Whether it's online or in the real world, I do seem to attract some interesting "characters" into my life.

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Tomorrow is World AIDS Day.


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Afghan Autopsy

After a month traveling around Afghanistan this autumn, I was forced to a grim conclusion: This project is lost, and nothing very good will likely replace it. The reasons for the international community’s failure here are several. First, there are the immediate blunders of the occupiers who, despite extensive European involvement, are led by the Americans. Next are deeper historical dynamics dating back to the U.S. role in the anti-Soviet jihad. And finally there are much older cultural, political and economic facts about Afghanistan that have long made this a wild, lawless place, impervious to conquest and even resistant to the modernizing efforts of its urban middle classes.

Learning to Live with the Ayatollahs

How in the world did George W. Bush manage to turn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the “Supreme Leader” of “Axis of Evil” Iran, into a prophet of peace in the Middle East?

Good question Mr. Scheer.

So it is that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was so desperate in his pleas to the ayatollah, admitting that “We are in dire need of Iran’s help in establishing security and stability in Iraq.”

Of course he is, because six years of Bush’s foreign policy has had the presumably unintended consequences of elevating radicals and theocrats into positions of dominance throughout the region, from Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and even, this past week, to the oil emirate Bahrain, where Shiite and Sunni radical Islamists split elections in an upset.

You may have already seen this

I'm usually a day late and dollar short...

Serpentes on a Shippe (spoylerez)


I think I'm in love.

Lexeme

Howard Kurtz says there's a war on civil war: The C-Word

I'm still working on the part where NBC gets more power if the conflict is viewed as a civil war. Because the network would be seen as galvanizing support for a pullout? All because of the use of the C-word? Is American support for the war so shaky that a single network's phraseology can cause that support to crumble?

Let's hope so. I get Mr. Kurtz's point, but I'm hoping that the media's use of the term civil war will wake up American's to the realization that we do not belong there.

I continue to believe that the day-to-day coverage of the carnage in Iraq is more important in terms of swaying public opinion than the label that the MSM chooses to slap on the conflict. Did most people think this wasn't a civil war before Lauer et al made the switch? I don't think so.

I do. Words matter. They shape our conscious and unconscious decisions on how we live. The media has been denying us the truth since January 2002 and that must end. The first step is to say, categorically, that Iraq is in a state of civil war. Next, help that general public recognize that we caused this to happen. Then remind them they have the power to change the direction.

Cat Eyes

Yesterday I wandered over to Homo Escapeons and that cat, above, assaulted me. Scared the crap outta me, it did! I asked if that animal was a resident of chez Escapeons but it seems that Madame Escapeons is allergic to the saliva produced by animalia chordata mammalia carnivora felidae felis silvestris and so, no, that freak of nature is not a resident of their home.

In case you are not aware of it I am owned by three cabana boys... I mean cats. A Bombay named Raven, a Russian Blue named Pewter and a psychopath named Fidgit. None of my lads are pure breeds, though I think I can get papers on Fidgit certifying him as completely insane.

On occassion, being an entity of pure evil, I will... fuck with my cats. No, NO! not that. Eewww, gross. No, I mean fuck with their tiny cat brains. I'll hang large feather cat toys just out of their reach and watch them go crazy trying to get to it. Raven usually just cowers in fear of anything new and waits for the other two braver souls to figure out what the new things are that entered their world. I'll make strange noises that send them diving for cover under furniture and keep doing it until they come out to see what I'm doing. I've got a Furby that I drag out every once in a while just to torture them. I love watching them run from it, then circle it, hunt it down and then try to kill it. Well, not Raven. He hurls himself under the couch or bed and stays there until the offending beast disappears again.

I torture the Lads because it's fun. I love watching their expressions, watching them figure out how to conquer the lastest obstacles their slave (that would be me) has placed in their path. So seeing that beast on HE's blog made me wonder just what the hell someone did to that cat to make it react that way. All of the crazy things I've done to the Lads has never produced that expression!

Obviously someone is much better at cat torture than I am. I am a lowly grasshopper.

Of course, if I were a grasshopper, Fidget would have eaten me by now.

I also noticed that the cat is a Havana Brown, though probably not a purebred Havana as it lacks the distinct Siamese features. Raven isn't a purebred Bombay for the same reason - lack of Siamese features that distinquish his breed. Also missing is the "chattiness" that Siamese are known for - Raven is a very quiet Lad. Of course with Fidgit around he couldn't get a word in edgewise if he tried. Fidgit is a "dsh", domestic shorthair, tiger cat muttly who never STFU.

I would like to have a Havana Brown, and a Chartreux, cat someday, but not a pure breed. Pure breeds tend to have a lot of physical and pyschological issues that I just don't want to deal with. Additionally, with all the animals in shelters needing homes, I just can't justify getting a pet any other way. If I'm going to spend US$1,000 on a pet, I'd rather make a donation to the animal shelter than pay a breeder.

