New Years Eve Wikipedia Style

Today is New Year's Eve, and I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year's and a Better 2008 for us all. Below is a short excerpt and a link to read about New Year's Eve, wikipedia style. Take Care, and if you Drink, please do not Drive, and make it into the New Year Alive!!

New Year's Eve is on December 31, the final day of the Gregorian year, and the day before New Year's Day.

New Year's Eve is a separate observance from the observance of New Year's Day. In 21st-century Western practice, New Year's Eve is celebrated with parties and social gatherings spanning the transition of the year at midnight.

Many cultures use fireworks and other forms of noise making in part of the celebration. Some of the cities most well-known for their celebrations include Sydney, Hong Kong, London, and New York City.


wikipedia

Teresa is COOL MySpace Friend

This post is about a "cool" myspace friend, who spends her time being a caring, compassionate friend to the people she knows. Her post this Saturday, was a "cool" post about a friend from her "playgroup" who is going to have surgery, and the things her "playgroup" are going to do, to make it as easy as possible for their "friend" to recover successfully. If you want to read an uplifting story, please follow the link to her post.

Teresa is a very nice person, who has stopped by my Art Kiosk on a few occasions, and has been our eyes and ears during this election season, and thanks for letting us know about the visits by the numerous candidates criss-crossing our state, preparing for the first in the nation caucuses.

Teresa's post begins:
...how could I forget how this important part of me? I do love to be a good friend...and I am very blessed by the friendships I have made over the years. I have been a part of a group of women who have become very good friends. Just a bit of background.

Take Care and Enjoy the "cool" post of a true Friend!!


teresa

2007s Weird Weather

This next story is important not just for today, but for a long time to come. It is a story about the man made impact on our global weather. 2007 was one of the hottest years on record.

When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on record worldwide, 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.


And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

The extremes caused by global warming shall continue to vary and worsen as we get closer to the tipping point of planetary collapse. Whether it is partially or fully caused by man, we need to do what we can to lessen the effects of this strange weather. In this regard, I am not a "Al Gorian" phony, who preaches on the dangers of global warming, and then hops his fuel guzzling private jet, but more like Bill O'Reilly, who thinks we are impacting the planet, and while not going fanatical, he believes it is our responsibility to leave the planet cleaner than we found it! So let's all do our part to "leave" the Earth better off, than when we arrived on it!!

2007

Bhutto Died Of Skull Fracture

There is a news report that I was just reading which indicates that Mrs. Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds, as was earlier reported.

It says, Benazir Bhutto died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car during a suicide attack, not from bullet wounds, the government said Friday.

Pakistan's interior minister blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for Thursday's assassination and said another key opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, is also under threat of militant attack.

There was worldwide condemnation of this act yesterday, now we shall see who was serious and who was just paying lip service, as the job of tracking down, and killing these people begins!!


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Bhutto Assassinated

In what will surely be the story of the week, Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said. Bhutto's supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

This assassination was just the type of violence that President Musharraf had attempted to stop, through his use of house arrest, and martial law. The lifting of the emergency, and giving Mrs. Bhutto access to the venue which she attended, and at which she was assassinated, was just what Musharraf feared most.

The militants will use this anger to disrupt the country, and will turn this into a civil war, if calmer heads do not prevail. It is necessary for the world to speak with one voice and help keep Pakistan from falling into the abyss of violence. This is a nation with a nuclear stockpile that would be the envy of any terrorist organization, and this stockpile must remain safe under all circumstances!

I feel sad for the death of Mrs. Bhutto, but she knew that returning to Pakistan was a "death sentence" and even though her goal was to have more democracy for her country, she may have the opposite effect, and losing democracy in Pakistan to al-Qaeda and The Taliban, may be a very sad legacy for her sacrifice!


assassinated

Exceptional Interim CEO Of U Of I Hospitals & Clinics Is Named

A friend of mine has given me a heads up on the appointment of an exceptional leader from Duke University, who is coming to Iowa City. This "wunderkind" is none other than Gordon D. Williams, who has been named interim chief executive officer of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, effective December, 31, 2007. The appointment was announced today by UI Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean E. Robillard, MD, to whom Williams will report.

His responsibilities at Duke include School of Medicine budget and finance, resource planning, grants and contract and administration. For the Duke Health System, including the medical center, he managed corporate services, such as human resources, engineering and operations, the Occupational Environmental Safety Office, procurement, Architect's Office, Medical Center Information Systems, and leased properties.

Please welcome Mr. Williams, to Iowa City, and may he find it such an attractive place, and the position so enticing, that he chooses to stay on in this job, in a permanent capacity. Thank you!!


mr williams

The True Story Of Santa Clause

This is the true story of Santa Clause, and sorry it is so late, as it was busy today!! Hooray!!

If we would have awakened on the sixth of December and found our stockings full of candy and toys we would think that the ruddy old fellow who comes down the chimney has lost his wits and arrived about three weeks too soon. But his arrival would seem exactly on time to children in other parts of the world. For the feast of Saint Nicholas is the sixth of December, and how he became the patron saint of the day of the Saint of saints, the Christ, Child, is a story.

It is the story of a story. And when we say that it is true we shall remember that truth lives in the region of dreams. We shall be true to a glorious legend and to the way that legend has come down to us. Truth here consists in knowing that Santa Claus does come down the chimney and fills our stockings. If we do not believe that truth, we are lost souls and beauty and poetry, the only real truth, means nothing.
Nicholas was an actual person. Though he is the most popular saint in the calendar, not excepting St. Christopher and St. Francis, we know little about the man to whom so many lovely deeds, human and miraculous, have been ascribed. He was bishop of Myra, in Lycia, Asia Minor, in the first part of the fourth century of the Christian era. Asia Minor is far away from reindeer and Santa Claus, but the world of faith and fable is small and ideas travel far if they have centuries of time for their journey round the world. And Asia Minor is the cradle of all Christian ideas.

From the day of his birth Nicholas revealed his piety and grace. He refused on fast-days to take the natural nourishment of a child. He was the youngest bishop in the history of the church. He was persecuted and imprisoned with many other Christians during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian, and was released and honoured when Constantine the Great established the Christian Church as the official religion, or at least recognised the Christian Church as the official religion, or at least recognised and encouraged it. Under Constantine in 325, was held the first general Council of the Christians at Nicaea, where many important matters were decided. These matters belong to theology and are not in our picture, but Nicholas may have had a hand, as vigorous hand in them. One of the arguers who seemed to Nicholas, and to the later orthodox church, a dangerous heretic so roused th4 righteous ire of the saint that Nicholas smote him in the jaw. This is one of the first episodes in militant Christianity.

