let's take something we all KNOW to be true

let’s use this; the sky appears to us as being blue.*

we all believe that because we all (if we are sighted that is) can SEE it. it is the SAME COLOR all over this world. there is a reason it appears blue. most of us don’t know the reason nor do we care.

i will bet you a kazillion dollars (money which i don’t possess by the way) i can find a scientist** or someone with a doctorate** to PROVE (in scientific terms mind you) to everyone we are really NOT seeing the sky as the color blue.



*the sky is blue in the daytime. the sky may incorporate other colors from time to time but mainly it IS blue because we SEE blue

**i’m not discounting people without doctorates and non-scientists, i wanted to use someone who was a sme (we use that term at work and i love it!!! it’s pronounced smeeeeeee. of course it stands for SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT)


why the sky is blue


so now, our government is giving us stories (verified by THEIR SMEs) about the death of the five soldiers (4 kidnapped 1 killed at point of contact) killed by men dressed in AMERICAN UNIFORMS WITH AMERICAN WEAPONS SPEAKING ENGLISH. they are giving us stories about global warming. THEIR SMEs say it AIN’T THAT BAD.

that really isn’t what this post is about though. this post is about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that was given to king george yesterday. it says WE’RE SCREWED (not even counting what is happening to the Iraqis). i wonder how they are going to spin THIS one for us (after all it WAS written BY them and FOR them. who will they get to rewrite it so it looks like iraq is a bowl o’ cherry juice not a bowl o’ blood)

Iraq at Risk of Further Strife, Intelligence Report Warns


By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, February 2, 2007; Page A01
A long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, presented to President Bush by the intelligence community yesterday, outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control and there is a strong possibility of further deterioration, according to sources familiar with the document.
In a discussion of whether Iraq has reached a state of civil war, the 90-page classified NIE comes to no conclusion and holds out prospects of improvement. But it couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.
The document emphasizes that although al-Qaeda activities in Iraq remain a problem, they have been surpassed by Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence as the primary source of conflict and the most immediate threat to U.S. goals. Iran, which the administration has charged with supplying and directing Iraqi extremists, is mentioned but is not a focus.......

Tech Tags: national+intelligence george+bush iraq civil+war nie

even if they don't care about us or themselves

you'd think these id-jits would care about their OWN KIDS AND GRANDKIDS. nope, it appears they are only concerned with lining their pockets

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Ian Sample, science correspondent Friday February 2, 2007 The Guardian
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment..............

Tech Tags: aei global+warming bush+administration

number one;

my heart and soul goes out to the families and friends of these five soliders who lost their lives (OVER LIES and GREED and goddess only knows what else)

number two; i don't believe a THING a faux news

number three; we ain't ever gonna hear the REAL story on this. that much was obvious from the get go. we are ONLY going to hear the stories king george and his good ole boy (and grrrl) goon squad wants us to hear

Two Iraqi generals suspected of complicity in attack on US GIs

Filed by John Byrne
Citing Pentagon officials, Fox News Channel is reporting that two Iraqi generals are suspected of complicity in a Jan. 20 attack in Karbala, Iraq that killed five US troops
There are 2 senior Iraq generals that US officials say are now suspect of involvement in an attack against American forces in Karbala on Jan. 20th," a Fox News host reported on air. "A number of people were killed. These gunmen apparently stormed an Iraqi security dressed like American soldiers and driving SUVs. So again, US officials are saying that 2 senior are suspected of taking part in an insurgent attack that killed 5 American soldiers."
The fake US military convoy that kidnapped and killed 5 soldiers had previously been blamed on Iranian elements.
"We have Pentagon officials telling us this was incredibly sophisticated orchestrated attack, at troubling attack from their perspective," Fox News Reporter Mike Emanuel reports live on air. .....

Tech Tags: karbala+attack green+zone troop+deaths iraq

now THIS dude is an HONEST

police chief! my kind o' dude!

Police Chief Writes Himself Ticket

KEWASKUM, Wis. -- It's not usually news when a police officer writes a ticket -- unless it's the chief and he gives the ticket to himself.
Village of Kewaskum Police Chief Richard Knoebel said he was driving to work when he became distracted by a truck stopping on one side of the street.
He said he didn't see a school bus with its lights flashing and a stop sign out on the other side of the four-lane road...........

