I have an adopted little sister that lives in OK. She’s 16 and she has been through more in her 16 years than a grown adult. Not to mention the stuff she goes through on a daily basis. I’ve never told her this but she is kinda my hero. I just wish that she could see herself the way that I see her. An incredible person with a big heart that’s always willing to listen and try to understand. I love her to death and care about her deeply and always will and no matter what happens in life I will always be there to help her through the rough patches. She has taught me so much about life in the short time that I have known her and I hope she will continue for a long time to come. I love you Chrissy dear and always will and no matter where life takes us just know that you have a permanent place in my heart and I don’t ever want to lose you.
Sigh
My worst fear almost came true last night I almost lost my sister and best friend Chrissy because I was being stupid and insensitive and not paying attention when she was trying to tell me something and I feel awful. She is literally and figuratively my sister in all but blood and I never ever want to lose her and no matter where life takes us she will always be that. Whether we will meet or not no one knows but it won’t stop her from being my sister. So sis I am so sorry for not paying attention like I should have been.
everyone should read this
found this on another blog and just had to post it on here
The Basis for a Strong Nation
By R.J. Godlewski
© April 20, 2009, All Rights Reserved
12. The Reawakening
“Be careful what you wish for”. It was a statement that my mother told me thousands of times while I was growing up and I am quite certain that many other mothers had told their children the very same thing. Another one of these priceless – and eternal – statements is the one that goes “If it sounds too good to be true, then it is”. I do not know about you, but I do not need a university debate team or a seasoned diplomat to tell me that the thoughts represent the essence of truth.
Unfortunately, many within our midst today wish for everything and wholeheartedly believe that only that which sounds “good” can indeed be good for us. This flies in the face of common sense. It flies in the face of reality. It flies in the face of history. Yet, we still long for that which we cannot earn and believe in that which we cannot possibly understand. To paraphrase an old saying, we have met failure and it is us.
We do not necessarily treasure the failure that we seek so actively but seek it we do. Through our actions. Through our thoughts. Through our silence. If what it takes to succeed does not sound “good” to our ears, we will gladly abandon it. If what it takes to fail miserably entices us to do what we know within our hearts to be wrong, we will still make the effort with pleasure. We want glory without the burden of sacrifice, heroes without the affront of offense. Our materialistic world simply prepackages everything for our preference of a “one size fits all” lifestyle.
Our nation, our world has become a place where each one of us prefers to be carried aloft upon the shoulders of the many. God forbid should we ever become one of the standard bearers of our great nation as we apparently would much rather become one of its pallbearers instead. To listen is therefore much more convenient than to speak. To be taught less aggravating than to teach. To become “universal” less offensive than to remain American.
Whereas history can blame Nero for the burning of Rome and the Germans for the existence of the Holocaust, our current plight can be blamed upon none other than ourselves. Like those who turned to worship of the Golden Calf following Moses’ delay in returning from Mount Sinai, we have simply abandoned God in favor of whichever entity suits our pleasure at the present. Be it movie star, journalist, professor, or president – as long as they whet our appetite for satisfaction we will quickly turn away from He Who truly provides.
How did we abandon our heritage? How do we continually divert from our proper path? Many have already written on our troubles, but I would like to point a few examples that you may have overlooked. These are not easy to consider, but they have a profound effect upon our future:
Religious Faith versus Religious Fanaticism
The United States of America is built soundly upon the precepts of religious faith, but we are savaged by fanaticism from within the ranks of both the conservative right and the liberal left. Religious faith represents the belief in a God Who orders all and Who bestows upon us certain inalienable rights and responsibilities. The extreme right – religiously speaking – partakes of this fanaticism whenever they, for example, literally interpret the Bible without regard as to the true intent of the authors. God may have inspired its content, but the frailty of the human hand in which He composed His work assures us of ambiguities for the present.
No one within their right mind can conceive of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse literally riding through either downtown Washington or Tehran. No one who truly understands the written Word can locate the so-called Rapture within the text of the Bible. Only the innocently naïve would ascribe 666 (Nero) to any modern villain. Such fanatical beliefs merely serve to discredit true Christianity in the eyes of those already hostile to Christ’s message of Salvation.
The liberal left, for their part, have simply abandoned religious faith altogether and replaced it with an artificial variant akin to Hitler’s perversion of Teutonic Christianity. Their crime of fanaticism rests with their concept of universality – that all people are equal regardless of our actions following our having been created. They worship the Almighty Excuse and blame everyone but themselves for society’s ills. They seek such abominations as gay marriages, abortion, euthanasia, and environmentalism simply to elevate human vice above God’s Grace. Human desire is their deity and it represents a whole pantheon of troubled desires. Their fanatical beliefs merely serve to discredit individual responsibility in the eyes of human justice.
Abandonment of Social Reverence
There used to be a time when men wore suits and ties to attend major league baseball games. Now, the only people who wear hats are idiots like Kid Rock. Our churches used to represent artifacts of history, proud structures adorned with icons and artistry. Today, they tend to look like simple community halls and, far worse, we treat them as such. When eight hundred of my fellow shipmates entered the Pearl Harbor base chapel to listen to a ten-year veteran of a Vietnamese POW camp speak you could hear a pin drop. When I kneel within my local Catholic Church, I cannot even hear myself pray for the noise of those around me. If someone cannot go without using their precious cell phone within church, how, then, can we expect them to dress appropriately?
Once we decided to dress down in our culture, we decided to dumb down as well. During the 1970’s, wearing torn jeans labeled us as social outcasts – poor people too disadvantaged to wear new clothes. Today, it is the wealthy (or those who want to be perceived as wealthy) that spend a fortune on jeans pre-tattered and pre-disheveled. The difference being that it was not our intent to look as though we did not care to dress. We merely saved our best clothes for church. Casual Fridays have forced us into Casual Everyday. Perhaps we need to start the week with Dignified Sundays to shove us into the right direction once again.
Experience Matters
Although I had never voted for the man, the one thing that I truly admired about President Reagan was that he used his experience and wisdom to guide a nation of young and dynamic people. He intimately understood our nation’s valid history of individual effort and technological innovation. Today, we have the inexperienced young leading our equally inexperienced youth. It is a recipe for failure, to say the least.
There is a reason for our natural aging other than to mock us with the decline of our health and bodies. Growing older matures us to the lessons of reality. When we are young, we are energetic and bold. We believe that anything is literally possible but for the thought to succeed. As we grow wiser with age, we learn that our thoughts may not be practical for the rest. We learn that time not only heals all wounds but smooths all failures.
When I was twenty, I was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of Naval hardware (without electricity, no ship could function). When I was thirty, I could not believe how immature I was at twenty – the role as husband had simply shifted my ideals of responsibility from money to family. When I turned forty, I could not believe how immature I was at thirty, for the threat of cancer had shifted my responsibility from future to present. Unfortunately, I do not have to reach fifty to understand how immature I was at forty – the death of a spouse shatters all priorities and refashions our concept of life itself.
