ciao

check out londradical

perhaps not many besides donviti can read it (most is not in english), but it's worth a look. some beautiful photographs (check out the archives. i especially like the ferris wheel ones)

i had a rather traumatic day yesterday

i am not afraid of many things.

i'm not afraid of motorcycle gangs
i'm not afraid of rats
i'm not afraid of snakes
i'm not afraid of being alone
i'm not afraid of the dark
i'm not afraid of public speaking

i am afraid of bugs (i mentioned it in an earlier posting) and i am afraid to drive on the highway (i never used to be but i am now. i wasn't in an accident. i don't know how when or why it happened, it just did). i know if there was an emergency i COULD do it. i also did it a while back when my dear friend 's' and his lovely wife 'j' asked me to drive them to the airport (they have done me SO many favors, there was NO WAY i could say no). of course it was at 4 am so the traffic was light. it was the middle of winter and still dark when i got home from driving them. i left my car at their house (we couldn't take my car cause we couldn't fit in it. i'm a pack rat and there is NO ROOM in my car anywhere BUT the drivers seat) and we took their car. 's' drove us to the airport and i would be driving myself home. so i get back to their house and pull the car into the driveway. I COULDN'T GET THE DAMN CAR KEY OUT OF THE IGNITION. i knew there had to be a release button somewhere, but it was winter, it was PITCH BLACK OUT. i had no flashlight and i was still shaking from the highway drive. i am NOT exaggerating when i say it took me well over 15 minutes to get that key out. couldn't find the dome light button either - i used my lighter to find the release. DAMN THEM. but i digress.................

i wanted to get a gift certificate for my niece at target yesterday. i had never been to target, but there is one just past westfarms mall at the other end of my town. i got in the left hand lane (there were two left turn lanes. i was in the right hand left turn lane) which i thought was going straight into the target driveway. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO as soon as i started to turn, i saw it was an entrance ramp to the HIGHWAY. there was nothing i could do. i couldn't stop, i couldn't turn around, i HAD to keep going. go i did until i saw the first exit which of course i took. do i turn right or do i turn left at the exit? well i of course chose the WRONG direction. i chose right (later, i find out from a friend if i chose LEFT, i WOULD have ended back up near the mall). i ended up in new britain. i went by the new britain museum of art (a GREAT one by the way! they have dusk by maxfield parish among many other things). i ended up by the hospital, i ended up by the polish restaurants (new britain has an inordinate amount of poles and a TON of polish businesses among which are (from what i hear) some exceptional restaurants. i SHOULD have stopped and gotten myself a pierogi but there are a lot of things i SHOULD have done. i saw a police officer by a construction site and asked him how to get back to my town. he told me to keep going straight and i'll see a sign for route 72 east which will take me to i-84 which will take me to west hartford. well that involved MORE highway driving but i was desperate and i WAS going to do it no matter what. well i kept driving straight and saw a sign for 72 WEST so of course i drove right by it (i think that 72 west had a link to 84 EAST but that is now in hindsight) and became MORE lost. i ended up in forestville and berlin and on the border of southington. oh, i kept stopping and asking for directions. i called everyone i knew and no one was answering the phone. i saw a soldier in full cammo regalia with jaunty beret and i stopped and asked HIM how to get back to west hartford. i saw another officer and asked HIM too. i was deeper and deeper in the twilight zone (at least i had my tunes. at least the day was warm and it wasn't raining out). i finally saw a bunch of people standing outside a mini mart/gas station. i pulled in and walked up to the closest person. that person was some chullo gang member with full colors and tear drop tattoos under his eyes (we all know what that means). i was shaking but NOT because of him, because of the full out panic attack i was in the middle of. he couldn't help me BUT the dude on the bike (cool looking older man with long grey hair and a pony tail) did. he told me to follow the street (arch) across main street and soon i'll come upon stanley street. my heart perked up. I KNEW STANLEY STREET. i knew if i FOUND STANLEY STREET i'd be able to wend my way home. well i was driving and driving and i didn't see any stanley street. i called another friend (that used to work at the new britain museum so i was SURE he could help me) and low and behold HE ANSWERED THE PHONE! just as i was crying out 'dimitri, HELP ME I'M LOST IN NEW BRITAIN' i saw a sign that said STANLEY STREET. i was in the wrong lane to turn so i had to go straight and turn around and all sorts of ugly stuff BUT i did it. meanwhile, dimitri asked me just how drunk i was (i wasn't drunk AT ALL, quite SOBER as a matter of fact, but right about then i KNEW that was going to change as soon as i found my way home). dimitri calmed me down and i got on STANLEY STREET. ok ok ok. i don't know HOW this happened and it should NOT have happened, BUT i ended up on the highway again. this time i knew i was going in the RIGHT direction though. i saw a sign for the mall and i JUMPED off the highway. i quickly ran into target, got my gift certificate and CAME HOME. went to the pub, got drunk, end of story.

