The male gaze

Power in Print

Tools

CLick the link and watch the commercial. It is very cool.

Reasons to go out more, not less!

"Starting in mid-life, the brain's ability to remember names, multi-task or learn something new starts to go downhill.
There's no smart pill to ward off that age-related decline, but experts increasingly say that lifestyle factors such as physical activity, challenging hobbies and lots of friends or social engagements might help keep the brain more nimble and fit as it ages."

little things save your life

"'It's shot. It's going to cave in,' Hardy said, lamenting the loss of his new plasma screen TV.
The roommates said they feel lucky that they happened to be watching TV on Thursday night.
'If we would have been watching a DVD or playing Xbox, we'd be toast,' Hardy said"

ahh good government

"'No one wants to inflict pain in fetuses unnecessarily, nor do physicians want to put the mother at risk by the unnecessary administration of analgesics to treat her fetus, not her,' said Dr. Henry J. Ralston, a professor of anatomy and neuroscience at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco. 'I agree with Dr. Derbyshire's primary conclusion, that 'Legal or clinical mandates to prevent pain in fetuses are based on limited evidence and may put women seeking abortion at unnecessary risk."

toothy tile?

You cuddle up to Heath Ledger in one critically hailed gay cowboy romance and suddenly you're the hottest topic on the rumor mill. Jake Gyllenhaal's rep is laughing off Internet chatter that the dreamy-eyed star is about to declare his fondness for actor and longtime pal Austin Nichols, asserting to the New York Daily News that they are merely friends.

Wired News: AT&T Seeks to Hide Spy Docs

"In papers filed late Monday, AT&T argued that confidential technical documents provided by an ex-AT&T technician to the Electronic Frontier Foundation shouldn't be used as evidence in the case and should be returned.
The documents, which the EFF filed under a temporary seal last Wednesday, purportedly detail how AT&T diverts internet traffic to the National Security Agency via a secret room in San Francisco and allege that such rooms exist in other AT&T switching centers."

a song for today

(1970) stan vincent
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Right now right now

Stop having straight sex now while you still can

"The complaint includes one incident at the Swedish Medical Center outpatient pharmacy in Seattle. According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was 'morally unable' to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for abortion-related antibiotics. Cedar River's complaint quotes its Renton clinic manager's May 17, 2005, e-mail account: 'Today, one of our clients asked us to call in her prescription... to Swedish outpatient pharmacy. [We] called the prescription in... and spoke with an efficient staff person who took down the prescription. A few minutes later, this pharmacy person called us back and told us she had found out who we were and she morally was unable to fill the prescription.' (Cedar River thinks their client eventually got her prescription filled.)"

Something to do

So the crazy people currently in the White House are apparently still thinking that nuking Iran should be an option. This is the definition of batshit crazy. If you want to understand how batshit crazy this is read this article. So go, sign the petition.

Mass. coolest state ever?

"The bill, intended to extend coverage to Massachusetts' estimated 550,000 uninsured, is being touted as a national model, thrusting the state to the forefront of the national debate about how to provide near-universal health care coverage without creating a single government-controlled system."

bastards

"Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different � a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. He predicts the government will one day revoke the tax-exempt status of churches that preach homosexuality is sinful or that refuse to hire gays and lesbians.

'Think how marginalized racists are,' said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. 'If we don't address this now, it will only get worse.'

Christians are fighting back in a case involving Every Nation Campus Ministries at California State University. Student members of the ministry on the Long Beach and San Diego campuses say their mission is to model a virtuous lifestyle for their peers. They will not accept as members gays, lesbians or anyone who considers homosexuality 'a natural part of God's created order.'"

Unclear on the concept

"Condom lockdown
Here's a story to file in the 'it would be laughable if only it weren't true' column: The Washington Post today reports on pharmacies that keep their condoms locked up under the guise of theft prevention. CVS, the biggest chain in Washington, has 50 stores in the city; of those, 22 now keep their condoms locked in a glass box that requires customers to push a button for assistance to purchase them. Asking store clerks for condoms kept behind the counter can be embarrassing at any age, but having to push an actual condom call button draws the kind of unwanted attention that might deter even the most sexually confident.
And indeed, a drop in condom usage is exactly what has resulted. Christine Spencer-Grier, the leader of a Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington program that works with teen mothers to help them avoid future pregnancies, tells the Post that 'teens are very sensitive to a disparaging look, a lecture -- all of those things are very intimidating ... [So] many girls [leave] the stores ashamed and empty-handed -- but still likely to have sex.' "

I totally always thought this!