Statistically, I can expect to witness another half of my life. Of what could I expect to see within the next forty-five years? By my death, I could be happily married again with seven children and dozens of grandchildren. The second half of my life could be even more extraordinary than the first. One thing is certain; however, I will undoubtedly look back upon these days and marvel at how immature I was.
Our society needs the passion of our youth, but unbridled this energy can do great misdeeds. It is like possessing a college degree without the necessary experience to challenge that knowledge. Great ideas require great effort and time. To merely believe that you know is tantamount to catastrophe. We must know that we know. And that, my friends, is a lifelong learning process.
Evil Exists
Call it what you want folks, but evil – of the true Biblical variety – does exist and it is all around us. It is the only way to explain why students massacre others, why tyrants commit genocide, and why others simply stand and permit these things to happen. Foremost amongst these evils is none other than abortion itself for this abomination consists of three simultaneous sins – 1.) The act of irresponsible sex; 2.) The dehumanization of the innocent; and 3.) The final act of murdering the child.
To simply confront evil with shrugged shoulders makes us no less egregious than those patrons who stepped over a dying woman within a local convenience store. We cannot permit the action of evil through our desire to study it. We are simply incapable of truly understanding the concept of evil, which is why God came down here upon earth to teach us about personal responsibility and strength. Christ conquered evil by dying for us. He did not say that we should sit down and theorize about it – which is why He toyed with our senses through the parables.
Whether we are discussing al-Qaeda, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (and his mullah overlords), or Hugo Chavez, we cannot simply dismiss their evil as matters of opposing thought. Neither have undertaken any action that rational humans would consider as beneficial to the greater population. All are an affront to God for they seek to act in his stead. We do not need to become violent; we just need to acknowledge that their evil cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.
A Bird In The Street Makes More Noise Than Ten In The Bush
Where Evil triumphs over Good is that Evil is far more effective at using people to spread its ill. On April 15th, we saw 350,000 people take to the streets to protest out of control government spending and taxation. This is a good start, but one that was not very effective in the long term. The liberal biased media dismissed the effort as a mere political stunt. What is needed is something a bit more observable to the Left.
If we surrounded the White House or the Capitol Building with only 1,000 people, but kept them there day after day, before long the message would be noticed by even the most recalcitrant media personality. Had the 350,000 Tea Party participants spread out their involvement, we could have kept this 1,000 people in front of our legislators for 350 days. Simply put, we need people to volunteer over the course of time in order to develop a much more permanent opposition towards Congress’s orgasmic spending policies.
Action is needed from much more than a few dedicated individuals. Everyone who upholds our values and traditions needs to participate. If we organize smaller, more long-term demonstrations, then everyone can participate for everyone is able to volunteer according to their schedule. Our message – of a free and strong America – must become as commonplace as the bureaucrats in Washington. We must make them fear our presence, our power, and our beliefs.
We, the American people, are the basis for a strong nation and we need to show that we are not silent citizens being led to the slaughter. Like the Israelites in Egypt, we have God on our side and our voices will be the plague that brings down Pharaoh Obama and his Congressional Phalanxes. We need to split the IRS like the Reed Sea so that we can move into our Promised Land – the America that our founding fathers fought and died for. There can be no greater threat to bureaucracy than a pissed off population. All that we need to do is to take our “mad as hell” message and make certain that those in power take notice. After all, it is our nation that we are fighting for. Sitting on the couch watching others make the effort isn’t going to lower your taxes any.
they are now encroaching on our personal choices
Big Government Now Going After Pets
Proving that there is nothing (other than subservience and parasitism) that the government won’t try to regulate out of existence, bureaucrats are now going after the practice of owning pets. While it waits for the gargantuan spending it has set in motion to sink the economy, Congress busies itself by once again reaching into your personal life with H.R. 669 — aka The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act — a bill that could make many common pets illegal.
The idea is to ban animals and even plants that are not native to the USA. To save space, bureaucrats are listing what species are allowed, rather than all those that will be forbidden.
I’m guessing Comrade Obama’s Portuguese water dog will get an exception, but your tropical fish, exotic bird, boa, or even hamster might not be so lucky.
Democracy
This is the absolute truth!
The strength of our democracy is built on a fair and accurate system of elections. Our Constitution provides for Due Process and for Equal Protection in order to better guarantee the enfranchisement of every voter.
Unfortunately, those fundamental principles are under attack in Minnesota. Since Senator Norm Coleman was first ahead by hundreds of votes at the end of election night, the Democrats have aggressively worked to change the rules of the game after it’s been played.
Last night, they succeeded in convincing a three-judge panel to issue a fundamentally misguided ruling that disenfranchises over 4,000 Minnesota voters. They did so by imposing a different, and stricter, standard for votes to be counted rather than following the rules that were in place in Minnesota on Election Day.
In doing so, Constitutionally-valid Due Process and Equal Protection concerns have been raised…and as of yet, have not been resolved. Which is exactly why Senator Coleman is appealing this decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court: the votes of over 4,000 Minnesotans disenfranchised by this court’s opinion deserve to be counted.
It’s frankly shocking that many of the same Democrats who so loudly decried voter disenfranchisement during the Florida recount in 2000 have so quickly run away from that principle when it no longer fits their political agenda.
Nonetheless, Republicans, and the NRSC in particular, remain committed to a full and fair resolution of this election contest and stand firmly behind Senator Norm Coleman.
Your strong and continued support is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
| Tuesday, April 14, 2009 |
Not an April Fool’s Joke
Ok this is not a joke people although it is funny:
Man Busted for DUI…for Driving a Motorized Bar Stool
Ohio resident Kile Wygle, 28, learned a difficult lesson this week. Be sure to sober up a little bit before you call the authorities, especially after you’ve wrecked your motorized barstool. Yep, the ingenious Wygle affixed a rigged-up chassis and a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine to a barstool, enabling him to cruise home at up to 40 miles per hour, all the while feeling like he never left his cushy seat at his favorite watering hole.
Unfortunately, on March 4th, Wygle took a spill at 20 miles per hour, and called 911 over worries about possible head injuries. When the officers arrived at the scene, Wygle reportedly told them, “I wrecked my barstool.” Wygle’s next door neighbor told the befuddled authorities that he had noticed someone driving a “strange” motorized machine. Strange? We say awesome.
After Wygle failed field sobriety tests, police charged him with driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license. Fortunately for Wygle (and for our entertainment), however, they didn’t impound his homemade ride. We wish we could find footage of the unique arrest to see this baby in action, but, even without a demonstration, we’d be glad to purchase one of these slick stool-scooters, in case he wants to manufacture them to help offset legal fees. It does look like it needs a cup holder, though.
backburner
I am putting this blog on the backburner for a while because I will be working on another blog for a while
a moment to reflect
I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Hello world!