Not that I have any intention of spending that kind of money on a pet. I'm not sane but I'm not that crazy! But it does remind me that I need to make a donation to the local shelters again. I will stop at a Petsmart store near my office and pick up a gift card so they can use to it buy supplies. I should probably do that everytime I pick up some new toy to torture the Lads with. Spread the joy, as it were.

Civil War

It's about damn time.

NBC to use 'civil war' to describe Iraq

NBC News said Monday that its reporters and anchors would begin referring to the ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq as a "civil war," a move that reflects the news media's use of increasingly stark language to characterize the escalating violence gripping the country.

NBC's decision, which came after a particularly deadly series of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad, makes it the first television network to officially adopt the term "civil war," a description the Bush administration has resisted.

I should give NBC some credit for doing this, for growing a pair, but I'm not going to. Iraq has been in a state of civil war since 2004 and the electronic media should have been stating that since then. As the article states, the NY Times has been calling the situation in Iraq a civil war for a month now, but it's print media and, even though it's the NYT, no one pay attention. Using the words "civil war" in electronic media will make people pay attention.

If the media starts stating the obvious, this civil war is our fault, then I'll give them the credit they deserve.

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, one of those consulted in NBC's discussions, told Lauer on Monday that he had considered the situation in Iraq a "low-grade conflict" civil war for the last 18 months.

"Now it's on the verge of spinning out of control," said McCaffrey, an NBC News analyst.

It's spun out of control General. But at least now Americans can make that determination for themselves.

Iraq violence is al-Qaida plot

President Bush said Tuesday that an al-Qaida plot to stoke cycles of sectarian revenge in Iraq is to blame for escalating bloodshed, refusing to debate whether the country has fallen into civil war.

I don't doubt for a second that terrorist organizations are exploiting the situation to further their own ends; however, if weren't for the illegal invasion of Iraq, they wouldn't have this opportunity. As usual, Bush doesn't get it.

Jordan's King Abdullah, who is hosting al-Maliki's meeting with Bush, has warned that unless bold steps are taken urgently, the new year could dawn with three civil wars in the Mideast — with one in Iraq added to those in Lebanon and between the Palestinians and Israelis.

I applaud HM King Abdullah for trying to end this nightmare by meeting with both Mr. al-Maliki and Mr. Bush - but it's useless. Normally I think all diplomatic avenues need to be explored but this is just pointless. HM is not dealing with someone who exists in the real world and unless Mr. Bush is forced to deal with reality, or we remove him from office, the devastation will continue to escalate until the entire region from Turkey to Indonesia is at war. Radical Islam and George W. Bush are on a collision course of total annihilation - there is no middle ground to be found. The Israeli's are exploiting the situation in Gaza, the various terrorist organizations are exploiting the situation wherever they are and this is only going to get worse.

Removing the Bush administration is only one small step in ending what will most likely be another decade of war. But it is a step that must be taken. We caused this unholy mess into being; it's up to us to end it.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

If you are from or live in the US.

If not ~ pfft! And stay away from the stuffing!

I'm outta here until Monday. WoOt! Don't kill each other in the Malls on Black Friday.

Holiday.net - Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving

Plimoth Plantation (really have to go there some year)

The Wiki Word on Thanksgiving and The National Day of Mourning

All Recipes just in case you haven't started planning Thursday's dinner.

Bits and pieces

I love this story!

Kansas woman, 95, prepares for final exams:

On Friday, the last day before fall break, her family and fellow classmates threw her an impromptu birthday party during her Biblical Studies class. Her son, Alan Ochs, flew in from Jetmore for the occasion. Her granddaughter, Alexandra Ochs, didn't have to travel as far — she's in the same class as her grandmother.

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Deja Vu isn't just a movie starring Denzel Washington. White House Brushes Off CIA Report on Iran

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," according to the article.

Read also: White House ‘Stovepiping’ Iran Intelligence.

Israeli forces launch raids in Gaza

"I emphasize that our hand is outstretched in peace, but anybody who rejects it ... should know that ... we will do all we can to sever the hand which uses terror," Peretz said in a speech carried by Israeli radio.

"We have no intention of making concessions to anybody, we have no intention of being dragged in to reoccupying Gaza, but we have every intention of protecting our citizens."

Six Muslim Imams removed from U.S. airliner

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

“I never felt bad in my life like that,” he said. “I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It’s terrible.”

Five years of being terrorized by our own government leads to this. We're afraid of six men praying. So it isn't surprising to read that U.S. is most unfriendly country to visitors.

Gore Vidal: Living Through History, an interview with Robert Scheer.

Fantastic interview. There are some great lines here:

I’m now a creationist. Because the distance from George Washington to George W. Bush makes a monkey out of Darwin.

There are a few crazies who want to cheer the flag and this yappy little terrier as though he were a real president—well he’s not a real president. He’s a thing, a chimera who was put together by the supreme court, first time around, and reelected by Diebold, Sequoia and some other interested parties. Everybody knows he isn’t there. Or what is there isn’t for us—it’s not our president. We do have a real, uh, a shadow president in vice president Cheney, whose wife is a famous novelist given to tales of unnatural love...But Lynne, more power to you. She’s my kind of novelist.