oh i was lost one hour and forty five minutes. NOW end of story

dusk maxfield parrish

roryshock: Takin' It to The Streets

roryshock: Takin' It to The Streets

april 29th

(for the link, click on the april 29th, not the picture)

there are two kinds of people in this world

fans of minikiss OR fans of tiny kiss. WHICH ARE YOU?

Rival bands clash over little-person KISS tribute
A Las Vegas incident highlights the MiniKiss- Tiny Kiss tussle over who owns the concept.
By Robert W. Welkos, Times Staff WriterApril 11, 2006
They might be pint-sized performers onstage, but offstage they're in a giant-sized dispute.Joey Fatale, the 4-foot, 4-inch New Yorker who heads the all-dwarf KISS tribute band MiniKiss, is denying published reports that he tried to sneak past security last month at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to confront a rival band leader, 4-foot "Little" Tim Loomis of Tiny Kiss, for allegedly ripping off his idea for such a group.

Loomis, a former drummer for MiniKiss, was performing with Tiny Kiss, which includes three little people and a 350-pound woman, on St. Patrick's Day at Beacher's Madhouse, a Las Vegas variety show, when the incident occurred.

(picture: minikiss. talentbookingusa.com
try as i might i could NOT find a picture of tiny kiss BUT don't let that prejudice you in your voting)

rich this is for you - music (and other recordings) WITH links!

of course it's not the library of congress collection but some of these recordings sound interesting (i've not listened to any yet)

Historians strive to save old sounds
By Randy Dotinga Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor David Levine's iPod is filled with exactly 4,768 songs, including a handful of tunes by turn-of-the-century pop stars with names like Anna Chandler, Will F. Denny, and Harry Lauder.
If they don't sound familiar, don't worry. You're not out of touch. The fact is that these singers haven't been big for about 100 years.


Mr. Levine and other music fans are listening to long-forgotten pop music - along with 1900-era performances and speeches - thanks to a landmark effort to preserve audio of the past.
With the help of donations from collectors, the University of California at Santa Barbara has digitized songs and spoken-word performances from more than 6,000 cylinders, the early precursors of vinyl records and compact discs.........

u of ca at santa barbara cylinder preservation project

we will strive VERY hard to keep (mostly hard working)

people (mostly with brown skin) out of OUR country YET here i am reading about stolen computers and data (from united states military bases) being SOLD IN THE BAZAARS of afghanistan. how about we concentrate on securing this data. why don't we deputize the border vigilantes and send 'em on over to afghanistan to guard our computers (and our viagra) instead of guarding against brown skinned women and children trying to make a better life for themselves??????????

Military secrets seep from US base
Afghan shops peddle stolen computer parts
By Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times April 13, 2006
BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling US base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, naming corrupt Afghan officials, and describing American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar.
Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors, and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra, and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment.
The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel.
A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked ''Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a US ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for ''kill or capture," and discussions of US efforts to ''remove" or ''marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered ''problem makers."
The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 US service members and their Social Security numbers.
After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle.
Troops serving overseas would be particularly vulnerable to attempts at identity theft because keeping track of their bank and credit records is difficult, said Jay Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego........

ah, just like the good old days!

i am always overjoyed when young people (NON VIOLENTLY) protest for (what i deem of course) to be a JUST cause. it gives me hope