I created this blog as a place where I can post things on various topics and friends and family can comment
Good point!
This is a blog post from one of my history blogs and I am reposting it here cause I think he makes an excellent point.
The Culture of No Fail Failure
This bailout thing has me pissed off…royally. How has the greatest nation on earth….the nation that can do anything….the nation that was forged when a group of so called rabble-rousers stood up to the King of England…the nation that mobilized one of the greatest fighting forces in history and defeated Hitler….the nation that walked on the Moon….the nation with grit, determination, and know how….how have we sunk to the point where we no longer allow failure?
Little Johnny has missed 90 days of school, but since “the test” will catch him next year he moves on ahead to fifth grade unprepared. I mean we wouldn’t want his little psyche hurt, would we?
Little Susie gets a trophy for cheering because…..well, she showed up to one of the three practices each week and well….all the kids should get a trophy so everything is fair.
The end of the school year finds me scrambling for award titles I can give certain students…..the students who don’t deserve one…..the students who have to receive an award because the administrator sends out a directive that “all students must receive an award” mainly so said administrator doesn’t have to deal with the student’s mom or dad (more than likely the reason behind why the kid doesn’t deserve one in the first place). These are the students who scream at me, the students who threaten me, the students who never complete an assignment, the student who I find on a daily basis hanging by one arm from the boy’s restroom ceiling, the student who bullies other students…..yeah, them. They get awards too, because….well, we need to be fair, remember?
What we are doing with this type of mentality is creating a culture where no one takes responsibility, the work ethic is basically left for dead along the highway, and then we all have the audacity to stand around, wring our hands and wonder why in the hell education in the United States isn’t improving.
In our (yes, I participate, but only because I’d lose my job if I didn’t) culture of never failing we are actually doing the opposite….we are failing, and we are doing a magnificent job of it.
So much so it has infiltrated the halls of higher education where students are ill-prepared, but walk about with an air of entitlement. Our no failure culture has crept into the business world because that’s were those entitled college and non-college students eventually end up.
….and now, our no fail culture has reached the hallowed halls of the US Capital. The banking firms that are being bailed out have known for months…several months things were going south. I mean, come on, you’re making money providing mortgages to folks with no….absolutely no qualifications. Why? Well, the non-working, non-asset holding public deserves a nice home in the suburbs. It’s a nice thing to do.
No job or a job barely making $25,000, barely a car, no savings, and bingo! You’ve hit the jackpot. You’re sitting pretty in a nice suburban home with three bedrooms, a front lawn, and a real driveway. Soon your neighbors get upset with you because your grass needs cutting, and they aren’t too happy about the cars lined up along the street because the driveway is for the grill and the parties, right? And suddenly those mortgage payments become due and as the months go by the payments begin to increase because you didn’t read the whole document. The cry goes out, “There ought to be a law….how dare those mean mortgage companies make people sign mortage deals they can’t handle?!?”
Then as the foreclosure signs go up and home after home on your street is abandoned and left derelect there comes the cry, “These people can’t help it. Something should be done to help them keep their home.” They have no responsibility for taking on a debt they couldn’t handle. Why? Well, why should they? I mean what’s government for….it’s there to help people, isn’t it? The government should make sure those people keep their homes.
….and now….
The banks can’t get rid of their foreclosed properties fast enough, the money that was supposed to come in from all of those fantastic sub-prime deals didn’t materialize (why would they think it would?), they’ve borrowed money from other financial institutions to stay afloat creating a house of cards that flew to the floor last week. Once again the cry rings out, “Oh my gosh….we can’t let them fail! Something must be done…..they must not have any responsibility in this. Why? Well, why should they?”
John Q. Public is ready and waiting to foot the bill. We pay taxes and don’t even realize we’re doing it since the government makes it easy on us by taking it from us before we actually get our paycheck and don’t forget all of those little embedded taxes.
Funny though….if you really take a minute to notice…..the politicians are busy pointing to the folks on the other side as the culprits in the mess, but the only people taking the responsibility is the tax payer.
Until we understand as a nation that government is not there to wipe our rear ends, hand us a bottle, and burp us….until we understand as a nation that each of us holds the responsibility for our own version of the American dream….until we understand that as parents we, not the state, are responsible for our children’s education….until we understand that owning a home is not a right… it’s something we do when we can afford it… then this mess will continue.
Responsibility…..silly, silly word!
I thought I would give everyone a good laugh
This article is total insanity. Its absurd to think that dead slaves could come back and haunt the McCain family. I think this blogger needs a serious reality check. But you all can judge for yourselves.
The McCain Family Plantation
The senator’s family history includes a Mississippi plantation and the enslavement of Africans. The McCain family held this plantation and continued to steal labor from Africans, as they tell it, into the 1950′s (Video)
John McCain, Republican candidate for President of the United States of America. His family ‘s cultural orientation is a matter of public record Click Here
Let’s Go to The Video Tape
Frank Bryant McCain Plantation
Enslaved Africans come back from the grave to haunt the McCain cultural anti-humanest family members. They say that McCain could not look at Obama in the eye during thee first presidential debate. Their may have been psychological reasons beyond what meets the eye. The hart often knows things that the mind does not.
sad loss
I am sad to report that the remains found near the wreckage of Steve Fossett’s plane were definitely Fossett’s. He was a person with incredible spirit who will be missed
Search Team Finds Fossett Plane, Remains
Oct. 3, 2008 — More than a year after the mysterious disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett, searchers found the wreckage of his plane in the rugged Sierra Nevada, along with enough remains for DNA testing.
A small piece of bone was found amid a field of debris 400 feet long and 150 feet wide in a steep section of the mountain range, the National Transportation Safety Board said at a news conference Thursday. Some personal effects also were found at the site.
“We don’t know if it’s human. It certainly could be,” Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said late Thursday, hours after the leader of the NTSB had said the remains were those of a person. “I refuse to speculate.”
Officials conflicted on whether they had confirmed the remains were human. Asked about the sheriff’s assessment of the physical evidence, NTSB spokesman Terry Wiliams reaffirmed NTSB acting Chairman Mark Rosenker’s earlier statement.
“We stick by that. It’s human remains,” said Williams, who declined to say how the NTSB had arrived at that conclusion.
Fossett, the 63-year-old thrill-seeker, vanished on a solo flight 13 months ago. The mangled debris of his single-engine Bellanca was spotted from the air late Wednesday near the town of Mammoth Lakes and was identified by its tail number. Investigators said the plane had slammed straight into a mountainside.
“It was a hard-impact crash, and he would’ve died instantly,” said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nev., who assisted in the search.
