Thank you, Sally. Beautifully described, with a great deal of soul. I appreciate your reference to the 23rd psalm. It is very appropriate.

Namaste

Echo Sharon's post. In fact, i pondered this exact thing yesterday. The energy oF violence is tsunam-ic, harming those closest to its epicenter. I dreamed about this four days ago. This young man with black hair rampaging through a crowd. As he approached me, I stood my ground and he just shot me. I didn't die in the dream, and woke trying to piece it together. Yesterday the dream became obvious.

And now, the Iraqis want to acquire their own bomb weaponry. When will we begin to understand that we can give our energy to peaceful solutions to most every conflict?

Thank you Sally.

With all this pain, I am reminded what it must feel like to try to go to school in the Middle East.

This certainly is a tragedy for many people, not just those directly involved. Even I stopped to reflect, for many years ago I dated someone from that college and visited there many times.

I am a bit surprised that the media is asking questions about the responce time of the the school officials. Picking nits, if you ask me. Imo, they should be asking how this individual acquired the guns and why is the general public allowed to purchase guns in the first place.

Secretary of State Rice may face subpoena threat

Wednesday Michael Roston Published: Monday April 16, 2007

On April 9, Rep. Waxman sent a letter to Rice saying that the State Department's response to a request for information from his committee had been 'insufficient.'

Waxman said that the State Department's Office of Legislative Affairs' response to his earlier request for the Secretary to testify "does not answer many of the Committee's questions, nor does it provide most of the information and documents the Committee requested."

The Committee had sought Rice's testimony on President Bush's claims that Iraq attempted to procure uranium from Niger and other subjects. The State Department's spokesman, Sean McCormack, said in an April 12 press briefing that they were trying to respond sufficiently to the committee's request.

"I know there is a second letter from Chairman Waxman and we're in the process of formulating a lengthy reply that we would hope answers all of his questions," he said. "There are several questions in here that might require a little bit of type space in order to answer it. But -- so we want to be responsive.".....

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Secretary_of_State_Rice_to_face_0416.html

There is a major crisis in our media taking place right now; it is getting almost no attention and unless we act very soon the consequences for our society could well be disastrous. And it will only take place because it is being done without any public awareness or participation; it goes directly against the very foundations of freedom of the press in the entirety of American history.

The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.

Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it, the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system, the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.

It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.

What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines, as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face hikes of less than 10 percent.

The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.

What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.

Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who depend upon a free press.

The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, ìIt takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates.î Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines, are not at the table when the deal is being made.

The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum. This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.

This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board protesting the new rate system and demanding a congressional hearing before any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23.

I know many of you are connected to publications that go through the mail, or libraries and bookstores that pay for subscriptions to magazines and periodicals. If you fall in these categories, it is imperative you get everyone connected to your magazine or operation to go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com.

We do not have a moment to lose. If everyone who reads this email responds at www.stoppostalratehikes.com, and then sends it along to their friends urging them to do the same, we can win. If there is one thing we have learned at Free Press over the past few years, it is that if enough people raise hell, we can force politicians to do the right thing. This is a time for serious hell-raising.

From A Virginia Tech Alumnus to President Bush
by DWG

Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 04:37:02 AM PDT

I find your desire to attend the memorial service on Virginia Tech to be just another callous and manipulative act. Do these people suffering from an inexplicable tragedy the favor of staying in Washington. You have nothing but empty sentiment to offer. However, to accommodate and protect your monstrous ego, security procedures will destroy the emotional sanctity of the memorial service. You know that, but you cannot resist the temptation to distract people from your failed foreign and domestic policies, not to mention the corruption threatening the survival of your terrible tenure as the president.

more...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/17/72925/5946

bingo, the cloak confirmed my suspicion about the Va Tech massacre---also read to get the latest on Abu Gonzales here:

http://www.cloakanddagger.de/CLOAKANDDAGGER.DE_TOM%20HENEGHAN/CLOAK%20BB%20APR_17.htm

namaste and love y'all
GLT

HONESTY

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/17/honesty/

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at 53% approval in the WaPo/ABC poll. That's even a decent number for a president. But the Speakership is an inherently partisan position -- a post far easier to villify than to mobilize around. By way of contrast, Newt Gingrich maxed out at 41% approval and spent most of his time in the thirties.

-- Josh Marshall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/17/a-little-good-news/

A little good news

Perhaps no injustice is more mind-boggling and heart-rending than random, indiscriminate violence. It's bad enough to kill onesself, but to subject people one does not even know to senseless violence and death is worse by orders of magnitude. To me it is one of the worst crimes possible.

What a senseless, sickening loss of life. I really feel for the people and families of those lost, and even for those who were just there when it happend, or are part of the extended community. Their lives are all forever changed by what happened yesterday.

That Chironian wound Sally describes will certainly cast life at VT in a different light from now on. Speaking as a Chiron native myself, I know that healing and growth will certainly come for that community, in due time, although whatever innocence that was, is now gone, having been replaced by a heightened awareness.

Enough of this. Here unless there is total gun control like in all civilized nations such as European and Asian nations, this tragedy is bound to repeat every other year(and like the London Times poked fun it is only a question of how many and where and that keeps changing from one year to another). In Europe- UK,Germany,France, Italy
and Asian countries such as India, China,Japan it
never happens and even if it happens, it is like once in a blue moon, unlike here, where it is like
evey year or other year.The dumb imbecile repugs
must know the only way to prevent is total gun control and let NRA and its affiliates retrain and find another job just like others who lost jobs, when the're outsourced or jobs get shifted to cheap labor, have to retrain theselves and find new jobs. It is as simple as that, even an imbecile with a low IQ can understand this if not the cons, neocons and repugs and nras and charlaton hestons. If constitution can be amended for presidential two terms, that relatives of elected presidents can't serve in the cabinets etc
etc and so many other amendemnts to constitutions the right to bear arms can also be changed to right to bear NO ARMS at all if this senseless occurences have to be stopped as it has been in more civilized countries of the rest of the WORLD

Enough of this. Here unless there is total gun control like in all civilized nations such as European and Asian nations, this tragedy is bound to repeat every other year(and like the London Times poked fun it is only a question of how many and where and that keeps changing from one year to another). In Europe- UK,Germany,France, Italy
and Asian countries such as India, China,Japan it
never happens and even if it happens, it is like once in a blue moon, unlike here, where it is like
evey year or other year.The dumb imbecile repugs
must know the only way to prevent is total gun control and let NRA and its affiliates retrain and find another job just like others who lost jobs, when the're outsourced or jobs get shifted to cheap labor, have to retrain theselves and find new jobs. It is as simple as that, even an imbecile with a low IQ can understand this if not the cons, neocons and repugs and nras and charlaton hestons. If constitution can be amended for presidential two terms, that relatives of elected presidents can't serve in the cabinets etc
etc and so many other amendemnts to constitutions the right to bear arms can also be changed to right to bear NO ARMS at all if this senseless occurences have to be stopped as it has been in more civilized countries of the rest of the WORLD

Hopefully it ( VT shooting) will cast a different light on our wider society than just VT! ( the heightened awareness we didn't get in 2001!)
Here we have anither chance from the world wide community.......WITH A CAVEAT! "Call For Gun Control"
We have another day in an orgy of National mourning............... another day of amazing grace! the anchors aren't playing their parts that well.
I have mixed feelings about gun control....first to go before the guns, Bush & Blackwater, because while they are in charge I want the right to own a gun. I don't now own one, ( I'd rather spend the $ on garden supplies!)
I'm a crack shot ( summer camp riflery; & of hsitoric interest...when I was 17 & in Germany, the daughters of the household had to do target practice regularly ( at the back if the garden). Their Mother had been murdered by an intruder..it was 10 years after the war. All 3 of us hit the bullseye every time!

INTERNATIONAL REACTION TO VIRGINIA MASSACRE
World Leaders Express Sympathy, Call For Gun Control

The worst peacetime gun massacre in American history has moved leaders in Europe and elsewhere to share their sympathy -- and their advice about gun control.

REUTERS
A student prays in a chapel at Virginia Tech on Monday after a gunman killed 32 people and himself at the university.

Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech university that left 33 people dead has drawn expressions of alarm and sympathy from leaders around the world, including Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who rarely comments on current affairs.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said late Monday evening that the Queen was "shocked and saddened" at the slaughter, which ranks as the worst school shooting in US history. German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave her formal sympathies to US President George W. Bush, and a statement from French President Jacques Chirac's office in Paris relayed his "horror and consternation" and "his most saddened condolence and his complete solidarity" with the American people.

The leaders of two major German political parties, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), also expressed horror.

Photo Gallery: Grief and Confusion in Virginia



Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (20 Photos)

Edmund Stoiber, head of the CSU, which is the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats, said the massacre "was beyond human comprehension," while Kurt Beck, head of the SPD, said he'd absorbed the news "with deep sadness." Beck added that while no one could wholly prevent such a thing from happening, greater gun control could "limit ... the level of armament" in US society.

NEWSLETTER

Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In-Box everyday.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard also gave his sympathies to the families of the dead on Tuesday. He went on to suggest that the "gun culture" in America had to change. He referred to an Australian massacre in 1996 by a man with a semi-automatic rifle who killed 35 people in Port Arthur on the island of Tasmania. At the time, Howard confronted Australia's gun lobby and banned almost all types of semi-automatic weapons.
"Eleven years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns," he said. "We showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country."

The massacre at Virginia Tech occurred in spite of a campus-wide ban on firearms. The British newspaper The Times pointed out that a recent spate of London gun and knife violence had occurred in spite of "draconian" anti-weapons laws in the UK, a view echoed by other observers. A spokewoman for the White House said on Monday, "The President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed."

msm/ap/dpa

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,477666,00.html

T-Mars squaring the US Uranus, and the 2005 Inaugural Moon plus opposing GWB's Mars, the violence isn't over; sadly,
Isn't that emough? The mix of Us, Inaugural, opposing W's mars,
suggests a broader learning process, doen't it?
And thank you Sally for taking time to post a new, relevant, article.
QOP

The "outrage" & "saddness" would have more credance imo if the same "outcry" were cried about USian unwanted presence in Afghanistan/Iraq & in any other place where USian/UKian have snuck their presence & dominance.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, giving her formal sympathies to rotten-rez, is an all-time weirdness, of course... since, he, hisself, is a mass killer & likes it that way.

Also, here people are of the wrong conception that
having a gun can defend them against goverments like cheny,bush,karl rowe etc. that's a total
foolish premise because against govt.'s nuclear arsenal.It is a utterly total rubbish defence. So
the premise under which the second amendemnt was enacted does not hold any water at all in today's world. May be it had some sense in the 1770s. If
people need to hunt that can be arranged with gun
control as in European countries. So I don't see
any purpose that everyone should be packed in some
kind of heat; gimme a break, that's a totally ridiculous reason to have a constitution supporting the right to bear arms!

This is the same aggression to pack heat as a birth right is also responsible for aggression and
I don't care a hoot for all the invasion from Grenada to Nam to Afgahan to Iraq to every where
else on this earth, the simple logic just follows
senselessly!

I have always been sensitive to the evils~suffering and pain of this world, but more so this past year than ever before.
I lived minutes from Columbine, I see on the news what is happening to our people, our planet, our children, and I am numb by the Degree of Violence and senseless deaths, I hear day in and day out.
I see more Road Kill and am touched so deeply I have to turn off emotion to keep going.

Is this what we are headed for? A Society Of Souls Known as The Generation That Walked Among the Frozen or Paralized? There has to be a Stop to This, no matter, what it takes. Take away the right of a Citizen to Defend themselves and we will have Kaos beyond belief! IF you don't we will have more VT's in the Future with Wannabees waiting in the Wings to Be Crowned King Of Slaughter.

Time to Bring the Light and Life Back to The Living.
Kachina

http://astrodynamics.blogspot.com/2007/04/profile-of-cho-seung-hui-virginia-tech.html

Profile of Cho Seung-Hui: Virginia Tech killer

snip

Over the past month or so Cho had begun a cycle involving a square of Chiron to Saturn in his chart. This is a cycle that can be painful emotionally, challenging our insecurity (Saturn) and causing doubt in our ability to live a productive life. The second phase of this cycle hit exactly on the 21st, just two days from the shooting incident that claimed his life. The Full Moon eclipse of March 18 exactly opposed the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction in his chart, perhaps opening a window in his psyche (eclipse) for his fantasy world (Jupiter/Neptune) to become a reality. In addition, the Aries New Moon coming up on the 19th would have squared his Sun exactly.

This chart is far less difficult than many I have seen, and none of these events are more difficult than events that all of us experience at various times of our lives. Our free will comes in the decisions we make daily whether we are going to take the pathway that leads to greater soul growth, or to greater illusion and self-deception.

April 23, 1993 was the David Koresh debacle in Waco....then of course, the follow up of OK City bombing on April 19, 1995...April, ah yes, the cherry blossoms, the smell of death....April....who does't love to shoot people in April?

Last night my art instructor, who was born and raised in Dodge City, KS, in 1938, said they all carried Colts and hung rifles in their trucks in high school...no one ever did massacres in schools in those days (mostly, it was in Europe and Asia in those days, I said, cynically, but not loudly)....and of course, Switzerland has one of the least ofensive crime rates, as EVERYONE after age 18 owns an automatic rifle legally and by law must have one in possession on their home premises. Of course, Switzerland has a horrendous DRUG addiction problem (drugs aren't illegal, I believe)...people always find a way to destroy.

He was in Switzerland because he worked in a nuclear research lab in Geneva and In the 1960's he wrote a letter to Stephen Hawking and said, well...the mathematicians are saying that there was no BIg Bang, could you please look at this angle and the math and revise your theory? Apparently Hawking didn't answer (he corresponded with Joseph Campbell, though, for years). My painting teacher is still saying that the mathematics are saying that there is ONLY one electron, one proton....and that is what our universe is (or God), one string, consisting of one electron and one proton. It is stunning and makes perfect sense to me. We are all made from that....and exist in it.

He also proposes that the anomolies being discovered...hexagonal winds on Saturn, square Nebulas, is the result of magnetism being pushed into our universe by a different universe on a different dimension....colliding. Pushing energy into ours, it is altering time....

Maybe that is what zero point is....zero point impact.

I just read Planet Waves, I think it was, and Eric Francis mentioned that people were finding ways to leave the planet and maybe help from the other side, or was it Karen Bishop who said that? It is all melting into one bowl of soup. I read the list of 32 people who died at VA Tech, and it is just tragedy. So much brilliance and potential brilliance gone, for what? The politicians will make hay, the NRA will hold its position, and everyone will just continue down their road of terror and greed.

I think I will welcome zero point, it it will enlighten these base human instincts.

I saw Candy Crowley this morning on the gun control issue. I remember the 101 California massacre in San Francisco in 1993, as it was just blocks from my studio. So DiFi got thru the Brady Bill, but it was sunseted for 10 years, and right on sched in 2003, the rethug controlled congress let it die. So Crowley was asked what happened to the political will to not let it sunset out, and it had to do with Democrats not making an issue of it because they saw that Al Gore lost the south because he was 'going to take away their guns'....so it is now a NON issue....

So in FLA, now, you can carry a concealed weapon. Will that happen everywhere now? Will students all carry weapons?

geez louize what merde is happening and hip deep, too.

Straight out of the twilight zone!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704160390apr17,0,4190579.story?track=rss

Wall Street CEOs ask Bush for overseas help

Raj, you are correct, in that the right to bear arms in the Constitution came from the struggle of the colonials to free themselves from the tyranny of Britain. The language of the 4th Amendment specifically relates gun ownership to the militia, which is our only (civilian) defense against a government that goes out of control.