Tech Tags: kewaskum+wi richard+knoebel

molly, we loved you! your words will live on

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins dies at 62
Best-selling author, sharp-witted Texas liberal succumbs to breast cancer

AUSTIN, Texas - Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as “Shrub,” died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.
Ivins died at her home while in hospice care, said David Pasztor, managing editor of the Texas Observer, where Ivins had once been co-editor..........

Tech Tags: molly+ivins breast+cancer

if you knit or sew or crochet

or do something similar why don't you think about volunteering to donate one or some of your handmade items to a worthy cause. there are a TON of them and i'll try to list one or two from time to time.

i personally found the NEXT organization i'll be making hats for (watch for pictures of the hats i knit for my department. they've not gotten them yet. they're all done BUT i still need to EMBELLISH some of them). i've knit caps for preemies (takes NO time at all). you can contact your local hospital if you'd like to do that. they'll give you guidelines and where and when you can donate.

i found the rad bad beanie project

..........We are collecting totally rad handmade hats for urban teens!Beanies go to Big City Mountaineers, a non-profit whose mission is to provide urban teens in need of positive adult mentoring with challenging and safe wilderness experiences.We've donated 112 handmade beanies anda pair of mittens—but there are 250 hikers each year!Will you help? •Join our dedicated knitting, crochet + stitching volunteers from:Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Vermont!.......

so i'll be getting in touch with them in the near future.

i also saw this inspiring story in the washington post yesterday (of course it was a SAD story too. no 20 year old kid should have his legs blown off)

With Gratitude In Every Stitch
At Walter Reed, Wounded Troops Find Comfort in Donated Quilts


By Jura Koncius Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, January 31, 2007; Page B01
The carefully packed boxes stack up daily in the chaplain's quarters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, about 50 a week. The instructions read simply: "Please give this to a soldier." Chaplain John L. Kallerson, an Army major, gently opens each one and places the contents around his windowless office. Then he lays his big hands on the piles and says a blessing.
His is the ministry of the quilts.
A phone call to the chaplain four years ago has created a national movement to say thank you to soldiers wounded in the war on terror.
More than 7,900 "comfort quilts," each carefully stitched with love and gratitude, have been sent through the Quilts of Valor Foundation to the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed and 70 other U.S. military medical centers. Kallerson prays over and hands out quilts from church groups, schoolchildren, quilting bees. Quilts made from accomplished artists whose designs sell for thousands. Quilts with bears, fish, basketballs. Quilts with hot-pink flowers for wounded women............

Tech Tags: volunteer+quilting volunteer+knitting volunteer+crocheting

a disturbing story indeed

i don't know if it is true about the jail worker refusing to give the (alleged) rape victim her second dose of plan b, for religious reasons. the the jail worker denies this claim. i don't have enough evidence either way. if it IS true, it is one of THE most horrid incidents i've heard of.

it IS true the (alleged) rape victim was immediately jailed for a prior warrant AFTER she was (allegedly) raped. THAT is a horror without question.

one more example of women being treated like a steamin' pile o' shite

Rape victim is jailed on old warrant

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- A college student who told police she had been raped was jailed for two days after officers found an old warrant accusing her of failing to pay restitution for a 2003 theft arrest.
While she was behind bars, a jail worker refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after contraceptive pill because of the worker's religious convictions, the college student's attorney said.
The 21-year-old woman was released Monday only after attorney Vic Moore reported her plight to the local media. (Watch the mother describe how her daughter was twice vicitimized )
"Shocked. Stunned. Outraged. I don't have words to describe it," Moore said. "She is not a victim of any one person. She is a victim of the system. There's just got to be some humanity involved when it's a victim of rape."
Moore said the young woman was not allowed to take the second emergency contraceptive pill until Monday afternoon, a day late, after reporters called police and jail officials...............

Tech Tags: womens+rights rape

GREAT piece by richard cohen

doen't need any commentary from me, he's said it all!

