"I’ve had a great time performing on the show. I had a great partner,” Mario said, making sure to give props to pal Karina Smirnoff, as well as a shout-out to “the real brave ones"—the U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East.
There was a lot of light shed on my age as opposed to who I am as a person. It was my opportunity to tell the world how I felt about young people. We are the future. Kids younger than I am are the future. Some of them are out there fighting for this country and we should definitely shed light on that, too.
Referring to right-wing blogger Noel Sheppard, who helped fan the flames of criticism this week, King said, “Guys like him take their cues from [conservative commentators Rush] Limbaugh and [Bill] O’Reilly, who are adept at shifting discussion from what they don’t want to talk about, such as the failures of the war in Iraq, to what they want to talk about — supporting the troops. Of course, we all support the troops."
That’s funny, I thought you were there to talk about literacy.
"Stephen King is a wordsmith, thus he SHOULD Know that Words Have Meaning, and if he was not SURE that the words he was using would evoke the response that he received, and didn’t want that kind of reaction, then he SHOULD HAVE USED DIFFERENT WORDS."Word.
The crowd from the Crawford Texas Peace House may be sitting this one out, but the sanctity of President Bush’s daughter’s wedding Saturday won’t necessarily stop anti-homosexual protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church from trying to crash the blessed event.
Shirley Phelps Roper, daughter of the leader of the Topeka, Kan., church whose members picket at locations where they believe homosexuality is being encouraged, said eight church members will picket near Jenna Bush’s wedding Saturday night.
Scotland’s first Muslim Police Association is being created in an attempt to encourage more Muslims to join and stay in the force.
Strathclyde Police hopes the group will also help tackle Islamophobia and improve understanding of Islam.
Pc Amar Shakoor, who was Scotland’s first Muslim officer, said negativity had recently been directed towards the Muslim community.
He said the association hoped to put Islam in a more positive light.
“We want to highlight some of the positive things Islam can provide to the communities and not just the police services,” he said.
The anti-military organization, Code Pink, is bringing witches out to the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center this Friday to:
"cast spells, weave magic, invoke the foremothers, share wisdom, lead rituals to banish war and violence and to bring peace to the MRS, to protect our youth from the powerful spells of pro-war forces, to lead the men of the marine recruiting station off into the oceans of peace!"So we here at Move America Forward decided to have a counter-event. We’re calling it a “Witch-Hunt” and we ask you to join us this FRIDAY, May 9th at the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center. We’ll be out there from 8:00 AM - 12:00 Noon and ask you to come and join us for part of the time, or all of the time if you can spare the time.
"We like Obama and hope that he will win the election.”
--- Ahmed Yousef, Hamas advisor
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Republican John McCain was “losing his bearings” for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.
"We like Obama and hope that he will win the election.”
--- Ahmed Yousef, Hamas advisor
TMI
I come from a mining town.
...It’s an interesting man who makes his way to the middle of nowhere seeking his life and fortune. That’s what my grandfather, John Reid, did, when he was drawn to Searchlight from California just after the turn of the century.
...By the turn of the century Searchlight was booming. But reversals come quick. Within a decade, the town was in a serious decline.
...But by the time I came along - December 2, 1939 - the leading industry in my hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, was no longer mining, it was prostitution.
As a boy, I learned to swim at a whorehouse. Nobody in town had ever seen such a fancy inground tiled pool in their lives as the pool at the El Rey. Or any pool at all, for that matter.
...We had a little tree in our yard for a while. It died.
Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest — dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.
Three teenagers are accused of digging up a corpse, removing the head and using the skull as a bong to smoke marijuana, Houston police said.
Matthew Richard Gonzalez and Kevin Wade Jones, both 17, and their 16-year-old friend were arrested Wednesday and charged with abuse of a corpse.
Police said the trio told investigators they dug up a body from an Humble area cemetery in March, decapitated it and converted the head into a marijuana pipe.
Police said they do not have any physical evidence yet to confirm the story, but felt confident to pursue charges based on statements from the three teens.
The Mother of an Evergreen student told us this spring that her daughters’ boyfriend needs some surgery.
He is going to wait until January because Obamama will be elected and the surgery will be free.
*
The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes.
And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of global warming, said the lead author of the report about the desert’s history published in the journal Science.
Kropelin told Reuters that improved understanding of the formation of the Sahara might help climate modellers improve forecasts of what is in store from global warming, blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on human emissions of greenhouse gases.The panel says that some areas will be more vulnerable to drought, others to more storms or floods.
What is it with naked people and trees?
A naked man in a tree held police in Los Angeles at bay for over an hour.
I just got back from the mailbox!!
THANK YOU!!!! *kiss*kiss*
Awesome…
The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
Mohammed al-Askari said the arrest of al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was confirmed to him by the Iraqi commander of the province. There was no immediate confirmation or comment from U.S. forces.
News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television.
“The commander of Ninevah military operations informed me that Iraqi troops captured Abu Hamza al-Muhajir the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq,” al-Askari told The Associated Press by telephone.
Dammit…
The U.S. military in Iraq denied widespread reports Friday that trumpeted the capture of a top Iraqi insurgent leader.
