is this shocking?

no



do i believe this?



yes



will anything be done to make those who broke the law (from king george all the way down through his whole court) pay?



no

(please note it's NOT some 'liberal' organization accusing the justice department. it's ANOTHER GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION



Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe

By Richard B. Schmitt and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times

Office of Special Counsel chief says his investigation into alleged politicization of the attorney general's agency has been repeatedly 'impeded.'

WASHINGTON -- The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.The Justice Department wants Bloch to wait until its own internal investigation is completed. A department official signaled recently that the investigation is examining the possibility of criminal charges.But that, the regulator wrote, could take until the last months of the Bush administration, "when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible" being taken by his office.......

i was fuming when i read this yesterday

what a giant steamin' load o' shite. how DARE now accuse senator kennedy of 'SELLING OUT' simply because he endorsed someone with a penis. that is a RIDICULOUS thing to say. one should NOT endorse ANYONE for their gender. isn't that what we have been fighting against all along? it sure is what I'VE BEEN FIGHTING against all along. i would NEVER vote for someone JUST BECAUSE they are a WOMAN. NEVER NEVER NEVER. i'd vote for someone if i felt they were HONEST, COMPASSIONATE, MORAL, HAD A GOOD HEART, WERE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY AND IT'S PEOPLE, HAD SOUND PLANS AND IDEAS, and of course many more attributes. as far as i can see, hillary falls short on many of these. FAR SHORTER THAN BARACK OBAMA. you don't have to like ted kennedy. i don't care if you do or don't. but to endorse a candidate based on their gender is reprehensible to me. (and i'm talkin to YOU, 'now')
now can take a flyin' leap as far as i'm concerned. we can effing vote for or endorse whomever WE THINK IS THE BEST CANDIDATE. penis or not

Women's group slams Kennedy for 'betrayal'
CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Moone
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy is under heavy fire from a state chapter of the National Organization for Women for his decision to back Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.
In a sharply critical statement, the New York state chapter of NOW took aim at Kennedy Monday for what it called an "ultimate betrayal," and suggested the Massachusetts Democrat "can't or won't" handle the idea of Clinton becoming President of the United States.
"Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard," said the statement. "Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few.".......

once again i'm NOT preaching

i read these articles (and actually have seen some HORRIFIC things) and i think to myself, how can we consider ourselves human? do most people know how their steak actually gets into the supermarket? do most people who bring their kids to the circus know the elephants are jabbed with big hooks (and of course all of the other animals are mistreated too). there is a woman at work who wears the pelts of dead bunnies. i CRINGE every time i see her in that horrid bloody jacket. i wonder to myself if she knows how those bunnies died.

i know not everyone agrees with me here, but if one mistreats animals, it's a very small (tiny, miniscule) step to mistreating one another. it is ugly business. our consumption of animals. first this article i found in the wapo today and second an article forwarded to me from justin goodman was in sunday's ny times. the second article is NOT about abuse. it's about our consumption of dead animal flesh (and organs)

Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse

By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer
Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the "downer" cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals' noses -- all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply.
Moreover, the companies where these practices allegedly occurred are major suppliers of meat for the nation's school lunch programs, including in Maryland, according to a company official and federal documents.
The footage was taken by an undercover investigator for an animal welfare group, who wore a customized video camera under his clothes while working at the facility last year. It is evidence that anti-cruelty and food safety rules are inadequate, and that Agriculture Department inspection and enforcement need to be enhanced, said officials with the Humane Society of the United States, which coordinated the project.........

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
By MARK BITTMAN
A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil. It’s meat.
The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.......

CONNECTICUT FOR ANIMALSconnecticutforanimals.blogspot.comwww.uchckillsmonkeys.com

ya really DO gotta give it to the ny post

they DO have THE best headlines (even though they are on a par with faux news)

if you don't think you are next

you are sadly mistaken my dears

Collateral Damage: Surveillance Aimed at Terrorists Can Easily Go Awry
By Jeff Stein, National Security Editor, CQ Staff
U.S. intelligence tapped the telephone calls of Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, starting in 2002.
This may well be news to many people, even though Wright revealed the taps himself in a sprawling, 15,000-word article on electronic surveillance in the Jan. 21 edition of The New Yorker magazine.
Perhaps because the article was not available online it lacked the link-juice to propel it into a frenzy over the “domestic spying” on the Web, the cable news shows and leading American newspapers.
As far as I can tell, only Pam Hess of the Associated Press picked up on Wright’s confrontation with spy chief Michael McConnell over the phone taps, and no major paper ran it. The version of her story that The Washington Post printed recounted McConnell’s telling Wright that water boarding would be “torture” if it were done to him, but dropped the five paragraphs Hess wrote on the eavesdropping. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal skipped Wright’s wiretap account altogether.
But The New Yorker’s Web site did feature an audio interview with Wright in which he described the visit of FBI agents to his Texas home in 2002 to quiz him about the telephone calls intercepted by U.S. intelligence. .........

