


of what a drunken builder (or architect) can accomplish. click on the link for the rest. they really ARE wicked cool
(shout out to dark roasted blend)



In 2006, the retail chain Tesco launched the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit, a play set designed to help young girls "unleash the sex kitten inside."
Perturbed parents, voicing concern that their 5-year-olds might be too young to engage in sex work, lobbied to have the product pulled. Tesco removed the play set from the toy section but kept it on the market.
As M. Gigi Durham points out in The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It, Tesco's attempt to sell stripper gear to kids is just one instance of the sexual objectification of young girls in the media and marketplace. Some of the many other examples include a push-up bra for preteens, thongs for 10-year-olds bearing slogans like "eye candy," and underwear geared toward teens with "Who needs credit cards ... ?" written across the crotch.
Targeted by marketers at increasingly younger ages, girls are now being exposed to the kind of unhealthy messages about sexuality that have long dogged grown women. Girls are told that their worth hinges on being "hot," which in mainstream media parlance translates into thin, white, makeupped and scantily clad. Meanwhile, acting on their sexual impulses earns them the epithet "slut." Teen magazines advise girls on how to tailor their look and personality to please boys (in order to entrap them in relationships). Advertisements present violence toward women as sexy.
According to Durham, the regressive messages about sexuality that circulate in mainstream media hamper the healthy sexual development of kids and teens..........
Saudis donate $500M for food crisis
Saudi Arabia's $500M contribution to UN for food crisis means rations won't be cut
EDITH M. LEDERER
Saudi Arabia made an unprecedented contribution of $500 million to the U.N. World Food Program to respond to rising prices, meaning the agency won't have to cut rations to the world's needy, the United Nations announced Friday.
The contribution the world's biggest oil producing nation was by far the largest response to the U.N. food agency's emergency appeal for $755 million to cover increased costs that threatened critical aid to millions of needy people.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "warmly welcomes the offer of the landmark contribution," U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
"The secretary-general notes that this contribution of an unprecedented size and generosity comes not a moment too soon, given the needs of millions of people dependent on food rations," she said..........
"Without adequate funding, we are jeopardizing some of the world's most spectacular wildlife and wild lands," said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association and chairman of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement.
The cooperative said in a report released Thursday to Congress that the nation's 548 refuges and the 100-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System -- about the size of California -- is underfunded by 43 percent. The refuge system needs at least $765 million a year but is receiving $434 million, the report says.
A decrease in law enforcement has left the refuges vulnerable to criminal activity, including prostitution, torched cars and illegal immigrant camps along the Potomac River in suburban Washington, methamphetamine labs in Nevada and pot growing operations in Washington state, Hirsche said............
The inspector general for the Defense Department said yesterday that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $15 billion worth of goods and services ranging from trucks, bottled water and mattresses to rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that were bought from contractors in the Iraq reconstruction effort.
The Pentagon did not have the proper documentation, including receipts, vouchers, signatures, invoices or other paperwork, for $7.8 billion that American and Iraqi contractors were paid for phones, folders, paint, blankets, Nissan trucks, laundry services and other items, according to a 69-page audit released to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
An earlier audit by the inspector general found deficiencies in accounting for $5.2 billion of U.S. payments to buy weapons, trucks, generators and other equipment for Iraq's security forces. In addition, the Defense Department spent $1.8 billion of seized Iraqi assets with "absolutely no accountability," according to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who chairs the oversight committee. The Pentagon also kept poor records on $135 million that it paid to its partners in the multinational military force in Iraq, auditors said.
The Army disagreed with some of the auditors' findings, saying that it is difficult to maintain an adequate paper trail in a war zone and that it has improved its record-keeping and accountability efforts. Robert L. Wilkie, assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, declined an invitation to testify before from Waxman's committee...........
you know even if WE (the citizens of the us) didn't get that "lost" or "unaccounted for" money, the citizens of burma or bangladesh could have used it