SANTA CRUZ Military recruiters, confronted by crowd, leave campus job fair Anti-war protesters at university block doors to building
Diana Walsh, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Four military recruiters hastily fled a job fair Tuesday morning at UC Santa Cruz after a raucous crowd of student protesters blocked an entrance to the building where the Army and National Guard had set up information tables.
Members of Students Against War, who organized the counter-recruiting protest, loudly chanted "Don't come back. Don't come back" as the recruiters left the hilltop campus, escorted by several university police officers.
"The situation had degraded to the point where there was a possibility of injury to either a student or law enforcement officer. We certainly didn't want that to happen,'' said Capt. Will Griffin, one of the Army recruiters.
University officials had been aware for weeks that Students Against War planned a protest to prevent military personnel from participating in the school's biannual job fair held for students.
The student organization has become a bit of a cause celebre of the national anti-war movement ever since it was discovered that the group's protest of the same job fair last April landed it in a Pentagon surveillance file, which listed the protest as a "credible threat" to military facilities or personnel. .........

the library of congress picks 50 songs to preserve for this year

Congressional Library Chooses 50 Recordings for Preservation in National Registry

By CARL HARTMAN
WASHINGTON Apr 11, 2006 (AP)— A high school band plays Beethoven. President Calvin Coolidge delivers his inaugural address. Fats Domino turns "Blueberry Hill," a hit for big-band leader Glenn Miller, into a rock 'n' roll classic.
They're among the 50 records that the Library of Congress has deemed worthy of preservation this year.
"The National Recording Registry represents a stunning array of the diversity, humanity and creativity found in our sound heritage, nothing less than a flood of noise and sound pulsating into the American bloodstream," Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing the choices for 2006.
The library took the occasion to announce a rare find: a 1940 jam session featuring tenor saxophonist Lester Young, The night club couldn't be positively identified, said Gene DeAnna, head of the library's recorded sound section, but it may have been the Village Vanguard in downtown Manhattan. .........

the library of congress national recording registry

i don't know some of the recordings but others i sure do. FIRESIGN THEATER (and there's hamburger all over the highway in mystic connecticut and nick danger. yeah, i'm old) and will the circle be unbroken by the nitty gritty dirt band (i have the vinyl. anyone who was anyone was on that album! vassar clemens RULES). the revolution will not be televised by gil scott-heron, hendrix, count basie, ZAPPA!!!!! go check it out.

what do YOU think about pornography?

well first off, i'm not exactly sure what IS pornography and what is 'art'. secondly i enjoy looking at certain type of pictures, paintings, renderings. i should point out that i do not lead a 'conventional' lifestyle either. no i'm not a black lesbian sleeping with my son's boyfriend's father (too much jerry springer, forgive me). all i will say is; i am a dominant woman.

i ran across this article in the guardian and that's what has me mentioning pornography

do i think some women are exploited and abused (in the industry) ABSOLUTELY. do i think some women CHOOSE the industry on their own BUT for (what i deem of course) the WRONG reasons? YUP i sure do. do i think some women who are in the industry made a sound decision by being in the industry? well, that one is a bit tricky. i know some dancers and i can tell you i don't like a LOT of the things they do (the big one is soliciting money from men. NOT necessarily as a prostitute but fawning over them just to get a few bucks. this is OUTSIDE of the work environment mind you). look for my movie review (i hope to do it this weekend) of dancing at the blue iguana). it's on this very same subject

i can tell you i am fascinated by andrea dworkin. since there is far too much to say on her, i'm not going to do it here and now. i will say i liked a FEW things about her but overall i think andrea was a bit of a mmmmmmmmmm she has passed so i want to be a bit kinder than normal. she was a bit of a flake