"Getting up in the morning and going to bed at night is not just a pure reaction to sunset and sunrise,' explains Professor Till Roenneberg, who headed up the team of researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. 'It's also down to your genes, which can determine how much of a night owl or early bird you are.'
The distribution of owls and larks across the population is huge, he says, with a spread of more than 12 hours between people's natural rhythms. This means that if left to their own devices, the first lark would bounce out of bed well before the last owl nods off. This, of course, doesn't fit comfortably with most work routines, with the inevitable result that a lot of people wind up feeling fatigued."

Ah I like them:)

"NEW YORK - Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard are engaged and expecting a baby, her publicist said Tuesday. "

Watch the Pharisees burn!

"The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.
In March, one of its most effective chapters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the national organization and reincorporated itself as the Iowa Christian Alliance, saying it found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this national organization."

Monday

It's monday and I am sad to see another weekend gone by. I am happy that I enjoy my weekends again. Grey's Anatomy rocks. Love that show and it is such a enjoyable way to end the weekend.

Geek vs Dork?

RIch people are different than us in case you were wondering...


Apple and Moses Please make it stop.

Once upon a time he coulda been a contender

Its begining to look a lot like Fitzmas

"A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein. ... Confirmation that Mr. Bush ordered the declassification was published late Saturday by The Associated Press, which quoted 'an attorney knowledgeable about the case.' Once it appeared, the administration official was willing to confirm its details. [...] But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters."

Friday afternoon

It's Friday afternoon of the first week post Daylight Savings. I feel so much further away from the East coast:(

Updates from the world:

• Brangelina are in Namibia lending wieght to the rumors that Angelina plans on giving birth in Africa. Also some fascinating analysis on Brad as a post modern man. heh..
• Katie again seen looking vacant. That poor girl....
• Jess's baby Eli is ridiculously cute.
• Plamegate is heating up. Could Bush really get kicked out?
• Erin's foot surgery seems to be going well as she is posting more frequently! Yay.
• www.pandora.com is awesome and continues to show me new music. I highly recommend!
• I bought a dress for the wedding in scotland. It is kinda like the dress Julia Roberts wore to the polo match in pretty woman. I of course totally look cuter in mine.
• Only 22 days till the big 30! Wisdom, grace, panache, humor and wit shall finally be mine!

Have a good weekend all!

It's not paranoid if they really are watching

"AT&T provided NSA eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company."

Long-lost gospel of Judas recasts 'traitor' - Yahoo! News

"The manuscript claims that Jesus revealed 'secret knowledge' to Judas and instructed him to turn Jesus over to Roman authorities, said Coptic studies scholar Stephen Emmel of Germany's University of Munster, one of the restoration team members. In the gospel text, Judas is given private instruction by Jesus and is granted a vision of the divine that is denied to other disciples, who do not know that Jesus has requested his own betrayal. Rather than acting out of greed or malice, Judas is following orders when he leads soldiers to Jesus, the gospel says"

I hate them a lot

"Wood was struck by the overwhelming number of people who attended. 'Scientists from across the country, from all kinds of fields, were there,' she says, 'because they care a great deal about how science is done and how data are analyzed and how the information is used.' Why were they finally voicing their fears? 'I think as people become more aware [of the interference in science], they are willing to step up and say, 'This is not what we want,'' Wood says.
For a group of researchers, the rhetoric was fiery. Baltimore accused the Bush administration of suppressing science. And when Wood said that morale at the FDA had sunk to a new low because of overwhelming pressure from social conservatives, she got a standing ovation."

a way to speak up

"Help Spread the Word
As of this writing, thousands of people have joined you in our 'Stand In' campaign. But we need thousands more to make the largest impact. Please take a minute to forward this link and message to at least 10 friends. Post the link anywhere you can and send it to any listservs you read. We need you to ask your friends and family to join you in standing in for the victims of genocide in Darfur:

We hope you will continue to stay involved in Human Rights First's efforts to stop the genocide in Darfur. Thanks for your help.
Jill Savitt
Campaign Director, Hope for Darfur
Human Rights First"

Scientists are so cute:)

"The question was: Is this pair of supermassive black holes an old married couple, or just strangers passing in the night?' said Craig Sarazin of the University of Virginia. 'We now know that they are coupled, but more like the mating of black widow spiders. One of the black holes invariably will eat the other.'"

emotional armor

"''In every store, there were messages on apparel for adults and children of negativity, sexual innuendo, and violence,' she said. ''I thought, I'll just make T-shirts I feel my kids, myself, and others should embrace, with positive reminders of what's important.'
The result is Emotional Armor, a T-shirt company that Hoffman, 36, has just launched. The colorful shirts for children and women sport one of 51 inspirational messages on the front, including ''small body, big dreams' and ''i believe in me' for girls, and ''pure energy' and ''natural born hero' for boys. A popular message on the girls' and women's shirts is ''princess. not in need of rescue.' Others are ''my mistakes will make me strong,' ''constant reminder of extraordinary,' ''never underestimate me,' and ''the power of one.' "

It's not just about bad labor policies.