About two hundred years after his death Nicholas was a great figure in Christian Legend, and Justinian, the last powerful Roman emperor in the East, built a church in honour of St. Nicholas in Constantinople. But the bones of the saint were not allowed to rest in peace in his home town, Muyra, where he was properly buried. About seven hundred years after his death, in the eleventh century, what remained of the earthly Nicholas was dug up and moved to the city of Bari, in Italy. In its day it was one of many important seaports that dominated Mediterranean traffic. The merchants of Bari organised a predatory expedition to the burial place of Nicholas, stole the bones, reburied them in Bari and built a church which was long an objective for religious pilgrims and is still worth the travel of a lover of art and architecture. The city of Venice, not to be out done by a rival maritime town, also claims to enshrine the bones of the saint.

So the curious tourist may take his choice. The bones are dust, wherever they lie. The churches in Bari and many cities of Europe still stand; there are more than four hundred dedicated to Nicholas in England. More important, the spirit of the saint is alive throughout the Christian world.

Nicholas was not a bare-foot recluse vowed to poverty. His father was a wealthy merchant, and his riches, inherited or created by the magic wand which fairy-godfathers wield, enabled him to be a dispenser of good things of life, an earthly representative of the Supreme Giver of gifts.

The most famous episode in his long career of benevolence is his rescue of the three dowerless maidens. An impoverished nobleman had three daughters who he was about to send into a life of shame. Nicholas heard of the tragic situation and at night threw a purse of gold into the house. This furnished the dowry for the eldest daughter, and she was married.

After a little while, says the Golden Legend, which is the great medieval story of the saints, his holy hermit of God ‘threw in another mass of gold’ and that provided a dowry for the second daughter. ‘And after a few days Nicholas doubled the mass of gold and cast it into the house’. So the third daughter was endowed. The happy father, wishing to know his benefactor, ran after Nicholas and recognised him, but the holy man ‘required him not to tell nor discover this thing as long as he lived’.
Thus Nicholas became not only the generous giver but the special patron saint of maidenhood and was so known and celebrated throughout the Middle Ages. Danté speaks in three short lines, as if he assumed that everybody already knew the story, of the generosity of Nicholas to maidens, ‘to lead their youth to honour’. The Italian painters made much of this story. A fine pictorial representation of it is the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City. It is one of those dramatic paintings in which the old artists told a really moving tale long before the days of the camera and the moving picture. Inside the house you see the three distressed daughters and the still more dejected and ragged father. Outside is Nicholas climbing up at the door in the act of throwing the purse through a little window.

The story takes what seems an almost humorous turn. Let us imagine three purses of ‘masses’ of gold. We recognise them, in conventional form, in the three gold balls over the pawnbroker’s shop. Thus the holy man of the early Christian Church presides symbolically over a business which throughout Europe during the Middle Ages was conducted largely though not exclusively by members of the older Jewish Church. Pawnbroking included all forms of banking and money-lending with personal movable property as security. At first glance it does not seem quite appropriate that the charitable benevolent saint should become associated with a business, long notorious for exaction and usury, which the Mosaic Law forbade and which the derivative Christian morality condemned. One of the earliest acts of Christ was the expulsion of money-lenders from the temple: he ‘overthrew the tables of the money changers’ and scourged forth others who bought and sold.

But it may well be that the bankers and brokers wished to give sanctity and dignity to their business and so adopted the generous Nicholas as their heavenly protector. Every profession, guild, trade or, more likely, there was not much deliberate choice, these assimilations of legend to fact simply happened, nobody knows just how. Nicholas was adopted not only by the more or less respectable brokers but by thieves and pirates. The sinner as well as the honest man had his heavenly benefactor. And it is no more strange in the history of mythology that Nicholas should have been invoked by thieves than that the Greek Roman God Mercury should have been the tutelary deity of robbers and tricksters.
Nicholas was the patron of all who went down to the sea in ships, whether bound on a predatory cruise or a military expedition or an errand of peaceful trade. The distinctions were not always clear in fact or theory. There are many stories of his having rescued sailors from shipwreck. It is written in the Roman Breviary, which is the ‘official account’, that ‘in his youth on a sea voyage he saved the ship from a fearful storm’. Greek and Russian sailors appeal to him for protection and carry in the cabin of ships an image of the saint with a perpetually burning lamp. It is in accordance with the spirit of Christianity and other religions that a drowning man needs help, no matter what the moral purpose of his voyage through life may have been up to the hour of disaster.
Nicholas, however, was a dispenser of justice, according to the ideas of justice that prevailed when the stories about him grew up and took shape. One curious story of his judgment as patron of money-lending and trade reveals the attitude of those who made the story; it shows the somewhat confused relations between Jew and Gentile, relations familiarised for us by the story of Shylock. The tale is told in the Golden Legend, translated by Caxton, the father of English printing and a tireless interpreter of foreign books into our English tongue. I change a little Caxton’s words, which are not quite modern in form and construction:
‘There was a man who had borrowed of a Jew a sum of money and swore upon the altar of St. Nicholas that he would pay it back, as soon as he could, and gave no other pledge, The man kept the money so long that the Jew demanded payment. And the man said that he had paid. Then the Jew summoned the debtor into court. The debtor brought a hollow staff to the Jew to hold. Then he swore that he had given the Jew more than he owed and asked the Jew to give him back the staff. The Jew, not suspecting the trickery, gave the staff back to the debtor who took it and went away. Sleep overcame him and he lay down in the road. A cart ran over him and killed him and broke the staff so that the gold rolled out. When the Jew heard this he came and saw the fraud. Many people said to him that he should take the gold. But he refused saying that if the dead man were brought to life again by the power of St. Nicholas, he would take the money and become a Christian. So the dead man arose, and the Jew was Christened’.
Thus the ends of justice were served and everybody was happy.
The most important role of Nicholas to us at the present time is his patronage of schoolboys, for this brings him close to us as Santa Claus, the bearer of gifts and the special saint of childhood. He was himself the Boy Bishop. A famous story of him is that of his bringing to life three boys. On their way home, the tale runs, the boys stopped at a farmhouse. The farmer and his wife murdered them, cut their bodies in pieces and put them into casks used for pickling meat. St. Nicholas arrived, charged the murderers with their crime and caused the boys to rise from the casks fully restored. That is one reason, so far as there are many reason in fable, why schoolboys celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas on December sixth.
Intimately connected with the feast of Nicholas was the custom of electing a Boy Bishop for a limited number of days extending just over Christmas. To get something of the spirit of the ceremony and celebration we have only to think of a modern game played in New York and other American cities in which a boy is elected mayor for a day with a full staff of subordinate juvenile officials. The motive of the modern custom is to teach youths civic virtue, public service and patriotism. The motive underlying the Boy Bishop was partly religious, partly childish love of pranks and parody, and partly a sort of democratic rebellion, tolerated for a short period each year against constituted authority.
The Boy Bishop was dressed in handsome robes like a real bishop, and he and his companions led a mock solemn parade and in some cities actually took possession of the churches. There was much feasting, the way to a boys heart being through his stomach as well as through gaudy garments; and there was on the part of elder participants a good deal of drinking. On the whole it was a charming and innocent affair. The boys took it seriously enough, especially the supper which concluded the performance. As early as the first part of the tenth century Conrad I, King of Germany, described a visit to a monastery when the revels were at their height. He was amused especially by the procession of the children, so grave and sedate that even Conrad ordered his followers to throw apples down the aisle, the Children did not lose their gravity.