Are women human? In her new book, leading feminist Catharine MacKinnon argues that women are still treated more like "things" than people. She talks to Stuart Jeffries about her war on pornography - and whether men and women can ever really connect
Wednesday April 12, 2006The Guardian
Of all the provocative passages in Catharine MacKinnon's new book Are Women Human? the following hit me hardest. She writes: "[T]he fact that the law of rape protects rapists and is written from their point of view to guarantee impunity for most rapes is officially regarded as a violation of the law of sex equality, national or international, by virtually nobody."
Are you suggesting that rape law enshrines rapists' points of view, I ask MacKinnon? "Yes, in a couple of senses. The most obvious sense is that most rapists are men and most legislators are men and most judges are men and the law of rape was created when women weren't even allowed to vote. So that means not that all the people who wrote it were rapists, but that they are a member of the group who do [rape] and who do for reasons that they share in common even with those who don't, namely masculinity and their identification with masculine norms and in particular being the people who initiate sex and being the people who socially experience themselves as being affirmed by aggressive initiation of sexual interaction." She takes a well-earned breath.
Why does MacKinnon matter? She is undeniably one of feminism's most significant figures, a ferociously tough-minded lawyer and academic who has sought to use the law to clamp down on sexual harassment and pornography. She's a bracing woman, who calls her philosophy "feminism unmodified" and thinks wimpish guff such as post-feminism does women no good at all. Many hate her for this. Camille Paglia, for instance, charges that MacKinnon and her late collaborator Andrea Dworkin are responsible for "totalitarian excesses" in sexual harassment regulations and that their "nightmarish sexual delusions" have invaded American workplaces and schools and warped their views on pornography. Naomi Wolf branded her a "victim feminist". "Victim feminism," claims Wolf, "urges women to identify with powerlessness, even at the expense of taking responsibility for the power they do possess." ..........

they better put down that crack pipe

'cause hiring brownie IS a mistake (damn this is a REAL story)

A Heckuva Job: Hurricane-Ravaged Louisiana Parish Considers Hiring Brownie
By E&P Staff Published: April 11, 2006 10:20 PM ET
NEW YORK In one of the most amazing turnabouts in recent times, officials in Katrina-ravaged St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana are looking to hire the man most vilified in the aftermath of the disaster: former FEMA Director Michael Brown. The consulting firm formed by Brown after losing his job at FEMA, has been approached by St. Bernard Parish to help businesses and communities negotiate the maze of federal bureaucracy.But an editorial in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans on Tuesday called this idea a "mistake." It said that local officials "need to remember Mr. Brown's abysmal performance during and after the hurricane." Despite recent revelations that show that he was at least somewhat more on top of the situation than believed, "nothing in Mr. Brown's performance suggests that he's the person who can make things happen for St. Bernard Parish," the editorial warned. "If he couldn't get FEMA to work right when he was on the inside, before his forced resignation, how can he do so now, from the outside?" ........

he throws like a grrrl

Vice President Cheney throws out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals first home game of the season, at RFK Stadium in Washington, April 11, 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed

(you KNOW i'm kidding about the gender reference) my 12 and 11 year old nieces (as well as their 11 year old brother) play ball. they are ALL VERY good. if you don't think women can play sports check out the hartford wild rose kick ass rugby team. and someday children when you're old enough i'll tell you about the time my friend debbie and i accidently got into a game of pool against some members of the los solidos 'gang' . we of course kicked their proverbial asses.

Cheers, boos as Cheney opens baseball game
Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A loud mixture of cheers and boos greeted Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday as he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals baseball game.
Cheney, wearing a red Nationals warmup jacket, tossed a pitch that reached Nationals catcher Brian Schneider on one bounce.
The vice president, whose popularity is slumping along with that of President Bush, walked out on the field to cheering and booing from the near-sellout crowd. The boos appeared to be little louder than the cheers at RFK Memorial Stadium.
On the field with him were three U.S. servicemen, two of whom had been wounded in Iraq and a third who was injured in Afghanistan. ..

hey i just found this in editor & publisher shedding a little light on wapo's coverage of the BIG event

What Game Were They At? 'Wash Post' Deaf to Boos for Cheney
By E&P Staff Published: April 11, 2006 10:30 PM ET
NEW YORK The veteran Associated Press reporter Terence Hunt heard them. Reuters heard them. In fact, virtually every press account of opening day for the Washington Nationals baseball team at RFK Stadium this afternoon mentioned that when Vice President Dick Cheney was introduced to throw out the first pitch he was loudly booed or at the minimum received more jeers than cheers. A video of the event proves it. But here's how David Nakumura of the hometown Washington Post described it: "The first pitch of the Washington Nationals' second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider."For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon. But the catcalls didn't last long before the fans cheered for the Nationals, who took the field in their white uniforms with red trim against the New York Mets."No one else suggested that it was the quality of the pitch that set off the booing...........

it's about time i posted something humorous. now THIS is funny

it's rather like if you closed your eyes the monster will go away. nope, not this time big boys. WE ALREADY KNOW about it. so now what? we can't blog about it either? shhhhhhhh it's a BIG FAT SECRET.

at&t bought out my phone company (my company has been through a MILLION incarnations. it is still known as sbc and cingular BUT the at&t logo now appears on the paperwork). i have them by default.

