Chronic

It is always present

in varing degrees

rubber bands around fingers

permanent revenant

burning prickly itchy

pressing fingertips together

futile

unquenchable desire

to rub off the skin

drop prints to the floor

molten frozen needles

fire climbing limb

electric shock

neck flex

clonus

Progress

All of this 2012 Mayan Calendar-harmonic convergence talk lately is such emperical hooey that I find it refreshing that the quite brilliant HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is emerging as an actual agent of beneficial change for the new millenium. He is devoted to educating and emancipating the women of his country from the frankly backward beliefs of radical Islam. History will recount him as the wisest Prince ever.

How Not to be a Tool

I have no patience for people who have something to prove.

Tora

Buddha feeding a tiger in a previous life.

Phi Sigma Tau Massachusetts Beta

Honestas Et Diligentia

What does not kill me makes me funnier...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/02/05/palin_rails_against_anonymous_pathetic_bloggers/

Please read link above...

If we are anonymous why are you picking on us, sweetie?

Listen Sarah, guess what?

You were just a pustule on the ass of the republican party that they popped to spare any other poor sod from having to run with Methuselah...er ah I mean McCain.

So, enjoy your last few moments in the sun before you need to go back to Mooseburger Helper. Oh yeah, and keep reading those supreme court decisions, all of them.

Alter Idem

We were born forever

We are twinned in a fugitive mind

Friends should stay together and

Light the world with the fugitive kind.

So you keep talking in many languages

Telling us the way you feel

Don't stop confiding in the road you're on

Don't quit, you're walking Satellites

I just saw you walking

Ice was reading fortunes in the moonlight

Things he could not tell you

You'll never read it more than you will tonight

So you keep talking in many languages

Telling us the way you feel

Don't stop confiding in the road you're on

Don't quit, you're walking Satellites

Walking Satellites

She laughs Satellites

A room filled with Satellites

Ahh, walking Satellites

We were born forever

Tunneled into the fugitive night

Friends must stay together

Code the world with the fugitive light

I just saw you walking

Ice was reading fortunes by the moonlight

Casting runes on the rooftops and alleys

You'll never read it more than you will tonight

So you keep talking in many languages

Telling us the way you feel

Don't stop confiding in the road you're on

Don't quit, you're walking Satellites

Walking Satellites

She laughs Satellites

A room filled with Satellites

Ahhh, walking Satellites

Lyrics: Satellites, Rickie Lee Jones

Miss Diagnosis

Modern medicine is neither.
My doctors are world class researchers @ (very prestigious Boston hospital here).
In the past four years I have been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis.
Either of these would be enough to ruin anyone’s day, week, life--both? A nightmare…
When life gives you lemons…prove them wrong.
My rheumatologist says that my body “burned the arthritis out”.
I no longer need to see him.
My MS neurologist says that my brain is clear and my spinal fluid is inconclusive.
My evoked potentials are perfect. Vision? Perfect. MRI’s of spine are clear of any current inflammation.
I do not need to take any MS drugs because he thinks I may have a benign/slow course…
My other neurologist says they are BOTH WRONG…that I have Sjogren’s Syndrome, a much milder set of auto-immune symptoms.
Lessons learned:
1. Stress can mimic many diseases until you get control again.
2. Optimism is the only clear solution to anything.

December Tequila Sunrise

My commute is so gorgeous! This is Lynn Beach. I HAD to stop!

Bill Ayers

I have a love-hate relationship with NPR. Just when you think they have covered an issue with unfaulting candor and really dished up a good piece of intellectual meat for you, a thorny gristle gets stuck in your teeth and you need to hork it out immediately. Wretching ensues...

Terry Gross has always been a "psycho-phant" that somehow manages to sound both pretentious and nerdy at the same time.

Her interview with Bill Ayers today exemplifies why she should be recording books for the blind.

The interview was in conjunction with his "memoir" which is currently available.

So why did Ayers dedicate one of his pinko tomes to the murderer of RFK again?

I still dunno. Great job NPR.

Your tax dollars at work.

Death by Triangulation

I truly feel like Alice in Wonderland. Formal logic has always been a hobby of mine. Funny, the more I've studied formal logic over the years the less television I could stomach.

I can't smell the box today. "Piff" I guess I don't find entertainment entertaining.

Except for CNBC/FoxBusiness

Everything is like reading redrum in the mirror lately. The panacea for the currency crisis involves "getting the band back together" with a reprise of Bretton Woods. Great. Assume the position folks. When the tedious term "level playing field" is used to describe currency and not "free markets" I start to get the shakes. I am just sick of having to grab my ankles. If we have another spate like the 70's markets I'll have so much free time I'll need a new hobby.

If I am being obtuse, please indulge me...put it this way...

The business bubble-heads are starting to talk like the G20 nations (since WHEN are there 20? I thought a G20 was an Infiniti) are going to control and scale currencies together. Get ready for deflation? Remember this blog I did on the markets?
http://cocteautriplet.blogspot.com/2007_03_16_archive.html

Guess I should have chosen Plan B.

Heavy Rotation

Dreamtime

The Stranglers

Ornaments of Gold

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Summer Skin

Death Cab for Cutie

Dancing in the Moonlight

David Kitt

Get the Message

Electronic

Love Comes Tumbling

U2

Pearly-Dewdrops Drops

Cocteau Twins

Overcome

Tricky

Is it a Crime

Sade

Stripped

Depeche Mode

My Mantra

No Surprises
A heart that's full up like a landfill, a job that slowly kills you,bruises that won't heal. You look so tired-unhappy, bring down the government, they don't, they don't speak for us.I'll take a quiet life,a handshake of carbon monoxide, with no alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, Silent silence. This is my final fit,my final bellyache, with no alarms and no surprises,no alarms and no surprises,no alarms and no surprises please. Such a pretty houseand such a pretty garden. No alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises please.

This must be the place...

Home

is where i want to be

Pick me up and turn me round

I feel numb -

burn with a weak heart

(so i) guess i must be having fun

The less we say about it the better

Make it up as we go along

Feet on the ground

Head in the sky

It's ok i know nothing's wrong . . nothing

Hi yo i got plenty of time

Hi yo you got light in your eyes

And you're standing here beside me

I love the passing of time

Never for money

Always for love

Cover up + say goodnight . . . say goodnight

Home - is where i want to be

But i guess i'm already there

I come home - -she lifted up her wings

Guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another

Did i find you, or you find me?

There was a time

before we were born

If someone asks,

this where i'll be . . . where i'll be

Hi yo we drift in and out

Hi yo sing into my mouth

Out of all those kinds of people

You got a face with a view

I'm just an animal

looking for a home

Share the same space for a minute or two

And you love me till my heart stops

Love me till i'm dead

Eyes that light up,

eyes look through you

Cover up the blank spots

Hit me on the head ah ooh

Angel Play

Precious and fragile things

Need special handling

My God what have we done to you

We always tried to share

The tenderest of care

Now look what we have put you through

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings

Shouldn't know suffering

I wish I could take the pain for you

If God has a master plan

That only He understands

I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust

Have faith in both of us

And keep room in your hearts for two

Things get damaged

Things get broken

I thought we'd manage

But words left unspoken

Left us so brittle

There was so little left to give

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

NYT

July 25, 2008
Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds
By TAMAR LEWIN
Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.
Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.
“Now that enrollment in advanced math courses is equalized, we don’t see gender differences in test performance,” said Marcia C. Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author of the study. “But people are surprised by these findings, which suggests to me that the stereotypes are still there.”
The findings, reported in the July 25 issue of Science magazine, are based on math scores from seven million students in 10 states, tested in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex math problems. They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys. (To their dismay, the researchers found that the tests in the 10 states did not include a single question requiring complex problem-solving, forcing them to use a national assessment test for that portion of their research.)
Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study, said the persistent stereotypes about girls and math had taken a toll.
“The stereotype that boys do better at math is still held widely by teachers and parents,” Dr. Hyde said. “And teachers and parents guide girls, giving them advice about what courses to take, what careers to pursue. I still hear anecdotes about guidance counselors steering girls away from engineering, telling them they won’t be able to do the math.”
Girls are still underrepresented in high school physics classes and, as noted by Dr. Summers, who resigned in 2006, in the highest levels of physics, chemistry and engineering, which require advanced math skills.
The study also analyzed the gender gap on the math section of the SAT. Rather than proving boys’ superior talent for math, the study found, the difference is probably attributable to a skewed pool of test takers. The SAT is taken primarily by seniors bound for college, and since more girls than boys go to college, about 100,000 more girls than boys take the test, including lower-achieving girls who bring down the girls’ average score.
On the ACT, another college entrance test, the study said, the gender gap in math scores disappeared in Colorado and Illinois after the states began requiring all students to take the test.

No study has made me this happy since it was discovered that math difficulties in girls can be avoided by insuring iron supplementation at onset of menses. Yes, Mathematics Disability in females is the only known educational disability caused by a slight nutritional deficit. It doesn't even need to rise to the level of anaemia; girls' brains need iron!

Finally, women can conquer the sciences with abandon! Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!

Why is this important? Look at the social structures of the homo sapiens on this planet...

I frankly don't want to live in any culture where the intellectual prowess of females is not cultivated above their "physical" or "reproductive" worth. (Can we stop the patently Nazi practice of "cheerleading" already? If I have to hear of another young woman injured or killed in a pile of painted-pubescent-sex-kittens re-enacting 1930's Berlin Burlesque...what a waste!)

You may notice that those cultures are mostly unfit. ( OOOOOOh I am WAITING for the first debate on this one...bring it on!)

POINT IS...the paradigm has shifted...there is no turning back...vive la revolution!

Love is a Statistic

I've often thought that I don't want kids because I don't want to break the entranced circle of my marriage. My attention will never be shared. I would never share his attention with anyone.

This is my idea of nirvana.

This article is just logical...

Having Kids Makes You Happy
Lorraine Ali
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 5:43 PM ET Jun 28, 2008
When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we'll call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasn't that they couldn't have children; according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was odd—even tragic. So any bad luck that befell the Sloans—the egging of their house one Halloween; the landslide that sent their pool careering to the street below—was somehow attributed to that fateful decision they'd made so many years before. "Well," the other adults would say, "you know they never did have kids." Each time I visited the Sloans, I'd search for signs of insanity, misery or even regret in their superclean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were (whisper) childless.
My impressions may have been swayed by the fact that their candy dish was always full, but several studies now show that the Sloans could well have been more content than most of the traditional families around them. In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.
The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."
Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research ("Obviously Professor Simon hates her kids," read one), which isn't surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we've been raised to believe is true. In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six (16 percent) said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents' happiness. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?
Parents may openly lament their lack of sleep, hectic schedules and difficulty in dealing with their surly teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors of child rearing. "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren't making you happy, it's basically blasphemy," says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaSaid.net. "From baby-lotion commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to commercials for Disney World where you're supposed to feel like a kid because you're there with your kids, we've made parenthood out to be one blissful moment after another, and it's disappointing when you find out it's not."
Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned? Anecdotal evidence says no. In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their offspring also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Children were a necessity. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. A key study by University of Wisconsin-Madison's Sara McLanahan and Julia Adams, conducted some 20 years ago, found that parenthood was perceived as significantly more stressful in the 1970s than in the 1950s; the researchers attribute part of that change to major shifts in employment patterns. The majority of American parents now work outside the home, have less support from extended family and face a deteriorating education and health-care system, so raising children has not only become more complicated—it has become more expensive. Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs anywhere from $134,370 to $237,520 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17—and that's not counting school or college tuition. No wonder parents are feeling a little blue.
Societal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too much from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Project's 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women married around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parent's past, like career wins ("I got a raise!") or a carefree social life ("God, this is a great martini!"). Shuttling cranky kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on your favorite sweater doesn't skew as romantic.
For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming. As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn't all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who've never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, it's hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dish—half empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, that's what I'll keep telling myself.
Answer: False

Nothing's Gonna Change My World

In my dreams I wander through Greenlawn singing to my mother in French. She listens because that is what they speak in heaven. Not this stilted Germanic English with adjectives to pose as feelings and truncated meaning. I could never express to her in life what I feel now.


I never moved to Boston when I was in college. I couldn't leave my grandmother. I wanted to be there for her every utterance and her last breath. The morning she died I moved downstairs and slept in her bed. They took her body away and I laid in her spot, her immaculate scent calming me into the dark nights ahead.

I still feel like a lost dog, waiting for his fallen boy to come home from war.

I pause now in middle-age to consider what to do next. I've been idle for ten months and I am still rudderless.

The answer, it seems, is blowing in the wind.

I take solace in Lennon's words; "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making plans."

In my dreams I pick up the telephone to call people that I used to speak to regularly.

In reality, they are all busy working their plans. I was never much of a life planner. Just a liver.

I don't think about Multiple Sclerosis or Rheumatoid Arthritis because I don't believe I have them.

I am just suffering from an over-active immune system because I am scared. It is the only defense I have.

In the research, humor is the most mature emotional defense mechanism.
Apparently my mind thinks that pain is.

It is all just a Kundalini experiment gone awry. I knew I wasn't ready for that level of yoga!
The electricity just burned holes in my cervical spinal cord because it couldn't travel up my spine and out of the top of my head. If you see me blazing like a roman candle I will have reached enlightenment. Please don't chalk it up to spontaneous combustion. I will've worked hard for it.

So, I will continue to burn through life. Wave to me as I streak around The Common, or swim across the cove. Say hello as I ride by on my shiny new bike.

All I know is that I will always be the little girl on Pickman Street.

Monica or Arthur?

This is my darling Stella. The big news is we are getting a new kitten! They were born last week (Aries like me!)...half Bengal and half tabby. Our goddaughter Ariana has one of their older siblings, Greta, and she is a sweet little kitty! Apparently their neighbors' cats still haven't been fixed; life finds a way! So, we get a free kitty! We have requested a girl, but another boy would be nice too.

Now, I know y'all are thinking...she has three Maine Coons, a Pugeranian, and a Tibetan Spaniel...now she's getting a Bengal/Tabby...she's hoarding animals!

Yes, the cats have their own apartment, and they love the basement. I am soooooooo excited!

I have been trying to space my companion animals in age...they are 14, 9, 6, 3.5, 1.5, and .02!

ObamaGod!

Alrightnow, you gotta give me an Amen, can I hear ya, I said Amen my brothers and sisters....

Is everyone asleep? Are these unnatural striated clouds of neuroinhibitors above finally lulling you into a political coma???

With all due respect to the wet-behind-the-ears-raconteur above, Barak is NOT GOD!

He is also not the next president of the united states of euphoria until 2016.

For the love of Aristotle pleeeeeeesssseeeeee wake up America!

It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush.

Men, swallow your pride and vote for a set of ovaries. You'll survive.

Ladies, wipe up, and get logical. He's cute, sure. He's got a silvery tongue, yup.

Be logical, vote for that bitch. OK?

This is war people. Not just in Iraq. This is a war for the soverignty of American souls.

Hillary isn't doing this for her own ego. She doesn't even like public speaking. She's doing this because Republican economic policies since Nixon have insured that America is becoming the third world. With the new deficit the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower (I love that man) warned us about is in sixth gear. Hillary is ready to go the distance.

I know the pieces fit...

-And the angel of the Lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest.And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, 'Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?' And the angel said unto me, 'These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust.' And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, 'Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!' Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.-This is necessary, Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........ This is necessary Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life.

"Would That It Were"

Whoooooo, we're scared...Johnny has decided to endorse Obama and not Hillary.

Big loss. I guess we are supposed to be impressed by him because he is a Forbes (so am I), or maybe we are all supposed to bow down to him because he is a veteran, or is it because he married the black widow of condiments?

Whatever "live shot" Kerry. You are easily the most duplicitous narcissist to pass for an Irishman in Boston ever.

Pound Zero

She is 5' 10". So am I.

She is a size zero.

When I weighed 130 pounds I was still a size 10-12.

(Okay, so I have the frame of a nose tackle.)

She can't possibly have a period.

Can you say osteoporosis?

Coke?

I suppose dead-looking women are less threatening.

A woman called in to Howard Stern this morning to announce that she has told her daughter to purge to lose weight. Looney. Robin told her off beautifully.

I have had so many students with eating disorder over-lays that if I had Bruce Cockburn's rocket launcher I would hit the Vogue editorial offices.

I don't know how I have scraped by with only minor eating issues...like the time I spontaneously projectile vomitted 3 slices of toast when I was 21. I subconsciously felt like I ate too much (I was trying to starve myself). It happened a couple of times. I guess I didn't need a finger down my throat, just pure will induced it.

I have always been able to lose weight easily at will (small gift) so I feel for these girls and boys that suffer so much.

Psychological issues are usually to blame...I would gain weight to push away unwanted male attention/affection due to sexual abuse.

I think if athletic girls were encouraged and not automatically labelled as boy-haters (they still are folks) and if female muscle mass were considered sexy 1/2 of the problem would be solved.

As long as boys want girls that look like boys (got to be an environmental cause; i.e. plastics that break down into estrogen-like compounds) models like the one above will get tons of work.

