Friday, January 30, 2009

Yes, this works for me...

I hate these things...

I give in.

25 Random Things About Moi...

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I love Thai spicy mint noodles.

2. I have no clue how to do Facebook stuff so you're lucky you're getting this through email. ; )

3. I love email; I hate the phone.

4. It was really hard not to put something about rabbits as #1.

5. I have 5 house buns and 15 buns I love at the shelter. (whew, that feels better)

6. This is my blog: www.thiswildride.blogspot.com

7. I love sweeping panoramic views. No trees please.

8. I got dreadlocks about a month ago and love them.

9. I love my Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. I hate to vacuum.

10. I like to sweep.

11. I don't like bread pudding or flan.

12. I'm a bleeding heart liberal...progressive...lefty.
..pinko. ; )

13. We Are One.

14. My comfort foods are macaroni & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches and cookies & milk.

15. I'm hooked on the history of the Silk Road and/or history in general.

16. I'm taking a Spanish class. Hola, Paco. De donde eres?

17. I love my two nephews and wish I could live nearer to them.

18. I don't have a TV so I read A LOT. And get bored with that too.

19. I'd live outdoors if I could. I love breezes.

20. I love rain too. And thunderstorms.

21. I'm down to 3 toe rings.

22. My hubby wakes me up in the morning with a kiss. : )

23. Volunteering at something I love is amazingly fulfilling.

24. I used to clean with a toothbrush. Now I ignore it all.

25. Bunnies are people too. ; )

400 richest Americans’ incomes doubled under Bush


Bloomberg reports that, according to recently released IRS data, “the average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million.” Much of their income came from capital gains resulting from the Bush tax cuts.

dontcha just love the guy...

Earthly delights...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

country western song machine...

Automated country song writer. A Crack Up.

I met her in a treehouse ridin' shotgun;
I can still recall the neon sign she wore;
She was weighted down with Twinkies with Miss Piggy,
and I knew they'd hate her guts in Baltimore;
I shrieked in pain I'd punch her out forever;
She said to me man wasn't meant to fly;
But who'd have thought she'd freak out at her health club;
She sealed me in the vault and smirked goodbye.




http://www.outofservice.com/country/

Mensa Invitational

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Nixon's Lawyer: Are We Civilized Enough To Prosecute For Torture?

Top international lawyer Philippe Sands QC speaks before the House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. in May last year, states without reservation that war crimes were committed by the most senior members of the Bush administration.

See the video here.

Via AlterNet comes a remarkable piece from John W. Dean, fomer White House counsel to Nixon, who writes that Obama must prosecute bush administration officials and that, if he doesn't, other nations are very likely too. Read the whole thing, but he concludes:

My question is how can the Obama Administration not investigate, and, if appropriate, prosecute given the world is watching, because if they do not, other may do so? How could there be "change we can believe in" if the new administration harbors war criminals – which is the way that Philippe Sands and the rest of the world, familiar with the facts which have surfaced even without an investigation, view those who facilitated or engaged in torture?

One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes and others, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Only they, however, seem to believe in their innocence – the entire gutless and cowardly group of them, who have shamed themselves and the nation by committing crimes against humanity in the name of the United States.

We must all hope that the Obama Administration does the right thing, rather than forcing another country to clean up the mess and seek to erase the dangerous precedent these people have created for our country.

Great stuff.

http://crooksandliars.com/cernig/nixons-lawyer-are-we-civilized-enough-prose

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Torture is NOT an American Value...???

Torture is, and has long been, illegal in every case, without exception. It is banned by our Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 2340A. Nothing any president can do can change this or unchange it, weaken it or strengthen it in any way.


Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, says treaty obligations require the US to prosecute those responsible for torture, up to and including George Bush. If the US fails to prosecute its own officials, then the UN can step in.

http://www.democrats.com/un-can-prosecute-bush-for-torture

More beauty...



http://www.flickr.com/photos/16343559@N04/3224808209/in/pool-40025645@N00

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Stunning...



Nordkalottleden, in Norway

see it LARGE...

