How Hamas Came to power

But number one?

Have you been eating asparagus?

"no one could have imagined" that the bush administration could be so absofuckinglutely incompetent.

Where's the petition to end economic and military aid to Israel? And, how does a our bankrupt country continue to aid Israel anyway. Aid to Dearborn not Tel Aviv!

I read and signed also. Thanks Sam.

The Dignity started taking on water after it was hit by an Israeli naval vessel as it approached the Israeli coast with its cargo of medical aid.

The Free Gaza Movement, which organised the attempt to reach the territory , said their boat was "rammed" and shots were fired when at least four Israeli vessels confronted them in international waters.

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said that the incident was nothing more than a "propoganda stunt".

"Israel would never have done anything against international law, that is inconceivable," he told Al Jazeera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008123012141266943...

Demonstrators in the Yemeni port city of Aden have broken into the Egyptian consulate in a protest against Cairo's response to Israel's offensive against Gaza, a security official has said.

The protesters, who were mostly students from the University of Aden, "vandalised furniture before they were removed peacefully from the building", the official said on Tuesday, asking not to be identified.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008123011438386992...

If Israel eventually succeeds in engendering enough outrage to topple the leadership of Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia they're finished.

(Jakarta rally

Thousands have also rallied in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, to voice their opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Demonstrators waved Palestinian and Indonesian flags while some carried banners with slogans such as "Move Israel outside Palestine land".

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation and many Indonesians have been staunch supporters of the Palestinian cause.)

'Recruiting fighters'

On Monday an Indonesian Muslim group announced plans to recruit as many as 1,000 volunteers to fight in Gaza in response to the Israeli air raids.

Ahmad Soebri Lubis, the secretary-general of the The Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI), said the group would start recruiting volunteer fighters in the next few days, and would send them for training at camps in Indonesia to prepare them for the "battleground.

"Fighters should be in good physical condition, have a strong faith and be ready to die," Lubis told the Reuters news agency.

"They will be provided with a one-way ticket until we defeat Israel."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/12/20081230317163823...

off" no?

(last paragraph)--no?

Sorry, sorry.

After 4, if you feel like it.

Edited b/c of growing self-consciousness about own typing karma...

1. Patchouli

or

2. Lemon, Lime & Orange

or

3. Chamomile

or

4. Sandalwood, Frankincense, Neroli, & Blue Chamomile

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

patchouli.

Lemon lime orange is nice.

Chamomile is nice.

Is it a personality test?

Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome -- we'd better recognize the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!"

....... when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.

Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism".
http://www.alternet.org/audits/115952/gaza%3A_leaders_lie%2C_civilians_d...

I think I have your address already...

Well I finally caught up on sleep after being away from work for a week already...so now my brain is working again in a more creative way...so I pulled out my essential oils and my 5 gallon jug of jojoba oil and my tiny brown and blue ounce (two ounce or one..not sure) and I'm making potions...I have done this three times now where I buy all these ingredients and then have to find people to give them too..I've already given my entire workplace homemade lip balm and bottles of this oil...And when I first started making them I gave them to my friends and family...So now I have like 20 bottles to give away...They have the jojoba oil and whatever mix mosh of essential oils...Most people like citrus..I use straight chamomile & jojoba under my eyes, on my forehead, and my neck and hands...chamomile is a great skin repairer, and jojoba as a base oil is the most like humam skin oil...so it doesn't cause acne...

Anyway...one citrus/jojoba is going to your house asap... :)

(And if ANY blogger wants a bottle of oil then send me your address and I'll mail one out...it's not just for ladies either..since apparently boys have skin too...)

Jojoba oil is good for skin and the essential oils have many beneficial properties depending on which one...Different ones are anti-viral, anti-fungal, and/or anti-bacterial....

Robert Fisk. Tks gd.

I don't think you have my postal address, though, do you?

night...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081229_leaders_lie_civilians_die_a...

*

I also stumbled on a "origin of Hamas" article that now that I saw Sam's post I don't think it's the one he posted but maybe..I can't re-find it now anyway..and I can't think of anything besides NASA that I have less control over anyway..

If so then I do I have it, if not then you can e- it to me @ aliceiswonderland@gmail.com

not nice... ;)

Gaza Protests Now Target Arab Leaders

"These feelings have been there for years; what has changed is that Arabs now have extremist groups through which they can channel their anger and resentment," said Rami Khouri, a political analyst in Beirut. "You'll have a new generation of people who want to fight Israel.

At a rally in Cairo on Monday, thousands of protesters shouted "Where's the Egyptian army?" and "Down with Mubarak," denouncing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Mobs also formed outside Egyptian embassies in Beirut, Tehran and Amman, Jordan, where protesters burned American and Israeli flags. In Tehran, a group affiliated with hard-line clerics signed up volunteers to fight Israel in the Gaza Strip. The hard-line Iranian newspaper Keyhan ran a headline that said, "Are Arab leaders dead?"

Hezbollah leader Seyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke for a second day at a large rally in Beirut urging Egyptians in their "millions" to take to the streets to force their government to open the country's border with Gaza.

"The Arab public is sick of watching its leaders take no action against Israel," said Nasser Amin, an Egyptian lawyer and director of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary in Cairo.

"Right now, the only countries who are speaking truthfully for the Arabs are Syria, Libya and Iran. The rest of them are completely out of touch with reality.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123059741141541147.html?mod=googlenews_w...

street?

I can't.

They won't do that until they're ready to wholesale slaughter us..

After the U.S. launched its attack on Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees but was also saved from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his graphic account of his own beating, published in The Independent of December 10, 2001, Fisk excused the attackers of responsibility ("I couldn't blame them for what they were doing,") and said that, in his view, their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us — of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"[17]

In August 2007 Fisk publicly expressed, for the first time, doubts about the historical record of the September 11 attacks. In an article for The Independent, he raised such concerns as missing aircraft parts, the melting point of steel, the collapse of World Trade Center 7, and other familiar criticisms that have circulated within the 9/11 Truth Movement, although he said that many other criticisms were "crazed"

In May 2002, actor John Malkovich, speaking at the Cambridge Union Society, was asked who he would like to fight to the death. He responded with the names of Fisk and British MP George Galloway, adding, "I'd rather just shoot them." Fisk responded with a column titled, "Why does John Malkovich want to kill me?" in which he lamented the fact that he and other journalists who criticized U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East would have to deal with the hate mail and death threats that comments like Malkovich's would inevitably bring forth.[22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk

...I know there are some 70's dudes on this blog.. :)

that's annoying...

SEDER!

you're on fire without Patchouli...imagine yourself on Patchouli...*sizzle* :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3JI-axaRF4

Angry Arab on the Times' spin of the latest round of war crimes in the occupied territories. He's talking about the Times, but it could apply to any major media outlet. When I'm near a tv, I hear the same stuff.

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

home for me....

*

Hi, dada...

Trial Period Expired

Thank you for evaluating our product, unfortunately, the product you've been evaluating has expired.

To re-enable the player, you must purchase a license and obtain a registration code.

It's sick.

Just sick..

Estimated amount Bush-era policies will cost the U.S. in new debt and accrued obligations: $10,350,000,000,000

Percentage change in U.S. discretionary spending during Bush’s presidency: +31

Percentage change during Reagan’s and Clinton’s, respectively: +16, +0.3

Number of the five directors of the No Child Left Behind reading program with financial ties to a curriculum they developed: 4

Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000

Salary in 2006 of the White House’s newly created Director for Lessons Learned: $106,641

What in the *fuck* does the "Director for Lessons Learned" do?

Can someone enlighten me?

Maybe..take what Bushco has done and imagine an eternity of Democrats, (Democratic?) complicity to control the united states - and the world - via a two party farce to make the nice people feel like they have a say too..then mix in one or two tiny truth tellers to cater to your 3% of the 50% who don't give a shit and you have the US Government.

Did I write that outloud?

Hi Annette... (I think I'm high on essential oil...)

...

somewhere...

...therefore Israel must LIVE....til the end..

Shut up.

;)

Yeah but they need that special cow too. It's not so easy...

In the face of Israel's latest onslaught, the only option for Palestinian nationalism is to embrace a one-state solution

The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.........

"Nobody can reject or condemn the revolt of a people that has been suffering under military occupation for 45 years against occupation force," said General Shlomo Gazit, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, in 1993. The real grievance of the EU and US against Hamas is that it refused to accept the capitulation of the Oslo Accords, and has rejected every subsequent effort, from Taba to Geneva, to pass off their calamities on the Palestinians.

Soon after the Hamas election victory in Gaza, I was asked in public by a Palestinian what I would do in their place. "Dissolve the Palestinian Authority" was my response and end the make-believe. To do so would situate the Palestinian national cause on its proper basis, with the demand that the country and its resources be divided equitably, in proportion to two populations that are equal in size – not 80% to one and 20% to the other, a dispossession of such iniquity that no self-respecting people will ever submit to it in the long run. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians alike, in which the exactions of Zionism are repaired.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/30/gaza-hamas-palestini...

Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

http://www.pscelebrities.com/whitelightblacklight/2006/10/robert-fisk-my...

Robert Fisk: War is the "Total Failure of the Human Spirit"

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, we are out of time but I just have a quick question, perhaps--

ROBERT FISK: Thank goodness.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is, you've covered the Israeli invasions of Lebanon, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Gulf war, wars in Algeria, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the invasion and occupation of Iraq--

ROBERT FISK: Enough, enough, enough.

AMY GOODMAN: What gives you hope? What gives you hope?

ROBERT FISK: Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing at the moment. Ordinary people, I guess. Ordinary people who speak out. People in the Arab world as well. But in terms of governments, nothing much. I may be wrong. I may be too much of a pessimist because I've seen too much.

http://www.pscelebrities.com/alice/2005_10_01_archive.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=6549970&page=1

Ill. Gov. Appoints Former AG to Senate

In an act of political audacity, embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich named former state Attorney General Roland Burris to fill President-elect Obama's Senate seat, a position he is accused of trying to "sell."

what a world. Unbelievable events in the mideast, unbelievably unbalanced coverage in the US...

