this should NOT be funny

but it really IS. how stupid IS this? (i'd have pictures but blogger just isn't cooperating in uploading them)

U.S. Terror Targets: Petting Zoo and Flea Market?
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, July 11 — It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”
But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the federal antiterrorism database.
The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.
The database is used by the Homeland Security Department to help divvy up the hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grants each year, including the program announced in May that cut money to New York City and Washington by 40 percent, while significantly increasing spending for cities including Louisville, Ky., and Omaha.
“We don’t find it embarrassing,” said the department’s deputy press secretary, Jarrod Agen. “The list is a valuable tool.”
But the audit says that lower-level department officials agreed that some older information in the inventory “was of low quality and that they had little faith in it.”
“The presence of large numbers of out-of-place assets taints the credibility of the data,” the report says......

.....The inspector general questions whether many of the sites listed in whole categories — like the 1,305 casinos, 163 water parks, 159 cruise ships, 244 jails, 3,773 malls, 718 mortuaries and 571 nursing homes — should even be included in the tally..........

i be a healer

virgina had one, connecticut had many (and some say the FIRST execution) as did other states. today really isn't that different (in my most humble AND knowing opinion)

Three-century-old Virginia witch is exonerated
Grace Sherwood was convicted through trial by water in 1706 VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) -- The Witch of Pungo is no longer a witch.Gov. Timothy M. Kaine gave an informal pardon Monday to Grace Sherwood, who 300 years ago became Virginia's only person convicted as a witch tried by water."I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood," Kaine wrote in a letter that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf read aloud before a re-enactment of Sherwood's being dropped into the river."With 300 years of hindsight, we all certainly can agree that trial by water is an injustice," Kaine wrote. "We also can celebrate the fact that a woman's equality is constitutionally protected today, and women have the freedom to pursue their hopes and dreams." ( Watch the re-enactment of Sherwood's riverside trial -- :42 )Sherwood, a midwife who at times wore men's clothes and lived in what today is the rural Pungo neighborhood, later became known as "The Witch of Pungo."..........

i wrote about alse young a while ago. ties in

i wrote about sgt patrick stewart, here

as did left of center

all i can say is

DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mystic mushrooms spawn magic event
Findings could lead to treatments for addiction, depression
NEW YORK (AP) -- People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks -- all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s.
Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.
Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, the study's lead author.
But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't."
Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.
Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression...........

IMAGE: shawnzuke.com

Ned Lamont Has a Messy Desk

(NOT as messy as mine, i must say!!!)

should he be

WANTED: FOR SUPREME CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY?

you decide

Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?
By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted July 10, 2006.
A Nuremberg chief prosecutor says there is a case for trying Bush for the 'supreme crime against humanity, an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.'
The extent to which American exceptionalism is embedded in the national psyche is awesome to behold.
While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime.
From the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Philippines to the first nuclear attack ever at Hiroshima to the unprovoked invasion of Baghdad, U.S.-sponsored violence doesn't feel as wrong and worthy of prosecution in internationally sanctioned criminal courts as the gory, bload-soaked atrocities of Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, and most certainly not the Nazis -- most certainly not. Howard Zinn recently described this as our "inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.".................

it just keeps getting deeper and deeper

and worse and worse. there ARE legal avenues the fbi (and nsa and all of 'em all) COULD take. you know, GET WARRANTS and the like. i UNDERSTAND the need to monitor phones or the internet or mail IF there is something to ACTUALLY base suspicions on, IF one follows the LAW and IF one gets the proper warrants from A JUDGE. how long are we going to allow our constitution to be trampled and spit upon before we stop them? remember, there WILL come a time WHEN IT IS TOO LATE

FBI Plans New Net-Tapping Push


by Declan McCullagh

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.
FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
The draft bill would place the FBI's Net-surveillance push on solid legal footing. At the moment, it's ensnared in a legal challenge from universities and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications Commission's broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress has authorized.
The FBI claims that expanding the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is necessary to thwart criminals and terrorists who have turned to technologies like voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
"The complexity and variety of communications technologies have dramatically increased in recent years, and the lawful intercept capabilities of the federal, state and local law enforcement community have been under continual stress, and in many cases have decreased or become impossible," according to a summary accompanying the draft bill..................

and THIS is why i believe in miracles

in the same vein as the previous story, hate crimes, neo-nazis, white power.................

