just because

the lovely and talented cv rick sent this along to the comments section of a posting...................................... (and he's posted it in his blog as well - along with a link to a video of the speech)

"The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as
a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret
oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of
excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the
dangers which are cited to justify it."

- John F. Kennedy

just because

guerrillas in the midst sent me this picture of an aye aye

and mr shakespeare thought the OTHER picture looked strangely similar to a notorious blood sucking boney long fingered vampire......

and now for something i really DO like - lemurs!!!

little TEENY TINY ones at that. can you imagine ANYTHING cuter? well putting aside my baby pictures that is

Microcebus mittermeieri is one of three newly announced mouse lemur species found on the African island of Madagascar.Photograph by Mark Thiessen/NGS

Three New Lemurs Discovered, Add to Madagascar's Diversity
Scott Norrisfor National Geographic News
June 26, 2006
Three new species of lemur in the African island nation of Madagascar have been discovered (Madagascar map and facts).
(Related: "Madagascar Movie Magic Might Be Real-Life Nightmare.")

All three are mouse lemurs and are as tiny as their name implies. The palm-size creatures are primates—the group that includes apes and humans.
Researchers first located the three new mouse lemurs in Madagascar's eastern rain forests in 2001. .........

a little animated slide show with audio (warning: not all of the pictures are nice)

my head is spinning and i'm spewing from my ears

how are we letting these people get away with this shite? i don't get it. more and more and more abuse then THEY (the king and his court) have the balls to say WE (the common folk) are at fault? WE don't have the right to know we are being SPIED UPON ILLEGALLY. our king and his court are NOT following that little piece of paper called THE CONSTITUTION? WE are undermining the safety and security of our GREAT NATION? i understand following party lines and if you're republican you stick with your party TO A POINT. how can ANYONE ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE? THE VERITABLE RAPING OF OUR SOULS. HOW? i just don't get it.

VIDEO: Snow Lashes Out at Media, Suggests NYT Has Undermined Americans’ ‘Right to Live’ President Bush today called the New York Times story revealing the administration’s monitoring of bank records “disgraceful,” and said the decision to publish details of the program “does great harm to the United States of America.”
Press Secretary Tony Snow followed up with another attack at today’s press briefing:
[T]he New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know in some cases might override somebody’s right to live, and whether in fact the publications of these could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans.
Watch it: .......

and

LATEST BLOW TO OUR WAR EFFORT NATIONAL REVIEW? wtf????????? do you actually believe we SHOULD be in iraq? why? i want to know. sure saddam was an evil man but then ago so are so many others we are actually BUDDIES with. so that makes no sense. they bombed the world trade center? NOPE, wasn't iraqis that did that either, so THAT isn't it. ok, they had weapons of MASS destruction! NOPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE no one found any of THOSE either (well we have 'em but we don't want anyone ELSE to have 'em). so THAT isn't it. mmmmmmmm did the iraqi's dis the king's dad back in the day? could be. could be a LOT of things but we ain't gonna know in this lifetime OR the next. there IS NO REASON OUR MEN AND WOMEN (AND THEIR MEN AND WOMEN) are dying. HOW THE HELL can the national review say revealing an ILLEGAL operation by the king and his court is threatening our 'war effort'. THERE SHOULD BE NO WAR EFFORT you bunch of steamin' wankers

'National Review' Urges Revoking 'NYT' White House Credentials

By Joe Strupp Published: June 26, 2006 3:30 PM ET
NEW YORK The same day that President Bush criticized The New York Times for disclosing a secret bank records monitoring program, editors of the National Review - the influential conservative magazine - are urging the White House to revoke the Times' press credentials.In an unusual move that has one publication seeking to block the press credentials of another, National Review wrote online today that the publication of the bank records story by the Times and other newspapers is the "latest body blow to the war effort.""Every passing week, it becomes more apparent that disgruntled leftists in the intelligence community and antiwar crusaders in the mainstream media, annealed in their disdain for the Bush administration, are undermining our ability to win the War on Terror," the editorial began. Although it noted that both The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times had disclosed the same information in stories that were first posted online late Thursday, the editorial aimed squarely at The New York Times."President Bush, who said on Monday morning that the exposure 'does great harm to the United States of America,' must demand that the New York Times pay a price for its costly, arrogant defiance," the editorial continued. "The administration should withdraw the newspaper's White House press credentials because this privilege has been so egregiously abused, and an aggressive investigation should be undertaken to identify and prosecute, at a minimum, the government officials who have leaked national-defense information."........