NTSB investigators went into the mountains Thursday to figure out what caused the plane to go down. Most of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet, authorities said.
“It will take weeks, perhaps months, to get a better understanding of what happened,” Rosenker said before investigators set off.
Search crews and cadaver dogs scoured the steep terrain around the crash site in hopes of finding at least some trace of his body and solving the mystery of his disappearance once and for all. A sheriff’s investigator found the 2-inch-long piece of bone.
The remains are enough for a coroner to perform DNA testing, Rosenker said.
“Given how long the wreckage has been out there, it’s not surprising there’s not very much,” he said.
Fossett vanished on Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. The intrepid balloonist and pilot was scouting locations for an attempt to break the land speed record in a rocket-propelled car.
His disappearance spurred a huge search that covered 20,000 square miles, cost millions of dollars and included the use of infrared technology. Eventually, a judge declared Fossett legally dead in February. For a while, many of his friends held out hope he survived, given his many close scrapes with death over the years.
The breakthrough — in fact, the first trace of any kind — came earlier this week when a hiker stumbled across a pilot’s license and other ID cards belonging to Fossett a quarter-mile from where the plane was later spotted in the Inyo National Forest. Investigators said animals might have dragged the IDs from the wreckage while picking over Fossett’s remains.
The rugged area, situated about 65 miles from the ranch, had been flown over 19 times by the California Civil Air Patrol during the initial search, Anderson said. But it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane.
Lt. Col. Ronald Butts, a pilot who coordinated the Civil Air Patrol search effort, said gusty conditions along the mountains’ upper elevations hampered efforts to search by air, as did the small amount of debris that remained after the plane crashed.
“Everything we could have done was done,” Butts said.
Searchers had concentrated on an area north of Mammoth Lakes, given what they knew about sightings of Fossett’s plane, his travel plans and the amount of fuel he had.
“With it being an extremely mountainous area, it doesn’t surprise me they had not found the aircraft there before,” Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford said.
As for what might have caused the wreck, Mono County, Calif., Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said there were large storm clouds over the peaks around Mammoth Lakes on the day of the crash.
Fossett made a fortune in the Chicago commodities market and gained worldwide fame for setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon.
He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
“I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life,” Fossett’s widow, Peggy, said in a statement. “I prefer to think about Steve’s life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments.”
Discovery
Technology is amazing. I just wanted to share this article I was reading about an ancient temple they just discovered in Peru using brand new technology.
Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite
Oct. 3, 2008 — A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru’s Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome. Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil. The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca. Covered by plants and grass, it was about a mile away from Cahuachi’s archaeological site, which contains the remains of what is believed to be the world’s biggest mud city. Via Quickbird, Masini and colleagues collected hi-resolution infrared and multispectral images. After the researchers optimized the images with special algorithms, the result was a detailed visualization of a pyramid extending over a 9,000-square-meter area. The discovery doesn’t come as a surprise to archaeologists, since some 40 mounds at Cahuachi are believed to contain the remains of important structures. “We know that many buildings are still buried under Cahuachi’s sands, but until now, it was almost impossible to exactly locate them and detect their shape from an aerial view,” Masini told Discovery News. “The biggest problem was the very low contrast between adobe, which is sun-dried earth, and the background subsoil.”
Cahuachi is the best-known site of the Nazca civilization, which flourished in Peru between the first century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. and slid into oblivion by the time the Inca Empire rose to dominate the Andes. Famous for carving in the Peruvian desert hundreds of geometric lines and images of animals and birds that are best viewed from the air, the Nazca people built Cahuachi as a ceremonial center, molding pyramids, temples and plazas from the desert itself.
There, priests led ceremonies including human sacrifices, drawing people from across the region. Between 300 and 350 A.D., two natural disasters — a powerful flood and a devastating earthquake — hit Cahuachi. The site lost its sacred power to the Nazca, who then abandoned the area. But before leaving, they sealed all monuments and buried them under the desert sand. “Up to now, we have completely unearthed and restored a huge asymmetrical pyramid, known as the Grand Pyramid. A terraced temple and a smaller pyramid are in an advanced state of excavation,” Giuseppe Orefici, an archaeologist who has spent decades excavating Cahuachi and has also worked with the CNR researchers, wrote in the conference paper.
Featuring a 300-by-328-foot base, the newly discovered pyramid consists of at least “four degrading terraces which suggest a truncated pyramid similar to the Grand Pyramid.” With seven levels, this imposing monument was sculpted from the landscape and enhanced by large adobe walls. “This is an interesting finding. As with the Grand Pyramid, it is likely that also this pyramid contains the remains of human sacrifices,” Andrea Drusini, an anthropologist at Padova University, told Discovery News. In previous excavations at Cahuachi, Drusini found some 20 severed “offering heads” at various locations inside the Grand Pyramid.
“They have circular holes cut into the forehead and were perfectly prepared from an anatomical point of view,” Drusini said. The researchers are now investigating other buried structures next to the newly discovered pyramid. “This innovative technology opens up new perspectives for the detection of buried adobe monuments in Cahuachi and elsewhere,” said Masini. “Once we have more information about the size and shape of the structures, we might turn to virtual archaeology to bring the pyramid and its nearby structures back to life.”
Erase hate
I am posting this entry from Progressive Historians cause its a powerful article with a message that needs to be spread
October 7, 1998: Erase hate.
They left him tied to a fence, beaten to within inches of his life.
A few days later, those inches had become an inch, the inch tenths, the tenths fading into immeasurability and the measure of a man unconscious in a hospital.
Faced with this … inhuman act, this barbarism of cold and calculating measure, show me the father who would not have lashed out at his son’s alleged murderers, the mother who would have looked at the accused, then the accuseds’ parents, and asked if this was how they had raised their sons.
Instead, their determination and legacy, now 10 years after their son was beaten to within inches of his life and left to die in the frozen air of Wyoming, can be summarized by the two words on a purple bracelet that has adorned my left wrist for more than 2 1/2 years:
Erase hate.
For the nameless victims of hate crimes, from lynchings in the South to those gay-bashed everywhere.
And for those they left behind.
That’s how Matthew Shepard’s mother, Judy, reacted to her son’s murder. Matthew Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, five days after two men (and I use the term biologically, not culturally) beat him and left him to die.
And Dennis Shepard, Matt’s father:
By the end of the beating, his body was just trying to survive. You left him out there by himself, but he wasn’t alone. There were his lifelong friends with him—friends that he had grown up with. You’re probably wondering who these friends were. First, he had the beautiful night sky with the same stars and moon that we used to look at through a telescope. Then, he had the daylight and the sun to shine on him one more time—one more cool, wonderful autumn day in Wyoming. His last day alive in Wyoming. His last day alive in the state that he always proudly called home. And through it all he was breathing in for the last time the smell of Wyoming sagebrush and the scent of pine trees from the snowy range. He heard the wind—the ever-present Wyoming wind—for the last time. He had one more friend with him. One he grew to know through his time in Sunday school and as an acolyte at St. Mark’s in Casper as well as through his visits to St. Matthew’s in Laramie. He had God.
