer's suit hasn't been settled yet is beyond me. why the aclu hasn't helped is beyond me. the headline is a bit misleading. it seems the 'educators' weren't protesting the war outwardly to their classes. they were simply answering questions from the kids. another question, why did the school district use a SEXUAL harrassment form to file the complaint against ms mayer? that stigma is now upon her back as well.

Educators face blowback for protesting Iraq war in schools
02/09/2006 @ 12:25 pm Filed by Carlos Miller
Just over three years ago, as the nation readied for war with Iraq, elementary school teacher Deb Mayer stood in front of her class and uttered the word that would get her blacklisted from her profession. It was a word that got her deemed “unpatriotic” by an angry parent. A word that led to her termination from the Bloomington, Indiana school district. A word that got her labeled as a potential sex offender and ruined her chances of finding work elsewhere.
That word was “peace.”
Today, after spending more than $50,000 in legal fees in a lawsuit against the Monroe County Community School Corporation, Mayer awaits a decision from a Reagan-appointed federal judge as to whether or not she will be granted a jury trial.
“If Judge [Sarah E.] Barker doesn’t grant us a jury trial, it would really be criminal,” Mayer said from her son’s home in Wisconsin, where she was forced to live after finding herself unable to support herself. “It means I would have spent all this money for nothing.”
Mayer is one of at least three teachers in the country who have filed lawsuits against their employers since the beginning of the war, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated after they were fired for what they said was an opposition to the war........

i am loved by one and all

i received the following two emails just now. it's on a particular site i belong to. the person's handle is; 1uCanTrust (of all things). it was UNSOLICITED. he is talking about the very same picture i have posted here on this site. it happens to be my favorite picture of me. and obviously i'm NOT a bat, i'm a raven! silly boy. i wanted to share the types of comments i get because i don't 'blend' in with the crowd. i don't care - my head will ALWAYS remain up (unless i've lost a contact) Your picture is absolutely, without a doubt, the goofiest fucking thing I have ever seen in my life. Good grief is that shit hillarious, I am laughing my balls off looking at the picture. (i then wrote back to him to say i was going to post his email on the site (not this site, the one in which he used to send it to me in the first place. he wrote the following back to me): Post the fucking thing on your c**t for all I care, Your picture is the fucking goofiest thing I have ever seen in my life. I imagine you stepping off of a high building, convinced that you will fly, only to see your wings collapse and you go spiraling downward to earth.Most people are going to agree with my assessment, so you should think twice before making an ass out of yourself, But hey Batgoof, knock yourself out, post away. NObody reads that horseshit anyway.Coo Coo Coo Coo (i then blocked him from further contact) and oh, he spelled the 'c' word all of the way out. that was ME that edited it for your delicate eyes

fred and burt are no boo boo

but these types of stories need to be shared as well. we are inundated with far too much BAD news so i like to share good news as well, especially if it involves animal-human hybrids (well just animals in THIS case)

Police: Undercover Cat Helps Nab Fake Vet
POSTED: 11:26 pm EST February 8, 2006
UPDATED: 11:30 pm EST February 8, 2006
NEW YORK -- A once-stray cat from Brooklyn was used in an undercover operation that nabbed a phony vet.
The 8-month-old cat named Fred posed as a patient for police trapping a college student accused of treating pets without a license. A dog owner contacted authorities after his Boston terrier named Burt survived a botched operation.
The suspect made only house calls and treated animals at an undisclosed location.
He picked Fred up at an apartment rigged with a hidden camera. He was arrested as he left with Fred in a box and cash for an operation.
Cat and dog shared the spotlight at a news conference Wednesday. Fred wore a badge on his collar......

(note: there was a boston terrier named burt in this story. i have a COUSIN named burt who HAD a boston terrier. his name was benny though. i called him eggdu)

before pi died

(pi was my old laptop. i now have pi-two. she likes me to use the hyphen although she does think i speak too parenthetically) i was able to download/upload all the songs on her to disks. i had a TON and i'm glad i didn't lose them. they were all mp3s so well over 100 songs fit on each disk. i don't own an i-pod, nor am i thinking of owning one. why? i don't jog certainly. in my car (whose name is little green by the way) i listen to the radio (college stations or npr of course) or my cd player (which plays mp3s too), at work i pop in a cd in my computer and put my headphones on. at home the tv is always on. anyway, this is a PORTION of what is on the disk i've been listening to for the past couple of days:

grace jones-slave to the rhythm
illinois jacquet-harlem nocturn
james brown-sex machine
pearl bailey and jackie moms mabley-saturday night fish fry
love-my little red book
marianne faithful-why d'ya do it
linda lewis-reach for the truth
laurie anderson-language is a virus
leo kottke-louise
leann rimes-blue
laura nyro-jimmy mack
keith frank-movin' on up
kate bush-running up that hill
joni mitchell-coyote
john hiatt-have a little faith in me
joan baez-you ain't goin' nowhere
ziggy marley & gipsy kings-one love
janis joplin & bob dylan-it ain't me babe (1964)
jo ann kelly-jonah in the belly of the whale
joe cocker-feelin' alright

i AM feelin' alright! how could i not be?

