cool!

want help writing? all you had to do was ask! dr wicked will help you!




(found via bifurcated rivets)

local, sustainable, organic

FIND GOOD FOOD:

the eat well guide
(this is kind of a cool site. let's you put in trip data so you'll have good food once you get there!)

Finding the Best, Local Food Near You Just Got Easier
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet.

Food is making big headlines, and it's about time.

In a year marked by rising food prices and riots throughout the world, we've seen what happens when the reality of our energy, climate and water crises collides with trying to feed a planet.

As Vandana Shiva writes in her newest book, Soil Not Oil, "The era of cheap food and cheap oil is over." Add to this changing precipitation patterns, melting glaciers and increasing drought from climate change, and we have a recipe for disaster.

Michael Pollan has warned the next incoming U.S president, "What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact -- so easy to overlook these past few years -- that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

While Barack Obama may have his hands full, the rest of us need to be thinking about our plates. Interestingly, one of the ways to start doing this would be to stay right where you are -- in front of your computer, that is. While technology may not always have been the best companion to agriculture (think biotech), the Internet has emerged as an incredible tool for planning the future of food. A Web site called the Eat Well Guide is hoping to help people make good decisions about what they eat and how, with a few clicks of the mouse.........

our bodies, our selves (what goes around....)

from naral pro-choice america:

On November 4, we saw what happens when young people dedicate themselves, rise up, and speak out for change.

NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation has long connected with this next generation of advocates—and we’re not about to stop. Today, I want to announce that we’re launching a new campaign to build on young people’s historic levels of engagement in the political process and to bring their passion and energy to secure the future of our pro-choice America.

Our campaign is called free.will.power and we’re kicking it off with a new video that uses inspiring animation and empowering music to frame women’s freedom and privacy in a way we’ve never seen before.

Click here to watch it now.

This video, called “Free,” is the first of three videos we are releasing in the coming weeks as part of our new campaign. We’re hoping these videos will engage more young Americans on the critical issues of choice, freedom, and privacy—and we need your help to make sure our campaign succeeds.

Will you watch our “Free” spoken word video and share it with a young person in your life?

Together we can protect the future of our pro-choice America.

i still want to know

how they're going to pay for the INNOCENT CIVILIAN LIVES they took (in iraq and goddess only knows where else). fines for weapons in dog food bags but what about the MURDERS?

0h and what sorts of contracts do we still hold with them? we know they murdered civilians we're alleging they smuggled guns and silencers into iraq (some of which got into the hands of the wrong people).....so are we still employing them? (we all know the answer to that)

New Blackwater Iraq Scandal: Guns, Silencers and Dog Food

by: Brian Ross and Jason Ryan, ABC News
Ex-employees tell ABC News the firm used dog food sacks to smuggle unauthorized weapons to Iraq.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food, ABCNews.com has learned.

Under State Department rules, Blackwater is prohibited from using certain assault weapons and silencers in Iraq because they are considered "offensive" weapons inappropriate for Blackwater's role as a private security firm protecting US diplomatic missions.

"The only reason you need a silencer is if you want to assassinate someone," said former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou, an ABC News consultant.

Also See:
Blackwater Likely to Be Fined Millions in Iraq Weapons Case •

Six Blackwater employees are under investigation by another federal grand jury, in Washington, D.C., in connection with the shooting deaths of at least 17 civilians in September, 2007, at a Baghdad traffic circle. Prosecutors are expected to return indictments in the next few weeks, according to people familiar with the case......

the 100 greatest singers of all time

as compiled by rolling stone



if i compiled the list first thing i'd do is TAKE AXL THE EFF OFF OF IT
it's a pretty cool list though. lots of the chosen one's blurbs are written by other artists

van made #24 though (he's #1 in MY book)

Photo: Rivas/AFP/Getty

larisa

has the latest (and most detailed) scoop on the siegelman fiasco. justice must be served here (as well as with the entire king george administration AND entities like blackwater too!). may them ALL accountable. don siegelman was framed and even a 3 year old can see that

The Siegelman nail in the Bush administration coffin...