But these high jinks too near to sacred things met with opposition and censure. Ecclesiastical and civil authority shut down on the Boy Bishops and parades and ceremonies in one country after another. Grown people are not always profoundly wise about either the fooling or the intense seriousness of children. The Roman Catholic Church in the middle of the fifteenth century tried to suppress by edict the Boy Bishop and all the customs relating to him. In England, where this childish festival prevailed not only in the cathedral cities but in the small towns, the Protestant Reformation applied a depressing hand, and Queen Elizabeth, whose own court was gay with revelries, masques, interludes, finally abolished the Boy Bishop.
Childhood, however, has its revenges upon the interfering adult. With the aid of the conniving adult who refuses to grow up, Nicholas remained the saint of children. In some countries his festival was taken over, assimilated to Christmas, partly because St. Nicholas Day is so near to Christmas and partly because in some parts of the world there arose a sort of Protestant hostility to the worship of saints. But custom and amusement prevail even when religion and history are forgotten and ignored. To cite another example as familiar as Christmas, on the evening of the last day of October children bob apples, make pumpkin jack-o’-lantern, and play all kinds of tricks to pester innocent neighbours. They call the occasion Halloween, but few of them or their neighbours know that "hallow" means saint, and that the first of November is All Saints’ Day.

So it is with Nicholas. He is honoured and accepted with a kind of childish ignorance. Professor George H. McKnight of Ohio State University, who has given us the best account in English of the good St. Nicholas, begins his book by saying that strangely little is known of him in America. But he belongs to us by a very special inheritance. Our Dutch ancestors in New York – ancestry is a matter of tradition, not of blood, brought St. Nicholas over to New Amsterdam. The English colonists borrowed him from their Dutch neighbours. The Dutch form is San Nicolaas. If we say that rather fast with a stress on the broad double – A of the last syllable, a D or a T slips in after the N and we get ‘Sandyclaus’ or ‘Santa Claus’. And our American children are probably the only ones in the world who say it just that way; indeed the learned, and very British, Encyclopedia Britannica calls our familiar form ‘an American corruption’ of the Dutch. I suspect, however, that we should hear something very like it from the lips of children in Holland and Germany; in parts of southern Germany the word in sound, and I think spelling, is ‘santiklos’.

However, that may be, America owes the cheery saint of Christmas to Holland and Germany. In Belgium and Holland the festival of the saint is still observed on his birthday, December sixth, and the jollities and excitements are much the same as those we enjoy at Christmas, with some charming local variations. Saint Nicholas is not the merry fellow with a chubby face and twinkling eye, but retains the gravity appropriate to a venerable bishop. He rides a horse or an ass instead of driving a team or reindeer. He leaves his gifts in stockings, shoes or baskets. And for children who have been very naughty, and whose parents cannot give him a good account of them, he leaves a rod by way of admonition, for he is a highly moral saint, though kind and forgiving. If the parents are too poor to buy gifts, the children say ruefully that the saint’s horse has glass legs and has fallen down and broken his foot. The horse or ass of St. Nicholas is not forgotten; the children leave a wisp of hay for him, and in the morning it is gone.

As with us, the older people have their own festivities, suppers, exchange of gifts, surprises. But also as with our Christmas; the feast of Nicholas is primarily a day for Children.

Where did Santa Claus get his reindeer? And how did the grave saint become that gnome-like fat fellow, with nothing ecclesiastic about him, so vividly described in Clement Moore’s famous poem, "Twas the night before Christmas?" The answers to these questions are only provisional, matters of conjecture.

Notice that in Moore’s poem, the form Santa Claus does not appear. The title of the poem is ‘A visit from St. Nicholas’, and in the verses the visitor is St. Nicholas and ‘Saint Nick’. The verses were written in the first half of the last century. The author was a distinguished biblical scholar and professor in the General Theological Seminary in New York. In these verses he was writing not as a scholar but as a jolly human being, the father of a family taking a day off from serious studies. His verses must represent the idea of Santa Claus that prevailed in his time, and long before his time in New York and far outside New York for they spread all over the country, are still reprinted every year.

Now in this delightful jingling poem there is not a touch of religion. The ‘jolly old elf’ has not the slightest resemblance to a reverend saint. And there is no suggestion, except in the word Christmas, of any connection in thought or spirit with what is, excepting possibly Easter, the most sacred day in the whole Christian year. And similarly we may observe in our time many a Christmas party run its course without any participants giving a thought to a birth in a manager from which our year is dated. So Santa Claus is strangely different from his pious namesake and also in some places and among some people estranged from the very religious occasion to which he is attached.

But in some parts in America where the people are of Dutch or German descent there is a charming alliance between Santa Claus and the Christ Child. It came about in this way. Some parts of Germany after the feast of St. Nicholas had been moved forward and identified with Christmas it was felt that the real patron of the day, the true giver of gifts, should be Christ himself. This feeling probably arose from the Protestant objection to the worship of saints. So St. Nicholas was deposed from power; gradually, not by any sudden revolution, he disappeared in some places, from the customs long associated with him. But the customs remained. On Christmas Eve there were gifts of sweets and toys for good children. Or they put bowls in the window, and behold, in the morning they found that the window pane has been taken out during the night and gifts laid in the bowls.

The bringer of these gifts was not St. Nicholas but the Christ Child, in popular German, Kris Kringle. But among the German people in America, the legend of Santa Claus still survived, and so Kris Kringle is a combination of Santa Claus and the Christ Child.

This combination gives us an inkling of what happened in the whole story of Christmas from earliest times, Santa Claus, the merry elf, is not Christian at all, but pagan, coming down from times earlier than the Christian era or at least earlier than the times when the Tuetonic people were Christianized. He belongs to popular fairyland, the land of elves, gnomes, spirits, hobgoblins. In countless fairy tales there are good spirits and evil spirits. The evil spirits haunt the woods and molest innocent people. The good spirits aid the poor, bring gifts in the night, rescue princess’ in distress and so on.

These stories are not originally of Christian origin. They may not be definitely part of any of the religion which Christianity supplanted. Associated with them are popular festivals and ceremonies. It may well be that the apples in our Christmas stockings are the descendants of apples that grew on very old trees, trees older than history, perhaps there was a late harvest festival, or a kind of pagan Thanksgiving, presided over by a beneficent elf, and accompanied by candling and feasting. We do not know.