.....It’s just not true, no matter how many times administration officials say it, that critical operations to find the kidnappers of American soldiers in Iraq and an al Qaeda cell in Germany were held up by FISA regulations. McConnell himself said he was mistaken.But what really troubles me is that so many, many years after the first terrorist attack here (on the World Trade Center in 1993), our spying agencies apparently still haven’t found an effective way to pursue the real bad guys.The huge electronic wires they want to wrap us in are no substitute for good human intelligence work out there — where the bad guys are. As former counterterror agent Michael Tanji put it on Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog: “It’s bad enough that the Director of National Intelligence is trotting out a bogus threat so the government can snoop on all Internet traffic. What’s worse is that this kind of mass surveillance is a pretty lame way to catch the honest-to-God bad guys.”....

wow

james carroll, will you marry me well, at least be my bud?
what an analysis!

Our one-way trip to disaster
By James Carroll
YOU AND everyone you love are riding on a large bus. The bus driver, unskilled and careless, drives too fast, ignores traffic signals, and barrels off the road occasionally. Because the bus is huge, other vehicles swerve to get out of its way, with cars crashing repeatedly. But your driver just keeps going, leaving carnage in his wake. Naturally, you are terrified - but your reactions are irrelevant.
Finally, the bus itself crashes, killing many. Miraculously, you and your loved ones climb out of the wreckage. A second bus is standing by, and you gratefully scramble aboard. The engine starts up, but then the bus lurches dangerously onto the road, going too fast. Only then do you see that this new bus has the same driver, and he has learned nothing. Welcome to the United States of America. And welcome to the annual State of the Union address.
Every year, the nation looks up from the wreckage, only to see that the same unskilled and careless driver is still at the wheel, bombing along. Each January, he explains himself. You already know what he will say. His one admirable quality is that, over the years, he has always said exactly what to expect. A review of the Bush speeches has an "I told you so" quality, going back to the start. That raises the question, Why have you repeatedly been surprised?..........

the nutmeg grater: whew!#links#links

the nutmeg grater: whew!#links#links

so now it looks like you may be growing a set

a TINY set, but there are the starting of some buds............so, there's still a little somethin' somethin' called the iraq war or health care for children (and adults as far as i'm concerned), or ADEQUATE care for wounded veterans OR help for the elderly OR on and on

Democrats standing up to Bush on warrantless wiretap bill
Nick Juliano
Update: Senate votes against GOP telecom immunity plan
In the shadow of the president's final State of the Union address, Senate Democrats are preparing for an 11th-hour showdown with George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress over controversial surveillance legislation.
The Senate voted down a GOP proposal that would cement an expansion of the president's authority to spy on Americans and free from legal jeopardy any telephone or Internet service provider who helped the country's intelligence agencies to collect vast amount of data on US citizens without a warrant. Anti-immunity activists say they expect the GOP gambit to fail.
On a 48-45 vote, Republicans failed to garner the necessary three-fifths majority of the Senate to end debate on a bill to expand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.........

they get up each morning at 4

and do NOT stop working until they go to bed. who? the women of SANTA MARIA QUIEGOLANI. they cook and clean and take care of their children. the town government is made up of all men. women cannot vote much less attend town assemblies. now one (woman) is running for mayor.

first off, ALL of those women should just STOP serving those men. it is not that i'm saying women shouldn't be homemakers. they should if they wish it. but NONE of their rights should be taken away from them AND they should be fully appreciated for the work they do

(note: men over 60 also cannot vote.)