Or as they say, time to pay the piper:

Next month in Atlanta, a federal court will hear the high-profile appeal of former Alabama governor Don E. Siegelman, whose conviction on corruption charges in 2006 became one of the most publicly debated cases to emerge from eight years of controversy at the Bush Justice Department. Now new documents highlight alleged misconduct by the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney and other prosecutors in the case, including what appears to be extensive and unusual contact between the prosecution and the jury.

Remember, we knew about this, but Time has gotten the documents. Remember too, that the Bush appointed-Karl Rove-friend-judge on the case, Mark Fuller, knew about the jury tampering and discounted it. Onwards:

The documents, obtained by TIME, include internal prosecution e-mails given to the Justice Department and Congress by a whistle-blower during the last 18 months. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which investigated the Siegelman case as part of a broader inquiry into alleged political interference in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys by the Bush Justice Department, last week sent an eight-page letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey citing the new material.

Conyers says the evidence raises "serious questions" about the U.S. Attorney in the Siegelman case, who, documents show, continued to involve herself in the politically charged prosecution long after she had publicly withdrawn to avoid an alleged conflict of interest relating to her husband, a top GOP operative and close associate of Bush adviser Karl Rove. Conyers' letter also cites evidence of numerous contacts between jurors and members of the Siegelman prosecution team that were never disclosed to the trial judge or defense counsel.

Remember too, that the DOJ lied to me when I demanded to know if Leura Canary had recused herself from the case. I was told that she had. When I demanded documentation, they told me that the documents were not public (really? a federal prosecutor's rescusal documentation are private?). And the cover-up continued:

When the House Judiciary Committee looked into the Siegelman affair earlier this year, DoJ issued statements, placed in the Congressional record, maintaining that the case had been handled only by career prosecutors, not political appointees, and that Canary had recused herself in 2002, "before any significant decisions ... were made."........

i've been reading about hannah

for the past week now. i'm feeling a bit of everything. i WANT her to WANT the new heart but at the same time, i understand the decision she made. she has suffered for more than half of her young life. a transplant may very well kill her anyway. if it DID take, she'd have to get another one in about 10 years time. she'd have to be on heavy duty meds for the rest of her life

at 13, hannah made a decision. hannah, you have moved me a great deal. hannah you're wise well beyond your 13 years.

Britain Debates a Child's Right to Choose Her Own Fate
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
LONDON, Nov. 13 -- Hannah Jones needs a heart transplant. But after nine years of battling leukemia and heart disease, she has had enough of hospitals, operations, drugs and constant pain. So she has opted to skip the surgery and die at home in the company of her family.

Hannah is 13 years old, and her case has prompted a wrenching public debate in Britain.

Her story has dominated headlines this week, and people have found themselves staring sadly at her serious young face, unsmiling and freckled, looking back at them from newspaper pages.

"I'm not a normal 13-year-old," she told reporters this week, short of breath and speaking in clipped sentences. "I'm a deep thinker. I've had to be, with my illness. It's hard, at 13, to know I'm going to die. But I also know what's best for me."

The case has raised complex questions about children's legal rights to decide their own medical care, and whether such cases are private tragedies or matters to be decided by governments and courts. .....

found on the streets of chicago

via wooster collective

near the end

down toward the 4:40 minute mark is so wicked cool. this is how i want to look 24/7. this IS how i look on the inside

farfale (butterflies) from 1907)

................This film, produced by the Italian company Cinès, presents viewers with one of many imitations of the serpentine dancer Loïe Fuller. The fathers of cinema all made their contribution to this essential genre. Edison and Dickson, as well as Louis Lumière and Paul Nadar propelled the first serpentine dancers to fame: Annabella (1897), Crissie Sheridan (1897), and Ameta (1903)...............

click on the link above to see the film. it will make you warm all over.

found via boing boing

and to think, back in the day

i used to like dennis miller

he's a pasty-faced bloated steamin' pile. what happened to him?

you do know i'm attempting NOT to write about sarevil anymore. i KNOW full well if you stop feeding her she'll go away (with her lipstick and tail between her legs). but I CAN'T STOP. THERE'S JUST TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH OUT THERE

Dennis Miller: Liberal women hate Sarah Palin because ‘she has a great sex life.’»

