The Sonnet

The Sonnet: "The Sonnet
Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLD)

Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed?

Sonnets want Love and have high ideals about it. They're conscientious people, caring & careful. You yourself have deep convictions, and you devote a lot of thought to romance and what it should be. This will frighten away most potential mates, but that's okay, because you're very choosy with your affections anyway. You'd absolutely refuse to date someone dumber than you, for instance."

Daily Kos: Fox News wins in court.

Daily Kos: Fox News wins in court.: "Akre and Wilson refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired.

August 18, 2000, a unanimous Florida jury found that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) 'a false, distorted or slanted story' The jury awarded her $425,000 in damages.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals overturned the settlement awarded to Akre.

In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a 'law, rule, or regulation,' it was simply a 'policy.' Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.


Fox then filed a series of motions seeking more than $1.7 million in trial fees and costs from both Akre and Wilson."

The End of the Harry Potter Series - Windypundit

The End of the Harry Potter Series - Windypundit: "Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly) :

As the conflict with Voldemort comes to a head, Ron Weasley is suddenly and shockingly killed. Hermione responds with steely determination, joined by Luna Lovegood, who turns out to be a rare witch who has super-powerful martial arts skills. While Harry tries ineffectively to help—often with comic results—Luna kills the Death Eaters with Unblockable Scorpion Kicks and Hermione defeats Voldemort in a head-on battle of magic."

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream: "'Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush�s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.'

Actually, if you listen to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media outlets picking up the story this week."

Econ-Atrocity / Econ-Utopia » Blog Archive » Econ-Atrocity: Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstance

Econ-Atrocity / Econ-Utopia » Blog Archive » Econ-Atrocity: Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to: "
# Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds. More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

# Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa. There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers."

FSU Editorial: "The Dow is Crashing" by Mike Maloney 04/16/2007

FSU Editorial: "The Dow is Crashing" by Mike Maloney 04/16/2007: "Anytime that it looks like everything is going up, stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and virtually every kind of investment there is, you have to stop and ask yourself, 'why?' The only reason the Dow looks like it is going up is because the Fed has pumped so many more dollars into the currency supply, that all asset classes are rising.

Under these conditions, the only way to see where true value lies is to eliminate the dollar from the equation… you have to measure each asset class, not with the dollar, but against another asset class."

Sex-abuse case dropped because of delays in search for interpreter - CNN.com

Sex-abuse case dropped because of delays in search for interpreter - CNN.com: "ROCKVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- Charges against a man accused of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl have been dropped because the court took too long to find an interpreter fluent in his native West African language.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Katherine D. Savage dismissed the nearly three-year-old case against Mahamu Kanneh last week, saying the delays had violated the Liberian immigrant's right to a speedy trial.

'This is one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in a long time,' Savage said from the bench Tuesday. She said she was mindful of 'the gravity of this case and the community's concern about offenses of this type.'

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the dismissal. They cannot refile the charges.

Police arrested Kanneh, of Gaithersburg, in August 2004 after witnesses told police he assaulted the girl multiple times. He spent one night in jail and was released on a $10,000 bond with the restriction that he have no contact with minors.

Prosecutors at first maintained Kanneh could understand the proceedings without translation into his native Vai, a tribal language that linguists estimate is spoken by about 100,000 people mostly in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Prosecutors pointed out that Kanneh attended high school and community college in Montgo"

The FBI Can Eavesdrop on You Even When Your Cell Phone is Turned Off

The FBI Can Eavesdrop on You Even When Your Cell Phone is Turned Off: "Did you know that the FBI can listen in to any and all of your conversations through your cell phone–even when you’re not actually speaking on the phone?

Using your cell phone’s tracking device, the FBI can turn on the microphone in your cell phone and listen to any conversations taking place nearby."

pay attention

Newhouse News Service - Congressman Denied Access To Post-Attack Continuity Plans: "WASHINGTON — Constituents called Rep. Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.


As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure 'bubbleroom'' in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

'I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,'' DeFazio said.