AT&T asks judge to order documents alleging wiretaps returned

By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News
Attorneys for AT&T have asked a federal judge to order a San Francisco civil liberties group to return ``highly confidential'' documents that allegedly show that the telecommunications giant provided detailed records of millions of its customers to a government intelligence agency.
In documents filed on Monday, AT&T's attorneys also asked Judge Vaughn Walker to order the Electronic Frontier Foundation to refrain from referencing the documents in its lawsuit.
The EFF filed a lawsuit against AT&T in January alleging that AT&T had collaborated with the National Security Agency in a ``massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.''
Last week, the group filed additional documents to the federal court in San Francisco totaling more than 140 pages. The documents purportedly provide evidence of the technology that AT&T had used to conduct surveillance for the NSA.
The documents, which included a sworn declaration from retired AT&T technician Mark Klein and confidential company documents, were voluntarily placed under seal by the group pending a decision by the judge to make them public.
However, Klein subsequently provided a statement to Wired News that described how he had met an agent from the National Security Agency in 2002. Klein said he was told the agent had come to interview a management-level technician ``for a special job.''......

mr shilliday this is for you. i just couldn't resist!

(please note the name of the town he was arrested near - coincidence? mmmmmmm)

Top mafia boss nabbed after decades on the lam Bernardo Provenzano had been Italy’s most-wanted man
Reuters
Updated: 6:53 a.m. ET April 11, 2006
PALERMO, Sicily - Bernardo Provenzano, the chief of the Sicilian mafia who has been on the run for more than four decades and was Italy’s most wanted man, was arrested near Corleone in Sicily on Tuesday, officials said.
It was the state’s biggest success against the mafia in more than 13 years.
Provenzano, known as the “Phantom of Corleone” after the hill town in Sicily made famous by the Godfather films, has been running the mafia since 1993, when former “boss of bosses” Toto Riina was arrested in the Sicilian capital Palermo.
President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi expressed his delight over the arrest to Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, a statement from the presidential palace said. The news bumped even national election results off the top spot of television news bulletins.
Italy's 'super fugitive'Provenzano, 73, has been wanted since 1963 and was known as Italy’s “super-fugitive.” The last picture police had of him before his arrest was taken in 1959 when he was 25.
He has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison in connection with the Mafia’s most notorious crimes over the past decades, including the killings in 1992 of top anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Provenzano was arrested in a farmhouse in the countryside near Corleone and was due to be taken to a jail in Palermo later on Tuesday, police said..........

(picture of corleone; nicobastone.com)

and let's not forget this is STILL happening to us

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
August Blanchard and an aunt, Shirley, looking into the living room where the decomposed remains of his mother, Charlene, were found in February on Reynes Street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
In Attics and Rubble, More Bodies and Questions
By SHAILA DEWAN
NEW ORLEANS, April 5 — When August Blanchard returned to New Orleans from Pennsylvania in late December, his mother was still missing. Family members, scattered across the country, had been calling hospitals, the Red Cross and missing persons hot lines, hoping she had been rescued.
But Mr. Blanchard, 26, had a bad feeling. Twice, he drove past the pale green house on Reynes Street in the Lower Ninth Ward, where he and his mother, Charlene Blanchard, 45, had lived, yet he could not bring himself to enter.
It was not until Feb. 25 that one of Mr. Blanchard's uncles nudged the front door open with his foot and spied Ms. Blanchard's hand. Dressed in her nightgown and robe, she lay under a moldering sofa. With her was a red velvet bedspread that her daughter had given her and a huge teddy bear.
The bodies of storm victims are still being discovered in New Orleans — in March alone there were nine, along with one skull. Skeletonized or half-eaten by animals, with leathery, hardened skin or missing limbs, the bodies are lodged in piles of rubble, dangling from rafters or lying face down, arms outstretched on parlor floors. Many of them, like Ms. Blanchard, were overlooked in initial searches.
A landlord in the Lakeview section put a "for sale" sign outside a house, unaware that his tenant's body was in the attic. Two weeks ago, searchers in the Lower Ninth Ward found a girl, believed to be about 6, wearing a blue backpack. Nearby, they found part of a man who the authorities believe might have been trying to save her.............