ok i'm crying again

but this time from joy

editor and publisher has an update on 1st lieutenant eddie renbrook (the soldier who had to pay the army back for his body armor after it was removed BECAUSE HE WAS WOUNDED IN AN ATACK IN IRAQ) . how cool is THIS dude donating the money to charity AND to a woman displaced by katrina? wicked cool! way to go eddie.


UPDATE: Story on Wounded Soldier Who Had to Pay for Body Armor Gets Results
By E&P Staff Published: February 08, 2006 2:15 PM ET
NEW YORK A story in the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette yesterday, later featured in an E&P article, stirred up a hornet's nest -- as well as thousands of dollars in donations.West Virginia's two U.S. senators, Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd, asked top military leaders Tuesday to explain why 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV apparently had to reimburse the U.S. Army $700 last week for body armor and other gear damaged after he was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.The military officials said it sounded like an unusual case, but they would look into it.More than 200 people donated at least $5,700 to Rebrook after reading about his body armor payment to the Army in an article by Eric Eyre. The vast majority of it came after a popular blog, AmericaBlog, called for and collected funds, but others also contributed via the newspaper and a local radio station.Rebrook, 25, who attended West Point and was medically discharged from the Army last week, said he wouldn't keep the donations. He's paying back the people he borrowed money from to take care of the $700 bill, and also passing along the money to charity and a Louisiana woman who lost her home in Hurricane Katrina -- the woman's son helped save his life in Iraq, he said.Later, on Wednesday, the military said Rebrook would be reimbursed.
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)

your homeland security at work!

rest assured no six year old is gonna fly their kite into any nasa buildings on their (homeland security's) watch!

WHILE ATTORNEY GENERAL Alberto Gonzalez assures the U.S. Senate that the Bush Administration’s domestic eavesdropping program is a vital “early warning system” for terrorists, another homeland security measure strikes at a local elementary school.
The kindergarten class at Lakewood’s Taft Elementary was planning a field trip to NASA Glenn Research Center. It’s a popular trip because it’s free, because the NASA staff already has age-appropriate tours that fit well with school curriculum, and, well, it’s outer space, for pete’s sake. They’ve got rocket ships.
And NASA works the education angle hard. According to the agency, “A major part of the NASA mission is ‘To inspire the next generation of explorers . . . as only NASA can.’” And of course they talk about math and science. NASA says about 400 school groups took tours last year.
But school principal Margaret Seibel says this year’s trip for Taft kindergarteners — we’re talking 6-year-olds here — had to be canceled due to homeland security concerns. ..............

BREAKING NEWS. THIS JUST IN - BOO BOO CONSENTS TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

of course boo boo insisted her/his rescuer and her/his human companions be in the picture or NO DICE

(Marian Morris, right, holds Boo Boo the chicken Friday in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.)

how many times do we have to hear or read about these instances

before WE DO SOMETHING?

congress DO SOMETHING - IMPEACH. i don't care (and YOU shouldn't care) if you're a republican, a democrat, a green, an independent or something all together not on the map. this is WRONG, this is illegal (as are so many other things the bushwhacked administration has done). where is the outrage? oh i know my friends and i are outraged, but apparently that isn't enough.

Chief FISA judge warned about misuse of NSA data
02/08/2006 @ 10:45 pm Filed by RAW STORY
The chief FISA judge was advised at least twice by a Department of Justice lawyer that information may have been improperly gleamed from warrantless wiretaps, according to a Washington Post article slated for Thursday's paper, RAW STORY has learned.

Excerpts from the article by Carol Leonnig:
#
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.
The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly - who, like her predecessor, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen........ (yeah an assurance by THIS administration is worth it's weight in gold. oh no, wait i minute, i MEAN SHITE, it's worth it's weight in SHITE)

BREAKING NEWS.........THIS JUST IN FROM CNN

(well earlier this morning, but i didn't read it until now). all is well with the world
(note: the picture is NOT boo boo. he or she was unavailable for comment OR photographs)
Kiss of life makes Boo Boo the chicken better
ARKADELPHIA, Arkansas (AP) -- This chicken had lips, just not her own.
A retired nurse saved her brother's chicken, Boo Boo, by administering mouth-to-beak resuscitation last week after the fowl was found floating face down in the family's pond.
Marian Morris said she hadn't had any practice with CPR in years, but she was interested to see if she "still had it."
"I breathed into its beak, and its dadgum eyes popped open," Morris said. "I breathed into its beak again, and its eyes popped open again. I said, 'I think this chicken's alive now. Keep it warm."'
She said she did not know how to find a pulse on a chicken.