Homeland Security Committee staffers told his office that the White House initially approved his request, but it was later quashed. DeFazio doesn't know who did it or why.

'We're talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America,'' DeFazio said. 'I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee.''"

Where I've been

Crooks and Liars » What if you held a debate and *almost* no one came?: "The one photo the GOP does not want anyone to see was snapped at yesterday’s NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum. The NAACP invited all 9 Republican candidates to the forum, but only one showed up: Tom Tancredo. All the Democratic Presidential hopefuls showed up for their forum."

I know it is a long time between postings right now. I am in Detroit for work and there isn't much free time and the free time that there is, I am usually trying to sleep. That said, I am loving life. I go to YearlyKos in two weeks, I am reading Harry Potter this weekend and am hoping to take a week off to go to San Francisco in the fall. Additionally, the congress seems to be actually getting a backbone and the word impeachment is screaming to get back on the table:) Things can't be all that bad, right?

"Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign" | Salon.com

"Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign" | Salon.com: "Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign. Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant. But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics is the only fact that remains relevant."

James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey

Pronto condoms - the best way to get it on

Pronto condoms - the best way to get it on: "Fortunately, those days are over. Introducing PRONTO, the condom for the new millennium. The PRONTO condom can be applied in a few seconds. And it’s a lot more convenient to use, compared to an ordinary condom. You simply crack the pack open and unroll the condom directly onto the penis. Sounds too good to be true? See for yourself, by clicking on the demo:"

What THE FUCK!

Details Blog: "Albert (his middle name), a good-looking 29-year-old who's fairly well-known in the music industry, says he asks the women he dates to have anal sex with him because it raises the level of intimacy in the relationship. He doesn't demand anal sex—especially not if it's a one-time hookup—but he won't commit to a woman who refuses to grant him a backstage pass. 'I had a girlfriend who I was with for a long time and she wasn't into it,' Albert says. 'There was definitely a thing in the back of my head like, 'I can't marry her.' How can I, knowing I can't go to all the places I can go with her? The physicality of it, being painful or whatever, shows how comfortable the girl is with you.' Here, he pointedly stops short of romanticizing screwing a woman rectally. 'Ideally, every girl is a disgusting pig who wants it,' he says. 'But only with you.'"

The Persian Sufism

The Persian Sufism: "The Sufi phenomenon is not easy to sum up or define. The Sufis never set out to found a new religion, a mazhab or denomination. They were content to live and work within the framework of the Moslem religion, using texts from the Quran much as Christian mystics have used to Bible to illustrate their tenets. Their aim was to purify and spiritualize Islam from within, to give it a deeper, mystical interpretation, and infuse into it a spirit of love and liberty. In the broader sense, therefore, in which the word religion is used in our time, their movement could well be called a religious one, one which did not aim at tying men down with a new set of rules but rather at setting them free from external rules and open to the movement of the spirit.

This religion was disseminated mainly by poetry, it breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and song. In it the place of great dogmatic treatises is taken by mystical romances, such as Yusuf and Zuleikha or Leila and Majnun. Its one dogma, and interpretation of the Moslem witness: 'There is no god by God', is that the human heart must turn always, unreservedly, to the one, divine Beloved."

Feministe » Joss Whedon is the coolest.

Feministe » Joss Whedon is the coolest.

That's right, Defective I said!

Pope: Other Christians not true churches - Yahoo! News: "LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI (JACKASS) has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches."

Smells like Peak Oil?

How the World Works: Globalization, Globalization Blogs - Salon.com: "But there's a problem with this formulation that demonstrates a very careful, if not disingenuous, attempt to skirt the troubling implication of 'peak oil.' Peak oil does not mean, as has been emphasized a thousand times before, here and elsewhere, that 'the world is running out of oil.' It means that 'the world is running out of cheap oil.'