Until she has a heart attack.

Saint Benazir

We are waiting for the President to comment on the Assassination of Former P.M. Benazir Bhutto. The only way he could pull this off without coming off as a Texas Lapdog is if he were standing on a pile of rubble.

If I were the "Michael Deaver" (one of my heroes in the propaganda business) of the Republican machine I would put a pile of rubble in the Rose Garden and dress Fred Thompson in a firefighter's uniform. Have Bush come out and throw his arm around Fred while he tells us the official U.S. reaction to the senseless assassination of the brightest light of reason in the Muslim world.

Americans would associate Fred with the sadness, and feel warm and fuzzy, and remember him in all of those movies, and jumble right-brained emotions with an hopelessly illogical, landslide Reagan-esque win of the White House.

I haven't been this angry in a long time, and sarcasm is all I can do to control myself.

The weight on the soul of how infantile modernity is in the world increases daily...must keep right mind. May all beings be peaceful...

Dear Jesus:

Dear Jesus H. Christ,

I apologise that I said I was too jaded for you. It is just that I think that you were just a luscious man who went to Tibet. While you were there you learned the Dharma and the Lama and the monks called you "Issa". You loved Tibet and you didn't want to leave because you had reached a level of Samhadi. You mastered your consciousness so that your eventual "crucifixion" was child's play; just like the self-immolating monks during Vietnam. Then you left Tibet and went home to share the way with everyone because you are the definition of Boddhisattva. For this I have great respect for you. When I teach, I try to be you. I try to speak the language of whomever I am with, like you did. Without you the West would be even further down in Dante's Hell; your words and works (not the "miracles", those were just how you sold the truth, I know where you learned them) have given western intellectuals a bridge to Eastern thinking. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, several groups have taken your ball and run with it in some funky directions. Each "ism" is crazier than the next, don't you think? I try to respect Christianity as much as possible, but Nietzsche and I agree...your movement got FUBAR!

Jesus, I know that you and John Lennon spend a lot of time discussing how Buddhism really isn't a religion, and how we don't need organized tyranny in your name. Please tell John that "Watching the Wheels" is my favorite song because he describes the way.

I have to tell you, the scene with you and Magdalene that Kazantzakis and Martin Scorsese put together is the hottest thing ever! Did you like Peter Gabriel's soundtrack? I still listen to it because it induces hypnogogia. Try it!

I guess what I am trying to say is I wish that I could have been there with you and Willie Nelson and Jack Kennedy on the roof of the White House that night. Did you bogart?

I also wish that I could have been Mary Magdalene because frankly, anyone with a mind and skills like yours would have to be a marriage made in heaven.

Jesus, can I get a backstage pass to the next Bohemian Grove Owl Dance?

I truly think The New World Order is a capital idea. The planet is a disorganized ship-of-fools. Sign me up to one of your think tanks because I am really bored out here and my skills as master propagandist are wasted shamefully.

I'm dead serious. I could make Leni Riefenstahl look like a piker.

So, could you please get reincarnated soon and show your face around here a little. I'll make you some tea and Madelines, you know, the French cookie shaped like a shell that was named after your wife?

Namaste,

Lea

P.S. What do you think of the Gnostic Gospels?

Things I am too Jaded for...

The season's spirit inspires some reflection... Things I'm way too jaded for...

(Obviously Make-up)

Christmas

My Birthday

Motherhood

Television

Weddings

Showers (parties and golden)

God

Suicide

American Musical Theatre

Jesus in general...

Awards

Rites of Passage

Publishing

Opiates

Politics

Fame

Disney

Ambition

Patriotism

Careerism

Sunrises

Altruism

Keeping up appearances

Fashion

a Lexus

pretentiousness

Chick-Lit

Global warming

liberalism

soy

idolotry

seeking approval

people-pleasing

day-spas

star-worship

materialism

clowns

God Created Huckabee?

This guy thinks we all need Jesus in our lives. He also thinks schools should teach creationism. He is gaining in the polls. Now, I understand that the greater majority of America consists of mouth-breathing bible-thumpers but THIS is frightening. Can Massachusetts secede from the Union already?! Yo, Cracker! See a dentist you damned hillbilly.
The Republican Party is totally FUBAR. Isn't it a grand old party!

Wilco - Jesus, Etc. @ Bonnaroo

Merry Happy Season

My Bell Jar has fallen...

and I can't get it back up again. Winter is so depressing. I can barely stand consciousness.

I love taking picutres of the sunset over the Danvers River. This one is from around the equinox. The other shot a few entries ago was from August. This is becoming my version of Monet's Haystacks.

If I didn't have the ocean to stare at daily I'm not sure I would be quite so functional.

I hate winter. The only thing I like in winter is the ocean.

Then again, there was the time Christmas '94 when I had to take my new kayak out in the cove. I rolled it by the frozen nitrogen tank requiring quite a swim back to shore; which to this day I don't remember. All I remember is the EMT's standing on shore, asking me about where the drowning victim went down. Apparently, they thought I had tried to save someone, as I was fully dressed, no PFD, and soaking wet. They kind of didn't believe that I was the idiot that someone saw roll a boat out past the point. They finally went away when I started bitching about my spray skirt.

The lecture I got from Geoff while he made me hold his glass beer thermometer (to REALLY drive the point home) in the cove until it read 40 degrees still echos in my head.

I am such an idiot.

How stupid would it have been to actually drown in a cove that would have been a mudflat in a few hours.

Economic Superbabble

The economic superbabble machine is in sixth gear.
Bottom lines:
Real Estate looks good! I really think that the Boston Area (not Worcester) will see only a minor dip in values over the next few years, and only in pockets.
Single-family dwellings will be hit hardest. Multis near Boston and condos will do fine.
I don't think interest rates will go much lower, so buy next year.
Immigrants are buying up units along the inner-128 area, firming up the market. Very sweet.
I-Bonds and inflation-protected securities look good.
I am taking a few grand and buying euros and stashing them as a hedge. I own tons of silver and am considering getting more. Yes, you gotta keep it @ the bank.

I still love GinnieMae Funds (Vanguard, I have a secret crush on John Bogle).
When in doubt, Sci-Tech funds have been my shining star this year.

I don't think China or Malaysia are over-valued. I would go easy on India.

What else, hmmmmm, if you have any cash laying around, remember to max-out your 401k or 403b and Roths for the year.

NEVER, EVER buy an ANNUITY! I don't care who is selling it. CALL ME!
Oh yeah, and don't buy a bunch of dumb shit to impress people who hate you anyway this holiday season. I think that line should be my trademark!

The Dollar is worth what???

There is a reason why Gisele will only be paid in Euros...

This is the rebuilding of the "Tower of Babel" people...but this time it is economic babble. The Hegelian Dialectic is at work here...create a crisis, and solve it with a pre-desired solution.
The problem: The Demise of the Dollar.
The solution: The Pre-printed Amero...the new currency to replace the dollar, peso, and the Canadian Dollar.
I am REALLY STARTING TO CONSIDER BUYING EUROS with liquid assets. If I sound oblique call me and I'll explain it to you...I don't have time to explain right now...watch the dollar fall. I never thought I would recommend buying actual gold coins instead of gold mining stocks...but I am..."Hold onto your hats boys, this is going to be a bumpy ride!"

Seinfeld Sucks

How dare he name that insipidly litigous bee a "Benson".

Everyone knows that all Bensons are WASPS!

Guano Madness

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1105072jenkem1.html

This is one of the funniest things I have read in months.

Working with Women

This is a touchy subject for me. I really don't like women. I'm not a misogynist; I just don't really enjoy the company of females. Call me boy crazy. Most of my female friends are lesbians, or think like men. It is more than that...

1. If I have to listen to another pregnancy story at work I swear...and everyone used to wonder why I worked right through lunch at my desk. I am wicked fucking sorry if your husband complains that sex is like pitching a penny down a well since you had your son.

I can't tell you how many times I had to just toss my miso soup after a "new mom" spent ten minutes describing her episiotomy or C-section scars. GODDAMN! Just because I am a female, you don't need to discuss your sore tits in front of me. Go get a bikini wax you masochistic dupes.

2. Women either love me, or hate me. The ones that hate me are usually the illogical drama queens, or the put-upon complainers. They made their beds...

3. I find that most female managers are motivated by feelings and politics.

Need I say more.

4. Just because you have bred sweetie, it doesn't mean that I am going to take up your slack at work. I don't care if you have to be home with little "Chuckie" because he is three and still shitting behind furniture. I love the moms that fly out of work at 2:30. This is not a villiage, and I won't take it.

5. Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.

6. "Is that a rinse or a colorglaze?" Neither honey, sun-in. I have no grey.

7. I don't watch television...except for sporting events, and CNBC/Fox Business. Women watch the crappiest shit...they go on and on about some trite plot and I just smile and pretend I understand or that I care about what they are squeaking. This is when I get that roar of white noise in my head and I want to run screaming from the building...

8. The women who TAKE THE DAY OFF to go to the Susan Bristol outlet sale etc...

9. I have never seen Rachel Ray, except for on point-of-purchase marketing flats. Let's keep it that way.

10. Trying to get anything done is so much more inefficient with a group of hens. Men just do it. The women need to discuss how they like it first. It is the same reason why they suck at math.

Don't ask why, just get the job done.

I need to work with men. Isn't Nick Manning hiring?

Spine Shiver Lyrics...

Hallelujah ------Jeff Buckley (Best Arrangement Ever)

L. Cohen Lyrics

Well I heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do ya?

Well it goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall and the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well Your faith was strong

but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

she tied you to her kitchen chair

And she broke your throne

and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well baby I've been here before

I’ve seen this room

and I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew ya

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well there was a time when you let me know

What's really going on below

But now you never show that to me do you?

And remember when I moved in you?

And the holy dove was moving too

And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well maybe there's a God above

But all I've ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who'd OUT DREW YA

And it's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah <<(held for a long time)

Hallelujah

Salem: The New Lynn

Oh sure…it looks pretty. But trust me...Salem is a shithole. Having lived here for my entire life (college forays don't count) take it from me, SALEM HAS JUMPED THE SHARK.
1. We have always had to deal with the errant vagrant or two. Reagan emptied the mental hospitals like The Heritage Foundation suggested and here we are...the 90's saw an exponential rise in the number of psychotic lay-abouts that festoon the downtown. The tourists step around them. You just don't feel safe.

2.Did I mention the Pit Bull attacks? There is most certainly an "underground" culture of animal abuse in "The Point" that is exploiting this divine breed. The latest dog to be mauled was in front of the Peabody Essex Museum. This is my walking route. I guess my champion sired Tibetan Spaniel is chum. He stays in the yard now.

3. Then there is the guy that was giving himself a "happy ending" whilst I was running around the common.

4. The traffic is untenable. Look, Salem never had all of these goddamned condos. Houses were owned by a family and passed down. The population density here is rivaling Bangalore. I can’t get to the grocery without all of the above plus a “guest worker” who can’t drive in my way.

5. My prized Honda Civic Si Hatchback (the poor man’s Ferrari) was picked clean of its parts in the dark of night…to the point where I HAD TO GET A NEW CAR because the local “multi-cultural” fetish was costing me a mint. Glad I could participate in the richness of diversity.
I still miss my little black watermelon seed. I bought an Altima…they don’t like sedans.

6. The schools are FUBAR…so dumbed down that I call them “DUMBAR”. Everything is about “constructivist” theory and grading on effort. The auditory learner (the majority of the most intelligent of humans) would learn more at Gallaudet.
I know all about the “Best Practices” that they employ. It is a logical fallacy to believe that just because research is “new and shiny” that it is the “best practice”. Historically, the opposite is true.
I was a guinea pig in the schools here. The big thing in the ‘70s was the “Open Classroom”. Mixed age, high-level kids got a list of stuff to do and you pretty much did whatever you want all day. This went on for FOUR YEARS. All I wanted was a teacher to teach…tell stories, read, show and explain stuff. I WAS SO BORED! The classic great raconteur teacher is dead…and Salem has killed them. Don’t expect anyone to be learning much more than how to fill out another form, and create a box or something with a group. This is the reason why Salem is failing in math across the board. If you spend all of your time doing busy work and not actually USE VOCABULARY IN CONTEXT what exactly has been learned?
I wouldn’t send my Maine Coon to a school in Salem. Sorry Charlie. Modernity in curricula doesn’t mean having cute exhibitions…it means assimilating vast amounts of data and being able to think critically and write about those conclusions. We don’t have time for inefficient “hands-on” projects. Save that for elementary school.
The crime here is that these kids are going to high school with a major economic disadvantage, failing math grades. Success in math means socio-economic success.

7. It is so much louder today than ever! I can’t sit in my garden and gaze at the ocean without the whoop of a siren, the sound of a garden implement (Blowers BLOW! What a useless piece of shit, the MAYANS walk around just blowing leaves in circles), a Harley on its way to the Willows, or a water bike in the cove. Add in my landscaper neighbor, his trucks, and his cadre of leering “guest workers” that show up @ 7AM while I’m in my garden with the dogs. I guess they have never seen a white woman in a South Park t-shirt and panties. I can’t tell you how many mimosa mornings they have witnessed but at times I feel rude; like I should offer them the sports section and a Bloody Mary or something…

8. Transients! Transients! Transients!

9. This is when the realities of the global economy hits home…the rich and the poor living together in disharmony. No more middle class. Salem is on the cutting edge of this, and my people, that edge smells like urine.

10. Expect property taxes to continue to soar, as we turn more commercial property over to the non-profits, and the mercury plant eventually closes…or converts to natural gas. Isn’t it a pity. A pretty little harbor like Salem, and we live with the vestiges of industry like coal plants, oil depots, liquid nitrogen tanks, and sewerage. Did I mention the “superfund sites”?

Welcome to Salem, the new Lynn.

Florence Clara Cote Lavoie

I think the most difficult concept for me to deal with in life is that of death. Not of my own. I remember being in-utero (no one believes me). I really only fear abject poverty. (I think this is why I am such a "careerist". I love to interview, get, and learn new jobs and skill-sets.)

I fear the death of those close to me. My hero in life was always my grandmother. She was such a creative and accomplished woman. She never held a "job", or learned to drive! She cared for everyone, and was an incredible seamstress. The Oleg Cassini above is just like a number she made me in the mid-seventies. We used to walk downtown to the Almy, Bigelow, and Washburn Departement Store and pick out the newest VonFurstenburgish fabrics; and then she would make the most lovely dresses, tunics, and pants for me. I was the best dressed five-year-old in America.

I could go on for days about all of her animals when they lived in Danvers on the farm; suffice as to say she ran a subsistence farm. Eggs, milk, blueberries, corn, etc. she grew herself. Horses were for fun. A Dalmation, Black Lab, Maine Coons, Pigs, Bunnies, and a frog that would visit her kitchen window. (I smell a book.) My mother was the youngest of four and had an idyllic childhood.

They bought my current house in the fifties, and so I grew up here in Salem. My grandfather wanted to retire in Salem, where he could walk to everything and talk with his old friends downtown.

I miss them all terribly.

If Gram were here today she would be jumping up and down with my clips from Vogue and sewing up a storm...she loves bright patterns and sashed dresses with sass.

Most people maturely deal with the death of their parents (all three were mine) by having their own children, and creating more family.

The problem is I just still want to be a kid. I really don't want to go into "mother mode".

I love to borrow friends' children. Then I love to return them. I love the role of "auntie" and "fairy godmother". I don't spoil them, I just lavish them with attention.

I am lucky that I am an extrovert and have always made friends easily.

I love to talk to people, anyone really. One of my students remarked about me that "You could have a conversation with anyone" after I met one of their autistic younger siblings and carried on a conversation about the Nixon Administration (his obsession) for half-an-hour. I am also close to their parents, and meetings turn into hour-long phone conversations.

Everything is insubstantial. This is the most difficult mark of existence for me to accept.

I'm working on it...

The key to understanding the truth of suffering is what the Bud­dha called the “three marks” of everything that exists. All condi­tioned phenomena,1 he said, are pervaded by these three marks: impermanence (anitya), dissatisfaction or suffering (duhkha), and in­substantiality (anatman, “without self”). According to the Buddha, if we do not understand how conditioned phenomena are marked by these three aspects, then we will not be able to understand the first Noble Truth. We may do all we can in order to avoid facing the fact that everything is contingent and transient—we may try to hide ourselves from it, and we may even spin out all kinds of metaphysical theories of an unchanging, permanent, substantial reality to avoid this all-pervasive nature of ephemerality. Also, if we do not under­stand that conditioned phenomena are unsatisfactory, we will not think about restraining ourselves from overindulgence in sensory gratifications, which makes us lose our center and become immersed in worldly concerns, so that our life is governed by greed, craving, and attachment. All of these things disturb the mind. If we do not understand that everything is insubstantial—anatman—then we may believe that there is some kind of enduring essence or substance in things, or in the personality, and because of this belief we generate delusion and confusion in the mind.