I'm no gun owner, and I've had limited experience hunting but I'd feel better about my chances of survival with a firearm in the event the government clamped us down under martial law or something catastrophic. Sure, guns are no match for nukes, but I doubt the gov't would resort to nukes inland unless a strategic target was involved and they could minimize/contain the collateral damage. I think they'd use some other kinds of weapons, and wherever that weapon needed a human to use it, that human could be stopped with bullets.

A gun can help defend one's property or family or town in case the government was unable or unwilling to do so (like during Katrina)or in case crime increased drastically for any other reason. Criminals rarely have trouble obtaining weapons and I think property owners should be able to defend themselves.

I am not a "gun nut". I abhor gun and every kind of violence as much as anyone, but I also believe these school shootings are military "black ops" to push through a gun control agenda. They've all been extremely graphic, horrifying events with lots of gore and loss, but let's remember this--we rarely get the truth from the media anymore, but we do get to see the carnage repeated over and over. The immediate response is to remove all guns, because that's what they want us to think we want. But would that stop these events?

In closing--the whole gun control thing is the one plank of the Repub/Elitist/NWO platform that never seemed to fit their agenda. They want to control us but allow us to have firearms??? Sounds like they're signing their death warrants, doesn't it? Or are they thinking they can protect themselves and their possessions?

I'm not posting this as flame bait, nor am I insensitive to the great tragedy we've just esperienced again, but I think we should look long and hard at what happened and examine who would stand to gain from this. And everytime I do that, be it Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, or Columbine, or 9/11, to me, the same individuals are ALWAYS responsible--those who would disarm us, scare us, control us, and ultimately own us.

My inner Aquarius rebel will not let me go down like that.I love y'all and I'm no troll nor a rightwingnut, but to me, in this case, demonizing guns is no more correct a response than demonizing Muslims was on 9/11.

Namaste and love y'all, more and more every day! GLT

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Re Gun Control...

There is abusolutely NO bloody reason anyone
should have a handgun. No reason whatsoever!

'These are all copycat crimes'

In the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech, familiar questions are being asked: why does this keep happening? And why does it happen so often in America? Lionel Shriver offers some answers

Wednesday April 18, 2007
The Guardian

The campus shooting phenomenon in the US would have lost much of its power to shock by now if it weren't for the fact that the perpetrators keep ingeniously introducing new twists. Last October, it was an Amish school, of all places; in 2005 it was a school on a Native American reservation. On what was almost exactly the eighth anniversary of Columbine - hitherto a one-word thumbnail for this whole family of atrocities - the 32-body-count shooting at Virginia Tech has an uncomfortably competitive flavour. The man who killed himself all too late in the day in Blacksburg, Virginia, claimed more than twice as many victims as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did at Columbine high school in 1999. Though "Virginia Tech" doesn't have the same ring as the punchier "Columbine", you wonder if this new shooter wasn't making a bid to update the cultural lexicon - to coin the new byword for random campus violence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2059749,00.html

Virginia shootings

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dominion of death

Leader
Wednesday April 18, 2007
The Guardian

Yesterday a 23-year-old South Korean student was identified as the gunman who slaughtered 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, in the worst campus shooting spree among a list of similar horrors that have become one of the defining features of the United States to the outside world. The US is not the only country in which random acts of gun violence have erupted in seemingly everyday circumstances to destroy lives, families and communities. But the US is one of the few countries that seems collectively unwilling and politically incapable of doing anything serious to stop such things happening again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2059438,00.html

minute by minute...

http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/breaking/wb/113294

Boy, you people are doing well!!!

Super-rich population surges in 2006: survey

Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:53pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of U.S. households with a net worth of more than $5 million, excluding their primary residence, surged 23 percent to surpass one million for the first time in 2006, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The survey by Chicago-based Spectrem Group found that the number of U.S. households with more than $5 million rose from 930,000 in 2005. In 1996, there were only 250,000 U.S. households in the "ultra-rich" category, Spectrem said.

"The past few years have been nothing but astounding for wealthy Americans," said Catherine McBreen, managing director of Spectrem, a consulting group that researches the affluent and retirement markets

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-04-17T175305Z_01_N17443462_RTRUKOC_0_US-MILLIONAIRES-SURVEY.xml&src=rss&rpc=23

The Accomplices:
Sundance George and Butch Reid and the Virginia Tech Massacre

by Greg Palast | Apr 18 2007 - 8:10am

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6876

QOP

The Accomplices:
Sundance George and Butch Reid and the Virginia Tech Massacre

by Greg Palast | Apr 18 2007 - 8:10am

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6876

QOP

Stop Killing Students "Softly" With Loan Rip-Offs

by Danny Schechter | Apr 18 2007 - 8:05am

"Students are being targeted on campuses in other ways that have also been approved of at the highest levels. In the spirit of Roberta Flack’s song “Killing Me Softly,” the daily damage is being done with a fountain pen—or a computer program—not a weapon."

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6875
sorry about the dupe above...QOP

Cho Seung-Hui and Ismail Ax
Tuesday April 17th 2007, 10:09 pm

“The Washington Post quoted law enforcement sources as saying Cho died with the words ‘Ismail Ax’ in red ink on one of his arms, but they were not sure what that meant,” the Scotsman reports. Not surprisingly, the crack scriveners at the CIA’s favorite newspaper did not bother to do a Google search on this phrase.

After the Chicago Tribune made mention of the words scrawled on Cho Seung-Hui’s body, “the blogosphere filled with theories about the possible meaning of ‘Ismail Ax.’ Hundreds of bloggers speculated on a link to Islam or to literature; thousands offered their opinions and millions read the commentaries, according to Technorati.com,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald. ..."

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=834

humpty dumpty fool on the hill/oval office reveals
his idiocity every minute as he did yesterday saying the tragedy was for those in the wrong place at the wrong time, for that I would say, My
foot humpty,dumpty totally imbecile crackpot, the
honest answer is WRONG gun laws adopted by your elks like cons and repugs and I know you rotten punks and thugs will never get it in this life time of yours, even if it happens to you cons and
that's because you cons don't have an iota of grey
matter, when it comes to TRUTH or HONESTY. All you
cons have is that crooked brain, how to be corrupt to the max, where to invade and kill people in the name of next war(theirs and our own and all the evils humankind can ever perpetuate

* Virginia Tech, a Glimpse Into What [ameriCO] Has Inflicted on Iraq

At the memorial ceremony for those slain at Virginia Tech, [rotten-rez] said today he did not know what the victims had done to deserve their fate. How this nation wept as one when 30 innocent Americans perished & 20 more were wounded! There is almost nothing else on the TV news but this tragedy--not even news from the ongoing slaughter from the [ameriCO assault on] Iraq.

Here we have the sorry spectacle of the [malebot] in the WH who made the war on Iraq, where a disaster comparable to the Virginia Tech massacre occurs 4 or 5X/day every day, leading the nation in prayer! Yet when does this [malebot] go on TV to ask the American people to pray for the 100s of 1000s of Iraqis who have been murdered in the illegal war he launched? And just as the students & teachers who perished at the hands of a crazed killer on the Virginia Tech campus had done nothing to deserve their fate, neither have the people of Iraq committed any crime to endure the unendurable they are suffering at the hands of a [rotten-rez] who professed to be "horrified" at the events on a peaceful campus. If a S Korean student is regarded as a berserk killer for murdering 30 people what is [rotten-rez], whose invasion to control oil-rich Iraq has cost nearly 3/4 of a million lives, created 4 million refugees, & plunged the Mid East into turmoil? ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6879

Profile of Cho Seung-Hui: Virginia Tech killer

I want to preface this post by reiterating that no astrological chart reveals a predestination to be a killer, and there is no way we could have looked at this young man's chart before yesterday and predicted that he would go out and start shooting at his classmates.

Cho Seung Hui's Sun was at 27 degrees Capricorn, bleeding into Aquarius but still strongly Capricorn in nature. Capricorn is the sign of responsibility; of making something of yourself. As the son of immigrants who were blue collar workers Cho was likely under tremendous pressure to achieve and establish an identity of respect for the entire family in their new country. His Moon was in sensitive Cancer and opposite his Sun; where his Sun applied continuous pressure for achievement and success, his Cancer Moon longed to be nurtured and held, to feel safe and cared for.

www.astrodynamics.net

JoannaO excellent article by Sharrod Brown on Smirking Chimp!
Be sure to read it AWr's.
Now I bet any one here......$1,000. that CHo was on
PRESCRIBED MEDICATION WHEN HE DID THIS!
HE WAS RECENTLY SENT TO THE COLLEGE MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY FOR AN OVERNIGHT STAY, FOLLOWING HIS RECENT STALKING INCIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!
ANY TAKERS?
QOP

I'm with wv. There is no good reason for any private citizen to own a handgun.

Why the Gun Lobby Wins
The National Rifle Association has money, motivated members, and powerful allies in Congress. But what puts the NRA in a separate class among interest groups is its track record of defeating incumbents. Politico
• More from Mother Jones: Why gun control legislation always fails.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3563.html

No surprise at all about the excess rich. Pluto in Sag, among other things, emphasises the extremes of wealth. I mean, really, the absolute extremes... the top 1% of the top 1%. They really have it all. Everyone else is just pretending, literally, with massive McMansions way out in the burbs -- and maxed-out interest-only Mortgages to go with them.

REALITY CHECK: Debt is NOT wealth, and all of the appearance of wealth and riches in the world does not make it so. That's something that the Saturn-Neptune opposition seems to be starting to (finally) bring into public awareness, albeit painfully for many, as illusions are stripped away to reveal the stark reality behind them.

The good news is that the financial extremes will eventually level out. The bad news is that "eventually" can be a long, drawn out ordeal. The truth, as I noted above, is that very few people actually have wealth. With the Saturn-Neptune opposition and Pluto bleeding into Capricorn, there is growing talk about our emerging serious environmental problems as well as resource shortages, including the most essential things like water that we so frequently take for granted.

Those who really have the money, at least for awhile, may be able to shield themselves from the full impact of these emerging resource and environmental threats -- and hold off the masses, newly awakened by the crushing pressure of their debt-spending hangover. But that will not last.

I thought I read somewhere not long ago that the U.S. would lose its' taste for violence, death and imperialism by around 2022, our first Pluto Return. It should at least bring an end to U.S. imperialism and unrivaled power, and that would also have to include the liquidation of the military-industrial complex and the whole mindset behind it -- including the gun culture.

I think the Uranus-Pluto square gradually coming into focus over the next few years will also help, given that peace and universal love featured so strongly as major themes during the 1960s conjunction of these two planets in Virgo, with Saturn in opposition in Pisces.

Given that the square is the first test of the ideas and lessons sewn 40 years ago, and the coming of age of the "love and peacemaking" Pluto in Libra generation, with Pluto in Cap squaring natal Pluto in Libra for this group, I can't help but see the emergence of a new zeitgeist centered around peace and co-operation for this country and the world.

I'm hoping, at least.

If USA is crowing about the FREEest country on the face of this earth, first give the citizens to be free of fear from these nightmares every year.

Cho has sent package full of info about his feelings to MSNBC...details below and on the
6:30P News.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

Gunman sent package to NBC News

Rambling communication, videos mailed between shootings, network says

Virginia Tech
Cho Seung-Hui, who immigrated to the United States at age 8 in 1992, lived in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington.
View related photos

Video: Massacre at Virginia Tech
• Gunman sent material to NBC
April 18: Col. Steve Flaherty, of Virginia State Police, and Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker talk about photographs, videos and writings sent to NBC by the gunman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Package contained videos, writings
• Victims of massacre
• Shooting investigation continues
• Va. gunman a mix of normal, disturbing

Photos & audio

AP• State of shock
Virginia Tech students, faculty come to terms with the horror of the mass shooting at the Blacksburg, Va., school.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• A campus in mourning
• Slide show of the scene
• Audio: Voices from campus

Maps & interactives
• Timeline: How deadly shooting unfolded
Includes map of key locations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Reaction to Virginia Tech tragedy
• Fact file: Deadly college shootings in U.S.
• Fact file: Deadliest shootings in U.S.
• Interactive: Virginia gun laws

What you're saying

From Shooting massacre message board:

“I just think that at this time people should use more energy to pray for EVERYONE involved in this situation, including the gunman and his family. This is an extremely sad situation for all and it should be an eye opener for all that it is time for our WORLD to change and I believe that the first place for this is in all our hearts.”

--midwest mom4

Go to discussion board

• Were you a witness? Tell us your story
BREAKING NEWS
By Alex Johnson

MSNBC
Updated: 13 minutes ago
Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a rambling communication and videos about his grievances, the network said Wednesday.

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package in Wednesday morning's mail delivery and immediately turned the material over to FBI agents in New York. The FBI is assisting Virginia State Police in the investigation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/

My, my... whaddaCircus... how USians love 'em.

Raj, nobody on Earth will have that kind of peace until the would-be puppetmasters and shadow governments are removed from power. I sure hope they're enjoying us "lab rats" because paybacks are a you-know-what.....

One more comment from Mr. Unpopular:

The same media that gave us the "official" stories behind 9/11 and the anthrax attacks is now telling us the 100% agenda-free truth about a lone nut school shooter? Just asking.

I find it too convenient that all these shooters "kill themselves" and the bodies are never seen again.

Namaste and I love y'all, I really do.
GLT

Supposedly the gunman never talked to anyone about anthing at any time. His teacher, that nice lady with the British accent says she couldn't get him to even answer her at times. His roommate thought he didn't know English because he never spoke.

But he spills his guts to the police? And commits suicide? So if he committed suicide, and never talked to anyone why suddenly does he need to talk to anyone?

I feel sad for the shooter's family as much as I do for the victims. I'm sure his parents are hard working respectable immigrants, and I'm sure they feel worse than any of the victim's families. Imagine the hostility they may have to face from their community, and the guilt they may be living with for the rest of their lives even though they weren't directly responsible for what happened.

On another note, 197 more Iraqis were killed today. The only concern of Bush and his cohorts, is that they win this illegitimate war in Iraq, even if it is done at the expense of Iraqi lives, and the lives of the American soldiers - you know the BS line about sacrificing for freedom. I think he actually brainwashed some of the soldiers into believing this lie - at least that's what most of them parrot on camera. Bush will consider victory achieved only when the entire Iraqi population has either been wiped out, or fled Iraq and the everyday horror of their lives.

QOP, yes I heard that said yesterday about Cho's 'medication'and thought the same thing as you. I know of 2 kids whose psychs prescribed prozac AFTER the warning of suicidal thoughts in teens came out, in spite of one boy saying "you wouldn't let me in your house if you knew the thoughts I have". 23 is still a tender age, and a kid who just may have abruptly discontinued the meds on his own (because of the symptoms?) which makes the depression much much worse.
Also re Cho, his progressed mars was one degree short of saturn during a short direction of the nodes in his chart, among many other already mentioned details....
Sally, have you ever noticed the venus/jupiter, saturn/mars conjunctions in natal and progressed charts? It happens too often in tandem to be by chance. I have a few opinions about this peculiar extreme but wonder if you'd be willing to take this on!

Hold the phone, Jerome! Er, I mean, Garry. Mr. Unpopular? Garry, I may not always agree with you or something you post, but I certainly would never think of hurling a moonpie at you or anything because of it. Sheesh. Actually, maybe we should have a moonpie. Might help us cope (however temporarily) with the shocks of these times.