But we do know that as Christianity developed, the Church encouraged all the popular customs, or many of them, took them over and associated them with Christian holidays. This may have been a deliberate attempt of the priests to win the favour of the people and make the new religion really popular, or the people may have made the transfer themselves by the vague and untraceable but very real process of folk-poetry.

Now where did Santa Claus get his reindeer? There are no reindeer in Germany and probably never were, certainly not the kind that are broken to harness like horses. And oddly enough the reindeer does not appear in any of the surviving Christmas legends and customs in old Germany. The reindeer first paws the roof of American houses. But of course, he cannot be an American animal.

The explanation, one explanation, is this:
There are reindeer in northern Scandinavia where they have been domesticated from time immemorial. Scandinavian and German legends and mythology are closely related. The old German gods come from the north and many German folk-tales are of Scandinavian origin. The reindeer of our Santa Claus certainly came from Lapland, and Santa is an arctic explorer, exploring the other way: Dr. Moore, with true poetic imagination, describes him as "dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot" not in the red flannel with which we are accustomed to clothe him. Among the Germans or Dutch who came to this country there must have been a legend of a Scandinavian Santa, and in German the reindeer inexplicably got lost. Perhaps their bones will be found in a German forest by one of the literary archaelogists who dig into such matters. But no, the bones will never be found, for the reindeer are still alive and fly over the house-tops.

The career of Santa Claus through the ages is as mysterious as his annual flight. One might suppose that he would have gone directly from Germany or Holland to their near neighbour England, as the Christmas tree was transplanted to England after the shortest possible journey. But there is every likelihood that Santa Claus, having become a good American colonist, recrossed the Atlantic in an English Ship – or perhaps as the first transatlantic flyer. He has long been a well established figure in he Christmas customs and not only of the mother counry but in all parts of the British Empire. The allegiance of English Children, however, is divided. Some believe that Santa Claus brings them their presents. Others believe in Father Christmas, a more recent creation, whom English artists represent as an old gentleman in what seems to be a sort of eighteenth century costume with gaitered legs, a tail coat, and a squarish beaver hat.

It is rather strange that English Christmas customs are not more closely imitated by Americans. We know nothing of the yulelog, even in houses that have open fireplaces. Perhaps the reason that we borrowed little from the English Christmas is that the English who came to America, especially in New England, were not the merry-making kind; they would have abhorred the idea of making Christmas an occasion for mirth and happiness. They would have groaned at one pretty custom, which is inherited directly from England and which their less godly descendants indulge in on Beacon Hill in Boston – the singing of carols in the streets on Christmas Eve. In all New England literature of the classical period there is scarcely a reference in prose or verse to Christmas, and that was the time when Dickens and Thackeray and other English writers, eagerly read in America, were giving the holiday new spirit and brightness in England.

Customs differ in different countries. A Russian coming from the country of which Nicholas is the chief saint would not at first sight understand our Santa Claus. He would see no relation between his saint before whose icon he bows and the figure in a red suit with a long white beard standing in front of a department store and doing his bit to keep a spirit of good cheer in the enormous American institution – Christmas trade. An American tourist brought up as Protestant finding himself in an Italian city would look up in his guide-book an ornate Italian painting of St. Nicholas miraculously answering a prayer for help, and that tourist unless he had historical imagination might not realise the connection between the beautiful painting the angel on his last Christmas tree at home and the letter that he wrote as a boy asking Santa Claus to bring him a new sled.

Yet these connections do exist, and they are very important, for they are bonds that hold the world together and help to give its disparate parts and antagonistic faiths a human unification. No other saint and few other men embrance such a wide variety of benevolent ideas as St. Nicholas, with such duration in time and such extent throughout the Christian world. And he is probably the only serious figure in religious history in any way association with humour, with the spirit of fun. For he is the patron of giving. And it is fun to give.

Have a very Politically Incorrect, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!

Cool Solution To Energy Needs

While great nations fretted over coal, oil and global warming, one of the smallest at the U.N. climate conference was looking toward the heavens for its energy.


The annual meeting's corridors can be a sounding board for unlikely "solutions" to climate change, from filling the skies with soot to block the sun, to cultivating oceans of seaweed to absorb the atmosphere's heat-trapping carbon dioxide. There was talk of another way, that truly does not get paid hardly any attention. So please read about the idea, follow the links to stories that will give you much more information about this unique "alternative".

There is a way to use the clean solar energy that now streams by the Earth to lose itself in the depths of space. It does not require new science, nor high temperatures, nor high energy density. It is simply to locate, in high orbit, large arrays of solar panels. Those panels convert solar energy to electricity, and then to low-density radio waves. The waves are sent to fenced-off areas on Earth where they are converted back to electricity at an efficiency rate of more than 90 percent.

If we truly believe that energy is a "necessity", which it is, then we need to treat it that way, and do whatever we can to procure it, no matter the short term cost, because the long term benefit would be "priceless". We need to treat it as a National defense issue, and give it the priority of a War, a War for Energy!


bali


ssi

CIA Says It Cooperated With 9/11 Panel

In a story I was just reading the CIA on Saturday rebutted suggestions the spy agency was uncooperative and hid from the Sept. 11 commission the videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists, saying it waited until the panel went out of business before destroying the material now in question.


The destruction in late 2005 of the videotapes of two al-Qaeda suspects has upset a federal judge and riled the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has promised an investigation. The Justice Department also is trying to find out what happened and whether any laws were broken.

As things stand now in regard to the destruction of the video tapes, it would seem that with all of the investigations, that we may get the "truth"as to why the tapes were destroyed. This is not a certainty, as the administration has shown that it is very adept at sidestepping Congress, and Congress has shown it is very inept, at getting to the "truth" of anything. Should be an interesting story to follow, which we will do!


cia

A Friend Explains How To Entertain Your Inner Scrooge

If you like to laugh, and laugh about things pertaining to our upcoming Christmas Holiday, please follow the link to a hilarious post by my friend Paris Love, Ex-Stripper, on myspace as she has and Absolutely Hilarious post entitled:

How To Entertain Your Inner Scrouge. It is extremely funny and twisted!! Take a look and I hope you enjoy it!!

Thanks!

scrooge

Prisons Are Breeding Grounds For Insurgency

Even as there is proof that the surge has been a success militarily, there is a report that a backlash may occur, due to all of the detainees that are being held. The news report that follows indicates the mini-insurgency that the huge numbers of detainees may be creating.

American officials have detained thousands of insurgents in the months since the surge of forces began this spring, in an effort that most agree has improved security in Iraq. But now the commander of the American detention facilities in Iraq is wondering aloud if holding all those detainees is breeding a "micro-insurgency" and asking whether it's time to begin releasing thousands of people.

The two main detention facilities operated by the US military in Iraq, at Camp Bucca near Basra and Camp Cropper in Baghdad, have swollen to hold nearly 30,000 detainees. That's not the 40,000 individuals Army Gen. David Petraeus allotted for when American forces began to implement the Baghdad security plan this spring. But it may be too many, says Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, who oversees detainees for the US-led force.