WE CAN CHANGE. we CAN become human again, it IS within us

Pair Form Unlikely Team to Fight Prejudice

A former neo-Nazi and the gay man he once left bloodied on a street tell their stories at the Museum of Tolerance.
By Anna Gorman, Times Staff Writer 10:14 PM PDT, July 9, 2006
Theirs is an unlikely friendship.Timothy Zaal is a former neo-Nazi skinhead who served time behind bars on hate crime charges for assaulting an Iranian couple.
Matthew Boger is a gay man Zaal once beat unconscious on a street corner in Hollywood.More than two decades later, Zaal, 42, and Boger, 39, were brought together by their work at the Museum of Tolerance to fight hatred.After their initial shock, the two men have become friends, even turning to each other for advice and consolation. On Sunday, they sat next to each other on a museum stage and shared their story of reconciliation.Zaal, a stocky man with a goatee and tattoos, turned to Boger during the program and apologized for what he had done when they were teenagers.Boger, a much smaller man in a blazer and jeans, smiled awkwardly and responded, "But you are a good guy — now."That night in 1981, Boger was hanging out with a few friends at a hamburger stand when a group of skinheads ran toward them shouting obscenities. He remembers trying to flee to an alley, where Boger said he was trampled, punched and kicked."I came to, and all I saw was blood," Boger said...............

as always

i just don't GET it. i don't understand why one group is killing another. in this case it's shias killing sunnis but it COULD have been (and HAS been) the other way around

Shia massacre revives fears of civil war

· Mahdi army blamed for Baghdad street slaughter · Shias killed as car bombs explode near mosque Jonathan Steele Monday July 10, 2006 The Guardian

At least 40 people, apparently all Sunnis, were killed yesterday by Shia militants in a rampage in a Baghdad suburb - one of the capital's most deadly sectarian pogroms - that revived fears of civil war.
Witnesses said gunmen, some masked, set up roadblocks and stopped motorists in the mainly Sunni suburb of Jihad, near Baghdad airport, demanding to see identity cards. Those with Sunni names were shot dead; Shias were released.
The slaughter lasted several hours, according to Alaa Makki, a spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic party, one of the main Sunni parties, who blamed the Mahdi army, the Shia militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. "There is a lot of evidence it was done by the Mahdi army," he told the Guardian by phone from Baghdad.............

many stories about this subject have been in the news of late

neo-nazis, skinheads (skinheads in the BAD definition), white supremacists, infiltrating our armed services. getting training so they will be well prepared to fight in their 'race wars'. we're allowing (well NOT we, THEY) them into the service well aware of who and what they are. even though there are REGULATIONS AND LAWS AGAINST admitting nazis into OUR armed forces, the decline in inlistments has recruiters shaking in their combat boots.

anyway, this is one of the best articles i've read on the subject:

Pentagon Reduced to Recruiting Neo-Nazis
By David Holthouse, Intelligence Report Posted on July 8, 2006, Printed on July 9, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/38680/
Before the U.S. military made Matt Buschbacher a Navy SEAL, he made himself a soldier of the Fourth Reich.
Before Forrest Fogarty attended Military Police counter-insurgency training school, he attended Nazi skinhead festivals as lead singer for the hate rock band Attack.
And before Army engineer Jon Fain joined the invasion of Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the neo-Nazi National Alliance member fantasized about fighting a war on Jews.
"Ever since my youth -- when I watched WWII footage and saw how well-disciplined and sharply dressed the German forces were -- I have wanted to be a soldier," Fain said in a Winter 2004 interview with the National Alliance magazine Resistance. "Joining the American military was as close as I could get."
Ten years after Pentagon leaders toughened policies on extremist activities by active duty personnel -- a move that came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by decorated Gulf War combat veteran Timothy McVeigh and the murder of a black couple by members of a skinhead gang in the elite 82nd Airborne Division -- large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists continue to infiltrate the ranks of the world's best-trained, best-equipped fighting force. Military recruiters and base commanders, under intense pressure from the war in Iraq to fill the ranks, often look the other way.
Neo-Nazis "stretch across all branches of service, they are linking up across the branches once they're inside, and they are hard-core," Department of Defense gang detective Scott Barfield said. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," he added. "That's a problem."
The armed forces are supposed to be a model of racial equality. American soldiers are supposed to be defenders of democracy. Neo-Nazis represent the opposite of these ideals. They dream of race war and revolution, and their motivations for enlisting are often quite different than serving their country.
"Join only for the training, and to better defend yourself, our people, and our culture," Fain said. "We must have people to open doors from the inside when the time comes.".............

terrorists exist

and we must take action(s) to be aware of them and their plots and STOP the legitimate ones. however, we are going around busting people like the stooges in florida (those men living in a warehouse and doing ninja exercises BUT little else to threaten america, except of course shooting their mouths off and being stupid).