And sobering:

So this election, coming up, although it’s a mere off-year, this is the on year election of all our lives. And if we don’t turn it around the right way, we’re not going to have representative government. We’re not going to have the people’s voice ever again expressed quadrennially in the presidential election, because they can falsify it each time now. So now’s the time to use a new Congress, hoping we get one, to tidy up.

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Where do you stand on God:

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking.

Warning: this is seven pages long. Well worth reading, however.

Restoration of sanity and other stuff

O.J. Simpson book, TV special canceled.

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When religion loses its credibility

The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its battle with Galileo ultimately realized. But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing conflict between medical science and religion over homosexuality is like watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you're powerless to stop it. The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it's likely to be.

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Orgasm for Peace.

I'm liking this.

California couple calls for orgasm for peace.

"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change."

Spread the word: Global Orgasm.

Friday Night Poker

I made it home sober. With shoes.

Yeah, it was that boring.

I had two slices of pizza, one Cosmo, a canoli, lost US$16, and was back home and in bed before midnight.

Sweet beybey jesu, Bingo night at St. MaryTheresaHolyNamewhatever would have been more exciting.

The most interesting conversation of the night? What television shows we like. And even that moronic topic tappered off into nothingness after a minute or two.

We're skipping December.

No one will either notice or care.

For the rest of the weekend I just unplugged. I got laundry and the dreaded grocery shopping done and then read for the rest of Saturday (Queen Emma And The Vikings: A History of Power, Love, And Greed In Eleventh-Century England and The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, if you are curious). On Sunday I crocheted while listening to "American Experience" on PBS - about the Kennedy family. Like I needed to learn anything else about the most dysfunctional family in the United States.

I remembered the Leonid showers driving into work this morning.

Maybe I shouldn't bitch about how boring poker was considering just how mindblowingly boring the rest of my life is.

I ignored the talking heads because they just make me want to kill them all slowly and painfully with long pointy sticks and rabid screaching wombats.

I ignored the rest of broadcast/cable televsion because, seriously? there is nothing on.

So it wasn't until today I saw TomKat had gotten hitched.

'Never-ending kiss' caps TomKat wedding.

I'm still hurling.

Issues:

1) Katie... dear... HE IS A FUCKING FREAK! Hello, Scientology? Haven't you had enough clues NOT TO MARRY THIS GUY?

After exchanging vows before a Scientology minister Saturday, Cruise and Holmes engaged in a "never-ending kiss," according to Giorgio Armani, who attended the wedding outside Rome and designed the outfits of the bride, the groom and their baby, Suri.

2 years. Tops.

2) Women who have BRED, given BIRTH!, should not wear white to their goddamn wedding.

EVER!

It should be so freakin' obvious that you wouldn't need a law... but...

New Law: No woman gets to wear white unless she can PROVE she is a VIRGIN!

Having the child you gave birth to attend said wedding is another clue you shouldn't be WEARING WHITE!

Look, the conservative whack jobs in this country want to codify what marriage is, who can and cannot get married - I say fine, bring it on! Let's start at the beginning, shall we? If you are too stupid not to know that wearing white means you are a VIRGIN... maybe you shouldn't be allowed to get married at all.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

I hate weddings.

Everything comes before the whole reason to get married.

3) The only thing worth two months salary... DeBeer's stupid commercial which flashes a gignormous rock on the screen with the above voice over.

The only thing worth two months salary is a DOWN PAYMENT ON A HOUSE!

4) Wedding dresses starting at US$1,000. There isn't US$100 worth of material in the damn things, which you will only wear once regardless of how many times you get married (and yeah, each time the dumb dodo's will wear white). I could almost understand if you wore the damn dress several times, but once? A grand and a whole lot more on a dress you will never, ever wear again?

5) The never-ending angst over the band, the food, the colors (and what the fuck is this about? The bride has to pick her colors? Is it a wedding or a fucking joust?), who sits where, limos, first dance, alcohol... and on and on and on. I've been a bridesmaid twice, maid of honor once. That those three women are still alive is a fuckin' miracle. I deserve to be Sainted because I am responsible for THREE MIRACLES!

By the way, the longest any of those three marriges lasted? 3 years. Uh huh. All three of them put their parents into hock (their parents own stupid fault). All three got engagement rocks the size of Gibralter because the first one (or, in once case, THREE) selected rings weren't good enough for their highnesses - all three of which got pawned before the ink was dry on the divorce papers. One of these first-class broads even got alimony for reasons I will never, ever, understand except that the groom was such a fucking moron I didn't even feel bad for him.

Thankfully, none of these people spawned before or after the intial wedding. They have all since remarried (wearing white), spawned, divorced, spawned, remarried (yup, in white), spawned some more. One of them has been married five times in the last twenty years. Wore white each time.

