no keresone no water

no lights, no life
ANALYSIS: Discontent surges in Iraq
AP NEWS ANALYSIS: Al-Maliki Faces Growing Discontent, Scathing Criticism From Major Backer
HAMZA HENDAWI AP News
In the depths of a strangely cold winter in the Middle East, Iraqis complain that the lights are not on, the kerosene heaters are without fuel and the water doesn't flow — and they blame the government. And with the war nearing its fifth anniversary, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is feeling the discontent as well from the most powerful political centers in the majority Shiite community.
It's a pincer movement of domestic anger that yet again could threaten al-Maliki's hold on his Green Zone office.
"Where's the kerosene and the water?" asked Amjad Kazim, a 56-year-old Shiite who lives in eastern Baghdad. "We hear a lot of promises but we see nothing."
Little kerosene is available on the state-run market at the subsidized price of $0.52 a gallon. But the fuel can be found on the black market, where it goes for more than $3.79 a gallon...............

in our lifetime,

it will NEVER be safe in iraq. we stirred it up. we instigated this. we had NO right to invade them. i keep saying it and i'll do so in the future. i still don't understand how king george is not being made accountable for invading iraq. i don't. i don't understand how people still support the invasion. what they think. why they think we invaded iraq. saddam? no, he was never going to harm us. he harmed his own, but we harmed them MORE. hey who armed saddam in the FIRST PLACE (hint, the answer is the united states)

Violence increases and tensions rise among Iraqi Shiites
By Steve Lannen McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — A police raid Saturday on an extremist Shiite Muslim mosque thought to be the headquarters of an extremist cult capped a weekend of violence in southern Iraq, while elsewhere tensions between Iraq's Shiite-led government and renegade Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr continued to escalate.
Iraq's national security advisor said he was briefly taken hostage Saturday in a Baghdad mosque and implied that his captors were Sadr supporters. Mowaffak al Rubaie was released only after Iraq's interior minister, who oversees the police, intervened.
In an e-mail to McClatchy, Rubaie said that Sadr's followers "used the same tactics that they used before on Abdul Majid al Khoei." Sadrists were accused of fatally stabbing Khoei, a moderate young Shiite cleric who was considered a rival to Sadr, in 2003. A warrant for Sadr was issued in 2004, but it's never been executed, and he's denied any involvement.......

canada, it was a mistake to back down

we all know the united states DOES torture (with the consent of king george and prince big bad dick). you never should have taken us off of your list (i'm guessing you were scared we'd come and invade you and bring OUR brand of democracy as well. that includes making EVERYONE speak english)
(original posting: canada steps up to the plate)
Canada to Rewrite Manual US Criticized

By CHARMAINE NORONHA The Associated Press
TORONTO -- Canada's foreign ministry said Saturday that it will rewrite a training manual used by Canadian diplomats that lists the United States as a site of possible torture following pressure from its closest ally.
The department document, released Friday, singled out the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. It also names Israel, Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria as places where inmates could face torture.
"I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training," Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement issued Saturday. .........

one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE SONGS

by one of my all time favorite artists (well TWO artists in reality)
tuck and patti. i hope you enjoy them half as much as i do.
they're AMAZING

this is RIGHT on the mark

(once again, hat tip to bifurcated rivets

to steven howards:

don't you know you CANNOT approach much less question prince big dick? what the heck is wrong with you? he is ACCOUNTABLE TO NO ONE. NO ONE!!! not even king george. he is a GOD among men. actually he is beelzebub in semi-human form. don't you EVER even THINK of questioning his evil ways again.

Denver lawyer seeks to depose Cheney in assault case
By Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News
Secret Service agents have given such varied accounts of what led to the 2006 arrest of a Denver man accused of assaulting Vice President Dick Cheney, the man’s attorney says there may be only one way to clear things up — depose the vice president.
David Lane, lawyer for Steven Howards, said he plans to file a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., next week to question Cheney under oath. Attorneys for the vice president have refused repeated requests for a deposition, he said.
“Given the wide differences of view, he is the only one with certain knowledge,” Lane said, according to a story in Friday’s New York Times.
According to depositions already taken of the five Secret Service agents involved in the Beaver Creek arrest, only some of the agents saw the encounter, in which Howards critized the administration’s policies in Iraq.
The agents give differing accounts of what occurred, with some saying there was no assault............