And that interpretation seems to be completely justified by the IEA report. Take, for instance, BP's much delayed 'Thunder Horse' Gulf of Mexico offshore oil project. The IEA report notes that the project has faced a 'perfect storm' of problems, including technical issues related to the new challenges of ultra-deepwater oil drilling, hurricanes and more mundane bumps in the road. Then the report notes that 'Other projects may not face the same litany of problems as Thunder Horse, but as incremental non-OPEC supply becomes increasingly concentrated in technologically challenging areas, so cost over-runs and delays will remain part of the industrial landscape.'

That's the most important sentence in the report. New supply is going to be harder to get, posing greater technological challenges and requiring higher levels of investment.

The world's oil companies and national governments will no doubt respond to this challenge. All those new middle-class citizens driving in their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned offices will demand it. But it's not going to be cheap. It's going to get more and more expensive.

Ironically, or tragically, there appears to be only one thing that can effectively dampen growing demand for oil. And that would be a collapse of economic growth, which, quite possibly, could be a result of the ever-higher prices for fossil fuel products that economic growth mandates.

Meanwhile, crude oil futures sit tight around $72 a barrel.

CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. - CNN.com

CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. - CNN.com: "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Dr. Ronald Dworkin tells the story of a woman who didn't like the way her husband was handling the family finances. She wanted to start keeping the books herself but didn't want to insult her husband."

The doctor suggested she try an antidepressant to make herself feel better.

She got the antidepressant, and she did feel better, said Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, who told the story in his book "Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class." But in the meantime, Dworkin says, the woman's husband led the family into financial ruin.

Salon.com | News Wires

Salon.com | News Wires: "July 09,2007 | BAGHDAD -- Turkey has massed 140,000 soldiers on its border with northern Iraq, Iraq's foreign minister said Monday, calling the neighboring country's fears of Kurdish rebels based there 'legitimate' but better resolved through negotiation."


Start panicking.....

Live Earth-Society falls apart quietly

The majority in a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled on a narrow ground, saying the plaintiffs, including lawyers and journalists, could not show injury direct and concrete enough to allow them to have standing to sue.

Because it may be impossible for any plaintiff to demonstrate injury from the highly classified wiretapping program, the effect of the ruling was to insulate it from judicial scrutiny. Thus, the program’s secrecy is proving to be its best legal protection.

Much of US favors Bush impeachment: poll - Yahoo! News

Much of US favors Bush impeachment: poll - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - Nearly half of the US public wants President George W. Bush to face impeachment, and even more favor that fate for Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a poll out Friday."

Are people starting to pay attention?

Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide - Yahoo! News: "About seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large, a sentiment voiced by nearly two-thirds of those from households earning at least $80,000 a year, the survey said. Three-fourths of people earning less than $80,000 agreed.

Eight in 10 said the gap between the rich and the middle class has worsened over the last 25 years, said the survey by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis.

The poll comes in the early stages of a 2008 presidential campaign in which several Democratic candidates have discussed a widening distance between the country's rich and poor."

I am going to YearlyKos in August after all. All by myself! I am hoping for political geek heaven.

WTF?

New Drug Deletes Bad Memories - Yahoo! News: "Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled."

....

The rats were trained to associate two musical tones with a mild electrical shock so that when they heard either of the tones they would brace themselves for a shock. The researchers then gave half the rats the drug when playing one of the musical tones.

After the treatment, the rats that had been given the drug no longer associated that particular tone with an imminent shock but still braced themselves upon hearing the second tone, demonstrating only one memory had been deleted.

Drinking the blood of puppies and fish

Leaving No Tracks | Cheney | washingtonpost.com: "In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River."

Amazing!

The World of the Happy - Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen: "Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen"

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - earth - 26 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - earth - 26 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment: "A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.

All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).

Key to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas."

Saturday's Full Moon Offers Strange Illusion - Yahoo! News

Saturday's Full Moon Offers Strange Illusion - Yahoo! News: "When low on the horizon, the Moon can appear to be larger than when it's higher in the sky. It's all an illusion, scientists say, and it does not involve any enlarging effects of the atmosphere. Rather, it's all in your mind."