Night Thought

skipping across the sand

in an hot-magenta one-piece

Blue Monday pulsing

never thinking as frisbee passes

that this day would be the one

brought forward

and stretched tight

an image on painted silk

the one to be relived

savored

unchanged

awaken and stare out

across the blue and black

mind wash flickers

oceanic longing

remember what was real

warm safe place

your child I hide

still

G

No Amnesty for Amnesty

Am I missing something?

"Guest Workers" are here to work.

They drive down the basic laborers' wages.

Instead of outsourcing your job to India or Croatia,

the educated 3rd world is coming here,

as well as your Mayan gardener.

Get over it.

Make only the workers conditional citizens.

No work, no deal.

Not the rest of their family.

No SSI/SSDI/Social Security/Medicare for Granny still in South America.

Get rid of birthrights.

Tax them.

Selective service register them.

Give them all of the wonderful things it means to be American.

If they blow it, throw them in jail and then exile them to Ohio.

Deport them. Why haven't they been doing this? They come back.

Can we borrow Alba?

The point is, our economy can't grow without these people.

I have worked and studied with people from all over the world.

Don't be so afraid of people from the rest of the world.

I feel blessed to know the people that I have.

Integration is fun!

There are good people and bad people of all walks of life.

Be open to the nice, and you will be treated openly.

Namaste.

Make Paris Stay in a Hilton!

Poor little rich girl can't handle being alone with herself apparently. If I was given 23 days alone in a jail cell and a stack of books I think I would burst with the anticipation of sweet solitude.

What is wrong with this judge? Her sentence is clear; just make her stay is one of her Dad's smelly, piggy, bed-bug-ridden, B-list hotels. Hilton! Like that means something...shitty business-traveller hostels.

Everything Free in America...

Making less than dad did
Report reveals that American men in their 30s earn less than their fathers did, as family income growth decelerates.
By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer
May 25 2007: 6:52 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- American men in their 30s are earning less than their father's generation did, challenging a long-held belief that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it, according to a new study published Friday.
The report, the first in an ongoing 18-month study on economic mobility in the United States, also revealed that the income growth of the median American household is declining.
Video
More video
CNN's Kitty Pilgrim looks at the economic challenges facing many middle class American families. (April 4)
Play video
The study was produced by a handful of politically diverse think tanks including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute. It looked at income levels of American men in their 30s, which can be a good indicator of lifetime income.
Gen Xer's: Are you better off than your parents?
Relying on Census Bureau figures, the study's authors found that after adjusting for inflation, men in their 30s in 2004 had a median income of about $35,000 per year, for a 12 percent drop compared with $40,000 per year for men in the same age group in 1974.
That stood in stark contrast to men in their 30s in 1994, who earned 5 percent more than their fathers did.
Similarly, American families, which experienced a 32 percent increase in income levels between 1964 and 1994, saw household income growth slow to 9 percent between 1974 and 2004, according to the report.
"There is clearly some story here that [U.S.] productivity gains are not trickling down to the median family," said John Morton, a co-author of the study and the managing director of economic policy initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Even as male incomes have declined and household income growth has slowed, the nation's productivity has remained robust. While the two once kept pace with each other, U.S. productivity has quickly outpaced income growth since the mid-1970s, according to the report.
The study's authors, who plan to examine relative mobility, or the ability of Americans to move up or or down in social strata, said their report shows the canonical belief in an American meritocracy may be unraveling.
"The expectation that each generation will do better than their parents has become a fundamental part of what we call 'The American Dream,'" said Morton. "But this new analysis suggests this bedrock belief may be shifting under our feet."

Every "X-er" I know, save a few heirs, is mortgaged up to their eye-balls.

On top of that they are raising children that are lets say "unique" as a cohort.

This demands increasing cash as inflation (is it 1974 again?) returns.

Did I mention the student loans they owe while they save for their children's college.

The saddest thing is that most X-ers don't save for their retirement first...before they outlay for everything else...

equally as important is the fact that they have been paying for the social services for the influx of illegals that were casually flowing in since the 60's and continue today...

(honestly, they are just a pawn in the 'third-worlding' of America, Chomsky has been warning us for years)...

Those born between 1964 and 1982 (Xers) need to work harder for everything...

Some X-ers are also supporting their parents...at that point I would take the gas pipe.

As an aspiring CFP, I have some advice! With love...

1. If you plan to commit financial suicide and spawn save for your own retirement before you send Henry to Emerson.

2. If you don't make too much money, max out saving to your 401k, 403b, and Roth IRAs every year. If you do, you should have a decent retirement, but you gotta invest right!

3. You want to diversify, yeah, but c'mon, y'all know which industries to invest in...MILITARY ANYTHING (war profiteering is still tax-deferred in a 401k, just do it! Bleeding-heart-liberal-starving-artist-types always die poor and disease-ridden. You want to have a COMFY golden retirement!) Biotech, emerging markets...you've got a 20-30 year time horizon...be risky!

4. Never invest more than 4% of your entire portfolio in one stock and I don't care if it is the company you work for...it is just plain dumb.

5. If you have a mortgage, never go to a 15 year, get the lowest rate you can and save the rest in Ginnie Maes. A mortgage, aside from government student loans (which DIE WITH YOU, don't pay them off...go on the 25-year pay plan) is the cheapest paper you will ever get!

6. If you are afraid to invest (I know you are out there) just buy shares of the Wiltshire 5000.
There is some diversification for you.

7. Consider buying rental property. If you have management skills at all you can handle it. Find some local fix-it dude or a management company...remember, if you break even on expenses, it is all you can ask for...what you want is the longitudinal return.

8. Get a vacation property as soon as you can too, the population of this country is going to double before your kid joins some pointless liberal volunteer organization and saves the world on your dime.

9. Stop buying dumb shit to impress assholes that hate you anyway.

10. Buy a gun, economic growth comes with its dangers. Consider a gated community, you will need one by 2020 when the very poor live near the very rich, with no middle-class. What side of the fence do you want to be on...?

Putin is the Pitts

I have arisen from an ontological suspension of my blog to comment on this KGB philistine.

What is that molester doing to that boy anyway?!

Read This

The point is: Glasnost, Perystroyka, Svoboda, all of those terms of the Reagan years and sunny Gorbachev, soused and jolly Yeltsin, the seeming beauty with which the icy ribbon was removed from the Soviet Union; all are an illusion desinged to keep us all mesmerized while our treasury was sold to Beijing. Now comes the BEAR, and he has tasted the honey, and it is good. Putin can't act; neither can Bush. At this point, the oil war is looking kind of precarious. The gloves are off, even Arlen Specter (Warren Commission schill) is telling Bush to cut the Iraq shit. I can't wait to see what flies next.

Dear Vlad,
My president said he saw into your soul. I don't remember if he said what he saw. Tell me, is it white or black?
Love your favorite American,

โพธิสัตว์

The Japanese: Whale Killing Assholes

Today: March 23, 2007 at 8:20:6 PDT
Japan Ship Returns Home With 508 Whales By HANS GREIMELAssociated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) -
A Japanese whaling ship returned to port from Antarctica Friday with a catch of 508 whales, despite having its annual hunt cut short by a deadly fire.
The Nisshin Maru's hunt had triggered a high-seas showdown with environmental groups even before the fire, and Greenpeace issued a fresh condemnation of Japan's whaling program, calling for the damaged ship to be retired.
Tokyo says its whaling provides crucial data for the International Whaling Commission on populations and feeding habits of whales in Antarctic seas.
The hunts are allowed by the commission, but environmental groups have long condemned the hunts as a pretext for keeping alive commercial whaling, which was banned in 1986.
The Nisshin Maru, with the word "RESEARCH" emblazoned just above the waterline, slipped into port flanked by about 10 patrol boats for security.
Journalists were being barred from the Tokyo wharf where the processing ship docked with its crew of 149. Japan's fisheries agency said it was investigating last month's fire and would hold a news conference next week.
The hunt off Antarctica had been scheduled to continue through the end of March. It was the first time in 20 years that Japan had to abort a whaling mission.
The six-vessel fleet managed to kill 508 whales out of a target of 860. The meat will be sold for human consumption.
Infuriated by the whaling, protesters aboard a ship operated by the environmental group Sea Shepherd had launched smoke canisters, tossed containers filled with chemicals and dropped ropes and nets to entangle the Japanese ships' propellors, Japanese video showed.
The protests have not been linked to the fire, which sent the ship drifting powerless for 10 days, raising concerns about potential oil and chemical spills.
The Nisshin Maru is the second ship in the whaling fleet to come home. Three more spotter ships are scheduled to return Saturday and the final vessel is to come home Sunday.

Monsters

I hope the fucking alien death starship from Star trek IV comes here and roasts your whale eating asses.

Can you just leave one large gentle mammlian species alone you small membered cartoon porn watching algae consumers?

Smoke another cigarette while you slurp down whale liver and then go home to your closet.

You fuckers won't even admit all the nasty shit you did to China and Korea and your "comfort women". I guess the rape of Nanking wasn't enough for you, you needed 'mommy' to rape too. Your soldiers made the Russian infantry look like fucking choir boys.

I am sick of Japan.

Leave my whales alone!

I curse anyone who has ever harmed a whale.

Count Yorga/Cosmos Keeper

Housing Bubble or Immigrant Boon?

Top investor sees U.S. property crash
Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:59PM EDT
By Elif Kaban
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Commodities investment guru Jim Rogers stepped into the U.S. subprime fray on Wednesday, predicting a real estate crash that would trigger defaults and spread contagion to emerging markets.
"You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better," the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York.
"It's going to be a disaster for many people who don't have a clue about what happens when a real estate bubble pops.
"It is going to be a huge mess," said Rogers, who has put his $15 million belle epoque mansion on Manhattan's Upper West Side on the market and is planning to move to Asia.
Worries about losses in the U.S. mortgage market have sent stock prices falling in Asia and Europe, with shares in financial services companies falling the most.
Some investors fear the problems of lenders who make subprime loans to people with weak credit histories are spreading to mainstream financial firms and will worsen the U.S. housing slowdown.
"Real estate prices will go down 40-50 percent in bubble areas. There will be massive defaults. This time it'll be worse because we haven't had this kind of speculative buying in U.S. history," Rogers said.
"When markets turn from bubble to reality, a lot of people get burned."
The fund manager, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros in the 1970s and has focused on commodities since 1998, said the crisis would spread to emerging markets which he said now faced a prolonged bear run.
"When you have a financial crisis, it reverberates in other financial markets, especially in those with speculative excess," he said.
"Right now, there is huge speculative excess in emerging markets around the world. There will be a lot of money coming out of emerging markets.
"I've sold out of emerging markets except for China," said Rogers, long a prominent China bull.
Even in China, the world's fastest expanding economy, Rogers said stocks were overvalued and could go down 30-40 percent.
But he added: "China is one of the few countries in the world where I'm willing to sit out a 30-40 percent decline."
The last stock market bubble to burst was the dot-com craze which sparked a crash from March 2000 to October 2002.
When the last bubble burst in Japan, said Rogers, stock prices went down 85 percent despite the country's high savings rate and huge balance of payment surplus.
"This is the end of the liquidity party," said Rogers. "Some emerging markets will go down 80 percent, some will go down 50 percent. Some will most probably collapse."

For years Greenspan quelled our nerves with the theory that immigration would allow the U.S. to avoid a national housing bubble pop. He said there would be certain areas that have a slowdown, perhaps even a small bubble...but NO NATIONAL SLUMP.

I have always relied on the kindness of strangers, and the idea that America is one big franchise that I own a part of. The best of the best of the advancing global villiage want to live here. Where I live is apparently where lots of other people want to live. (We are never happy with what we have. I want to move to Tiburon, CA) The population of the planet will be 14 Billion by 2050. It seems like almost everyone is breeding. Where else is a young, cosmopolitan, post-modern, educated citizen of say, Bangalore, Nairobi, Kyoto, St. Petersburg (How awesome is it to say St. Petersburg!) or Buenos Aries going to want to live??? Boston, of course. or New York, or L.A. or even lovely Atlanta (you can tell I'm half southern-Blanche Dubois lives~!) The point is, the top two percent of the world is gonna want to own a piece of the pie, and America herself is the prize. Now, I'm all for legal immigration. You want to come here and work your bottom off, awesome. Everyone works hard. If you want to suck off of public services and not pay taxes, well, you know how that works...or doesn't. It is only fair that if I claimed this land that I should benefit from real estate price increases that belie comprehension.

Plan B.

Sell everything and run to Cabo?

"Not Sure" for President

This is the only George I want in the White House.

The most apt political/satirical movie in years is Idiocracy. At times, I feel as though someone was reading my worst yet probable fears. I am so glad that I don't have a horse in this race. I could never explain or justify an existence in this dimension.

Anyway, I truly I don't know if it is my prescription for Oxycodone but I DON'T CARE who 'becomes ' president in 2008. If I were the spin doc for the Republicans, I would throw Condi in next Christmas, see what happens in New Hampshire. She'll kill any Democrat.

If I were the Democrats, I would cut the shit and back Hillary Clinton all the way. It's a two-for-one deal, everyone knows it.

It should be a "Battle of the Bitches" with Angela Merkel holding up the finish line tape.

This must be a higher state of consciousness...

Fund I Like

Just moved one Ira acct. into T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund. Long-term acct. Won't be tapped until 2034. Floating...no new contributions... 5% total portfolio. I normally prefer Vanguard. This acct. has low expenses.

If he's this big now...

when he is only 6mos. (9lbs.) how big is he going to be in a year? Maine Coons take 2-3 years to fill-out. Thankfully, Freddy Mercury (as Darcy coined him) is a sweetheart. He is like Nermal.

Miles Per Hour

before
businesschildguilt
the bottom line
areyougonnagetwhatyoupaidforlaid?


chums

sunsnowshower

walks

marvelling

the granite slabs

my house foundation

how the New Americans

set their stones

how we would set ours


since
hours spent
staring
flickering rate hearths
aspect ratios
heathens' memos
requiring everything
nothing given
gained


walking

unset

with my stone

awaiting

pole shift

springtide

friend

Self Evidence

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

This is Minnie's favorite Jack London quote. I agree.

Is this brain taken?

Neurological disease common, survey finds

Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:06 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and other neurological diseases may be far more common than most people had believed, according to new estimates published on Monday.
Nearly one out of 1,000 Americans has multiple sclerosis or MS and one out of 100 elderly Americans has Parkinson's disease the survey found.
"Our estimate of MS prevalence is about 50 percent higher than a comprehensive review from 1982," said Dr. Deborah Hirtz of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who led the survey.
It is not clear whether the disease is actually more common or if it is being diagnosed more accurately, she said.
The new survey, published in the journal Neurology, also found the rate of Alzheimer's disease was up substantially from past estimates, with 67 out of 1,000 Americans over the age of 65 affected.
Nearly 10 out of 1,000 older Americans have Parkinson's disease, and four out of every 100,000 has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, the survey found.
The survey projects that the number of people with Parkinson's will double from about 4.3 million people now to 9 million people worldwide over the next 25 years.
It corroborated other studies on childhood neurological disorders, finding that nearly six out of every 1,000 children has autism, and two out of every 1,000 children has cerebral palsy.
Hirtz and colleagues reviewed studies from nearly 500 medical papers published between 1990 and 2005 for their report.
They found that 101 out of every 100,000 Americans has a traumatic brain injury each year, 50 percent fewer than previous estimates.
More than 180 out of every 100,000 people suffer a stroke each year, and close to five out of every 100,000 have a new spinal cord injury each year.
Steven Albert of the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh said the impact of Alzheimer's will be substantial as the population ages.
"Current projections of AD (Alzheimer's disease) suggest that there will be about 10 million cases in the United States in 2050, of which 6 million are expected to have moderate or severe dementia," Albert wrote in a commentary in the journal.
There is currently no cure and treatments only delay the progression of Alzheimer's slightly. There is also no cure for MS or for Parkinson's, although drugs can also delay their progression.

Barbarians Torture and Murder Barbaro

Before I begin my rant please view my previous post on this subject, this is going to be ugly...http://leabensonplace.blogspot.com/2006_07_13_archive.html

That race did not start off normally. Once again, if you view the video, Barbaro wanted NOTHING to do with that race. He continually refused to enter the gate. He was drugged.

There is a special hell for "humans" that strap up horses and crop them until their tibio tarsals snap like snow peas. If you have ever participated in the bondage of a horse I want to take a polo mallet to your feet and watch you crawl to death.

They "Euthanized" him today, after experimenting on him for six months.

Good job. Go pick up your insurance check bastards. Just another loss. Write him off. You are a superior species. Pat yourself on the back. You advanced veterinary science. Salve your conscience with the thought that somehow you have contributed to the universe. Time to go fix another race, whack another horse for the insurance money, buy another bag of liquid stallion. JUSTICE IS PATIENT.

Sleep well Barbaro, having been incarnated as a sentient being in the path of pure evil. Don't think about your mortal coil as it becomes an Advil gel-cap. (As the punchline goes, Jello jiggles when you eat it, Long Island Princesses don't, or something like that...) This was the hell realm Barbaro. You will enjoy an eternal pasture. Your murderers will answer to a higher authority. What a waste.