| Toni Collette | ||
| Piper Laurie | ||
| Donnie Smith | ||
| Michael Raysses | ||
| Earl Carroll | ||
| Dorothy Beatty | ||
| Eva Loseth | ||
| Giovanni Ribisi | ||
| Rose Byrne | ||
| Joanie Tomsky | ||
| James Franco | ||
| Christopher Allen Nelson | ||
| Mary Steenburgen | ||
| Bruce Davison | ||
| Kate Mulligan | ||
| Mary Beth Hurt | ||
| Nick Searcy | ||
| Dan Callahan | ||
| Gus Buktenica | ||
| Marcia Gay Harden | ||
| Bobby Hosea | ||
| Lee von Ernst | ||
| Kerry Washington | ||
| Carla Jimenez | ||
| Gillian Pernoll | ||
| Elizabeth Pernoll | ||
| Brittany Murphy | ||
| Daniel Leavitt | ||
| Lea Nicole Carranza | ||
| Amy Benedict | ||
| Josh Brolin | ||
| Stephanie Mace | ||
| Paige Pelletier | ||
| Madison Pelletier | ||
| Dennis Keifer |
Parents in Schenectady, NY are up in arms because the sex education in their school district dares to talk about sexuality as if it was a good thing. The nerve!
Several Fonda-Fultonville school district residents on Tuesday criticized the use of a Planned Parenthood educator to conduct sex education classes for seventh- and eighth-graders beginning today.The parents said they had collected 163 signatures of residents opposing the introduction of Planned Parenthood materials or organization-developed instruction in the school.
...Deborah Young said she started researching Planned Parenthood education guidelines and found passages that suggested masturbation is a source of pleasure.
“I went in, I could not believe what I saw,” Young said. (Emphasis mine)
Seriously, how dare an educator tell the truth about sexuality! Where's the shaming and misinformation about how sex is dirty, wrong and bad?!..........
Eddie Walker quit after the school district released a ruling that "if a school has permitted the formation of any non-curricular clubs, discrimination against the establishment of a new club based on its purpose and viewpoint is prohibited."
One parent supported Walker's decision, telling WDEF News, "You're not putting them, like, oh, you know, you're lepers.But we've got to stand for what our foundation of our nation was about.".........
BAIJI, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi police said on Thursday a U.S. helicopter airstrike killed eight civilians, including two children, but U.S. forces said the six adults killed were militants suspected of links to a bombing network.
News of Wednesday's incident north of Baghdad broke on a day when the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General
The U.S. Senate approved a further $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after rejecting proposed timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
The speed of drawing down the 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is a central issue in the November U.S. presidential election.
An Iraqi television station accused U.S. troops of shooting dead one of its cameramen as he walked to his Baghdad home. The U.S. military denied it had killed any civilians in the area.
The body of a second journalist, a reporter for al-Sharq newspaper, was found dumped in a field with nine other corpses in Diyala province, police and colleagues said...........
Washington Post Foreign Service
CAMP TAJI, Iraq -- From an Apache helicopter, Capt. Ben Katzenberger's battlefield resembles a vast mosaic of tiny brown boxes.
"The city looks like a bucket of Legos dumped out on the ground," the 26-year-old pilot said. "It's brown Legos, no color. It's really dense and hard to pick things out because everything looks the same."
He uses a powerful lens to zoom in on tiny silhouettes, trying to identify people with "hostile intent" among hundreds of ordinary citizens in Baghdad.
In recent weeks, Katzenberger and other pilots have dramatically increased their use of helicopter-fired missiles against enemy fighters, often in densely populated areas. Since late March, the military has fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles in the capital, compared with just six missiles fired in the previous three months.
The military says the tactic has saved the lives of ground troops and prevented attacks, but the strikes have also killed and wounded civilians, provoking criticism from Iraqis....
(NOTE: we wouldn't have to worry about our ground troops OR ANY OTHER OF OUR TROOPS in iraq IF THEY WEREN'T IN IRAQ TO BEGIN WITH)