Benjamin and Seder goes to a psychiatrist conventions and sets up a screening ofTHE BAD SITUATION in one of the conference rooms and explains the dynamics of group therapy using THE BAD SITUATIONIST. The title of the forum, “Utilizing Film Therapy Tools”. This would be taped and made into a film. Yes?

Yeah it's only been going on since my entire lifetime..pretty effing unbelievable...

it's been happening for pretty much all our lifetimes....

(the one with the party name that makes us happy) to turn the world back on its proper end?

How many more news narratives (thanks dada) is it going to take?

what the fuck sort of news story does it take to make it all change..? Seriously...We can let go of all the big stuff and focus our attentions into our own community? Or diligently write our congress people. Or blog til our hearts explode...but really the time for pointing it out is so long gone...the time for radical re-stirring of the soup is here....A solution in the middle east..? How about a solution based populace..?

imagine..

But no one who owns Sam, Marc, Randi, Rachel, Chuck, Thom, Lisle or whoever the F else is on the radio to spout solutions..just problems...a lifetime of world problems...If Janeane had been able to hack it on this crap chance at an audience called Air America and had TOLD us the where and when of it...wouldn't you have gone? If someone in the media could see the truth of government and led us to ask not what we can do ..blah blah blah..I would have done it..But neither side wants that..they just wanna stir the soup and profit on it...All these non-violent peace making orgs..

Code Pink is the only group I know of that stands in the face of danger in the US every day....non violently...I wonder how many men are in Code Pink?

Ugh, I've been reading that Harper's Index I posted up there...
new
Submitted by Annette on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 4:20pm.
*******
Link ?
Thanks..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

agreed!!

They did part of a This American Life on it. That was in the title of the show (Lessons Learned or Department of Lessons Learned). Probably from that same year (2006), early.

You could go there and hear about it.

www.thisamericanlife.com

though it only can show you about 70% of the web

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/0082285

Number of U.S. postage stamps printed in June whose packaging mistakenly listed a phone-sex number: 4,000,000

Telephone number that was printed in place of 1-800-STAMP-24, the number for reordering: 1-800-TRAMP-24

Sorry—the full text of this item is only available to Harper's Magazine subscribers. Subscribe today for as little as $16.97 per year!

podcastworthy, imho.

Does anyone know the webpage on his new site that has the post chats from PRIOR to December? Or did they exist before that?

Whuut--I gave awready! Back off! ;)

Even if the Public Broadcasting System is infiltrated by assholes...it's nearly all that's left...If Air America thought it would ever fill that vacuum of left media...think again...They dumped the real left and implanted the dick-left way quicker than PBS and NPR have....

He said There aren't any..
But,his producer said something about working on it..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Alice: As far as I know the 1st Post Show Chat was Dec. 3rd.

And albeit if Moyers isn't even ready to dump party politics.. then we do have a ways to go...but still...Moyers is on the air..Janeane Garafolo isn't..And Amy Goodman, who actually I think does see the two party farce isn't anywhere near the MSM..I think we have a long way to go...

Suddenly I'm tired... again...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I don't want to rub salt..but DemocracyNow has a way where I can stream the show and even tho I can't watch the vid from home I can hear it - minimally buffered - Sam's producer can ask Amy and Juan and DN how they do it, I would pay to hear Sam's show in the way I can Amy's from home...

The largest gap in internet service is with the poor and the aged....

And if you are speaking for the poor and aged then make your show work for them...

Your just talking to the choir here..

:)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

if I do have your address then I'm sending you an oil bottle..if you don't want it..send it to someone who might...

niterz....

I can barely listen to Randi now..

Her,me,me,me,me,me thing is gotten so old..

And,I use to really like her show alot..

Insecure much ? I don't know what it is with her now..

She wants to take credit for everything..Weird & sad..

I hope she gets over it & gets back to the old Randi soon..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

as a way to promote Stephanie?

Do they really think that's a highlight?

Submitted by MMRules on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 6:07pm.
I can barely listen to Randi now..
------

I haven't listened since Maron v Seder started. And you're right, I can stand the me thing either. I'm sorry Jeff Faris is gone. He had great guest. Unlike Malloy or Randi, he actually respected his audience.

I posted it on my Open Mic up there ^^^

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4241

just another myth?

Is it really true that people who engage in unbridled silliness live longer, happier lives?

Do you have any Tiny Tim album's in your record collection?

Silliness sure beats acting like you've got a rat up your ass gnawing at your intestins...

But that's just my opinion.

I won't leave this world bitching at everyone and generally making those around me miserable.

So yeah, silliness can, will, and shall ensue. So help me Jehosophat.

Annette, over and out. :-)

PS - air ono, I miss you.

;)

Thanks for the link.. :)

I miss the Ono,too..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Evening Sederville!
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 6:41pm
I haven't listened since Maron v Seder started.
*******
I try & listen to Randi after MaronvSeder..But,it's gotten
it's too much of a self love fest..

I like Jeff Farris too,Edna..I never got the full story of why he left..All I read was that he backed the wrong guy in management..Or,something like that..

He still does a show..But,on one of those internet places like Sam & Maggiesboy were on..
I'll look for the link for you..
I have it here someplace..Brb.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

I want to cast Mickey Rourke, Gary Busey, Danny Bonaduce, Andy Dick, Katherine Harris, Ann Coulter, Courtney Love and Brittney Spears in a contest to see who could become THE biggest dipshit/asshole.

The U.S.-backed Israelis destroyed/destabilized/assassinated so many Palestinian leaders that a vacuum was left, which, out of necessity, Hamas filled. That's my guess.

I suspect the Israelis won't be satisfied until they kill off not only all Palestinian leadership, but also all potential for future Palestinian leaders. I think it's spelled G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E.

his 3000.00 bail was reduced to 187.00 nothing else. I think the judge thinks that marajuana violations are bullshit too. He was very kind and reasonable. Wes is so happy.

and I think you have my address....

Obama said if someone were firing a rocket into his little girls' bedroom, he'd have to do something [in response/retaliation] -- something to that effect.

Couldn't Obama just as easily have said if someone was STARVING his children, denying them medical supplies and preventing them from going to school, that he would have to do something in response/retaliation?

Where is it written that victims of aggression must die quietly? Just asking.

Rolland Burris?

He's a big supporter of Blago. Nice man but I don't think he's up to being a Senator. My opinion. Think there will be alot of animosity about Blago's choice.

Really tired today. First the doctor, 2 shots, Flu and Pneumonia. Then work.

Got a call from the man down the hall who wanted to know how to attach a file to his email. Taught him how to do that. Then he lost his tool bar on his Word so I reinstalled that for him. He has too many files in his document folder and his computer is running very slow! Told him to save them to disc or dump them. He's 78 and just recently learned the computer.

Last night I took my CPR training to update my certificate. They are now giving a Disc of the whole class so that you can watch when ever you want. Great idea!

I like the citrus smells :)

Send the recipe too. I'd like to make some myself.

Incase you didn't now..
I just found this..

www.thejefffariasshow.com/

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Good for you & your son.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Israeli assault on Gaza risks emboldening radicals
Analysts say operation could backfire, much like Lebanon incursion
By Liz Sly | Tribune correspondent

BEIRUT — Israel's assault on Gaza is a gamble that may succeed in irrevocably weakening the Palestinian Hamas movement — but it also could backfire by strengthening Hamas and other radicals in the way that the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah ended up emboldening Lebanon's militant Shiite movement.

The longer Hamas holds out against the Israeli offensive, the greater the likelihood of comparisons with the Lebanon war, in which Hezbollah stood firm against intensive Israeli airstrikes and earned the widespread adulation of the Arab world, according to experts in the Middle East.

Hezbollah later leveraged its enhanced prestige to push for greater political power within the Lebanese government — thereby increasing the influence of its patrons, Iran and Syria, in the region.

A similar scenario could unfold in Gaza, where Hamas, also backed by Iran and Syria, will need only to survive in order to claim a victory of sorts, said Hilal Khashan, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.

"As long as Hamas holds on, Hamas can always say it held its ground," he said. "No matter how this ends, the position of the so-called Arab moderates will deteriorate and Iran will get stronger."

Already, regional peace efforts have been hurt by the halting of indirect talks between Israel and Syria: Turkey, a majority Muslim nation that has relations with Israel, said Monday it could no longer serve as a broker in the talks given the ferocity of Israel's onslaught. Syria suspended its participation the previous day.

In Tehran, more than 3,500 people signed up to a Web site launched by a group of conservative clerics soliciting volunteers to fight Israel. The Combatant Clergy Society offered recruits the choice of three ways to fight: militarily, financially and via propaganda, The Associated Press reported.

More here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mideast-gaza_30dec30,...

Connell declared emergency before fatal crash
Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday December 30, 2008

Republican IT consultant Michael Connell, who was killed on December 19 when his Piper Saratoga crashed near the Akron-Canton Airport, had declared an emergency shortly before losing contact with air traffic control.

According to a preliminary incident report filed by the safety division of the Federal Aviation Administration on December 22, "The plane was on ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach to runway 23. Tower noted plane left of course. Tower directed plane to climb and maintain 3000 feet and didn’t comply. When advised to climb a second time, the pilot declared an emergency and was lost from radar shortly thereafter."

The National Transportation Safety Board has now posted a more complete report, but one which still leaves unresolved both the exact nature of Connell's emergency and the cause of the crash.