God told Bush to

Richard Cohen, Washington Post Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Wars get odd names. My favorite is the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739 to 1741), but the one about the Roses is good and so is the Hundred Years' War and also the French and Indian War which, somehow, neglects to mention that the British were also involved. Usually, though, those names are wonderfully descriptive and more truthful than an Orwellian moniker such as Operation Just Cause, which was that silliness in Panama (1989), or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the present debacle in the desert. A better name for it would be the War of the Water Cooler. This, I'm sure, is where it all started...........

............Two guys took us to war and now two guys keep us at war. The consensus of the country is that Bush/Cheney has failed. The president's approval ratings are lower than the average daily Washington temperature — and it is winter, for crying out loud. Now Bush has authorized the so-called surge, which is meant to rectify the slide, the mess, the coming defeat. But to Cheney, there is no slide, no mess. "Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes," is the way he put it to CNN's Wolf Blitzer. This bizarre assessment, so at odds with truth, is a Rorschach of sorts and Cheney fails it stunningly.........

Tech Tags: george+bush dick+cheney iraq war

i initially read this story in

feministing

it's HORRID. just HORRID.

and of course MORE evidence women are far less than second class citizens (everywhere, not just in china)

CHINA GHOST BRIDE HORROR
Gang kills women for dead grooms

WHEN farmer Yang Donghai approached a poor family asking to 'buy' their mentally-handicapped daughter for an arranged marriage, they agreed, thinking she would have a better life.

But Yang, 35, was only telling half the truth.
He later killed the girl and sold her corpse as a 'ghost bride' to the family of a dead single man.
Chinese police have arrested Yang, and two other men, Liu Shengbao and Hui Haibao, for killing two young women and selling their corpses as part of this dark custom.
And they believe that there might have been many other victims.
In certain parts of China, it is believed that young men who die unmarried should go to their graves accompanied by women who will be their dead wives in the afterlife. Often, these women die natural deaths.
Yang, who is from western China's Shaanxi province, has confessed to killing the girl, who he bought for 12,000 yuan ($2,400) last year.
He had initially intended to sell her into a marriage as promised.
Then he ran into Liu at a guesthouse in Yanchuan county, where the latter offered him RMB10,200 for the girl's corpse...............

Tech Tags: feministing ghost+bride china women

i did not vote for da liebs

oh, in the past i had. there is NO WAY i will EVER vote for him again. i have nothing but contempt for the man. i think he is a one trick pony. i think his view of the middle east AND especially the iraq war is at the very least bizarre at the very most, EVIL. the good people of connecticut went temporarily insane and re elected him. i am trying not to hold a grudge. however, da liebs IS one of those responsible for the LOSS of 3,081 of our men and women's lives and the destruction of tens of thousands more. that is not even including what is happening to the citizens of iraq. those very same citizens who NEVER did ONE THING to us UNTIL WE INVADED THEIR COUNTRY (FOR NO REASON)


Exclusive: GOP talking points encourage using Lieberman to attack Democrats on war

John Byrne

A set of talking points sent out yesterday by the staff of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) encouraged House Republican press staff to use a quote from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) -- a onetime Democrat -- as a means of attacking Democratic resolutions calling for US redeployment.The full talking points leaked to RAW STORY are printed below. They carried the image above in an html-formatted email."House and Senate Democrat leaders have stated they oppose the increase in troops, and their whole idea of troop 'redeployment' would amount to little more than pulling out our troops and walking away," the release says."As Senator Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) [sic] told the Wall Street Journal last week:"The people in Congress, and the public, were quite right in saying the president's got to come up with a different approach. And he did. It's better than any other plan I've seen because it holds the hope of success. Most of the other plans are effectively just giving up and walking away."..........

Tech Tags: joe+lieberman gop john+boehner

careful what you say

OR what you think. big brodda really IS watching

Report: FBI conducting sweeping Internet wiretaps that mirror warantless NSA surveillance

John Byrne

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed," according to a story posted Tuesday on ZDNet, a technology news website.
Agents engaging in investigations appear to be amassing huge databases of data on thousands of Internet users, rather than eyeing the activities of particular suspects -- similar to the sweeping approach employed by the National Security Agency. The NSA wiretaps program drew congressional uproar after it was revealed the program was taking place without supervision by a court.............