On the O’Reilly factor last night, Dennis Miller declared that liberal women hate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) because “she has a great sex life”:

She’s a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the Left hate her. I think the Left hate her — mostly women on the Left hate her — because to me from outside in it appears that she has a great sex life, all right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. … I think that snow mobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me and that’s why people are fascinated.

please read this

well if you're at my blog, chances are you DO NOT have to read this. it's 'the others' who aren't on my end of the spectrum who should be reading this

it's a 4 year old interview with then just nominated for senator barack obama. it's about his spiritual beliefs and followings and thoughts.

Obama's Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani

.......................FALSANI:
What do you believe?

OBAMA:
I am a Christian.

So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.

On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences.

I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10.

My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim.

And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith.

(A patron stops and says, "Congratulations," shakes his hand. "Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.")

So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.

And so, part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe - I'm 42 now - and it's not that I had it all completely worked out, but I'm spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values................

this didn't happen in

texas or alabama or mississippi or georgia. it can't happen here? well it can and it did. in long island

Citizens Fight Back Against Hate After the Brutal Murder of Marcello Lucero
Posted by Lisa Votino-Tarrant, Long Island Wins

Last weekend, 7 teenage punks murdered Marcello Lucero, because they wanted to go get a "a mexican." It didn't matter who or what or where. It didn't matter that they ended an innocent man's life. It didn't matter that they were throwing their whole lives away. They were apparently consumed with hate and Marcello, an Ecuadorian immigrant, who was on his way to his friend's house to watch a movie, was what they decided to take their hate out on.

Marcello's Father passed away when he was a young boy and took over the role of the man of the house. He moved to the United States 16 years ago. His brother and sister live on Long Island and his mother and younger sister live in Ecuador.

I have spent my week in Patchogue at press conferences and small rallies in memory of Marcello. I have come to know many of the local community people and they are petrified to leave their house without a group of people. I also know that the Patchogue Librarian said she had many calls from her ESOL students saying they weren't coming to class, that they were to afraid to walk there.........

there is a candlelight vigil tonight in honor of marcello lucero (it says 'tomorrow' below but that is because the article is from yesterday)

........

It is time for all of us, no matter who you are or what you are, to come together and show that these crimes, do not represent us. Tomorrow night, Friday, November 14th at 7:00pm, people from all across Long Island will be holding a candlelight vigil in honor of Marcello Lucero, to say NO to HATE. We will be meeting at the scene of the crime, behind the west side of the Patchogue train station.

If you have plans, consider canceling them. It has never been more important with these three crimes that we say enough is enough. This is not who we are. This is not what we do. And we want everyone to live healthy and happy lives in Suffolk County.

Many have asked about the weather … hate knows no weather … and neither do we! The rally will be held rain or shine.............................

if anyone has any questions, please call or email me. If you are looking for up-to-the-minute news and thought on everything that is happening, visit where I blog, www.longislandwins.com.

wwjd?

certainly NOT what the right 'reverend' newman is doing

judge, jury AND executioner

oh, and this is SOME separation of church and state too. PLUS and a BIG PLUS it is, it's none of his fucking bid-nez who the fuck his parishioners voted for

sort of wondering if the 'n' word is on the tip of this dude's tongue too.

did a search on the mighty one who judges others (wonder how he feels about pedophiles? wonder how he supports babies born to people who can't care for them?) he's an 'evangelical catholic'. sort of makes sense. and NO i'm not going to link to his site. fuck him

SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters
By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law................

i hope everybody either already knows

or remembers THERE WAS NO AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ until WE brought them there. yes, WE did. WE illegally, immorally and unjustly invaded a foreign land who did NOTHING to us (iraq did NOT destroy the world trade center. yes, loads of people STILL believe they did). sure saddam was evil and had to go but do did and do a lot of other killers and despots. we don't invade THEIR lands (although we actually SHOULD be helping out with the people of these many lands)

this is SO effing bizarre. the cia director now says that the threat from al-qaeda (in iraq) isn't that big a deal. REMEMBER - IT WAS NO 'DEAL' AT ALL UNTIL WE PROVOKED THEM TO BE THERE. it's ALL on us. ALL of it

and remember 4,196***

CIA Chief: Iraq Not Main Front
But Hayden Says Al-Qaeda Remains Greatest Threat to U.S.

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism.