"Although we've been fortunate never to have suffered a catastrophic attack on an American seaport, we know for a fact--Wal-Mart and RILA and our national leaders know darn well--that it can happen. ABC News smuggled into this country 15-pound canisters of depleted uranium in 2002 and again in 2003. A March 2006 Government Accountability Office investigation smuggled enough radioactive material across our borders with Mexico and Canada to make two dirty bombs.
But Wal-Mart's massive profits and retail dominance are built on the speed and efficiency of the movement of products through its supply chain. Wal-Mart and RILA fight like hell to keep anything--like reasonable inspections--from slowing that chain down or diverting any portion of the lucre into security measures. And that's rich, considering Wal-Mart wrings more than $4.3 billion each year from federal, state and local governments to provide income and health care subsidies to its low-wage workers and has sucked up more than $1 billion in the past 20 years from state and local governments for the construction of its stores and distribution centers."

Daily Kos: I still remember 13

I wrestle with the problem of problems too enormous to comprehend and the feeling of powerlessness when faced with a situation over which we have no control. But then I read stuff like this and I think being human enough to grasp what is happening is doing something. Silence is complicity.

Marx? Really?

"Meanwhile, a fascinating piece of analysis from the U.K. Guardian summons up the ghost of Karl Marx, and boy does he look ready to rock. '[Marx] argued that labor-saving capital investment would limit demand for labor, while also bankrupting small-scale producers, in agriculture for example. They would swell the labor supply, creating a permanent 'reserve army of labor' that would prevent real wages growing as fast as labor productivity. Workers would thus spend an increasing proportion of working time producing profits for capitalists -- a falling share for labor or a rising rate of exploitation, in Marx's terminology.'
As the Times' Daniel Gross noted, also on Sunday, something pretty close to what Marx predicted appears to be happening right now. Workers' wages in the U.S. and Europe are growing nowhere near as fast as corporate profits or productivity, especially as compared with what happened during previous periods of economic growth. The obvious reason: the exploitation of the billions of new workers who have joined the global economy, mostly from China and India and the former Soviet bloc, in the last 20 years. Capital is in the driver's seat, labor is under the whip, Marx predicted it all. "

Women looking for hotties

"LONDON (Reuters) - The old adage that women look for wealth in a man appears to be under threat after research on Wednesday showed women are starting to put physical attractiveness above solvency.
The shift is occurring because women have been freed from the constraints that previously dictated how they chose a mate as they increasingly control their own finances, the study said."

Gotta Love Irish Thuggery

"Former senior Sinn Fein member Denis Donaldson has been found shot dead in the Irish Republic. Mr Donaldson was expelled from the party last December after admitting he was a paid British spy for 20 years. "

Media Matters - Limbaugh called alleged Duke rape victim a "ho[ ]"

"LIMBAUGH: They're -- they're busy. They're busy. The Reverend Jackson is in New Orleans. He's leading a big march there tomorrow. The march is -- what is it called? The -- the march for the right to return a protected vote and reconstruction. He's trying to -- they got problems down in New Orleans. They don't have voter base, and Sharpton's working on a New Orleans deal, too. He's trying to figure out how he can get involved in the deal down there at Duke where the lacrosse team --
CALLER 1: Yeah.
LIMBAUGH: -- uh, supposedly, you know, raped, some, uh, hos."

cool

On Wednesday of next week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.That won't ever happen again.

Seriously, what is wrong with this state?

"A group affiliated with the Church of Scientology has forged close ties with several influential members of the Arizona Legislature as part of a nationwide battle against the mental-health industry.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has courted key lawmakers with trips to glitzy Scientologist events in Hollywood. And, observers say, it has been the force behind more than two dozen bills in Arizona in recent years, including measures to restrict prescriptions of Ritalin and mood-altering drugs."

And they want to bring it here.