Some Mexican women lose right to vote
Move to respect indigenous rights opens door to discrimination by males

SANTA MARIA QUIEGOLANI, Mexico - Women in this Indian village high in the pine-clad mountains of Oaxaca rise each morning at 4 a.m. to gather firewood, grind corn, prepare the day’s food, care for the children and clean the house.
But they aren’t allowed to vote in local elections, because — the men say — they don’t do enough work.
It was here, in a village that has struggled for centuries to preserve its Zapotec traditions, that Eufrosina Cruz, 27, decided to become the first woman to run for mayor — despite the fact that women aren’t allowed to attend town assemblies, much less run for office...........

.............Men over 60 also can't vote. But the male leaders are refusing to budge. “We live differently here, senor, than people in the city. Here, women are dedicated to their homes, and men work the fields,” Apolonio Mendoza, the secretary of the all-male town council, told a visiting reporter.
Cruz has received some support from older men, who by village law lose their political rights when they turn 60. Some younger men also say the system must change and give women more rights..........

picture: Eufrosina Cruz, left, speaks as she stands in the doorway with Celia Miguel Lopez in Santa Maria Quiegolani, Mexico, on Jan. 6. Cruz is waging a national battle to defend her right to run for mayor of her Zapotec village.
Gregory Bull / AP

from the reformed pirate

happy birthday lego!!!

this

IS CHRISTIANITY AT IT'S BEST? if i happened to be a congregant in this church, i'd ask for the pastor's head on a plate, a la john the baptist (figuratively of course, NOT literally. i do NOT advocate violence). a minister calls 911 on a 71 year old woman who was a church member for 50 years???????????????? WTF???????????????

w w j d?

Banned From Church
Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won't repent.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. "And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P." Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff's officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs. (Listen to the 911 call)............

city of the century

brattleboro, vermont (where i lived, well let's say stayed...... for a VERY short period of time, in my younger days). not only is it lovely, it has GREAT restaurants and a good art community

Brattleboro to vote on arresting Bush, Cheney

By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter."It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters............

saddam had weapons of mass destruction

AND barack obama is a radical muslim. uh, NOT
wow, some people are SO afraid they'll stoop to the lowest levels. i only ask, 'what the hell are you afraid of?' how much worse can we do than king george? my answer is i don't think we CAN do worse, no matter WHO gets in there (and i mean that)

3 US workers face investigation over Obama e-mail
Allegedly spread discredited rumor
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON - Three federal employees are being investigated for unlawful political activities after they allegedly sent an e-mail falsely accusing Barack Obama of being a "radical Muslim," the Globe has learned.

The US Office of Special Counsel - the independent federal agency responsible for enforcing a law banning civil service workers from engaging in political activism while performing their official duties - has launched investigations of two employees at one agency and one employee at another agency. All three are believed to have forwarded the erroneous chain e-mail about Obama from their government e-mail accounts.
Doing so would be a violation of the Hatch Act, a 1939 law designed to help protect career government employees and the government workforce from the influence of partisan politics. The act bans civil servants from taking "any active part" in political campaigns while on the job..............

ami says

ink NOT mink

christian?

OR CALCULATED CHRISTIAN?

He’d rather talk about sex than God
George Bush built his career on his faith. But his key religious adviser tells of a different man behind the born-again image
Jacob Weisberg
One of the defining aspects of George W Bush’s presidency is his professed belief in God. Yet what really are his religious beliefs? The question, which seems central to understanding his presidency, never receives a satisfactory answer. Indeed, one religious figure close to him soon after his conversion was shocked to find that he talked about sex rather than theology and says that a lot of his faith seemed to be politically calculated.
Bush’s religion has often been described as evangelical. But unlike most other evangelicals, he blithely uses profanity and as governor of Texas he would play poker. He doesn’t pay tithes, he doesn’t try to convert others – one of the central obligations in most evangelical denominations. And he didn’t raise his daughters in the faith.
What Bush clearly does believe in is the personal, transforming and sustaining power of belief in God. Having a personal relationship with God, praying and reading the Bible daily were the tools he used to get control of his life more than 20 years ago.
They made it possible for him to control his drinking, keep his family together after his wife Laura threatened to leave him, manage his aggressive behaviour, cope with the burden of a heroic father and attain success. ...........