IKEA is junk.

I was recently asked what I thought of IKEA. I've never been there, but I've had the misfortune of browsing their website while working on a project. Where is this borax made anyway?

Apple=Fisher-Price

Cisco sues Apple for iPhone trademark infringement

Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:26 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. said on Wednesday it sued Apple Inc. for infringing on its "iPhone" trademark, a day after Apple unveiled a multimedia phone of the same name.
Shares in Apple, which could not immediately be reached for comment, fell 1.3 percent in after-hours trade following the announcement.
Cisco said it was seeking an injunctive relief to prevent Apple from "infringing upon and deliberately copying and using" the trademark, which Cisco obtained in 2000 after acquiring Infogear. Infogear had previously owned the trademark and had sold iPhones for several years, it said.
Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been selling wireless products with the iPhone name since early last year, with new products added to the line in December.
On Tuesday, a Cisco spokeswoman said the company had been in discussions with Apple, and it believed Apple would agree to a final document and public statement concerning the trademark.
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel of Cisco, said in a statement.
"There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

Do you really want your 911 call to be dependent on a touch screen designed by Apple?! They CRASH CONSTANTLY.

The only sad-fucks who still need to use Apple anythings in the private sector are the poor slag-slaves in creative departments.

I'm not impressed with the I-Pod and all of the proprietary bullshit that you have to put up with. Gimmee Napster and a Stiletto 100, and a Creative Zen (for when I'm blasting Howard Stern throughout the house and I'm going out alone.)

Steve Jobs is a sociopath. Gates should've let him eat dirt.

GO CISCO. I'm going up to 5% with them just because of this.

My rule is not investing more of 4% of your portfolio in one stock;

this is too juicy not to play....

Let's Play "Guess Who Lea's Father Is!"

Which one is Neil Benson? Hint: Look for my alien-shaped-head; big skull, little chin, thin nose.

My Grandparents

This was taken on their "Aude" in the early '30s. They lived to sail. Uncle Alfred and crew are just behind on the horizon. These pictures have tons of whales.

There is nothing like printing old negs as family gifts for Christmas!

Alfrederic

Vote for Stem Cell Research

All of the women in this picture have arthritis.
I have myelitis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
They can all be greatly helped by stem cell research.
Love thy neighbor.

So he bought Meth, Called back for more...

and didn't perform any sex acts. You gotta love Evangelicals. If I were this loser's public relations guru I would tell him to repent on Rush's show. He will be more popular than ever. Repressed. Sad.
Another thing, he looks an awful lot like Howdy Doody. I must say!

Moving to Australia...

If I could switch places with this woman I would be so happy I would explode.

Homo Sapien Sapien must be stopped!

I've come to the conclusion that our species is fundamentally flawed and we should probably go the way of the T.Rex. We are supposed to be the "wiser" more improved version. Instead this intelligence is malignant.
Take for instance the fact that Bush is even admitting now that they are in the middle of Tet. DUH!
Once again, a quagmire is not pretty.
But here's why I'm really upset.
I had to sing happy birthday to a twenty-year-old today while he was in his casket. Accidents happen, but sometimes we think we are wiser than we are.
I think we are toast.
Pass the marmalade.

The Halloween Blog

I have been asked what time the next witch burning is. I have been asked to direct tourists to the nearest "Witch Happening". I have sat on my own porch and had tourists walk by smiling, and snapping photos of the Victorian next door, or the Federals. (I don't remember anyone ever taking a picture of my houses. They are cedar-shingled 1820's Colonials.)
My family has been in Salem for well over a century and nothing burns us more than what my grandfather called "The Witch Trade".
20 People were murdered and tortured in dungeons for their land. I don't care what the mechanism was, afflicted girls, ergot, Puritan envy, what have you. Elie Wiesel spoke at the dedication of the victims' memorial for a reason.
There are many who try to profit from the murder of others.
Justice is patient.

Letter Artists

The art of letter writing was all but dead when we all started screwing around with online bulletin boards in the late eighties.
This is the new renaissance of writing letters. The craft is not dead. In fact, we are all honing it. I am so grateful. I have always thought that that "Jesus Jones" song was insipid, but I understand it now.
Look at this. I am e-mailing my father, after not really having any contact with him since I was six; when my mother flew off to the D.R. with the freshly signed papers for a "quickie" divorce. She was something else, huh. "Sigh".
I'm conversing regularly with unfamiliar people; but, I like their writing.
I have rousted old friends, and they have written me beautiful things. Speaking of which, my favorite poetess, Darcy, has deemed me "The Keeper of the Art". Her works will be on display, showings by appointment only.
Okay, I'll put down the Pinot Grigio. When I get misty it can be a scene...

Noam Chomsky: Superstar

I can't believe that it took a thug assface like Chavez to hold up a copy of one of Chomsky's tomes to get people to actually read his stuff. (What crap people read!) If you had all read his stuff ten years ago you would already understand why the Third World is being invited to America. Goddamn, we are surrounded by idiots...if Chomsky is too tedious for you, rent the above documentary, "Manufacturing Consent". Chomsky is one of the reasons why I never pursued a Journalism career. I refuse to be just a cog in the wheels of the multinational corporations' propaganda machine. Besides, journalists have to "euphemism" to get where they are.

Career Advice

If you think she's sexy and you want to do her you should be a coroner (or a vampire).

Can you hear me now?

Can hearing voices in your head be a good thing?
Psychologists have launched a study to find out why some people who hear voices in their head consider it a positive experience while others find it distressing.
The University of Manchester investigation – announced on World Hearing Voices Day (Thursday, 14th September) (I'm going to start celebrating this one) – comes after Dutch researchers found that many healthy members of the population there regularly hear voices.
Although hearing voices has traditionally been viewed as 'abnormal' and a symptom of mental illness, the Dutch findings suggest it is more widespread than previously thought, estimating that about 4% of the population could be affected.
Researcher Aylish Campbell said: "We know that many members of the general population hear voices but have never felt the need to access mental health services; some experts even claim that more people hear voices and don't seek psychiatric help than those who do.
"In fact, many of those affected describe their voices as being a positive influence in their lives, comforting or inspiring them as they go about their daily business. We're now keen to investigate why some people respond in this way while others are distressed and seek outside help."
Although the voices heard by psychiatric patients and members of the general population seem to be of the same volume and frequency, the former group tend to interpret the voices as more distressing and negative.
The team believes that external factors such as a person's life experiences and beliefs may be the key to these differences: for example, the presence of childhood trauma or negative beliefs about themselves could have an affect.
"If a person is struggling to overcome a trauma or views themselves as worthless or vulnerable, or other people as aggressive, they may be more likely to interpret their voices as harmful, hostile or powerful," said Aylish.
"Conversely, a person who has had more positive life experiences and formed more healthy beliefs about themselves and other people might develop a more positive view of their voices.
"People being treated for hearing voices are usually given medication in an attempt to eliminate the problem. By investigating the factors influencing how voices are experienced we hope to contribute to the development of psychological therapies to help people better understand and cope with their voices."

What? If you hear voices, you are mental. Bottom line...
Is complete and abject insanity going to be the new chi chi malady? I know the looney bins were no picnic, (my mother was a nurse at Danvers State) but can we at least not try to pass off a clear mental dysfunction as normal. This is just like we are supposed to just sit back and accept the fact that someday you'll get cancer; surely you've heard the new radio ads with he helpful voices explaining how they will help you through your "therapy". My acupuncturist contends that many fewer people got cancer at the turn of the last century.
So what next, are people who see things just "visually distractable"?

"In-N-Out Burger"

This is my new nickname for heirhead Paris Hilton. I get the biggest kick out of this girl. She is what happens when you get a pretty-rich-girl that thinks like a man. She sticks it out there, gets her kicks, and doesn't give a sniff if you think she is a slag whore.

Mount Desert: The Series

Darcy Scanlon; Painter.

Hi! Got your message...it is so funny, you still leave those stream-of-consciousness messages, my friend Darcy used to do that, she's kinda missing, long story, see she lived in my house and then she left and went to Dorchester. Well Darcy would leave long messages about needing an apartment and having lots of cats, and how they "SHHHEEEEDDDDD", and how she uses the bathtub as a litter box and she would just assume the voices of people and be all real and funny and shit and her art is burning in my basement; it must be shown. I should take some pictures and post them, I love her painting.
DARCY, we all miss you. Where are you? The coast is clear.
Come in Darcy....

Where have all the dollars gone?

We told Olmert the army is hollow
By Akiva Eldar Haaretz
Just one day before the evil came down from the north, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to the land of the bed and breakfasts and was given a briefing by senior Israel Defense Forces officers. One of them, Major General Itzhak Harel, who for two and a half years has been heading the Plans and Policy Directorate, took advantage of the opportunity to exchange a few words with the high-level visitor about the security budget. "I will be completing my service in three weeks," said the major general, who did not realize his release would have to wait a few more weeks. "As a citizen, I am asking you to preserve a strong state." Harel went on: "The IDF is hollow. Don't cut any more from the security budget." ...Had they given us another 3 billion a year - that is, 37 billion rather than 34 billion - we would have been much, much better prepared for this battle. It can be said that the air force and intelligence proved themselves, but on the ground we were prepared solely for war against the Palestinians.

This is dire. Apparently this regime hasn't been funding ground troops ANYWHERE. Where is the military budget going to?
Isreal will cease to exist without a solid, seasoned force. They have no leader, they have been hurting since the vacuum of Dyan, and now Sharon. Looks like black ops are sucking up the conventional military line item again.Whoops, well, who really cares about the people anyway. They can defend themselves. Laser star wars gets most of the cash. They have been calibrating these weapons for years, by creating crop circles. You didn't actually think those images in Rye were from Aliens; did you?!
Infidels do not appear to possess decent ground forces.
This Viking-Swede-Celt-Native Savage is NOT PLEASED.
Oh yeah, Hey George...thanks for nothing; may I have another?

"Thinspiration!"

Looks like Posh Spice needs an intervention.

1. She has no muscle. She could eat if she had some tone. What, does Becks actually like the way she looks? If so, he is a ghoul. She looks like he could break her in half...maybe that's his kinky/psycho point.

2. She is clearly afraid of eating anything that hasn't been steamed. From the looks of her she's been subsisting on the same California roll since Bastille Day.

3. The Buddha lived on one grain of rice-a-day during his enlightenment. He was so thin that he could push his fingers through his abdomen and palpate his vertebrae. YET, he is always depicted as rotund and happy.

Victoria, there is wisdom here...find a balance!

4. She's got those nice long limbs...perfect for Pilates!

5. Vicki, let's go visit Amrit Desai together in Lenox. You need some good Kripalu Yoga, some brown rice (yes, Vicks...actual carbohydrates!) and some good mind-clearing laps in the pool.

6. You have muscles...you actually have to use them. Shopping isn't enough, moving your frame throughout Harrod's doesn't provide any resistance.

7. Cut the SHIT and eat! No one will love you more if you look like a Goddamned phantom!

String Him Up

Police: Teacher says he molested more than 100 students
ONTARIO, California (AP)
-- -- A substitute elementary school teacher was charged Friday with lewd and lascivious acts involving a 10-year-old girl, and police said he claimed to have molested more than 100 students.
Eric Norman Olsen, 28, of Ontario, told detectives that he molested between 100 and 200 elementary school students since becoming a teacher three years ago, said police Detective Diane Galindo. He was scheduled to be arraigned August 8.
Police said his resume shows that he has taught in different school districts throughout San Bernardino, Riverside and Kern counties.
A phone number for Olsen's residence could not be located. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had an attorney.
The probe began on June 13 after a male student allegedly witnessed Olsen molest the 10-year-old girl and told school officials, Galindo said. Olsen did not have a criminal background.
Police were asking the public to help identify whether there were other possible victims by contacting local police or school districts.

All research shows that pedophiles (habitual abusers of pre-pubescents) and ephebophiles (habitual abusers of pubescents) can't be stopped. They need to be sequestered from the population. Sometimes I want to permanently sequester them from Earth. I really want to hang them. Salem use to be a good hanging town. The problem was, they hanged innocent people for their land. (But, that is a blog for another day-I'll save that for Halloween) I want an old-fashioned gallows. Even better, let's do it Owl Creek Style, say, over Leadmills. This little bastard brings out the worst in me. I was once told by a highly recommended astrologer in the academic Phil/Religion community that I was a despot in my last life. She looked me square in the eyes and meant it.
As a student of Buddhist Philosophy, I understand that this desire to execute another is clearly an action that would also harm me. I DON'T CARE. I WANT HIM DEAD. NOW!

Audioslave

http://www.sonymusic.com/clips/selection/fu/687975/687975_01_01_full.ram
"Teenage-girl-scream-here"...New single is quite southern sounding. They are branching out. If I read one more critique of Chris and his voice and his range...all music critics suck!
I can't wait to see them again. Their show in Lowell last Halloween was fab, he did an acoustic set.
If I could get that man alone in a room there would be nothing left...

The Passion of the Drunk

Apparently everyone's favorite Nazi-Christophile Fanatic got into the sacremental wine. He was in a big rush to get home and flaggelate himself and adjust the metal spike that he wears in his inner thigh. Opus Dei members are amatures compared to Mel. In fact, the reason why he was speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway at two AM with a good roaring buzz-on was it brought him closer to Christ. I want to know what he was driving, A BMW or a Benz I imagine.
Too bad they couldn't read him his rights in Aramaic.

Alienhead

The Big Moat

Listen up. Boston is now New Orleans. Except, we paid 16B for this disaster. Part of me wants to sell everything now and go hide in San Francisco, or somewhere in Marin Co. I'd rather die in an earthquake than under a two-ton ceiling tile!? Maybe Portland, OR. We just returned from Bar Harbor. I love Maine.

The mess of the Big Dig is giving me visions of 60% property value drops and another 10 years of fighting through traffic to get anywhere.

Time to get some viking-alien-Swedes over here to design Boston a new "Sky Artery". START NOW!

Take the Massachusetts Turnpike Commission's Offices and move them all into the tunnels. Make sure that Fat Matt Amorello's office is at the very trough of the Ted Williams Tunnel.

Put a Starbucks, IKEA, A&F, and an insipid Spencer's in place of the "Rose Kennedy Greenway". Make it a mall under the new bridge.

Give up on this "Rube Goldberg" bubble-gum-epoxy-duct-tape-2000-pound-slab-of-a-slurry-wall Unnatural disaster.

A Modest Proposal

It seems that the Culture of Life has been recently so focused on the unused embryos headed for sure destruction and preventing stem cell research, that they have sorrowfully overlooked a grave and unholy practice. Not anymore. I call to the Evangelicals, Catholics, and followers of thy GOD of all ilk to hereby save the embryos that have ectopically implanted. Why these ARE HUMANS. They've just implanted in the fallopian tubes, or outside. Some of these fetuses are viable, we just need to find them sooner! With recent advances in laproscopic surgery and fiber-optics, there is no reason why these humans can not be saved. The procedure would leave a small scar. Isn't the life a baby human worth just another scar on a well-used breeding woman? Perhaps they could be saved without surgery. These poor innocent children of God Almighty are contemporarily murdered routinely with a shot of Methotrexate, which sequesters its developing body of folic acid. Mother is given a shot, and the baby stops growing. Then, rather cannibalistically reabsorbed into the body. This practice is a routine and systematic genocide of babies that are spatially challenged. No effort is made to find, rescue, and implant these most helpless of Abraham's Children. Phyllis Schafly, Ralph Reed, Pro-Life movement, respectfully heed my call. God is watching us.

Racing is great...

The Sunday Times
July 16, 2006
Revealed: the man who killed 10,000 dogs
Daniel Foggo
THE secret slaughter of at least 10,000 racing greyhounds by one man has been exposed by an undercover investigation.
For the past 15 years David Smith, a builders’ merchant, has been killing healthy greyhounds no longer considered by their trainers to be fast enough to race. He buries them in a one-acre plot at the back of his home in Seaham, Co Durham.
NI_MPU('middle');
Last week The Sunday Times covertly filmed Smith on two consecutive days receiving greyhounds from trainers before killing them with a bolt gun, dumping them in the plot and covering over the “graves” using a mechanical digger.
He told an undercover reporter it took him three years to fill the field, at which point he simply started all over again. “Within a year the bodies have gone,” said Smith. “It takes me about three years to get across there and by the time I get there I can start back here again and there are only a few bones left.”
According to Sunday Times calculations and testimony of two racing insiders, it is conservatively estimated Smith has killed at least 10,000 dogs.
The scandal, described as the “canine killing fields” by one campaigner, has shocked the government and greyhound industry, which attracts bets of £2.5 billion a year.
Ben Bradshaw, minister for animal welfare, said Smith’s business was “horrendous” and promised an inquiry into the slaughter and potential health and environmental hazard of such a large-scale dumping of dogs’ bodies. Alistair McLean, chief executive of the National Greyhound Racing Club, which governs the sport, described it as a “euthanasia factory” and promised an inquiry. “This is disgraceful. We categorically don’t endorse this kind of thing,” he said.
The RSPCA has previously expressed “grave concerns” about the fate of up to 12,000 retired greyhounds that go missing every year. A spokesman said: “There is no justification for killing these animals simply because they can’t do their job any more.”
Smith charges owners and trainers £10 to kill unwanted dogs, many only a few years old. One trainer, who asked not to be named, said: “This man kills dogs for 40 licensed trainers and there are at least 10,000 dogs in his field. People in the industry have been going to him for years. Many of the bigwigs knew it was going on.”
Since 1997 anyone has been able to own a bolt gun to kill animals without a licence, although they can be prosecuted if the animals are put down inhumanely or without the owner’s permission. A new code of practice proposed under the animal welfare bill would restrict the killing of greyhounds to vets using “humane” lethal injections.
After being confronted this weekend Smith said he would stop killing dogs, which he said he had done in the past for “humane” reasons.