According to the NTSB, Connell initially contacted air traffic control (ATC) at the Akron-Canton Airport to ask whether there were any reports of icing and was told there were none. His approach was then uneventful until ATC noted that he was left of his course and asked if he would like to be resequenced. Connell replied "correcting." ATC then advised him again that he was "well left of the localizer" and Connell responded that he would "like to correct."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Connell_declared_emergency_before_fatal_cr...

Obama condemns Blago's move to appoint Burris
by SusanG
Tue Dec 30, 2008 at 02:59:23 PM PST
The transition team released the following statement from President-Elect Barack Obama:

Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it. I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/30/175541/32/717/678657

"I don't really feel like I need to respond
to people that view it that way."

-- Pickles, on the vast majority of Americans
who think Bush is the worst president ever,Link

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Jatropha-fuelled plane touches down after successful test flight

The search for an environmentally friendly fuel for airplanes took a leap forward today with the world's first flight powered by a second-generation biofuel, derived from plants that do not compete with food crops.

An Air New Zealand jumbo jet left Auckland just before midnight GMT with a 50-50 mix of jet fuel and oil from jatropha trees in one of its four engines. The two-hour test flight, which took the Boeing 747 over the Hauraki Gulf, showed that the jatropha biofuel was suitable for use in airplanes without the need for any modifications of the engines. It forms part of the airline's plan to source 10% of its fuel from sustainable sources by 2013.

"At an emotional level, it was an exciting day today," said Air New Zealand's chief pilot, David Morgan, who was on the test flight. "We achieved everything we wanted to achieve and it as a significant milestone for the aviation industry, doing the very first jatropha-fuelled flight. We're thrilled."

The flight was completed as the US airline Continental announced its own plans to test second-generation biofuels: next week it will fly a plane over the Gulf of Mexico with fuel derived from algae. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/30/biofuel-test-plane

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israel rejected calls by the UN, EU and France for a ceasefire and instead prepared for what could be "long weeks of combat," as a ferocious air offensive against Hamas in he Gaza Strip entered its fourth day Tuesday. An Israeli defence official said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had proposed to Israel that it unilaterally halt its assault for 48 hours to give Hamas a chance to end its rocket and mortar attacks as well.

Kouchner had submitted the proposal to Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who had passed it on the caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

But Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said that although Israel would work "energetically" with foreign governments and international organizations to allow a "constant flow" of aid into the strip, it would not suspend its offensive before its goals were achieved.

"Giving Hamas a rest period to re-group and rearm, reducing the pressure on that organization, would be a mistake," he told dpa.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/248321,olmert-rejects-french-pro...

Jatropha-fuelled plane
new
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 8:04pm.
Jatropha-fuelled plane touches down after successful test flight

*******

About bloody time,aye ?

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Bush's senior staff found
religious right to be 'annoying'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reality in the White House is - if you look at the most senior staff - you're seeing people who aren't personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders," Kuo said.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics/story/572378.html

Soldier says US troops trying to convert Muslims to Christianity

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An atheist soldier suing over prayers at military formations claims a larger pattern of religious discrimination exists in the military, citing attempts to convert Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and an evangelical bias in a suicide prevention manual.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95CN0T80&show_article=1

RNC mulls accusing Bush of 'socialism'
Nick Juliano

The divisions taking hold among Republicans are becoming more severe as the party prepares to accuse its outgoing president of embracing "socialism."

The slur that conservatives were so fond of lobbing at Barack Obama during the presidential campaign is now being directed toward President Bush and GOP lawmakers who supported federal bailouts of the banking and auto industries.

At its meeting next month, the Republican National Committee is set to vote on a resolution formally opposing the bailouts, accusing Bush of helping nationalize the banks and taking "another dangerous step closer toward socialism," the Washington Times reports Tuesday.

"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of the resolution told the Times.

The resolution reads, in part:

"WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill effectively nationalized the Nation's banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism; and WHEREAS, what was needed, and is still needed, to fix the banking industry is not a bailout, but rather a commitment to fiscal responsibility."
Republican leaders in both the House and Senate supported the Wall Street bailout, and GOP presidential candidate John McCain infamously "suspended" his campaign to return to Washington and whip up support for the bill. A Republican-led filibuster blocked the auto industry bailout in the Senate, but Bush decided to use some of the previously approved $700 billion to grant loans to the car companies.

During the campaign, accusations that Obama was a closet socialist proliferated on talk radio, conservative blogs and in McCain/Palin campaign speeches.

For the record, "The resolution also opposes President-elect Obama's proposed public works program and supports conservative alternatives," another co-sponsor told the Times.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/RNC_mulls_accusing_Bush_of_socialism_1230....

Ted Bundy killed 35 people.

Bush has killed over 100,000 people.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Bush signs gay rights bill
By Andy Birkey 12/30/08 10:17 AM

Call it a Christmas present for gay and lesbian couples. President Bush signed the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA) two days before Christmas. The new law makes it mandatory for businesses to roll over retirement benefits to a same-sex partner in the event of the employee’s death.

Previously, employers could decline and surviving same-sex partners would have to pay tax on the inheritance of the deceased partner’s retirement savings. Legally married heterosexual couples automatically avoid that tax penalty.

National LGBT rights groups hailed the move. “This legislation secures much-needed protection for lesbian and gay couples,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Our community faces unique challenges in preparing for retirement because we are denied Social Security spousal and survivor benefits. Protecting our hard-earned retirement savings is even more crucial to us, and until now, the tax code made it that much harder.”

http://minnesotaindependent.com/21528/bush-signs-gay-rights-bill

Don't let jatropha trees die for humans like turkeys must.

Call your congressman and demand that he spare jatropha trees.

When Half Your Country Is About To Starve To Death
James Boyce

Here in the United States, we are watching our economy unravel, but no matter the incompetency of the current administration, or the questionable policies of the incoming one, there is no chance that in our lifetime we will see the headline, "175 Million Americans Face Starvation."

Right now, in Zimbabwe, a political and humanitarian tragedy, half the country is facing starvation. Not hunger, or shortage, but pure starvation.

I read one story about how people were eating the roots of trees to survive, but when so many are doing that, of course, even the roots of trees are hard to come by.

Twenty years ago, I studied in Zimbabwe as an exchange student from Duke. It was a beautiful, wonderful, vibrant country that appeared to be on the path to recovery after its civil war. Today, the policies of Robert Mugabe have destroyed the country and its rich agricultural heritage. I could go on forever about the carnage but today, it's about the children.

More here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-boyce/when-half-your-country-is_b_15...

It's up to us to put down these GOP idiots!
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 8:25pm.
RNC mulls accusing Bush of 'socialism'

"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of the resolution told the Times.
*******

Hey,Yue !

Let's see..Free markets and low taxes put us in this bailout situation..

Big government..As in Bushtards huge government spending ?

Losing individual liberties and freedoms..Bushtard again !

In other words..Look In The Mirror,Dumbass !

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Obama Fiddles While Gaza Burns
posted by Robert Dreyfuss

But the truly sad thing is see how Obama has opted out. He left the commenting to David Axelrod, his political strategist, who said, mouse-like: "I think he (Obama) wants to get a handle on the situation so that when he becomes president on January 20 he has the advantage of all the facts and information leading up to that point." To that gobbledygook he added that now all-too-familiar nostrum that America has "one president at a time.

During 2008, Obama never allowed any daylight between himself and the Israeli lobby. Those inclined to believe that Obama had a secret plan to break with AIPAC and its allies and to push for a solution in Palestine in a manner that wouild involve twisting Israeli arms discounted Obama's pro-Israel rhetoric as campaign posturing. We'll see. But it now appears abundantly clear that we'll have to wait until January 20, if not long afterwards, to find out.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/392216/obama_fiddles_while_gaza_...

Zbigniew Brzezinski calls Joe Scarborough "Stunningly Superficial"

On this morning's Morning Joe, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski offered his expertise on the conflict in Gaza. It was all very insightful! But you'll want to just skip to the end of this clip, where host Joe Scarborough attempts to ask for Brzezinski's daughter Mika's hand in marriage or something by insisting that "you cannot blame what's going on in Israel on the Bush administration." This prompted Zbig to reply, "You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you." Burn!

Anyway, things grew only more awkward from there, as Scarborough batted the insult hither and to, while Mika rolled around in her chair, totally chagrined. The show finally, mercifully, cuts to commercial (over the strains of Stevie Wonder's "Superstitious" -- apparently the closest thing the producers had to "superficial'). At that point, Scarborough directed Mika to give her father six dollars to make the mean man go away. Anyway, enjoy.

[WATCH.] at Link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/30/zbigniew-brzezinski-calls_n_154...

I guess we should have never allowed the Republicans to continue to control Congress back in 06....

You know if we had only given the Democrats control of Congress back in 06 they would have taken control of the committees that oversee Fannie Freddie and Wall Street..

We have no one to blame but ourselves...

If only the Democrats controlled everything...

Then all would be well..!!!!

Israeli troops dance as they await the order for a Gaza war

ALONG THE ISRAEL-GAZA STRIP BORDER — In a muddy field overlooking the smoke-blackened Gaza Strip skyline on Tuesday, young soldiers from an Israeli tank unit linked arms with euphoric civilians and joined them in the hora, a circular dance, in anticipation of a possible ground invasion of the Palestinian territory.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/58734.html

Thanks for the link MMRules.

---

M'Hap, I glad things went well for your son.

Zbigniew Brzezinski calls Joe Scarborough "Stunningly Superficial"

---------

He forgot stupid.

But in the late 1970s the Sex Pistols were considered just as much of a threat to Ireland and its traditional Catholic moral values, it emerged yesterday, as state papers revealed the extent of official concern about the prime instigators of the punk revolution.

The Sex Pistols were targeted in a 1978 Irish police investigation aimed at protecting the country's morals, the papers revealed.