I've got at least ten pages of ranting about brides maid/maid of honor dresses that has all been written before. But what is with this new trend of the Mother of the Bride dressing up like she's the one getting married?

Don't even get me started on the goddamn tiaras.

And why, in this day and age, do we still have Bridal Showers? Just so we can buy sleazy underwear that we would never be caught dead in to give to someone else who will probably never wear it? This makes sense?

sigh

Every single wedding I have ever been a part of - family, guest, attendant - the same thing is said at the rehearsal ever single time:

We have to write our vows

Let's see... it's T -12 and counting to the ceremony and now you assholes are thinking of this? Shouldn't you two have been thinking about what marriage means before the rehearsal?

We have to write our vows

But if you have two vaginas or two penises... well that's just wrong! Wrong I say! The Bible says... something about that! Wrong, wrong, wrong and you're going to Hell.

Yeah, whatever.

Marriage, naturally, leads to divorce:

The McCartney meltdown has lessons for all marriages

No-fault divorce will never happen, though, until society gets over its undue veneration of marriage. Commercialised at the entry stage (all those gift-wrapped electric woks) and at the exit (all those lawyers' fees), it is invested with fake dreams. While many marriages are long and happy, some are little more than a charade in which the irreligious make promises they will not keep to someone else's god. Even those who marry in civil ceremonies are bound by the same legal strictures.

In France, where the 'pacte civil de solidarité' gives tax and immigration breaks to heterosexual and same-sex couples alike, marriage is plummeting. The option of civil partnerships allowing for simple, non-adversarial dissolution must be better for men, women and children than a system that offers nothing between the insecurity of informal bonds and a contract still prone to end in feuding.

I knew I loved France for a reason.



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Update:

Saw this headline on top of google news:

TomKat wedding 'a stunt':

The cynics among us may not be surprised, but there are reports this morning the "wedding of the year" was a stunt.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have admitted they were actually married four days before their Rome extravaganza, staging a big show to promote the Church of Scientology.

It's been reported a Scientologist advisor was placed at every table at the reception to answer questions.

Roman clergy say the sham is insulting and Bracciano's mayor is considering taking back the honorary citizenship she offered after the couple refused to wave to well-wishers.

I'm all for TomKat being the next Secretary of State. All in favor, say Aye!


How's about just Ambassador to Italy?

The Sun! The Sun!

The Sun is actually shining! Holy sunblock Batman!

I've read on a few blogs that people are checking their stats and making some interesting discoveries. I use Mapstats and if you scroll down a bit you will see a little button labeled just that. This site tells me that people show up here and read stuff. Cool! Love that! That knowledge is full of cheesy goodness!

It also tells me what search phrases bring people here.

cala+lilly 23%
laura elizabeth 6%
cat+and+woman 4%
cala+lilly+pictures 4%
cala+lily 2%

The search phrase, cala lilly, has been recurrent for several months and so, being bored at work, I decided to google cala lilly to see how long it took me to come up with the url to my own blogspot.

When I got to page 19 I stopped bothering to search for my own blogspot because I started wondering why people would keep searching cala lilly for so many pages and end up at my little slice of blogosphere.

I'm easily distracted by everything.

Anyway, anyone searching for cala lilly, calla lilly, cala lily, would you care to explain this to me?

The search wasn't entirely fruitless: I learned that I mis-spell calla lilly, cala lilly, cala lily - it's calla lily.

Other searches that have led people to my blog are:

"remove+your+thong"

"saints that have the name laura"

"lads bra drink panties OR knickers OR thong"

"Rumsfeld and Joseph Mengele"

"who's the Mighty woman with a torch"

"woman%3B+cat"

"i want to marry jesse l martin"

Sorry, deary, but if I ever get off my lazy ass and onto Metro North I'm stalking that sexy man all over Manhattan until he marries me just to get some peace and quiet because, as we all know, restraining orders don't work. Don't tell him, mkay? Just our little secret. Whoever you are. And if you're Jesse, email me!

There are no queries for "reasons to be on prozac", "reasons to be on lithium", "10 warning signs of insanity", or the like, which I find slightly amazing.

Something else Mapstats tells me is that the second largest country of origin of my readers is Unknown. I've tried googling Unknown, but I'm not coming up with anything. I pride myself on my geographical prowess so not knowing where Unknown is, is really starting to bother me. If anyone has a link to Unknown, please feel free to leave it for me in the comments section. Thank you.

Other bits of trivia provided by Mapstats:

Firefox 1 is the browser of choice for 56% of you, and Firefox 2 is used by 2%. You rock!

82% of my readers are from the United States, Unknown makes up 9%, Canada is next at 3%, the UK is at 2% and all the rest are from: Denmark, Germany, Austalia, Puerto Rico, Ireland, UAE, New Zealand, Morocco, Russian Federation, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, India, Brazil and Malaysia.

No, I will not give you a refund on the two minutes of your life I've just wasted.

Art Appreciation Friday

Today's art appreciation is brought to you by the letter S ~ Paul Signac and Georges-Pierre Seurat.