Friday, January 23, 2009

We Apologize For the Outage

We Apologize For the Outage

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of ideals of democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional from this point forward. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Monday, January 19, 2009

In Honor of Tomorrow's Inauguration...


in the beginning...

a hopeful seeker of answers

asks direction

of the primal force

the exuberant energy

that spins molecules

unites cells

forms shapes

sculpts texture

spreads color

adds variety

and breathes the

life force

into all

making one


the seeker

being a bit apprehensive

is unsure where to look

how to hear

or see

touch or smell

the sought for peace

the moment of clarity


the exuberant energy

being kind

and accepting of all who seek

sends the east wind to show the way


go to the beginning

to the first breath

in movement

in stillness

in the pause between

i have arrived

i am at home


the power to create the answer is there

in the breath

inside

spinning molecules

uniting cells

sculpting form

spreading color

adding variety

guiding creating

inside the hopeful seeker of answers

it is found

she breathes.


6/17/98

flag photo: everest2005.blogspot.com

Thursday, December 25, 2008

I am Truly sick of this person....


Ignoring the pleas of those calling for a more credible figure, Senate Democrats have instead chosen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to lead the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Feinstein was among those who falsely claimed in 2002 — despite the lack of any apparent credible evidence — that Saddam Hussein had somehow reconstituted Iraq's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, as well as its nuclear weapons program.

She used this supposed threat to justify her vote in October 2002 to grant President George W. Bush the unprecedented authority to invade Iraq. Most congressional Democrats voted against the resolution. So it is particularly disturbing that Democrats would award the coveted Intelligence Committee chair to someone from the party's right-wing minority.

...more here...

Dianne's results:


Monday, December 22, 2008

Patagonia...


Torres del Paine, Chile


Fjord at Puerto Natales, Chile

...more here...

Friday, December 19, 2008

Leader of Women's Group Murdered in Iraq

Isn't this the part where someone invariably explains how much better off Iraqis are than they'd be under Saddam Hussein?

Iraqi police say attackers have decapitated the leader of the women's league of the Kurdish Communist Party.

Not In My Name


Not In My Name: No National Prayer By Rick Warren

(Robin Tyler and Diane Olson being married at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, Monday, June 16, 2008, in Beverly Hills, Calif. AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

I'm not especially surprised that President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen to honor a Christianist fundamentalist like Rick Warren who earns his income and his standing by steadily endorsing hate beliefs against certain segments of American citizenship. Obama has seldom acted on his so-called belief in the human rights of lesbians and gays, not in a political sense. Him throwing us under the bus again was to be expected. I voted for him knowing he would.

What choice did I have? He knows that about us. Much of his gathered leadership knows it as well. If a point can be scored, a favor earned, by reiterating our expendibility, they will do it. They're not progressives as I define the term, and this is part of the reason why.

But the choice to have Warren deliver his invocation at the inauguration is more than handing us shit on a plate with an extra-big spoon. It's a shocking mistake, I believe, for at least three reasons...more here

Monday, December 15, 2008

I love this stuff...

Archaeology magazine's top 10 finds of 2008 include Maya paint...

...and ancient [human] poop.

And there are bonus finds as well, including a monumental discovery that the discoverers have been trying to keep under wraps...

OMG...but no surprise...

Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns
Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com


The bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report issued on Thursday -- which documents that "former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" and "that Rumsfeld's actions were 'a direct cause of detainee abuse' at Guantanamo and 'influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques ... in Afghanistan and Iraq'" -- raises an obvious and glaring question: how can it possibly be justified that the low-level Army personnel carrying out these policies at Abu Ghraib have been charged, convicted and imprisoned, while the high-level political officials and lawyers who directed and authorized these same policies remain free of any risk of prosecution? The culpability which the Report assigns for these war crimes is vast in scope and unambiguous:

The executive summary also traces the erosion of detainee treatment standards to a Feb,. 7, 2002, memorandum signed by President George W. Bush stating that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the U.S. war with al Qaeda and that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or legal protections.

"The president's order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment," the summary said.

...read too about the 25-yo detainee who died just yesterday of a 'heart attack'...

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60th Anniversary


Human Rights ... for Whom?

by: Robin Willoughby, Share The World's Resources

The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be rightly lauded as a landmark in international attempts to formalize the rights and responsibilities between governments and their citizens. If we ask if the Declaration has proven a success, however, we need only glance at a few statistics; almost three billion people live in poverty on less than US$2.50 a day, and the number of hungry people actually increased this year to nearly one billion people.[1] As the world reaped record levels of harvests in 2008, the most basic right to food is still denied to around 1 in 6 people on the planet.[2] But how did we get to this situation?

An answer to this can be simply put: on the international stage, the world's most powerful nations have prioritised those human rights associated with political freedom and peace and security, at the expense of those rights related to economic justice.

To read the full article...