is our fbi egging on AND PAYING a neo-nazi

(or perceived neo-nazi) to 'root out' killers? if they are, it is one wicked horrendous action. it is reprehensible. it is unthinkable. it MUST be stopped immediately.
Computer Hackers Allege That Notorious Neo-Nazi Radio Host Is on FBI Payroll
By Mark Potok, Hate Watch.
New Jersey radio host Hal Turner is well known as one of the most vicious neo-Nazis in America, a man who routinely suggests killing his enemies.
Railing against President Bush, he told his audience last June that "a well-placed bullet can solve a lot of problems." He has written that "we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the border" and argued that killing certain federal judges "may be illegal, but it wouldn't be wrong." In 2006, after he published an attack on New Jersey Supreme Court justices that also included several of their home addresses, state police massively beefed up security for the members of the court, checking on one justice's house more than 200 times.
Hal Turner is one serious extremist. He may also be on the FBI payroll.
On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the forum of his website for "The Hal Turner Show." After a heated exchange, they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his server and found correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner's handler. Then they posted an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). "Once again," Turner writes to his handler, "my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy." In what is allegedly a portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid..........

in montana, global warming

is one sided? yes, that's a question. a question of disbelief. how idiotic
Global Warming Talk Canceled at Montana School
Posted by Josh Dorner, Sierra Club
It all started with the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee way back when. Then more recently many of us have been asking "What's the matter with Kansas?" Well, today I'm wondering just what the deal is in Montana?
Seems that in the tiny hamlet of Choteau, Montana (pop. 1781) a few grumbling conservatives are enough to keep a Nobel laureate from discussing global warming at the local high school.
Dr. Steven Running, a professor of ecology at the University of Montana and one of the lead authors of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report, was due to speak to high school students in the small agricultural town located on the plains that spread out east of the Rocky Mountains. It seems that a vocal minority objected to his talk before 130 high school students because it would be "one-sided," so the local school superintendent, Kevin St. John, canceled it.
St. John went on to lamely explain that there simply wasn't time to explain to everyone that Running was a "leading scientist" and not an "agenda-driven ideologue." (I'm guessing I'd be in that latter category. And just how long could it possibly take to explain things in a town of 1,781 anyway?) Sensing he might have some 'splainin' to do, St. John added -- rather unconvincingly methinks -- that "academic freedom is very important here, and science education is very important here.".............

more dirt on the huckster

and i do mean dirt. i'm not surprised though. how ANYONE could accept an invitation to speak at a white supremacist organization is beyond me. how ANYONE in public office could do so is over the line. why isn't this stuff on the front pages of msm?

Huckabee gave speech to white supremacists
Max Blumenthal
As South Carolina's Republican primary election draws nearer, Mike Huckabee has ratcheted up his appeals to the racial nationalism of white evangelicals. "You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," the former Arkansas governor told a Myrtle Beach crowd on January 17, referring to the Confederate flag. "If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole. That's what we'd do."
Making coded appeals to white racism is nothing new for Huckabee. Indeed, well before he was a nationally known political star, Huckabee nurtured a relationship with America's largest white supremacist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens. The extent of Huckabee's interaction with the racist group is unclear, but this much is known: he accepted an invitation to speak at the group's annual conference in 1993 and ultimately delivered a videotaped address that was "extremely well received by the audience."
Descended from the White Citizens Councils that battled integration in the Jim Crow South, including at Arkansas' Little Rock High School, the Council (or CofCC) has been designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. .............

does HIS jesus only like white folk i wonder? (i'm not saying the huckster is a racist. i sure don't know. i DO know if i gave a speech to an organization such as the coc, i'd 'splain my actions. like i was temporarily insane or something like that)

i don't know if he is THE biggest ass out there

but he's right near the top. self-centered, self-absorbed steamin' pile o' shite that is bill o'wrongly

Video: O'Reilly's 'No homeless vets' claim disproved
David Edwards and Katie Baker
On January 4th, 2008, Fox Pundit Bill O' Reilly denied the existence of any homeless veterans in the United States. In an effort to prove O'Reilly wrong, Brave New Films visited Homeless Vets – a non-profit organization dedicated to helping homeless and at-risk veterans – so that they could speak with some homeless veterans themselves.
"I talked to over a dozen homeless vets, some who had served as far back as the Korean War," writes the video’s co-producer Jonathan Kim on Foxattacks.com. "These veterans are homeless, they exist, and no matter what [O’Reilly] says, there are way too many of them."
Brave New Films showed the men at Homeless Vets a clip of O'Reilly mocking presidential candidate John Edwards for discussing the topic of homeless veterans in a speech.
"This guy has no clue!" O'Reilly said in response to Edwards. "I mean, come on. The only thing sleeping under a bridge is that guy’s brain. 10 million illegal alien workers are sending billions of dollars back home and Edwards is running around saying nobody has any money.".......

fatrobot

has been nice enough to publish a picture of me and my hus-being. here we are

i hope i'm not being immodest when i say, don't i look kick ass in my apron and feather duster?