Tech Tags: ZDnet fbi nsa warrantless+wiretaps

the only thing that emboldens the 'enemy'

is US imposing our ideas of democracy on them.

WE are just continuing to piss them off. piss them off and they have guns and bombs. WE invaded THEIR country for NO reason.

WE do NOT understand their culture and WE are making NO efforts to do so. their culture IS very different from ours.

i think da liebs ought to take his OWN message. start thinking about TODAY AND TOMORROW.

he has only ONE issue. he has only ONE goal and it has NOTHING to do with either the people of the great state of connecticut OR the people of the (once and i hope it will be again) great nation of america
Lieberman agrees Iraq resolutions 'encourage the enemy'

Filed by Ron Brynaert

Referring to himself as an "Independent Democrat," Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) agreed with President Bush's new Defense Secretary that congressional resolutions embolden the enemy, on the same day that a Democratic senator said that it was president's "failed" strategy which actually achieved that effect, not Congress.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Lieberman told host Chris Wallace that Democrats need to "start thinking less about yesterday and more about today and tomorrow."
"There was a large message from the election last year, and it wasn't just about Iraq," Lieberman said. "It was about too much partisanship in Washington."
"The president said afterward he got it, the leaders of both parties said afterward they got it," Lieberman continued. "And yet we seem to be sliding back into the partisanship."
Wallace asked Lieberman if he thought that the resolution drafted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which voiced disapproval on the president's "surge" strategy would "have any practical effect on the war effort."..........

Tech Tags: joe+lieberman iraq

i want to know why flush limburger isn't babbling about THIS

i wrote about this a couple of weeks ago (i think). it is beyond comprehension.


Senator targets surplus sales to Iran


By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press WriterMon Jan 29, 6:49 PM ET
A Democratic senator wants to cut off all Pentagon sales of surplus F-14 parts, saying the military's marketing of the spares "defies common sense" in light of their importance to Iran.
Sen. Ron Wyden (news, bio, voting record)'s bill came in response to an investigation by The Associated Press that found weaknesses in surplus-sale security that allowed buyers for countries including Iran and China to surreptitiously obtain sensitive U.S. military equipment including Tomcat parts.
The Oregon Democrat's legislation would ban the Defense Department from selling surplus F-14 parts and prohibit buyers who have already acquired surplus Tomcat parts from exporting them. Wyden's bill, the Stop Arming Iran Act, is co-sponsored by the Senate's No. 2 lawmaker, Democratic Whip Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois.
The surplus sales are one of the first national security issues to be addressed by the new Democratic-controlled Congress.
"It just defies common sense to be making this kind of equipment available to the Iranians with all that they have done that is against our interests," Wyden said Monday in an interview, adding that constituents brought up the surplus-sale security problems at his town-hall meetings over the past few days. "I just want to legislate this and cut it off permanently, once and for all."
The Tomcat is the fighter jet made famous in the 1986 Tom Cruise blockbuster movie, "Top Gun." The U.S. military retired its F-14s last fall. That leaves only Iran — which bought the fighter jet in the 1970s when it was a U.S. ally — flying the planes.
U.S. law enforcement officials believe Iran can produce only about 15 percent of the parts it needs for its Tomcats, making the Pentagon's surplus sales a valuable avenue for spares..........

Tech Tags: ron+wyden defense+department richard+durbin pentagon

and we all know what kind of appointees

he has chosen in the past

i am shuddering

how can we allow this to happen? he is changing the course of our (once) great nation? if he doesn't like a part of the constitution or bill of rights or a particular law, HE JUST CHANGES IT TO SUIT HIMSELF

the king STILL has no clothes


Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation

By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.
In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.
This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.
The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In an interview on Monday, Jeffrey A. Rosen, general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, “This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable.”
Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce ..........

WE gave them the bombs

well sold them is more accurate. what the f**k did WE think they were going to do with them? now WE are all outraged at israel's use of these cluster bombs? WE damn well KNEW all along how they were going to be used AND for WHAT they were going to be used.