put down that duckie (and put on some body armor) if you wanna play the saxophone

from imdb

Big Bird Facing the Axe Again
The Bush administration has once again called for huge cuts in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Under budget proposals sent to Congress on Monday, $53.5 million would be cut from the $400 million due to be doled out to public TV and radio stations in 2007 and another $50 million in 2008. In a statement, CPB chief Patricia Harrison said she was disappointed in the administration's proposal. Harrison, a past co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said that she nevertheless understood that "the hard choices facing the administration, Congress and the nation as hurricane reconstruction, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue and entitlement spending take up a growing share of federal dollars." A far stronger statement came from Jeff Chester, executive director of the public-interest group Center for Digital Democracy. "The Bush White House is taking an axe to help chop off Big Bird's head and turn Elmo out into the streets," he said, adding that he thought the primary goal was to curtail the ability of public broadcasters "to critically report the news." Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey complained, "In a world of fast-and-furious television with content often inappropriate for young children, the public broadcasting system represents the last stronghold of quality, child-oriented programming -- we owe this free over-the-air resource to America's children and their parents."

i couldn't have made a better choice

than jesse l martin to play marvin gaye (mr gaye on the left, mr martin on the right). i have marvin gaye's anthology double cd at work and i listen to it all of the time. his older stuff and his newer stuff - doesn't matter. i love IT ALL

Gaye's final years 'become movie'

The final years of soul singer Marvin Gaye's life are to be made into a film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Law & Order actor Jesse L Martin will play the Motown star, who was killed by his father in 1984.
The biopic, Sexual Healing, follows on from recent successful films about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.
"More than just being the voice of a generation, Marvin Gaye proved to be its very heartbeat," said director Lauren Goodman.
The film will be an independently financed film which be shot on location in Hungary and Germany, the Hollywood Reporter said.
Gaye moved to Europe from the US as he battled drugs and music industry wrangles. .......

it's a week late but still worth the read

i have no idea if the prince (NOT of purple fame mind you) is indeed a 9/11 conspirator or friend of terrorists. i DO know i'd trust cindy sheehan to sit next to me more than i'd trust him. i also am guessing cindy's phone calls and emails are being monitored and his ARE NOT. what's wrong with THAT picture?

Published on Thursday, February 2, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
A 9/11 Conspirator in King Bush's Court? Sheehan Wasn't Welcome But a Saudi Accused of Support for al Qaeda Was
by Jeremy Scahill

While Cindy Sheehan was being dragged from the House gallery moments before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address for wearing a t-shirt honoring her son and the other 2,244 US soldiers killed in Iraq, Turki al-Faisal was settling into his seat inside the gallery. Faisal, a Saudi, is a man who has met Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants on at least five occasions, describing the al Qaeda leader as "quite a pleasant man." He met multiple times with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Yet, unlike Sheehan, al-Faisal was a welcomed guest of President Bush on Tuesday night. He is also a man that the families of more than 600 victims of the 9/11 attacks believe was connected to their loved ones' deaths.
Al-Faisal is actually Prince Turki al-Faisal, a leading member of the Saudi royal family and the kingdom's current ambassador to the US. But the bulk of his career was spent at the helm of the feared Saudi intelligence services from 1977 to 2001. Last year, The New York Times pointed out that "he personally managed Riyadh's relations with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar of the Taliban. Anyone else who had dealings with even a fraction of the notorious characters the prince has worked with over the years would never make it past a U.S. immigration counter, let alone to the most exclusive offices in Washington." Al-Faisal was also named in the $1 trillion lawsuit filed by hundreds of 9/11 victims' families, who accused him of funding bin Laden's network. Curiously, his tenure as head of Saudi intelligence came to an abrupt and unexpected end 10 days before the 9/11 attacks..........

i'm not a vegan/vegetarian for health reasons

but i DO rarely get sick (a cold once every three years or so). i'm very lucky. i happen to like ALL vegetables except cabbage and brussel sprouts. oh sure when i was younger i didn't like beets or lima beans and several others. NOW, i LOVE them.

Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower: the vegetables that may prevent cancer
Foods contain chemicals that help repair DNA· Study backs link between diet and disease
Ian Sample, science correspondent Wednesday February 8, 2006
Guardian
Natural chemicals found in soya beans and vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower boost the body's ability to repair damaged DNA and may prevent cells turning cancerous, scientists said yesterday.
Studies have suggested that eating vegetables appears to provide some protection against certain cancers, but until now the reason why has been a mystery.
Researchers at Georgetown University in Washington DC believe the answer lies with two naturally occurring compounds. The first, indole-3-carbinol or I3C is abundant in vegetables including broccoli and cabbage, while the second, genistein, occurs naturally in soya beans.
The researchers found that when the chemicals were added to cells they boosted the activity of two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, both of which play a crucial role in detecting damaged DNA and marshalling a cell's response to fix it. Mutations in either of these genes often lead to breast, ovarian and prostate cancer because they are unable to prevent damaged DNA being passed on to the next generation of cells.
Writing in the British Journal of Cancer, the researchers said that since very low levels of BRCA proteins are seen in cancerous cells, higher levels might prevent cancer developing.....

a VERY simple recipe using cauliflower or broccoli
wash and cut up a head of cauliflower or broccoli into flowerettes
toss in a BIG pot of boiling water (salted if you must. yes you may use vegetable stock)
after five minutes, dump the pasta of your choice into the vegetable water
boil till done
strain pasta/vegetables BUT reserve at least one cup of the boiling liquid
in the SAME pot, fry some garlic and onions (and mushrooms and peas if you want them) until translucent (using nothing but the finest olive oil of course.
dump the pasta/vegetables back into the pot. pour some olive oil over the mixture - a good 1/4 cup should do it but it's YOUR choice. pour in the reserved boiling liquid. toss in some red pepper flakes and you're ready to go. yes, you may even shave some cheese on top if need be. with a salad and some crusty bread dipped in flavored olive oil you should be in heaven!

wow what a thought! to leave it up to the people of the country to THINK FOR THEMSELVES. wow again, what a FRESH THOUGHT!

UK troops will leave Iraq before insurgency ends, says Reid
Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday February 8, 2006
Guardian British troops will not wait for the end of the insurgency before leaving Iraq and there will be "significantly fewer" in the country by next year, John Reid, the defence secretary, said last night.
He made it clear that it was ultimately up to the Iraqis to look after themselves.
"Our purpose has never been to create a mirror image of our own nation," he said in a speech to the Foreign Press Association in London. It was not for Britain to decide how Iraq should look. "Our purpose has been to give Iraqis the tools to build the kind of nation they want."
He added that there was confusion about how people imagined Iraq would look when Britain cut its 8,500-strong force. "Our key task is not ... to defeat the insurgency ranged against Iraq. It is to ensure that Iraqis have the ability to do that."..........

this is the type of story you would think i would laugh at

you'd be wrong. my first reaction is tears. i think you can guess my second reaction

Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded
02/07/2006 @ 12:52 pmFiled by RAW STORY
From the Charleston Gazette:

The last time 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.
A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.
But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.
He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.
He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.
#
Read the full article here. Though it is not registration-restricted, expect slower loading time than normal, due to heavy traffic..............

a story likes this makes up for all of the other horror i read about all day long

Lost World of New Species Found in Jungle (Jan. 7) - Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants. "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the team of 11 U.S., Indonesian, and Australian scientists who made the discoveries during a monthlong expedition.
The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its survey, he said. The group visited the Foja Mountains, which have more than 2 million acres of old growth tropical forest located in eastern Indonesia's Papua province.
Indigenous people living near the Foja range, which rises to 7,218 feet, said they did not venture into the trackless area of 1,200 square miles -- roughly the size of Rhode Island.
The team of scientists rode helicopters to boggy clearings in the pristine zone.
"We just scratched the surface," Beehler told Reuters. "Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery."..................... check out some of the pictures, they're AMAZING bird picture 1: The team took the first known photographs of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise, which was described by hunters in New Guinea in the 19th century. bird picture 2: A golden-fronted bowerbird, in the first photographic record of the species, is one of dozens of animals found in an Indonesian jungle dubbed "Lost World." picture 3: The golden-mantled tree kangaroo -- thought to have been hunted to near extinction -- also lives there. (picture 3 is in honor of skippy

this story may very well be there

but i didn't see it in any american papers

from the guardian

US general maps out strategic refit for Iraq, Middle East and Asia · Number of troops 'may be contributing to instability' · Public profile of ground forces to be lowered Richard Norton-TaylorTuesday February 7, 2006The Guardian
A senior US officer admitted yesterday that the presence of more than 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a "contributory factor" to instability in the region.
The admission was made by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - a key strategist in the US central command covering the Middle East - as he spelled out the American military's plan to "reposture" its forces over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Uganda in the south.
The US would "not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq" he said in a major speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Our position is when we leave we will not have any bases there."
He did not speculate when that might be, though he said the US could not stay in the region for as long as its forces have remained in Germany or Japan. American troops are still deployed there 60 years after the end of the second world war.......