At a time when the IRA was intensifying its campaign of bombings and assassinations the Garda Síochána turned its attention towards Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Steve Jones and Paul Cook and the sale of their first album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/31/sex-pistols-ireland-police-i...

Wow was he in a snit!

I don't think I've ever seen a talking head in something quite so on-the-nose snittish in my life.

Sure I've seen fauxtrage and I've seen guys with their knickers in a twist with and without good reason. (Btw, was KO on tonight?)

But that was my first full-blown mansnit.

Thanks toniD.

Oberman did a `year's favorite people' show.

a lot of fun.

if you like that sort of thing...
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

by Dahr Jamail
November 26th, 2008 | T r u t h o u t

What’s in a system?

We in the United States have grown acclimatized to a system that first dehumanizes us and then inevitably feeds on our dehumanization, sucking away at our resources, our rights, and our resistance while we scamper frantically around in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

We would like to imagine that it is our agency that drives us, and that our lives are under our control. The truth, however, is that we are the ones under control. The reason we do not notice it is that this control is masked as security, which we have been told is synonymous with freedom.

Recently, I passed through an airport checkpoint monitored by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and witnessed the “system” rear its ugly head yet again........

.......It requires no crystal ball to see that we are embedded in a system that has no qualms about harassing old men in wheelchairs or making pregnant women walk through x-ray machines. It is the same system that is killing scores of Iraqi and Afghan civilians daily, and killing the planet systemically. It is a system that requires us to be sleepwalkers, rather than alert and sensitive humans........

We have an African-American president, but let us also bear in mind that he is but a symbol, and our need and faith may not suffice for the symbol of change to deliver real change.

There is a tremendous schism between what Barack Obama is saying, and what he is doing. Already, he is gathering around him a group of people that are not only likely to maintain status quo, but worse, cause our current catastrophic situation to worsen.....

Martin Indyk, the founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing US policy toward Iraq and Iran. In addition to his work for the US government, he has worked for the Israeli government, and with the neo-conservative think-tank the Project for the New American Century - which devised the US blueprint for global domination.........

.....Emanuel apologized for his father’s incendiary remarks. But that does not alter the fact that he has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner. In July 2006, Emanuel was one of several members who called for the cancellation of a speech by visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the Congress because al-Maliki had criticized Israel’s bombing of Lebanon. Around the same time, Emanuel referred to the Lebanese and Palestinian governments as ‘totalitarian entities with militias and terrorists acting as democracies” in a speech supporting a House resolution backing Israel’s bombing of both countries that had caused thousands of civilian casualties. He accompanied Obama to an AIPAC executive board meeting last June, immediately after the Illinois senator had addressed the pro-Israel lobby’s conference.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/learning-to-lead#more-1397

Perhaps Rachel is beating him in the ratings. But what do expect from a man who compared a picture of Paris Hilton going to jail- to that of the nude 9 year old Vietnamese girl- with napalm burns. I swear he did.

Excerpt:

This year we saw the rise of Rachel Maddow and Campbell Brown -- very opinionated. You haven't succumbed too much. Do you have plans to?

"I have no plans to, no. I think those people are really good at what they do. Rachel Maddow is an incredible
talent -- she's funny, and smart, obviously well researched on subjects. I'm just not interested as a viewer in listening to anchors' opinions. It seems like there's an awful lot of yelling, and this year yelling's been replaced by sarcasm and snarki-ness".

con't

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-conversation28-2008dec28,0,66...

They'll go out Friday...

*

Zbigniew Brzezinski - If I were this guy I'd be more worried about my own reputation...

Look up "face made for radio."
You'll see a picture of Kent Jones.
...But I love the guy.

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

...I'm glad not all judges are dumb.

"Take a deep breath."
"It's a wake up call."
"Lame duck." <-- When was this made-- 1880? does anyone use animal metaphors anymore?

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Obama condemns Blago's move to appoint Burris
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 8:01pm.
Obama condemns Blago's move to appoint Burris
by SusanG
Tue Dec 30, 2008 at 02:59:23 PM PST
The transition team released the following statement from President-Elect Barack Obama:

Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it. I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/30/175541/32/717/678657

» ================================

Pretty weird development. How many in Obama's cabinet, staff, or planned ambassador roster haven't made a donation or delivered a political favor??? Sheesh.

Why should Obama exhibit such bluster even when Gov. Blagojevich makes a decent, acceptable choice. What the heck does Obama want to do? Allow a special election with the chance of losing a Dem Senate seat? Or maybe a Rep corporatist is better than a clear-thinking, non-DLC/non-corporatist Dem? Double sheesh.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/esteven301208.html

Our message should be that the problem isn't really Obama, or any other elected official for that matter, but the system.
...

I agree...

I'd totally do him.

"If he liked that kind of thing."

A little more boyish looking (one might even say muppetty looking [in a good way]) than I would have expected but definitely cute to a girl. (To this one anyhow.)

Hey Fern, you're right. I really do have a position on everything!

Did they use depleted uranium ordinance when they bombed
Lebanon and now Gaza? Or is it something new or worse this time?

Chicken and egg kinda thing, but I agree that's what lefties should probably _say_.

Hmmm Cardenal said something about that once.

Rolland Burris is a nice man. He's done nothing wrong that I've heard of. But I don't see him as US Senate material. They'll eat him up and spit him out in the US Senate. He was an okay Atty General, but not as assertive as Lisa Madigan. I've dealt with her office and she has gone after many big corps. Burris, not so much.

Also, Blago is using the poor man. I feel sorry for him.

if I wasn't married and 20 or 30 years older than him

Rusty 5 or 6 years ago

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Ditto. Rufus.

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Even older.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

older still.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Very interesting. I appreciate the firsthand understanding you impart on the Illinois Senate choice.

they seem to adjust so quickly and so well. The continuity of going to a new place with a pal you know seems to take out all the uncertainty and apprehension and all that's left is pure adventure and fun! That's what happened when our two came here together.

Rajah and Bhong look so completely at ease! So great!

DULUTH - Shirley Graham was astonished to learn that a lawyer from Norm Coleman's campaign on Tuesday blocked her absentee ballot from being added to the U.S. Senate recount.

"I'm an election judge," said Graham, of Duluth. "I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn't be counted."

Her sealed ballot was among 60 from St. Louis County that were blocked by representatives of Coleman and Al Franken during the first day of a statewide review of absentee ballots that may have been wrongly rejected in last month's election. Under a state Supreme Court ruling, local election officials and the two campaigns must all agree that a ballot was wrongly rejected for it to be sent along to St. Paul for inclusion in the recount.

Coleman's camp, which rejected 59 of the 60 ballots set aside Tuesday in St. Louis County, objected to Graham's ballot on the grounds that the date next to her signature did not match the date next to the signature of her witness, Jack Armstrong.

That's dumbfounding, Graham said. "Both of us are former educators, and he used to work in the secretary of state's office," she said. "As he sat across the table from me, he actually said, 'Shirley, this date has to be the same.' I don't understand how it could be different."

Graham said that because she works each Election Day in a neighboring precinct, she votes absentee. She didn't have any idea that her ballot had been rejected, reconsidered and rerejected until receiving a reporter's call.

"I want to see my ballot," said Graham, who added that she'd consider going to court, if she must, to get her vote counted.

A final irony: She voted for Coleman.

Free Democracy

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1390000,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1390003,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1389993,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1389999,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1389996,00.jpg

But not Blagojevich. He's tried in the press.

I don't like double standards.

Nice, Kevin.

Obama's statement on Israel's aggression against Gaza...

Submitted by nora on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 7:37pm.

Obama said if someone were firing a rocket into his little girls' bedroom, he'd have to do something [in response/retaliation] -- something to that effect.

Couldn't Obama just as easily have said if someone was STARVING his children, denying them medical supplies and preventing them from going to school, that he would have to do something in response/retaliation?

Where is it written that victims of aggression must die quietly? Just asking.

Sounds good. Don't think you have a current address for me, though, A.

home again

hi dada

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Nimoy stars as All-American race car driver Tom Kovack who tackles mystery and adventure after he is endowed with psychic powers in a racing accident. A failed TV pilot, it is notable for it's fun, kitchy opening and totally kick ass theme song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3_4IDYlYA

His reasoning being that he would probably be out of a job soon anyway.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Good to read ya.

NIKKA WHISKY オーソン・ウェルズウィスキー

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDfGlCgBKU&NR=1

Use the arrow keys to move your chef around and avoid the hot dogs, eggs and pickle slices that are chasing you

http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/burgertime

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Sun-loving Australians reacted angrily on Tuesday to a mid-summer bid by a conservative Christian lawmaker to ban topless sunbathing on beaches in the country's most populous state.

Christian lawmaker and veteran morals campaigner Reverend Fred Nile won backing from key politicians in New South Wales state, counting Sydney and its famed ocean beaches, to tighten existing laws covering nude sunbathing.

"The law should be clear. It must say exposure of women's breasts on beaches will be prohibited," Nile said.

Centre-left state government lawmaker Paul Gibson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that families at the beach during the summer holidays did not want topless women.

But scores of callers to radio talkback stations complained about the plan and Leanne Peters from the ACT Nudist Club in the capital Canberra said Australia would look like a "haven for prudes" in the unlikely event that laws passed parliament.

Australians love their suntans and topless sunbathing has been common on most beaches since the 1960s. Nude beaches are also legal in every state except tropical Queensland.

But the country also suffers the world's highest rate of melanoma skin cancer. A new and graphic government advertising campaign warns there is no such thing as safe tanning, building on decades of similar official warnings.

NSW Assistant Health Minister Jodi McKay said banning topless sunbathing was a step too far for most lawmakers. "We don't want to go down the slippery slope of banning activities like this. What would be next, banning breastfeeding?" she said..

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Michael Parenti is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad.