Let us not go so overboard in holding detainees, to the point that we create more problems than we started with. It seems that we are walking the fine line between security and rebellion, and I hope we can get something right in this war, as past decisions have not been very wise. May they please listen to the General, and find a way, to let the detainees go, and lessen the likelihood of creating more enemy combatants, as it would seem that we have a sufficient force to work against already!!


detainees

Sadly Aruba Closes Holloway Case

There is a very sad and disappointing news story being reported today as Prosecutors closed their investigation into the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, saying Tuesday they still believe three young men were involved in her death but can't prove it after 932 days of searching failed to turn up a body.


The three main suspects in the case were re-arrested last month after prosecutors in Aruba discovered online chat sessions they hoped would break the case open. But none of the men talked in custody, and without the 18-year-old's body, prosecutors said they had no recourse but to close the most notorious missing persons case in the Caribbean.

Joran van der Sloot's slimey american attorney Joseph Tacopina had the gall to say that the prosecutor's should not say they believe he and his cohorts killed Natalee when they cannot prove it. I am glad they did and hopefully everyone who meets these men treat them as "killers". There will be a Karmic Justice someday, and hopefully it will happen soon.

I Wish that they see her dead face everytime they close their eyes, and may her memory haunt every waking minute of their lives, until one of them cracks and admits the truth, and hopefully it will be within the statute of limits of Aruba!

This is one of those frustrating cases where everyone knows who did it, but cannot prove it. I hope the Holloway's go after all of them in a civil court, just like the Brown's and Goldman's did to O.J. and hit them in the pocketbook. Today there was no Justice for Natalee, May Her Spirit scream out from the grave until she is found, and her murderers put away!!

p.s. When thinking of travel destinations, let's just cross Aruba off the list! Thanks!


case closed

Please Support These Online Businesses

I am giving my recommendations on a few places you can shop online and probably still receive the items by Christmas, as they are polite, and extremely fast on shipping!! I found a few sites on myspace, with great and fun products, and another that will make you think and give you a laugh perhaps. Take a ride through their sites and please help these young businesses out if you can, and make some new friends, as they are nice people!!

The First business is also an "adult" business and has products for those of us over 21 who still like to have fun, and are creative in our relationships! If you are a man, you will find things for the lady in your life, that you will both enjoy, and vice versa if you are a lady. So without further ado please meet Paris Love, Ex-Stripper and here is a small snippet from her post announcing her new business:



I'm loving my new job! Yes, I hawk sex toys, but the parties are so much more than that. I've always been an outgoing person, visiting my very first sex shop shortly after my 18th b-day (with one of my friends listed here on myspace, no less!).

It wasn't until after I went into the porn shop that I realized that young ladies didn't shop in places "Like That". And that attitude is pervasive, even today. Women are more liberated in the west than anywhere else on the planet, but when it comes to sexual satisfaction, they are still in the dark ages.

That is where Pure Romance comes in. This shopping experience gives women the opportunity to touch, taste, smell and sample these titillating products in a safe, non-creepy environment. It doesn't take a lot of planning on the part of the hostess, just set a date and time, and her friends will come out of the woodwork to attend a Pure Romance party.
If you want to have some fun with your lady, shop online and surprise her for Christmas or anytime. Thanks!

pleasure


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I read this young ladies posts, and she has began selling special candles again. I guess she did so a few years ago and quit for awhile. Anyway, I purchased some as a gift, and they arrived almost immediately, and were extremely well liked by the person I purchased them for. SO if you are looking for a special gift for your lady, this is one place were you cannot choose wrong. She is:
Ronnie aka Phoenix Princess
About me:
I sell Gold Canyon Candles. You may visit my personal website for direct order at www.mygccandle.com/ronniescandles. This is perfect for those who live out of the Phoenix area and would like to order. It's also wonderful for those in the Phoenix area who prefer to shop online. I am looking to build my customer base even more through booking parties or through online sales. Be sure to subscribe to my blogs here as I will be posting promotions there for you all to take advantage of. Interested in candles, send me a message and ask about it. If you just want to place an order, visit my website listed above.

candles

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Mark, as in Mark Lysgaard does political and social commentary through poetry. It is always witty, pointed, and makes for a thought provoking read. He has put together a book, which would make a great stocking stuffer. So check out his site, and his book! Thanks!

Mark writes:
My new Book is now available! After three years of compiling and
documenting the tragedies and scandals of the Bush administration
through rhyme and meter and satire, I have pre-ordered 100 copies of the book and have gotten a bulk discount from the publisher. If you would like a signed copy of the book, the cost is $15 + $4.60 for priority shipping. I do not take credit cards or debit cards. Please e-mail me through myspace with your information and I will send you a special autographed copy!


book
I hope you get a chance to visit all three sites, and purchase some of their great products!!

Thank You, and tomorrow back to regular posting!! Good Evening!!

General Says Success Is Fragile

There is evidence that the "surge" has provided some military gains throughout Iraq, and in Baghdad as well. However, as evidenced by the following story, the peacefulness is tentative at best. This is going to be the case for years to come, and the bottom line is that the Iraq government is still virtually non-functioning, so why do we continue to spend blood and treasure for these people.

Though violence in Iraq has declined, withdrawing U.S. troops too quickly would spell failure in some parts of the capital, a top general said Monday. Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander in Baghdad, said progress made toward securing the city in recent months is "fledgling, fragile and not guaranteed."

I still think as I did in August that we give the Iraqi as ultimatum to step up to the plate, and get their act together, find a power and revenue sharing agreement and get to the business of governance or we leave immediately. If they can do that within the month, then we give them our support for up to six months, after which we leave no matter the consequences to them!

It has become abundantly clear that as long as they have Bush in the White House, they do not have to show any progress, and we will stay anyway, because it has become a "holy" cause to stay the course, no matter how many lives it may take! This is not the way we should be looking at this war, but unfortunately our President sees only his point of view, and cannot even fathom the possibility that he may be wrong. That is too bad for us and for the Iraqi's, because it doesn't resolve anything, for anyone!


fragile

Unimpressive Retail Weekend

Retailers Look to Final Holiday Shopping Days to Meet Sales Goals After Unimpressive Weekend. This has been my experience this weekend as well.

Despite generous discounting and expanded shopping hours earlier in the season, many stores are finding themselves in the same predicament as in recent years: waiting for those last-minute shoppers in the final days before Christmas who seem to be procrastinating even more than a year ago.

Based on early reports from analysts and malls, sales results were generally unimpressive this past weekend, as shoppers were held back by a snow storm that spread a mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow from the Great Lakes states to New England. Consumers, fretting about economic worries, were also delaying their shopping even more this year, knowing there's a full weekend before Christmas, when the bargains will be even better.