First up, the work of M. Signac ~ The Dining Room




And now, for M. Seurat ~ Gray Weather




You can read more about Pointillism, the art form shown above, at wiki.

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For a little bee named Boo ~



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Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting to buy the new Playstation 3 gaming console early Friday and shot one who refused to give up the money, authorities said.

Merry Freakin' Christmas.

The two confronted 15 to 20 people who were in line outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the state police. The new Sony consoles are selling for around $500 to $600.

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Hunger still widespread:

That leaves less money for groceries, and the end result is that 194,000 people in Oregon and Clark County, Wash., are eating from an emergency food box each month. That statistic becomes even more heartbreaking when you consider that 72,000 of those food recipients are children.

In case you are wondering

yes, it is a very boring day at the office.

Economist Milton Friedman dies at 94.

You can read more about him at Wiki. You can thank him for the way we withhold payroll taxes in the US.

~ ~ ~

And the winner for the 2006 Darwin Award is...

Man accidently shoots himself in groin

oh, wait... he didn't die. Oh well, moron, better luck next time, eh?

~ ~ ~

Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected This Weekend.

Wo0t! I'll try to head upstate to see if I can see this meteor shower. There's too much light pollution around my area to see much of anything, usually.

For more information on the Leonids, see Space.com.

~ ~ ~

Tomorrow is Ladies Poker Night at my sister's house. Featuring Cosmo's. I may have to fight the dog for the couch.

RIP Louis Riel

Will you watch?

No.

Man, this is just sick. Please do not watch “If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened” or enrich that scumbag by buying his book. Please.

Back then O.J. denied everything. Now, I guess, he’ll tell us how he terrified her, beat her, sliced her until rivulets of blood streamed past the bougainvillea outside their Brentwood home. We’ll tune in. Then he, Fox, Regan, and all those advertisers will cash in on the blood of the woman who saw it all coming.

~ ~ ~

Being George's poodle isn't working out too well for Tony: Sympathetic Labour Pains: Tony Blair's Post-Election Panic Attack

But the turning of the water was no miracle, no divine judgment on the leader whose fateful partnership with George W. Bush is producing - week after week, month after month, year after year - fresh cause for future mourning. The color came from the thousands of fake poppies tossed into the fountain in what The Observer called "a spontaneous act of remembrance": an offering of the ubiquitous charity emblems worn by most of the population in the week leading up to the memorials.

In any case, Tony Blair never saw the vision of blood in the Square; he was in Hyde Park, with the Queen and other worthies, conducting formal ceremonies where no free action or unscripted word from the public was allowed to intrude. These offices of the dead were a fitting end to a week which saw Blair and his ministers launch a massive new fearmongering campaign, promising a "generation" of terror, war and tyrannical security measures in a "long and deep struggle" against his own nation's Muslim minority.

~ ~ ~

Molly bids farewell to Rumsfeld.

And the beybey Jebus smiles.

~ ~ ~

USDA Eliminates 'Hunger'

“very low food security.”

America's Second Harvest

Foodshare, Bloomfield, CT

Island Harvest, Mineola, Long Island

The Greater Boston Food Bank, Boston, MA

Food Bank for New York City, Bronx, New York

Connecticut Food Bank, New Haven, CT

Yorkville Common Pantry, New York, New York

I found some of the list above using Charity Navigator and the criteria was "hunger" and I sorted it by highest to lowest rating - giving me a list of 192 hunger related charities across the United States. Please do the same for your own locale and give what you can.

~ ~ ~

If you don't know who Louis Riel is, look it up.

Fractured History Tales

On this day in 1002... King Ethelred II, also known as Ethelred the Unready, ordered the murder of all Danish people living in England. He had been fighting with the Danes since 991, the beginning of his reign, and I guess he had just had enough. Seems a bit extreme to me. He ended up having to run away, to Normandy, in 1013, when Sweyn Haraldsson (yes, he was a Dane) whooped his ass in response to the massacre (and just because he could) and conquered England. But not for long. Ethelred returned to England in 1014 when Haraldsson died, only to die two years later in London.

Ethelred is also famous for taking a dump in the baptismal font when he was a baby. Most believe this is not a true story. But it's funny so I'm going to go right on believing it.

Ethelred married, thirdly, Emma of Normandy, whose big brother Robert helped him when Sweyn kicked his ass outta England. When the Bastard (no, not Ethelred, William) wanted to be King of England, he claimed his right by way of Ethelred being his great-Uncle.

Don't think I would have gone about bragging a familial connection to this guy. But then I've never wanted to be King of England. For what it's worth, I think William's military ability meant more in the long run, anyway.

Ethelred's reign is responsible for the foundations of the grand jury system we know today.

This is also the anniversary of the birth of an ex-boyfriend and current friend who is turning 50 today.

It's Friday. Do the Happy Dance!

I'm not happy that Howard Dean is saying "we" won't be impeaching Bush.

"I know half the audience wants us to impeach the president, and all that kind of stuff," Dean said, "but we're not going to do that."