rebecca webb carranza 1907-2006

( REBECCA WEBB CARRANZAThe businesswoman, in an undated photograph, was president of El Zarape Tortilla Factory in Los Angeles, one of the first firms to automate tortilla production.)

ms webb carranza pioneered the TORTILLA CHIP as well as automating the production of tortillas! and am i glad she did too. why? because a woman's work is NEVER done . don't know if you've ever made a tortilla by hand, but take it from me, it's NOT easy (nor is it easy to find the right kind of masa in connecticut)

Rebecca Webb Carranza, 98; Pioneered Creation, Manufacture of Tortilla Chip
By Valerie J. Nelson Times Staff Writer February 7, 2006
The headline in Popular Mechanics magazine saluted a manufacturing triumph in Los Angeles: "Tortillas Meet the Machine Age." It was 1950, and the El Zarape Tortilla Factory, among the first to automate the production of tortillas, had used a tortilla-making machine for three years. Corn and flour disks poured off the conveyor belt more than 12 times faster than they could be made by hand. At first many came out "bent" or misshapen, as company President Rebecca Webb Carranza recalled decades later, and were thrown away.For a family party in the late 1940s, Carranza cut some of the discarded tortillas into triangles and fried them. A hit with the relatives, the chips soon sold for a dime a bag at her Mexican delicatessen and factory at the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Arlington Avenue in southwest Los Angeles. By the 1960s, the snack the family packaged as Tort Chips and delivered up and down the coast had evolved into El Zarape's primary business.Carranza, who was recognized by the tortilla industry as one of the pioneers of the commercial tortilla chip, died Jan. 19 from complications of old age at a hospice in Phoenix, her family said. She was 98.In 1994 and 1995 — the only years the award was given — Carranza was among the recipients of the Golden Tortilla, created to honor about 20 industry innovators, said Mario Orozco, an employee of Irving, Texas-based Azteca Milling, who thought up the celebration. Carranza was born Rebecca Webb on Nov. 29, 1907, in Durango, Mexico. She was the only daughter of Leslie Webb, an engineer from Utah who worked for an American mining company in Mexico, and his Mexican-born wife, Eufemia Miranda. As a young girl, Rebecca and her five brothers lived through periodic raids by Mexican bandit and revolutionary Pancho Villa and other thieves in northern Mexico. "Pancho Villa did not like her father, because he was American," said Mario R. Carranza, the first of her two sons. "She had pictures of her father on his horse dashing away from danger."......

codepink

sign up today - and you do NOT have to be a woman!


codepink women say NO to war

Thousands of Women Worldwide Sign Anti-War Rallying CallThe women's peace group CodePink has launched a massive anti-Iraq war petition campaign called "Women Say No to War." The group aims to gather 100,000 signatures from women worldwide by March 8, International Women’s Day, at which point the petition will go to the White House and to US embassies. As of January 31, more than 30,000 women and male allies (such as Venezuela president Hugo Chavez) had signed, including Eleanor Smeal, Angela Davis, Susan Sarandon, Eve Ensler, Margaret Cho, Alice Walker, Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cindy Sheehan, and the leaders of Iraqi women’s peace groups.The campaign is the first to draw together women’s anti-war groups from different countries to call for peace in Iraq, according to CodePink. “We’re unleashing a global chorus of women’s voices shouting ‘Enough!’” said Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder.The new issue of Ms. magazine, on newsstands nationwide, includes a cover story entitled: “Can We Stop the War in Iraq?” Ms. features the current women leaders of the peace movement, and a piece by Blanche Wiesen Cook about the early women peacemakers such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Jane Addams. "The role of women in the leadership of the anti-war movement has been ignored for too long. As our coverage demonstrates, women are making a critical difference in the peace movement, just as they always have,” said Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms., and an endorser of the CodePink “Women Say No to War” campaign.

it's not a good idea to listen to farewell to tarwathie at 3:30 am

especially if you wear a ton of eyemakeup.
if you've never heard it, judy sings a capella with a background of haunting humpbacks. amazing song. you really can hear the sirens on their isle....