Iraqi media trumpeted the capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri but U.S. military said Friday it’s not true.
Skeptical of the reports at first, the U.S. military is now certain that Abu Ayyub al-Masri—the head of al Qaeda in Iraq—has not been captured, a senior U.S. military official told CNN.
Still, it’s good to see the Iraqi’s being more proactive in capturing these terrorists.
Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
Professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School says, “To list a species that is currently in good health as an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend would continue for a few years, then level off.
“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered. After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.”
A free Immigration and Border Dialogues Conference will take place May 15-18 at The Evergreen State College in Olympia.
Conference highlights include:
--Thursday: Las Mamalogues performs at 7 p.m.
--Friday: 10:15 a.m. to noon, Panel discussion on news from the border, border miltiarization, how border communities are responding and immigration as a human-rights issue.
12:45 to 2:15 p.m., Community dialogues on immigration.
2:30 to 4 p.m., War on the border: reflections from the underside.
7:15 p.m. Community potluck.
9 p.m. Films on immigration.--Saturday:
9 to 10:45 a.m., Community response to immigration law enforcement.
11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Know your rights.
1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Iraq veterans against the war.
2:45 to 4:30 p.m. Countering anti-immigration attacks.
8 p.m. Theater production looking at Mexican-U.S. immigration.
10 p.m. Dance.--Sunday:
10 a.m. Next steps.
11 a.m. Roundtable discussions lead by local community organizers.
Noon, Strategy session.
Once upon a time, there was a charming prince an American soldier in Iraq.......
While serving in Iraq in 2004-2005, soldiers from the Washington National Guard’s 161st Infantry Battalion from Kent were greatly aided by a stunningly beautiful Iraqi woman, Esra Alaibi, who braved danger daily to work with them as an interpreter, even as her friends and relatives were killed by terrorists for helping Americans. In the midst of the horrors of war she met Lance Caver of Lacey, Wash. When Lance and his unit, he vowed to bring her to the U.S. Despite efforts, two years passed. She spent most of them in Jordan under U.S. State Department protection. Suddenly, two months ago, with Caver his family and friends all offering to sponsor her, she finally arrived in the U.S., first under the sponsorship of a Spokane family Lance knows, and moving to Lacey several weeks ago. The couple moved in together pending a wedding planned for May 10 in Lacey.
Again, the World’s socialist tyrants demonstrate their contempt for humanity.
What the world should be learning from this terrible loss of at least 60,000 people in the cyclone that hit Burma last week is that tyrannies kill more surely than any freak of weather.
If Cyclone Nargis had struck not Rangoon, but Melbourne or Tokyo, it is unlikely more than a few dozen people, if that, would have died. And that’s because we are free, and rich - as free people tend to be with capitalism. Even Bangkok would have survived this far, far easier. But in Burma as many as 100,000 are now feared dead - victims… of a tyranny that has left them poor and defenceless.
Burma… was once the rice-bowl of South-East Asia, but in 1962 a bunch of generals took over with a misty-eyed plan to impose on their 50 million people the “Burmese Way to Socialism”. Their brand of politics was of the kind still distressingly popular at [universities], and produced exactly the misery it’s inflicted from Cuba to Russia. The economy collapsed, and Burma went from bread-basket to basket-case. No wonder so many people today still live in shacks and shanties that were no protection against last Friday’s high winds and storm surge.
But Burma’s state-owned media, one of the crudest propaganda outfits I’ve seen, issued no mass alerts. Indeed, illegal Voice of America broadcasts probably did more to warn Burma’s civilians to take shelter than did Burma’s own radio station.
Even now, the junta is killing people with its paranoia. Disaster assessment teams and helicopters from the United States have been blocked from coming in to prepare a huge rescue, and foreign aid teams not already in-country had their applications for visas stalled and aid shipments stopped.
So slow has the junta been to let in help, that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, founder of aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres, suggested the UN Security Council adopt a resolution allowing aid to be flown into the country by force.Before and after pictures.
The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, has officially announced the end of the war with Germany.
In a statement released early this morning, presumptive Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama, (D-Ill) speculated Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans would be a “Spectacular” choice for FEMA director............
Sense written at HuffPopo
A couple of tasty treats to whet your appetite:
Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders’ right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of “religious sensitivity."
...The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way.
...Wherever “moderate Islam” does announce itself, one often discovers frank Islamism lurking just a euphemism or two beneath the surface. The subterfuge is rendered all but invisible to the general public by political correctness, wishful thinking, and “white guilt.”
...And if anyone in this debate can be credibly accused of racism, it is the western apologists and “multiculturalists” who deem Arabs and Muslims too immature to shoulder the responsibilities of civil discourse. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali has pointed out, there is a calamitous form of “affirmative action” at work, especially in western Europe, where Muslim immigrants are systematically exempted from western standards of moral order in the name of paying “respect” to the glaring pathologies in their culture.
Bravo!
If the Anasazi have a lesson for us, it’s if we want to avoid eating our neighbours we’d best be frugal with the water that’s available. We’d better start getting greenhouse gas levels down and fast.
ok. I tried it.
