i love al gore

and i sure do wish he was running (even though he DID already WIN)

Gore endorses gay marriage
Nick Juliano
In a video quietly released on his Web site last week, former Vice President Al Gore came out strongly in favor of gay marriage.
"I think that gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women, to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage," Gore said. "And I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians. Shouldn’t we be promoting that kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one’s partner regardless of sexual orientation?
During his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000, Gore said he supported domestic partner benefits for gays and lesbians but opposed "changing the institution of marriage as it is presently understood -- between a man and a woman.".......

i drink coffee

lots and lots of coffee. i love coffee. black, no sugar. unadulterated. unadorned. strong. hot (although i'll drink lukewarm if it's an emergency). i have a coffee with me ALWAYS from the time i awaken (usually 12:30 am) until 10:00 am (sunday through thursday) and as long as i'm up (friday and saturday). i love the taste, i love the smell. i know good coffee and i know bad coffee. i know pod coffee and instant and brewed.



there is NOTHING like brewed coffee. nothing. i remember my noni's kitchen. there was ALWAYS a coffee pot (you know the kind i mean. a PERCOLATOR. yes, i said PERCOLATOR) on one of the burners. i grew up drinking coffee (when i stayed with her that is. my parents didn't give me coffee as a child). she used to get a big bowl (the italian slang for that is scidella - skee dell ah - i don't really know the spelling) and put a tiny bit of coffee in a tiny bit of sugar AND fill the rest with warm milk. she used to serve toasted italian bread with it, slathered with butter. you dunked that bread in the coffee. (in all fairness, she'd do the same with tea too every once in a while). my mouth is watering right now............mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......



anyway, i read this article yesterday. i got so mad i wanted to bitch slap someone across the fact (not to worry, i didn't). $11,000 for a machine that 'BREWS' ONE cup of coffee? $20,000 for another machine that makes ONE cup at a time? having to wait YEARS to become sensai and zen with the coffee machine??????????? are these people seriously F**KING NUTS? go to effing wal-mart and buy A PERCOLATOR if you effing want A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE. they talk about 'brewed' coffee like it's something new and something different. wtf????????? what hath we become? i can see those trendy white yuppie assholes lining up for a steamin' cup - as i write this (and that vein is standing out in my neck)


At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee
By OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.
Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.
“If you just want equipment you’re not ready,” Mr. Egami said in an interview. But, he added, James Freeman, the owner of the cafe, is different: “He’s invested time. He’s invested interest. He is ready.”
Professionals have long been willing to pay prices in the five figures for the perfect espresso machine, but the siphon bar does not make espresso. It makes brewed coffee, as does another high-end coffee maker, the $11,000 Clover, which makes one cup at a time. Together, they signal the resurgence of brewing among the most obsessive coffee enthusiasts...............

by the way, we have a flavia creation 400 at work. it's a 'brew by pack' machine (not pods, but little foil packet things). I LOVE IT! we get free coffee, tea and hot chocolate. each floor in each wing has it's own pantry with it's own flavia machine. i like it so much, i was thinking of buying one (the home model of course) for myself. there are so many choices for both teas and coffees and chocolates)

picture: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times - The Japanese siphon bar at the Blue Bottle Café in San Francisco.

(the flavia pic is from the flavia website)

stories like these aren't headlines any more

just yesterday there was another one and the day before as well (where i believe at least 7 died in a bombing AT A FUNERAL). i'm not going to let it go and i don't think this country should let it go either. we're DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE

At Least 15 Iraqis Die As Building Explodes
Attack Highlights Problems in North

By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 -- A building rigged with explosives detonated Wednesday in Mosul, creating a thunderous blast that killed at least 15 people in the northern Iraqi city, which has become a gathering point and growing target for Sunni insurgents.
The late-afternoon explosion, which also wounded at least 132 people, took place as Iraqi soldiers were investigating reports that weapons had been stockpiled in the three-story building, located in a densely populated area of western Mosul near a soft-drink factory, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The dead consisted of 12 Iraqi citizens and three Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military reported. Emergency services worked into the evening to take the injured to the hospital...........

the funniest thing i've seen in a LONGGGGGGGGGGGG time

here is my original posting with a link to the video of tom cruise being, well, a PERFECT scientologist
and here is the jerry o'connell video: AN ABSOLUTE MUST SEE

this MUST stop

and it must stop now. look at this picture: Tears are wiped from the face of a 9-month-old following her circumcision.

look at that baby's eyes.........

Photo: Stephanie Sinclair

(for the record, i am NOT for male circumcisions either)

however, when it's done to girls and women, it is outright mutilation AND further - it absolutely eliminates ANY chance of 'pleasure' . that is unacceptable to me. for women to be treated this way. for women to do this to OTHER women. for ANYONE to do this to a woman.