Strict laws, churches behind rising clandestine abortion in Africa: experts - Yahoo! News: "And according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 44 percent of women who die of complications arising from unsafe abortion are in Africa. Of the 4.2 million African women who decide to terminate a pregnancy, 30,000 of them end up losing their lives."

A Depression Switch?

"What she hoped to lose, of course, was her depression. But depression, which 5 to 10 percent of Americans suffer in any given year and about 15 percent will suffer in their lifetimes, can be hard to lose. Drugs, as shown in a comprehensive study released last month by the National Institute of Mental Health, are effective in only half of patients with major depression. Psychotherapy does no better. For those people who are not helped by therapy or drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, can bring relief. But few of those cures are complete. These therapies usually ease rather than cure depression while sometimes bringing side effects like insomnia or memory loss, and their potency often proves fleeting; as many as half to two-thirds of those successfully treated relapse within two years. Neither neuroscientists nor psychiatrists can say exactly what depression is. Neurologically and psychologically, what Hippocrates called the 'black bile' and Susan Sontag 'melancholy minus its charms' presents an almost impossibly complicated puzzle."

Technology, terror and Viagra could warp sex and relationships: researchers

"The concern was raised as researchers discussed 'The Future of Sex' at an unprecedented summit near Santa Fe, New Mexico, late last week.
'The de-interaction of sex is something I worry about,' said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction."

Study: 1 in 4 young Irish gays tried suicide - Yahoo! News

"One-quarter of young gay or bisexual men in Northern Ireland have attempted suicide, 30 percent have self-harmed and over two-thirds of the respondents have considered suicide, according to a new three-year research project."

Myth of the opt-out mom

"Like most myths, the opt-out mom story contains a kernel of truth. It's hard to combine work and parenthood, and more moms than dads take time off from work while their kids are young. But also like most myths, the kernel of truth is surrounded by a comforting lie that relieves social anxieties without solving them, in this case by feeding the illusion that women will resolve our work-family conflicts by reversing the growing commitment to lifelong employment that they exhibited in the 1970s and 1980s."

The things we lose

Cicisbei played by set rules, generally avoiding public displays of affection. At public entertainments, they would typically stand behind their seated mistress and whisper in her ear[9]. Customs of the time did not permit them to engage in relationships with any other women during their free time, making the arrangement rather demanding. Both parties could decide to end the relationship at any time, a woman's former cicisbei were called spiantati, or cast-offs.

Sad

"WASHINGTON - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters."

It is so the little people!

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Small children, long blamed for being little germ machines who spread colds and flu every year from nurseries and classrooms to the rest of the community, may be only a minor factor in the annual influenza epidemic, U.S. researchers said on Thursday."

Catholic Church Gets 783 New Abuse Claims - Yahoo! News

"WASHINGTON - The nation's Roman Catholic leaders received 783 new claims of sex abuse by clergy in 2005, with most of the allegations involving cases that are decades old.

The new claims, reported Thursday, bring the total number of accusations against Catholic clergy to more than 12,000 since 1950."

Fake College For Final Four Tickets

Smart Kids' Brains May Mature Later - Yahoo! News

"The brain's outer mantle, or cortex, gets thicker and then thins during childhood and the teen years. The study found that in kids with superior intelligence, the cortex reaches its thickest stage a few years later than in other children.
Nobody knows what causes that or how it relates to superior intelligence. But researchers said the finding does not rule out a role for environment such as intellectual stimulation in affecting a child's level of intelligence."

hello all

First I want to welcome Joe to the blogroll! He promises to post. Second I haven't posted anything on the huge immigration protests because I don't know that much about them and the issues are really complicated. I'm trying to do some reading and then will compose some sort of useful "here are all sides of a complicated argument" post. Hope everyone is doing well!

Rape Allegation Against Athletes Is Roiling Duke - New York Times

Rape Allegation Against Athletes Is Roiling Duke - New York Times

Great Blog

For those of us affected by globalisation, This is an awesome blog. Really good stuff.

Look who's more likely to have risky sex - Yahoo! News

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young men who feel good about their looks are more likely than their peers with a less positive body image to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study of college students shows."

God please let this be true.

Two drugs already used to treat
HIV' name HIV infection have shown such promise at preventing it in monkeys that officials last week said they would expand early tests in healthy high-risk men and women around the world.

Woman took kids, became husband - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

"RALEIGH, N.C. - A woman accused of abducting her two young children from their father, then dressing like a man so she could assume his identity, agreed Monday to return to Arizona where she faces kidnapping charges, authorities said."

Siobhan Del Mar

Siobhan Del Mar
Originally uploaded by phaedras25.

