The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth. Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.
Scene from West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest Wilderness. Image credit:Wilderness Society
West Virginia is more than deserving of its state slogan: "Wild and Wonderful." It boasts Ancient mountains, untamed rivers, caves, culture, and much more.
What's bizarre to me, however, is that the West Virginia Hospitality and Tourism Association believes that its members who cater to tourists should support none other than coal mining -- even when that involves blowing off the tops of those ancient mountains. The association wrote a letter to its members asking them to join a group that promotes the coal industry. That must've had some river guides and bed and breakfast owners scratching their heads.
Reduce the minimum wage. That's the economic solution proposed by Charles Lane, who's paid to have such 'opinions' by the Washington Post.
Yes, yes.
By all means reduce what is already only half of what it should be to live a life just barely over the poverty line. (Last count had the poverty line at $12.48hr and minimum wage just now has made it to what, $7.85hr).
Just checked on our ranking and we sit at the 17,606th most popular blog on the net. Considering that there is well over 100million blogs on the net right now that's not too shabby.
The Winter Solstice occurs at 12:47pm EST on Monday, December 21. This marks the beginning of Winter for the Northern Hemisphere and is the shortest day of the year - daylight speaking.
According to a recent poll (sponsored, albeit, by a pro gun-control organization) gun owners are more supportive of tighter gun laws than the NRA. Every gun owner does not want the right to carry a concealed flamethrower.
Bryan Christy writes in the January issue of National Geographic about a notorious animal smuggler.
It took the undercover unit of the US Fish & Wildlife Service five years to track down Anson Wong, the world's most wanted smuggler of endangered species. But he got out of prison in 47 months, during which time his wife kept the business going full force. And when Wong got out of prison he set his sights on a 'new wildlife venture, a zoo that promises to be his most audacious enterprise yet' -- smuggling tigers.
Christy tells the story of how the Fish & Wildlife Special Ops team set up a sting operation to capture Wong, who boasted of having horns of Sumatran and Javanese rhinoceroses, both forbidden Appendix I animals. He talked openly about getting shahtoosh, the 'king of wool,' from the Tibetan antelope. He had access to extraordinary birds, including the Rothschild's mynah, whose wild population was estimated to number fewer than 150. He bragged about his Spix's macaws, a bird now believed to be extinct in the wild, claiming he'd recently sold three. The black market rate for a Spix's macaw was $100,000. His expanding list of astonishing illegal rarities included panda skins and snow leopard pelts."
While no one knows exactly how large the illegal wildlife trade is, this much is certain: It's extraordinarily lucrative. Profit margins are the kind drug kingpins would kill for. Smugglers evade detection by hiding illegal wildlife in legal shipments, they bribe wildlife and customs officials, and they alter trade documents. Few are ever caught, and penalties are usually no more severe than a parking ticket. Wildlife trafficking may very well be the world's most profitable form of illegal trade, bar none.
Prince George, British Columbia, Canada Paris, Ile-De-France, France Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Ravena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Tehran, Tehran, Iran Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Langley, British Columbia, Canada Welwyn Garden City, England, United Kingdom Norwich, England, United Kingdom Birmingham, England, United Kingdom Letchworth, England, United Kingdom Valencia, Comunidad Valencia, Spain Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada Riyadh, Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Once you're able to put your shyness aside, you'll learn to love the sound of applause. Use your creativity to your advantage. Your competitors probably won't see the same possibilities you do, which gives you the edge over them. If you get the opportunity to merge one of your hobbies with your career, by all means take it. Whether it's a knack for art, music or a similar creative talent, this is your time to capitalize on whatever you have to offer the world.
Bill James isn’t through making headlines; he clearly has difficulty coping with his fellow Mecklenburg County Commissioners voting to extend domestic partner benefits to county employees—and that includes same-sex couples.
He not only didn’t apologize to Democrat Commissioner Vilma Leake when her referred to her late son, who succumbed to AIDS, he’s spewing more homophobic bullshit.