In the land of those who think they’re free and the home of savage capitalism, class is indeed a dirty word. Remember, we’re a nation of Joe the Plumbers. If we just work hard enough and fend off those socialist vampires who want to suck us dry by redistributing our hard-earned wealth, we can all be financial successes. And if you’re a faux-progressive presidential candidate—like Obama, you’re doomed to political perdition unless you sign a blood oath disavowing your ties to socialism.

Yet there are a few political analysts and academics who dare to blaspheme against capitalism, which is the “God” this benighted land truly worships—despite the disgustingly hypocritical veneer of faux Christianity. Remember that Michael Parenti has one of the filthiest mouths you’ll ever hear. He dares to repeatedly spew profane diatribes against capitalism, the sacrosanct basis for our precious American Way of Life. Parenti has the chutzpah to derisively attack our system, which we all know is the best that’s ever been (or will be), by asserting that there are divisions amongst US Americans based on socioeconomic standing. And worst of all? He uses the “C” word! Somebody needs to give his mouth a good cleansing with a bar of Dial!

Parenti recently answered a few questions Jason Miller threw his way. Let’s see how much further he traveled on the road to perdition…

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/%E2%80%9Cclass-is-a-dirty-word%E2%...

that want Sam to cut off his finger for the amusement of it?

That's some sick shit there. I thought Sam was our friend...

duh....

Elections.

bombing the folks who support the local community can't be done without consequence.

it's no path towards lasting peace.

I voted for Sam to do the show from the workshop.

I couldn't vote for the workshop without voting for the loss of Sam's finger. I would have if I could have.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

I'm thinking I'd rather he takes the day off than lob off an appendage.

I don't write the poll questions, I just vote on them...
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

I am enjoying the hoopla as much as many others.
What bothers me is the line that was crossed to get there.

The reporter had a pass.
This gave him access and in becoming part of the picture he betrayed a great trust.
This trust of access far outweighs...

He used his access for personal gain.

To tired to make this coherent

A reporter is similar to what I do, except they are on the other side of the proscenium. I have an intimate kind of access to 'important' people.
I've had GWB in my spotlight. [I like running a spotlight, for one reason, you do get to be part of the performance. The opening of spring awakening, is

There is no curtain. Part of the audience sits on the stage to the right and left, some of the performers sit amongst them. The musicians occupy upstage.
She comes out onstage, stands on a chair and sings

“Mama Who Bore Me”
About the second verse, I bring my light up on her in a 5 (or so) count. It's a nice moment.
Then after a bit four of the girls sing and dance the reprise

.

Anyway, there is an implicit trust upon accepting the grant of access. You betray your partners if you break it.

buttons re http://searchbeta.playlist.com

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Correct...Hmm...I could try my telepathic powers, and enter your dreams at my own will, that is to say: if you dream of me, it's because I want it so (it's my statement), and not because of your unconscious. Or something....

Or...maybe you can email it to me... ? Yeah..that would be easier...

Right answer.

It's only democracy if our guys win. Otherwise it's a do over or an overthrow.

...

This song is an arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's "America" which Emerson described as the first ever instrumental protest song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45pIvr4gJD4

Magma - De Futura, Paris 1977

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73XLkf43-s

but I still like Elvis

but not John Wayne

Me too.

I'm glad you saw the cat pics, A. I uploaded a whole bunch of them to my flickr account.
http://flickr.com/photos/33478223@N05/page14/

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

In other words, Barack Obama does represent change from the era of the Bush administration. He is the limited change that's possible within the logic of the current system.

Submitted by dada on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 2:55am.

kind of like yesterday's video
~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

"criticism we can believe in."
new
Submitted by Alice on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 3:08am.

with that, I bid you goodnight.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

This is one of the King's last concerts. It is rare footage from a doc called "This is Elvis". Subsequent copies I've viewed have had these sections cut out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr8VEcbSw48

The Elvis video where he forgets the words. It's actually brilliant.

Graham Bond Organization - Harmonica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3jUiKFIlYQ

Nitey-nite.

The Jerusalem Post

An 85-year-old former US Army mechanical engineer likely will get no prison sentence after admitting Tuesday he passed classified documents to the Israelis in the 1970s and '80s.

Ben-ami Kadish told US Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz he believes he was promised the government will not seek a prison term when he is sentenced Feb. 13.

Assistant US Attorney Iris Lan said prosecutors promised only that they would not oppose or challenge a sentence that included no prison time.

Kadish, a US citizen who lives in New Jersey, pleaded guilty only to one of the four charges of conspiracy he originally faced.

He was accused of taking home classified documents from 1979 to 1985, when he worked at the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. The government said he let an Israeli agent photograph documents, including information about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the US Patriot missile air defense system.

Prosecutors said it appeared that Kadish, who was born in Connecticut but was raised in Palestine in an area the British government was trying to turn into a Jewish state, was motivated by a desire to help Israel.

The judge asked Kadish if he obtained the classified documents from the library of the Picatinny Arsenal and supplied them to Yossi Yagur, an Israeli government agent who had requested them.

Kadish, who worked there from 1963 to 1990, said he had.

The judge also asked if Kadish requested anything of value or received anything of value for the classified documents.

Kadish said he did not. He admitted that he provided the documents for the benefit of Israel.

Yagur, now retired and living in Tel Aviv, is the agent who obtained information from convicted Pentagon spy Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for selling military secrets to Israel while working as an intelligence analyst for the Navy. Pollard's case damaged US-Israeli relations and remains a sore point between the countries.

US authorities say Kadish confessed to FBI agents that he had given Yagur between 50 and 100 classified documents and accepted no cash in return, only small gifts and occasional dinners for him and his family.

Kadish had told the FBI that he knew that one restricted document he provided to the agent included atomic-related information and that he did not have the required clearance to borrow it, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Outside court on Tuesday, Kadish, asked if he was hopeful the spy case was over, said, "I hope so." His wife told him not to say any more.

Teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don't make such promises -- and they're less likely to practice safe sex to prevent disease or pregnancy, a new study finds.

"Previous studies found that pledgers were more likely to delay having sex than non-pledgers," said study author Janet E. Rosenbaum, a post doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I used the same data as previous studies but a different statistical method."

This method allowed Rosenbaum to compare those who had taken a virginity pledge with similar teens who hadn't taken a pledge but were likely to delay having sex, she said. She added that she didn't include teens who were unlikely to take a pledge.

"Virginity pledgers and similar non-pledgers don't differ in the rates of vaginal, oral or anal sex or any other sexual behavior," Rosenbaum said. "Strikingly, pledgers are less likely than similar non-pledgers to use condoms and also less likely to use any form of birth control."

The findings were published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_73263.html

Free Democracy

bet that smells good 8-)

-kind of like yesterday's video-

Which one are you referring to? The one Sam put at the top of the thread?

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkRJellx0UA

Digna Rabia: a 15 años del EZLN

*

Chubbs..#31 is so cute...the white around the eyes is especially cute for kittens...

*

Hi Kev! :) Happy New Year....I'm glad you are here...

Hey your niece might like this site...
http://pixiehollow.go.com/

That one I'm mixing up tomorrow.I have to try to find my recipe...the last time I made it it smelled SOOOOOO great...I hope this one turns out well also...

Webster Tarpley on Obama...

http://pierrejoubert.blogspot.com/2008/09/webster-tarpley-and-obama.html

To Lehman Brothers, Linen ’n Things and the blank VHS tape, add another American institution that expired in 2008: drug company trinkets.

Starting Jan. 1, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the kind of branded goodies — Viagra pens, Zoloft soap dispensers, Lipitor mugs — that were meant to foster good will and, some would say, encourage doctors to prescribe more of the drugs.

No longer will Merck furnish doctors with purplish adhesive bandages advertising Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papillomavirus. Banished, too, are black T-shirts from Allergan adorned with rhinestones that spell out B-O-T-O-X. So are pens advertising the Sepracor sleep drug Lunesta, in whose barrel floats the brand’s mascot, a somnolent moth.

Some skeptics deride the voluntary ban as a superficial measure that does nothing to curb the far larger amounts drug companies spend each year on various other efforts to influence physicians. But proponents welcome it as a step toward ending the barrage of drug brands and logos that surround, and may subliminally influence, doctors and patients.

“It’s not just the pens — it’s the paper on the exam table, the tongue depressor, the stethoscope tags, medical calipers that might be used to interpret an EKG, penlights,” said Dr. Robert Goodman, a physician in internal medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.........

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/business/31drug.html?_r=1&hp

is spent to keep these types of programs going...

-Study: Many Teens Don't Keep Virginity Pledges
Submitted by Kevin © on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 3:49am.-

Thank you and thank's for the link to pixie land 8-)

condoms are way cheaper ... 8-)

Theories about Atlantis mention the extensive use of crystals by Atlanteans. Crystals varied in patterns or grid - sizes - color combinations - and tones. Crystals follow harmonic frequencies and could be used with an instrument that looks like a tuning fork. They received power from a variety of sources, including the Sun, the Earth's energy grid system, or from each other.

Atlanteans allegedly harnessed the energies of the pyramids, using crystals to that end. As we have the Great Pyramid at the center of the planet linked to the grid matrix that creates our reality, so, too, did the Atlanteans. Their pyramid allegedly sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean which is a metaphor about returning to the collective unconsciousness or source of creation.

Just as we have major and minor grid points of energy on the planet - so did the Atlanteans. Grids point are often marked by pyramids. The Atlanteans used this energy, combined with crystals, to transmit energy from one pyramid to another.

Depending on the tilt of the Earth's axis at a particular time of the year, one pyramid would function to intensify and transmit energies to other pyramids which would then act as receiving devices and would disperse energy as it was needed. The opposite would apply when that pyramid was at an unfocused point to their celestial alignment, when other pyramids would be used as transmitters. It was an intricate matrix crystal grid system.