"Today, the flow of money, weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished and al-Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," Hayden told an audience at the Atlantic Council, a bipartisan group that deals with international affairs. But he warned that al-Qaeda remains "a determined, adaptive enemy" that is resilient and operating "from its safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas."

"If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," he said. While law enforcement and diplomacy have their place, Hayden said, "this war -- and no one should mistake it as anything else -- is far from over.".......

***united states deaths in iraq (as of 11/14/2008)

c'mon now

you're being a too gloomy-greta! the violence wasn't THAT bad. it was committed against a WOMAN after all. it's not like he hit another MAN or anything...................

let's arm 'em all. and while we're at it let's make sure 8 year olds are allowed to fire weapons too. THAT'S important to their education!


(although domestic violence transcends all races, religions, sexual orientations, beliefs, etc)
a GIANT fuck you to scalia


Justice Scalia: Domestic Violence is "not that serious an offense"
Dahlia Lithwick at the XX Factor highlights the assholedom that is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who thinks violence against women is "not that serious an offense."

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard a case about the reach of the Federal Gun Control Act and whether it includes someone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

...Courtesy of the LA Times' David Savage, here's a report of oral argument, which evidently went poorly for the proponents of disarming wife beaters. Of note in the transcript is the following exchange between Justice Antonin Scalia and Nicole Saharsky, the Justice Department lawyer arguing for the stricter interpretation of the law.

JUSTICE SCALIA: And this was misdemeanor assault and battery, wasn't it?

MS. SAHARSKY: Yes, that's right. I mean, I really--

JUSTICE SCALIA: So it's not that serious an offense. That's why we call it a misdemeanor.

MS. SAHARSKY: Well, I mean, certainly the offense is this particular case was serious. The charging document reflects that Respondent hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked here in the ribs--.................

nice!

(photos by John Michaels)

Stainless Steel Cars
John Michaels sends us this interesting bit of automotive history... Here is a 1936 Ford Tudor Sedan (1 of only 4 in existence), built for and owned by Allegheny Ludlum Steel:...........

some barack facts you may not (or may) know

i sure didn't know a lot of them


Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know
Fifty things you might not know about Barack Obama


By Jon Swaine
He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead......................

Barack is Mac, and Pac?
Posted by Xeni Jardin,
.........Apparently, America's president-elect is a Mac user, a Pac Man fan, and likes sticking stickers on one's laptop. I really dig the pac-man eating the Apple logo. Is that a Speck clear MacBook cover? Commenters: let the Apple/Obama fanboy flamewars fly!.........

(got the picture from the boing boing link but there is not a credit for it. it may have come from a newsweek article, but i'm uncertain)

cinemark

or is it cinehomophobe?

Cinemark CEO gave $9,999 to anti-gay Prop 8 bigots
........Cinemark. 2700 screens in 13 countries in North and South America. It's CEO, Alan Stock, gave $9,999 to the anti-gay bigots running Prop 8 in California. Time to avoid this cinema like the plague............

apparently

the assholes who made this decision NEVER SAW STAR TREK IV OR HEARD FAREWELL TO TARWATHIE







Supreme Court: National Security Trumps Whales, Environmental Law
By Brandon Keim
It's a loud, sad day off the coast of California: the Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Navy and against environmentalists who argued that military sonar frequencies kill whales.

"The balance of equities and the public interest ... tip strongly in favor of the Navy," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. "The Navy’s need to conduct realistic training with active sonar to respond to the threat posed by enemy submarines plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs."

On the legal side of the whales is the Natural Resources Defense Council, who in 2005 filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica, California, contending that the Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar in whale-rich areas violates the Environmental Policy Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

"By the Navy's own estimates, even 300 miles from the source these [low frequency] sonic waves can retain an intensity of 140 decibels — a hundred times more intense than the level known to alter the behavior of large whales," reads the NRDC's marine sonar page. "Mid-frequency sonar is more widely used and has been associated with mortalities of whales."

The NRDC produced graphic evidence of whales beaching themselves in distress, their brains and ears bleeding, or suffering from "the bends" — an affliction known to deep-sea divers who surface too quickly. Sonar appeared to have disoriented the whales, which rely on sound to navigate, in much the way that unrelenting and blinding light might make life difficult for people............

wired brings us

the best fictional doomsday devices

i don't agree with all of 'em but i sure DO agree with THIS one