scenario 1 and scenario 2

ok, this dude (a general) is trying to tell us the iraqis are NOT fighting each other. outside agitators are doing it. THEY are the suicide bombers (article one)

and then we have this iraqi dude (some council member) saying IRAQIS are doing it to each other (article two).

which one do we believe? the general talking out of BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH or the iraqi who LIVES WORKS AND WORSHIPS in iraq?

do they (king george and his court) think we're ALL id-jits? i CAN be but i'm NOT in this case.


article 1
U.S. Military Spokesman Disputes 'Wash Post' Article on Iraq

BAGHDAD More than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by terrorists and foreign fighters recruited, trained and equipped by al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida in Iraq "are real threats to the citizens, security and stability of Iraq and we continue to conduct aggressive operations to eliminate the threat they pose not only to Iraq, but also to the rest of the region," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in a statement.The Washington Post reported Monday that U.S. military was conducting a propaganda campaign to "magnify the role" of al-Zarqawi to turn Iraqis against him and to link the war in Iraq to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.According to the newspaper, some U.S. military intelligence officials believe the campaign has overstated al-Zarqawi's importance within the Iraqi insurgency.Lynch's statement did not refer directly to the Post story but said "a recent article" had called into question the threat posed by al-Zarqawi."Nothing could be further from the truth," Lynch said. "The terrorists and foreign fighters that he recruits, trains and equips carry out more than 90 percent of the insidious suicide attacks against the men, women and children of Iraq attacks that have killed or injured thousands of Iraqis in the last year alone.".........


article 2
Suicide bombers hit another Shiite holy site in Iraq, killing 71

By Tom Lasseter and Abdul Wahab Abdulrizah
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three suicide bombers killed at least 71 Iraqis and wounded more than 140 on Friday in a spray of explosives and ball bearings that scattered body parts and seared flesh at a mosque connected with the nation's largest Shiite Muslim political party.
The blasts came during a week of tense political standoff between that party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and another Shiite group, the Dawa Party, over who'll be the nation's next prime minister.
Suspicion, however, fell immediately on Iraq's Sunni insurgency, which has been trying to push the nation to civil war through a series of attacks designed to spark fighting between Shiites and Sunnis.
One of the bombers, dressed as a woman, was headed toward the office of the mosque's imam, Jalaledin al-Sagheer, when the bomber's suicide vest detonated, according to witnesses. Al-Sagheer is a prominent member of the Supreme Council.
In an interview broadcast on the Arab TV news station Al-Arabiya after the bombing, al-Sagheer lashed out at the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line Sunni clerical group, and at top Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi, accusing them of "launching a campaign of distortions and lies against (his) mosque, claiming that it contains Sunni prisoners and mass graves of Sunnis."
The accusations, al-Sagheer said, gave "a justification for these criminals to kill Friday worshippers in this brutal way."
But, al-Sagheer said, "this will not pull us in the direction of sectarian strife." ......

what comes next?

suing so you don't have to be "nice" to people of color? to tell you the truth i couldn't read through this whole article. i was (literally) getting sick. oh the HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!

damn, what are WE becoming?

what a bunch of asswipes. i swear IF they really believed in jesus, they WOULD accept EVERYONE.

Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies

Many codes intended to protect gays from harassment are illegal, conservatives argue.By Stephanie SimonTimes Staff WriterApril 10, 2006 ATLANTA Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all. The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. "Christians," he said, "are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian."In that spirit, the Christian Legal Society, an association of judges and lawyers, has formed a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court. Several nonprofit law firms — backed by major ministries such as Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ — already take on such cases for free.............

so, here's an idea. IF you don't like gay people for whatever reason, KEEP YOUR EFFING MOUTH SHUT ABOUT IT while in a public place. then, next time you are in your church (or whatever house of worship you choose) you can talk about stoning them to death ALL YOU WANT. jesus would like that i think. you talking about killing people based on their sexuality or the color of their skin or their ethnic origins or the color of their hair or their religious beliefs or what kind of car they drive.......

man this dude has stones of steel, no?

yes

Rove thanks Republican lawyers for their work on 'clean elections'
RAW STORYPublished: Monday April 10, 2006