sunday with mississippi john hurt

i don't want him to be forgotten. he came before. he came before all of them

here he is with pete seeger (a VERY YOUNG pete seeger)

i was at my pop's house yesterday

my sister lives there with him. he's 80, soon to be 81 and i'm very comfortable with them living together. i visit almost every day although he is rarely home. he has a girlfriend! it's been over 2 years and they are constant companions. i couldn't be happier she is an absolute angel. taking care of him after both hip replacement surgeries (her house is on one level, his isn't. she has a walk in shower, he has a high sided bathtub). anyway, the other day my sister asked me who i was voting for. i told her what i told everyone. i WANT to vote for al gore, but he's not running. i'd like to vote for edwards but i don't think he will get the nomination. so i am going to vote for barack obama. she started screaming at me. how she and my father were voting for hillary and she couldn't understand how i was NOT going to vote for her. yesterday (alone at my popi's), i got a call from hillary's camp. it was a recorded message. usually i hang up but i didn't have a chance. they only asked one question. push 1 for hillary, 2 for obama. i pushed 2 and then the disembodied voice said thank you and hung up. i am going to watch my father's mail like a hawk. i shouldn't feel like this but i do have a deep feeling he will be getting some ugly mail about obama. if he does, i know who is responsible and i will be doubly pissed.

caroline kennedy speaks:
A President Like My Father
By CAROLINE KENNEDY
OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama. My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.
Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.
Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. ...............

question:

how the HELL is cbs going to broadcast dexter??????
SHOWTIME'S CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED DRAMA "DEXTER" PREMIERES SUNDAY, FEB. 17, 10:00-11:00 PM ON THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK
In an Unprecedented Move, a Premium Cable Drama To Air On Network Television

number one

canada and california are TWO DIFFERENT words and places. i don't see how they can be confused. number two, CAN canadians be on an american jury (if they are still canadians that is)? doesn't one have to be an american citizen to be on a jury? i should know i was called about seven times. i believe they ask on the initial form (i could be wrong). of course i'm NOT wrong. i found the answer see below: (and shite, one would think a da or an assistant da would sure as shite know a 'canadian' could NOT serve on an american jury)
Is term 'Canadian' used as racist word? Email lands Texas district attorney in hot water
Brett Popplewell Staff Reporter
Is "Canadian" the new black? Perhaps – that is if you're a racist speaking in code.
Recent revelations that the term "Canadian" is being used to replace racist names for black people have got a Texas assistant district attorney into trouble and have left others wondering what exactly it means to be labelled a Canadian in the American south.
Long derogated as weak-kneed liberals with lax laws and funny monopoly money, Canadians have carried a negative connotation in certain regions of America – but not as a replacement for the N-word.
Earlier this week a columnist with the Houston Chronicle uncovered an email from Harris County assistant district attorney Mike Trent who, in a congratulatory note to a junior prosecutor, used the word "Canadians" to describe blacks on a jury.
Trent wrote of the prosecutor in a 2003 email: "He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing.".........

Juror - Can a non United State citizen serve as a juror?

The statute which covers qualification to serve as a juror is as follows:
Sec. 1307a.
(1) To qualify as a juror a person shall:
(a) Be a citizen of the United States, 18 years of age or older, and a resident in the county for which the person is selected, and in the case of a district court in districts of the second and third class, be a resident of the district, and in the case of municipal courts of record, be a resident of the municipality.
(b) Be conversant with the English language.
(c) Be physically and mentally able to carry out the functions of a juror. Temporary inability shall not be considered a disqualification.
(d) Not have served as a petit or grand juror in a court of record during the preceding 12 months.
(e) Not be under sentence for a felony at the time of jury selection.(2) A person more than 70 years of age may claim exemption from jury service and shall be exempt upon making the request.
(3) For the purposes of sections 1371 to 1376 a person has served as a juror if that person has been paid for jury service.

MORE proof

there is NO global warming........
proof in the land of all that is oprah

Great Lakes' Lower Water Levels Propel a Cascade of Hardships

By Kari Lydersen Washington Post Staff Writer
CHICAGO -- A decade ago, Chicago winters meant monumental ice hillocks and caves forming along the lakeshore, skirted by interlocking ice sheets like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Today, it is rare to see more than a thin frozen shelf or a few small ice floes sloshing in Lake Michigan below the city's skyline.
Decreased ice cover on the Great Lakes, probably caused by increasing air and water temperatures and high winds, is a major culprit in lowering water levels, which have hurt the shipping industry, forced lakeside power plants to extend their cooling pipes, frustrated recreational boaters, dried up wetlands and left coastal landowners with docks extending over yards of unsightly muck. .........