HOW DARE WE BE SURPRISED??? is this someone's (in king george's court of course) idea of a joke? it AIN'T funny

U.S: Israel may have misused cluster bombs

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Israel's use of U.S.-made cluster bombs in last year's war in Lebanon may have violated agreements with the United States governing their use, the State Department said Monday.
"There may -- likely could have been some violations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The State Department has sent a report to Congress laying out the preliminary findings, he said.
Agreements under the Arms Export Control Act govern use of munitions sold by the United States. Those agreements are confidential.
There is no international treaty in effect regulating cluster bombs, according to Human Rights Watch, but their use is restricted under international humanitarian law. Nations are expected to clean up areas where they used cluster bombs once a conflict ends...........

Tech Tags: lebanon israel cluster+bombs state+department

aren't you glad you don't live on balboa island?

i know i am.

i really don't understand this. free speech is one thing, but MALICIOUS evil spewings are another. this woman clearly has some issues (i want to say more, but unlike this woman, i'll watch what i say).

isn't this like yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater? yelling about poison food in a restaurant when in fact there is NO poison food? isn't that a lie? isn't that harming an innocent person's business? is there no relief for the business owner? doesn't he have a right to defend his honor? why should she be allowed to blast her horn for 30 minutes straight in front of his restaurant? why should she be allowed to videotape patrons of the establishment? don't THEY have rights too?

can i get a bull horn and stand on a corner and yell that a particular person is a sexual predator when in fact they are not?


Woman's crusade against bar spawns free speech case
Anne Lemen just wants to say what she pleases about a Balboa Island restaurant and bar. A court has forbidden her to, and that sets up a dispute over prior restraint.
By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer

The most important free speech case now before the California Supreme Court carries neither the heft of the Pentagon Papers nor the emotion of Nazis seeking to march in Skokie, Ill.In fact, the figure at the center of the case, a Christian evangelist in Newport Beach, makes a highly unlikely 1st Amendment hero. Anne Lemen, 58, says she doesn't care about free speech or the constitutional question that her case, like the Pentagon Papers before it, poses: When may government prevent speech before it has occurred?Lemen just wants to tell people that she believes her nemesis, the Village Inn on Balboa Island, is mafia, as are her former husband and the guards at a local church, and the police are in cahoots. And, she wonders aloud, why would anyone accuse an innocent Christian woman of lying?On top of that, Lemen contended, "the bar," as she calls the Village Inn, has tried to murder her.....

.........."It's ridiculous that someone can stand in front of a restaurant and tell patrons that the food makes you sick and that they sell drugs and have prostitution, and a court would have its hands tied and could not say 'Stop,' " Russo said............

Tech Tags: anne+lemen balboa+island aric+toll village+inn

the home of the she-wolf

who nursed romulus and remus has been found. of course i know this story but i do so wish i knew more of ancient roman lore AND history (unlike some creationists i DO realize lore and history are two different things)

Sacred Cave of Rome's Founders Discovered, Archaeologists Say

Maria Cristina Valsecchi in Romefor National Geographic News
January 26, 2007
Archaeologists say they have unearthed Lupercale—the sacred cave where, according to legend, a she-wolf nursed the twin founders of Rome and where the city itself was born.
The long-lost underground chamber was found beneath the remains of Emperor Augustus' palace on the Palatine, a 230-foot-tall (70-meter-tall) hill in the center of the city.
Archaeologists from the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Rome Municipality came across the 50-foot-deep (15-meter-deep) cavity while working to restore the decaying palace.
"We were drilling the ground near Augustus' residence to survey the foundations of the building when we discovered the cave," said Irene Iacopi, the archaeologist in charge of the area. ........

Tech Tags: romulus remus rome lupercale

a very nice

write up on jim webb from a BRITISH PAPER. the more i read on the man, the more i like him. sure, he's a bit more hardline than people i usually admire, but he appears to be honest, true and moral.

An angry man catches America’s mood


Andrew Sullivan
For the past six years, every state of the union speech by George W Bush has been followed by a Democratic response so lame and anaemic I found myself instantly reaching for the remote control. The pale hues and dulcet tones of testosterone-free Democrats served only to highlight the red meat — served rare — of Bush’s war addresses.
But not last Tuesday. Not even close. For the first time in his presidency, Bush was out-machoed and outperformed. And the man who did it, the new senator for Virginia, James Webb, tells you a lot about the shifting landscape of American politics in the twilight of the Bush years.
Webb doesn’t sound like a Democrat. He was secretary of the navy under Ronald Reagan. His father fought in the second world war, he himself served in Vietnam, winning a Navy Cross (the highest navy honour), the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.
His son is currently serving in Iraq as a marine — and Webb wears his son’s combat boots in the Capitol. Webb is a Jacksonian Southerner, a man whose family originally came from Ulster and settled in the American South. .............