I am trying to figure out how to post photos. this is one from Fe and i's trip on the socal coast.

The Indians come to white women's rescue

Idea of simple life takes hold

"It's a function of individuals beginning to feel a sense of crisis in their lives," Shi says. "The frenetic pace of our high-tech society, coupled with the barrage of seductive messages coming from our consumer culture, have
reached a point that many people simply feel like they're about to
self-destruct."
For Pelmas, it's about "avoiding the hysteria that seems to govern a lot of our consciousness right now around consumerism. It's the kind of craze where fathers are beating each other up to get the latest Nintendo for
their kids. It strikes me as some strange kind of 21st-century spiritual lack."
It's not just her. Surveys done by Juliet Schor, a sociologist at Boston College who studies consumer society, have found that 81% of Americans say the country is too focused on shopping and spending, and 88% think it is too materialistic.

Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk - Yahoo! News

Kay that's just mean.

Now I really have to

give up sushi:(

Personality

In a series of studies on the development of gender differences in depression, Gjerde found that young adults who described themselves as depressed had exhibited clear antecedents for the malady during their preschool years. In boys, the characteristics include a lot of anger and interpersonal antagonism. In girls, the early signs are not as strong, but the signals appear to include shyness, kindness, and relatively high intelligence, raising the possibility that smart adolescent girls may be at risk for sadness.

Another section of the study found this:heh

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

Jess has a son!

Jess and Husband welcomed Eli to the family yesterday! Congratulations.

Feeling uneasy about the world?

But if Phillips is correct, the coming years are going to be ugly for all of us, not just blithe exurbanites with SUVs and floating-rate mortgages. With oil growing scarce and America unable or unwilling to even begin weaning itself away, we could see a future of resource wars that would inflame jihadi terrorism and bankrupt the country, shredding what's left of the social safety net. As Phillips notes, a collapsed economy would leave many debt-ridden Americans as what Democratic leaders have called "modern-day indentured servants," paying back constantly compounding debt with no hope of escape via bankruptcy. The prospect of social breakdown looms. The desperation of New Orleans could end up being a preview.

I need me some Ambien!

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Strange behavior by insomniacs taking prescription drugs, ranging from binge eating to having sex while asleep, have raised safety questions about anti-insomnia medications like Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien

Pregnancy-a conflict

In the 1970's, Dr. Trivers argued that families create an evolutionary conflict. Natural selection should favor parents who can successfully raise the most offspring. For that strategy to work, they
can't put too many resources into any one child. But the child's chances for reproductive success will increase as its care and feeding increase. Theoretically, Dr. Trivers argued, natural selection could favor genes that help children get more resources from their parents than the parents want to
give.
As Dr. Haig considered the case of pregnancy, it seemed like the perfect arena for this sort of conflict. A child develops in intimate contact with its mother. Its development in the womb is crucial to its long-term health. So it was plausible that nature would favor genes that allowed fetuses to draw more resources from their mothers. A fetus does not sit passively in its
mother's womb and wait to be fed. Its placenta aggressively sprouts blood vessels that invade its mother's tissues to extract nutrients. Meanwhile, Dr. Haig argued, natural selection should favor mothers who could restrain these incursions, and manage to have several surviving offspring carrying on their genes. He envisioned pregnancy as a tug of war. Each side pulls hard, and yet a
flag tied to the middle of the rope barely moves.

Irish leaving New York

Ten years from now, say activists pushing for immigration reform, there won't be Irish neighborhoods left in New York."Watch the various airlines heading for Ireland," said Adrian Flannelly, chairman of New York's Irish Radio Network, "and you can see the same type of grief and sorrow that there has been in the worst days of our history, where [immigrants] would leave everything behind them."The Irish in America are as old as America itself," he said. "In that sense, this is a disgrace."Before dawn today, 17 buses were scheduled to leave Katonah Avenue for Washington, where Irish immigrants intend to press for passage of the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill. The legislation would allow all illegal immigrants to apply for legal status after paying their back taxes and working in the United States for six years.

Creepy conspiracy

Finally, after seven months of political pressure, the FBI allowed United 93 relatives to listen to the CVR. The feds told the families not to reveal what they'd heard. "They said the information on
the tapes could be possibly used in the prosecution of [alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias]Moussaoui, and anything that we say could affect the case in a negative way," said the brother of one of the victims.
Though they studied the recording, the 9/11 Commission found zero evidence that the passenger revolt succeeded, that they made it into the cockpit and, as Bush claimed, "took the plane into the ground." Tom Kean & Co. offered only conjecture: "The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them."