Garry and lunascura, maybe this time it's not another well-timed conspiracy. Just intuitively don't think so This Time.
The Columbine shooters and their victims are simply not aired by any public media~~EVER. It would be incredibly bad form to do so under any circumstances.
Bush can't be saved by temporary media inattention at this point~ although his latest "won't back down from Evil in Darfur" is one heckuva frightening statement issuing forth from his ignorant cakehole warrants fear for sure.
He's been on that for at least 4 years now and swingin' his Gherkin Pickle in their direction last coupla days.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/holy-muck/

Muck

Gary Todd, I so agree with you not that I think we have any idea of what the truth is.
Lunaoscura yes that is curious although I would point out that he was a writer.
We seem to be swirling downward. I want details but then again I can't stand how the tv people use the same voice and same questions as they would for reporting on a bad storm.
I am sick of experts and their paid for opinions.

Karen Bishop's latest energy alert... http://www.whatsuponplanetearth.com/latest.htm

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/consequences-2/

Consequences

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/18/iraq.main/index.html

Iraq orders arrest of top Army officer after deadly attacks

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi army brigade commander was arrested Wednesday night after a string of bombings that killed nearly 200 people around Baghdad, most of them in a single attack at a central marketplace, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office announced.

The explosion at the Sadriya market, one of the Iraqi capital's oldest and busiest venues, killed 140 people and wounded about 150, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told CNN. A statement from al-Maliki's office said the brigade commander was removed because of "the weakness of security measures put in place to protect civilians in Sadriya."

The marketplace attack was the worst of at least six bombings across Baghdad -- a particularly bloody day in a city wracked by sectarian warfare and a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against insurgents. It was the worst bombing in the Iraqi capital since the 4-year-old war began, topping the February toll of 130 dead in a bombing in the same marketplace.

More..

* Power, Pluto & Celebrity Profiles

Natally I have Sun in Aquarius opp Pluto in Virgo. It’s a wide aspect – 7 deg – & it’s out of sign. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped it from being a very significant part of my life. It has been my main challenge apart from Moon conj Saturn & perhaps Sun conj Chiron. It’s natural to assume that because aspects are tighter they are in some way stronger, but that hasn’t been my experience when considering the hard aspects between the Sun or Moon & the outer planets. These aspects can be just as strong when wide, & it’s worth having a generous orb – I use 10 deg with the Sun & Moon.

So what does it mean when the aspects are tighter? I don’t really know, except to say that I think it’s easier to bring awareness to bear on the aspect if it is wide, there is a ‘gap’ you can get in. And when I read descriptions of Sun/Pluto people, they do seem more driven & dominating than I think I am: all the same, my opp has taken me on a profoundly transformative path over decades. It seems to go just as deep, even tho it’s a wide aspect, but it’s perhaps a bit softer & mellower. ... http://astrotabletalk.blogspot.com/

Thanks gang.

I want ya'll to know I'm as sick of all of this unbelievably brutal and senseless violence against our children/students/soldiers/vets/pets/Earth as y'all are.

And I want whomever is ultimately responsible to pay for their actions. I just don't think we'll ever know who the true evildoer is, so we'll have to let karma settle it. And right now, that's just not good enough for me.

I mean, the 8th anniversary of Columbine is Friday, which is also Hitler's birthday. There's a message here somewhere, some clues, but I can't put it all together. Another weird side note: Kucinich was set to introduce articles of impeachment against Cheney, but this event postponed that.

One question for the astrologers: where was Neptune in the chart for the Va. Tech massacre? At least we might get a clue as to the degree of illusion involved.

I've got that heartsick and unsettled feeling I had during 9/11, watching the events unfold, and wanting to believe what I was told, but I just could not. It didn't add up then and it still doesn't.

Love y'all. Shy, I'm ready for that moonpie now.
GLT

Garry, the Sun was conjunct VT's Neptune and Pluto was in a trine to it. T-Neptune is squaring VT's Pluto.

WV writes:

"I want to preface this post by reiterating that no astrological chart reveals a predestination to be a killer, and there is no way we could have looked at this young man's chart before yesterday and predicted that he would go out and start shooting at his classmates."

Maybe more research needs to be done? I've found most astrological charts to be quite good at predicting careers, etc. Maybe there's a pattern to mental illness, anti-social behaviour that astrologers just aren't noticing?

Garry, a moonpie from this direction too.
I'm with you......heartsick & unsettled! .........I felt, & still feel that the DC sniper was arranged as well. Whatever happened to Sheriff Moose the hero of that day? Why are the {heros/saarcasm} of 9/11 Guliani & Bush still blabbed about, & Moose has dropped oiut of sight. SHouldn't he be running for Pres.?
Why is Kuchinich eclipsed? He was given a degree of attention in the runup to 2004....................
Olberman disappointed me last night, seeming more obtuse than he normally is..............
Gonzalas'day of recking today!!!!
QOP

T Neptune sq n Pluto a very strong indication of deception and confusion fueled by conflict with long established patterns and assumptions? Maybe prejudice strong here?
Good questions QOP.
I heard that Kucinich has raised $6 million from folks like us, I am cynical enough to believe that the telegenic front runners with 10s of millions mostly from the corps are there because the corps/banks want them in place and that is why they are seen on tv and are discussed over and over.
Gary, I have that same sick feeling like the veibration of some deep minor chord that makes me shudder.

Interesting point being overlooked - After VaTech
incident, psychologists expressing that cho must have been institutionalized for his hatred against
rich capitalists, women and lots of others. Applying the same criteria,fatso idiotic limba,
sean insanity and the worst of hate mongers ann
cunter all should be put in mental asylum for
being danger to our progressive society, with all
their 24/7 venom and hatred against the progressives both oral and written hatred spew
towards Edwards and every other progressive in US.

Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part I - V

http://www.firedoglake.com/

Comedienne Elayne Boosler hits it out of the ballpark and puts the insanity of the Gun Hos (short for gung-ho gun whores) in perspective.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elayne-boosler/we-are-getting-tired-of-p_b_46196.html

[snip]
If 2500 children under the age of 17 were felled by apples instead of guns every year in America, there wouldn't be a congressman or senator left serving who took one penny from the National Apple Association. The shame and admonishment would be too great. And if there were even incremental steps to take to make apples safer, and even they were fought tooth and nail by your blood money National Apple Association, claiming the straw man of the "slippery slope" to "regulation", America might better see you for the mercenary and shameful organization you truly are.

We are getting tired of prying your guns out of your cold dead hands.

Here's a news flash for you gun waving "real Americans": It's not about guns. It's about money. Follow the money. The NRA raises hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing you they are fighting for your "rights". Wake up. It's a business. Just like any other business, except with the help of their bought off representatives, they are the only UNREGULATED consumer product in America. What do they sell? FEAR. Fear, fake patriotism, and fake bravado, just like their commander in chief, President Custer. You're being played.

With their hundreds of millions of dollars raised on the blood of murdered Americans, they pay themselves, they keep their product manufacturers flush, and they buy their government officials. They exist to convince you you need their product. And when sales slow, they target new markets. They market fear to women, then sell them "feminine little purse guns". They market to children. The cartoon character Joe Camel is banned, but sure shootin' Eddie Eagle is alive and well to shit again on Friday. (He teaches children "gun safety", meaning, he teaches children to use guns.)

more...

Alberto Gonzales Testimony, Part I - V

http://www.firedoglake.com/

One more thing about Hui--he sent his video rants and writings to NBC, which also was the only news network that received an anthrax letter. Why NBC and not CBS or ABC or Faux?

NBC is under GE/Raytheon--was this some kind of message to them? Curiouser and curiouser.

love y'all
GLT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/04/19/mccain-sings-bomb-bomb-_n_46259.html

McCain Sings: "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran," At Campaign Stop

From a Georgetown Times' article on a recent campaign stop made by Sen John McCain.

Another man -- wondering if an attack on Iran is in the works -- wanted to know when America is going to "send an air mail message to Tehran."

McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song.
"Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann. "Iran is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the President when he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel."

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/McCain_unplugged_Bomb_bomb_bomb_bomb_0419.html

Unplugged McCain sings 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran'

Don't forget my comment a while back! Every time I call McCain's office in the Capital, there is this loud fast martial music playing......The rest of the Congresspeople's offices have classical music!
He's plugged in but, to his own circuit!
Yes Garry, more questions than answers.................
QOP

http://www.astrodatabank.com/NM/ImusDon.htm

Don Imus

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4429

GONZALES/ATTORNEYS HEARING: A Direct, As Yet Unreported Connection Straight Into the White House

Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins Was Fired Just After Reports Surfaced of Investigation into Law Firm of Top Level White House/GOP Operative and Close-Friend-of-Rove, Thor Hearne Was Replaced by Rove Aide Timothy Griffin...

McCain just sounds and acts like he's nuts. I don't think he was always that way, but he's losing it quickly. It's kind of sad because he has suffered in his life, unlike all the rest of the Chickenhawks who never went to any war, except maybe on some video game. I've never liked McCain's politics, but I always felt a lot of respect for him for what he's gone through.

Gary, Lunascura, et al: I, too, have had a real hard time accepting the profile of the VT shooter. It doesn't add up, doesn't feel right.
I wonder what Quinton Tarrantino's creative writing professors thought about his work?

Gasp>>>
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/va_tech_shooter_was_mind_controlled_assassin.htm

Hail and Farewell: the End of the American Empire

By Gore Vidal

04/19/07 "Truth Dig" - 04/16/07 -- - Whenever The New York Times finally gets the point to what is going on in our native land a celestial choir can be heard in Times Square, shouting hosannas. This happened recently, on April 14th, when they realized that there could be a dark explanation for what W. is doing when he sends a Mr. Bolton, a U.N. hater, to be ambassador to that body or a Mr. Wolfowitz to the World Bank, a man as ignorant of history and finance as the president himself. Maureen Dowd in the Times was allowed to set the pitch for the latest revelations with her “More Con Than Neo” headline. Meanwhile, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of incompetents are now cluttering the Justice Department while known incompetents are in place to wreck from within regulatory systems and even mighty Walter Reed Hospital itself. Click here to listen to Gore Vidal read this essay.

And then such investigations that W. has cut back—particularly at the height of the pet food investigation, a matter of such passionate interest to our countrymen.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17558.htm

So where do I collect my $1,000.?
Olberman is on Bush's AWOL thiong again!

QOP

That was AWOL thing.
Larry King managed to get a briegf interview with Cho's Grandmother in Korea.SHe said they had diagnosed him as autisic, there. WHat does that do for the one in 66 autistic kids in the USA?
The home of Skull and Bones on the Yale campus is a stone building resembling a mausoleum, and known as ``the Tomb.'' Initiations take place on Deer Island in the St. Lawrence River (an island owned by the Russell Trust Association), with regular reunions on Deer Island and at Yale. Initiation rites reportedly include strenuous and traumatic activities of the new member, while immersed naked in mud, and in a coffin. More important is the ``sexual autobiography'': The initiate tells the Order all the sex secrets of his young life. Weakened mental defenses against manipulation, and the blackmail potential of such information, have obvious permanent uses in enforcing loyalty among members.
Interesting..I'm not that far from Deer Isle!
QOP

Doesn't it seem that things are unfolding too smoothly as if coreographed. I caught the NBC thing too.
I tell you at my work people just continue with personal, private life.
Most colleges get rid of their students who cause any trouble at all. Strange how this young man was allowed to continue livng in the dorm with a roommate. Evidently this went on for years. How strange.
And then the movies.
I wondered if he also was murdered. There have been so many incredible suicides-Gary Webb shot himself in the head twice, another actor in the spy world wrapped himself in a boat anchor in order to drown himself. And I have come across other stories that seem bizarre but then I am living in a time when evil people are taking over and millions of us don't care, don't believe that danger is near. People i love at my work just don't seem interested but they are very concerned about predators taking their children.
Well i am just rambling. These are strange times.

Please tell me this is a spoof, scripted and acted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

What comes to my mind are psychotropic drugs... these things are used by the USia govt as well as any other weapon of mass destruction. Easy to send anybody over the edge to fit a predecided upon script.

In case anyone wants to gaze into the sky for some sanity, Moon is hanging there with Venus & it is lovely.

There are a couple of things that bother me in the VA Tech. incident,
One an Asian specially a S.Korean would never dishonor his family,parents and ancestors in such a way. Second during a news broadcast it was announced that he killed himself through shooting in the back of his head.
Third http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/190407Cho.htm
If we are to believe the emerging timeline of events, Cho Seung-Hui killed a woman and her RA in a dorm, went back to his dorm and captured a QuickTime video rant, burned a DVD, trekked to the post office with two 9mm weapons in tow, mailed the DVD, along with photos and miscellaneous writings to NBC, and then marched over to Norris Hall and killed another thirty or so people execution-style.....
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/190407drugs.htm
Fourth who wants to be reelected next fall.

I’m not buying it.

AP NewsBreak: Haggard Leaves Colorado

ERIC GORSKI | AP | April 18, 2007 07:37 PM EST

DENVER — The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker.

Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but never used it.

As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070418/haggard-scandal

SHylurker................
WIsh it were a spoof! Several years ago a Canadian Comedian went around the USA, collecting funds for a "year round" ice palace to be built in Montreal! He actually got a donation from the Gov. of Arkansas!!!!! And he managed to fool a professor from Harvard, as well as other allegedly intelligent American who should have known better.
( I've been in Montreal when it was 95o in the shade! ( before global warming became an issue!)
I dated a retired school superintendant from Ottawa, years ago. He went around South Jersey trying to find someone anyone who knew,
1.The capital of Cananda.
2. The location of Ottawa!
"with very little success!"
Are Americans really that stupid or just egocentric?
Just read the blog following the prisonplanet post @ 9:57 am.....
scarey!
QOP

Anyone seen the splash page at http://www.cloakanddagger.de today(4/20/07)?

Not claiming it to be fact, but it does a lot of interesting "dot connecting" on the VT "massacre", as they're calling it incessantly.

Love y'all
GLT

Anyone who's interested in a poll that includes Gore-- MoveOn includes him in their 2008 question at the end of this poll:

http://www.moveon.org/tellus/interest.html?id=10219-3419494-NuqWxJ&t=1

I don't know if it's a conspiracy or not but what I do know is that nothing about what they are saying about Cho makes sense. His behaviour and his supposed actions are totally inconsistent. Even crazy people are consistent in how they act. If their craziness is violent, then it is always violent and there would have been a history of it. Stalking women is creepy, but it doesn't naturally lead to mass murder.

As to whether there is some kind of conspiracy I flatly have no idea except that I don't dismiss conspiracies nor do I believe them unless there's a lot of undeniable dots and the dots make sense. things have to pass the 'make sense' test.

Time for PBS to Go?

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/041907Parry.shtml

Anyone got a chart for DC on April 25th?

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Kucinich_to_launch_Cheney_impeachment_push_0419.html

These cons are real birdbrained(may be I should not belittle the birds, since they are smarter than these con repugs)moronic idiots are so particular about punishing the media for obscene
language or Janet jackson's wardrobe malfunction
etc. where no LIVES are LOST. But when real lives
are LOST, there is no punishment for nra abusive violations, no answer/solution to this perennial/
eternal massacres, nothing from the cons,just wash their hands off these problems saying cliches like wrong place at the wrong time and the
electorate here take it lying down, let them walk all over; it is a total shame; these cons have all their priorities all screwed up, upside down
when it comes to meting punishment based on the severity of crime by nra. By the way, in my last
blog-rant, I forgot to mention our neighbors Canada, who have civilized laws to curb these. All
one has to do is follow the neighbor, if cons here
don't have brains of their own.

Do you agree with the Supreme Court decision on "partial birth abortion"?