Hopefully, this next week and weekend will bust open and get people spending money, as time IS running out, and Christmas will be here! Have A Great Week!!


xmas

Bush Officials Delay CIA Tape Probe

The question is "when will Congress have enough of the Bush administration doing whatever it wants with impunity"?

The story today is that Congress and President George W. Bush are headed for a confrontation Saturday as US lawmakers accused the Justice Department of blocking their probe into whether the CIA tried to cover up torture by destroying interrogation tapes.


Lawmakers from both parties expressed outrage after Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked a congressional panel to postpone its investigation of the destroyed videotapes on grounds it could jeopardize the Justice Department's own inquiry into the affair.

This will be in the news the next couple of days, but will it survive the Congressional hiatus, as they take their Christmas break shortly! I think by the time they come back in January, we will be on to other stories, and this will be forgotten, just as Bush plans, and their delaying tactics will have won the day again!


cia

Mitchell Defends Revealing Names

In a clearly appropriate pre-emptive strike, former Senator George Mitchell gave an interview defending his decision to name names, as you, know the whiney baseball "stars" will be bemoaning their fate, and spinning the "truth," at every opportunity.

George Mitchell insisted naming names was the right decision and said he was prepared for Roger Clemens and others to deny they used performance-enhancing drugs.


"We made every effort to establish the truthfulness of the information that we received," baseball's steroids investigator said Friday during a half-hour interview at his law office. "Several of the witnesses were interviewed in the presence of federal law enforcement agents who informed the witnesses that if they made false statements they would subject themselves to possible criminal jeopardy. So there was very strong incentives to tell the truth."

Not only should George Mitchell keep talking about this, but all efforts need to be made to nail these "creeps," and put them behind bars if possible. This is the only way to make sure everyone understands the seriousness, and the consequences of "cheating". The second part is that like Marion Jones, all records need to be amended and the offending cheaters taken off the books, and forever banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame, and if they don't, then it will only be a Hall Of Shame!!


decision

Baseballs List Of Shame

The Mitchell Report came out and has a long list of steroid "users" listed, further sullying the once American past-time, and making it seem more like a cheating, criminal enterprise, than a game watched for enjoyment!

Barry Bonds has company – lots and lots of drug-tarnished company.

Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Eric Gagne, Andy Pettitte, Paul Lo Duca are among the current players. Mo Vaughn, Kevin Brown and David Justice are among those who have retired. And on and on. At least 85 names in all. "For more than a decade there has been widespread anabolic steroid use," Mitchell said during a news conference. "Each of the 30 clubs has had players who have been involved."

Hopefully, this will either change the sport back to what it should be, or put it out of its' misery, because as a waning fan (after the STRIKES), and now all of these records that are tainted, I will not watch another game, unless they clean house and stay clean!! "Say it ain't so, Joe(Barry, et al!)", is a refrain that should be heard from now until everything is Fixed, those responsible, prosecuted, and every record changed to reflect the cheating, and until then "To Hell With Baseball"!!


cheaters

Bush Demands Iran Explain Nuclear Weapons Program

As I mentioned in this mornings first post, President Bush, will use the Opposition Groups claims that Iran resumed the nuclear weapons program as a way to put that issue back in his spotlight, and within an hour and a half he spoke to reporters.

President Bush on Tuesday called on Iran to explain why it had a secretive nuclear weapons program, and warned that any such efforts must not be allowed to flourish "for the sake of world peace."

"Iran is dangerous," Bush said after an Oval Office meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. "We believe Iran had a secret military weapons program, and Iran must explain to the world why they had a program."

The spinning begins again, and the claims of resumption of the nuclear weapons program will be the White Houses',( I mean opposition groups,etc.) number 1 talking point for days to come, just wait and see!


spin

Group Claims Iran Resumed Nuclear Weapons Program

This is my 400th post on this site, and I look forward to the next milestone! Thank You!!

I have been writing for a long time, that I believe that President Bush will find a reason to attack Iran. It is one of those countries, like Iraq, that he believes it is his "God inspired" right, to correct their regimes, and whether it is WMD's in Iraq, or nuclear weapons in Iran, if he decides to invade, he will find the "proof" he needs to do so. The story this morning is completely contrary to what the NIE reported just the other day. Isn't it convenient that within days, a "credible" source comes forward with information that backs up the claims that Bush wants to be true.

An exiled Iranian opposition group on Tuesday contested a U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003, insisting the bomb-making program resumed the following year.


We announce vehemently that the clerical regime is currently continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI.

The clock is ticking and Iran better look out as we are still coming to "fix" your regime, just as we did your former enemy in Iraq. Saddam didn't think we would ever invade, and look what happened to his sorry butt!!


invade

Cool Dead Woman Leaves 21M Tip

I found this next story while wandering around the Yahoo News Odd Stories section and thought it might make you smile at the start of your work week.

Think of it as a giant tip. A wealthy widow repaid the kindness shown to her by a family that runs a Chinese restaurant she frequented by leaving them $21 million, and a High Court judge ruled Friday that her will was legal.

Golda Bechal's 1994's will said she wanted Kim Sing Man and his wife, Bee Lian, the owners of a Chinese restaurant northeast of London, to inherit her money. She died at age 88 in January 2004.

I hope that her relatives ignored her, while she was alive, as it would be twice as sweet, and Karmic Justice, to know that they deserved to be slighted in the will. Either way it shows that being nice to people can have emotional rewards, and in this case, a bonus financial one!

So Golda Bechal is the "cool" dead person of the week! :)


21M

Vick Sentenced To 23 Months

In a update to a story we have covered in the past on disgraced U.S. football star Michael Vick, who had plead guilty for his role in an illegal dogfighting enterprise, was sentenced on Monday to 23 months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson handed down the sentence to Vick, 27, who voluntarily began serving his prison term three weeks ago.

Hopefully, Mr. Vick will also receive psychiatric help, because to be able to be as brutal and cruel to those dogs indicates to me that he has some serious mental disturbance. This should also show, up and coming young men, what NOT to do with their lives. In another hopeful note, most of the dogs were deemed adoptable, and are going to have good homes to live in.


23

Another Shooting Takes Place

In what is surely a sad way to end the week if Sunday is your last day, or too start the week if that is the case, we have another young gunmen shooting and killing innocent people. It seems like after every Big shooting event, there are numerous smaller, maybe copycat style shootings in the weeks after the initial Big shooting.

So here is the first of what may be a rash of similar shootings, a gunman killed two people at a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday after being told he couldn't spend the night, and hours later four people were shot outside a church in Colorado Springs.

It was not immediately known whether the shootings, about 65 miles apart, were related. No arrests had been made in either attack by afternoon.