The latest:
Homosexual conduct is illegal in NC (even after Lawrence V Texas). We arrest 250 homosexuals each year in Mecklenburg alone for either a ‘crime against nature’ or ‘solicitation of a crime against nature’. Unlike prostitution (exchanging money), even suggesting homosexual sex is a criminal offense in NC. If we were all that ‘progressive’ would we be arresting 250 homosexuals a year? Setting up sting operations to de-infest areas where they congregate? Point is, if you want to delude yourself that homosexual conduct is ‘ok’ go ahead. The law, the police and the DA however have a different view.” — Mecklenburg Commissioner Bill James
BTW, he’s right about the Crimes Against Nature law here. It’s still on the books and while Lawrence v. Texas supercedes it, the police can still make an arrest, put someone in the pokey and basically shame the hell out of them publicly until the case is tossed out. Oh, and he elaborated to Matt Comer of Q-Notes about “de-infest”:
James responded: “I think that if you’re someone who is homosexual and you believe that you are born that way and have every right to engage in that behavior, I think the offensive thing, I would surmise, is not the word ‘infest’ or ‘de-infest’ but the fact that the police are actually doing the sting operations. We can parse words — what phrase should I have used? But the central question for most people is not what particular term got used but whether the action was occurring. Was I accurate in saying there are these sting operations going on and those sting operations — whatever term you want to use — target homosexual men? That is why the county took and spent significant amounts of money to rework the park to take out certain landscaping things to prevent, once the sting operations cleared them out, prevent them from re-congregating — or re-infesting if you use my original term.”
You can also politely let Commission Chair Jennifer Roberts know that language in a reprimand cannot be harsh enough,as LGBT youth groups in Charlotte are outraged by James’s bigotry, given he’s a public servant. She’s been a wonderful ally for years; I interviewed her back in 2005 when James was last in significant eruption mode. But what’s more important is to thank the Commission for doing the right thing and supporting the County’s gay and lesbian employees and their committed relationships.
Oh, and in another spin on his non-apology to Leake, take a look at this:
[H]is comments weren’t meant to be derogatory and that “homo” was a slang word he used when growing up. “People can believe whatever they want, they can believe in the tooth fairy and legend of Atlantis,” James said. “I don’t determine what I do based on what people think. I determine it based on what I did and what I did was I asked a question and that question doesn’t deserve or require an apology.
*****
Bill James is a pervert ... and you know what they say about glass houses and stones.
Police said early Monday that they have found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen on Friday from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.
Polish police found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz after an intensive three-day hunt and arrested five suspects, police said early Monday.
A Jewish, a Scottish and an Irish gentleman, clearly artists of some sort, were dining in an expensive restaurant and eating and drinking the most exclusive items on the list. The bill was enormous, imagine the surprise in the establishment when everybody heard the Scottish gentleman say in a clear voice;
Joe Lieberman, You Can Choke on the Bones of Jacqueline Kelly as They're Crammed Down Your Throat:
Jacqueline Kelly died the other day in Jersey City, New Jersey, of ovarian cancer. She also had emphysema. She was 61 years-old, a woman who was a stay-at-home mom to her six kids and a supportive wife for 44 years to John Kelly. John, 68, worked for fifty years as a truck driver and was old enough to get on Medicare when he retired. His wife could not, since she was 61.
She was told she didn't qualify for Social Security disability benefits because she had never "worked." They didn't qualify for welfare assistance or Medicaid because John's pension checks were too high. So, instead, most of the money went to paying for Jacqueline's medical expenses, as much as they could, until it became a choice of chemotherapy or food. As John put it, "I worked all my life. She's being penalized for staying home and taking care of her kids." Kelly died because of a lack of health insurance, pure and simple, cause and effect.
Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.
The U.S. transferred 12 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, sending half the prisoners home to Yemen and the others to Afghanistan and the Somaliland region.
A Marine Corps whistle-blower says military officials are trying to force him from his job for exposing failures to deliver life-saving equipment to troops in Iraq.