from bifurcated rivets (one of my favorite sites)

as he said, this is very odd indeed, BUT very good too (one of the comments said this is from mtv japan. i did find this usavich)

well all we really ARE good for is birthin' babies after all

white women that is. women of color don't count. john gibson thinks so, that is

Fox Anchor Gibson Celebrates Increase in "Anglo" Birth Rate, Asks "Do You Still Think I’m a Racist?"
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress

In May 2006, Fox News host John Gibson sparked controversy when he claimed on air that "twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic" because "Hispanics are having more kids than others" and "white people are having fewer." Worried about the demographic shift in America, Gibson urged his audience to "do your duty. Make more babies."
On his radio show yesterday, Gibson returned to the controversy, touting an Associated Press article about the "baby boomlet" in the U.S. in 2006 as vindication for his call that "the dominant, or largest, population sector, which is Caucasians" should "make more babies." Declaring "I was right," Gibson celebrated the increased birth rate of "non-Hispanic white women":
"The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births." As you can tell, Hispanics are doing the hard work of child raising. "But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were" also "having more babies, too." A big round of applause for all of you out there having those babies.
Claiming that "people were following my advice," Gibson exclaimed that he was "not only right," but "prescient" and that it was time for "a John Gibson victory lap." ........

while we're investigating steroid abuse in mlb.....

THIS is going on
how sad is this? how many places is this happening other than denver? why aren't we protecting those that protect us? my goddess what hath we wrought?

Ailing GIs deployed to war zones
Ft. Carson sent ailing GIs to meet deployment goals, notes say
By Erin Emery The Denver Post
COLORADO SPRINGS — Fort Carson sent soldiers who were not medically fit to war zones last month to meet "deployable strength" goals, according to e-mails obtained by The Denver Post.
One e-mail, written Jan. 3 by the surgeon for Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, says: "We have been having issues reaching deployable strength, and thus have been taking along some borderline soldiers who we would otherwise have left behind for continued treatment."
Capt. Scot Tebo's e-mail was, in part, a reference to Master Sgt. Denny Nelson, a 19-year Army veteran, who was sent overseas last month despite doctors' orders that he not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds for three months because of a severe foot injury.
Nelson took the medical report to the Soldier Readiness Process, or SRP, site on Fort Carson, where health-care professionals recommended Nelson stay home.
The soldier, who has a Bronze Star and is a member of the Mountain Post's Audie Murphy Chapter, was sent to Kuwait on Dec. 29.
Nelson says he was one of at least 52 soldiers deployed who should not have been, and a veterans group says the military is endangering soldiers to meet its goals.
But Fort Carson officials say they do not believe unfit soldiers have been sent to the Middle East and say there is no repercussion for not meeting goals. They say the battalion commander has the final decision as to who is deployed.
On Jan. 5, a physician in Kuwait sent a strongly worded e-mail to Tebo urging him to send Nelson back to the U.S. .........

canada steps up to the plate

and slams one into the bleachers

as i mentioned the other day, i work for the insurance/financial industry. we're effected by the patriot act and anti-money laundering laws. we have certain countries we cannot deal with/accept money from. now WE are one of those countries (not the money part but the watch part) on someone else's list!

Canada puts U.S., Israel on torture watchlist -CTV
OTTAWA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - An official Canadian government document has put both the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners run the risk of being tortured, CTV television reported on Thursday.The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch U.S. ally.The document mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held.CTV said the document was part of a course on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats to help them determine whether prisoners they visited abroad had been mistreated.It said the document mentioned U.S. interrogation techniques such as "forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation."Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran and Afghanistan, CTV said...........

apology or not

chris matthews is still an asshole. there's nothing he can do or say to convince me he's not a misogynist either

believe me i am NO fan of hillary. i will N OT ever in a million years vote for her. it's NOT because she's a woman though. it's because i think she's a lyin' weasel. i don't trust her as far as i can throw her. i don't think she's a senator because her husband stepped out on her. i think she was elected because she's BRIGHT, charismatic and a good liar.

Chris Matthews Backs Off 'Nasty' Remark on Clinton

By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer
Under pressure from feminist groups and his own bosses at MSNBC, Chris Matthews apologized yesterday for remarks about Hillary Clinton that he now admits sounded "nasty."
For 10 days, the "Hardball" host had doggedly insisted he was just reciting a bit of history when he said on the air that "the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around."
But protests against those and other remarks by Matthews reached a peak yesterday when the presidents of such groups as the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority and National Women's Political Caucus sent a joint letter of complaint to NBC News President Steve Capus. ...........