Sinead O'Connor was right

We have a king

Just two weeks after 9/11, a then-little-known Bush Justice Department official named John Yoo penned a memo with a stunningly broad conclusion. Congress, Yoo declared, may not "place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be
used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make."

I am going to cry

LOS ANGELES - Sushi is more popular than ever before but eating it “has
become the new Russian roulette” in terms of safety, a group campaigning against
mercury in fish said Monday.
Eli Saddler of gotmercury.org, a campaign of California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project, went to six top sushi restaurants in Los Angeles to test mercury levels in the fish they
serve.
“The level of mercury in tuna these restaurants serve is so high they should be keeping this food off their lists,” Saddler said. “Eating sushi has become the new Russian roulette.”

Long time no write

I spent the weekend in Seattle. Saw my old haunts and the ocean agian. My ocean fixes are befoming dangerously addictive. I missed the Oscars as a result, but the pictures afterwards indicated a fairly boring year dress-wise so I am less than tragic about this.

Gossip says Scarlett Johansenn and Jake Gyllenhall maybe getting cozy. I think that is a great couple, far more convincing than Kirsten Dunst. Tom Cruise.. still mofo crazy.

News from the homefront is well spooky. Abortion going away, birth control going away or becoming less accessible as the Catholic Church considers revising their position on birth control. Huge amounts of desertion in the military and apparently, we are really going to go to war with Iran, cuz we are mofo crazy. Will post fun stuff soon!

it should never come to this

And they wonder why it is hard...

to learn to eat healthy. I get so fed up with the articles that come out, that basically end up saying we know very little about how diet will really affect "you", when you are someone with any sort of predisposition to chronic diseases linked to diet. Or anyone really besides Gwyneth Paltrow. It is very frustrating.

so the leader of the free world....

HE MAY be the most powerful man in the world, but proof has emerged that President George Bush cannot ride a bike, wave and speak at the same time.

For Jess...

The five-ingredient rule is something that my mother-in-law shared with me shortly after I got married. She said that one of the things she did when her five children were small was to come up with about 20 recipes that she could make with only five ingredients.

The benefit of the 5-ingredient rule is that you can make these recipes in short order. With seven people in the house, and five of them children, emergencies and crazy days happen fairly often. By keeping the pantry stocked with the ingredients for these 20 recipes, she could make them without much fuss on hectic days

and this is how it happens....

Civilization eludes us

According to some estimates, upwards of 30 percent of the country's married women have been snatched from the street by their husbands in a custom known as "ala kachuu," which translates roughly as "grab and run."

In its most benign form, it is a kind of elopement, in which a man whisks away a willing girlfriend. But often it is something more violent. The custom predates the arrival of Islam in the 12th century and is practiced in varying degrees across Central Asia, but is most prevalent in
Kyrgyzstan.
According to some estimates, in the Naryn province alone an estimated 55 percent of all women were abducted against their will and forced into marriage, while only 10 percent of abducted women dared to stand for their rights and leave their abductors.

In case you thought it couldn't get grosser

Jasmine found that in four of the five restaurants, the ice that came from
the self-serve machines had more bacteria than the toilet water. Three of the
five cups of ice from the drive-through windows had more bacteria than the
toilet water.
Of the bacteria found in the ice, three out of the five
restaurants tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, organisms that come
from the feces of warm-blooded animals.
Health symptoms related to the presence of coliform include cramps and diarrhea. E. coli can cause intestinal illness and, in rare cases, hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious kidney
condition.
Jasmine offers several theories for the contamination.
"The machine may not be cleaned properly, or it comes from someone touching the ice
with their hands," she said.
Galina Tuninskaya, vice president of Applied Consumer Services, a private lab that tests drinking water, said the standard for drinking water is usually 100 colony-forming units of bacteria per
milliliter. The highest amount Jasmine found was 54 units in ice from a
self-serve machine.

Welcome to reality moron

Mr Fukuyama once supported regime change in Iraq and was a signatory to a
1998 letter sent by the Project for a New American Century to the then
president, Bill Clinton, urging the US to step up its efforts to remove Saddam
Hussein from power. It was also signed by neoconservative intellectuals, such as
Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, and political figures Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
Perle and the current defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

However, Mr Fukuyama now thinks the war in Iraq is the wrong sort of war, in the wrong
place, at the wrong time. "The most basic misjudgment was an overestimation
of the threat facing the United States from radical Islamism," he argues.
"Although the new and ominous possibility of undeterrable terrorists armed
with weapons of mass destruction did indeed present itself, advocates of the war
wrongly conflated this with the threat presented by Iraq and with the rogue
state/proliferation problem more generally."

