at work

our emails are recorded and stored for, i believe, 5 years. from what i understand it is part of some new law(s) that went through (although i could be wrong here). if i'm right, how come MY emails (yesterday i emailed building services because one of the elevators was not functioning correctly) have to be saved and THEIRS DON'T?
White House Says It Routinely Overwrote E-Mail Tapes From 2001 to 2003

By Elizabeth Williamson and Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writers
E-mail messages sent and received by White House personnel during the first three years of the Bush administration were routinely recorded on tapes that were "recycled," the White House's chief information officer said in a court filing this week.
During the period in question, the Bush presidency faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq war, the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed.
From 2001 to October 2003, the White House's practice was to use the same backup tape each day to copy new as well as old e-mails, he said, making it possible that some of those e-mails could still be recovered even from a tape that was repeatedly overwritten. "We are continuing to analyze our systems," Fratto said last night........

did he really help terrorists on purpose

OR could it be totally innocent? i don't know and i don't think ANYONE else really knows right now.

i work in the insurance/financial industry. i can tell you there are WICKED STRICT anti-money laundering laws out there (as part of the patriot act i will add) for the industry (i know, i worked on the implementation of the laws into some of our systems).

Ex-Congressman Indicted In Terrorism-Funding Case

By Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writer
A former Republican congressman from Michigan who has dedicated himself to building ties between Christians and Muslims was indicted in federal court yesterday for alleged ties to an Islamic charity that sent money to suspected terrorists.
Mark D. Siljander, who served more than two terms in the House in the 1980s and later ran as a Republican candidate for the House from Northern Virginia, was charged with money laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
The indictment alleges that he lied to the FBI about his work on behalf of the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department designated as a terrorist organization in 2004. ........

Ex-lawmaker charged in terror conspiracy
Former Congressman Charged in Conspiracy Involving Terror Fundraising Ring
LARA JAKES JORDAN
A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.
A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying — money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Siljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987..........

harold bloom speaks

and it's not good news
Harold Bloom: 'What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America'
By Eva Sohlman, The Wip
Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America's most prominent and provocative intellectuals. Unabashedly, he has always spoken up for what he calls "the fight for truth and beauty" making a lot of foes in the process, but also some friends. As one of the first critical voices against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, Bloom landed in the hot seat with the satire "MacBush" in 2004. Lately, he sparked worldwide outrage by calling Harry Potter "garbage." Speaking at his home in New Haven where he is recovering from a recent health scare, a pale and weak Bloom seems to have symbolically embodied what he calls the "poor state of the nation."
"I am 77 years old and I have never seen this country in such a bad state. It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome.........

(for the record, i disagree with him on harry potter)

yeah, it's getting better all right

in the minds of the good ol' boys

Iraq's healthcare left in disarray after invasion
Sarah Boseley, health editor Wednesday January 16, 2008 The Guardian
The full extent of the destruction of Iraq's healthcare system and the devastating impact it has had on its people is documented today in a new report which indicts the allied invasion force for failing in its duty to protect medical institutions and staff.
The report, by an independent team of researchers and advisers from Iraq, the UK, the US and elsewhere, says the provision of healthcare "has become increasingly difficult" since the invasion. "Doctors and nurses have emigrated en masse, exacerbating existing staff shortages.
"The health system is in disarray owing to the lack of an institutional framework, intermittent electricity, unsafe water, and frequent violations of medical neutrality. The ministry of health and local health authorities are mostly unable to meet these huge challenges, while the activities of UN agencies and non-governmental organisations are severely limited."...............

see what i mean?
GAO questions report on Iraq
GAO Says Figures in Administration's September 'Benchmark' Report Were Unreliable
PAULINE JELINEK AP News
The Bush administration, in its last so-called Iraq "benchmark" report, used questionable financial data to assert that the Baghdad government was making progress in managing its budget, a new study says. The study released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office focused specifically on whether Iraqis were spending their capital budget, that is money for infrastructure needed to boost the country's lagging economic growth and improve poor public services.
The administration reported in its September Iraqi benchmark assessment that Iraq's central government ministries had spent 24 percent of their 2007 capital projects budget as of July 15, 2007. "This report is not consistent with Iraq's official expenditure reports," which show that the central ministries had spent only 4.4 percent of their investment budget as of August, the GAO said. It said capital projects are 90 percent of Iraq's investment budget.....

honey

it does have healing and antiseptic powers. years ago i learned to put it on minor skin problems such as blemishes. i've read about the medical field using honey for a while now. how cool is this? (then again look at aspirin. the native americans were using the same thing for hunders of years before the good ol' boys made pills and put 'em in bottles. white willow bark is what they used.