Farewell to Tarwathie
Words and Music by Judy Collins
Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ Rocky Mountain National Park Music, Inc. (ASCAP)(Administered by Universal Music Corp.)
Farewell to Tarwathie
Adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimmond
I bid you farewell
I'm bound off for Greenland
And ready to sail
In hopes to find riches
In hunting the whale
Farewell to my comrades
For a while we must part
And likewise the dear lass
Who first won my heart
The cold coast of Greenland
My love will not chill
And the longer my absence
More loving she'll feel
Our ship is well rigged
And she's ready to sail
The crew they are anxious
To follow the whale
Where the icebergs do float
And the stormy winds blow
Where the land and the ocean
Is covered with snow
The cold coast of Greenland
Is barren and bare
No see time nor harvest
Is ever known there
And the birds here sing sweetly
In mountain and dale
But there's no bird in Greenland
To sing to the whale
There is no habitation
For a man to live there
And the king of that country
Is the fierce Greenland bear
And there'll be no temptation
To tarry long there
With our ship under full
We will homeward repair
Farewell to Tarwathie
Adieu Mormond Hill
And the dear land of Crimmond
I bid you farewellI'm bound off for Greenland
And ready to sail
In hopes to find riches
In hunting the whale

god does NOT hate fags, she intensely dislikes the 'reverend' phelps though

h
but i HATE him. i know his church is tiny and is made up of his relatives. i know he wouldn't even deserve notice EXCEPT for the fact he dishonors our war dead and those that loved them and gays and all other true americans. he causes pain to the innocent. i can laugh at him and call him a crank but i have not attended a funeral he has picketed. i of course believe in free speech but i also think allowing him and his anywhere NEAR a funeral is just plain wrong. there has to be something we can do about him.........without trodding upon OUR rights in the process (i wonder where he is getting the money to travel to all of these funerals in all of these different states?)

States Eye Picketing at Soldiers' Funerals
States Rush to Stop Fundamentalists From Picketing U.S. Soldiers' Funerals
By CARRIE SPENCER
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - States are rushing to limit when and where people may protest at funerals all because of a small fundamentalist Kansas church whose members picket soldiers' burials, arguing that Americans are dying for a country that harbors homosexuals.
During the 1990s, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., went around picketing the funerals of AIDS victims with protest signs that read, "God Hates Fags." But politicians began paying more attention recently when church members started showing up at the burials of soldiers and Marines killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Legislation is being considered in at least 14 states, and several of the bills moving quickly, with backing from legislative leaders and governors.
If they pass, the bills could set up a clash between privacy and free speech rights, and court challenges are almost certain.
"We're not proposing to silence the speech of the Westboro Baptist Church, as offensive as most of us find that," said Kansas Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, a Republican. Instead, he said, he is trying to achieve a balance that respects "the rights of families to bury their dead in peace."
The church has about 75 members, most of them belonging to the extended family of Westboro Baptist's pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps. The church is an independent congregation that preaches a literal reading of the Bible.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps' daughter and an attorney for the church, said states cannot interfere with their message that the soldiers were struck down by God because they were fighting for a country that harbors homosexuals and adulterers.
Lawmakers are "trying to introduce something that will make them feel better about the holes we're punching in the facade they live under," Phelps-Roper said. "If they pass a law that gets in our way, they will be violating the Constitution, and we will sue them for that."
Among the states considering such measures: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Some of the bills specify noisy, disruptive behavior or signs with "fighting words," as in Wisconsin. Some bar protests within one or two hours before or after a funeral starts; others specify distances ranging from 10 car lengths to five blocks away; some include both.
Violations can bring fines of a few hundred dollars, up to 30 days in jail, or more. Wisconsin is calling for fines of up to $10,000; one of five Oklahoma bills would set a one-year jail sentence.
Missouri's bill was named for Army Spc. Edward Lee Myers, 21, whose wife went to his funeral an hour early to try to avoid protesters. They were already across the road, holding signs that read "God Hates Fags" and "God Made IEDs," a reference to roadside bombs.............

britain steps up to the plate (on this one at least)

70,000 women DIED last year from unsafe abortions. clearly preaching abstinance wouldn't have helped them. ONLY LEGAL SAFE ABORTIONS, EDUCATION AND BIRTH CONTROL would have!

Britain defies US with funding to boost safe abortion services · Attempt to replace lost dollars after 'global gag' · 70,000 died last year in backstreet operations
Sarah Boseley Monday February 6, 2006 The Guardian
The British government will today publicly defy the United States by giving money for safe abortion services in developing countries to organisations that have been cut off from American funding.
Nearly 70,000 women and girls died last year because they went to back-street abortionists. Hundreds of thousands of others suffered serious injuries.
Critics of America's aid policy say some might have lived if the US had not withdrawn funding from clinics that provide safe services - or that simply tell women where to find them.
The "global gag" rule, as it has become known, was imposed by President George Bush in 2001. It requires any organisation applying for US funds to sign an undertaking not to counsel women on abortion - other than advising against it - or provide abortion services.
The UK will today become the founder donor of a fund set up specifically to attempt to replace the lost dollars and increase safe abortion services........

is it me, or is it hot in here?

from the nation comes yet another article on global warming, stifling free speech and lying. the ONLY reason i can figure people don't want to save their planet is because they believe in the rapture. what else could it POSSIBLY be? these people have procreated so they have children and grandchildren. don't they want a clean and safe earth for THEM? laws after laws (some of which clinton put into place) are being tossed aside and more big companies are being allowed to pollute our planet. i just don't get it....