Sad news for the victims, their families, their friends, and our nation, as we collectively share in their loss. Sadly in what seems to be a weekly event, We send Prayers and condolences to them All!! Take Care!


victims

Biden Calls For Special Counsel In CIA Case

It would seem that my appreciation of the CIA Directors candor with Congressional Oversight Committees, is not receiving the same appreciation by others in Washington.

Senate Democratic leader, Joe Biden said Sunday the attorney general should appoint a special counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists.

Mukasey's Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog announced Saturday they would conduct a joint inquiry into the matter. That review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. "He's the same guy who couldn't decide whether or not waterboarding was torture and he's going to be doing this investigation," said Biden, who noted that he voted against making Mukasey the country's top law enforcer.

I have seen over the last few days the skepticism with the CIA has been growing, mostly from the Democrats, who smell "blood in the water", and a few Republicans, who believe that the Director may have been less than "fully" honest as to why the tapes were destroyed. Truly, this will turn into a circus, with the Presidential race getting into high gear, and Democrats seeing another opportunity to make gains from a possible "misstep" by an already proven "lying" administration. It will take calmer heads to get to the "truth" that we deserve. I guess my first assessment was wrong, but I do hope that the "truth" that we were told, was the "truth"!


special

Tebow WINS Historic Heisman

Florida quarterback Tim Tebow made history Saturday night when he became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy.
Tebow this season became the first "20-20" player in Division I-A football history: He both ran and threw for at least 20 touchdowns. He finished the regular season with 3,132 passing yards and 29 touchdowns (against six interceptions), and he also ran for 838 yards and 22 touchdowns.

We wrote a post awhile back about Mr. Tebow, when he made history at Florida for most Touchdowns ever at their school. Hopefully, no scandals will pop up in regard to money, perks, or anything that would tarnish him, the school, or the trophy.

Here is a list of past winners of the Heisman Trophy:

Year Player Name School
2007 Tim Tebow Florida
2006 Troy Smith Ohio State
2005 Reggie Bush USC
2004 Matt Leinart USC
2003 Jason White Oklahoma
2002 Carson Palmer USC
2001 Eric Crouch Nebraska
2000 Chris Weinke Florida State
1999 Ron Dayne Wisconsin
1998 Ricky Williams Texas
1997 Charles Woodson Michigan
1996 Danny Wuerffel Florida
1995 Eddie George Ohio State
1994 Rashaan Salaam Colorado
1993 Charlie Ward Florida State
1992 Gino Torretta Miami
1991 Desmond Howard Michigan
1990 Ty Detmer BYU
1989 Andre Ware Houston
1988 Barry Sanders Oklahoma St
1987 Tim Brown Notre Dame
1986 Vinny Testaverde Miami
1985 Bo Jackson Auburn
1984 Doug Flutie BC
1983 Mike Rozier Nebraska
1982 Herschel Walker Georgia
1981 Marcus Allen USC
1980 George Rogers S Carolina
1979 Charles White USC
1978 Billy Sims Oklahoma
1977 Earl Campbell Texas
1976 Tony Dorsett Pittsburgh
1975 Archie Griffin Ohio State
1974 Archie Griffin Ohio State
1973 John Cappelletti Penn State
1972 Johnny Rodgers Nebraska
1971 Pat Sullivan Auburn
1970 Jim Plunkett Stanford
1969 Steve Owens Oklahoma
1968 O.J. Simpson USC
1967 Gary Beban UCLA
1966 Steve Spurrier Florida
1965 Mike Garrett USC
1964 John Huarte Notre Dame
1963 Roger Staubach Navy
1962 Terry Baker Oregon St
1961 Ernie Davis Syracuse
1960 Joe Bellino Navy
1959 Billy Cannon LSU
1958 Peter Dawkins Army
1957 John David Crow Texas A&M
1956 Paul Hornung Notre Dame
1955 Howard Cassady Ohio State
1954 Alan Ameche Wisconsin
1953 John Lattner Notre Dame
1952 Billy Vessels Oklahoma
1951 Dick Kazmaier Princeton
1950 Vic Janowicz Ohio State
1949 Leon Hart Notre Dame
1948 Doak Walker SMU
1947 John Lujack Notre Dame
1946 Glenn Davis Army
1945 Felix Blanchard Army
1944 Les Horvath Ohio State
1943 Angelo Bertelli Notre Dame
1942 Frank Sinkwich Georgia
1941 Bruce Smith Minnesota
1940 Tom Harmon Michigan
1939 Nile Kinnick Iowa
1938 Davey O'Brien TCU
1937 Clint Frank Yale
1936 Larry Kelley Yale
1935 Jay Berwanger Chicago


trophy

Will Reggie Bush Lose Heisman

It what is surely going to be a huge disappointment if allegations turn out to be true, that Reggie Bush wrongfully took money, and other items while playing for USC in 2004 and 2005.

Now nearly two years after Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy, a book detailing improper benefits he allegedly received while playing for the University of Southern California and his relationship with the financiers of a fledgling sports marketing company could further damage his chances of keeping the most prestigious award in college sports.

The book, "Tarnished Heisman" by Don Yaeger and Jim Henry, published by Simon & Schuster, will include transcripts of recorded conversations that contain Bush acknowledging he owed money to the financiers of New Era Sports & Entertainment. Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels of New Era planned to feature Bush as their marquee client to launch their marketing agency. The business failed after Bush sought representation elsewhere.

Is there a near epidemic of athletes cheating, taking improper gifts and money, and ll manner of scandal, or is it just that with 24/7 news there is just more ability to veiw these stories than in the past?

Not only is Reggie Bush in danger of losing the Heisman, but his former team may have their title in jeopardy. This will obviously continue to be a huge sports story until something is resolved, and we will keep updating as needed.


trohpy

An Honest CIA Director

I am just getting back from a two day coma, as I rested and slept to get ready for the final three week rush to Christmas. I truly could have used another day, but it was not to be. In addition, the wonderful winter ice and snow provided me with a pratfall, landing squarely on my back, knocking the wind out of me, and injuring my bones. The day is wearing on and I am stiffening up, and hurting in my back, ribs, and spine. Fun!!

I was just reading the story about the CIA, and the open and honest remarks made by their Director, Mr. Michael Hayden. I found his candor refreshing, and hope that he continues to work with the oversight committees as well as he seems to be right now.

The story says that the CIA videotaped its interrogations of two top terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the identities of U.S. questioners, the director of the agency told employees Thursday.


CIA Director Michael Hayden said House and Senate intelligence committee leaders were informed of the existence of the tapes and the CIA's intention to destroy them. He also said the CIA's internal watchdog watched the tapes in 2003 and verified that the interrogation practices were legal.

In an administration that plays fast and loose with the truth, it is nice to see someone go against type, and actually do the right thing. It looks like Director Hayden, and the CIA may be on the right path, and that can only be good for America, which has had severe issues in the past.


tapes

Will Bill Halt Political Blogging

I read about this Bill, which is supposedly winding its' way through Congress, and if passed and signed in to law, would have the potential to take away many aspects of free speech, and might endanger all political bloggers. I am writing this post, as a warning, if it is actually true, and if it is a hoax to let us know that as well.