Yes - 31%

No - 69%

Total Votes: 917

http://www.capitalnews.org:80/

Man with gun holed up on Johnson Space Center

Campus.

more on above...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18233965/

News conference at 5:30 PM

April 20, 2007

Huge Win for Impeachment in Vermont

By Dave Lindorff

The impeachment movement, which has been building steam since the November election, got a big boost this morning when the Vermont Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the US Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The 16-9 vote, which saw the Senate’s six Republicans joined by only three Democrats, will make it difficult for Vermont House Speaker Gaye Symington, a Democrat who has opposed the impeachment resolution drive, to keep the measure from being voted on the House floor. Symington has been arguing against such a resolution, claiming it would be “divisive.”

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=genera_dave_lin_070420_huge_win_for_impeach.htm

April 20-22, 2007 -- Mass killer Cho Seung Hui's link to Iraq occupation and private military contractors. It has been discovered that Cho's older sister. identified as Cho Sun Kyung by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, works as a contractor for the State Department's Iraq Reconstruction Management Office.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Local report:.........news item yesterday. 24 guns, (tagged evidence in court cases), gone missing from the sheriff's quarters in the county seat Machias. In view of the weeks events, a little scarey!

We had a little conversation with our local cop this afternoon. His take; they were either appropriated for personel use by staff, or been placed elsewhere for safe keeping. No sign of a break-in. Then I asked him the ratio of gun owners in the county compared to the death's by gun. Guns 90% of the population.....deaths 3 in the last 16 years. ( 2 domestic situations, both female killers! 1 a crazed former new Jerseyite, who picked off 2 of his neighbos from his house. ( It happened righrt after I moved up here and cast NJ imigrants in a bad light for a decade! Now there is such a wave of newcomers from NJ Pa. NY, MA., we have outnumbered the Native Mainers, and they are beginning to realize we have the same mind set that's why we came here!
There was an article in yesterday's Der Speigel " Has America gone crazy".
QOP

Made in America: pride that keeps gun law in place
The massacre grabbed public attention but prompted little political debate

Gary Younge in Richmond, Virginia
Saturday April 21, 2007

Guardian

Dave Hancock talks about his .38mm Smith & Wesson as though it were $3,800 (£1,896) of Dolce & Gabbana. "It's light, easy and comfortable to carry," he says, easing the snub nose pistol out of his pocket and gazing at it nostalgically. "They don't make it in the nickel finish any more."
Hancock, who works at the Bob Moates Sports Store in Midlothian, Virginia, loves guns. Over at the handgun counter he slips out a jet black 9mm Glock 19 - the kind that Cho Seung-hui used to slay 32 of his fellow students and then himself on Monday - and hands it to me. It's heavy, and doubtless feels all the heavier for its immediate associations. Hancock shows me how to reload the magazine. Then pulls the trigger and watches me flinch.

The relationship between this weapon and the massacre that took place on Virginia Tech campus 200 miles away is not moral but functional, he insists. "They flew airplanes into the World Trade Centre, but nobody is saying we should stop flying," he says. "They drove a truck into the building in Oklahoma with a bomb made of fertiliser but we're not going to do away with trucks and fertiliser. One person who's mad enough and determined enough can kill 30 people; you can't blame that on guns."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2062329,00.html

The run-of-the-mill pink supremacist childish boyz ALL equate "gun" as their little "dick"; therefore, the gun will stay jes like they hope their dick will stay. I dearly hope Mother Gaia has alternative plans.

I am personally really sickened (and couldn't read it, it just appears mentally unbalanced, some of those links) at some of the screaming speculation about Cho posted here re black ops type speculation, not to mention the huge and unfounded stuff being surmised everywhere...with no proof, and to suggest that women are the worse killers!...what ignorant reporting. When in fact, women are the most frequent victims of all these killings, and it is like...oh, no big deal in the media. And again, in this case, this might have been true, as everything is being speculated except misogeny...it also occurs to me that women are the victims around the world right now....kidnapping, rape, prostitution, white slavery, men gone mad with guns....it ain't the guns, it is the attitudes. And in some cases, and Cho might prove to be one of them, mental illness requiring a high profile suicide by cop and lots of tv coverage, even if he isn't here to enjoy it. Asians don't seek mental help statistically speaking...Koreans are very intense people...maybe America is just too TOXIC for sensitive people not acculturated to our really really really sick gun and violence culture. Plus, we have Ted Nugent chiming in....geez.

So maybe this was just misogeny gone crazy...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/04/virginia_tech_women.html

"April is the creullest month..." bjt

As for the Supremes, the new Alito majority just put the first brick in the wall.....that has always been the agenda, start the roll back of Roe V Wade, and this is the first brick. They have conservative law firms all over the country, at least one in every state, sometimes more, working on returning the liberal 'agenda' which has passed over the last 40 years, back to the past. Civil rights, abortion, the great society, it is the same thing they tried to do to FDR....and we will have to live with these ideological messes, as will our children and grandchildren.

They (the righties) keep accusing the Taliban/Muslims of wanting to blast us back into the 5th century . But this is blasting us back into back alley abortions. These are fairly young men on this court, the conservative side....the middle and liberal ones are ill and old....you will see, we will be undergoing a huge return to the past. These cruel and tightassed men (now that Alito is part of the block), will roll back much against women. It is starting ..... and it is also in the USA chart, as Sally has brought up before, this part of it....a very big warning sign of what is to come.

The assaults on women physically thru kidnapping, rape, prostitution and white slavery not to mention the usual poverty from divorce and 'run of the mill' spousal abuse and murder and religious intolerance to women all over the world, PLUS the fact that women are victimized again by not making equal pay for equal work is a travesty world wide. And it is the most ignored problem we have. Interfering with her body and psyche thru the courts is yet another one. As are, of course, the guns which killed a good number at VA Tech...but they are only the means, not the problem.

Reading recommendations for the weekend.

U.S. Credit Perspectives Mark Kiesel | May 2007 Still Renting
http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Global+Markets/Global+Credit+Perspectives/2007/U.S.+Credit+Perspectives-+5-2007.htm

A Chronicle of America's Very Great Depression – Two growing trends: A historical reversal of global financial balances / An implosion of the US societyhttp://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-14-is-available!-A-Chronicle-of-America-s-Very-Great-Depression-Two-growing-trends-A-historical-reversal-of_a570.html

21st Century Gold Rush Revisited Aubie Baltin CFP. CTA, CFA, Phd. (retired)
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/baltin021707.html

TED BUTLER COMMENTARY April 17, 2007 THE DAY OF RECKONING
http://www.investmentrarities.com/4-17-07.html

Personally, judigem, I think it's the last gasp of a dying order. They know it, too, which is why they are fighting so very hard to consolidate their power and hang on. But in the end, however long, drawn out and even violent it may be, they will lose, and they MUST lose as the survival of civilization and humanity itself depends on it!

It's really what everything since the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the 1960s has been about. The status quo people were utterly scared out of their wits by the social, sexual and spiritual revolutions that emerged on the scene at that time.

"What's that you say? Minorities and Women fighting for equality with white Anglo-Saxon males? Alternate forms of religion and spirituality challenging Protestant Christianity? Protest organizations challenging government and business as usual? How horrific! We must stop them immediately!"

Hence the counter-revolution that began during the same period of time, punctuated by the murder-assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and many others who were simply fighting for social and political change and advancement.

But we can't have those things, now can we? "We" being the fascistic businessfolk, the Straussian neoconservative ideologues, and religious fundamentalists who banded together and began working to ensure that everything posing a threat to their continued power and existence would be stopped.

To make a long story short, this world today of mass alienation, mass consumption, impractical suburban sprawl and McMansion excess, of celebrity worship and infotainment!, inefficient gas-guzzling motoring as king, and of Wall Street as God, is their violent, overplayed, reactionary response to the 1960s. It can all be summed up as their attempt to distract us all to the point where we can be controlled and manipulated into doing and believing in anything that the powers that be tell us is our reality.

And for a time, it worked. But now, with the Saturn-Neptune opposition, and soon with the Saturn-Uranus opposition, reality is breaking through the Matrix, and people are waking up to see that they have been massively duped. They are not happy, and we are beginning to see the signs (i.e. movement to impeach Bush and ending the Iraq War gaining steam, a growing push for alternative energy, etc).

I'm not saying that it really gets any easier from here. We are steadily entering what, over the course of the next 10 years, may very well prove to be one of the most challenging periods of time in human history. But successfully making our way through it means a parting with the past methods and ideologies that for better or worse brought us to this point.

In no uncertain terms, we are killing ourselves and our planet in so many ways. If the status quo of underlying destruction in all that we do, wins, it will be a meaningless victory, as we ALL WILL LOSE. We cannot entrust our future to a system of business that is so consumed by making immediate profits that it can barely concern itself with anything beyond present quarter results, nor can we entrust our future to fantasy religious ideologies (i.e. creationism in seven literal days, the rapture, etc.) that have no basis whatsoever in reality and serve as an excuse against personal and social responsibilities.

But even more importantly, we cannot solve violence, with more violence (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) or stand for that violence to become the institutionalized profiteering machine that it has mutated into -- Eisenhower's prophesised Military-Industrial Complex, which consumes the vast majority of our annual federal budget and resources.

Something has got to give, and very soon, it will. Violent, immature, reactionary men cannot silence women whose time in this nation's history has arrived for them to claim and share positions of leadership. They cannot expect the world to continue to suffer their greed-driven monopoly of oil when production of oil is peaking and viable alternatives are breaking out into the open to terminate that monopoly. And they cannot expect that the increasingly progressive-leaning people of this country will sit forever idle as their silly, infantile judges try and turn this country back to the dark ages.

Geez, I didn't mean to go on a rant, but I feel pretty inspired right now! I really do think that we've got them on the run. And it's not that we want to get revenge on them or anything. We just want to make a better world, and we will, with or without them, and whether they like it or not.

"I'm not buying it"...the making of the video doesn't have to be the day of. Or even the wrapping and mailing. These things could have been done the previous day or weekend, the package ready to go. Videos can be done quickly with little technical expertise these days. A Cd can be burned in 20 minutes, a label in two. If everything is ready to go already, all that's needed is to wrap the stuff up and take it to the Post Office to mail.

More than likely though, the shooter waited a little to gauge the reaction or to get his "courage" up to do the big deed. That's where the tragedy lies. If people knew a shooter was loose somewhere in the vicinity, people may have been looking for someone, and been alert and ready for trouble.

Neobuckeye,
That was no rant that was pure HOPE! You are Young male, and the way of the future......no matter the difficulty in getting there.
I just regret that it will play out through my waning years............
However "I'll BE BACK!"
QOP

I always love reading your thots, NEO... Bright Blessings, dear Soul.

If 2500 children under the age of 17 were felled by apples instead of guns every year in America, there wouldn't be a congressman or senator left serving who took one penny from the National Apple Association. The shame and admonishment would be too great. And if there were even incremental steps to take to make apples safer, and even they were fought tooth and nail by your blood money National Apple Association, claiming the straw man of the "slippery slope" to "regulation", America might better see you for the mercenary and shameful organization you truly are.

"We are getting tired of prying your guns out of your cold dead hands."

More at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elayne-boosler/we-are-getting-tired-of-p_b_46196.html

Video: Gonzales’ Amnesia

The Washington Post reports that Alberto Gonzales used the phrase “I don’t recall” and its variants 64 times during the five-hour hearing, “treat[ing] the committee to a mixture of arrogance, combativeness and amnesia. Even his would-be defenders on the Republican side were appalled.”

Last night’s Daily Show featured a video compilation highlighting the absurdity of Gonzales’ “amnesia.” Jon Stewart: “After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it. Alberto Gonzales doesn’t know what happened, but he assures you what he doesn’t remember was handled properly.” Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/20/gonzales-amnesia/

Loup de Loup: The Deeper Darkness Behind the Wolfowitz Scandal
Empire Burlesque
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 19 April 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2hsbxz

excerpt:
These are dark days, serious times. The whiff of apocalypse is in the air. For it will be virtually impossible for the Gamesters to carry off their next immediate goal, subduing Iran – much less their long-range aim of dominating the world throughout a "new American century" – without the use of nuclear weapons. So let's be done with the comforting fairy tale that the vast crimes we are witnessing are the work of a few cranks who have somehow hijacked the noble U.S. government and are using it for their own purposes, or Israel's purposes, or whatever.

The reality is that Iraq was invaded because a powerful faction of the old-line American Establishment wanted to do it and the rest of the Establishment – the Democrats, the media, the "respectable" intelligentsia – countenanced the crime. The belligerence and oppression that the Israeli government is inflicting in Lebanon and Palestine are receiving unquestioned – and armed – support from the United States because this suits the larger strategic purposes of the "global dominance" faction of the Establishment, and the domestic political purposes both of the Democrats, heavily reliant on Jewish-American backing, and the Republicans, dependent on their rabidly pro-Israel evangelical base. [As many others have pointed out, whenever the Israelis try to do something that the American elite don't like -- such as sell sophisticated military technology to the Chinese -- they are called on the carpet and forced to back down. ]

It is the American elite – pursuing, as always, the enhancement of its own power and privilege, heedless of the consent of the governed or the genuine interests of the American people (or the Palestinian people or the Israeli people or the Lebanese people or the Iraqi people) – that bedevils us. The emergence of the cretinous neoconservative cult is just a symptom of a deeper moral corruption coursing through the dominant institutions and structures of American society. The body politic is rotting from the head.

VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE
New-media culture challenges limits of journalism ethics

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, April 20, 2007

The Virginia Tech shooting is the first major U.S. news story in which traditional media and new-media technologies became visibly interdependent. Yet how that combination of old and new enabled the world to see the final ramblings of mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui raises an uncomfortable question: When everybody can publish in the world of new media, what will the world see next?

As new-media expert Jeff Jarvis wrote on his BuzzMachine.com blog Thursday, "There is no control point anymore. When anyone and everyone -- witnesses, criminals, victims, commentators, officials and journalists -- can publish and broadcast as events happen, there is no longer any guarantee that news and society itself can be filtered, packaged, edited, sanitized, polished, secured."

NBC News anchor Brian Williams called the photos, videos and text Cho mailed directly to his network a "multimedia manifesto." The network released only heavily edited parts of Cho's submission, enough so it could convey "the mind-set of the troubled gunman," Williams said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/20/MNGJVPCGI51.DTL&type=printable

NEOB, if you EVER decide to run for any kind of public office, let me know, I'll drop everything to help you make it happen.

Namaste and love y'all!
GLT

I did something for Earth Day and I want to pass on what I found in case anyone else is interested. I decided to change all my lightbulbs to energy efficient green bulbs because I found out what a huge impact it makes in lessening energy consumption. So I went shopping online and found a co-op store which is in Atlanta which is a community service based operation run by a group of blacks who say the following:

http://www.blackenergy.com/index.phtml

It's in everything we do, from the utilities we use at home... to the fuels we use to travel... to the way we serve our communities. Our buying power is another form of energy. It's the power to empower our communities, and blackEnergy knows how to use it. Our Energy Co-ops let you use your monthly bills to support communities in your area, and your Energy Store purchases help lower your light bills and help the environment. All people are welcome here. Be the change you want to see in the world.

***********
My area in California doesn't have these community service co-ops so I decided to buy my lightbulbs from them. I'm replacing all my lightbulbs at once. 25 lightbulbs for $138.05 which will all last three times longer than what I have now. They also claim my utilitly bills will come down. We'll see.

The U.S. is employing the same tactics in Iraq to contain the Iraqis, as Israel uses to contain the Palestinians i.e. by walling them in. I noticed the parallells between the U.S. and Israel from the first days of the Iraqi invasion, so I'm sure there's close collaboration there. In a separate article, there was a report on how much mental stress the Iraqi children are suffering as a result of the protracted war. Surprise! Surprise!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=WNYC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

One more bit of breathtaking information on the huge savings in energy that using green light bulbs makes.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_lightbulbs.html

[snip]
Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That's the law of large numbers--a small action, multiplied by 110 million.