Stop the Gag on Global Warming

Nation readers don't need me to tell them how frantically the Bush Administration tries to avoid both transparency and accountability. On issue after issue, the Bushies have worked in secret to keep the public and Congress out of its policy-making loop and have dealt with bad news the same way every time: by trying to bury it.
Take the most recent example: the Administration is trying to gag NASA's top climate scientist--Dr. James Hansen--because he had the temerity to speak out publicly about the threats of global warming. Hansen made a speech last December 6 at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco calling for prompt action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions--a message that the Bush Administration does not want to hear despite the fact that 2005 was one of the hottest years on record, a finding that puts eight of the past 10 years at the top of the charts in terms of high temperatures. Since his SF speech, Hansen says that NASA's public affairs office has insisted on screening all material he presents to the public, and on one occasion an agency press officer even turned down a journalist's request for an interview with Hansen, which the doctor wanted to do. .................

no one is going to pay, we ALL know this

except for that one little stooge, scooter. the REAL guilty parties will never come to justice. and what of novak? his ass deserves to fry as well (figuratively speaking of course).

Plame Was Still Covert at Time of CIA Leak
By E&P Staff Published: February 03, 2006 5:30 PM ET updated Sunday
NEW YORK At long last, some of the famously "redacted" eight pages in a 2005 federal court ruling on the CIA leak case have surfaced, after a long court legal by The Wall Street Journal. The pages provide new details relating to grand jury testimony -- or hoped-for testimony -- provided by journalists Matt Cooper, Judith Miller, Tim Russert, and Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Newsweek reported Sunday that the court papers could put holes in the defense of Libby in the Valerie Plame case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, "have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003," Newsweek's Michael Isikoff notes. "But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done 'covert work overseas' on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA 'was making specific efforts to conceal' her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion." The papers also reveal that Libby told prosecutors that Cheney had informed him "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June 2003 about the identity of Plame. ..........

more blood on their hands

why is halliburton still getting contracts?

Customs `camps' cause for concern
By Tom Hennessy, Columnist Long Beach Press Telegram
Maybe a lifetime in the news business makes one paranoid. Or maybe it was just a matter of timing.
The story showed up in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, as I was reading "Night," Elie Wiesel's horrifying autobiography of a teenager in Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Appearing on page A5, the story said the federal government had awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of "temporary detention facilities." These would be used, the story said, in the event of an "immigration emergency."
Jamie Zuieback, an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), explained such an emergency like this: "If, for example, there were some sort of upheaval in another country that would cause mass migration, that's the type of situation that the contract would address."
That sounds a tad fuzzy, but let's concede that the camps do have something to do with immigration, illegal or not. In fact, there already are thousands of beds in place at various U.S. locations for the purpose of housing illegal immigrants.
But for anyone familiar with history U.S. or European the construction of detention camps for whatever purpose should prompt a chilling scenario........

one thing i do NOT believe: this load of CRAP

does anyone really believe only TERRORISTS and TERRORIST SUSPECTS are being spied upon? i sure as hell don't. if there are terrorists in this country and you know that fact so you're spying on them, WHY NOT ARREST THEM if american or KICK THEM OUT OF THE COUNTRY if not a citizen?

How Gonzales Plans to Defend Eavesdropping
TIME Exclusive: Attorney General will tell Senators that wiretaps target suspects, not innocents
By MIKE ALLEN/WASHINGTON
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales plans to use a Congressional hearing on Monday to lash out at "misinformed, confused" news accounts about President George W. Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, and to declare it "is not a dragnet," according to administration documents provided to TIME. "I cannot and will not address operational aspects of the program or other purported activities described in press reports," he plans to say in testimony prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee. "These press accounts are in almost every case, in one way or another, misinformed, confused, or wrong."
According to the documents, Gonzales plans to assert in his opening statement that seeking approval for the wiretaps from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court could result in delays that "may make the difference between success and failure in preventing the next attack." He will compare the program to telegraph wiretapping during the Civil War. In accompanying testimony, the Attorney General plans to leave open the possibility that President Bush will ask the court to give blanket approval to the program, a step that some lawmakers and even some Administration officials contend would put it on more solid legal footing.................