(that's why i can't consider myself 100% vegan. i eat and use honey AND i use wool in my knitting as well)

The Healing Power Of Honey
Mainstream Medicine Rediscovers Natural Infection Fighter, Treatment For Non-Healing Wounds
By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press
Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and non-healing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, Derma Sciences Inc., a New Jersey company that makes medicated and other advanced wound-care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing last fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.Called Medihoney, it is made from a highly absorbent seaweed material, saturated with manuka honey, a particularly potent type that experts say kills germs and speeds healing. Also called Leptospermum honey, manuka honey comes from hives of bees that collect nectar from manuka and jelly bushes in Australia and New Zealand......

(prior posting i did on it why do i keep honey in my bathroom?

the nutmeg grater: is it just me?#links#links

the nutmeg grater: is it just me?#links#links

before this video is taken down

PLEASE go to this link and watch it.



it is THE MOST frightening thing i have ever seen in my whole life. AND i have seen someone

die (due to VERY UNNATURAL causes)

wow wow wow

cruise on down (so to speak) to the video (from gawker)


The video that Scientology apparently didn't want you to see is back again

............Cruise goes on to say that the religion is all about helping others,"being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it's not like anyone else. As you drive past you know you have to do something about it because you know you're the only one that can really help.""We are the authorities on getting people off drugs," says Cruise. "We are the authorities on the mind. We are the authorities on improving conditions. We can rehabilitate criminals ... we can bring peace and unite cultures. Once you know these tools and you know that they work, it's not good enough that I'm just doing okay."Cruise also lets out a hearty laugh talking about suppressive persons (or anti-social persons), which are referred to by Scientologists as SPs. He recalls a member of the church asking him "So have you met an SP?" After gathering himself from chuckling, Cruise says "I looked at them and I thought, what a beautiful thing because maybe one day it will be like that. SPs, you'll read about them in the history books."............

jim hightower

and i feel the exact same way on this subject
(get up stand up - for your RIGHTS. get up stand up - don't give up the fight - apologies to bob marley)

We're Mad as Hell and the Dems Aren't Listening
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown.

What I am hearing from across the country is a surge of angst and discouragement. In conversations, calls, emails, and letters, people in general (and progressives in particular) are expressing profound dismay at the deterioration of America's democracy, not only because of the BushCheney regime, but also, and especially, because of the fecklessness of the Democratic Congress.
"For crying out loud! Why do we even bother to have elections?" Mark wailed in an email.
I am afraid of what this country has become and that at any minute the people in charge may bomb Iran, and I have lost all hope that there will be any checks and balances," Marshaleigh wrote, adding bluntly, "Congress doesn't work."
Jay bemoaned the dismal performance of Congress in this letter to the editor: "Despite the 2006 congressional elections and the overwhelming antiwar sentiment among our citizens...[Democrats] have become enablers of the White House's misbegotten Iraq venture."
Susan wrote, "What little optimism I had is vanishing. I am much more overwhelmed by the Democratic party's lack of gumption than I was by Bush's wickedness. And the small ideas offered by the presidential candidates make me cringe. I need help."
The damage now being done to America's political psyche by the Democrats' fizzle is way out of the ordinary............

if this is an example of

turning the OTHER cheek, we're in big big trouble

Lawmaker kicks photog during prayer
Colorado Lawmaker Kicks Photographer Who Took His Picture During Statehouse Prayer
STEVEN K. PAULSON
Carrying a family Bible, a state representative-elect kicked a photographer who took a picture of him during a statehouse prayer — then was sworn into office. Douglas Bruce went to the House floor Monday morning as a guest of Rep. Kent Lambert, a fellow Colorado Springs Republican.
When Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano took his photo during the traditional morning prayer, Bruce, who was standing, brought the sole of his shoe down hard on the photographer's bent knee.
"Don't do that again," Bruce told him.
Later, Bruce refused to apologize.
"I think that's the most offensive thing I've seen a photographer do in 21 years," he said. "If people are going to cause a disruption during a public prayer, they should be called for it. He owes an apology to the House and the public.".....

we shouldn't be giving weapons

(or selling them rather) TO ANYONE. NO ONE. india, saudia arabia and goddess knows who else (look what we did to iraq. we sold saddam weapons don't forget and nicaragua too). those spineless democrats won't do anything either. where the hell are the voices of the people. we can't all be ok with this, can we?