The single greatest source of greenhouse gases in the United States is power plants--half our electricity comes from coal plants. One bulb swapped out: enough electricity saved to turn off two entire power plants--or skip building the next two.

more...

Let us hope this resonates
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x722189

Shy, thanks for posting the Dalai's talk...I grew up in Kahului, it is such a surprise to see that he will be there.

A friend of my daughter's gave her a magazine called Domino....on home decorating, etc, upscale....this March issue has 125 Green home makeover ideas...a whole page in it on different green bulbs, etc.
Eco bulbs...full spectrum, for all different types of fixtures and needs, inside and out. web site is
http://www.dominomag.com

Neo, thanks for the reply and excellent observations written so well...you be smokin'! And right on.

a friend sent this today, with just one word with the URL...unbelieveable.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/21/8570/67093

lunascura, apparently those new light bulbs contain mercury and are hazardous if they break (or explode)....I'm not sure what to believe nowadays!!!

Hi Guys

I read somewhere that gunshot deaths in the US since the beginning of the Iraq war sits at some 200,000 to 250,000 - I mean, it rooly trooly boggles the brain.

Lynda Hill,

The article talks how at first the green bulbs weren't so great but that there have been huge improvements as all the defects are ironed out. There's a lot of information if you do a search.

I'm watching the WH Correspondants Dinner on Cspan. Fascinating watching the body language............. George & Laura aren't sitting together this year! They are separated by Steve Scully ( moderator) and Anne Compton W H coordinator as well as the podium in the center. Helen Thomas is wearing a red and gold gown God Bless her!
Forgive the digression, I can't handle any more Saturn stuff!
It feels good to attend a soicial event in my living room .!
QOP

I am hoping for Royale in France.bjt

Gee this is a real sleeper...if you like Monty Python turn it on!
QOP

Music of the spheres/music of the sun
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6574059.stm

Steve Judd...

21 April

Long term perspective tonight… Looking at the interactions between Jupiter & Neptune. The conjunction of these two with Chiron in Aquarius in 2009 perhaps suggests false messiahs/gurus of salvation. The opp of Jupiter & Neptune in 2016 is from Virgo to Pisces, & this is suggestive of a flood – whether a water flood, an empathic/compassion flood, floods of refugees, an influx of energy in some usable way. The approaching nexus points of the next decade are a paradox for me, because one interpretation is that of the ‘last days’, whilst at the same time I still choose to go with life eternal & consciousness enhancement. But the astrology does show that within 10 yrs the future is relatively set, at least as opposed to now.

19 April

In Norse mythology, a banquet to celebrate the onset of summer has 12 invited Gods, but the trickster Loki becomes the 13th uninvited guest & this results in the hero Balder dying. In xian myth, 12 disciples come to the feast, but the 13th, Judas, betrays the hero. In the myth of the sleeping beauty, 12 good fairies are invited to the ball, but it is the 13th uninvited wicked fairy that curses the princess, needing the kiss of a hero to awaken her & the land. In Arthurian myth, there are 12 Knights of the Round Table, but it is the 13th, Mordred, who plunges the land into chaos. There are 12 solar mos & 13 lunar mos in the year. (13 x 28 = 364, + the 'day for a year'). Sun/Moon, light/dark, summer/winter – it’s all the same story, & it goes back farther than we can imagine.
http://www.stevejudd.com/home.html#

Dear Energy savers,
neon bulbs always have hazardous material. They contain electronic circuits as starter, they have other materials that can be declared hazardous.
Do you stop using your computer TV, refrigerator, and car because of this? NO.
What you should be aware of is that these bulbs should never be disposed in your regular garbage, as any electronic waste.
An important place where you can really save a lot of money is to check all your electric equipment for stand by electric power use.
You should either unplug them right after use or hook them up on an extension cord that can be manually switched off/ a timer uses power again.
By the way the so fabled house of Gore uses about 30 000 $ worth of electricity during a year. This is definitely not an energy saving house.
The first thing one has to do is insulate the house// expensive if you can not do it yourself. Be consciences of power use, does the TV have to run all day, how many lights need to burn? Do you clean your dishes while the tap water is running continuously, how much irrigation does your garden need. Do plant the appropriate plants for your region.
Adjust the thermostats in your house to energy saving temperatures. I t lowered my electricity bill by several thousand dollars per year this way.

Two links for a "nice" Sunday.

Panic at the commercial Real Estate market
http://theroxylandr.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/panic-at-the-commercial-real-estate-market/

Freddie Mac to Buy $20 Billion in Subprime Home Loans
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSkm1PLyjMYA&refer=home

Here comes Mars
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976953567
have a nice day P

Some interesting Va. Tech "coincidences"....

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=836

Earth Day Network Home Page

http://www.earthday.net/

April 22, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Iraq Is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac

By FRANK RICH
PRESIDENT BUSH has skipped the funerals of the troops he sent to Iraq. He took his sweet time to get to Katrina-devastated New Orleans. But last week he raced to Virginia Tech with an alacrity not seen since he hustled from Crawford to Washington to sign a bill interfering in Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life medical care. Mr. Bush assumes the role of mourner in chief on a selective basis, and, as usual with the decider, the decisive factor is politics. Let Walter Reed erupt in scandal, and he’ll take six weeks to show his face — and on a Friday at that, to hide the story in the Saturday papers. The heinous slaughter in Blacksburg, Va., by contrast, was a rare opportunity for him to ostentatiously feel the pain of families whose suffering cannot be blamed on the administration.

But he couldn’t inspire the kind of public acclaim that followed his post-9/11 visit to ground zero or the political comeback that buoyed his predecessor after Oklahoma City. The cancer on the Bush White House, Iraq, is now spreading too fast. The president had barely returned to Washington when the empty hope of the “surge” was hideously mocked by a one-day Baghdad civilian death toll more than five times that of Blacksburg’s. McClatchy Newspapers reported that the death rate for American troops over the past six months was at its all-time high for this war.

http://donkeyod.wordpress.com/

Gore campaign team assembles in secret

By Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:59pm BST 21/04/2007

Friends of Al Gore have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House.

Al Gore is third favourite for the Democratic nomination

Two members of Mr Gore's staff from his unsuccessful attempt in 2000 say they have been approached to see if they would be available to work with him again.

Mr Gore, President Bill Clinton's deputy, has said he wants to concentrate on publicising the need to combat climate change, a case made in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, which won him an Oscar this year.

But, aware that he may step into the wide open race for the White House, former strategists are sounding out a shadow team that could run his campaign at short notice. In approaching former campaign staff, including political strategists and communications officials, they are making clear they are not acting on formal instructions from Mr Gore, 59, but have not been asked to stop.

His denials of interest in the presidency have been couched in terms of "no plans" or "no intention" - politically ambiguous language that does not rule out a run.

One of his former campaign team said: "I was asked whether I would be available towards the end of the year if I am needed. They know he has not ruled out running and if he decides to jump in, he will have to move very fast.

"He hasn't asked them to do this, but nor has he told them not to."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=JQFALHQBTKTWLQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/04/22/wgore22.xml&site=5&page=0

April 22, 2007

Cable News' War Against America; Time to Fight Back

By Rob Kall

I've had it. Normally, I spend my day at my desk, with a computer screen and a TV staring at me. I write, edit, program, correspond, all while listening to the news-- usually CNN or MSNBC-- ocassionally, to see how the garbage is being presented by the whitehouse propaganda network, I'll even switch to Fox News, until the stink reaches intolerable proportions-- usually less than five minutes.

This past week, all the stations have been intolerable. At a time when the Iraq disaster is getting far worse, when corruption is coming out so fast that Bushco's whack-a-mole cover-ups have not been able to keep up, our national media go psycho bonkers on covering the VA Tech massacre, filling in gaps with Anna Nicole's baby and the NASA nut.

Yes, it was horrible and sad. But the blanket coverage, the constant repetition, showing the same cell phone shot video footage, the repeated broadcasting of the psycho killer's home videos and photos-- it was disgusting-- a disgusting, unacceptable use of the public airwaves.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=opedne_rob_kall_070422_cable_news__war_agai.htm

Gary, grate find, it finaly makes sense. Either an experiment gone wrong or could not take it anymore. We saw PhD. students at MIT end up in hospital with nervouse brake downs.

THEY GO TOO FAR!!! Don't touch my chocolate!!

The War On Chocolate
By: Nicole Belle on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 10:13 AM - PDT You can take away our civil liberties, you can take away our expectations of privacy, but when you take away our chocolate, you've gone too far! (/snark)

Modesto Bee: (h/t OK)

The federal Food and Drug Administration is proposing to redefine the very essence of chocolate and to allow big manufacturers such as Hershey to sell a bar devoid of a key ingredient - cocoa butter. The butter's natural texture could be replaced with inferior alternatives, such as vegetable fats. And consumers would never know.

Chocolatier Gary Guittard said it best: "No one can afford to sit back and eat bonbons while America's great passion for chocolate is threatened."

For every defender of traditional chocolate, there are powerful proponents who want to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil: the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Snack Food Association. These industry titans have filed a "citizens petition" to the FDA, as the Los Angeles Times recently reported, as if there were some groundswell in society to water down chocolate.

At the moment, chocolate requires two basic ingredients - cocoa and cocoa butter. Cocoa provides much of the flavor; cocoa butter, the texture. So if, say, Hershey wanted to make a chocolate bar without cocoa butter, it can under today's rules. The product has to be labeled "chocolate flavored" (for it still has the cocoa in it) rather than "chocolate." That gives the consumer a signal that something less than chocolate lies beneath the wrapping. To help defend chocolate, visit www.dontmesswithourchocolate.com and learn how to submit feedback to the FDA.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/22/the-war-on-chocolate/

A MUST READ! Sheryl Crow and Laurie David read KKKArl Rover the Riot Act on Global Warming--if you don't already love Sheryl(and I do love that Aquarian goddess, myself)you will after reading this!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david-and-sheryl-crow/karl-rove-gets-thrown-und_b_46501.html

namaste and love y'all!!
GLT

Noble Resolve 07: Four days of “simulated” nuclear terrorist scenarios in the US & Europe

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ABR20070420&articleId=5444
From April, 23 to April 27, the elite echelon of the military are running Noble Resolve 07, a four-day marathon of “simulated” terror attacks across the US and Europe. This includes a simulated detonation of a “loose” ten-kiloton nuclear weapon Virginia harbor, smuggled in by a “foreign nation.”

This week Dick Cheney has also been warning of the “very real” threat of a nuclear attack on an American city. Could the Nobel Resolve drills be used as a screen for a false-flag attack to be blamed on Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, or sheep-dipped Americans like Adam Gadahn?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0704/S00350.htm
Did Bush Commit Election Fraud? - Gonzales Story - Smoking Gun #1

If so...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4447
THE UNDERLYING CRIME: White House Interference into a U.S. Attorney's Criminal Investigation in Missouri

The Elder Bush's.......on Larry King tonight....Their wonderful work to cure cancer!!!!!!!!!!
Oh I just can't wait!!
QOP

Will poppy break down and cry for us again? Someone tell me because I'm not watching it.

From MCM:

First of all, it turns out that the same computer network that hosted the secret WH email in the latest Gonzo scandal also hosted Ohio's official websites for presidential vote-counting and election results.

And that's not all.

It turns out that, on Election Night 2004, the "live" returns on Ken Blackwell's website were frozen for 90 minutes after Kerry had been deemed the winner in Ohio's biggest cities. Only then did the (apparent) totals from Ohio's GOP-majority counties come in, pushing Bush over the top (apparently). As Fitrakis and Rosenfeld show, those totals were largely based on fraudulent numbers.

Bush/Cheney were not elected.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2553

The GOP's cyber election hit squad
by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis

Government Report Slams "Emergency" War Funding Request

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042307A.shtml

Jason Leopold reports that: "Nearly half of the $94 billion in emergency funding President Bush says Congress needs to immediately make available to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would actually be used to finance non-urgent items related to the so-called "longer war on terror." The revelation once again casts further doubt on the president's assertion that the Army will run out of funding this month for US troops fighting in those regions, according to a report issued by the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.

Was Couric a mistake for CBS...see poll...

http://www.philly.com/philly/polls/7151057.html?submit=Vote&oid=1&mr=1&cid=8500281&pid=7151057

http://www.star-telegram.com/389/story/76601.html

An insidious scheme to turn back the clock on voting rights in Texas tragically has once again made its way to the state House floor.

The architects of this idea, pitched as a noble effort to prevent voter fraud, cannot be allowed to succeed with what is surely one of the greatest assaults on the right to vote in this state since passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Two bills are scheduled for debate Monday in the lower chamber: House Bill 218, which would require a photo ID along with a voter registration card to cast a ballot, and HB 626, which would require a certified copy of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate to register to vote.

Opponents, who promise an intense floor fight, note that such requirements put undue hardships particularly on ethnic minorities, the elderly and the poor. They also say that these bills were introduced because these citizens are also believed to trend toward voting Democratic.

Recent published reports have indicated that there was an organized effort, allegedly hatched in the White House, to suppress voter turnout during the 2006 election by getting state legislatures to pass more stringent voter identification laws and by conjuring up allegations of widespread voter fraud in some battleground counties and states.

A photo ID bill passed the House during the last legislative session but was defeated in the Senate.

Considering the cost of certified copies of documents, these bills are, in effect, proposing a new poll tax. A certified copy of a birth certificate costs $23; a passport is $85; a naturalization certificate is $200.

John Kerry on WTC builing 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn4Yx1MTgfQ&mode=related&search=

video 9/11 Videos:
THE CONTROLLED COLLAPSE OF WTC 7

Take a close look at the manner in which WTC 7 collapses straight down. For the building to collapse in this fashion, all of the load bearing supports would have had to fail at exactly the same time.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc7.html

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=9834

A VAST WHITEWATER CONSPIRACY - – - THE MOVIE!

These conning cons/repugs try so many ways to detract from the MAIN and ONLY cause for all these
tragedies and that is the lawless NRA and the coddling rotten repugs. The current VA massacre put all the blame 100% on the cons and their nra
pets and on the VA administrators, not the psychologists since cho who got admission to a good school like VA Tech is not an extreme case etc. These are the latest distractions from these
nra and cons and I don't believe everything they have to spew for your and my gumption.

in the above typo, I mean NOT on VA administrators
and not psychologists.

Not all radical fundies are bushaholic fans... http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n2033.cfm

They may not be Bush fans but they still don't have a sense of humor. As much as I hate all things Bush it was really just a joke. But still, women, who are barely second class citizens oughtn't to tell dirty bestiality jokes, even if they are true.

Jeez, Pat, who is that little gossiper reporting on the Whitewater movie plans? At least the Clintons are not asking someone to lie about someone's actual actions as the entire swiftboat thing did.
I am not a Hillary supporter but I hated the smirking tone in that review- the tone reminds me of Tucker Carlson who regularly makes me want to disfigure him.

Well Babs & Co was very faux & bland, no tears. "petrified denial"!
But Anderson Cooper has just announced that the contaminated wheat gluten has entered the human food chain...................
will post when AC talks about it!
QOP

Hey! Go have a little poll fun (in Espanol, too!)
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/182/story/31269.html

(I used to post polls a lot, for it gave me something to do during the direst times when we were in our little boats out on a tempestuous sea, and I hoped it would give others a chance to vent just a tiny bit. Over time, the polls began to change and we were, slowly, joined by more and more people. Someone anonymously posted about how worthless the polls were, for we were not truly voting and nobody cared and so forth. That person was correct. But it did give us an outlet--and people do look at those polls. Thnx.)

clymela, I'm betting the movie will be good.