David Brock Issues Open Letter to NBC News President Steve Capus
Washington, D.C. -- Today, Media Matters for America President & CEO David Brock issued an open letter to Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, raising serious questions about the on-air conduct of MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews. Given Matthews' long history of degrading commentary, Brock has urged Capus to protect the network's trusted reputation for fair and equal coverage and, as Capus himself articulated, "continue the dialogue about what is appropriate conduct and speech" on the air.
Highlights from the letter include:
"Senator Clinton's candidacy aside, Matthews' degrading attacks on women constitute a broader and more troubling pattern that has unfolded over the years. During his coverage of the 2000 presidential race, Matthews repeatedly referred to author Naomi Wolf as "the political equivalent of Viagra." His on-air treatment of CNBC anchor Erin Burnett ("Could you get a little closer to the camera? ...You're beautiful. ...You're a knockout.") has been described by Emily's List President Ellen Malcolm as "sexual harassment brought to you by MSNBC."'........

Chris Matthews addresses firestorm
On the January 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews addressed the firestorm sparked by his comment about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) that "the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit."
From the January 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Good evening, I'm Chris Matthews. Welcome to Hardball. Well, we're in a time of a lot of frustration in this country -- Iraq, of course; the lack of health care for people who work every day; gas prices going up; the weakening economy that scares us every day -- and I come on here every night and try to wrestle with these frustrations, and also the changes in our country. We might soon have the first woman president, the first African-American president, or a man older than we've ever elected before. And of course, we always treat things here with hope -- our uniquely American hope that we can actually make things better, that we can make the greatest of countries, not only survive, but as [author] William Faulkner once said, "prevail.".........

surreal moment of the week

i don't work in hartford anymore. it was a two minute trip. i work in windsor now and i go the backroads. on my way in this morning, as i do every morning, i have the bbc on (via npr). so, i'm on a VERY dark road surrounded by tobacco fields or whatever and on comes a story about dog sled racing. siberian husky dog sled racing. that's all well and good and normally NOT surreal. HOWEVER, the person doing the story was a scot (wicked heavy trainspotting accent) and the racing was happening in the uk (scotland i believe). the announcer then started interviewing this woman (she had a heavy british accent). she was talking about how most of the time there really isn't any snow so they do have to race on wheels. anyway, you had to hear it to get the full effect

Dog teams gather ahead of races
Mushers have arrived in Aviemore for the town's annual dog sled rally.
About 200 teams from all over the country will do practice runs on Friday ahead of two-days of competition. The event finishes next Tuesday.
Organised by the Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain the rally is run on tracks around Loch Morlich.
Competitors include schoolchildren and veterans who will mush teams of two and eight dogs running at up to 20mph over four-mile track..........

more

(my question is, if they are so god-like - because they are the ONLY ones who can save us - why do they want this video off the net? why do they continue to harass and sue everyone? why why and why?)

Tom Cruise
Church of Scientology Claims Copyright Infringement
Claims Copyright Infringement
The Church of Scientology, and Tom Cruise, the organization's most prominent evangelist, are both notoriously litigious. The sect's founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, wrote in a 1955 magazine article, "The purpose of a lawsuit is to harass and discourage rather than to win." At the peak in the 1990s, according to the St. Petersburg Times, the organization spent $30m in one year on legal action, in part to win tax-exempt status as a religion, but also to parry and tire its many critics. So it's hardly surprising that the Scientologists' lawyers would at least threaten a huge lawsuit against the author of this week's controversial new biography of Tom Cruise, which also exposes many of the sect's most embarrassing secrets. ........


my original posting on the ONLY person in the entire cosmos who can save someone who was in an accident or is addicted to drugs or on and on and on and on

my new circular knitting needle case arrived

yesterday! it was a special order from the etsy shop of

granny's closet

it is SOOOOOOOOOOOO WICKED KICK ASS.

it's got 24 (that's right TWENTY - FOUR) pockets

how much more?

how many more times are we going to hear and read this? how many times are we going to ignore the health and well-being of our enlisted men and women and our veterans?
oh wait, we have something WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more important to do. yes, that's right, INVESTIGATE STEROIDS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL (how many people does THAT encompass? a couple of thousand give or take) and now the rap industry??????????????? yup, mlb players and rap artists are FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN
Rate of Traumatic Stress Triples Among U.S. Troops
TUESDAY, Jan. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among combat-exposed U.S. soldiers has risen threefold since 2001, a new study finds.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder involving nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks linked to event "triggers" that develop after exposure to combat or other extremely disturbing events.
Researchers at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego analyzed data on more than 50,000 participants in the Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking the health of U.S. military personnel over 22 years. The researchers compared data collected in July 2001 and June 2003 against data collected from June 2004 to February 2006.
The data included details about combat exposure, new onset PTSD symptoms, cigarette smoking and problem drinking...........