We'll see.

Send letters and emails to Congress people. Bush and Cheney need to go to jail for what they've done.

~ ~ ~

As usual, a day late and dollar short: Britannia Blog: Where Ideas Matter.

Wo0T!

~ ~ ~

I was watching CSI last night and noticed that Christmas is already being hyped. Argh! We haven't even hit Thanksgiving in the US yet! grumble, grrr.

Watching the show I realized, yet again, I have the most eclectic taste in men: I mean how hot is William Petersen? 8.5 out of 10. Well, for me anyway.

But then there is Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order... pauses to drool Oy! 9.9. In my Universe no one is a 10 but Jesse is so damn close.

Remember the Joe Boxer guy? Jumping up and down with that fantastic smile on his face? 9.9. I must have watched that commercial a dozen times before I realized he was just wearing (and advertising) boxer shorts - that happy and adorable face just blew me away.

Others? In no particular order:

Senator Robert Byrd. Don't ask. 8

Same for Harry S Truman. 8.5

Jon Stewart. Oh man... Love!Him! Smart and sarcastic and funny - hatrick! Sexy as all get out. He gets an 9.

Tim Gunn. 9.9

drooling... daydreaming...

Um, what was I on about? Oh, right, sexy men.

Let's see... Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton (yeah, I'm a TNG geek) - all 8's

Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon: 8's

Aasif Mandvi, from The Daily Show. 7. He's growing on me. He's a future 9, I think.

There are others but 1) Can't remember who they are right now and 2) I've embarrassed myself enough for one day.

~ ~ ~

Seems it's a good day to be a kid:

Jesus Camp shuts down.

Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

~ ~ ~

Forgot to mention this morning that tomorrow is Veterans Day in the United States. I didn't think of it until I was out and about getting lunch this afternoon and saw an elderly gentleman handing out red poppies. I took several and said thank you.

It is also Armistice Day in France and Belgium and Remembrance Day in United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

America's dumbassification

Love it. Never saw or heard that expression before. But, I'm usually behind the times.

America's dumbassification - I read that in an article by Melanie McFarland at Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I'm liking it, whomever came up with it first.

America's dumbassification.

~ ~ ~

The nightmare that is Gaza continues to intensify.

Israel on alert as Palestinians bury civilian victims

~ ~ ~

World welcomes shift in US Politics

Against the broad mood of satisfaction, however, there were voices of concern that a power split between Democrats and Republicans in Washington might mean uncertainty in crucial areas like global trade talks.

It's not just international relations that are apt to suffer, domestic issues will most likely not be dealt with either.

Both parties are cooing "bipartisan" to all and sundry. I think, come January (if not sooner) we're going to see a hardening of ideologies. In short, not much is going to get done in the next two years.

Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Rumsfeld's surprise resignation underscored the depth of what has happened in America.

"Even though U.S. politics had already started changing, Rumsfeld's resignation means an accentuation of this change," Prodi said. "We'll see over the next few days what the new direction will be. But certainly we have a political structure ... deeply different from that of a few days ago."

I think Rummy's resignation is a bone Bush and Co are throwing the American public. Bush's press conference yesterday was just bullshit meant to soften people up, make them think things are going to change.

They won't.

~ ~ ~


Ah, enough doom and gloom. Let's enjoy the awesome majesty of our Universe!

This image of the Orion nebula, taken by NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and released November 7, 2006, shows an infrared and visible-light composite that indicates that a 'gang' of four monstrously massive stars at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits of mayhem in the familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively called the 'Trapezium' and can be communally identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image. Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars.

This image provided by NASA Thursday Nov. 2, 2006 is a recent photo from the Cassini spacecraft showing the mighty planet Saturn, and if you look very closely between its wing-like rings, upper left, revelas a faint pinprick of light. That tiny dot is Earth bustling with life as we know it. The image is the second ever taken of our world from deep space. The first was captured by the Voyager spacecraft in 1990. This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006. The mosaic images were acquired as the spacecraft drifted in the darkness of Saturn's shadow for about 12 hours, allowing a multitude of unique observations of the microscopic particles that compose Saturn's faint rings.

Comments on the pictures are from AP and Yahoo! news.

The Silly Season is finally over

Lieberman defeats Lamont to hold Senate seat.

Not a huge surprise. CNN kept stressing last night that Lieberman has promised Connecticut that he will work with the Democrats. Wolf sending a message? Perhaps.

Connecticut knows Joe only works for himself. He'll take the ripest plums the Republicans offer him and do what ever the hell they want him to do.

Six more years of this crap.

Independents and Republicans voted for him in droves. Thanks folks - you are responsible for this. Hope you're happy.

If Schlesinger had not been in this race I'm not sure Lamont would have received his votes. Lamont lost it after winning the primary. Schlesinger's numbers are mostly attributed to his good showing in the debates - goodness knows the Republican machine abandoned him . For Lieberman. That's gotta leave a bad taste in his mouth.

It's depressing that voters in seven states have decided to amend their Constitutions to define marriage as a union between one male and one female.