Sorry I got a phone call & didn't wach the food thing.......but here's another.......................
Just to be clear : eating the new frozen sushi line that's coming out this summer won't result in more whales being killed, it merely will increase the profits of the leading Japanese whaling company and send money to the Unification Church, which bankrolls the Washington Times and the America religious right. And, of course, the new sushi line will probably speed up the rate at which the world's oceans are being stripped of large fish.
Back in the early 1980's Unification Church head Sun Myung Moon advised his followers to go into fishing. In a 1983 Moon talk, given, judging by the title of this piece from the Unification Church's website, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Sun Myung Moon explained:......................
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/4/23/15249/4612
QOP

Michael Collins has been following the election frauds for years and absolutely has his finger on what is going on. Thanks for posting it Pat C. and luna I agree with you. If George Sr. is going to cry again spare me.

No GHW didn't cry again.....it was all about a VERY BELATED Celebration of Robin Bush's short life, the cancer unit in her name etc.
OOOOOOOps about 53 years too late! Not going to save the family firm!
DId anyone read the Bush Family Moon over on Smirking Chimp?
Not posting the link becase it is very slow to load, as is AW. Any one else experiencing a delay with loading this site?
QOP

Pat C. I bet you are right about the movie: bet it will be good. I mean if they already need to sic the dogs.
I know that my eyes rolled, involuntarily, on the announcement of Babs interest in cancer research.
I wouldn't mind Bush 1's tears if he dedicated all the family's Nazi wealth to those "already underprivileged" people displaced by Katrina.
Has anyone noticed that part of the Republican game plan seems to be the public support of worthy charities? See they really are nice people!!! The "liberal media" just done them wrong. Really!! they care!!!!

You're welcome Sally. (-:

Whitewater is just one piece of a symtom of a well honed system of ugly politics that has been practiced by the GOP for some time now. Some examples, starting with the movie that is coming out. Hillary was telling the truth.

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=9834

Along with her husband Bill (he was President of the United States for eight years or so), Hillary was hounded by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr for her involvement in a failed real estate deal, from which she allegedly (and illegally) profited. Though indictments were handed down for several of the Clintons' friends, including McDougal, the investigation yielded very little in the way of abject misconduct. The Clintons were ultimately never charged for any wrongdoing related to the venture, though the politically motivated Starr did find time to get good and obsessed over Bill's propensity for banging fat chicks.

.......

RNC network which hosts WH emails also hosted Ohio election night vote counts. Could a Congressional Investigation into the RNCs email accounts lead to an investigation (finally!) into Ohio 2004?:

http://www.alternet.org/story/50941

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

......

http://www.bradblog.com/

"Hearne had been both Blunt's right-hand legal man for some time; as well as a GOP point man in Florida in 2000 (but who wasn't?); as well as the Bush/Cheney '04 general counsel in Missouri (at the specific, personal request of Dubya's uncle, Bucky Bush, according to Thor himself in Missouri Lawyer's Weekly); before he then became the Bush/Cheney '04 national general counsel; and after the election, he became the founder of the scam "non-partisan" GOP front group calling itself "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR); which was, in turn, behind virtually every report, initiative, claim, piece of legislation, Congressional testimony, legal case, "official commission," or public statement concerning the cooked-up case for the mythical epidemic of Democratic "voter fraud" that has been at the heart of the GOP/White House/DoJ attempts at vote-shaving via politicization and suppression at the ballot box since at least 2004."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0704/S00350.htm

Cong. Heather Wilson (R-NM) trailed her Democratic opponent in the first congressional district. She needed help. It appears that she requested a boost from U.S. Attorney Iglesias in the form of a timely pre election scandal involving a prominent Democrat. That’s how Iglesias read her phone call concerning a pre election indictment.

Sen. Pete Domenici, (R-NM) called Iglesias as well. According to Iglesias, there was a clearly implied request for a pre midterm Democratic sacrifice at the altar of election injustice. Iglesias reports that when he refused on the grounds that he lacked evidence (one of those minor details that tends to annoy those in power), Domenici simply stayed on the phone … silent.

Iglesias was gone in a heartbeat for not cooperating with a prosecution that would influence the 2006 midterm elections in his state. But who made the decision? Fingers were pointed but nothing stuck until last week. The Albuquerque Journal reports that during talks with Sen. Domenici, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to fire Iglesias unless the president gave the OK.

Well, Iglesias was fired wasn’t he? Gonzales denied culpability, inferring his DOJ subordinate Kyle Simpson made those decisions. Simpson fired that charge back at Gonzales. But the Albuquerque Journal article provides the missing piece. Gonzales wouldn’t move on Iglesias without a Bush sanction. How do these pieces fit together?

I notice that many of my regular sites are "slow loaders"
I have been experiencing problems loading Astroworld but rather after I get to the first level. The middle part that I went to to read the preview and then tap to get to the entire article and the responses is now always blank and I have to use the index on the side by double clicking until I finally get where I want to go.
I thought that this is caused by some Windows thing trying to convince me that Mac is too obscure to rely on.

Some time ago, Cap'n Sally told us that Ohio would just keep on giving (in terms of scandal). Here's some more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471361

Let's hope Dems in Senate & House get on this one "right quick like" (said best with a Southern accent).

I'm having trouble loading AW also. More so than other sites. And this is recent, perhaps the last couple of weeks.

* Low-key office launches high-profile inquiry
The Office of Special Counsel will investigate US atty firings & other political activities led by Karl Rove. ... http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-probe24apr24,0,3535547.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/134

Karl Rove's Jim Crow Voter Suppression Machine is Humming Along Just Fine, All Ready for 2008

...........

http://www.star-telegram.com/100/story/77243.html

U.S. dollar's decline has wide-reaching effects
By TIM PARADIS The Associated Press

NEW YORKDuring the Great Depression, New York's ebullient mayor Fiorello LaGuardia dubbed the popular marble lions that frame the steps of the city's main library Patience and Fortitude -- a reference to the strengths the city's denizens would need to summon to survive the economic tumult.

Robert Brown, chief investment officer at Genworth Financial Asset Management, contends that Americans will eventually need to call on those same attributes if the U.S. dollar continues to fall as he and many other analysts expect.

"The forces are so clear-cut, so self-reinforcing," he said of the decline. "Nobody can figure out the timing."

snip

Brown said if the value of the dollar drops by half, as he predicts, there could be wide-ranging social changes as well as poorer consumers being forced to pay more for goods now produced abroad.

"One of the most potent forces may just be most fundamentally a change in the standard of living," he said, questioning what would happen if the dollar fell by half but prices doubled. "That will be one more reason why the decade ahead will be at a societal level a little less easygoing," he said.

Off topic, but I promised to report on my efforts to quit smoking after 44 years. I had an allergic reaction to the Resolve after 3 weeks of taking it. Broke out in hives all over my body. (But then, I developed an allergy to mosquito and black fly bites 4 years ago, go figure.)

Since then, I've started taking Chantix, prescribed by my allergy specialist. It blocks your brain receptors from receiving nicotine, thus no dopamine. I believe the drug itself delivers a small dose of dopamine. Not positive about that. Either way, I was able to quit April 13 after about 12 days on Chantix. I'll be taking this medication, all total, for 3 months, which is the suggested time. I don't believe, at this time, that I'll smoke again. I found a pack of cigarettes in my purse on smoke-free day 6 and chose not to smoke them. Instead I sent them with my husband as a gift to whoever. He gave them to someone at work. So I would definitely recommend Chantix to anyone who is having trouble with quitting.

And, because I had to order it online and couldn't get it locally, I still have 3 unopened boxes of Resolve. If anyone is interested in trying it, I would be more than happy to send them to you. I hate to throw away $75 worth of something that might help someone else.

CONGRATULATIONS kristi!!

.........

Future dopeslap for the maladministration:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index.html

Watch the First New Bill Moyers Program: “Buying the War.” We’ve screened it, and it is superb! Check your local television time for April 25. It is a remarkable reconfirmation of how the American media enabled—through passivity, indifference and neglect—the Iraq War, without challenging the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld manufactured lies

Well, thank you!! This time all was easy and fast. Whatever it was is gone now. I was able to enter Astroworld perfectly.
Kristi wonderful news for you . I have a family member who has not been able to make the change maybe your new information about Chantix will do it for her.

Waxman's Tillman hearings are now on C-Span 3.

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan3_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3

Continuing on my debunking another myth that every
time, there is a senseless massacre or OK bombing
first the cons and nra crooks take this mentally
deranged card(just like some use race card) and then the media pick up the same crap and 99% is brainwashed here putting the blame on the person was mentally ill, psychologists failed their duty,
hympty dumpty saying we could not have prevented it-it was being wrong place at the wrong time-blah
blah,blah and all this is garbage 100%. Put all the blame squarely on nra and these sucking up crooked cons who won't tighten up the gun laws to coddle their nra crooked pals and get campaign money big time. Let me tell you here, the McDonald
massacre 25 years ago in San Diego was NOT by mentally ill;mcveigh OK bombing was NOT by mentally ill; columbine massacre by two boys-they
were NOT mentally ill;VA Tech massacre cho was above average guy to get admission to that good school, so neither was he mentally ill. How's that cho faxed what he wanted the media to see and
hear, killed himself instead of surrendering and getting arrested, so he knew exactly what he was doing; govt to absolve them and their cronies nra
keep blaming them as mentally ill and the media repeats it verbatim and brainwashes all and sundry. Let us put the blame where it belongs on
the repugs and their abettors nra and prosecute all of them to the max. This misinformation from govt. and media MUST STOP.

Want another misinfo by govt. Take inflation- running at 0.1% per govt. data. Gas prices have jumped from $2.1 to $2.8 in 2 months and that is 30% in 2 months. I know items have gone up 20 cents on $2.00 last 2 months and that is 10% infaltion in 2 months and it is laughable that Wall Street, govt. stock market all cook up numbers and say inflation is 1% per year. It is ridiculous! I read recently that in Argentina, the govt. does the same - cook up false inflation numbers BUT there the people laugh at their govt. lies and are NOT hoodwinked unlike here!

Sorry, JoannaO, but that Scott Bloch character could be used for a wonderful white-wash job. See this and other stuff you can find on him on the internets
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18295

Perhaps, shy... that would be a 3-Di rational conclusion; however, we may be in for a more pleasant surprise d/t a twist of fate. ;O)

* The Idols of Environmentalism

Environmental destruction proceeds apace in spite of all the warnings, the good science, the 501(c)3 orgs with their memberships in the millions, the poll results, & the martyrs perched high in the branches of sequoias or shot dead in the Amazon. This is so not because of a power, a strength out there that we must resist. It is because we are weak & fearful. Only a weak & fearful society could invest so much desperate energy in protecting activities that are the equivalent of suicide. ... http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/233

Raj, I'm angry too, and I suspect we all are, but lashing out with such venom here may not be the best usage of that anger.

Most people here in America were not trained to think for themselves so they accept what they are told. Frankly, I wish I could share their beliefs that their government would never harm them and only has their best interest at heart, but unfortunately, the cynical skeptic in me discarded those fairy tale notions long ago.

And regarding guns--the Founding Fathers have proven themselves time and time again to have been brilliantly, even supernaturally prescient on most everything else in the Constitution--could they also have been so wrong about guns? Until somebody proves to me that they(the FF's) were wrong about the idea of civilian militias, I won't give up on guns.

(Plus: VTech is a CIA training ground, as was pointed out in one of the articles I posted above. I say any hint of CIA involvement trumps everything else the "media" reports.)

With due love and respect to all!
GLT

Here's some more on that Block guy
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/112227/576

Now a great cartoon subject!

http://extras.sltrib.com/bagley/

Started to apologize for 'Block' instead of 'Bloch', but, come to think of it, either one seems to connote what he will probably be doing.

Cristl - Congratulations! I am trying to quit as well, and liked the results I got with Resolve, but ran out and now I'm waiting for disability checks that have been pending for 6 weeks and can't afford to re-order. I'd be willing to take them off your hands and pay you for them when the checks start, which I am hoping will happen in about 2-3 weeks if all goes well.

If there's not a link to my email below, let me know and I'll post an address.

thanks - and again, huzzah for you!

Gosh, I'm surprised it took them so long, but here they are--the "Blame Clinton" GOP'ers are talking about subpoenaing Clinton-era emails as a backlash against the Dems' currently doing the same for KKKarl's emails....does anybody think this is a good idea besides their right-wing rah-rah-machine(aka "the media")?

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/GOP_may_target_Clinton_Administration_emails_0424.html

There's more! The investigation of the investigator
http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fblogs%2Fcapitalgames%3Fpid%3D189590

Garry Todd, one has to be angry and lash out(if there is a legitimate reason) and not let the cons
tell all lies from WMD in Iraq to wage an illegal
war and lose 3600 US young and old lives to tell
lies about Pat Tillman's and Lynch's stories about what happened to economic data like inflation from month to month (big lies when inflation is at least 5% or may be 9% say it is 1%
blame all the massacres on mentally ill, when it should squarely fall on the nras flouting all the
laws and repugs/cons sucking up to them and have loop holes besides the laxest gun laws(there are
no gun CONTROL laws at all), it is just buy whatever you want from automatic to supermax automatic. This whole gun control laws by cons is
a sham just to placate people who clamour for real gun control laws, it is laughable but for the
reality that every massacre is resulting in loss
of 30 lives at least on an average. So I'll not let these cons get away with this MURDER. NEVER
EVER.

By the way stating FACTS, is not the same as lasing out venom. If you want to hear or see venom spewing out, listen to ann cunter or sean insanity or fatso idiotic limba, they spew venom
24/7 in their talk shows, not me. I just stated the FACTS, just the FACTS and I won't be afraid to do so in spite of all the fear mongering by chuney,bush,rowe etal.

NEWSLETTER

Wednesday on Bill Moyers Journal - "Buying the War"

_This gutsy program is essential viewing for explaining
how punditry often overshadows journalism on television._
- Orlando Sentinel

"Every American should watch it, especially those, like me, who naïvely bought into
a war sold on false pretenses..... Much on television is junk. I_d call 'Buying the War' must-see TV."
- Providence Journal

"It takes us through its argument free of hyperbole...
This is the kind of work that should be shown to journalism students as a warning about
how dangerous a cowed press can be to democracy's health."
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer

How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?

On Wednesday, April 25 at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), watch "Buying the War," a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, which includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the Press; and Walter Isaacson, former chairman and CEO of CNN.

Two days later on April 27, Bill Moyers Journal airs in its regular timeslot on Fridays (check local listings).

Friday on Bill Moyers Journal
Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show

Josh Marshall, publisher of Talking Points Memo
On The Moyers Blog:
Discuss "Buying the War" with Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) immediately following the broadcast.

Watch a clip from the premiere episode of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, as Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, talks about the reporting he was seeing and reading out of the beltway, and Knight Ridder's John Walcott and Warren Strobel discuss their work burrowing deep into the intelligence agencies to determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war.

Respond to Bill Moyers who considers John Walcott's take on the role of the press in the lead-up to the war in a speech Walcott recently delivered.

Tune in, log on and tell us what you think, and we'll see you Fridays on PBS and everyday at pbs.org/moyers.