Uses of Crystals
- Healing, childbirth, crossing over
- Meditation, awakening, increasing psychic abilities
- Increasing mental capacity and clarity of thought
- Science and technology
- Dematerialization - teleportation - telekinesis
- Magnetic force fields
- Libraries - storing records and other knowledge, much like a computer
- Botany and agriculture
- Weather Control
- Huge crystal tower power generators
- Communication - Crystals have the ability to transfer energy, to retain it, to maintain its intensity, to focus and transmit it over great distance to similar receivers as are equal or comparable to the transmitter. The larger stones, called Fire Crystals, were the central receiving and broadcasting stations, while others acted as receivers for individual cities, buildings, vehicles and homes. On a higher spiritual level, rooms made of crystals were places where the Initiates left their bodies in the Final Transcendence, often never to return.

more here .....
http://www.crystalinks.com/atlanteancrystals.html

Edgar Cayce

One of the most detailed descriptions of the Atlantean use of a mysterious instrument called the Great Crystal was given by Edgar Cayce, who mentioned it many times. The crystal, he said was housed in a special building oval in shape, with a dome that could be rolled back, exposing the Crystal to the light of the sun, moon and stars at the most favorable time. The interior of the building was lined with non-conducting metal or stone, similar to asbestos or bakelite, a thermosetting plastic.

The Crystal itself, the Tuaoi Stone, or Firestone, was huge in size, cylindrical in length, and prismatic in shape, cut with six sides. Atop the crystal was a moveable capstone, used to both concentrate incoming rays of energy, and to direct currents to various parts of the Atlantean countryside. It appears that the Crystal gathered solar, lunar, stellar, atmospheric and Earth energies as well as unknown elemental forces and concentrated these at a specific point, located between the top of the Crystal and the bottom of the capstone.

The energy was used for various purposes. In the beginning it was used as purely a spiritual tool by initiates who could handle the great energy. The early Atlanteans were peaceful people. As they developed more physical material bodies, they used the crystal to rejuvenate their bodies and were able to live hundreds of years while maintaining a youthful appearance.

Later the Great Crystal was put to other uses. Currents of energy were transmitted throughout the land, like radio waves, and powered by these, crafts and vehicles traversed the land, through the sky and under the sea at the speed of sound.

By utilization of other currents originating from the Great Crystal, the Atlanteans were also able to transmit over great distances the human voice, and pictures, like modern television. In the same manner, even heat and light could be directed to specific buildings or open arenas, giving illumination and warmth by seemingly invisible means.

In this timeline, in the Bermuda Triangle, on the ocean bottom where the ruins of Atlantis now exist, the energy build-up in the sunken and damaged Fire Crystals can periodically trigger materialization of anything.

http://www.crystalinks.com/atlanteancrystals.html

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

;) mwah haha

- John Ruskin
new
Submitted by Alice on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 4:19am.
"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

********

It might snow here tonight/tomorrow ... 8-)

HI ;-)

Free Democracy

Did I read you setup your new computer..and it's working?!

*

I'm really glad about the stupid drug maker pens..somehow we have like four different ones at my work...really a sad thing to see prescripts advertised..

;)
AND ALICE (sniff) Good Night, Sweet Dreams...
If Sleep{y}-time tiz it ... ;) ...

Better than the Santa Anna winds though, right?

way better I hate those winds .... they destroy everything ... not enough snow has landed yet to do anything .... I drove in it 8-)

Probably theres was enough for a snow devil ...

To Be Somewhat DRUNK MOST OF TODAY {but I just awoke from NEAR ... WAIT FOR IT ... Wait for it ....... WFI......
4 & 1/2 HOURS SLEEP.
and The Computer ... IT'S ALIVE...YEA VERILY aka YIPPIE!
;) now I am {ALMOST} Sane...
... eek ... ;)
TEA Cheers & I HAVE MORE Tea, even ... YIPPIE...

*

Israeli cabinet to debate French truce proposal for Gaza
...
Media reports said Israel was hesitant about agreeing to the French proposal for a "humanitarian" ceasefire, pointing out that the army was allowing some aid convoys to enter the Gaza Strip even as the fighting was going on.

Some ministers also feared that agreeing to the ceasefire would halt the momentum of the Israeli offensive, and allow Hamas, against whom the Israeli offensive is primarily directed,to claim victory.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/248361,1stlead-israeli-cabinet-t...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a constitutional amendment Tuesday extending presidential terms in the country from four years to six, a change that many suspect is intended to benefit his predecessor - and possible successor - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=19645

Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark on Time Warner Cable Inc. at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.

The impasse over carriage fee hikes would mean "SpongeBob" and other shows like "The Daily Show" will be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable operator.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIACOM_TIME_WARNER_CABLE?SITE=NCA...

Lewis found the end of the universe in Houston, Texas.

http://comedians.comedycentral.com/lewis-black/videos/lewis-black---the-...

Ugandan rebels killed more than 400 people in a series of massacres in northeastern Congo since Christmas, an aid agency said.

The Catholic charity, Caritas, cited reports by its staff in the region.

"Caritas is shocked by its staff reports of a series of massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out by Ugandan rebels on Christmas Day and the days following," the group said in a statement on its Web site.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_UGANDA_REBELS?SITE=AP&SECTION=...

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2008/12/31/Worry_over_healthcare_causing_...

I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American.
I am George Carlin.

I like big cars, big hooters, and big paychecks.
I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some midlevel governmental functionary with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts squirting out babies.

I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, you'd better do it in English.
I'm not in touch with my feelings and I like it that way.
I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.
I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer.

I want to know which church is it exactly where the Reverend Jesse Jackson preaches. And where does he get his money. And why is he always part of the problem and not the solution.

I believe if she has her lips on your willie, it is sex, and it is sex for both of you. This even applies when you are President of the United States.

I think that being a student doesn't give you any more enlightenment than working at Blockbuster. In fact, if your parents are footing the bill to put your pansy ass through 4-7 years of college, you haven't begun to be enlightened.

I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God or gods, just leave the rest of us out of it. This also applies to sexuality.

I believe it's called the Boy Scouts for a reason.
I don't think being a minority makes you noble or victimized.
I don't use the excuse "it's for the children" as a shield for unpopular opinions or actions.
I think fireworks should be legal on the 4th of July.
My heroes are John Wayne, the Simpsons, and whoever canceled Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor.
I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time arguing about it.

I think global warming is a big lie. Where are all those experts now, when I am freezing my ass through a long winter?

I've never owned a slave, or was a slave, I didn't wander forty years in the desert after getting chased out of Egypt, I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks and neither have you, so shut up already.

I think the cops have every right to shoot your sorry ass if you're running from them. I also think they have the right to pull your ass over if you are breaking the law, regardless of what color you are.

I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation of the world for the next four years.

I think if you are in the passing lane, and not passing, your license should be revoked, and you should be forced to ride the bus until you promise to never delay the rest of us again.

I think beef jerky could quite possibly be the perfect food.
I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement.
I think Dr. Seuss was a genius.
I'm neither angry nor disenfranchised, no matter how desperately the mainstream media would like the world to believe otherwise.

If that makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American.

a final run of crappiness for 2008...

*

Moving on...

Kevin you can see video now...Lucky. Have you tuned into the Maron v Seder show since you've been on this higher speed?

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?"

Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense,"

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.

He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I Understand the concept of politics now." The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit."

The Correct Path...? 400 dead in The Congo...
... worry over healthcare causing illness. WTF...
"What's Going On" {Song by Marvin G. ;) }

Study each question carefully. Then, choose the answer that seems most correct (True or False) and circle the T or F as appropriate.

1. A clitoris is a type of flower. T F

2. Pubic hair is a wild rabbit. T F

3. "Spread Eagle" is an extinct bird. T F

4. Vagina is a medical term used to describe heart trouble. T F

5. Menstrual cycle has three (3) wheels. T F

6. A G-string is part of a violin. T F

7. Semen is another word for "sailor". T F

8. Anus is the Latin word for "yearly". T F

9. Testicles are found on an octopus. T F

10. Asphalt describes rectal troubles. T F

11. Masturbate is used to catch large fish. T F

12. KOTEX is a radio station in Bryan, Texas. T F

13. Coitus is a musical instrument. T F

14. Fetus is a character on "Gunsmoke". T F

15. An umbilical cord is part of a parachute. T F

16. A condom is an apartment complex. T F

17. An organism is the person who accompanies the chior in church. T F

18. A diaphram is a drawing in geometry. T F

19. A dildo is a variety of sweet pickle. T F

20. An erection is when the Japanese vote for their new government officials. T F

21. A lesbian is a person from the Middle East. T F

22. Sodomy is a special kind of fast-growing grass. T F

23. Pornography is the business of making record albums. T F

24. Genitals are people of non-Jewish origins. T F

25. Douche is the Italian word for "twelve". T F

26. An enema is someone who is not your friend. T F

27. Ovaries are a French egg dish made with cheese. T F

One Friday night, a policeman saw a car parked up at "makeout point." Shining his flashlight in the window, he saw a young
man fidgeting in the front seat glancing at his watch and a young woman sitting in the back seat and reading a magazine.

"Excuse me, son" said the cop, "but how old are the two of you?"

"I'm eighteen, sir, and" (checking his watch another time) "in ten more minutes, she'll be eighteen too!"

250 SMALL QUAKES at Yellowstone... eek Mwah HaHa

*

14. Fetus is a character on "Gunsmoke". T F

*heh*..

I can see video now .... sometimes it is fast sometimes not ... that Lewis Black one was fast and didn't buffer it played right through .......

No I have not tuned into Maron and Seder yet ... I will give it a try though.

But not tonight ... time for me to go to bed.

Goodnight Alice ...WD ....blog

8-)

Me too...

Love you guys...Enjoy your last day of the year...

Picture a circle spinning in air...
the essence of life is what is in there.