Mr Fukuyama, one of the US's most influential public intellectuals, concludes that "it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention [in Iraq] itself or the ideas
animating it kindly".

Ball Lightning

So I was driving to dinner with my roommate and we saw these wierd little balls of light. Roomie claimed we had just seen ball ligtning. I said he made that up on the spot. Apparently I was wrong:)

So Gross

Eeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!!!
Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:44 AM ET BERLIN (Reuters) - A Bavarian village was
flooded by liquid pig manure after a tank containing the fertilizer burst,
German police said Wednesday.
Sewage rose to 20 inches in the courtyards and
streets of Elsa after gushing from the tank, which held some 240,000 litres of
pig manure.
"The village was swamped with green-brown liquid and it was pig
manure -- the mother-of-all muck," said Rainer Prediger, a police spokesman in
the nearby town of Coburg

Mom genes

Doesn't the Y chromosone do any work?

Good commentary on the Muslim cartoon furor

hat tip to Brian!

Marriage Myths

Some of the facts on this graphic are fascinating!

Get comfy..you might be working for awhile

Life expectancy in the United States is now around 78 years. But if anti-aging therapies prove to work as well for humans as they have for worms, flies, and mice in laboratories, by the year 2050 people might routinely reach the ripe old age of 120.

you have to read it to believe it

FEBRUARY 17--This country, as you know, is filled with the deranged. And then there's Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man who is facing charges that he tried to kidnap his own wife (not to mention a separate child pornography rap). Frey, prosecutors contend, apparently is a
rather demanding guy. In fact, he actually drew up a bizarre four-page marriage
document--a "Contract of Wifely Expectations"--that sought to establish
guidelines for his spouse in terms of hygiene, clothing, and sexual activities.
In return for fulfilling certain requirements, Frey (pictured right) offered
"Good Behavior Days," or GBDs. Each GBD, Frey wrote, could be redeemed by his
wife to "get out of doing the things" he requested daily. A copy of the proposed
contract, which Frey's wife never signed and later provided to cops, can be
found below. While we normally point out the highlights of most documents, there
are so many in this demented, and very graphic, contract, we really can't do it
justice. So set aside ten minutes--and prepare to be repulsed. (4 pages)

Are Americans giving up on love?

I have seen more of these articles on the demographics of singles in the US and there really does seem to be a growing deprioritization of relationships. This can not be a good thing. Are people really not looking for companionship or are they redefining it?

Courtesy of Bobbi and Brian

These are pretty good --

Rob Corddry (Daily Show): "Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time-there-were-quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be the 78 year old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face.”

David Letterman: “We can't get bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney.”

Jay Leno: “When the ambulance got there, out of force of habit they put Cheney on the stretcher. … Hey, wait, no, it’s the other guy!”

Jon Stewart: “Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. And it's easy to make fun of an incident like this. ... Very easy. But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. Moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the Vice President. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted. It's just not worth it.”

Jimmy Kimmel: “This is all part of the Bush administration's new Social Security plan. Once you hit 78 . . .”


Global Headlines –

Cheney Bags a Lawyer
-- The Herald (Scotland)

Cheney Hunts Quail and Everyone Else Ducks
-- Sydney Morning Herald

Deadeye Dick
-- Philadelphia Daily News

Duck! It's Dick
-- New York Daily News

UN concludes that we are torturing

our prisoners in Guatanamo. How will we ever recover from so great a fall?

Friday Commentary

Our Trade deficit hit a new record in 2005. I am fairly soon that at some point we are going to hit the tipping point (if we haven't already) of not enough good paying jobs in the US for us to buy all the crap we are currently importing.

A quick search shows bird flu showing up in several new countries. Greece, Azerbaijan and Iraq and China seeing new cases.

Rumors persist that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are on the rocks. Is nothing sacred?

The continued violence over cartoons is clearly sharpening the conversation in the current "clash of civilizations". Will the dialogue lead to progress or further violence?

Finally, new debt scam. Banks are selling very old debts to pedatory collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. All states have statues of limitations on old debts, so if you get a call...hang up. Don't disagree or acknowledge, just hang up!

Hezbollah...saying what we all want to say

Hezbollah Leader Tells Bush, Rice to "Shut-Up"

Is this kidnapping?

The buzz is that Tom Cruise wants his wife-to-be to focus on being a wife and a mother — not on her career. He also reportedly wants her to avoid the spotlight for a while.