yesterday when i heard about the 'terrorist threat to bomb the holland tunnel', i thought the same thing. are these just a bunch of yahoos with big ideas and big mouths or is it for true?

turns out it just MAY be a bunch of id-jits with NO where-with-all to carry out the threats. YUP i agree instances such as being in a 'terrorist chatroom' spouting violence against america (or any other country for that matter) need to be investigated. BUT do you come out and give press conferences saying WE JUST SAVED AMERICA FROM YET ANOTHER BUNCH O' TERRORISTS when in reality america MAY have been saved from a bunch of assholes? action must be taken i am NOT disagreeing with that part. what i AM disagreeing with is stirring up the citizens of this great nation. overblowing a simple situation and telling us half truths and pretending to be heros when in reality once the bully is confronted, they run away crying for their mommie.........

Sources say no serious plot for NYC, just hate chatter

Larisa Alexandrovna Published: Friday July 7, 2006
One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government, RAW STORY has learned.
The so-called New York tunnel plot was a result of discussions held on an open Jihadi web site said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and contributor to American Conservative magazine, in a late Friday afternoon conversation. Although Giraldi acknowledges that the persons involved three of whom have already been arrested in Lebanon and elsewhere - are indeed extremists," their online chatter is considerably overblown by allegations of an actual plot.
They are not professionally trained terrorists, however, and had no resources with which to carry out the operation they discussed," Giraldi added. "Despite press reports that they had asked Abu Musab Zarqawi for assistance, there is no information to confirm that. It is known that the members discussed the possibility of approaching Zarqawi but none of them knew him or had any access to him.................

the nutmeg grater: oh my great goddess#links

9ithe nutmeg grater: oh my great goddess#links

well i can relate to this (in a way)

not that my employer would fire me or give me a bad review based on my beliefs (i think my immediate bosses sort of know i'm not a practicer of 'regular' religions). i'm lucky in that respect. i'm judged on the ACTUAL JOB I DO. however, others around the company (and it is a BIG company) look at me askew and/or don't return my greetings. i'm sure most of them are just thinking i'm a devil worshipper just based upon how i look. (i'm not by the way. not only don't i worship the devil, i don't even believe in the devil. evil comes from human kind, not some otherworldly creature(s))


Woman says firm fired her for being Wiccan
July 6, 2006
BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter
A Schaumburg company allegedly fired a woman, and one employee is accused of calling her a "devil worshipper" after she disclosed she practiced Wicca -- a pagan religion viewed by some as witchcraft.
Now, the woman is suing.
Rebecca Sommers said the company fired her in 2004, citing poor job performance. She had worked with the firm since 2002.
But Sommers insists in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that Crawford & Company Inc. fired her because supervisors there didn't like her religion.
Crawford is a Georgia-based insurance adjusting firm with an office in Schaumburg. Representatives there could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Sommers, an accounts analyst, said when she requested a day off for a Wiccan holiday, she was told by a manager to keep her religion "to herself." She said another supervisor who knew she practiced Wicca called her a devil worshipper in front of other employees...........

this is HARDLY a 'winner'

he is a GIANT asshole is what he is. first it appears he assaulted his wife (again. appears that way, i don't know for sure) THEN he effing SHOOTS A PUPPY WITH AN ARROW. if it was up to me, i would order this man to be SHUNNED for the rest of his life BY ALL.

and what's that he's wearing, a german shepherd?


'Police Say 'Survivor' Winner Shot Puppy With Arrow

Wife Called Police To Report Shooting
UPDATED: 10:06 am EDT July 6, 2006

ATLANTA -- The man who won "Survivor: Thailand" four years ago is charged with battery and cruelty to animals.
Officials said Brian Heidik shot a puppy with an arrow.
A Georgia county judge has released Heidik on bond.
Atlanta TV station WSB-TV reported that Heidik told the judge he thought the dog was a coyote that has been harassing his pets.
But a prosecutor said Heidik's wife called authorities at 3 a.m. to say he'd shot a puppy "and planned to shoot another one."
Officials said Heidik fled in his car when sheriff's deputies arrived. He was quickly captured.
The prosecutor said evidence at the home also supports a charge of battery for family violence.
Heidik is a former North Carolina State football player, used-car salesman and part-time actor

image: ap

god hates jews

and jains, and buddhists, and muslims and hindus and sikhs, and baha'is, and shintos and pagans and everyone else who doesn't believe EXACTLY like this group of people whom i am SURE are WITHOUT SIN believe

to me, this story is far more upsetting than even the iraq war. it is 2006. it is america. OR, is it 1940 germany. you decide. (and NOW i understand why king george is STILL on his throne. THESE people)

from jesus general

the gist of the story is;

.............A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. [...]On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeting. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."...A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to "go back up north."In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.........

but please go to jesus general to read the letter(s) sent to one of the instigators of this racial/ethnic cleansing. his name is nedd kareiva but i think he's going to change it to adolph in the near future

i am very frightened. VERY

The Kiss - A Float for Bloggers in CT

wow, i JUST now saw this. i don't know where the heck i was to have missed it! i LOVE my state!