It matters not that time goes by
for what has been will never die.

{...and a sis & family still lives in Texas. eek :}

re me:{...remember, for an intense GORE fan which LIKES HILL & BILL FOR OBVIOUS REASONS ... Bill is no worse than JFK or even MLK -- or MOST RETHUGS ...
OBAMA MUST BE WATCHED. He is a selfish male that wants HIS STORY for 4-8 years {a Rethug Dem} not DEMS for 16 years - that's why BIDEN was also picked...he will never win after Obama!)
I do not wish to fight with anyone, but I ""flash" at the sound of {edit} whatever..." and that horrid list about Hill & Bill are vainglorious whatevers === PLS, let's not fight (talk about other issues & stuff +++ hug, hug, kiss kiss. PLZ

-- I guess I am defensive...it just is I have HEARD & SEEN Hill & Bill Called That... so I ONLY GLANCED, BARELY...

I AM SORRY. BOWS.
:):(

I sent them an email on Dec. 15 quoting the error msg:

----------------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to see if this audio only link works for the show from
new
Submitted by Alice on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 4:00pm.

home for me....

Nope..
new
Submitted by Alice on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 4:14pm.

Trial Period Expired

Thank you for evaluating our product, unfortunately, the product you've been evaluating has expired.

To re-enable the player, you must purchase a license and obtain a registration code.

Celestial Show Set for New Year's Eve
Robert Roy Britt
Editorial Director
space.com
Tue Dec 30, 11:47 am ET

A delightful display of planets and the moon will occur on New Year's Eve for anyone wishing to step outside and look up just after sunset.

Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars, will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern sky. It'll be visible -- impossible to miss, in fact -- just as the sun goes down, assuming skies are cloud-free.

Soon thereafter, Mercury and Jupiter will show up hugging the south-southwestern horizon (just above where the sun went down) and extremely close to each other. Jupiter is very bright and easy to spot; Mercury is faint and harder to see, but it'll be apparent by its location just to the left of Jupiter.

Jupiter and Mercury will set less than an hour after the sun, so timing your viewing just after sunset is crucial. You'll also need a location with a clear view of the western horizon, unobstructed by buildings, trees or mountains.

All the planets, along with the moon and sun, traverse an arc across our sky called the ecliptic, which corresponds to the plane in space that they all roughly share. For this reason, you could draw an imaginary line from the general location of Venus and the moon, down through the other two planets, and the line would point to where the sun went down. This line could also initially help you find Jupiter and Mercury.

Weather permitting, you can get a preview of the sky show on Tuesday, Dec. 30. On this evening, the planets will be in nearly the same place they'll be on Dec. 31, but the moon will be midway between Venus and the Mercury-Jupiter pairing.

One last trick:

Venus is so bright you can see it during daylight if you know where to look. Given Venus' proximity to the moon on New Year's Eve, this would be an excellent moment -- just before sunset -- to use the moon to help you find Venus and gain bragging rights for being one of the few people to be able to claim seeing more than one planet during the daytime (Earth being the other one).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081230/sc_space/celestialshowsetfornewye...

Blago's Hail Mary Pass
Dan Conley, a former speechwriter for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and a keen observer of Illinois politics, offers his take on today's attempt by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint a new senator.

The selection of former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to replace President-Elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate has very little to do with the actual seat. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has already made it clear that he will not certify any Blagojevich pick. That will give the Senate Democratic caucus sufficient cause to reject the appointment, which they have already pledged to do. At this point, it would be impossible for the Democrats to backtrack on their earlier pledge, it would implicate them in the Blagojevich sleaze, which is something they will avoid at all costs. So while Burris seems like a winner today, he's a long-term loser.

Why did he agree to be used? Because he's desperate to return to the limelight. It's a sad end to a career that included numerous runs for governor, the U.S. Senate and Mayor of Chicago, plus a term as the state's Attorney General. The truth is, he wasn't much of an Attorney General -- the legal opinions that came out of his office in the early 90s were legally suspect and linguistically challenged -- but he has been a fixture in Illinois politics for years and he's escaped any hint of corruption.

The appointment of Burris is a pure impeachment-defense tactic from Blagojevich. First, he's making a public case that no crime was actually committed. If Burris was appointed without any quid pro quo (highly likely, since Burris has no great wealth or influence), then Blagojevich can argue that all the talk about other possible appointments were just that -- talk. And talk is not a crime. Is anyone going to buy that? Well, even if only ten percent of Illinois voters buy it, Blagojevich will have doubled his support, so why not? There's a certain freedom in nearly complete unpopularity.

But second, and more important for Blagojevich's survival plans, he's chosen to play the race card. To anyone who thought that the election of Barack Obama would diminish the power of racial politics, today's press conference was depressing -- especially the appalling spectacle of Rep. Bobby Rush using the word "lynch" in reference to criticism of Burris, then Blagojevich repeating the phrase while wagging a finger at the press corp on the way out of the room. For a Governor looking to rally support in the House and Senate to avoid impeachment or convinction, it's a smart move. A combination of African American and Latino Senators could be sufficient to save Blagojevich from a conviction in the Illinois Senate. It probably won't work, but Blagojevich has few options left.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/12/30/blagos_hail_mary_pass.html

What Went Wrong
Vanity Fair runs a must-read oral history of the Bush administration in which two key advisers say that it was Hurricane Katrina that ultimately broke the back of George W. Bush's presidency.

Bush pollster and strategist Matthew Dowd: "Katrina to me was the tipping point. The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn't matter. P.R.? It didn't matter. Travel? It didn't matter."

White House communications director Dan Bartlett: "Politically, it was the final nail in the coffin."

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200...

Unexpected twists make 2008 an epochal year
The financial crisis, war on two fronts, and, above all, the US election make 2008 historic.
By Peter Grier

washington - Here's the way the world looked last January: Hillary Rodham Clinton was a lock to win the Democratic nomination for president, and probably the election, too. The economy wasn't great, but it wasn't awful, either – many experts thought we'd avoid global recession. Meanwhile, Iraq seemed a lost case five years after the US invasion. And the price of gas? Hoo boy. It had passed $3 a gallon and was galloping upward, no limit in sight.

A lot has happened in the intervening months, hasn't it? If nothing else, 2008 showed that conventional wisdom isn't always terribly wise.

A year that promised to be merely important turned out to be epochal, as the US elected its first African-American president, and developed nations plunged into a frightening financial crisis, causing China and other emerging powers to question the verities of US-style capitalism itself.

Iraq got better; Afghanistan got worse. Gas went up, then down. Fidel Castro faded away. Michael Phelps won the most gold medals at a single Olympics, ever.

Above all, the year saw the reemergence of state power, as governments from Tokyo to Washington pumped huge amounts of taxpayer cash into national firms. Laissez-faire probably isn't finished, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy claimed. But as they feel their way toward the post-slump era, world leaders may have a new regard for the limits of economic ideology, and for the dangers, as well as the benefits, of global trade and financial flows.

"Fate presents an opportunity wrapped in a necessity: to modernize multilateralism and markets. We must seize it," said World Bank President Robert Zoellick in an address to his Board of Governors this fall.

Perhaps the fraud revealed at the beginning of the year should have been a tip-off. On Jan. 19, the French bank Société Générale discovered and began unraveling a series of what it later called "massive fraudulent directional positions." A week later, French police arrested a junior trader named Jerome Kerviel and charged him with losing $7 billion via unauthorized financial activity.

The lost sum was larger than the bank's total market capitalization, and at the time the biggest such fraud in history. By the end of the year, however, it was easily topped, as US financier Bernard Madoff was arrested Dec. 11 and charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a swindle in which early investors are paid off with money from later ones.

It's possible that the alleged Madoff fraud will end up as not just the biggest bank scam, but among the most expensive individual criminal acts of all time.

But in truth, the biggest events of 2008 were not so much one-off actions as culminations of trends that had been building for years.

Even the election of Barack Obama can be seen as the result of a lengthy process. US disapproval of President Bush's job performance has been low for years, in large part due to the grinding war in Iraq.

Bush's job approval ratings, as measured by the Gallup Poll, peaked at 90 percent of Americans in the wave of patriotism that followed the attacks of 9/11. Since then it has been a steady slide, to a low of 25 percent just prior to the election.

More here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1231/p01s03-usgn.html

Gaza crisis: a crossroads for Obama
It could bring renewal – if Obama is bold enough to stand up to Israel.
By Sandy Tolan

Los Angeles - The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza has the dark force of a recurring Middle Eastern nightmare: Scattered guerrilla-like attacks from the weak lead to massive retaliation by the strong. Excessive lethal force provokes enraged recriminations. Fresh bloodshed fuels the hard-liners on both sides.

We have seen this cycle many times before: throughout Lebanon (2006), across the occupied territories during the first intifada (1987-93), in east and west Beirut (1982), and even during the founding of modern Israel and the subsequent dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948.

When the smoke finally drifts from Gaza, and the human rights investigations begin – into the death of schoolchildren in midday rocket attacks or the demolition of a women's dormitory – sober voices will ask why Israel has still not learned a fundamental lesson: By trying to crush your enemy, you only make him stronger.

Two years ago, despite killing hundreds of Lebanese fighters and civilians, and driving some 800,000 from their homes, Israel could not defeat the radical Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which emerged stronger than ever. For Israel, again, the lesson was lost – ironically, on a nation whose tragic motto is "never again."

The difference now is that from the ashes of this war, new lands can be seeded – if President-elect Obama is bold enough to do what his predecessors would not. Like the financial meltdown in the US, Israel's grave and massive blunder in Gaza provides Mr. Obama with an opportunity for sweeping changes unimaginable on Election Day.

Obama could begin by making clear that the days of Israel's impunity are over. Israel's outsized response to Qassam rocket attacks has not only killed more than 350 Palestinians in the past three days; it has further radicalized Arab populations from the Gulf to Egypt and may lead to a third intifada.