Cityrag blog...funnier than us

They also have links that show the likeness of Ashlee Simpson to David Lee Roth and great photos from the westminster dog show!

Hattip to Bobbi and Brian!

Cartoon War

The cartoons were largely unnoticed outside Denmark until a group of Muslim leaders there made a point of circulating them, along with drawings far more offensive than the relatively mild stuff actually printed by the paper, Jyllands-Posten. It's far from the first time that an almost-forgotten incident has been dredged up to score points with the public during politically sensitive times.

The governments of the countries in which the demonstrations are occurring are responsible for keeping them nonviolent. Lebanese officials have rightly apologized to Denmark for failing to
control a protest that ended with the torching of the Danish consulate in Beirut. That's in stark contrast with what happened in Syria, where there is no such thing as a spontaneous demonstration, yet where large crowds managed to assemble and set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies.

Tough Love...uh huh

"No pain, no gain," Andy Wylegala, whose job at the embassy is to help Americans do business in Iraq, said at the same briefing. "It's a very difficult procedure to pass through. But when I look from my side, I see it as a long-term, very favorable development."

After touring Baghdad early this month, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) questioned the new direction.

"I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we can simply just pass this on to the Iraqi people immediately or to the international community," Reed said. "We've got to continue our efforts…. That requires money."

Iraq's new government will embrace market policies, but it still needs more help with reconstruction, said Movad Ubaidi, deputy chief of the newly elected National Assembly's economics committee.

"If these donations were spent, the American government is asked to give more so that Iraq can recover from the damage it suffered," Ubaidi said.

But the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, Gen. William H. McCoy, said at a recent briefing that the last of 3,100 reconstruction projects would soon be awarded, and almost all would be completed before the year ends.

"We were never intending to rebuild Iraq," McCoy said. "We were providing enough funds to jump-start the reconstruction effort in this country."

Unfair world

DENVER (Reuters) - Just over half of new infections with the
AIDS virus in the United States are in blacks, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

ahh, Buffy as wisdom

Thus, collectivism is actually the best way to secure individual liberty. Since it’s well established that money is power, it also follows that individual liberty is also dependent on sharing wealth as well
as political power.

For every atom belong to me as good belongs to you.

The “Buffy” discussion illustrated this perfectly–power-sharing is a
win-win situation because the group is stronger than the individual, the
individual is freer with the group supporting her (In this case, Buffy is free
to take a day off, knowing that there are other Slayers who have her
back).

Last post before I go to bed

Bed Bugs are back as a "pandemic". I first saw it as a story that fancy chicago hotels were being affected, but now Australia, NYC and others are also being innudated. Pay attention if you go to a hotel and wake up with a rash:)

Bed bugs NYC
Bed Bugs Chicago

Globalisation and your teeth

Another article on the human side of the global workforce.

Judge calls out bankruptcy Law

Alfonso Sosa, a house painter here who made about $20,000 last year, filed
for bankruptcy the morning of Dec. 6, hoping to avoid the foreclosure on his
family's mobile home scheduled for later that day. Judge Frank Monroe of Austin
rejected the case 16 days later — with a bang.
In his ruling, Monroe said
the new federal bankruptcy law is full of traps for consumers, calling some of
its provisions "inane," "absurd" and incomprehensible to "any rational human
being."

Muslim cartoon controversy

12 cartoons were published in the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, which you can see here. Some were
very bland, others seem to be unquestionably offensive. Yet these cartons
were published on September 30, 2005. What the traditional media has
failed to explain is why the protests are occuring now.

Asshole

Satellite Radio song

Sometimes I hear stuff on Satellite radio that just blows me away. My manager found these lyrics for me. Country singer!
So I’d heard of Larry McMurtry, but that’s because he’s the screenplay
writer for a movie called brokeback mountain, not for country music singing.
His son, James McMurtry is a folk singer, and has an album out called
childish things with a song on it called “we can’t make it here” with lyrics as
follows.

We Can’t Make It Here


There’s a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s just stretched so thin
And now there’s more coming back from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore



That big ol’ building was the textile mill that fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore


See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna sit there ‘til they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here unless you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

The bar’s still open but man it’s slow
The tip jar’s light and the register’s low
The bartender don’t have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can’t make it here anymore

There’s a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromatA woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘ Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in their damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
So let ‘em eat jellybeans let ‘em eat cake
Let ‘em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

So that’s how it is, that’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why

In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

Go Mass chicks!

Some problems...

different than others.