Look Who's Talking - George Bush or Joe Lieberman?

peace

if not this 4th, what about the 5th and thereafter? peace, now

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace. - buddha

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. -black elk

Peace is the only battle worth waging. -camus

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. -isaiah

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. -eleanor roosevelt

all we are saying, is give peace a chance -john lennon

Mother, mother There's too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother There's far too many of you dying You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today - Ya Father, father We don't need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today Picket lines and picket signs Don't punish me with brutality Talk to me, so you can see Oh, what's going on What's going on Ya, what's going on Ah, what's going on In the mean time Right on, baby Right on Right on Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong Oh, but who are they to judge us Simply because our hair is long Oh, you know we've got to find a way To bring some understanding here today Oh Picket lines and picket signs Don't punish me with brutality Talk to me So you can see What's going on Ya, what's going on Tell me what's going on I'll tell you what's going on - Uh Right on baby Right on baby -marvin gaye

photos: as.wn.com, motherearth.org, newstandardnews.net, keralamonitor.com, robert-fisk.com, nomorebush.premiumfinder.com, kokedit.com

shocking

and sad and unbelievable. we all know there are crazy people in the world. amoral, no conscience, yes even evil. however, to have three, four or five of these people all together cannot be a coincidence, can it? i do so hope this entire story is NOT true.

AP: Alleged U.S. Atrocity in Iraq May Have Been Premeditated Murder
Published: July 01, 2006 1:00 PM ET
BAGHDAD Investigators believe a group of U.S. soldiers suspected of raping an Iraqi woman, then killing her and three members of her family plotted the attack for nearly a week, a U.S. military official said Saturday. Up to five soldiers are being investigated in the March killings, the fifth pending case involving alleged slayings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops. The Americans entered the Sunni Arab's family home, separated three males from the woman, raped her and burned her body using a flammable liquid in a cover-up attempt, a military official close to the investigation said. The three males were also slain. A senior Army official who also requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said one of the victims was a child. The soldiers had studied their victims for about a week and the attack was "totally premeditated," the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. The family had just moved into the home in the insurgent-riddled area around Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The U.S. military issued a terse statement about the killings Friday, saying only that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a family of four in Mahmoudiya. U.S. officials said they knew of the deaths but thought the victims were killed in sectarian violence. But Mahmoudiya police Capt. Ihsan Abdul-Rahman said Iraqi officials received a report on March 13 alleging that American soldiers had killed the family in the Khasir Abyad area, about 6 miles north of Mahmoudiya. ..........

UPDATE: AP Embed Gets Scoop on Latest Alleged U.S. Atrocity

By E&P Staff Published: July 01, 2006 12:05 PM ET
NEW YORK AP correspondent Ryan Lenz, embedded with the 101st Airborne Division in Beiji, Iraq, produced the latest news bulletin today concerning yetr another alleged U.S. atrocity in Iraq, and one of the worst yet.Lenz reported this morning that five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her on March 12-- and three members of her family in Iraq. The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of raping. Iraqi police had been told about the killings three months ago. The U.S. contended the killings were by insurgents, until two or three soldiers spoke up. The New York Times followed on this report later in the afternoon: "The deaths were originally attributed by the military to 'insurgent activity,' American officials said. That implies that soldiers involved in the incident may have misreported it to their commanders, or that there may have been a cover-up in the chain of command, as is suspected in the case of the Haditha killings last November.............

whew! not to worry THE greatest actor of all time IS ALL RIGHT

it was touch and go there for a while, but we can now breathe a collective sigh of relief

Hasselhoff in chandelier accident

US actor David Hasselhoff has been treated in hospital after being hurt in a chandelier accident.
Hasselhoff, 53, hit his head on a chandelier in the men's room after using the gym at the Sanderson Hotel in London's West End on Thursday.
His right arm was cut by shards of glass, severing a tendon.
A spokeswoman for the former Baywatch and Knight Rider star said he was "out of hospital and ready to continue his work tomorrow". ......................

Glenda in the Land of Oz: July 4th. Let's Post for Peace!! Join in!!

Glenda in the Land of Oz: July 4th. Let's Post for Peace!! Join in!!