The conservative Concerned Women for American said it "rejoices with the American people on these important victories."

Depressing. It looks like only Arizona will not pass one of these marriage amendment issues.

Good news? Six states voted to raise their minimum wages; Santorum lost to Bobby Casey (whose Dad once dated my Mother back in the dark ages :) ); South Dakota’s law banning abortion was rejected 55 - 45; Webb might win Virginia - it's really close; the removal of Republicans wasn't just Federal - it was on the state and local level as well.

Not sure how I feel about Madam Speaker, the individual, but Madam Speaker... sweet.

Get the message Mr. Bush?

~ ~ ~

In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega won his presidential bid after Eduardo Montealegre conceded yesterday.

On the campaign trail, Ortega traded his olive-green military garb for white and pink shirts and ran on a center-left platform. Once an atheist, he has made peace with an old enemy, the Catholic Church. His running mate, Jaime Morales, is a former Contra commander whose Managua home Ortega confiscated as president and still lives in.

Tiger changing its spots? Perhaps. I wonder how long it will be before Bush declares Nicaragua one of the "Axis of Evil" nations.

~ ~ ~

Britney Spears is divorcing her husband. This is news, apparently. Comes under the header "who gives a shit" for me... but then, that's me.

However... it's just fine for some foolish person, ala Miz Spears, to "marry" some equally foolish person during a drunken... well orgy might be too strong of a word… for 55 hours and get it... was it annulled or were they divorced? In any case, this child makes a complete mockery of marriage and that's just fine and dandy. Then she goes off with some other equally foolish person, whose girlfriend had given birth to their second child just a few months prior, and marries this clown. This is just peachy-keen. They have two more children who will now not have a full-time Father in their lives, just like his other two children don't. No problem, apparently.

But two people who love each other, have been committed to each other for some long period time in most cases, who wish the world to know and accept them as loving spouses/partners, and congratulate them as such, welcome them as such, just like the Spears-Fed "marriage" - that can't happen. Two people who just run rough shod over others lives, doing whatever the hell they feel like doing and making a joke out of what marriage is supposed to be about, can get away with this behavior - but two loving, committed adults cannot get married if they are of the same sex.

This makes sense? How? How can this possibly make sense to anyone? It's a sick joke. The State has no right to say who can and cannot marry beyond very basic guidelines such as age and mental health - this simple fact seems to allude most people. Amending the state Constitutions to give the State that power is the worst kind of insanity - if they can tell you that you must marry someone of a different sex, next they will tell you what color, what religion, what nationality your spouse must be.

You don't think so?

Think about it some more.

Today is a good day for civil liberties - the Democrats have taken back the government from Republican control. But only one of eight states rejected the notion of a state Constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one male and one female. In 2004 11 states voted the same way - that's 18 states looking to amend their Constitutions to declare that marriage is between one male and one female. It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination that this could get much, much worse. Did you see this coming six years ago?

Four years ago?

I know I didn’t.

YaYa

Dinner was at the Red Barn last night. We combined Gretchen's birthday with our YaYa night out.

The Red Barn has been around since the Grant administration. Okay, I lie... Truman, possibly. In any event, it's been around for a while. The prices are steep, as in $290 pre-tip for five people with only one bottle of wine. The food is usually excellent and, for the most part, last night was no exception. Their version of chicken marsala, which my sister Gretchen had was... different. Can't quite explain what was so unusual, but that it also didn't work well was a bit of a downer as she was the birthday girl. My stuffed shrimp with pilaf and asparagus was fantastic - I nearly licked the plate - and I hate asparagus!

I'm something of a foodie (oooh looks so dirty, doesn't it?), as my BMI will attest to. This got me to thinking about blogging a list of favorite food blogs (and yeah, I've done this before. Sue me.):

Chezpim: makes me pea-green with envy. I want her life. I would weigh 900 pounds, but I would be happy.

dcfud: I now want to eat my way through DC.

Cooking with Amy: recipes, reviews, good looking foodporn - who needs more?

The wine makers wife: her photographs border on the pornographic. Love looking at and reading her site.

Chocolate adn Zucchini: she has a cookbook coming out - give it some loving!

The Food Section: beybeys and food and the occassional snark - a good time!

The girl who ate everything: girl after my own heart.

101 cookbooks: I almost never make any recipe showcased here, but I read this site nearly every day. I should cook more and read less.

As Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio (scandals! election fraud! recount!), I'll confess yet another dirty little secret:

I watch Top Chef.

Yeah, I know... there's something wrong with me. But at least it's not Dancing with the Stars!

Apparently the YaYa's are huge fans of this insanity. Dancing with the Stars now has some sort of road-trip thing and their "Stars" are coming to our area early next year and the YaYa's want me to go. A YaYa trip, they say.

Kill.

Me.

Now.

The YaYa's are not happy that I picked on their choice of reality television so in good old sisterly fashion Gret just had to let out my deep, dark, sorted secret:

"Well you watch Top Chef!"