In a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association in Washington last Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove thanked its members for their "work on clean elections," RAW STORY has found.
"I want to thank you for your work on clean elections," Rove said. "I know a lot of you spent time in the 2004 election, the 2002, election, the 2000 election in your communities or in strange counties in Florida, helping make it certain that we had the fair and legitimate outcome of the election."
Rove then suggested that some elections in America were similiar to third world dictatorships.
"We have, as you know, an enormous and growing problem with elections in certain parts of America today," Rove said. "We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where they guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate that all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot -- the integrity of the ballot is protected, because it's important to our democracy."

and just who does he think are the ones behind those mirrored raybans?
(image: apfn.org)

a very telling sign, no?

this, coupled with the armed services dropping (or lowering) some of their admissions standards cannot be a good thing

Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, April 9 — Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.
It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.
Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning.
To entice more to stay, the Army is offering new incentives this year, including a promise of graduate school on Army time and at government expense to newly commissioned officers who agree to stay in uniform for three extra years. Other enticements include the choice of an Army job or a pick of a desirable location for a home post.............

are we now the butchers and the terrorists?

some say, yes, we are

i don't want us to be looked on in that way. i don't want our citizens to be feared all over the world. i want our citizens to be known for HELPING and i want us to be respected based on our actions and our deeds.

WE HAVE A LONG LONG LONG way to go

to the families mentioned below, i apologize

to our soliders, i say i DO support you. i do NOT support this war, but i DO support YOU. please know that

3 U.S. commanders relieved of duty as Iraqi town mourns its dead
By Nancy A. Youssef
Knight Ridder Newspapers
HADITHA, Iraq - In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother's family was killed, Yaseen's monotone voice and stream of tears suddenly stopped. He looked up, paused and pleaded: "Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can't handle any more."
The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes' family has redefined Haditha's relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee on Haditha's main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.
The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterwards and thought it was coming from the area around Younes' house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed.
Eight were from Younes' family. The only survivor, Younes' 13-year-old daughter, said her family wasn't shooting at Marines or harboring extremists that morning. They were sleeping when the bomb exploded. And when the Marines entered their house, she said, they shot at everyone inside. ......

.....The events of last November have clearly taken their toll on Yaseen and his niece, Safa, who trembles visibly as she listens to Yaseen recount what she told him of the attack. She cannot bring herself to tell the tale herself.
She fainted after the Marines burst through the door and began firing. When she regained consciousness, only her 3-year-old brother was still alive, but bleeding heavily. She comforted him in a room filled with dead family members until he died, too. And then she went to her Uncle Yaseen's house next door.
Neither Yaseen nor Safa have returned home since.
Indeed, many in this town, whose residents are stuck in the battle between extremists and the Americans, said now it is the U.S. military they fear most.
"The mujahadeen (holy warriors) will kill you if you stand against them or say anything against them. And the Americans will kill you if the mujahadeen attack them several kilometers away," said Mohammed al-Hadithi, 32, a barber who lives in neighboring Haqlania. With a cigarette between his fingers, he pointed at a Marine patrol as it passed in front of his shop. "I look at each of them, and I see killers." ........

one ringy dingy two ringy dingy - is this the party to whom i am speaking?

apparently it's not only the party to whom your speaking BUT A BUNCH OF OTHER PARTIES

Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

By Ryan Singel Also by this reporter11:15 AM Apr, 07, 2006
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.
On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.......

a thoughtful and insightful article

by lt general (retired) gregory newbold in time magazine. i don't agree with everything he says but it's good to hear someone who had power in the military speak these words and have these thoughts. it's too late for the 2,000 plus united states men and women who have lost their lives and the thousands who have come back from iraq less than whole (not even mentioning the devestation to native lives and land IN iraq), but there IS hope (i hope.....)