This is the beginning of the text of the bill from GovTracks and he encourages anyone who reads it to reuse his material and pass it on:


S 1959 IS
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1959
To establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
August 2, 2007
Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. COLEMAN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

A BILL
To establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007'.
SEC. 2. PREVENTION OF VIOLENT RADICALIZATION AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
(a) In General- Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 361 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
`Subtitle J--Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
`SEC. 899A. DEFINITIONS.
`In this subtitle:
`(1) COMMISSION- The term `Commission' means the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism established under section 899C.
`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
`(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.


The link will give you the rest of the bill, and perhaps you already have information about it that can be shared with the rest of us.
I have written emails to our Iowa Senators, Harkin and Grassly, but haven't had anything come back from them so far, but will update this when they do respond, "as to whether this is an actual bill or not". I went to the Senate's Official Website, but did not see this bill listed anywhere, but maybe I was looking in the wrong section, or maybe it is listed differently!

If you have anything more than what I found, please leave a comment, and let us know, what you know! Thanks!

real or hoax

No Charges For Internet Tormentor

In an aggravating story just now hitting the news, there will be no justice for Megan Meier, who was tormented into killing herself, by an evil neighborhood Mom.

No criminal charges will be filed against people who sent cruel Internet messages to a 13-year-old girl before she committed suicide, the St. Charles County prosecutor said Monday.


The parents of Megan Meier, of Dardenne Prairie, who hanged herself last year, said her suicide came minutes after she received mean messages through the social networking site MySpace.

This story caught my attention right away, as it seems to me, that it would be unconscionable for an "adult" to harrass, and torment a child, like was done in this case. How immature do you have to be, to play childish games, and intentionally hurt a child of 13? I guess I don't know the answer, but I hope that laws change, to reflect the new reality of the internet, and the truly evil nature of setting people up, only to hurt them, like happened to Megan.

My hope is that the woman who did this will meet Karma, and reap the justice that she has coming! It would seem from the story, that the 18 year old employee that helped create the profile, is already meeting Karma, as he/she is being hospitalized for psychiatric treatment!

Condolences and Hopeful Wishes of Happy Memories of Megan, to her family and friends, and not only remember the tragedy that was her death!


evil

Venezuela Rejects Chavez And A Lesson For US

In what was a pleasant surprise this morning, the citizens of Venezuela narrowly rejected President Hugo Chavez's attempt to remain President "for life", and proved that they are as democratic, if not more democratic than we are in the United States. Truthfully, I am very impressed by the way Chavez has handled this defeat, as opposed to the rigged elections in Russia, which were a total disgrace, and an abuse of the system.

The United States on Monday said Venezuelan voters had sent President Hugo Chavez a clear message by rejecting his push for broader powers in a weekend ballot that "bodes well" for "freedom and liberty."

Clearly this is a message from the Venezuelan people that they do not want any further erosion in their democracy and their democratic institutions," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said after the referendum.

Congratulations to the people of Venezuela, and may this begin the decline of Chavez, and his march toward Socialism!

May our country learn a lesson, and make "our" votes count next year to end this current failed regime, and get us on a different path.


referendum

Why Haven't We Capped This Idiot And Sorry To My Liberal Friends

Here he goes again, should be the headline of the story concerning President Hugo Chavez's remarks to the press today.

President Hugo Chavez again threatened Saturday to halt oil exports if he sees US meddling in, or after, a hotly contested weekend referendum that could let him lead Venezuela for the rest of his life.

"If it starts a process of destabilization, incites a civil war, not only will the United States not get any of the 3.2 million barrels (produced per day in Venezuela according to official figures) but nothing will go onto the market, not a drop," Chavez warned, explaining he would stop all oil exports.


Opponents, whose number has swelled in past weeks with the defection of some Chavez allies, say the reforms would amount to making Venezuela a Cuba-like communist state, with an elected "dictator".

I hope you get a chance to read his comments in full at the link, and then please explain to me why we haven't "capped" this little Castro wannabe! I know one reason if that the "balls" have been cut from the CIA, so they can't do anything productive, because if they could we could have taken down Saddam without invading and wrecking the whole country of Iraq. He should have successfully "died" in his sleep, and then the fates deal with his nation. I say that not for anything other than his abuse of power and murder of his citizens, opponents, and the genocide against the Kurds. Just for those crimes he should have been "retired"!

There are many times in our recent history from the Bay of Pigs on when the CIA, totally messed up, and created more enemies, than allies. The agency needs to be reinvigorated with professionals, that understand the rights and wrongs, of their missions, and when they should be used. President Chavez is a case in point, and may he be "allowed" to sleep, the sleep of the dead, and the sooner the better, for his countrymen, and the world...well except for his sympatico ally, Iranian President Ahmanejidad, and maybe it will give "him" a little start, the morning he reads that his close friend has passed on "peacefully", in his sleep!!

I don't usually advocate this kind of activity, as I believe in Karma, but the Karmic "blowback" of this activity for our country, would surely be much less, than the "blowback" we are creating in Iraq, and elsewhere. When that kicks us back, we are going to think 9/11 was a "day at the beach" in comparison. I don't wish for it to happen, but I can see it coming, like a light at the end of the tunnel, and it turns out to be a high speed freight train, barreling at us!! Scary times ahead!!


capped

Sad End For Emily Sanders

There is a sad story today as police on Saturday identified a body found earlier in the week as that of a missing Butler Community College student.

The identification of the body of Emily Sander, 18, was confirmed by a forensic orthodontist, El Dorado Police Chief Tom Boren said.The body was released to Sander's family after forensic examinations and an autopsy. The results of that examination and the cause of death were sealed by the county attorney's office, and police would not release details about the cause of death.

I am sure there will be some people out there thinking that her "double" life is what brought her to this sad end, but all I see is a family that will be in such deep pain, because their "little" girl will never grace their presence again. Prayers and condolences to Emily's family and friends!!


sad

Hillarys Hostage Crisis Ends

The hostage crisis ended without bloodshed, and the stories coming out reveal that Mr. Eisenberg was having troubles before the hostage taking.

Leeland Eisenberg was already in trouble before he walked into one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign offices. Three days earlier, his wife had filed for divorce; he was due to appear in court with her for a domestic violence hearing in about half an hour.

Police say Eisenberg went to the office Friday demanding to talk to Clinton about helping him get mental health care and ended up taking at least five people, including an infant, hostage. Night would fall before the last one walked free and the hostage-taker peacefully surrendered.

It is good that things turned out well, as many times we have seen that bloodshed, i.e. murder and suicide, is the way that these hostage crises end up. Congratulations to the state police negotiator, and the Rochester police department for their professionalism, and the good outcome!


crisis