I feel better knowing he wasn’t alone.
Erase hate. Even through the ultimate tragedy of their child’s murder, the Shepards reacted with dignity and pride.
Some months ago, higher-ups from New York came to visit my workplace to see how things were going. I’m told they visit every year or two, so this was a nontrivial event.
I had planned to wear a long-sleeved shirt to work that day. I usually wear long sleeves; they keep the office so cold that I start getting sick if I’m not sufficiently covered.
I had every reason in the world to wear a long-sleeved shirt that day, in particular because of the chance that one of the higher-ups would see my bracelet and know what it was — or not.
So of course I forgot and wore a short-sleeved shirt.
And on the second sweep-by of those higher-ups, one of them asked what that purple thing was on my wrist.
Oh.
SHIT.
See, being from New York doesn’t mean you are professionally pro-gay or even neutral. It can mean that, but I try not to assume anything (and am often pleasantly surprised).
So I said, as “water is wet” matter-of-factly, “A bracelet.”
“Could I see it?”
As I took it off, I debated turning it inside-out just in case the glance was cursory.
Mid-takeoff, I decided no. Screw that. If I’m going down for a fucking bracelet, I’m going down with those nine capital letters — “ERASE HATE” — and the Web site, www.MathewShepard.org, in full view. Someone doesn’t like it? Fine. In a market that ain’t great for print media, throw money at a lawsuit and a replacement for me (and not as good a worker, if I do say so myself).
The man in the suit looked at the bracelet, turned it over in his hands, then gave it back to me.
“Thank you,” he said slowly enough and with enough eye contact that … I think he got it.
I think he understood exactly what that bracelet means. Did he for sure? I’ll probably never know. Maybe he just is a nice guy who appreciated that I showed it to him, and he just noticed it because, hello, it’s purple on Irish white (actually mildly tan, largely because of freckles).
Or maybe he knew. I think he did. It’s not as famous a bracelet as the livestrong or wriststrong ones, but it’s a distinctive color, and anyone who was media-aware in 1998 knows who Matthew Shepard is and was.
I like to think he knew, and I like to think someone close to him has a very good (and very peaceful) reason for him to know. Maybe he’s got a gay kid or other close relative. Perhaps some invaluable employee who took him under their wing many years ago later confided something that gave him a change of heart.
Perhaps, maybe, I wonder if.
And maybe not, but the body language suggested otherwise, and pretty strongly so.
Ten years later, we are erasing hate. My remaining grandparent (excusing my wife’s grandfather and step-grandmother, who don’t know or at least haven’t been told) was born 20+ years before Truman integrated the military (and Eisenhower later enforced it) and couldn’t be less concerned with my sexuality or her niece Bridget’s (or that niece’s partner) than she currently is.
Ten years later, my younger brother has a T-shirt with three marriage icons — one het, two gay — and the words “It’s all good.”
Cried when I saw that shirt.
But 10 years later, we still lack adequate hate-crime legislation. The Matthew Shepard Act will likely be passed next year, and conservatives and bigots across the country will all be highly offended that this infringes upon their religious expression.
So let me say this as kindly and lovingly as I can:
This is not a heated debate on the place of religious expression in the public square. This is a heated debate over, of all things, the right of religion to justify assault and MURDER.
If your God is such a pathetic piece of shit that he (or she) advocates hating other people to their death because they don’t love the right adults, that’s your problem, not mine.
And if you honestly have a problem existing near me because I am different, go back to the beginning of that sentence.
YOU have a problem.
And while you so much do not want to come after me — before we moved, I lifted weights when I was bored, and I benched 400 pounds — you want even less to be made a national figure of hate, an example of why we need hate crime legislation so you really have to think four or five or 50 times about beating the shit out of some masculine-looking woman who says, after several promptings, each less romantic than the last, that she won’t date you, but she’d go for your ex-girlfriend. (Oh, and any such violence would probably further galvanize the movement for harsher punishment for you and yours.)
And if your religion would defend that action, that violence, the laws of civility and peace absolutely should trump the laws of intolerance and bigotry.
For that matter, if your religion supports spreading hate of any sort, what exactly are you getting out of it? Superiority over other people? Yeah, boy, what an equality-loving Sunday morning that must be. “Blessed are we, who are way the hell better than those evildoers. God is not mocked.” Give me your tired, your poor, your … straight, white Christians. (Give me “Republican National Convention attendees” for $100, Alex.)
Or you could be like my father, who is thoroughly Catholic and thoroughly my father, and doesn’t see how any love is spread by telling people they’re going to hell, let alone thinking you’re so secure in your after-life station that you can begin assessing other people’s. Really? You’re so set that you can begin junior-modding heaven?
Dennis Shepard again:
Matt’s beating, hospitalization, and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate. Good is coming out of evil. People have said “Enough is enough.” You screwed up, Mr. McKinney. You made the world realize that a person’s lifestyle is not a reason for discrimination, intolerance, persecution, and violence. This is not the 1920s, 30s, and 40s of Nazi Germany. My son died because of your ignorance and intolerance. I can’t bring him back. But I can do my best to see that this never, ever happens to another person or another family again. As I mentioned earlier, my son has become a symbol—a symbol against hate and people like you; a symbol for encouraging respect for individuality; for appreciating that someone is different; for tolerance. I miss my son, but I’m proud to be able to say that he is my son.
Interesting
I thought this was an interesting find.
How the Turtle Got Its Shell
Oct. 8, 2008 — Famous for carrying its shelled “home” on its back, the humble, plodding turtlehas also been toting around one of the biggest mysteries of the animal kingdom. Paleontologists have now unearthed a bizarre fossil beast in the eastern New Mexican desert that might put that mystery to rest.
A foot long and armored from head to tail, the 215-million-year-old fossil Chinlechelys tenertesta is a missing link in turtle evolution that promises to finally settle a controversy that’s been raging for the past two centuries over how turtles got their shells.
There are two camps in the debate. As turtle embryos develop, their shells grow directly from the animals’ ribs, and adult turtles’ ribs are fused to the shell carapace. Some scientists conclude this must have been how the shells originally developed in antiquity, too — normal rib bones gradually flattened out and spread until they formed a complete shell.
But animals like armadillos have shells that aren’t attached to their ribs. Instead the shell is skin that has thickened and hardened to provide protection. This so-called “dermal armor” is also prevalent among ankylosaurs, a group of stoutly built dinosaurs that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous eras.