New US weapons sale for Saudis
US Announces Sales of Advanced Weaponry to Saudis As Bush Visits Riyadh
MATTHEW LEE and ANNE FLAHERTY
The Democratic-led Congress is unlikely to block U.S. plans to sell $123 million worth of sophisticated precision-guided bomb technology to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns from some members that the systems could be used against Israel
The Bush administration on Monday officially notified Congress of its intent to sell the bomb-delivery systems as part of a multibillion-dollar arms package to bolster the defense of U.S. allies in the Gulf.
Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, does not intend consider a resolution of disapproval, said spokesman Lynne Weil. Otherwise, Lantos declined to comment..........

draw your brakes brodda*

and in this case i mean BIG BRODDA (cause he really IS watching)

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.
Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”
The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker's Web site........

things like this just leave me wondering. right now let's just say, screw MY rights (just for now). i must wonder why our government is spending money on shite like this when our returning veterans (just as ONE instance out of a kazillion) aren't getting the care they need.

*one of my favorite reggae songs. it was on the album the harder they come by jimmy cliff

right now

i happened to catch the tail end of the jimmy kimmel show (and i do mean right now)

xavier rudd was performing. i MUST listen to more of his work (white moth is his new cd). his music seems wicked cool. he had a didgeridoo (what looked like a TRIPLE didgeridoo at that)

world bank

saviours or a bunch o' lying weasels? i vote for the bunch. perhaps they started out with good intentions. something went wrong somewhere

World Bank pledges to save trees... then helps cut down Amazon forest
month ago it vowed to fight deforestation. Now research reveals it funds the rainforest's biggest threat. By Daniel Howden
The World Bank has emerged as one of the key backers behind an explosion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which new research has identified as the greatest threat to the survival of the rainforest.
Ranching has grown by half in the last three years, driven by new industrial slaughterhouses which are being constructed in the Amazon basin with the help of the World Bank. The revelation flies in the face of claims from the bank that it is funding efforts to halt deforestation and reduce the massive greenhouse gas emissions it causes.
Roberto Smeraldi, head of Friends of the Earth Brazil and lead author of the new report, obtained exclusively by The Independent on Sunday, said the bank's contradictory policy on forests was now clear: "On the one hand you try and save the forest, on the other you give incentives for its conversion."
There are now more than 74 million cattle reared in the Amazon basin, the world's most important eco-system, where they outnumber people by a ratio of more than three to one. Fuelled by massive illegal ranches, the South American giant has become the world's leading beef exporter, rearing more cattle than all 25 EU members put together. This industrial expansion comes despite international agreements to combat deforestation, and claims from the government of Brazil that it is succeeding in slowing the destruction of the world's largest standing forest............

center for economic justice-boycott world bank bonds now

wtf?

a strong sense of FAMILY? wtf i say again.

is a STRONG FAMILY one where the woman needs the man's permission to not only drive BUT TO HAVE SURGERY OR LEAVE THE COUNTRY? wtf wtf wtf? that is in NO WAY A FAMILY THAT IS ANYTHING BUT DYSFUNCTIONAL.

no vote, no voice, no face. non-existence. a lashing for being raped. there is absolutely NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THE TONE OF THIS ARTICLE. NONE
security? or is it prison?
(yeah once again, NO political correctness from me on this one)

Pursuing happiness behind the veil
To be the American wife of a Saudi is to forsake familiar freedoms — or enjoy them secretly — in exchange for a secure, family-centered life.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Teresa Malof knew she wasn't in Kentucky anymore when a cleric issued a fatwa against her secret Santa gift exchange.Malof proposed the idea at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital, where she has worked for more than a decade. It was supposed to be discreet, but rumors were whispered amid veils and hijabs that the lithe, blond nurse, raised on farmland at the edge of Appalachia, was planning to celebrate a Christian tradition in an Islamic kingdom that forbids the practicing of other religions."Even though I'm a Muslim too, I like to celebrate the holidays and have gift exchanges," said Malof, a convert to Islam who is married to the son of a former Saudi ambassador. "But word got out and the religious people came with a fatwa [or edict] against the Santa party. My husband was having a heart attack. He was worried I'd be in a lot of trouble.".......