Kucinich Announces Impeachment Charges Against Vice President Cheney :

By Michael Roston

"The weight of the lies used to lead us into war has grown heavier with each death. Now is the time for Congress to examine the actions that led us into this war, just as we must work to bring the troops home. This resolution is a very serious matter, and I will urge the Committee on Judiciary to investigate and carefully consider this resolution."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17590.htm

===

The War Goes Ever On

By Paul Craig Roberts

What Bush has demonstrated to Muslims is that American democracy is unresponsive to citizens and voters. Bush has demonstrated to the world that the US government is controlled by a small oligopoly of vested interests, the public be damned.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17584.htm

===

We Just Marched In (So We Can Just March Out)

Hon. Ron Paul Of Texas
Before the U.S. House of Representatives

Why the dilemma? The American people have spoken, and continue to speak out, against this war. So why not end it? How do we end it? Why not exactly the way we went in? We just marched in, and we can just march out.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17588.htm

Raj, from the sound of what Cho was doing, how people felt about him (frightened and fearful) it sure sounds like Cho had some mental problems. I know that what I read in the SF Chronicle mentioned his being examined and held because of the belief there was something seriously wrong with him. He certainly did not get along with anyone, which is sure a sign of emotional problems. What is it iexactly you are trying to say about him? I don't follow what you are angry about.

Since my cable company, which is a municipal one, did an upgrade to its system last week, it has taken an average of 3 MINUTES for AW to load. That is way too much time, and everything else took a long time also. I couldn't get thru to the cable company, sent them an email, never heard back.

I didn't time this one, but it was more than 2 minutes I'd bet.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=newsfromunderground

Mark Crispin Miller on voter fraud

Thanks PatC.

Clymela, I do believe your family member can quit smoking with the Chantix, assuming they want to quit. The "want to" has to be there, of course, or you'd never take the Chantix in the first place. I know it would matter to you so I am having great visions of your smoke free family member!

I had a nurse tell me today that the recommended time for taking Chantix is 6 months, so I may have been wrong about the 3 month time period.....either way, it works for me and if necessary I'll take it for 6 months. That's peanuts compared to 44 years.

You're most welcome kristi!

Josh Marshall, TPM

Wanna see Karl Rove explain where the vote fraud 'hotspots' are across the country and how many US Attorneys from those 'hotspots' got canned?

We dug up the video of an April 7th 2006 speech Rove gave to the Republican National Lawyers Association in which Rove gives a run-down of six vote fraud 'hotspots'. Of those six 'hotspots', the US Attorneys from three ended up on the chopping block.

Take a look.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013817.php

http://donkeyod.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/the-neocon-paradox/#more-2925

The Neocon Paradox - Guest Columnist ROBERT WRIGHT

Neoconservatives have been airing an explanation for the failure of the Iraq war that’s so obvious you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself: the war wasn’t neoconservative enough.

Last week Richard Perle, on “The Charlie Rose Show,” echoed what his fellow neocon John Bolton told the BBC last month: We should have turned Iraq over to the Iraqis much sooner. Then, presumably, the power of democracy to blossom pronto in even nutrient-depleted soil — the neocon élan vital — would have kicked in.

Nice try, but they’re just digging themselves in deeper. They’re highlighting a paradox within the neocon game plan that would have doomed this war even if it had been run competently (enough troops, a dollop of postwar planning, etc.).

On the one hand, we were going to bring democracy to Iraq. On the other hand, we were going to use Iraq as a platform for exercising military power. (Days after Baghdad fell, the neocon Weekly Standard festively titled an article “There’s No Place Like Iraq … for U.S. Military Bases.”)

More...

The adventure comic book (eg batman/robin, superman, spiderman, man this, man that) all have a supervillain to fight "to the death"... a supervillain who always demands to Rule The World. It just embarrasses me to tears & moans that that's exactly to what "man" is always getting up (you know, along with the other "that"). Napoleon, neocons, stalin, putin, who's the latest these days in israel, alexander the great idiot, the on-going black jackbooted line thruout history of stampers, trompers, kickers, & killers... all with the emotional age of about ten years old. It just stays the same doesn't it... they never, ever grow up. They belong in prison psych units, not floundering in "ruling" positions of the world. A pox on ALL of them! ...the stupid cartoon "rulers" & the stupid cartoon "ruled!"

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/24/pigeons-meet-roost/

Pigeons, Meet Roost.

After six years of doing whatever they wanted with no consequences, the Bush administration finally faces a reckoning. New investigations of BushCo. crimes appear almost as frequently as the crimes themselves did, and I am loving it. The past couple of days have been especially good, with a pair of investigations I was really happy about.

The first is Waxman's pursuit of the lax White House security revealed in his CIA Leak hearing. If you thought Knodell's testimony about the lack of an investigation of the leak was damning, check out Waxman's letter to Andy Card:

More...

Frae ghosties an' ghoulies, an' long-leggity beasties, an' things tha' go bump! in th' night may th' Dear [Goddess] protect us. - Auld Scottish prayer

I've been having trouble loading AW but not anything else. I use Safari and I found that if I click on the 'X' which is the refresh button at the top the site loads instantly.

I've also noticed that when I move the mouse across the page (without clicking or pressing it) it acts like a roll-over and all the text disappears. It has to be the server for the site because this is the only site that has this problem.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_co_070424_failed_states_2c_the_c.htm

Failed States, the Coming Mexican Revolution

snip

Since NAFTA was passed Mexican productivity is up 25% and Mexican real wages are down 10% that coupled with 40% of the population already living under the poverty level. Not the American poverty level the Mexican poverty level, a 10% decline when you’re living at subsistence levels to begin with is the difference between swimming and sinking.

But the media perpetuated myth is that we are increasing trade with Mexico but 85% of all of Mexico’s foreign trade is with the U.S. 10% is with other Latin American countries. Ford exports auto parts to Mexico then imports the completed autos back across the border. Paying only a fraction of the American wage so that neither the Mexican nor the unemployed American autoworker can afford to purchase the car. Mexico is a plantation state and corporate America are the owners the Mexican government merely the overseers; to complain or to file grievances is to invite disaster or death.

The Mexican police, government and even the Army work for the highest bidder for it’s a system with failure built in. There is no chance for advancement through legal means for an honest policeman he would watch his family suffer and make himself a target in a jungle of corruption. A country of 108 millions with 40% hungry yet 1% control 35.9% of all money in circulation, for every $100 in the Mexican economy $35.90 is in the pocket of one million eighty thousand Mexicans. Leaving the remainder of the $64.10 to be divided by 107 million Mexicans, two Mexico’s the haves and the get the f*ck out of here’s.

The American government not content with exporting poverty and environmental degradation now plan on the free trade model to import poverty and pollution to this country as well. The plan is to allow Mexican truckers to traverse America’s highways at Mexican wages to in fact import the Mexican minimum wage. All is equitable they claim as American companies can apply to travel on Mexican highways at American wages, but so far no takers.

More...

Judigem, I'm just stating the facts without brainwashed by media or the bushies with his they
were at the wrong place at the wrong time and wash his hands off the massacre and as usual humpty dumpty owes no responsibility for his wrong
lax, loopeholes filled gun laws passed by his repug cons, wrong enforcement and wrong punishment
for his nra pals, that should make anyone mad at this shifting responsibilities from them to brand
cho as mentally ill and let people solve these
problems by themselves. By the way, also I would like to ask these rotten wing fanatics, who can live without air, water or food but can't live without their gun, does Bible say, one should pack heat and carry a gun OR did bible say Thou shalt NOT kill, in which case you don't need to pack heat and carry a gun.

http://salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/25/tillman_lynch/

The Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch frauds

It is difficult to watch these clips http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#4371864122223642625 from yesterday's House hearings investigating the absolute, deliberate lies regarding Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch fed to the American public by the U.S. military -- with an eager and accommodating assist from our excellent and intrepid media -- and feel anything other than disgust (and this is just beyond comment). But as anger-inducing as it all is, there is really nothing remarkable about any of it.
What these episodes actually do is illustrate how virtually every rotted and broken branch of our political and media culture operate:
First, it has been well-known for several years that the U.S. military outright invented lies regarding literally every aspect of the Jessica Lynch story. And the Tillman family for years has been vocally complaining about the lies they were told by the Pentagon regarding the circumstances surrounding Pat Tillman's death, the pressure on other soldiers to conceal the truth, and the crass and disgusting exploitation of those lies to serve the administration's political interests. None of this is new. So why is Congress holding hearings to investigate these matters only now?
The answer, of course, is because the Republicans who controlled Congress for the last four years absolutely suppressed any attempt whatsoever to exert oversight on the administration. They not only investigated nothing, they aggressively blocked every real investigation into allegations of wrongdoing and corruption on the part of the administration. Our government literally ceased to function the way it is designed to, because Congressional Republicans deliberately abdicated their duty of checks on the executive and actively helped to conceal every improper and deceitful act.
The only reason any of this is being aired now is because the American people removed the President's party from control of Congress and they are no longer able to keep concealed the Bush administration's misconduct.

More...

Re: AW loading very, very slow. I noticed that while it's taking a very long time loading AW lately, that at the bottom left of the page it's loading paypal, which seems to be what's taking a long time to load. So apparently the left bar and heading loads first, then paypal, then the rest of the page. Again, paypal seems to be what's holding things up. Wonder if there's any way to change the order in which things load, having Paypal load last? Just curious....

Before we voted them out of office, the Do-Nothing Republican Congress and the Media were not only derelict in that they didn't investigate or question anything, but in that they also lied us into war. It isn't just Bush and Cheney and Rice who baldly lied. The New York Times lied via Judith Miller. FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC and ABC as well as The Newshour lied just as much in our faces. They are complicit in the crimes against humanity. Hand in hand, with full knowledge of what they were doing. But I bet they continue to claim they were duped.

If I and we knew the truth just by actively looking for it, then they knew the truth. It has not been hard to find the truth, once you realize you're being fed a pack of lies. Not lies of innocent omission or ignorance., but deliberate and pre-meditated lies.

Kristl,
My page load hung up for the blog ads, though I have seen waits for the UK moon and pay pal. Not sure there's much that could be done. I'm on high speed cable modem.

Congratz all you quitting smoking smokers! I'll pass on the info to my husband, he hasn't kicked the habit, two stents later.

Work has been all consuming hope to catch a break and find my sanity again soon.

Is everyone getting Bill Moyers 90 minute program on PBS tonight?
I have cable out of NY and the Direct TV schedule shows a Frontline scheduled for 9:pm.
I was going to run for the old rabbit ears, Sony color TV but someone posted on DU. that Bangor Me local is running a fundraiser instead. If you check their blog it seems that a lot of areas in the country ARE NOT GETTING THAT BROADCAST!
Lunaoscura, yes the refresh button in Safari does bring in AW immediately! Thank you...............
Did everyone see the Bushes dancing at the wH today?
QOP

Woooh!
Olberman really laid out guliani tonight! Beautiful rant!
QOP

http://EarthPortal.org

http://www.dufoundation.org/

http://manyone.net/

The Earth Portal video was much diminished, by their head splitting, rapid percussion, sound. It was not up to the task of conveying the mystery, of the message, & the visuals............
Conversly, some of the classic masters, inspired awe, elation,and a sense of grandure. THEY understood the impact of the "pause" how it heightens the importance of what follows.
Jaquie Lawson understands this principle in her animated greeting cards..................
http://www.jacquielawson.com/cardlink.asp
Until the current "mucic collective" moves forward, I believe our efforts toward evolution are delayed.
QOP

According to this news report it is official, now. Iran to replace dollar with euro in foreign deals

http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=14745

TEHRAN: Iran announced Monday it has ordered the central bank to use euros for foreign transactions and transform the state's dollar-denominated assets held abroad into the single European currency.

"The government has ordered the central bank to replace the dollar with the euro to limit the problems of the executive organs in commercial transactions," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

"We will also employ this change for Iranian assets in dollars held abroad."

Elham implied that the move would apply to oil revenues from the world's number four crude producer, although it remains to be seen how the market would receive this.

"Foreign income sources and oil revenues will be calculated in euros and we will receive them in euros in order to put an end to our dependence on the dollar," Elham said.

http://www.hoffmania.com/blog/2007/04/olbermann_boils.html

"Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe and the remains of the dead recovered and not being used to fill potholes, Mr. Giuliani?".................
QOP

Blumenthal on SmirkCo & torture. All you have to do is watch one few-seconds commercial and go on in and read this. Whew!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/04/26/torture_policy/index1.html

An early thought for this years 4th of July.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_final_act_of_submission/

The Final Act of Submission,

...In this time of constitutional crisis, the American people need to wake up and demand that the basic tenets of the Constitution be adhered to. Congress is solely empowered by the Constitution to declare war. Demanding that the president of the United States adhere to this prerequisite is a logical and patriotic stance. Allowing any non-American interest, even one possessing such highly charged political and emotional sensitivities as Israel, to dictate otherwise represents nothing more than a capitulation of sovereignty. We the people need to rally around this defense of sovereignty...

....To state that AIPAC, and by extension Israel, is above the law in this regard is to acknowledge the reality that American national sovereignty no longer matters when it comes to the state of Israel...
.....pull down the Stars and Stripes and raise the Star of David over our nation’s capitol. While representing the final act of submission, it would also be the first truly honest act that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

An early thought for this years 4th of July.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_final_act_of_submission/

The Final Act of Submission,

...In this time of constitutional crisis, the American people need to wake up and demand that the basic tenets of the Constitution be adhered to. Congress is solely empowered by the Constitution to declare war. Demanding that the president of the United States adhere to this prerequisite is a logical and patriotic stance. Allowing any non-American interest, even one possessing such highly charged political and emotional sensitivities as Israel, to dictate otherwise represents nothing more than a capitulation of sovereignty. We the people need to rally around this defense of sovereignty...

....To state that AIPAC, and by extension Israel, is above the law in this regard is to acknowledge the reality that American national sovereignty no longer matters when it comes to the state of Israel...
.....pull down the Stars and Stripes and raise the Star of David over our nation’s capitol. While representing the final act of submission, it would also be the first truly honest act that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Senator Obama Praises U.S.-Israel Relationship, Calls Iran a Threat

In his address, Sen. Obama emphasized the urgency of stopping Iran's illicit nuclear activities. "The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," Obama said. "It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy."

http://www.aipac.org/351_2776.asp

Ohps! Mr Obama just lost me big-time!! WhaddaPILE of scripted party-line doo-doo!

Sho' is hard to come by photo ops of bushaholic & its, Poodle, tblair ain't it? Seems that their "special relationship" has rather suffered some quality & quantity of time. ;O)

Come to think on it, bushadruggie is quite the loner these days.

Except that the skirts of laura bush have just been dragged back on stage to chirp that no one suffers like she & bushie because of this "war." Oh woe... she & bushaAWOLdeserter suffer like nobody suffers... suffer, suffer, suffer.... http://buzzfeed.com/buzz/The_Pains_of_Being_Laura_Bush

Ahhh, but JoannaO, just take a look at this photo album
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/SoCalDem/20

Sally, how do you think this will play out? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/congress_subpoenas_rice;_ylt=ArxG_CszupDLsi67KifD8a6s0NUE

Sally, I second Teresa's question. Can Rice do that? I mean I guess she can try, but can she actually do that?

........

Vermont Senate Votes To Impeach

The impeachment movement, which has been building steam since the November election, got a big boost this morning when the Vermont Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the US Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 16-9 vote, which saw the Senate's six Republicans joined by only three Democrats on the losing side, will make it difficult for Vermont House Speaker Gaye Symington, a Democrat who has opposed the impeachment resolution drive, to keep the measure from being voted on the House floor. Symington has been arguing against such a resolution, claiming it would be "divisive."
The vote in the state senate was a huge victory for grassroots Democratic activists, who had been forced over recent months to overcome opposition to impeachment from the national Democratic Party leadership, and from their own state's Democratic Congressional Delegation. Leading Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been arguing that impeachment could hurt Democratic prospects among independent voters in the November 2008 elections. But impeachment activists have countered that the president and vice president have violated the law and undermined the Constitution, and that it is inappropriate to let strategic and tactical interests of the Democratic Party enter into the decision on whether to impeach.

More....