Walter Joyce of Yale University was the first to identify the new fossil as a primordial turtle from just a few bits of the neck and shell. “It’s a pretty ugly fossil, really,” Joyce said of the jumbled pieces he examined, “almost like a shoebox full of crud.”
But the key, Joyce said, was an intact series of three neck spines, a small piece of the belly shell, and a fragment of the back shell with ribs attached.
“That’s what really gave it away,” Joyce said of the final piece. “You can see that the ribs are not fused to the shell.”
Covered in dermal armor, the ancient turtle probably looked a lot like an ankylosaur, though the two species are unrelated. It couldn’t yet retract its neck or feet, and its shell was thinner than a modern turtle’s, but Chinlechelys tenertesta was bristled with sharp spines along its neck and tail.
“This is very clear evidence that the shell is a composite structure,” James Parham of the Field Museum in Chicago said. “It is a missing link. This is one of the most important turtle fossils ever found, I think.”
Obama, McCain and voting
Some may not like this article but this is the cold hard facts folks
From the Desk of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton:
Judicial Watch Uncovers Documents Detailing Suspicious Illinois State Senate Earmarks by Barack Obama
You may recall last week I told you about Barack Obama’s controversial Illinois State Senate earmark for the “Garden to Nowhere.” By way of reminder, Obama secured a $100,000 grant for a former campaign volunteer to build a garden project called the Englewood Botanical Garden. The project never happened and Obama’s campaign volunteer, Kenny Smith, distributed $65,000 of the funds directly to his wife and another $20,000 to a construction company set up by his wife that is now no longer in business.
Well, this week we uncovered more evidence of suspicious Illinois State Senate earmarks by Obama, including one $25,000 grant for his wife’s cousin. Here are a few of the details from Judicial Watch‘s documents obtained through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act:
- Blue Gargoyle: Barack Obama helped secure a $25,000 grant for Blue Gargoyle in August 2000, an organization that was headed by Capers C. Funnye, Jr., Michelle Obama’s first cousin once removed.
- Community of St. Sabina: Obama helped secure a $100,000 grant for the Community of St. Sabina in July 2000, a church headed by Father Michael Pfleger, a controversial and radical Catholic priest and Obama campaign contributor. Pfleger made news in March 2008, for mocking then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ, formerly run by Obama’s personal pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
- FORUM: Run by Yesse Yehudah, Barack Obama gave a $75,000 grant to the organization in 2000. Although Yehudah ran against Obama in a 1998 election, five people from FORUM donated $1000 to Obama’s campaign after receiving the grant. FORUM also contributed another $5,000 to help pay Obama’s debt after he failed to be elected to congress in 2000. In 2002, Illinois sued Yehudah for failure to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from Obama’s grant.
These earmarks, especially the one related to his wife’s cousin, Rabbi Funnye, raise serious ethical questions. From documents obtained from only one state agency, we were able to figure out that Obama was responsible for over $3 million in earmarks from 1999-2002. Not exactly pocket change, especially when this taxpayer money is used to take care of your family and campaign contributors.
Some of these earmarks suggest that Barack Obama may have abused his office in the Illinois State Senate. We have yet to hear major media outlets ask Obama why he earmarked money for his wife’s cousin.
It is never too late to demand accountability.
ACORN Accused of Voter Registration Fraud — Again
You’ll recall a couple of weeks ago, I told you that liberals in Congress were determined to stick a huge cash giveaway to the “community organization” Association for Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) in the government’s Wall Street bailout bill. Thankfully the effort failed. It’s no secret why Democrats, including Barack Obama, would want to support this group. ACORN bills itself as an organization that gives voice to the poor and disenfranchised by helping them to register to vote. However, in reality, ACORN has always been a radical leftist organization that will stop at nothing – not even voter fraud – to achieve its goals.
And this election year is no different. According to The Associated Press
:
Nevada authorities seized records Tuesday from a group they accused of submitting fraudulent voter-registration forms – including for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys…
State authorities raided the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to register low-income people.
Miller said the raid was part of a monthslong investigation, and he contended the group had submitted registration forms that used false information or duplicated information on multiple forms. He did not estimate how many.
It is little wonder we’re seeing this kind of blatant criminality in Nevada when you consider that ACORN is relying upon prison inmates on work release to lead its voter registration program. (You read that correctly, prison inmates.) One inmate, designated a “team leader” by ACORN told ABC News
that many of his fellow inmate canvassers are “lazy crackheads” just looking to make a quick buck. Now that inspires confidence, doesn’t it?Of course, ACORN — which is partially funded by the taxpayers — has a long history of voter fraud. As ABC News notes, “the group’s track record has been marred with allegations of voter registration fraud and the criminal prosecutions of employees caught tampering and falsifying registration cards.” And just how low is ACORN willing to go in its fraud campaign? “In Ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey,” the The Wall Street Journal
reports.
(I guess this makes registering the entire starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys seem tame by comparison.)
The AP notes Nevada is not the only state where problems have been reported. Authorities have launched investigations into ACORN’s corrupt practices in Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Michigan, Ohio and Missouri. (See any “swing states” on that list?) Overall, ACORN claims to have registered 1.3 million people this election cycle and the truth is we have no idea how many of these registrations are legitimate.
Now there is another part of this story that is particularly relevant 30 days out from the presidential election – Barack Obama’s extensive connections to this corrupt organization. Obama served as the group’s lawyer, helped train ACORN staff in Chicago while serving as a “community organizer,” and helped funnel large chunks of cash to ACORN while sitting on the board of the Woods Foundation and the Annenberg Challenge (the education program launched by domestic terrorist William Ayers). Guess which candidate ACORN’s PAC has endorsed? That’s right, Barack Obama.
This story is still unfolding, and you can be sure I’ll have more for you in future editions of the Weekly Update.
Illegal Immigration Crime Skyrockets in Arizona
As you know, Judicial Watch is leading a major nationwide campaign against illegal immigration sanctuary policies
that prevent local police officers from cooperating with federal immigration officials. One of our key arguments against these policies (and there are many) is that they put American citizens at risk by allowing illegal alien criminals onto the streets to commit more crimes when they should be deported.On October 2nd, the Maricopa County, Arizona District Attorney’s office released crime statistics
that prove this point. Overall, while illegals represent only nine percent of the population in Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix) they are responsible for approximately 22% of the crimes committed. Here is a breakdown of statistics by crime category. Illegal aliens account for:
- 33.5% of those sentenced for manufacture, sale or transport of drugs.
- 35.8% of those sentenced for kidnapping.
- 20.3% of those sentenced for felony DUI.
- 16.5% of those sentenced for violent crimes.
- 18.5% of those sentenced for property crimes.
- 44% of those sentenced for forgery and fraud.
- 85.3% of those convicted of criminal impersonation or false ID.
- 96% of those convicted of human smuggling.