This does not mean the US should condone the rocket attacks and mortar fire, but simply recognize that their limited power to kill – about two dozen deaths in the past six years – must be seen against the massive retaliatory force of Israel, a nuclear power with one of the strongest armies in the world.

"Special relationship" or not, Obama should make clear that Israel must be held accountable for its actions – and that there are limits to US support. Obama can also use this moment to send a message that America recognizes the fundamental worth of Palestinian lives and dreams. While this may sound basic, its absence, especially over the past eight years, has made clear to the Arabs that America's "special relationship" with Israel undermines its claims to be an honest broker.

In 60 years of failed negotiations, one-sidedness has simply not worked. In 2000, the Clinton team undermined the Camp David negotiations by repeatedly pressing Israel's agenda while dismissing Palestinian arguments. This past year, when President Bush helped Israel celebrate its 60th anniversary, he pointedly declined to attend any similar commemoration by the Palestinians of their Nakba, or Catastrophe, when 750,000 Arabs of Palestine fled or were expelled.

An Obama administration that recognizes the inherently equal value of Palestinian aspirations will promote a new ethic and a new pragmatism. For talks to succeed, the US must tell hard truths to old friends and make a clean break with the tired road maps of the past.

Obama's team should follow the advice of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and bring Hamas into future talks. Any agreement reached only with Mahmoud Abbas, the beleaguered leader of the West Bank Palestinians, would be backed by only a fraction of his people.

More here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1231/p09s01-coop.html

Needed in Gaza: US inspectors, peacekeepers, and aid workers
We must stop lecturing – and start helping.
By Timothy Rieger

Miami Beach, Fla. - At a recent forum of the New America Foundation, scholar Walter Russell Mead reminded the audience that Israelis – and by extension all Jews – and Palestinians are the two peoples most betrayed by the history of the 20th century, albeit in vastly different scales.

The US response thus far to Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip suggests that this double dose of human betrayal will be every bit the geopolitical phenomenon in the 21st century as it was in the 20th.

The politics are different from the past, as are the weapons, but the human willingness to shaft the lives of innocents in the name of realpolitik hasn't changed a bit.

President Bush has reflexively sided with Israel in the first days of this latest battle as he has for all of his presidency. President-elect Obama has indicated he will react according to the rules of the same domestic realpolitik playbook: giving the imprimatur of the US government to Israel's operations in the Gaza Strip, increasing casualties notwithstanding.

The message the entire Arab and Muslim world takes away from the US government is this: Dead Palestinian children are, in the larger scheme of things, an acceptable price to pay for Israel's security.

Through his senior adviser David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's response to the current crisis appears to be a reiteration of the point he made while on a trip in July to Sderot, an Israeli town often besieged by Hamas rockets.

Namely that he can understand, as the father of two girls, how besieged he would feel if Katyusha rockets were raining down on his neighborhood, threatening his own children as they sleep at night.

This raises the question: Can Obama similarly empathize with Palestinian moms and dads whose children have been killed in the violence?

Authentic empathy, and especially empathy for children killed and maimed with rockets or bombs, has no moral double standards. Well-rehearsed empathy has plenty.

No 7-year-old boy or girl, Israeli or Palestinian, should live in a universe where they are to blame for the destruction of their own little bodies. And yet that is precisely the implicit dictum, gussied up in political rhetoric soothing to some, macabre to others, that is and has been guiding American foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly at moments when tensions ratchet up, as they have over the weekend.

If the US is to have any positive impact on finding a resolution to this conflict, we must stop lecturing Israelis and Palestinians about "ending the cycle of violence" and take stock of our own failures. We, the American people, need to end the cycle of abandoning all the innocent people of that region.

More here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1230/p09s02-coop.html

John Paulson Blasts Hedge Fund Managers Who Restrict Clients' Withdrawals John Paulson, who runs the $36 billion hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co., has some harsh words for his peers and their tendency this year to block or curb clients’ attempts to get their money back.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aaiL4CVMbE7s&refer=n...

Journal of a Plague Year: Faith in Markets Cracks Under $30 Trillion Loss It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ataVotdLreS0&refer=n...

Cornyn Indicates Senate GOP Will Resist Seating Al Franken
By Eric Kleefeld - December 30, 2008, 2:58PM
It now looks like the Senate GOP could end up trying to block the seating of Al Franken, assuming he is declared the winner next week in the Minnesota recount. NRSC chairman John Cornyn put out a statement accusing the Franken campaign of falsely declaring victory, and denouncing the idea of provisionally seating him while the expected legal dispute of the election is resolved:

"Al Franken is falsely declaring victory based on an artificial lead created on the back of the double counting of ballots. His campaign's actions in the last several days on the issues of rejected absentee ballots are creating additional chaos and disorder in the Minnesota recount. Those actions, coupled with the recent comments by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who suggests seating someone even if there is an election contest, are unprecedented. Minnesotans will not accept a recount in which some votes are counted twice, and I expect the Senate would have a problem seating a candidate who has not duly won an election."
It needs to be pointed out that that there are multiple falsehoods in this statement. First, the Franken campaign has not declared victory, instead only expressing a very high degree of confidence that they will win. The statement also blames Franken for "creating additional chaos and disorder" on the issue of rejected absentee ballots, when by all appearances it's the Coleman campaign that is offering a cherry-picked list of ballots they want counted.

And finally, Cornyn alleges that it is "unprecedented" to seat someone while an election is still being disputed. As recently as 2007, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) was seated without prejudice by the majority-Democratic House while his election was being contested, and in 1997 the majority-Republican Senate provisionally seated Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) after her GOP opponent alleged irregularities in her very narrow win.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/cornyn_indicates...

What's that got to do with "America"?

"that Republicans will resist" x. How come do they get to have all the fun, I'd like ta know?

BTW

if yes and you've got some left, citrus orangy please

thanks :)

:)

and i sleep too much as is

i guess i am fussy after all

This man on c-span right now said that during the 80s Iran hostage situation, the US held Iranian funds to help free the hostages. That did happen during the Carter admin. It was the sale of guns that released the hostages. Or Iran Contra.

He also said, as I have been saying, that there were warning signs of this financial situation we are in. The lack of regulations was a big red flag.

He also said that Bin Laden had studied economics and that he did say he would ruin our economy. Back in 2004, I posted several articles to the blog on this issue.

His name is James Rickards, Consultant for Financial Markets and National Security.

Have to get ready for work. 9:30 to 2 today. We close early. Those shots I got yesterday are making me very tired, hope I make it to 2 PM. I'm alone today.

if the 50 billion loss in the madoff fund is truly fraud then some of the losses will be covered by sipc which is the securities equivalent of fidc bank insurance. on the other hand, if the loss was simply bad investment choices no one gets anything.

so the question/rumor, with his money at his age (his lawyers could delay this for a long time, and being under house arrest in a multi million dollar penthouse isn't exactly hard time), is madoff accepting being labeled a crook so that the people that invested with him can have the government bail them out when the real loss was no different from what all the other hedge funds and investors are having to deal with as the housing bubble burst and everything collapsed?

GOOD BYE ANNUS HORRIBILIS!

Yeay!!!! It's over. This horribly disgusting slime filled year will soon be behind us. Some of us have survived.

2009 is almost here. Let's pledge to be good to one another even if our spelling falls apart. Over a hundred years have passed since Annus Mirabilis. We are due one now. Bring on the miracles.

can we post some family pictures?

i snatched some from my daughter's computer while she was here

i call this one "strings attached": elisa is my daughter, playing here with her sister Ayla and her kid louisa

The light on the floor gives it a warm mood.

i didn't know they had gone to PA to canvas for obama last October and took the kids along

cutout, and a little obama tattoo printed on her hand

gee sometimes i think how awful if they had turned out republicans, could i still love them? the thought gives me a cold sweat

oh no, just kidding, that could have never happened

my first thought this morning as i woke up

glad it's over, then the second thought: awe my god, how much more horribilis if mccain-palin were presidents! hard to contemplate, probably preparing for end of the world if that was the case, so at least one good thing came out of the horribilis year... a little glimmer of hope

feel lots of love here...glad to see Kevin is blogging again.

I am glad this year is ending too. It has been tough. I am hoping for lots of love and compassion and taking care for each other this year. I sure do feel it here!

I am so glad you have all welcomed me here.

Happy New Year!

thanks fernando

happy new years ya'll

now time for the gym, then meet with a friend for coffee, then go to the french quarter to catch the show at the "Mint" an art exhibit part of the art biennal event Prospect 1, then off to lunch with friend, then possibly a nap? then get ready to celebrate the end of the horribilis

cheers

and glad it turned out well for your son

write down call times
--- I/m pretty sure this mornings call was 9am.

remember to set alarm clock
--yesterday I woke and remembered to turn on the alarm at 5a in order to get up at 6a.

Later.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

out of this mess, will Bushco confess?

A Healthy, Prosperous New Year to you all!!

I'm off to work. Have a great day!

Later

A SEA of Troubles | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?...

New thread

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4244

to Sederville. Thought some might be interested in how the Gaza events are playing here. Not well as you might guess. There is a lot of tension, a lot of mard bar emrika mard bar israel-death to both of us. I woke up to it yesterday morning in Tehran. Scenes from the bombings-a coward's way to be sure-interviews with survivors, scenes from hospitals of the wounded-kids of course, and old women-are played over and over. There are also weather map-like talking about the sites of the bombings, how much explosive, what type, numbers killed and wounded. But they also show the protests worldwide, and it prompted my father in law to comment that maybe all the world can indeed stop the massacre. xoda hafez

i would say the most remarkable thing about your post is that you were allowed to post it. of course, this simply says that maybe some of the stuff we are told about iran is what one might call not true.

nice site thenk you

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