This Revolution is being televised...

This is another case of the downward spiral of fear and hate that gets sped-up by the media feedback loop. Iraq is now just a place where the terrorists of the world go to capitalize on the chaos. I fear that this is what Lebanon is becoming...
My grandfather always said that Israel has to retaliate to attacks ten-fold because they are surrounded by hostility. He was all for supporting the Israeli Government.
I just want everyone to STOP.
Guess that's where my child logic still wins out.

Open Your Eyes to the G8

This was one of my favorite songs in the mid-80's.
It still says it all...
Lords Of The New Church»
Open Your Eyes
(Bator/James)

Video games train the kids for war.
Army chic in high-fashion stores.
Law and order's done their job.
Prisons filled while the rich still rob.
Assassination politics.
Violence rules within' our nation's midst.
Well ignorance is their power tool.
You'll only know what they want you to know.
The televisioncannot lie.
Controlling media with smokescreen eyes.
Nuclear politicians picture show.
The acting's lousy but the blind don'tknow.
They scare us all with threats of war.
So we forget just how bad things are.
You taste the fear when you're allalone.
They gonna git'cha when you're on your own.
The silence of conspiracy.
Slaughtered on the altar of apathy.
You gottawake up from your sleep.
'Cause meek inherits earth...six feetdeep.
Open your eyes see the lies right in front of ya.
Open your eyes.....

Barbarians Murder Barbaro

I hate horseracing. (I hate racing sentient beings.) I hate jumping horses. I hate anything that requires more of a horse than what they would normally want to do. This generally involves anything to do with a bit. I'm not kidding. My mother grew up with horses and she agreed. She rode them bareback often and said she preferred it. She always said that they would like to graze their lives away so we should leave them alone. My great-grandfather saw them as "horsepower" (he hated cars) and insisted on keeping a sleigh and carriage. We don't need them anymore.

Did you ever read the press on the horse-racing business? They constantly murder their own horses for the insurance money.
Barbaro; he'll be in heaven soon. If there is a hell other than Earth, Barbaro's murderers are headed there; along with the rest of them.
I'm really not a fan of the human race these days. I am starting to feel ashamed to be one. I imagine Jonathan Swift may have thought the same.

Turn-off

I use to think that kilts were sexy. I'm cured.
Try this one...

Bush is "Solving" Global Warning

Q:Do you think Gore is right on global warming?
Bush A:
"I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it's caused by mankind or whether it's caused naturally, but it's a worthy debate. It's a debate, actually, that I'm in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline."
HE IS IN THE PROCESS OF SOLVING THE DEBATE BY BURNING COAL> NO MATTER HOW CLEAN HE SAYS IT IS<>COAL BURNING Covers the Earth in MERCURY!
This means lower IQ's in children and AUTISM which now affects 1:166 births in America. GO GEORGE, you philistine.
I've got an idea. Methane from flatulence contributes to greenhouse gasses. Bush needs to just keep his mouth shut and stop eating all of that Texas Bean Chili.

My Mother's Wishes

Having someone cremated is new to me...you leave the funeral home with a 25 pound cold marble vessel and a gold box of extra ashes. I decided to wait until my mother's birthday, today, to scatter her ashes in all of the places she wanted them; save Winter Island. I'll do that with the remainder soon. Brandon and I made up our own prayers and rituals along the way (literally up and down the north shore). We actually felt like we were having fun, like my mother was getting a big kick out of the lengths we had to go to to get her ashes in the places she wanted them. We listened to her favorites, Bob Dylan, The Rat Pack, and apropos music kept coming on the radio. It was the closest I have ever felt to any sentient soul that has left this dimension. Joanne Margaret is now free. We feel her brightness and her gossamer weave lighting upon us. The list of locations consisted of all of her favorite places to think, write, and just be. First was Magnolia. Next was the pond behind the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers. We left ashes and flowers next at the Glen Magna (Endicott Estate). My grandfather owned a 40 acre farm in Danvers all along Green Street, so the picture of Brandon leaping put of the woods was for that drop. That property was private, and exactly where she wanted them wasn't exactly an easy thing to find. Then after a hike we were tossing ashes into the swift Ipswich River with more flowers grown in our garden (that we used some ashes to plant last year). Finally, Greenlawn Cemetary family plot with my grandparents. I'll be buried there. It's easier.

May everyone, everywhere be blissful.

Sunspot 25,000 miles in Diameter

Spaceweather.com reports: "Measuring 25,000 miles across, almost as wide as the planet Neptune, sunspot 898 lumbered over the sun's limb yesterday. Philippe Vercoutter of Ieper, Belgium, was one of the first to photograph it: 'This is a very active sunspot,' Vercoutter marveled, and he was right. Hours later, a magnetic filament rose out of the boiling froth and bent menacingly 'like a King Cobra ready to strike at the heart of the 'spot' says Gary Palmer who captured the scene in a photograph of his own. What will happen next?"


I don't know but I'm guessing it will continue to screw up my short/AM/ and ionosphere dependent coms. Thanks olde sol!

I can't say it better...

As I Walked Out One Evening
by W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.




From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Movies Again in Salem

Temple Guardians

Gangsta Homophobia

Singer Kevin Aviance Beaten in NYC
Jun 11 6:27 AM US/Eastern Email this story

NEW YORK
A singer whose songs have topped the Billboard dance chart was attacked by a group yelling anti-gay slurs, and four people were arrested on hate-crime charges, police and his publicist said.
Kevin Aviance, 38, underwent surgery for a broken jaw after the attack Saturday, said his publicist, Len Evans. Police said the singer, whose song "Alive" hit the top of the chart in 2002, was in stable condition.
A group of six or seven men attacked Aviance early Saturday, and passers-by did not stop to help as they threw objects at him, Evans said.
Four people were arrested on charges of first-degree assault as a hate crime, police said. They were identified as Jarell Sears and Akino George, both 20; Gregory Archie, 18; and Gerard Johnson, 16.
Aviance performs in drag but was "dressed like a boy" when he was attacked, Evans said. He had planned to take part in next week's Gay Pride parade and festivities, but will now be unable to perform, the publicist said.
Other popular songs by the singer have included "Give It Up," released in 2004, and "Din Da Da," which topped the Billboard dance chart in 1997.

Teenage wannabe gangstas are the most homophobic lot. An intolerance ridden group of roving, bored, and uninspired cast-offs looking for a fight. Expect more of this kind of hate crime. Like in Nazi Germany, some people are targeted just for being themselves.

Radiohead

Radiohead's new CD is sublime. Their second night performance on the 5th in Boston was easily one of the best shows I have ever experienced. Double encore. Appoplectic crowd. Acoustic fake plastic trees. New cuts are yes hypnotic and melodic; and they mixup styles, a ballady tune here, a funky beat there, an earthy guitar here. I screamed my guts out. Only Harpooned twice. (Yum!) Pogo danced and twirled my fist. "Oy Oy!"
Everyone SCREAMED "You look so tired-unhappy, bring down the government, they don't, they don't speak for us."

This is how you start a summer!

Hate to Say I Told you so...

Marines may be charged in Iraqi civilian deaths
Email this StoryMay 26, 3:58 PM (ET)

By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marines could face criminal charges, possibly including murder, for their involvement in the deaths of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, a defense official said on Friday.
A criminal probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which handles criminal inquiries involving Marines, has not been completed and no final decisions on charges have been made, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The Los Angeles Times reported that investigators were expected to call for charges including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.
The investigation involves a November 19 incident in Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The military has said 15 civilians were killed, while a senior Republican lawmaker last week put the number at about 24.
The Los Angeles Times reported that military investigators had concluded that a dozen Marines acted improperly in an incident in which U.S. troops, after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb, wantonly killed unarmed civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the incident.
Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff declined to comment on the findings or possible charges. Ruff said he believed investigators were "toward the end" of their probe, but added: "I don't think there's anything that's imminent."
The defense official noted that criminal investigations into deaths could lead to murder charges, but was not more specific about possible charges.
The civilian deaths came after Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, of El Paso, Texas, was killed by a roadside bomb. The military initially said the blast also killed 15 civilians.
BULLET WOUNDS
A video of people killed in the incident, given to Reuters in March by Iraq's Hammurabi Organization for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the local morgue with bullet wounds in the head and chest.
The video showed houses with bullet holes in the walls, pieces of human flesh, pools of blood, and clothes and pots scattered on floors. Residents described a rampage by Marines.
The Marines involved were with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, California. The military said in April the battalion commander and two company commanders had been relieved of duty.
"The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process," said Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon.
Marine Corps leaders have briefed lawmakers in recent days on the Haditha investigation and another into the role of several U.S. troops in the death of one civilian last month west of Baghdad. Lawmakers have emphasized the seriousness of the incidents.
Last week, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and retired Marine, said of Haditha: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell."
There are 21,000 Marines serving in Iraq in one of the most violent regions of the country; more than 700 have died since the war began in 2003.
Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, flew to Iraq on Thursday for a series of meetings with Marines to emphasize the need to follow the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions and rules of engagement set by the military.

Editor's Note: I told you about this in blog entry 22 March 2006. Not pretty. My take...the military are so mentally taxed that they meet the criteria for several DSM V psychoses. Reality in Iraq is not fit for the human mind. These guys obviously lost their minds. If they had been in America, they wouldn't have done this. In fact, if they were this crazy in America, they couldn't get an FID card. There is a reason that there was a demon like Hussein running Iraq. You have to be a demon to contol fighting factions like these. Send them all home.

Fight the Powers that Be

Gang-raped and mutilated but still praising God



The cries of the women in a tiny hospital are as harrowing as they are haunting. I will never forget what I felt when I walked into a hospital room filled with the walking wounded in the town of Bukavu in Eastern Congo. "This a pain worse than death," says 28-year-old Henriette Nyota. She's one of hundreds of women who've sought treatment at Panzi Hospital for a crime that continues to be committed here on an almost daily basis -- multiple rapes by men in uniform with the intention, aid workers say, of destroying their child-bearing capabilities.The story is as complicated as the Congo itself. The men in uniform are members of Congo's recently integrated army. Some of the men are from one ethnic group and they're raping and mutilating women from a different ethnic group in ways that can only be described as barbaric and medieval. After all, this is peacetime Congo. The civil war that killed more than three million people ended nearly three years ago. This isn't supposed to be happening today. "These animals insert knives and other sharp objects into the women after raping them continuously for days at a time," says Dr. Denis Mukwege Mukengere, the lone physician working here. He's just finished a six-hour operation to repair one woman's uterus. She'd walked 300 miles to get here, exhausted, traumatized and overcome with excruciating pain. "They seem to do this to prevent another generation of warriors from being born," Dr. Mukengere tells us.He takes us on a tour of his hospital. Outside, in the corridors, new arrivals have just been dropped off by a Good Samaritan. I count a dozen of them, some with infant children, others too old to have children, all victims of unimaginable atrocities. He counsels them in his slow, methodical way and asks his small army of nurses to assist them. He's a kind of Mother Teresa, a person who has come to help the helpless. This hospital has become a haven for Congo's suffering masses, an oasis surrounded by horror and hatred.We enter one of six wards dedicated to victims of sexual violence. Dr. Mukengere introduces us to 19-year-old Helene Wamunzila. She first came here five years ago after being raped repeatedly. Dr. Mukengere was able to stitch her back together and eventually discharged her. He says she cried the day she left, pleading with him to let her stay here because she said the evildoers were waiting for her back in her village. He didn't listen then and now regrets his decision. She's returned, badly mutilated physically and permanently scarred psychologically. "I wish I'd let her stay," he says, shaking his head.Victims of these horrible atrocities lie helplessly in bed, colostomy bags hanging below. Hanging over their heads is the fear that not only might they not be able to have children, but that they may have contracted HIV/AIDS, an almost guaranteed death sentence in this part of the world. "Four out of 10 end up being HIV positive," Dr. Mukengere tells us. "It's almost as though God is punishing these people in the worst possible way."Rose Mujikandi, 24, tells us 14 men broke into her parents' house two months ago. She says they killed her father and mother, two brothers and infant sister, but not before they had their way with her. "It's the last thing my father and mother saw before they were killed. Can you imagine living the rest of my life knowing this is the image they went to heaven with?" she asks, tears streaming down her face. "But I have faith in God. What happened to me happened for a reason," she concludes.In an open-air recreation area, more women, hundreds of them, talk quietly among themselves. They see Dr. Mukengere and one of them breaks into song. The others follow, but some are too traumatized to think of singing. The song is as haunting as it is defiant. I ask the doctor what it means. "They're telling the men that they will never be broken, that their spirits will never be broken," he says. The song ends and I turn to one of the women. She's using a cane to walk because of the damage she's received from days of multiple rapes and mutilation. She gives me her name only as Tintsi and says she's 21 years old. She was brought here by her relatives on a stretcher for a short distance, she says, only 25 miles. She tells me she was gang-raped by 15 men for eight days and eight nights. She just recently began walking again and the cane helps her get around."They can destroy my womanhood," she says, "but they can never destroy my spirit." I ask her where she gets her strength and I almost know what she will say before the words leave her mouth. "God," she whispers. Then, as if for emphasis, she cries aloud, "Only God can save the women of Congo." The women around her applaud. Some shake their heads in agreement. Others simply stare straight ahead.I turn to Dr. Mukengere and ask him why everyone here refers to God after being the victims of such atrocities. "God is the only thing they can hold on to that no one can take away from them. They've lost their dignity. They've lost their womanhood. They have nothing left," he says. "But if you ask me, God forgot about Congo a long time ago." I wonder if he believes this. If he did, would he be here doing what he's been doing every day for the past three years?I turn to leave this place and can't help feeling sick to my stomach. Every time I feel things are getting better on this continent that I grew up in, this land I proudly call my home, this place that has so much to offer, I'm confronted with the stark reality that all is not well in the place many people proudly call "Mother Africa." We need to do more. We need to take care of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters and our grandmothers. Most of all we need to make life better for the generations that are yet to come.We'll have to start somewhere, and the Congo it seems, is as good a place as any.
Posted By Jeff Koinange, CNN Africa Correspondent: 12:35 PM ET

Editor's Note: Sorry if the word "Rape" just makes your eyes roll back in your head. Social control is all about reproductive plumbing. Listen up. This is just one type of atrocity. This has nothing to do with sex. It is about ownership, destruction, and power. Women know that their existence/reality can be reduced to just that of a slit that can be tortured at any given time. The word means that. If you are a man, think about dropping the soap at Sing Sing. Now you understand. Except, it happens to women constantly. Then Congo doesn't even scratch the surface of what homosapien sapien is capable of. Consider yourself informed.

NSA, CIA, FBI, NCS, MI5, MI6 What's the Dif'?

Spy Agency Watching Americans From Space

WASHINGTON (AP) - A little-known spy agency that analyzes imagery taken from the skies has been spending significantly more time watching U.S. soil.
In an era when other intelligence agencies try to hide those operations, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, is proud of that domestic mission.
He said the work the agency did after hurricanes Rita and Katrina was the best he'd seen an intelligence agency do in his 42 years in the spy business.
"This was kind of a direct payback to the taxpayers for the investment made in this agency over the years, even though in its original design it was intended for foreign intelligence purposes," Clapper said in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press.

(AP) Reitired Air Force Gen. James R. Clapper, outgoing head of the National Geospatial Intelligence...Full ImageGeospatial intelligence is the science of combining imagery, such as satellite pictures, to physically depict features or activities happening anywhere on the planet. A part of the Defense Department, the NGA usually operates unnoticed to provide information on nuclear sites, terror camps, troop movements or natural disasters.

Editor's Note: You may not have noticed a few months ago but it was announced by your friendly news whore (choose any one of those pasty creeps) that the U.S. had formed a new intellegence agency called the "NCS" or the National Clandestine Service. It is so damned secret that the guy who runs it is referred to as just "Jose". I'm not kidding, look it up.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101405J.shtml
When it was on NBC, they had a picture of like a silhouette of a guy in the upper right hand corner of the shot, and the name "Jose" under it. I nearly spit out my chocolate milk with just absurd laughter.
The script went something like, "The newly formed National Clandestine Service's leader has been appointed, and in order to protect their identity, we will refer to him only as "Jose". Another ingenious Porter Goss idea. He came up with that one between 100,00o dollar poker hands with the rest of that fetid cabinet.