Why Iraq Was a Mistake
A military insider sounds off against the war and the "zealots" who pushed it
By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

Two senior military officers are known to have challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the planning of the Iraq war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a full-throated critique: In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem Won't Get Fooled Again. To most in my generation, the song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders, who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture--who became career members of the military during those rough times--the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again. From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq--an unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long enough...............

i meant to post this the other day

to show the OTHER side of the coin. yes, men are victims of domestic abuse as well as women. it's rare, but it DOES happen. you can imagine there is even MORE stigma attached to men being abused . no one should be lifting a hand to anyone else. no one should be speaking words that CUT to anyone else. no one should STAND for this kind of treatment. if you suspect a friend, relative, coworker is being abused - try to at least TALK to them about it. let them know it doesn't have to be this way

The other face of domestic violence
By Ted Rowlands
CNN



SARASOTA, Florida (CNN) -- When I met Leo, Paul and Tom at a domestic violence shelter here in Sarasota, Florida, it was hard to believe the three men's story: that they were victims of physical abuse at the hands of their female partners.

Leo, who is about 6 feet tall and said he weighed more than 200 pounds at the time of the abuse, said his girlfriend terrorized him while he was recovering from a heart transplant.

"She would throw things, she would absolutely throw things, one time she did grab my throat and was screaming in my face," he said.

Another time, Leo said, she pulled a knife on him, but he suspected she was just trying to scare him.

Tom said his ex-wife would fly off the handle without notice. He said he had to lie when co-workers noticed scratches on his body, saying "my hands were so clawed by her, at work a day later I would be writing something down, and someone would say 'Oh, you must have a mean cat,' I'd say 'Yeah, a mean cat.' What am I supposed to say?"

Tom's wife was arrested and pleaded guilty to assault.

Tom said while sitting in a courtroom during his divorce, he realized he was a victim of abuse.

"I looked up, and I see a poster saying 'Are you a victim of domestic violence?' And I start reading the questions, and tears started coming down. I said, 'damn.' "

Paul, who works for a cement company, said his wife would attack him when he got home from work.

"She'd come running at me like a wild animal, both hands and arms swinging, I think she had her eyes closed half the time," he said............

on april 14th a new movie will be released

the notorious bettie page

the official site of the nototious bettie page


the real bettie left and right. gretchen mol (connecticut native i might add) in color

everyone knows god doesn't like 'the gays'

or as in the previous story little innocent babies of people with brown skin. guess what? i think the student is probably LUCKY he got kicked out. the joke is GOD doesn't like THIS PARTICULAR SCHOOL. how do i know this? why, she TOLD me of course!

Student who wrote he was gay dismissed from school

WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. A University of Cumberlands student who revealed he was gay on a personal Web page has been expelled.

A university spokesman says 20-year-old Jason Johnson was asked to leave the small Baptist school earlier this week. The student from Lexington was dismissed after he posted on his Web page at the popular Internet site MySpace.com that he was gay..........

what a bunch of repulsive close minded id-jits

instead of buying all sorts of dolls, why don't these women pool their money and make a donation to some local schools, or even a church's (not EVEN going to say synagog because i'm guessing THAT is out of the question) food bank or clothing drive, OR donate the dolls to a toy drive for children who may otherwise have meager pickins'

i KNOW why.................they are close minded bigoted id-jits

Prevent babies' citizenship, group says
Group wants illegal immigrants' `anchor' citizenship removed
Friday, April 07, 2006
KELLI HEWETT TAYLOR
News staff writer
The Alabama Federation of Republican Women wants to take away the citizenship of babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States, and the group is using baby dolls to make the point.

The members have dressed the dolls with handmade oil-cloth bibs proclaiming "$118 Billion Anchor Baby." The figure illustrates an estimate of the annual cost to provide government services, such as food, education and health care, to these families, according to the group's research.

Any child born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. To change that, a bill to amend the Constitution would have to pass by a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate, and then be presented to the states for approval.

Those U.S.-born babies are sometimes called "anchors" for their role in securing an illegal immigrant family's stay in the country. However, the babies don't mean automatic citizenship for the parents.

"We did it because it's generally unknown that these anchor babies exist and what the economic impact is," said Elois Zeanah of the Alabama Federation of Republican Women, who helped create the project. "We feel this should be in the debates about illegal immigration."

Zeanah, a board member from the Tuscaloosa chapter, said the benefits afforded to the families of U.S.-born immigrant babies is "an irresistible lure" to their families, prompting many to sneak into the country. She said members are concerned that caring for those immigrant families comes at a cost to U.S. citizens in the form of health-care cuts.

Limiting citizenship would eliminate one incentive for pregnant women to come here illegally, she said.............