A Cutting Tradition

By SARA CORBETT

When a girl is taken — usually by her mother — to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14. .........

and here is some giant steamin' bullshite if i ever heard it:

...According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation’s chairman of social services, there are three “benefits” to circumcising girls.
“One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”.........

ivaw

nothing needs to be added by me

One year from now
As we enter 2008, please stop for a moment and consider where we are now, and where we are going. In just over a year, America will have a new President. We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads. We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for. We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.
But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?
We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year’s worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us. Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that. There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.............
IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR

it didn't stop with the two years after the war started

it's continuing now. we all KNOW king george and his court lied and are lying. we all know they're NOT little white lies either. we all know they're spit and stepped on our constitution. we all know they do what they want when they want and how they want, even if it is illegal. yet, as i continue to say, NO ONE HAS THE STONES TO STOP THEM. congress MUST impeach. they must make all of them pay for their crimes against humanity.

Study: False statements preceded war
Study: Bush, Other Officials Issued Hundreds of False Statements Before Iraq Invasion
DOUGLASS K. DANIEL AP News
A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat...........

because this man

shared his really cool art project with a passenger on a plane, he's suddenly become a terrorist (suspect). how effed up is THAT? and of course once your name is on a list, it ain't EVER coming off (via boing boing)

Odyssey of State Capitols and State Suspicion
By KATHRYN SHATTUCK
IN a recent morning interview in a Midtown Manhattan office Ramak Fazel came across as the quintessential world citizen: tall, slim and elegant, his English tinged with an untraceable accent and peppered here and there with an Italian phrase. He also exuded the weariness of a frequent flier, having arrived the afternoon before at Newark Liberty Airport, where he was delayed for nearly three hours while United States Customs and Border Protection agents questioned him about the purpose of his trip, searched his baggage and photocopied the pages of his personal agenda..............

..................His mission was to photograph each of the nation’s 50 state capitol buildings and dispatch a postcard from each city, using postage stamps from a childhood collection. Each postcard would be mailed to the next state on his journey, where he would pick it up, continuing until he had gone full circle back to Indiana.

But there was a problem. On a flight from Sacramento, Calif., to Honolulu, Mr. Fazel described his project to a fellow passenger. He later discovered that she had reported him as suspicious — perhaps to the pilot or the Transportation Security Administration — and taken a picture of him as he slept.

hmmmmmm

wonder what THEY have to say about this

(of course THEY tout the bible, but only the passages that suit THEM)



According to the Bible, Illegal Immigrants Must Be Welcomed
Posted by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review

If you believe the Bible is the word of God -- and especially if you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God -- you must believe this:
Leviticus (19:33-4):"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.".........................

and here is what is happening

because no one has the stones to impeach king george and the big dick and the rest of their court. women are dying. women are NOT educated about contraceptives. women only get ONE SIDE - ABSTINANCE.

Are U.S. Policies Killing Women?
By Michele Kort, Ms. Magazine
Even as we commemorate the landmark 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade this year, U.S. reproductive-health policies are having an inordinately negative effect outside of our borders. They're causing women to die or be maimed. Harsh words, but true.
For the past 24 years, except during the Clinton presidency, U.S. administrations have maintained a global gag rule against providing counseling or referrals for abortions at U.S.-funded clinics in developing nations. It's a rule that only thwarts safe abortions, while reducing the already limited availability of other family-planning services. The global gag rule has also led to a pullback in overseas delivery of contraceptives, according to recent testimony by Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) before the House Foreign Affairs Committee: "U.S. shipments of contraceptives have ceased to 20 developing nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In some areas, the largest distribution centers for contraceptives have experienced decreased access for over 50 percent of the women they serve."
Women's health and rights activists in the U.S. have spent the past two decades fighting against such actions, and advocating on behalf of global reproductive health issues. But progress has come slowly. While maternal mortality has been declining at 1 percent annually, it needs to decline by 5.5 percent a year in order to be three-quarters reduced by 2015 (one of the United Nation's Millenium Development Goals). Sounds like a lot -- but it would require just about $6.1 billion more in annual funding -- the price of three weeks of the Iraq war -- to achieve that goal. Without that commitment, more than 500,000 women will still die annually from childbirth and its complications, with an estimated 70,000 of those deaths due to unsafe abortions..........

this is sickening

and despicable. it's outrageous. it's disheartening. it's these things and so much more. we have now become those who we have fought off all along

Asylum Program Falls Short For Iraqis Aiding U.S. Forces

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
Thousands of Iraqi translators have assisted U.S. forces since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, risking their lives and leaving their families vulnerable to retaliation from insurgents who see them as accomplices of American troops.
More than 250 of the interpreters working with the United States -- or with U.S. contractors -- have been killed. But the U.S. asylum program for translators seeking to leave the country has fallen far short of demand and, at times, short of what other coalition countries have offered their Iraqi staff.
This month, Denmark will complete the process of granting asylum to 120 Iraqi interpreters who worked for Danish troops in Iraq, as well as their families. "Interpreters who had been working for the Danish military were given the choice of resettling within [Iraq] with financial help, of being given jobs at Danish mission in the region, or of going to Denmark to apply for asylum with their families," said Thomas Bille Winkel, representative of the Danish Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. Most chose to go to Denmark, he said. ..........