Oh yeah, remember "What's the frequency Kenneth?" and how some dude supposedly accosted Dan Rather, grabbing his lapels while screaming it in his face? It makes TOTAL sense if you consider Conet... http://leabensonplace.blogspot.com/2006_02_02_leabensonplace_archive.html
Got you thinking? Maybe Dan Rather was mistaken for a contact. The frequency the dude needed could have been a shortwave frequency so he could get his orders...just a theory...no pressure.

Tony Snow Begins to Spin Doctor

President Bush walks past gas pumps to speak with motorists as he makes an unscheduled stop at ...
Congress Struggles to Act on Gas Prices
APRIL 27, 2006
House Republicans on Thursday refused to support billions of dollars in new taxes on oil companies as lawmakers in both parties looked for ways to soothe election-year rage over high gasoline prices. Details

Editor's Note:

Crony "Press Secretary" Snowjob is obviously trying to make us all think that Bush is a "real caring dude" as he says after three fingers of Jim Beam. So he's decided to put out some pretty video of King George pumping gas and "caring about the people" and gas prices. Great job Tony, that is a Michael Deaver move from the Reagan years. Right out of the old textbook. Keep it up, make all good propagandists proud. You can do it.

One question though: What are you going to do when George doesn't tell you everything? That bunch is a tight circle. Good luck, but with poll numbers like these, you would have to be Courtney Love as Press Secretary to get any lower than "W" is now. The only way to go is up Crony Snowjob...can't wait to see your next set of pretty B-Roll with audio no one listens to. Genius!

Falun Gong's Rosa Parks

What is Falun Gong?
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that consists of gentle exercises and postures, combined with a meditation component. Three values- Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance- form the core of Falun Gong’s philosophy. Many liken its technique to tai chi or yoga. The discipline was made public in May of 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi. Today, Falun Gong is practiced in over 50 countries. For more information about the practice, visit http://falundafa.org/
Why is it being persecuted?
When Chinese leader Jiang Zemin banned Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, up to 100 million people in China were suddenly cast into the role of criminals. There are many theories regarding the reasons behind this incomprehensible act. Superficially, it looked like the entire Chinese government had decided to eliminate the practice. Emerging evidence suggests, however, that it was Jiang alone who was responsible, fearing the growing numbers of practitioners and jealous of the practice’s popularity, among other reasons. Unable to crush the millions who had experienced improved health and positive life changes from Falun Gong, Jiang intensified the regime’s propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against Falun Gong while imprisoning, torturing, and even murdering those who practice it. Background of the persecution
Who has been victimized?
As of July 2003, the details of 746 deaths have been verified since the persecution of Falun Gong in China began in 1999. Government officials inside China, however, report that the actual death toll is well over 1,600, while expert sources estimate that figure to be much higher. Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced labor camps, prisons and mental hospitals, typically without trial. We receive frequent reports of torture. Common torture methods known to us include: force-feeding, beatings, electrocution, and rape.
Our most urgent case right now is Charles Li, an American who has been held in a Chinese prison since January 2003. After a show trial, Charles was sentenced to 3 years in jail, where he is reportedly being tortured and subjected to anti-Falun Gong propaganda. FoFG is active in efforts to rescue Charles Li. overview and appeal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A heckler from the Falun Gong spiritual movement who disrupted a White House appearance by Chinese President Hu Jintao was charged in federal court on Friday with harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington said the misdemeanor charge carries a penalty of up to six months in jail.
The woman, who entered the White House grounds as a reporter, interrupted a formal arrival ceremony between Hu and President George W. Bush on Thursday and shouted: "President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong."
The embarrassing episode marred the South Lawn event and created a diplomatic stir. Bush personally apologized to Hu for the incident.
U.S. officials identified the woman as Wang Wenyi, 47, a reporter with The Epoch Times, an English-language publication strongly supportive of the meditation movement that is banned in China.
Spokesman Channing Phillips said she was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service and that the U.S. Attorney's office decided to proceed by filing the federal charge in court.
The law at issue bars harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official in the performance of their official duties.
When she was arrested, the heckler was charged with disorderly conduct. The spokesman said that charge, under local law, could be brought later.

Editor's Note: Since when has it been illegal to heckel those in power. Wow, welcome to AmeriKa! Kiss the Bill of Rights that Samuel Adams worked to secure goodbye. That journalist, Wang Wenyi, is my new hero.
Wake up-The Chinese government will make sure that you and your children and your grandchildren will be wiping the asses of the Sino-Riche while they buy up all of our bonds, mortages, etc. They will own the real estate that you planned to retire in. Remember the South Park where everyone became Chinese; get use to it.

Not Today?!

So last summer we all remember when Tom "I am a 50,000 year-old Alien in a Scientologist's body" Cruise gave Brooke Shields a full press conference/release lecture on not taking psychopharmaceuticals for post-partum depression. This is a serious issue with me. In my field, I've seen these drugs work miracles. I have a problem with people who patently dismiss modern chemistry and alchemy as though they are all poisons. Well anyway, guess what, both Cruise and Shields had daughters ON MY GODDAMNED BIRTHDAY! That is all we need, more uppity Aries queen-bees who want to rule the world.

Non-Professional Blog

Blogs 'essential' to a good career
Boston Globe
Blogging is good for your career. A well-executed blog sets you apart as an expert in your field.
April 16, 2006
''It's the new public relations and it's the new home page. Instead of a static home page, you have your blog," he said. It's a way to let people know what you are thinking about the field that interests you.
Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them. Blogging gives you a way to control what employers see, because Google's system works in such a way that blogs that are heavily networked with others come up high in Google searches.
And coming up high is good: ''People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible," says Catherine Kaputa, branding consultant and author of ''Blogging for Business Success."

Editor's Note: This is quite obvious but, this is clearly a non-professional blog. I'll let you know when I'm trying to sell you. Thanks.

Silence Him!

From Contact Music.com
CRUISE ATTACKS PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS AGAIN


TOM CRUISE is attacking those who prescribe psychiatric drugs again in the May (06) issue of men's style magazine GQ. The actor, who embarked on an anti-drug tirade in TV interviews last summer (05) on behalf of his Scientology beliefs, has launched a fresh attack on psychiatry, calling for prescription pill poppers to think carefully about the harms they're doing to their bodies. He tells the magazine, "I've always found the 'if it makes me feel better, it's OK' rationale a little suspect. "I think it's appalling that people have to live a life of drug addiction when I have personally helped people get off drugs." In the interview, the actor claims he can get someone off heroin in three days through Scientology's detox programmes.

Editor's Note:
If he is some scary ass genius why doesn't he marry that Katie before she pops? You know the baby is Michael Jackson's.

So Scientology is the answer, huh. You mushhead! What a dope! Some people will pay any amount of money to get God to stroke their egos.

Tom, some people may need to pop a few pills to avoid suicide. What would you know about that? Your wonderbread ass has been golden since you smirked your way through "Risky Business". What adversity have you had to overcome? What do you know about depression? What chronic pain have you endured? You cult cash cow!
Tom, you genius, YOU ARE ADDICTED TO SCIENTOLOGY!

L. Ron Hubbard figured that he could make money from rich idiots and sycophants around the time that he realized that he was no Ray Bradbury. Gotta make a buck somehow.

The Inevitable Question...

"You are so great with kids! Why don't you have any?"

This is for the record, and stop asking.

1. Looks like work to me.

2. Never have, nor do I want, to "experience" pregnancy.

3. As much as women try to deny it, stretching skin to the size of basketballs, C-section scars, getting your genitals sliced open as easy as chicken, sweat-glands "engorged" under the chin, and not being able to pee straight HAS GOT to put a damper on the ole' drive. Not to mention the sexy "child raising" part, nevermind the pre/post natal crap.

4. Just because I'm awesome, it doesn't mean I would make a good mother.

5. Unless it is mandatory, I don't generally bother with the task. I REALLY have to be motivated. I truly have never felt the desire to breed.

6. No teenager will ever borrow my car/truck/boat/vacation house and all of the other stuff that I can afford because I won't have a teenager.

7. I can afford a higher-quality convalescent home when I need one.

8. Sleep is important to me, I have a very vivid and rich dream life.

9. I don't like having to tell other people what to do. Figure it out yourself. I did.

10. I raised myself; I've already raised a child.

11. I don't need to adopt. I can make one for free, I just don't WANT to.

12. This is what Pro-Choice is all about. I can act like a selfish, spoiled teenager for the rest of my life and no one can do anything about it! YIPEEEEEEEE!

13. My dogs/cats would be jealous.

14. There is nothing that goddamned special about my sorry-ass genes.

MCAS=McSchool

Disclaimer:
This is my personal, and not my professional opinion. Lather, Repeat. Do not taunt happy fun ball. May require assembly. Send no cash. No brokers please. Not responsible for any neurological events while reading this blog. 50% chance of precipitation. Serving suggestion. Objects in this blog may be closer than they appear. May cause redness. Do not duplicate.

The MCAS and its requisite utilitarian mechanisation of content delivery to facilitate "success" creates McStudents, who are graduated from McSchools, who read McBooks, ask McQuestions, tell McLies, and buy McMansions (if they McLie enough).
Your child's education is being hamburgled.
Unless you like McMediocrity.

Yankee, GO HOME!

"My friend, whether there's a civil war or not, we don't want you to intervene."Muqtada Al-Sadr - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric and militia leader, in response to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comment that the U.S. would let Iraqi forces deal with any civil war.

Editors' Note: Okay, that's it. I've seen, heard, and had to swallow too much. Time to pack up our forces and go home. While we are at it, let's leave Afghanistan too. Clearly they don't need CHRISTIANS bothering them in their country, considering they are about to execute an Afghani that has decided to follow Christ. There's freedom for you. There was no WMD in Iraq (because the stuff we sold them is probably in Syria). I'm not interested in occupying nations so we can control their oil. I'm sure the Carlyle Group feels differently.
I screamed the following chant in front of G. H. W. Bush's Boston Headquarters with several other like-minded activists during the 1992 campaign. Back then we were screaming about Haiti, but the chant still fits today, " NOT A PENNY, NOT A DIME; NO MORE CASH FOR BUSH WAR CRIMES!"
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Oh yeah, check out http://thecosmoskeeper.blogspot.com

This was published 24 hours before the announcement of Putin's latest war games.

Just Another Floating Apocalypse

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/3/15/1
Geomagnetic flip may not be random after all
21 March 2006
One of the most fascinating natural phenomena on Earth is the flipping of its magnetic field, which has occurred hundreds of times in the last 160 million years. When the magnetic field flips, the North Pole becomes the South Pole and vice versa. The last time this happened was some 780,000 years ago, so we could be heading for another reversal soon. Now, physicists in Italy have found that the frequency of these polarity reversals is not random as previously thought but occurs in clusters, revealing some kind of "memory" of previous events (physics/0603086).
Although a full geomagnetic polarity reversal can take thousands of years to complete, the implications could be enormous. As well as affecting the migration trajectories of birds and other animals, the disruption to the Earth's magnetic field could expose the Earth to hazardous cosmic rays -- a scenario that some researchers have linked to mass extinction events like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago. Geoscientists believe that our planet's internal magnetic dynamo is responsible for pole reversals, but the actual mechanism is not well understood.
Previous analyses assumed that the number of times the poles have reversed over last 160 million years follows a Poisson distribution, implying that the events are random. The Poisson distribution tells you the probability of a number of events occurring in a fixed time if the events are independent and the average rate is known. A good example of the Poisson distribution in physics is the likelihood of unstable radioactive nuclei decaying in a certain period.
Now, a team of physicists led by Vincenzo Carbone of the University of Calabria have discovered that the sequence of polarity reversals can be well described by a Lévy distribution instead. In contrast to Poisson statistics, the Lévy distribution describes stochastic processes that are characterised by the presence of "memory" effects -- or long-range correlations between the events in time. Lévy distributions are widely used to study many critical phenomena, such as earthquakes, and also when analysing financial data. The researchers obtained their results by careful statistical analysis of different sets of paleomagnetic data containing estimates of when the Earth's poles reversed.
"The result means that polarity reversals are not random events that are independent of each other," explains team member Fabio Lepreti. "Instead, there is some degree of memory in the magnetic dynamo processes giving rise to the reversals," he says. "We hope that our work will serve as a useful reference point for models that aim to describe the phenomenon of pole reversal." The Italy team now plans to build new dynamic models to describe the field reversal sequences in a simple way, so that the physical mechanisms that trigger pole reversals can be more easily explained.
About the author
Belle Dumé is science writer at PhysicsWeb


Editor's Note: Just another thing that we can't do anything about. So let's review recent blog news clips...the sun is about to flare our faces off, the pole shift may be happening while the Earth's magnetic field is weak during the transition, and we are more susceptable to flares and their damage during this time. Don't forget that the here-to-fore BIRD FLU virus has not mutated to humans, but it is a matter of time. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, the normal, natural "Jet Stream" has disappeared from weather reports, and we just have amorphous air masses that spin and push against each other. MAI LAI repeats have been reported in Iraq; and I repeat, a quagmire is not pretty.
Beaucoup Dinky Dau. The front-line is everywhere.
Again I ask...
If I can't do anything about it, why are you reporting this to me?
Is the press conspiring with PhARMA to sell more anti-depressants?

How Convenient

http://www.earthfiles.com/
March 21, 2006 - New Research Reveals One WayH5N1 Bird Flu Could Adapt to Humans."It’s still unknown what the H5N1 virus could or will do, but we suggest the HA receptor switch is a possible route that the H5N1 virus could get a foothold in the human population."
- Ian Wilson, Molecular Biologist, Scripps Research Institute


Editors Note:
So, is this a done deal? Did you guys figure all of this out recently or is the "bird flu" a Nazi holdover? Sorry, I don't want to get too belligerent; bad girl! I guess we just get to sit back and watch another semi-apocalypse float by. THIS is how it will spread to humans? Spare me the details. If you are going to wipe out 20-40 percent of the population, just do it. Spare me the P.R. campaign too. Goddamn, we've got spin doctors for BIRD FLU!

Wag the Dog

"This won't hurt a bit!"

US launches air assault in Iraq 4:37pm ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Thursday it launched its biggest air offensive in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to root out insurgents near a town where recent violence raised fears of civil war.

Can you say "Quagmire?" So the administration's poll ratings are lower than they have ever been. Iraq is on the brink of civil war; the Shiites are planning Tet and President Shrub decides that what we need is some AIR POWER? That will fix everything! It's Operation Rump Swabber.
Count Yorga says: "This certainly isn't D-Day, is it?"

Origami Yoda

Don't sign me up for this!