Now as you may recall, Judicial Watch has been very active in Phoenix, working closely with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Phoenix businesses victimized by illegal alien crime to change the city’s policies. And our strategy paid off last December.
Facing the threat of a Judicial Watch lawsuit, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon reluctantly reversed himself on the city’s sanctuary policy on December 3, 2007, and then commissioned a panel to study the issue. In May, Police Chief Jack Harris announced key reforms to the policy.
We don’t yet know whether Mayor Gordon is truly committed to enforcing immigration laws or whether, in the face of enormous public opposition and Judicial Watch pressure, he was simply making a politically expedient decision. (In the past, Gordon has actually requested that the Department of Justice investigate local police officials for “discriminatory harassment” when they attempt to enforce the law.)
Here’s what we do know: When local police departments implement sanctuary policies, crime goes up. When local police departments enforce immigration law, crime goes down. It’s that simple.
I personally don’t see too much of a difference between McCain’s and Obama’s views on immigration and I expect both will largely continue Bush’s policies, with even less emphasis on enforcement. So the key battles could be at the state and local levels, where Judicial Watch is already active.
Until next week…
Tom Fitton
President
Judicial Watch is a non-partisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation’s public life. To make a tax-deductible contribution in support of our efforts, click here
Bizarre but true
NASA Dispatches Rubber Ducks for Science
Sept. 23, 2008 – When a sophisticated science probe failed to return any data about whether pools of melted glacial ice were showing up in the ocean, a NASA researcher turned to a decidedly low-tech solution: a brigade of rubber ducks.
Robotics expert Alberto Behar, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wants to figure out if water shooting through tunnels in Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier makes it into Baffin Bay.
The work is part of ongoing studies by NASA and other agencies to understand changes in the levels of Earth’s seas, which may be tied to global warming.
Behar, a robotics expert, dispatched a probe with a positioning sensor and satellite telephone into one of the glacier’s water tunnels in hopes of tracking where the water ends up. In the summer, ice melts on glacier’s surfaces and pools into shallow lakes and streams that then fall into water tunnels in the ice known as moulins. Where it ends up is a mystery.
“We’re a little frustrated right now,” said Seelye Martin, the program manager for NASA’s Earth sciences division. “The water has to go somewhere but we don’t know where.”
When the probe fell silent, Behar turned to Plan B. He labeled 90 rubber ducks with an e-mail address and the words “science experiment” and “reward” written in English, Danish and the native Inuit language, then set the toys loose in a moulin.
The idea was that fisherman would find the ducks and notify Behar where they were found.
He’s still waiting for first contact.
“I was a little surprised,” Martin told Discovery News. “There are a lot a fisherman up there.”
Baffin Bay, an ice-laden body of water between northeast Canada and Greenland, freezes over in the winter, so Martin is hoping the ducks might be located next summer.
The field work complements ongoing measurements of Greenland and the world’s oceans taken by an array of satellites.
“In the last century, the total change in sea level was about 8 inches,” Martin said. “Right now, it’s headed to more like 12 inches so we’re seeing a greater contribution from the ice sheets.”
The Jakobshavn Glacier is responsible for shedding almost 7 percent of Greenland’s ice.
Stop BSL
This type of discriminatory legislation against dogs needs to be blocked and the greater number of people watch this video the stronger the fight against it will be.
hmmm
Last Of His Kind? Researchers Complete Mitochondrial Genome Of Ancient Mummy, The Tyrolean Iceman
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2008) — The 5,300 year old human mummy – dubbed Ötzi or ‘the Tyrolean Iceman’ – is highly unlikely to have modern day relatives, according to new research. A team comprising scientists from Italy and the UK has sequenced “Ötzi’s entire mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome – which is passed down through the maternal line – and found that he belonged to a genetic lineage that is either extremely rare, or that has died out.
Published in this month’s issue of Current Biology, the research has generated the oldest complete Homo sapiens mtDNA genome to date, and overturns previous research conducted in 1994 on a small section of Ötzi’s mtDNA, which suggested that relatives of Ötzi may still exist in Europe.
“Changes arise only gradually in mitochondrial DNA as it is passed down the generations,” says co-author Professor Martin Richards of the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, “and so it provides an effective way of tracking ancestry through the female line across many thousands of years, as well as examining evolutionary relatedness across human populations.”
The team, led by Professor Franco Rollo at the University of Camerino and Dr Luca Ermini working at both Camerino and Leeds, used powerful new technologies to sequence Ötzi’s mtDNA and match it with a modern day haplogroup – in genetic terms, a group that shares a common ancestral DNA sequence. He belonged to a branch of haplogroup K1, which is still common throughout Europe today. However, almost all members of K1 sampled from modern Europeans belong to one of three sub-lineages, whereas Ötzi’s lineage was completely distinct.
After death DNA begins to degrade immediately, so ancient DNA is very fragmented and any study of it has to be completed in hundreds of sections. For this research the team tested around 250 fragments, each of which had to be sequenced many times to ensure the results were not distorted.
“Our analysis confirms that Ötzi belonged to a previously unidentified lineage of K1 that has not been seen to date in modern European populations. The frequency of genetic lineages tends to change over time, due to random variations in the number of children people have – a process known as ‘genetic drift’ – and as a result, some variants die out. Our research suggests that Ötzi’s lineage may indeed have become extinct,” says Prof Richards.
“We’ll only know for sure by sampling intensively in the Alpine valleys where Ötzi was born. However, our results do suggest that studies of ancient samples can fill in gaps in our knowledge left open simply because many genetic lineages died out thousands of years ago. The techniques we’ve used here are potentially applicable to many other ancient remains.
Ötzi’s mummified remains were discovered in September 1991 in the Eastern Alps near the Austro-Italian border. He was approximately 46 years old when he died, and examinations revealed that he had been severely wounded by an arrow and possibly finished off with a mace blow to the face. He is estimated to have lain undiscovered for approximately 5,300 years. His body was almost wholly preserved, together with an array of clothes and weapons, providing an unprecedented insight into the Late Neolithic or Copper Age in Europe. Since 1998 he has been on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
The research was funded by global pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co.
I thought this was funny
This is from the satire site The Onion
Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job
WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”
really good perspective
I think this man has a really good take on the election last night
| good for us
Posted: 05 Nov 2008 09:20 AM CST I woke up thinking about the Kenyan election that was held some time back. Was thought to be one Africa’s most stable democracies was ripped apart when the results did not go the way the party in power hoped they would. I woke up thinking about it because I had spent the evening watching power change hands and seeing both candidates graciously take their places in the transition.
Yes, the final weeks of the campaign looked, as one commentator described it, like “a knife fight in a phone booth,” but no one was killed, no one was violently intimidated, and we elected a new president. There are a number of things I wish were different about the way we behave and operate politically as Americans, but today I woke up thankful for what we accomplished last night. Peace, |
I thought this was good
Al Gore Reinvents
the Internet
Former Vice President Al Gore wants a “purpose-driven Web.”