i believe part i

i believe people who don’t use their left hand turn signal (or use it AFTER the light turns green and you’ve been waiting in back of them for the whole cycle of the red light) should be thrown in the slammer and shown NO mercy

i believe most dogs are nicer than most people

i believe there is something wrong with me. when one of those entertainment ‘news’ shows comes on tv, i want to throw my laptop into the screen. i don’t care about the pitt-jolies and their kids, i don’t care about what outfit is being worn to what awards show. i don’t care who paris is effing this week and i sure as shite don’t care who is divorcing whom

i believe u2 is THE most highly overrated band in the entire cosmos (with guns n roses a close second)

i believe hbo made a GIANT mistake when they cancelled carnivale. i believe better off dead on showtime was an amazing program.

i believe there will never be harmony in the universe when someone like brittany spears is popular and someone like roy buchanan died in obscurity.

i believe ann coulter is evil

i believe rush is a giant pile of steamin’ shite

i believe bill o’reilly is a self-promoting windbag

i believe you cannot have too much coffee.

i believe i am going to have a hard time learning to (hand) spin yarn.

i believe there are far too many fanatics in the world of ALL religions

i believe there is a serious lack of education in the world especially on topics such as sex education

i believe women do NOT have equal rights nor will they in my lifetime

i believe we all have on and off buttons as well as the ability to change the channel on our radios and televisions if we don’t like what is on

i believe it’s almost time to cut my hair. of course i’ll give it to locks of love

i believe i’m addicted to fava beans (whole foods has them FROZEN and they are far better than the dried ones. i’ve only found fresh ones ONCE)

i believe many are lacking manners. i believe i have the right to correct someone i judge to be missing such

i believe most women in the united states think there is something wrong with their bodies

i believe our country is headed in the wrong direction and not enough people are speaking out. i believe they are lemmings

i believe no one should have a gun but the police and our service personnel

i believe there is no place like home

i believe i am very lucky in having my family and my friends

betty friedan 1921-2006

even as a child, i knew i wasn't a second class citizen just because i didn't have a penis. the feminine mystique was the first book i read on the subject when i was old enough to be conscious of what actually was going on in the world. (just the other day i was in a pub. a friend happened to be there as well. i was sitting on the left, he was to my right. to his right another man sat down. the stranger's hand was in a cast. being the curious person i am, i asked what happened. he answered and just kept talking on and on and on. HOWEVER, he never ONCE talked to ME. he talked to my male friend. never looked at me, never even acknowledged i was there. normally i'd point out the error of his ways. some days i am just feeling non confrontational. i let it go. it wasn't worth my time or my energy. but yes, it still goes on and it will ALWAYS go on)


nice piece in opednews

Betty Friedan asked: "Is that all?"

by Mickey Z.

"The core of the problem today is not sexual but a problem of identity--a stunting of growth that is perpetuated by the feminine mystique."-Betty FriedanWhen Betty Friedan (1921-2006) attended her fifteenth college reunion at Smith College, she conducted a survey among her fellow alumni. What the women she spoke to had to say about the state of their lives eventually became a book that, upon its release in 1963, would spark a national debate about a woman's role in American society. The Feminine Mystique begins, famously:The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night-she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-"Is this all?""The book reached millions of readers," says Kenneth C. Davis. "Women were...suddenly discussing the fact that society's institutions-government, mass media and advertising, medicine and psychiatry, education, and organized religion-were systematically barring them from becoming anything more than housewives and mothers."Far from a manifesto, The Feminine Mystique focused almost exclusively on white middle-class women and eschewed radical solutions. Nonetheless, the book was a crucial catalyst in the re-launching of the relatively dormant woman's rights movement conceptualized by earlier feminists like Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger. Friedan herself recognized her obligation to takes things further...........

holly and herbie at 3 am

(herbie and barbara)

i am sitting here at 3:00 am. i wish i could sleep but i cannot. i rarely get more than three hours a night (hence my ALWAYS pleasant attitude). the GOOD news is i get to watch things on television i normally miss. i aim for pbs at this time of the morning. nature and nova are two of my favorites. i had the great pleasure of watching a nature on 'underdogs' this morning.

underdogs

there were two dogs on death row. holly, a bloodhound in the united states and herbie a sheepdog in the united kingdom. they were both a mess. tearing homes up and just making a shambles of their lives and the lives of the humans they came in contact with. holly was actually described as a 'hyperactive home wrecker'. larry took holly to train her to be a tracker and barbara took herbie to train him to be a sheep herder. it wasn't easy for all four of them. the training was rigorous and at times, looked hopeless, especially for herbie. holly seemed to get the hang of everything rather quickly. her only issues appeared to be with loud noises.

holly is now with the massachusetts state police. it was painful to watch larry turn her over. he likened it to having a daughter get married. he warned the mass state troopers to do good by holly or they'd have to deal with a very pissed off larry! herbie stayed with barbara on her sheep farm. he still has a long way to go, but he indeed already came a very long way.



oh did i mention how very much i love dogs?



(holly and larry)