109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 4752
To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 14, 2006
Mr. RANGEL introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services
A BILL
To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Universal National Service Act of 2006'.
(b) Table of Contents- The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. National service obligation.
Sec. 3. Two-year period of national service.
Sec. 4. Implementation by the President.
Sec. 5. Induction.
Sec. 6. Deferments and postponements.
Sec. 7. Induction exemptions.
Sec. 8. Conscientious objection.
Sec. 9. Discharge following national service.
Sec. 10. Registration of females under the Military Selective Service Act.
Sec. 11. Relation of Act to registration and induction authority of military selective service Act.
Sec. 12. Definitions.
SEC. 2. NATIONAL SERVICE OBLIGATION.
(a) Obligation for Service- It is the obligation of every citizen of the United States, and every other person residing in the United States, who is between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of national service as prescribed in this Act unless exempted under the provisions of this Act.
(b) Form of National Service- National service under this Act shall be performed either--
(1) as a member of an active or reserve component of the uniformed services; or
(2) in a civilian capacity that, as determined by the President, promotes the national defense, including national or community service and homeland security.
(c) Induction Requirements- The President shall provide for the induction of persons covered by subsection (a) to perform national service under this Act.
(d) Selection for Military Service- Based upon the needs of the uniformed services, the President shall--
(1) determine the number of persons covered by subsection (a) whose service is to be performed as a member of an active or reserve component of the uniformed services; and
(2) select the individuals among those persons who are to be inducted for military service under this Act.
(e) Civilian Service- Persons covered by subsection (a) who are not selected for military service under subsection (d) shall perform their national service obligation under this Act in a civilian capacity pursuant to subsection (b)(2).
SEC. 3. TWO-YEAR PERIOD OF NATIONAL SERVICE.
(a) General Rule- Except as otherwise provided in this section, the period of national service performed by a person under this Act shall be two years.
(b) Grounds for Extension- At the discretion of the President, the period of military service for a member of the uniformed services under this Act may be extended--
(1) with the consent of the member, for the purpose of furnishing hospitalization, medical, or surgical care for injury or illness incurred in line of duty; or
(2) for the purpose of requiring the member to compensate for any time lost to training for any cause.
(c) Early Termination- The period of national service for a person under this Act shall be terminated before the end of such period under the following circumstances:
(1) The voluntary enlistment and active service of the person in an active or reserve component of the uniformed services for a period of at least two years, in which case the period of basic military training and education actually served by the person shall be counted toward the term of enlistment.
(2) The admission and service of the person as a cadet or midshipman at the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the United States Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, or the United States Merchant Marine Academy.
(3) The enrollment and service of the person in an officer candidate program, if the person has signed an agreement to accept a Reserve commission in the appropriate service with an obligation to serve on active duty if such a commission is offered upon completion of the program.
(4) Such other grounds as the President may establish.
SEC. 4. IMPLEMENTATION BY THE PRESIDENT.
(a) In General- The President shall prescribe such regulations as are necessary to carry out this Act.
(b) Matter to Be Covered by Regulations- Such regulations shall include specification of the following:
(1) The types of civilian service that may be performed for a person's national service obligation under this Act.
(2) Standards for satisfactory performance of civilian service and of penalties for failure to perform civilian service satisfactorily.
(3) The manner in which persons shall be selected for induction under this Act, including the manner in which those selected will be notified of such selection.
(4) All other administrative matters in connection with the induction of persons under this Act and the registration, examination, and classification of such persons.
(5) A means to determine questions or claims with respect to inclusion for, or exemption or deferment from induction under this Act, including questions of conscientious objection.
(6) Standards for compensation and benefits for persons performing their national service obligation under this Act through civilian service.
(7) Such other matters as the President determines necessary to carry out this Act.
(c) Use of Prior Act- To the extent determined appropriate by the President, the President may use for purposes of this Act the procedures provided in the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 451 et seq.), including procedures for registration, selection, and induction.
SEC. 5. INDUCTION.
(a) In General- Every person subject to induction for national service under this Act, except those whose training is deferred or postponed in accordance with this Act, shall be called and inducted by the President for such service at the time and place specified by the President.
(b) Age Limits- A person may be inducted under this Act only if the person has attained the age of 18 and has not attained the age of 42.
(c) Voluntary Induction- A person subject to induction under this Act may volunteer for induction at a time other than the time at which the person is otherwise called for induction.
(d) Examination; Classification- Every person subject to induction under this Act shall, before induction, be physically and mentally examined and shall be classified as to fitness to perform national service. The President may apply different classification standards for fitness for military service and fitness for civilian service.
SEC. 6. DEFERMENTS AND POSTPONEMENTS.
(a) High School Students- A person who is pursuing a standard course of study, on a full-time basis, in a secondary school or similar institution of learning shall be entitled to have induction under this Act postponed until the person--
(1) obtains a high school diploma;
(2) ceases to pursue satisfactorily such course of study; or
(3) attains the age of 20.
(b) Hardship and Disability- Deferments from national service under this Act may be made for--
(1) extreme hardship; or
(2) physical or mental disability.
(c) Training Capacity- The President may postpone or suspend the induction of persons for military service under this Act as necessary to limit the number of persons receiving basic military training and education to the maximum number that can be adequately trained.
(d) Termination- No deferment or postponement of induction under this Act shall continue after the cause of such deferment or postponement ceases.
SEC. 7. INDUCTION EXEMPTIONS.
(a) Qualifications- No person may be inducted for military service under this Act unless the person is acceptable to the Secretary concerned for training and meets the same health and physical qualifications applicable under section 505 of title 10, United States Code, to persons seeking original enlistment in a regular component of the Armed Forces.
(b) Other Military Service- No person shall be liable for induction under this Act who--
(1) is serving, or has served honorably for at least six months, in any component of the uniformed services on active duty; or
(2) is or becomes a cadet or midshipman at the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the United States Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, a midshipman of a Navy accredited State maritime academy, a member of the Senior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or the naval aviation college program, so long as that person satisfactorily continues in and completes at least two years training therein.
SEC. 8. CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION.
(a) Claims as Conscientious Objector- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require a person to be subject to combatant training and service in the uniformed services, if that person, by reason of sincerely held moral, ethical, or religious beliefs, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.
(b) Alternative Noncombatant or Civilian Service- A person who claims exemption from combatant training and service under subsection (a) and whose claim is sustained by the local board shall--
(1) be assigned to noncombatant service (as defined by the President), if the person is inducted into the uniformed services; or
(2) be ordered by the local board, if found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in such noncombatant service, to perform national civilian service for the period specified in section 3(a) and subject to such regulations as the President may prescribe.
SEC. 9. DISCHARGE FOLLOWING NATIONAL SERVICE.
(a) Discharge- Upon completion or termination of the obligation to perform national service under this Act, a person shall be discharged from the uniformed services or from civilian service, as the case may be, and shall not be subject to any further service under this Act.
(b) Coordination With Other Authorities- Nothing in this section shall limit or prohibit the call to active service in the uniformed services of any person who is a member of a regular or reserve component of the uniformed services.
SEC. 10. REGISTRATION OF FEMALES UNDER THE MILITARY SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT.
(a) Registration Required- Section 3(a) of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. 453(a)) is amended--
(1) by striking `male' both places it appears;
(2) by inserting `or herself' after `himself'; and
(3) by striking `he' and inserting `the person'.
(b) Conforming Amendment- Section 16(a) of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 466(a)) is amended by striking `men' and inserting `persons'.
SEC. 11. RELATION OF ACT TO REGISTRATION AND INDUCTION AUTHORITY OF MILITARY SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT.
(a) Registration- Section 4 of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 454) is amended by inserting after subsection (g) the following new subsection:
`(h) This section does not apply with respect to the induction of persons into the Armed Forces pursuant to the Universal National Service Act of 2006.'.
(b) Induction- Section 17(c) of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 467(c)) is amended by striking `now or hereafter' and all that follows through the period at the end and inserting `inducted pursuant to the Universal National Service Act of 2006.'.
SEC. 12. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) The term `military service' means service performed as a member of an active or reserve component of the uniformed services.
(2) The term `Secretary concerned' means the Secretary of Defense with respect to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard, the Secretary of Commerce, with respect to matters concerning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, with respect to matters concerning the Public Health Service.
(3) The term `United States', when used in a geographical sense, means the several States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.
(4) The term `uniformed services' means the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and commissioned corps of the Public Health Service.


Editor's Note:
This is no joke. Don't think your service will be some cushy "walk-around-the-block-with-a-flashlight" civil defense gig. READ THE BILL AGAIN. Rachel use to have a bumper sticker that said "If you aren't outraged, you're not paying attention." So, is your congressman onboard?
Looks like we all get the smelly end of the plunger on this one. Who needs a draft when you can just do what Isreal does...require two years from everyone. Let me go on record here. As a person who is part Native American, my homeland hasn't been secure for quite some time. I'm not giving this regime two minutes of my life, nevermind TWO YEARS!

Live free or die.

Here comes the sun...it's NOT alright?!

Sun's next 11-year cycle could be 50 pct strongerMon Mar 6, 2006 7:22 PM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sun-spawned cosmic storms that can play havoc with earthly power grids and orbiting satellites could be 50 percent stronger in the next 11-year solar cycle than in the last one, scientists said on Monday.
Using a new model that takes into account what happens under the sun's surface and data about previous solar cycles, astronomers offered a long-range forecast for solar activity that could start as soon as this year or as late as 2008.
They offered no specific predictions of solar storms, but they hope to formulate early warnings that will give power companies, satellite operators and others on and around Earth a few days to prepare.
"This prediction of an active solar cycle suggests we're potentially looking at more communications disruptions, more satellite failures, possible disruptions of electrical grids and blackouts, more dangerous conditions for astronauts," said Richard Behnke of the Upper Atmosphere Research Section at the National Science Foundation.
"Predicting and understanding space weather will soon be even more vital than ever before," Behnke said at a telephone news briefing.
The prediction, roughly analogous to the early prediction of a severe hurricane season on Earth, involves the number of sunspots on the solar surface, phenomena that have been monitored for more than a century.
TWISTED MAGNETIC FIELDS
Every 11 years or so, the sun goes through an active period, with lots of sunspots. This is important, since solar storms -- linked to twisted magnetic fields that can hurl out energetic particles -- tend to occur near sunspots.
The sun is in a relatively quiet period now, but is expected to get more active soon, scientists said. However, there is disagreement as to whether the active period will start within months -- late 2006 or early 2007 -- or years, with the first signs in late 2007 or early 2008.
Whenever it begins, the new forecasting method shows sunspot activity is likely to be 30 percent to 50 percent stronger than the last active period. The peak of the last cycle was in 2001, the researchers said, but the period of activity can span much of a decade.
The strongest solar cycle in recent memory occurred in the late 1950s, when there were few satellites aloft, no astronauts in orbit and less reliance on electrical power grids than there is now.
If a similarly active period occurred now, the impact would be hard to predict, according to Joseph Kunches of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Colorado.
"It's pretty uncertain what would happen, which makes this work more relevant," Kunches said.
"What we have here is a prediction that the cycle is going to be very active, and what we need and what we're of course working on is to be able to predict individual storms with a couple days or hours in advance so the grids can take the action," Behnke said.


Editor's note:
Oh really. Please reference my previous posts (9/9/05-9/13/05) regarding X-class Solar Flares.
This isn't news. It is just annoying. There is nothing we can do.
Once again, IT JUST FIGURES that the sun would go supernova IN MY LIFETIME.

Writer's Block

This time it is particularly difficult. I need to write only a two to three page paper based upon an observation of a reading lesson. I have completed the observation. I know I am going to relate this lesson to one of Vygotsky's theories. I am familiar with both MLA and APA style. I can switch easily from one to the other. I just need to do it. Anxiety doesn't begin to describe this. I can manage to find a million things to do, including writing this blog, before I just sit and write two pages, which I inevitably churn out easily and effusively once I begin. I must be a spectrum child. This is where OCD is really difficult. It can be a friend professionally, especially when dealing with vast amounts of data, hidden on various drives, around a dusty loft on Salem Harbour. My marketing days at Millhouse McCabe were surely enhanced by my endless, helpless, limbic checking of the details. ...And here I sit having still not begun my paper.
(Why do I torture myself with these courses?)
I still don't know how I feel about working in the public sector. There is still the ominous looming of more budget cuts. In a way I miss promotional marketing and sales. Sometimes I even miss strolling into work at 9 a.m. even if it meant we were working late until eight to crank out a campaign.
However, promoting coffee, chocolate, shoes, or whateva actually was not a "fun" job. It became a tedious rollercoaster.
What I do now is fun.

Let me get this right, Georgie, haaaaaaaaaah.

You want to give the full manifests, intelligence, and operations regarding MILITARY PORT shipments to a nation that recognizes the TALIBAN (the actual terrorists, not Iraq), votes against us 2/3rds of the time in the U.N. and harbored 2 of the actual hijackers of 911.

MEATHEAD!

Birdman from Wyoming

DICK--
Here's a clue.
Lay off the Basil Hayden's if you are going birding.
And your buddy, he's not a bird.

COCKY WEST: 'I SHOULD BE IN THE BIBLE'

Hey Kanye.
I serve Jesus. I know Jesus. Jesus is a friend of mine. Rapper, you're no Jesus. You don't even rate as high as Tamar's rapist. You should get AT LEAST as much static for your "Bible" line as John Lennon got for his Jesus gaffe.
Oh yeah, and Schroeder wants his shirt back.

Can you say MK-Ultra?

This is the coolest thing that I have been into lately. Obsessed may be a better word. It's called Conet. This explains it all. How many oblivious secret agents are just going through their banal lives as claims adjusters or middle managers, having been programmed to act when they do their favorite (also programmed) hobby--short wave radio. They hear the "Swedish Rhapsody" and go off to kill Claus at Mount Tremblant. They may remember nothing. Wow, I better lay off the Starbucks...
The Conet Project - Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations
Listen: http://ia300124.us.archive.org/3/items/ird059/tcp_d1_01_the_swedish_rhapsody_irdial.mp3

http://ia300124.us.archive.org/3/items/ird059/tcp_d1_19_czech_lady_irdial.mp3
NEW RECORDING Thanks to Weatherall
http://www.lazygranch.com/sound/temp/7887cuba.wav

Read More: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/09/16/numbers/index.html
For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of Numbers Stations. Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is. These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round. The voices are of varying pitches and intonation; there is even a German station (The Swedish Rhapsody) that transmits a female child's voice! One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official end of the cold war, but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever, with many new and bizarre stations appearing since the fall of the Berlin wall. Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24 hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping without having to answer to anybody? Why does the Swedish Rhapsody Numbers Station use a small girls voice? These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.

Retro Now

Every time I walk into a kitchen that has been recently remodeled to reflect the current "granite/what-have-you-wood/stainless Bosch/ceramic tile" style; I feel like I have been transported to a strange yet convenient new mausoleum and sauna combo. I keep half expecting to see hot rocks in the sink. The granite makes me feel like I am surrounded by the dearly departed. All of the wood combined causes claustrophobia like only an A-frame could. Hey, I'm Swedish. I like clean lines too. However, you have to admit, in ten years all of these rare quarried granite slabs dove-tailed with mahogany veneers is going to look as old as avocado refrigerators and amber bullet-glass walls from the '70s look now. Remember to put some more water on those hot rocks.

Happy to be above ground, thank you.

A few observations...

This January, Frost's Fire and Ice doesn't sound quite so trite...

I possess an appropriate intellectual age, paired with the emotional age equivalent of a 16-year-old. I'll let you know when I turn 17. Don't hold your breath.

Listening to any U2 released after 1985 makes me feel dirty. The kind of dirty only pure lye can clean.

George Clooney isn't the pretty fop that I thought he was. He can direct. Odd. Pretty, AND a brain. Not possible.

The Tao is a more right-brained, artistic, holistic, poetic interpretation of the Buddhist Dharma. (Okay, "Duh, Lea!" I said it for you.)

An acquaintance asked what "Emo" was. I am still speechless. Have they been in a light opiate-induced coma?, I thought.

Chris Cornell is surely Annunaki. The voice of angel stock lives in him.

Einstein is over-rated. The speed of light is no longer a constant. In my opinion, time is speeding-up. I'll leave you with that.

Summer

Tibetan Spaniel Glenmar's "Northern Exposure" Samson Samuel Adams






Emerald City's StellaMoon



As each year goes by I become less and less able to stomach winter. I hate it. I will never get use to it, even though I have never lived anywhere else. These are some pictures from last summer...seed sowing is only five months away!

Where you and I parted ways...Trinity Site

This house is so empty. I always knew that one day I would lose my grandfather. I always knew that another day I would lose my grandmother. I also knew the day would come when I would lose my mother. I never realized it would be so soon. The three of them are like the Trinity. I pray to them now, as I have prayed to no other god; a fervent, desperate, plea to be forgiven for all I had not done. I ask for just a sign so that I can go on. Sometimes I don't even feel like myself. I don't know who I am. I realize that I was always Joanne's daughter. I have never thought of myself as anything other than this. I now know what it is like to experience depersonalization. If I were a good Buddhist, this would be a triumph. Instead it feels like a sentence. Judge Joanne has spoken. Court is adjourned.
This house feels so lifeless, like a long forgotten strombus shell, and the sound echoing through it with no purpose and no end. I stare into the corners of the rooms and try to remember as much as I can of my time with them here in this house. All of the things that we did and said. There is no one left, no one to remember but me. I will remember alone.
I still try to find the logic, knowing there is none. I still hope around the corner, I will catch a glimpse of my mother, hear her call me "Doodle Bug" or "Mior". I would give anything to see my grandmother ironing again in the back room and to smell the scent of spray starch in the can. The sound of my grandfather rustling the evening news and complaining about the budget would be a tonic this weary soul and body could ever wish for. Trinity, this can of Moxie is to you.

doublethinktalk

Hello. I'm here to help you realize that I'm here to help you.


"The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

Simone Weil, (from the essay "Human Personality")

To Live and Die in Boxford

Deadly house fire discovered the next morning

Boxford fire fighter Greg Beardsley photographs the scene of a fatal fire behind Ingaldsby Farm, Washington Street in Boxford.
By Ben Hellman
Staff writer
BOXFORD A house burned to the ground some time Tuesday night killing its elderly tenant and was not discovered until 9 yesterday morning.

Firefighters found the smoldering remnants of 25B Washington St., a historic, three-bedroom cottage that sits on part of the popular West Boxford Ingaldsby Farm, after the farm's manager arrived at work yesterday, said Boxford fire Chief Peter Perkins.

During their investigation later in the day, firefighters found the body of 86-year-old Russell Adams, who had lived in the cottage for more than 40 years.

The cottage sat about 20 feet behind the stately main farmhouse, which is about 100 yards from Washington Street, a heavily traveled thoroughfare connecting Groveland and North Andover. The property is owned by Gordon and Susan Price. Gordon Price identified the victim, his tenant, as Adams, though police and fire officials declined to release his name.

Perkins said the house's distance from the road, surrounding hills and a bright moon that could have obscured the light from the flames may have kept the fire from being discovered. Still, he called the lack of detection "highly unusual."

"I have been on the department for 45 years and have not experienced anything of this magnitude of a house, a residence, burning down and no one reporting it," Perkins said.