See, cyberspace isn’t purpose-driven . . . yet. It only helps us access all the information in the world, communicate instantly at no cost with people on the other side of the globe, find true love, shop, download books and movies and lectures, elect presidents, refute environmentalist alarmism, save lives, and other such trivia.
A New York Times article reports that in Al Gore’s view, “we” haven’t done enough to spread his vision of the imminent doom of the earth.
Gore can’t be held accountable for anybody else’s understanding of his views, of course. So let’s find a direct quote from this article about how “we” must do more with the Web than just trade party photos on Facebook.
According to Gore, speaking at an Internet conference in San Francisco, “Web 2.0 has to have a purpose.”
What purpose?
Nothing less, he declares, than “bring[ing] about a higher level of consciousness about our planet and the imminent danger and opportunity we face because of the radical transformation in the relationship between human beings and the Earth.”
Sounds quite grand, as long you don’t try to divine what the words actually mean.
In my online world, individual lives and individual purposes matter quite a lot, despite a lack of overarching purpose. Offline too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
How Visiting Your Family Warps Your BrainJennifer Viegas, Discovery News
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Dec. 29, 2008 — Visiting — or even just viewing photos of family members — prompts brain activity that affects how you feel about them, your friends, and even yourself, a new study suggests.
The study is the first to compare brain activity associated with seeing relatives with that linked to seeing friends and strangers. It suggests our feelings about biological relatives are at least somewhat primal.
The findings may help explain everything from why our family can get on our nerves to why people who look like us can spark immediate feelings of trust, “but not lust,” said Steven Platek, who co-authored the study with Shelly Kemp.
“We like to be around people that look more like us, but we do not find them as sexually attractive,” added Platek, editor-in-chief of the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. “I think it is linked to our subconscious ability to detect facial resemblances so we avoid lusting after those that may be related to us.”
More BSL
Alert: Breed Discriminatory Bill Introduced in Montana
By Ledy Vankavage, Best Friends staff
Montana House Bill 191 was introduced on January 7th by Rep. Robyn Driscoll. Please CALL and write YOUR state legislators asking them to oppose HB 191.
Best Friends Animal Society opposes “canine profiling.” This inhumane bill would outlaw “pit bull terriers.” It defines “pit bulls” as Staffordshire bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, American pit bull terriers, American bulldogs, and any dog that has the physical characteristics that substantially conform to the standards established for those breeds by the American Kennel Club or the United Kennel Club.
In essence any muscular short-haired mixed breed dog could be removed from their guardians and killed. The guardian would have the expense of proving that their dog was not a “pit bull.”
The bill would grandfather in existing dogs whose guardians register them as “pit bulls,” but would destroy any “pit bull” that is not registered.
Please contact YOUR state legislator and politely ask them to oppose HB 191. Let them know that:
• The problem of dangerous dogs is not remedied by the quick fix of breed-discriminatory laws. All dogs can bite. Studies of pre and post breed ban dog bite rates in the United Kingdom and Spain concluded that their pit bull breed bans had no affect whatsoever on reducing dog bites.
• Moreover, in its study of human fatalities resulting from dog bites, the Centers for Disease Control did not support the breed specific approach. The CDC noted many other factors beyond a dogs breed may affect a dog’s tendency toward aggression – things such as reproductive status, heredity, sex, early experience, and socialization and training. These concerns seem well-founded given that more than 70% of all dog bite cases involve unsterilized male dogs, and an unneutered male dog is 2.6 times more likely to bite than a neutered dog. In 2006, 97% of all dog related human fatalities in the United States involved unsterilized canines.
• Another insidious problem seen with canine profiling is the potential for abuse. The result is selective enforcement that sometimes is triggered simply by the ethnic background of the owner.
• Breed discriminatory laws cause unintended hardship to responsible owners of entirely friendly, properly supervised and well-socialized dogs that happen to fall within the regulated breed category. Although these dog owners have done nothing to endanger the public, they may be forced by the municipality to either give up their dogs or move out of their home. The pets that are given up are killed.
• The most harmful consequence of breed-discriminatory laws is their tendency to compromise rather than enhance public safety. Resources are shifted away from routine, effective enforcement of laws that have the best change of making our communities safer: leash laws, dog license laws, spay/neuter laws and animal fighting laws.
• Rather than breed-discriminatory restrictions, animal control laws should allow hearings where animal control wardens or law enforcement officers can declare any dog to be “dangerous” regardless of its breed if it attacks a person or companion animal without justification and causes serious physical injury or death, or behaves in a manner which a reasonable person would believe poses a serious and unjustified imminent threat of serious physical injury or death to one or more persons or companion animals. Any dog that is found to be “dangerous” should be required to be:
1. Spayed or Neutered. Studies have shown that more than 70% of bite cases come from animals that are not neutered. If a dog is found to be “dangerous,” it should be mandated that it be spayed or neutered.
2. Micro chipped. If a dog is found to be “dangerous,” it should be required to be micro chipped so there is a permanent identification of the dog. Dogs of some breeds are easy to confuse, especially if the owner has multiple dogs of the same breed.
3. Muzzled. All “dangerous dogs” should be required to be muzzled when in a public place, and walked by a person at least 18 years of age.
Legislators should also consider:
• Restricting Tethering. 25% of all fatal dog attacks involve tethered dogs. Most dog fighters chain their animals.
• Prevent Reckless Owners from owning dogs. Minnesota prohibits repeat reckless owners of dogs deemed dangerous from owning dogs in their state. Illinois prevents convicted felons from owning unsterilized dogs.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
► All concerned Montana dog owners should contact their elected representatives and express their strong opposition to this breed-discriminatory legislation. Please ask that he/she oppose HB 191.
Not sure who represents you? Click here to find out by inputting your zip code.
Thanks for taking action for animals. Politics is not a spectator sport!
► Join the Stop BSL community for more information on how you can help stop breed specific legislation.
For more information:
• Montana House Bill 191
• Community Safety Program (alternative to BSL)
**Best Friends Animal Society does not support this legislation. For more information on how animal legislation is reported on the Best Friends Network, click here.
Posted by Jennifer Hayes, Best Friends staff
Photo credit: taken by Jennifer Hayes
forgiveness
I think I may have just lost my best friend and little sister I felt like she was pushing me away so I got upset and said a few things out of being upset and frustrated that I didn’t mean and that I can’t take back. I love her dearly and hope that she can forgive me for what I said cause knowing that I hurt her is hurting me epically. I never should have said it in the first place. Chrissy I love you to death I hope you realize that and you know you are way more than a best friend you are the younger sister I never got the chance to have growing up and if I have lost you cause of saying something hurtful and stupid I will never forgive myself.