................Malof said her husband's family has been very accepting. But it took her a while to adjust to the religious police and the brazen boys in their buffed cars. The police patrol stores and sidewalks looking to fine or arrest women deemed to be improperly veiled. And the boys and young men, living in a country where the only contact with women is arranged through families, are bored and seek titillation by leering and driving alongside cars carrying women, sometimes boxing them in on highways...............

clark hoyt, public editor of the nyt

makes a damn good arguement AGAINST the hiring of bill krisol. and it's NOT what one would think (it's NOT because he's a war mongering, king george ass kissing fool either).

Braking Kristol: 'NYT' Public Editor Hits Hiring of Columnist
NEW YORK In a message that probably is not going down well in The New York Times' front office, the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, has called the controversial hiring of William Kristol as an op-ed columnist a "mistake."He also wrote, in his column today, that of nearly 700 messages he has received about the selection, only one praised the pick. Public Arthur Sulzberger, he revealed, "was surprised by the vehemence of the reaction." Kristol made a bad mistake in his very first column this week, attributing a quote by Michael Medved to Michelle Malkin. And he has been criticized by liberals for his arch-cosnervative views and ardent support for the war in Iraq. But Hoyt writes: "That is not why I think Sulzberger and Rosenthal made a mistake, and I agree with their effort to address an Op-Ed lineup that, until Kristol came aboard, was at least six liberals against one conservative who isn’t always all that conservative."What bugs Hoyt, however, is remarks such as the one Kristol made on Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, when he said, “I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution” of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists..........

and here's hoyt's piece
He May Be Unwelcome, but We’ll Survive
By CLARK HOYT
..................Of the nearly 700 messages I have received since Kristol’s selection was announced — more than half of them before he ever wrote a word for The Times — exactly one praised the choice.
Rosenthal’s mail has been particularly rough. “That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,” said one message. “You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.”
Kristol would not have been my choice to join David Brooks as a second conservative voice in the mix of Times columnists, but the reaction is beyond reason. Hiring Kristol the worst idea ever? I can think of many worse. Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas? And that is from a liberal, defined by Webster as “one who is open-minded.” What have we come to?.............

to the person who commented on my 'bishop' eddie long posting

what about THESE stories?

Bling Bling Fake Bishop Eddie Long
(from pastor sin alot )

and

Bishop Eddie Long Biggest Beneficiary of Charity He Founded
(from black voices )

and

OUR OPINION
The sin of false profitsBishop Eddie Long shouldn't count himself among the needy that his charity was created to help
(from national committee for responsible philanthropy via the atlanta journal constitution)

wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

johnny chung lee's projects

ok, i said i didn't preach

and i'm not really. i just thought this was rather cute



Find more PETA videos at PETATV.com

i thought i misread this

but i re-read the figure and i didn't. the new york times found 121 instances where combat veterans of afghanistan and iraq were charged with OR proven to have committed a killing (back home). that figure, to me, is ASTOUNDING. and remember, this is ONLY WHAT THEY FOUND. who the hell really knows what the real figures are. who the hell really knows how many are suicidal OR WILL commit some sort of major crime in the future. we MUST do something and do it NOW. our veterans NEED HELP. their families need help. where is the public outcry? why is congress investigating steroid use in mlb? why the fuck aren't they doing something out THIS instead?

War Torn
Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles
By DEBORAH SONTAG and LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army. This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, “like Falluja.”
Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame — and tucked an assault rifle inside it. ........

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction. Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

'VICTORY LAP'?

i'm not sure that is what king george thought he was doing OR that is the thought of the author of this article. if it IS king george's thought he is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more naked than we all thought

Bush Meets With Petraeus
In Kuwait, President Seems to Claim Vindication for 'Surge'

By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait, Jan. 12 -- President Bush ventured to this sprawling U.S. base near Iraq on Saturday to begin exploring further troop reductions with his top commander and take something of a victory lap over the country's improved security conditions a year after announcing "the surge."
Bush seemed anxious to avoid another moment similar to one in 2003 soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein, when he appeared on the USS Abraham Lincoln below a giant sign reading "Mission Accomplished." In a statement to reporters here, Bush spoke of the difficult challenges ahead, such as defeating the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq and reaching political reconciliation among Iraq's feuding sects. ........