Silence descended. It was painful. I wanted to hide. But, in my usual fuck you fashion I sallied forth with a brilliant retort:

Yeah, so?!

Yes, I'm five. But my sister's four! And, and, and... she chews her hair!

So there.

Election day fun

Blogspot has not been helpful in creating my poll. So, click the link to vote on my question: Should I buy an ipod?




Take My Poll




When I have more time I'll write my own damn script.

Friggin' blogspot.

Don't waste your time reading blogs

GO VOTE!

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Belles-lettres

Judith at Starlight News posted a copy of a letter and a link to the story on Wonkette about Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff receiving the Henry Petersen award. The letter to Chertoff is from Mr. Petersen's grandson, Mr. Miles W. Swanson.

I want to have Mr. Swanson's babies.

Yeah, it's that good.

Go read and tell me you want to have his babies too.

'Cuz you will.

~ ~ ~

This weekend will be nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake. It is the last weekend before Tuesday's election.

You know what to do, right?

Read another letter.

Tell me why you're crying, my son
I know you're frightened, like everyone
Is it the thunder in the distance you fear?
Will it help if I stay very near?
I am here.

Refrain:
And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.
And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.
Day is done, day is done
Day is done, day is done

Do you ask why I'm sighing, my son?
You shall inherit what mankind has done.
In a world filled with sorrow and woe
If you ask me why this is so, I really don't know.

(refrain)

Tell me why you're smiling my son
Is there a secret you can tell everyone?
Do you know more than men that are wise?
Can you see what we all must disguise
Through your loving eyes?

~ ~ ~

From now until Wednesday, November 8, we get to watch the United States equivalent of the Roman orgy on television. From the comfort of our own e-z chairs! Who's bringing the spinach dip?

The Media will have an orgasm approximately every hour for the next five days. The orgiastic frenzy will reach it's maximum pitch around 8pm Eastern time when orgasms will occur, roughly, every five minutes. They will taper off around midnight, Eastern time, out of shear exhaustion. By noon, Eastern time, on Wednesday, November 8, it will be all over. Forgotten.

A long, lost, weekend.

But will be happy?

Ignore the Mainstream pimping machine and their last minute exit poll data. Ignore the increasing shrill hysteria of people who want your vote and the Media who pimp them out to you.

Shut it all out.

Turn off the television, the radio - don't read the newspapers or the internet.

You already know who you'll vote for and why.

Stop paying the pimps.

Stop listening to the whores.

Just go vote. Tuesday, November 8, 2006.

---

I know these letters do not fit the definition of belles-lettres except that they are critisim. You try coming up with titles for the stuff I post! :)

Enaks Tears

Down below I have posted some of those silly "tests" you can find online. In one of them I get Patrick Stewart as my "daddy"...

pauses to drool...

Anyway, Mr. Editor posted the following comment:

One thing I'm slightly confused about though: If you're supposed to call him dada, shouldn't Jean Arp have been your daddy instead of Patrick Stewart? After all, Patrick is more of a classicist and traditionalist and I just can't picture him with melted clocks all around the cottage . . . .

If someone would care to translate, I'd be grateful. There were clues, however, such as the melted clocks and dada, so I went off to google, because I had never heard of this person Jean Arp.

Jean Arp.

Arp was a founding member of the Dada movement in Zürich in 1916. In 1920, as Hans Arp, along with Max Ernst, and the social activist Alfred Grünwald, he set up the Cologne Dada group. However, in 1925 his work also appeared in the first exhibition of the surrealist group at the Galerie Pierre in Paris.

Ah ha! Enlightenment dawns! Look folks it's raining buckets again and I didn't get much sleep so I'm a tad slow on the uptake this morning.

But I still can't figure out what, if any, connection he has to the delightful Mr. Stewart.

Mr. Editor makes my brain hurt from time to time.

And that's a good thing.

Artcyclopedia - Jean Arp

Jean Arp - Guggenheim Collection

Sliding towards chaos.

Sliding? Good grief.

From the DailyKos, which got the article from the New York Times: Military Chart Confirms Iraq Is Sliding Towards Chaos.

Is this like being a little bit pregnant?

Six days until election day in the US. You know what to do, right?

103 US troops killed in Iraq in 31 days. I stopped counting the Iraqi death reports a week ago. Too goddamn depressing. However, yesterday, a car bomb killed 15 people in a wedding procession, including four children; five gunmen were found dead in an orchard; 42 Shiites were kidnapped because... they're Shiite; eight people found shot execution style... and it goes on and on.

See also: Baghdad is under siege:

- upwards of 1,000 Iraqis are dying violently every week;

- Shia fighters have taken over much of Baghdad; the Sunni encircle the capital;

- the Iraqi Red Crescent says 1.5 million people have fled their homes within the country;

- the Shia and Sunni militias control Iraq, not the enfeebled army or police

You know why this is going on, right?

Six days until election day in the US. You know what to do, right?

History lesson: Turning the Corner Into Madness, by Robert Scheer.