abuse of power?

our king and his court? our phone calls, our emails, our meetings to protest, our post office mail and now our bank records (you know they're checking our health records and atm records as well. NO ALL of that stoli was NOT JUST for me). they say they are only 'spying' (WITHOUT A WARRANT) on SUSPECTED TERRORISTS. c'mon now who is buying that? how much are YOU going to let THEM get away with BEFORE you open your mouths? are you going to wait until they put an electric collar around your neck? i am not. sure they just caught those five or six (i've forgotten now) YOUNG 'terrorists'. 'terrorists' who were all talk, never had any weapons, never met with any formed terrorist organizations. did they need to read MY mail to do that? did they need to read YOUR mail to do that? did they need to listen to a phone conversation (well it was more of a fight actually) i had with my sister? NO we weren't arguing about anything to do with being a terrorist. we were talking about my father's dvd player........at any rate; Keller of 'NYT' Responds to Criticism of Bank Records Bombshell By E&P Staff Published: June 25, 2006 7:35 PM ET
NEW YORK Responding to comments and criticism of the newspaper's revelations last week about government surveillance of certain interantional banking records, Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, has crafted a lengthy letter and had it posted on the Times' Web site today.A link can be found on the home page at www.nytimes.com. Keller's document is described as a reply that has been sent to numerous readers who have written the newspaper concerning the article by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen.Here are excerpts from the Keller letter.*It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish. ........

money money money

the all mighty or is that almighty dollah!

it's ok to sell 'em it just ain't ok to wear 'em

(of course NO ONE could say WHY they were offensive, but that's NOT the point)

hey, i wonder if belly shirts are allowed or mini skirts or tshirts with 'nra' emblazoned upon them are allowed? i wonder........

Bandanna banned in Springfield mall Officials wonÂ’t explain how headgear is offensive.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) - A southwest Missouri mall defended its dress code after a security guard told a 10-year-old girl her bandanna decorated with peace signs, smiley faces and flowers violated the mallÂ’s code of conduct.
Lydia Smith, who was shopping with her mother at Battlefield Mall for new church clothes when the incident happened Saturday, said she wore the orange and yellow bandanna to give her outfit some color.
Lydia and her mom, Susan Smith, were eating lunch when the girl saw a mall security officer ask a nearby teenager to remove a bandanna. Then the officer approached her.
"(The officer) asked me to take it off and said thereÂ’s this new rule we have or something like that," Lydia said.
The officer handed LydiaÂ’s mother a printed copy of the Battlefield Mall Code of Conduct, which prohibits patrons from engaging in certain activities while on mall property.
Lydia had violated No. 10 on the list of 17 offenses: "failing to be fully clothed or wearing apparel which is likely to provide a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict."
Mall officials wonÂ’t clarify what clothing and accessories are prohibited..........

watch out sri lankans are trying to take away YOUR guns (NOT)

my friend richard from australia forwarded this article to me.

if you notice those christian organizations who are protesting a television show or a cd write TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LETTERS (well really a computer is writing them and they aren't from tens of thousands of people. perhaps five or six). same with the nra. what THIS person has to do with guns in america is beyond me (and beyond mr kariyawasam as well)

UN takes aim at gun runners

Those trying to control the trade in small arms find themselves in the sights of the powerful US gun lobby.


PRASAD Kariyawasam seems an unlikely person to get 5000 letters a day. Sri Lanka's ambassador to the UN is a softly spoken diplomat, trained to avoid controversy, not provoke it. But in the past few weeks, his office has been overwhelmed with 100,000 letters.
They are not friendly postcards. They come from supporters of America's National Rifle Association, who claim that he is trying to take away their guns.
How this man poses a danger to the right to bear arms of 80 million gun-owning Americans is a puzzle. He is the chairman of a two-week United Nations conference starting on Monday that will review progress in the past five years to curb the trade in small arms, which fuels and sustains many international conflicts.............