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04232007.html

http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/04/when_journalism_became_transcr.html

When Journalism Became Transcription and Reporting Disappeared
By David Sirota

In all this cacophony about cunti rice, is that
only months ago, the repug party experts were
gearing up for a presidential race in 2008 between
their highly idolized cunti rice and Democrats'
Hillary Cliton. Where is the cons' female version
of ronnie now?

* SATURN-NEPTUNE AND THE SELF

Buddhism has what is known as the ‘no-self’ doctrine which, applied to all phenomena, becomes the doctrine of emptiness (of which there are a number of kinds!) It’s easy for all this to become very heady – which some Buddhists can be very prone to – but the basic idea is that our sense of who we are is not fixed & enduring. As astrologers we’re on familiar territory here, because we regularly observe ourselves & others changing in times of major transits. But we only believe it partially: if we feel criticised, for example, we tend to want to defend ourselves, to protect our sense of who we are, instead of looking at the criticism with equanimity, & taking it on or discarding it as we feel appropriate.

So this is the reason for the ‘no-self’ doctrine: as human beings we treat what is a working construct – the self or ego – as something permanent, something that gives us a sense of security in an uncertain universe. ... http://astrotabletalk.blogspot.com/

He is such an excellent astrologer Joanna. Thanks so much.

.......

You can still see the Moyers program, or pass it on to those who missed it. Really really right on, finally.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

Whew!

http://tinselwing.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/gonzales-downfall-predicted-in-the-bible/

Gonzales downfall predicted in the Bible

The blogosphere in its terseness has taken lately to referring to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as AGAG. It had been tickling something in the back of my brain, something which finally surfaced this afternoon.

No doubt the reason it took so long is the exceeding cuddliness of the man. Yes, he stood at Dubya’s side, ruthlessly railroading God knows how many Texas innocents into the death chamber; yes, he strove manfully to help maximize the number of shattered souls driven to madness in Cheney’s secret oubliettes around the world; and yes, he has dedicated himself more single-mindedly than any AG in history to replacing the rule of law throughout the precincts of Justice with the rule of lackies. But, hey. Not for nothing has he been the runner-up for three years straight in the national Pillsbury Doughboy Lookalike Contest.

But his doom has been prefigured in holy writ....

The debate stunk!

Kuchinich and Gavel star...Edwards beats Hilary
and Obama. Richardson and Dodd, VP wannabes...
Biden a loser.

That was NO DEBATE! It was an ADHD, NCLB multiple choice quiz........
( DO you ) Think Neil Bush wrote the questions?
Gavel will get a stake thru the heart just like Dean, He's honest!
I vote for a Gavel/Kuchinich ticket!
QOP

* Protect God's creation: Vatican issues new green message for world's Catholics

· Pope addresses climate change conference
· US church leaders lobby bush on global warming

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2066711,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

Is Penelope back? Or, is this a new Penelope?

....was an ADHD, NCLB multiple choice quiz

What is that?

ADHD ( jumping from one shortcutted sound bite to another in a different catagory. LACK OF FOCUS!)
NCLB ( No child left behind....( bypasses critical thinking in favor of predigested superficial answers.)
Any candidate trying to honestly present an idea, on an issue was cut off at the pass.
QOP

snip........No matter what your opinion has been on the Iraq War thus far, one thing is clear: Defense stocks have been great investments. And they continue to perform........snip

http://www.pennysleuth.com/issues/2007/04_26_07.html

You may buy a gun and shoot someone, impersonally from a distance. You may buy defense stocks and shoot thousands from your financial portfolio.

You can lend money for houses to those you know will not be able to repay those loans, but it is ok, because the loss will not be to you, because you have sold the loans.

On paper you can illegally short silver to hold down the price creating a spring to launch its price when you let go, but it's ok, because you are loading up on silver.

You can illegally print dollars, and even shoot US Presidents who try to stop you, but it's ok, because our dollar, as the world's reserve currency, is a big stick.

Do you think the TOOLS of finance need socializing?

Tip of the iceberg BTW. The Federal Reserve and the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) are privately owned.

I ran today on prisonplanet across a link to Taiwan stung by 10 Mill missing bees.
http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/29/the-bees-who-flew-too-high/

Google found this interesting link
http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/29/the-bees-who-flew-too-high/

We have a change in the magnetic field due to the increase in sun spot activity, we also have our magnetic pole moving away and we have an increase in seismic activity- increase in piezo electric charges from earth.

.....Since then, researchers have discovered that things such as the polarization of the light of the sun and local variations of the earth’s magnetic field affect the components of the dance, suggesting bees have sensitivities that would require re-writing our biology, physics and cosmology texts from scratch:

There is some research to support the view that bees are sensitive to effects that occur only on a quantum-mechanical scale.....

....The Stage: Sun and Earth
Other than the coincidence that a similar disappearance of bees and the precursor to a strong sunspot cycle both occurred at the same time, just as is happening now, how could such revelations be related to the solar cycle?....

sorry, correct link is
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/260407taiwan.htm

My conversation today,with his aide was so unsatisfactory It aroused my suspicions........ ( Her comment: sounded Repug! WHen questioned if he would support Kuvchinich's Impeach Cheney bill. SHe said he wouldn't.............'HE HAS HIS OWN OPINION."
SHE WAS VERY SUPERIOR & SNIPPY WITH ME
NOW I KNOW WHY..
HE'S A BLINKIN' JEWISH FUNDIE!
HIS FATHER IMMIGRATED FROM JERUSELEM AND WAS A ZIONIST RADICAL IN THE 40'S!!!!
He's torn between supporting Hillary & Barack!!

PLEASE don't flame me. respect my instincts! I'm just the messenger! I'm not antisemetic! The Jewish families who were so generous, and supportive of my talent in Philadelphia have signed that 2 page disclaimer, by Shalome, in The NAtion, against he present actions of Isreal's surrent government!
read this.....................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel
QOP

Rudi and The Donald...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Famericablog%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2Fsearch%2Flabel%2Frudy%2520giuliani

The view from Joe Biden...

Published on Thursday, April 26, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Democrats’ Timetable Allows U.S. War in Sunni Region to Go On

by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - The language on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq voted out of the House-Senate conference committee this week contains large loopholes that would apparently allow U.S. troops to continue carrying out military operations in Iraq’s Sunni heartland indefinitely.The plan, coming from the Democratic majority in Congress, makes an exemption from a 180-day timetable for completion of “redeployment” of U.S. troops from Iraq to allow “targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations of global reach.”

The al-Qaeda exemption, along with a second exemption allowing U.S. forces to re-enter Iraq to protect those remaining behind to train and equip Iraqi security forces and to protect other U.S. military forces, appears to approve the presence in Iraq of tens of thousands of U.S. occupation troops for many years to come.

The large loopholes in the Democratic withdrawal plan come against the background of the failure of the U.S. war against the insurgency — including al-Qaeda — in Anbar and other Sunni provinces and the emergence of a major war within the Sunni insurgency between non-jihadi resistance groups and al-Qaeda.

The Sunni resistance organisations represent a clear alternative to an endless U.S. occupation of hostile Sunni provinces that has driven many activists into the arms of al-Qaeda.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/26/769/print/

Published on Friday, April 27, 2007 by Daily Star (Lebanon)

Fisk Takes Western Officials - and Reporters - to Task

‘How do our journalists go to war without history books?’

by Theodore May

BEIRUT - In wide-ranging remarks during a lecture at the American University of Beirut on Thursday, veteran British journalist Robert Fisk sharply criticized US policy in Iraq, analyzed shortcomings in Western journalism on the Middle East and reflected on the state of politics in the region, saying he was “distressed” by what he called the people’s hesitancy to question rulers.The lecture, entitled “After the Collapse: Disengagement in the Middle East,” ran for about 45 minutes and was followed by more than 20 minutes of questions. A live telecast of the remarks was broadcast in a second room to accommodate an overflow crowd.

Fisk, who lived and reported in Lebanon throughout the Civil War, has for many years worked in the region as a correspondent for Britain’s Independent newspaper. He is also the author of the widely read “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War,” among other titles.

In a spirited style that kept the audience laughing, Fisk lampooned Western journalists for their lack of historical perspective when reporting from the Middle East.

“I asked myself, how do our journalists go to war without history books?” he said.

In order to drive home his point about how poorly journalists had covered the Iraq war and how ignorant of history they had been, Fisk retold the story of the failed 1917-1920 British occupation of the country in a way that mirrored the current track of the United States there. The US excursion has been a “fingerprint parallel of history,” he said.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/27/814/print/

Schadenfreude Is My Middle Name

by David Michael Green

I’m not an angry man. But I am angry.

I’m not a bitter person. But, boy, am I bitter.

And I’m not generally given to vindictiveness. But, you know what? Right now I’m open to persuasion.

The Bush administration is now beginning an inexorable process which will change its status from the worst administration in American history to the publicly-acknowledged worst administration in American history. I, for one, couldn’t be more delighted.

That delight is only partly based on having been on the receiving end of their atrocities these last six years. And it is only partly based on the assurance that those gifts will keep giving for decades into the future, like a bad case of political herpes.

And that delight is also only partly based on their motivations and the scale of their transgressions. People who believe that the regressive right came to Washington to implement a legitimate ideology that just happens to be different from ours, or who believe that they meant well but, ironically, the first MBA president couldn’t manage his way out of an empty wading pool, even with the entire federal bureaucracy to assist him – such people fundamentally misunderstand this administration and the movement which they spearhead.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/27/810/print/

My sentiments exactly...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x764365

God Bless GW et al! Financial/political pathologies now become so acute, systemic change must occur. As one becomes what they resist, I hope we shall embrace the pain and make the changes which take us higher up the spiral. As the US empties its cup of these unworkable systems, may that cup become the empty Holy Grail for God to fill.......Nameste, Timmy J

Historic reality check!
Going through old papers..........found expenses on a 1977 trip to Miami to paint a mural..............My son then 18 kept the notes with the page header in his best graffiti caps "Gas & Oil.".....................
In a 1975 Chevy Nova we spent $28.20 ( on fuel) to get there. Last entry was Savannah, Ga., I presume we didn't make anoher gas stop or it would have been written down.............
A meal for 4 of us at the Pancake House in Arlington ,Va. cost $13.61!
Fee for the mural job...................$3,000.!!!
( And this was, during a recession, & between the gas shortages of 1973 & '79!)
QOP

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__070427_gravel_refuses_to_gr.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27, 2007

GRAVEL REFUSES TO GROVEL / WINS FIRST DEBATE

By Teilhard

"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.": Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918- ) Russian writer, Soviet dissident, Nobel Prize for Literature 1970 / imprisoned for 8 years for criticizing Stalin in a personal letter .

Just as I was beginning to nod off during the first Democratic debate ~ lulled to sleep by careful, posturing, groveling candidates beholden to AIPAC and the Military/Industrial complex ~ Mike Gravel woke me up with his wit, authenticity and seeming ability to sense what Americans really wanted to hear ~ the truth and righteous anger over a badly managed war, occupation and economy.

Take a look at Gravel's progressive positions on these issues ~

The War in Iraq
Immediate and orderly withdrawal of troops followed by aggressive diplomacy

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=opedne_allen_l__070427_gravel_refuses_to_gr.htm

According to this source, Gravel was born May 19, 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts
http://www.infoplease.com/biography/us/congress/gravel-maurice-robert-(mike).html

According to Wikipedia it's May 13 1930, Springfield Ma.
That makes him Taurus, Scorpio moon like the original "give em hell Harry"
I hope this one's right! It makes his moon conjunct mine..He sure sounds like me! That sure sounded like my brand of scorpio moon irony Williams: " Where have you been the last 30 years? Gravel: " Under a rock." ( dripping with sarcasm!) That's NO Aquarian moon talking!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel
ANd I'm glad he was considered the winner in some corners because CNN has really started to bash him...He must be "dangerous"! Karen Tumalty of Time needs a reproving letter, she dissed him!
QOP

More Like an Air Ball

April 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Poor Slam Dunk.

Not since Madame Butterfly has anyone been so cruelly misunderstood and misused. Slam Dunk says that when he pantingly told the president that fetching information on Saddam’s W.M.D. would be a cinch, he did not mean let’s go to war.
(more…)

http://donkeyod.wordpress.com/

Full Moon in Scorpio

Wednesday, May 2, 2007
3:09am PDT
11º 38'

This is the truth or dare Full Moon; a time to honor the transformative power of truth-telling and a very intense Full Moon to put into action (through ritual release) the goals you set at the New Moon in Aries. Since this Full Moon falls in a water sign, releasing your intentions near a stream, river, lake, or ocean is particularly powerful. But before you let go, have one last look at your goals. Whom do they truly serve? What will they bring to the world? Since Scorpio demands depth and fearlessness, this last look will have to be brutally honest. If your goals require a change of mind, of heart, and/or of action, this is the night to successfully tackle fears that could impede the ability to fully embrace change. Scorpio seeks deep truth by peeling back layers of lies and half-truths-within us and without us. This is a Full Moon to see things as they truly are, not as you wish them to be. The intense planetary configurations on this Full Moon will be a great help in this regard.

http://www.astrowisdom.com/thisfullmoon.htm

Penny, very interesting posts re the disappearence of bees. Here's an observation straight from an entemologist/scientist a UC Boulder that I ran into over the coffee bins at Whole Foods 2 days ago.
She said, "The bees have a black substance in their fat which is where impurities go, to the fat in the body. We don't know what it is yet".

UH OH!
Here's the worm in the apple!
read this ...........
xhttp://donkeyod.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/she’s-not-buttering-him-up/

SHe's jealous of him! She's an underminder...........I didn't like that little riff she gave on camera about insisting that he stop smoking
that's none of our business, more than I needed to know. And can you really run for office ( the office) the very same year you stop smoking? Mu Mother worked for Blue Cross, Blue Shield when she stopped. As a health insurance company, they were very supportive ( They PUT UP WITH HER!) but she confesses, she was virtually useless for the first 6 months.
QOP

Don't wish to proselytize, but this is for a good cause, so anyone who would like to sign this petition, it would be greatly appreciated.

http://action.atfl.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6966&track=signclusterbombpetition_17628192

Re my post at April 27 8:05 about Rohm Emanuel, head of the DCCC! He was supporting Hillary, but since Obama is from his state, at the moment he is declining to endorse anyone. So they're both out of the running, because they will perpetuate the maiming of these innocent people!
I am using alwadi sesame tahina. produced in Lebanon by Dove Processing.....www.alwadi.com, if any one else cares to do the same.
Petition sent!
QOP

* "Men of honor don’t do this …" Apr 28th, 2007

George Tenent is finally speaking up about the rush to war in a new book—I guess that Medal of Freedom wasn’t a big enough bribe. As with many who are turning around today & pointing fingers, I can only say—where ya been???? But I’ll take an assault on the cabal any way I can get it.

The WH is pretending this is a mere mosquito to brush away, but in reality it’s more an incoming scud. This is huge—an insider’s insider nailing the truth. The bushies always pretend that whoever defects didn’t have all the info … the WH is saying that Tenent wasn’t the only voice dubby was listening to, he wasn’t aware of all the OTHER credible people that were informing [rotten-rez] on Iraq. Hmmmmm. Better informed than the dir of the CIA, were they?

Here’re a couple of articles, & be sure to watch 60 Min this w/e tohear his allegations. I’m sweetening the pot with a scathing read from Richard Clarke, another “disgruntled” employee that left pointing fingers back to strong-arm tactics.

We knew they would turn, eventually. With the WSJ announcing a recent poll giving dubby amere 28% approval — the WSJ!!! — the wobble is getting serious. ... http://polwaves.planetwaves.net/2007/04/28/415/