Tech Tags: jim+webb virginia george+bush democrats

just another number

to the great decider. to the king

just another casualty of war

jonathan schulze wasn't just another number to his family, friends and fellow marines. he was their son, brother, father and friend.

whose fault is this? is it the va? i don't know. i can't speak to that. i know my father goes to the va (one in connecticut) and he receives prompt and thorough attention. i don't know what is going on in minnesota. are they overwhelmed, understaffed? are there enough beds?
i DO know we must take care of our returning men and women. they put their lives on the line (in this case for NO particular reason and that INDEED is the fault of our king)

i know mr schulze cried out for help. i know he didn't get that help. HE knew he needed help and sought it out. what happened? why was he failed? there was NO need for his life to be lost

to mr schulze's family and friends, i am sorry for your loss

This Marine's death came after he served in Iraq

When Jonathan Schulze came home from Iraq, he tried to live a normal life. But the war kept that from happening.
By Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
Last update: January 26, 2007 – 11:38 PM

At first, Jonathan Schulze tried to live with the nightmares and the grief he brought home from Iraq. He was a tough kid from central Minnesota, and more than that, a U.S. Marine to the core.
Yet his moods when he returned home told another story. He sobbed on his parents' couch as he told them how fellow Marines had died, and how he, a machine gunner, had killed the enemy. In his sleep, he screamed the names of dead comrades. He had visited a psychiatrist at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.
Two weeks ago, Schulze went to the VA hospital in St. Cloud. He told a staff member he was thinking of killing himself, and asked to be admitted to the mental health unit, said his father and stepmother, who accompanied him. They said he was told he couldn't be admitted that day. The next day, as he spoke to a counselor in St. Cloud by phone, he was told he was No. 26 on the waiting list, his parents said.
Four days later, Schulze, 25, committed suicide in his New Prague home............

Tech Tags: jonathan+schulze va+hospital marines minnesota suicide

you can be stupid all you want

believe what you want to believe. humans and dinosaurs roamed the JUST CREATED earth together. i really don't care. what i DO care about is don't hoist that crap upon me. i also care when a government agency such as the national parks service accepts a book touting such nonsense as the grand canyon was created by noah's flood 4,500 years ago.

Faith-Based Geology
Resolving a flood of nonsense at the Grand Canyon

Ronald Bailey January 26, 2007

Grand Canyon Village, Ariz.-Did Noah's flood create the vast chasm that is the Grand Canyon 4,500 years ago? Tom Vail's controversial little book, Grand Canyon: A Different View (2003) claims that geology tells us that this is so. Selling Vail's book at Grand Canyon bookstores affiliated with the National Park Service (NPS) has created quite a stir. In fact, I heard most recently about the controversy at The Amazing Meeting 5, a conference put on by the James Randi Educational Foundation last week.
Eugenie Scott, the head of the National Center for Science Education told an audience of 800 self-described skeptics that selling Vail's book in government sponsored bookstores amounted to endorsing bad science and should be stopped. National Park Service Director's Order #6 seems relevant here. That order states: "The interpretive and educational treatment used to explain the natural processes and history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism.... Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes." However, the very next line may contradict the foregoing insistence on best scientific evidence: "Programs, however, may acknowledge or explain other explanations of natural processes and events." Could "other explanations" perhaps include how Noah's flood created the Grand Canyon? ..........

.............For the most part, the park affiliated bookstores offer many genuinely interesting books on the geology of the Grand Canyon. I highly recommend Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery (2005) by geologist Wayne Ranney. He discusses a number of unresolved scientific issues about just how the canyon was formed, but notes that most of the current evidence is that Colorado River began sculpting the canyon about 6 million years ago. ........

Tech Tags: grand+canyon tom+vail creationism eugenie+scott nps wayne+ranney