it is january 22nd. blog for choice day

and it is the anniversary of roe v. wade. this year we've been asked why we 'vote' pro choice. well i don't think of myself as 'voting' pro choice. i just think of myself as PRO CHOICE. NO, NOT PRO ABORTION. PRO CHOICE. there is a great difference. i don't advocate abortion. i do advocate birth control and reproductive EDUCATION.

however, when a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is her right to do so. it is her right to feel safe doing so. it is her right for that choice to remain PRIVATE if it is her decision to have it so. it is her right to have a choice if there are health reasons (hers or that of the fetus). it is her right to have a choice if there are circumstances which may make having a child a tragedy. it is her choice and should be respected. it is her choice and NOT some old white rich dude's choice. it is HER choice and not YOUR GOD'S choice.

in almost all cases it is not an easy choice. but it is HER choice to make. it is HER BODY and HER MIND AND HER HEART.

we must never let back room abortions take place again. we must protect this choice we have and not let it be taken away by those who speak false words and judge us as evil. (by the way even those that 'oppose' choice have had abortions. they keep it deeply hidden because of the stigma they perceive. they keep it deeply hidden because of how their families and their men will react. well we all know many many many women who have made the choice to terminate a pregnancy. and yes, they DO come from all walks of life. all religions and all political views)

it's MY choice and i'm not letting YOU or anyone else take it from me

i got this quiz from

from the angry young man

Which Great US President Are You Most Like? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as John Kennedy 35th President, in office from 1961-1963Born: 1917 Died: 1963 (assassainated) John Kennedy 74% George Washington 67% Theodore Roosevelt 64% Franklin Roosevelt 57% Dwight Eisenhower 55% Ronald Reagan 50% Woodrow Wilson 45% Abraham Lincoln 45% Thomas Jefferson 38% Harry Truman 36% Lyndon Johnson 33%

so why isn't this on the front page

of EVERY american paper? it's shocking. it's NEWS. it is apparently VERY true. it proves there is corruption in the very organizations we use to protect us against harm AND terrorism

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft
The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets
THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.
The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.
Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.
She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.
Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.
“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said. .,,,,,,,,

is this a vision of things to come?

Voting Not Smooth in South Carolina

By BRUCE SMITH The Associated Press
SURFSIDE BEACH, S.C. -- Nasty weather in the north and dysfunctional voting machines in one coastal county marred South Carolina's Republican primary Saturday.
Nearly 200 voting machines in Horry County didn't work at the start of voting and residents in at least one precinct were turned away when officials ran out of paper ballots.
It was not clear how many voters would be unable to make their choice known after up to 90 percent of the county's voting machines failed to turn on when polls opened at 7 a.m. ........

perhaps there really IS a devil

because this man doesn't sound human

Liberian Ex-Rebel Confesses to Killings

By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH The Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia -- One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked, has returned to the nation his troops terrorized to confess, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.
Joshua Milton Blahyi, who now lives in Ghana, returned this week to face his homeland's truth and reconciliation commission, this time wearing a suit and tie. His nom de guerre is derived from his platoon's practice of charging naked into battle, a technique meant to terrify the enemy.
Other warlords, though, have refused to ask forgiveness, dismissing a commission many in Liberia see as toothless. Blahyi is urging other former killers to come forward as the country founded by freed American slaves in 1847 struggles to recover from past horrors. .........

..............Before he led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil.
The sacrifice was typically "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart which was divided into pieces for us to eat," he told The Associated Press on Saturday. He appeared before the commission Jan. 15.
Between the time he made a pact with the devil circa 1980 and began his rampage and the time he stopped fighting in 1996, he said "more than 20,000 people fell victim (to me and my men). They were killed." ...........

because it's ALWAYS funny

to 'punch your wife out' after she 'disturbs' you! sure it is! a SMARTER person would have either turned their ringer off OR turned their entire cell phone off. but NOT bud. he's going to kick the shite out of his wife instead! he must be leading a hard life. you know, after spending all day investigating players on steroids and all.

i always say, you can't GET any funnier if you talk about abusing and beating your wife!
Bud Selig is casual about his spousal abuse
Posted by Michael Milici in The Clubhouse

Selig’s Call: “It’s Only My Wife, I’ll Punch Her Out”

It's not just me who thinks Bud Selig's a bad joke

Is Bud Selig Going to Have to Choke a Wife?

the king is back

(as far as i'm concerned, HE NEVER LEFT)
it's sunday with daler mehndi (my FAVORITE daler video is posted over at the reformed pirate)



(silly me, i thought cv rick was a chick magnet, but he doesn't hold a candle to daler)

i want to be the one to walk in the sun

blog for choice day is january 22nd

please join in