Perkins said a resident yesterday told him of smelling smoke sometime around 11 p.m. but did not report it at that time. Perkins did not identify the resident.

Police refused to comment on the fire last night. Police also refused to release the department's log a public record that would show which patrolmen were on duty when the fire happened to a reporter.

Perkins said firefighters were alerted to the fire at 8:55 a.m. when Tom Price, the owners' son and the operator of the farm, discovered the burned-out shell of the house. The house burned itself out, and firefighters only had to wet down the remnants to aid in the search, Perkins said.

"At that time it was completely burned and smoldering ashes," Perkins said.

The search and investigation, which involved Boxford firefighters, investigators from the state's fire marshal's office and state police, lasted until 4 p.m., Perkins said. A Boxford firefighter stood guard on scene overnight last night.

The fire's cause is not yet known, but foul play is not suspected, according to Perkins and a spokeswoman for the state fire marshal's office.

All that remained of the cottage early this morning was two chimneys, a pile of still-smoldering rubble and a few burning embers. The firefighter posted at the scene last night was shocked no one saw the blaze, which must have completely engulfed the home sometime late Tuesday or early yesterday.

"It's just amazing that nobody saw this place burning," said Boxford firefighter David Carnevale.

Boxford is a town of about 25 square miles, with a population of about 8,700. The town's zoning laws require a property owner to have two acres to build a house, and the area of West Boxford where the farm is located is largely unsettled.

Boxford has three full-time firefighters, including its chief, and 39 professional on-call firefighters, Perkins said. The only way the department would know of a fire burning would be a call from an alarm system, a neighbor or a passer-by, he said.

Carnevale said he was posted at the farm until investigators from the state's fire marshal's office return to resume the investigation at about 8:30 a.m. this morning.

Price said Adams has a son in Chelmsford, daughters in Haverhill and Groveland and a wife who suffers from Alzheimer's disease in a local nursing home.

Ingaldsby Farm is a fruit and vegetable farm that includes a popular farm stand.

The house that burned, an antique three-bedroom cottage built in 1720, was one of the oldest houses in Boxford and was the birthplace of Thomas Knowlton, a colonel who fought under George Washington, Gordon Price said. The entire property has been in his family since 1911, he said.

"Everything was tinder-dry, and I feel it would have burned incredibly fast," Perkins said.

Staff writers Davin Wilfred and Jason Howe contributed to this story.


Apparently six-thousand-dollar property tax bills aren't enough to get you a sensible system to ensure that your house won't burn down unnoticed. You can keep your Boxford, your Topsfield, your Mc Mansions sticking up out of the Ipswich River watershed like barnacles, your nouveau riche, your poser aristocracy, your lyme diseased hoards. What a sin.

Where the **** is the JET STREAM?!

Happy Shiny Peoples Republic of China!

Special report

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yup, gotta love the Happy New China! I suggest you read the article @ the link above...Listening Waddell?
Communism doesn't begin to describe the DSM V protocol panoply of collective psychoses that aggregate the Chinese Government. Communism is the least of their evils.
"China is a sleeping Giant, and let him sleep, for when he awakens he will shake the whole world"
Napoleon Bonaparte


The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners

· Cosmetics firm targets UK market ·
Lack of regulation puts users at risk

Ian Cobain and Adam Luck
Tuesday September 13, 2005
The Guardian


A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".
Human rights activists in China have repeatedly claimed that organs have been harvested from the corpses of executed prisoners and sold to surgeons offering transplants to fee-paying foreigners.

Dr Wang's allegations infuriated the Chinese authorities, and in a rare move officials publicly denounced him as a liar. The government said organs were transplanted from executed prisoners only if they and their family gave consent.

Although the exact number of people facing the death penalty in China is an official secret, Amnesty International believes around 3,400 were executed last year, with a further 6,000 on death row.

SOME PARENTS!?@*$!!

Over-booked and put upon parents would love to lengthen the school year/day. What slovenly desires. Children already have no childhood, with girls giving lap-dances and blow-jobs @ 13. More time in school will require triple strength Ritalin. Parents ought to forgo the SUV's and spend some time teaching their kids themselves, then maybe they will be ready for actual MCAS based academics when they get to school, and not act like spoiled brats and immature imps. BABY BOOMER PARENTS are the WORST PARENTS EVER...self absorbed, dragging kids around like accessories...Miserable role-models, babysitting kids with DVDS, violence and porn, the worst censors ever...you PARENTS not TEACHERS are reponsible for MCAS failures...the FRUIT doesn't Fall far from the tree, LAZY LAZY LAZY....the most narcissistic cohort EVER ON EARTH as parents....American Baby-Boomers...remember those smarmy "Baby-on Board" signs on cars in the late 80's early 90's...like we are supposed to YIELD to you and your progeny...rubbish...these kids are pathetic...NO ETHICS...and I'm 35, not a fuddy-duddy, just can't believe the bull that TEACHERS have to deal with from whiny lazy parents...teachers have to wipe up the mess that the materialistic Boomers can't HANDLE...face it Hippies! "Red-diaper doper babies!"

Tiananmen Square Redux

1 Comment Close this window
Jim Waddell said...
Ms. Benson,

I never said Tiananmen was a "happy party" or anything like it. In fact, I said,

"This is not to minimize the events, nor to whitewash the Chinese government of the time. Killing is killing."

You are right about the prison labor, forced abortions, and mass executions. I won't forget them. You could have additionally mentioned Mao's Great Leap Forward, which resulted in the death by starvation of 30 million.

China's communist government, like all communist governments, was brutal. But believing an incorrect version of a story does not help us understand the China of today, which contains features of the past, but also new hope for the future.

I appreciate your comments and welcome them any time.

12:00 AM


Really, Mr. Wadell...you speak of "China's Communist Government" in the past tense. The China of today that you speak of continues to employ prison labor, forced abortions, and mass executions. How does a "free market" laborer compete globally with forced labor in China? They still think you are an imperialist pig while they are selling you Tech-9's made by Norenco, or Beanie Babies to finance their war games with Russia. Enjoy doing business with them, it is an ethical thrill.

Tiananmen Square was a Happy Party!?

The following is a post from the guy listed below it...I had to reply...

Monday, September 19, 2005
The Myth of Tiananmen Square

I'm taking a break from writing about investments today. There's really not much going on. Gold continues its climb, but the media is fixated on perhaps the most over-hyped story in months: whether or not the Fed will raise rates tomorrow. In the grand scheme, it matters little, and the fuss only serves to distract people.

My thoughts are back on China, and how we might better understand the current environment by better understanding the past. And perhaps no event in China's past has been more misunderstood, misrepresented, and misreported than the events that occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989. That, at least, is the conclusion of the late Jude Wanniski, who wrote of it last April (thanks to blogger KGC for the link, posted in a comment on a blog called Dream a Little Dream).

I'll give you a little teaser, then suggest you read the entire article. It's not long.


In the years since, though, we have learned that what happened on June 4, 1989, was wildly different than the press accounts. For one thing, not a single demonstrator was killed on Tiananmen Square that day. Deng Xiao Peng wanted the square cleared after putting up with the squalor the demonstrators created on the Square, but explicitly ordered that none of the students be killed. Those who died, not thousands, but dozens, were caught in a cross-fire a mile away from the Square between Chinese workers protesting low wages and Chinese militia and police trying to keep order. A total of 300 or 400 civilians were killed in those exchanges, and at least as many militiamen and police died as well.


Wanniski also references journalist Jay Matthews, writing in 1998 in the Columbia Journalism Review. This account is also not long and recommended.

Finally, if you have sufficient interest and a lot of time, there is this article from Justin Raimondo.

This is not to minimize the events, nor to whitewash the Chinese government of the time. Killing is killing. But the story is more complex than the simple "Government slaughters democracy protesters" headlines of the times. Understanding that complexity better may help us understand China better.

These accounts run counter to nearly everything ever reported on the events at Tiananmen, yet I find them compelling. Perhaps because there are so many stories that the media or the history books get wrong, I find revisions of what is commonly accepted as truth appealing. To get to the truth of any matter, it seems to me, whether it be financial or historical, you have to be able to ignore a certain amount of what is held as the conventional wisdom. You have to be willing to think differently than the herd. Whether the herd is paying 200 times earnings for internet stocks, or misreporting current events, it helps to consider "What if the herd is wrong?". I find that they usually are. And still, we hold up democracy as the highest form of government. But that is an essay for another day.

I guess I was wrong. I did end up writing about investments.

posted by Jim Waddell @ 10:52 PM 4 Comments


MY RETORT...

Lea Benson Place said...
Go ahead and salve your conscience with chimeras of Tiananmen Square. Just don't forget about forced prison labor, forced abortions, and mass executions. Luv ya!

10:22 PM

'Nuff said.

2 More X-class Solar Flares!

We just saw another flare a few hours ago, this follows two on the 10th, and some serious protons and coronal mass ejections are headed our way. There are many theories as to what the impact is to Earth, one of the most fascinating is increased seismicity and volacism. I have been reading "Today's Space Weather" for about 6 years now and I don't ever remember a sequence of X-Class sunspot flares. There was the singular in 2003 and I think 2001. Never a sequence like this. Is the Sun cooling? Why? Why so many sunspots so far past the solar maximum (11-year cycle)? At this point I am considering many viable yet frightening answers. The image of the sun is currently not available according to the site, the message is above where the sun image usually is...is the system down? Why? Arruggghhh!

3-day Solar-Geophysical Forecast issued Sep 13 at 22:00 UTC Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to be moderate to high. Region 808 has potential for M and X-class activity.
Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to be unsettled to minor storm levels on 14 September. On 15 September, major to severe storm periods are possible due to the expected arrival of the CME associated with today's X1 flare. Conditions should subside to mostly unsettled to active levels by 16 September, with isolated minor storm periods possible.

Solar Maximum Far from Over

The Solar Maximum should have wound up by 2001-2002 ish as it runs on an 11 year cycle. The maximum is a period when cooler areas of gas on the sun called sunspots are plentiful. Occasionally these spots will produce a flare, a stream of protons called a coronal mass ejection. When it heads towards earth because a given sunspot is facing the earth (the sun rotates I think on a 3-ish day cycle) it can effect the ionosphere and therefore AM frequencies, satellite coms, pace makers, and power grids causing blackouts. Some scientists think that they may also liquefy metals within the Earth, causing seismic activity, volcanism etc. The chart below shows activity within the past few days...I don't believe we have had a cluster of X class flares (top of chart) like this for many years. The last extreme X class flare @ a seventeen level was in the fall of 2003. These three flares on 9/8 and 9/9 are almost that large. This is a significant cluster, accompanied by several M class flares. I AM FREAKED OUT! This could be a good time to see the Aurora Borealis. The protons are attracted to the poles and can create it around midnight. I'll be looking north tonight. The Auroral Activity Estimate is a 9 out of 10! If the sun is about to go super nova it just figures it would be during my lifetime.

Let Them Eat Cake

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out "Very Well" for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans
By E&P Staff Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET
NEW YORK
Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them." The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present. In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I've talked to wants to move to Houston."Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality."And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)--this is working very well for them."


Can you believe this?! She feels as though these people may be actually BENEFITING from these accommodations. There is no place like home, and I would imagine that if these people actually get one again, it will be least as nice as the ASTRODOME, right Marie Antoinette? Arrrrruuugggghhhh!
Click the title link above to help find this girl missing from New Orleans....

The Cosmos Keeper

The ghostwriter is on to something, can you say "Lord of the Flies"

When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit...

Blair urges 'battle of ideas' to defeat al Qaeda
Sat Jul 16, 2005 12:06 PM ET



By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on Saturday for a hearts and minds struggle against the "evil ideology" of al Qaeda as the death toll from last week's London subway and bus bombings rose to 55.

"We must pull this up by the roots. Within Britain, we must join up with our Muslim community to take on the extremists," Blair said in a speech in London.

"Worldwide, we should confront it everywhere it exists," he added, speaking nine days after four young British Muslims carried bombs onto underground trains and a bus and blew themselves up along with 51 other people.

Scotland Yard police said they had yet to establish beyond doubt that the bombers had intended to die in western Europe's first suicide bombing, even if alternative theories seemed unlikely.

"We've never used the phrase 'suicide bombers'. We've always been aware that among the things we need to clarify is the notion these people intended to die as well as letting off a bomb," the spokesman said.

He was responding to a report in the Daily Mirror newspaper suggesting the bombers might have been duped into believing they had time to escape after planting the devices.

Police say they are looking for a support network of planners, bomb-makers and financiers behind the four men. They expect to find clear links to al Qaeda, the militant Islamist network behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and other bombings from Indonesia to Iraq and from Africa to Spain.

PAKISTAN, EGYPTIAN LINKS Three of the bombers were young British Muslims of Pakistani origin, while the fourth was a Jamaican-born Briton.

Pakistani security forces detained two men overnight in the eastern city of Lahore on suspicion of links with one of the men, Shehzad Tanweer, bringing the total number of arrests in Pakistan to six.

"We are interrogating whether these two people had any links with Tanweer," an intelligence official told Reuters.

Tanweer had visited Faisalabad and Lahore during two trips to Pakistan over the last two years. Pakistani intelligence sources say that in 2003 he met a man later arrested for bombing a church in the capital, Islamabad.

Officials of two security agencies on Saturday questioned teachers, students and other staff of a madrassah or Islamic school in Lahore which Tanweer was thought to have visited in 2004, though its administrator denied he had done so.

In Egypt, police have arrested a British-trained biochemist, Magdy Elnashar, and are questioning him about the attacks.

But Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adli told the al-Gomhuria newspaper Elnashar was not a member of al Qaeda and that Western and Arab media had drawn hasty conclusions about the arrested man.

The 33-year-old Egyptian was a researcher at Leeds University in England, and police are carrying out extensive searches at his rented house in the city, which was home to three of the bombers.

"FANATICAL BELIEFS"

In his speech, Blair called for a battle of ideas against what he called the fanatical beliefs and perversion of Islam underlying al Qaeda's "evil ideology."

"It is not a clash of civilisations -- all civilised people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. But it is a global struggle. It is a battle of ideas and hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it," Blair said.

He said claims by militant Islamists to act in the cause of the Palestinian, Afghan or Iraqi people were belied by attacks in those countries in which innocent civilians were killed.

BRAINWASHING

Families of the bombers released statements expressing sorrow and disbelief.

"We are devastated that our son may have been brainwashed into carrying out such an atrocity, since we know him as a kind and caring member of our family," said the parents of Mohammad Sidique Khan.

"We urge people with the tiniest piece of information to come forward in order to expose these terror networks which target and groom our sons to carry out such evils."

Khan, a primary school teaching assistant, was a 30-year-old married man with a daughter. He had visited the British parliament last year and met a cabinet minister during a trip with his school.

Invest in Happy Zappers!

By Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A stopwatch-sized device that uses electrical impulses to treat chronic depression won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, Cyberonics CYBX> said on Friday.

About 18.8 million adults in the United States suffer from depression in any given year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

News of the FDA approval sent the company's shares up 8 percent in after hours trading to $48.50. Those gains were pared back to $47.50 before after hours trade was through.

The device, known as the Vagus Nerve Stimulation Therapy System (VNS), is implanted in the chest and sends impulses to the brain through a nerve in the neck. It was cleared by the FDA for long-term use in adults whose depression has not responded to other treatments.

FDA officials cautioned that the VNS device is not to be used as the first therapy but would give the sickest patients another option.

"We're really dealing with a very sick group of patients here. These are not standard depression patients," said Dr. Daniel Schultz, director of the FDA's device center.

The device would carry the strongest warning possible -- a so-called black box -- cautioning patients that the device is permanent, Schultz said in an interview. Cyberonics will also have to create a registry to monitor some patients.

The Houston-based firm ramped up its sales force during the last three months and has 200 people to start calling on customers on Monday, Cyberonics Chief Executive Officer Robert "Skip" Cummins told Reuters.

"We have the potential to do $300 million in revenue in the first four quarters after launch," he said.

I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING MORE DEPRESSING.

Happy Bastille Day!

Someone who suffers from Narcissistic Personality disorder (NPD) has at least 5 of the following characteristics:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)


(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV

I do believe this describes pretty much all of the women in my family?!

LOVEMEMOMMYDADDYSOMEBODYSOMEWHERESOMEHOW

"If you were raised by a narcissistic parent, then you've been taught that the narcissist is always right and you're the one who's wrong. A lifetime of such mistreatment typically instills lack of confidence in your own judgment, along with habitual shame at never getting it right or being good enough to deserve the air that you breathe. The children of narcissists may not have realized that the quirks and oddities of their impossible-to-please parents are not in any way unique or special but are in fact the symptoms of a personality disorder."
Joanna Ashman

Long-term Strategy

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."
-- John F. Kennedy

The Mercury-Autism Connection by RFK, Jr.

07-Jul-2005
DEADLY IMMUNITY

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data - and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. June 16, 2005

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session-only private invitations to 52 attendees.

There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines-thimerosal-appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism.

Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infan