The Philippines' most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned Sunday after detecting a drastic surge in earthquakes and eerie rumbling sounds in surrounding foothills.
It was a well-publicized snowball fight, but apparently not well enough publicized for one plainclothes police officer. Sort of a snowball version of a flash mob, when they hit his Hummer with snowballs, he eventually pulled his gun, though he pointed it as no one.
A snowstorm hit the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States states at the weekend, crippling travel across the region and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.
A study of bones and skeletons recovered in the Colorado Plateau's Chinle formation, Northern New Mexico, that was published Friday, December 18, 2009, in Science, finds that South America may not have been the birthplace of Dinosaurs after all.
Laura Dekker, the 14-year-old Dutch girl whose bid to sail solo around the world was blocked by a court, has gone missing, leaving behind her boat, police said Sunday.
Dekker appears to have left her father's home on her own, Utrecht police spokesman Bernhard Jens said in a telephone interview. Her boat, Guppy, is still moored at its usual berth.
“Triops is well known to paleontologists as one of the oldest known genera, with fossils from the Triassic that are barely distinguishable from modern day species.”
Alissa J. Novoselick's students bonded over their shared love of chilies. Photo by nattu via Flickr.
A cynic might look at a program like the Edible Schoolyard -- the much-lauded school garden initiative launched by Chez Panisse's Alice Waters -- and wonder if such a thing would be possible outside the favorable growing climes (and foodie sensibilities) of California, and without the support of a famous chef. But as a moving article by a young teacher in rural Arizona shows, the answer is a resounding "yes."
Hawaii public schools are closed most Fridays, rats scurry across bananas in un-inspected stores and there may not be enough money to run the next election.
Iran's most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who emerged as the spiritual father of its reform movement, died on Sunday.
A Paris court ruled Friday that Google Inc.'s expansion into digital books breaks France's copyright laws, and a judge slapped the Internet search leader with a euro10,000-a-day fine until it stops showing literary snippets.
Forget the plastic icicles, brightly colored balls and tinsel. Some xmas trees for sale in the Anchorage area are adorned with something truly different this holiday season - live Pacific Chorus frogs.
Juiz De For A, Minas Gerais, Brazil Udon Thani, Chiang Mai, Thailand Montreal, Quebec, Canada Skopje, Aracinovo, Macedonia Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Canterbury, England, United Kingdom Ankara, Ankara, Turkey Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Canada Aldershot, England, United Kingdom Leeds, England, United Kingdom
Some good deals are out there right now, but beware of false advertising and exaggerated product claims. You've heard it before -- something that seems too good to be true probably is -- so why aren't you paying attention this time? If you don't want to wind up regretting your purchases, it's absolutely imperative you use your head before plunking down your hard-earned money for anything right now.
A group of Muslims who fled China after deadly ethnic rioting and sought asylum in Cambodia have been sent back home, even though rights groups fear they face persecution there.
The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
Surgeons on Friday successfully removed four sewing needles from the lung and near the heart of a Brazilian toddler, allegedly plunged into him by his stepfather during a month-long series of bizarre rituals.
This article from the LA Times includes a description of how an undercover cop lifted a DNA sample from Stephanie Lazarus, a police woman was under investigation for murdering her romantic rival.
An undercover officer surreptitiously trailed Lazarus, 49, as she ran errands, waiting until she discarded a plastic utensil or other object with her saliva on it. The DNA in her saliva was compared with evidence collected from the murder scene. The genetic code in the samples matched conclusively, police and prosecutors have said.
And this is one of the main reasons that biometric identifiers are so very risky... You can protect the PIN for your debit card by shielding the keypad when you enter it, but how do you keep counterfeiters from getting your DNA for authenticating the debit-card of the future? We throw off fingerprints, DNA, hand-geometry impressions, gaits and other biometrics at a titanic rate, and there's no way to stop, short of spending all your time in a hazmat suit.
Even the organizing agency, Fauna & Flora International, admits is a "last-ditch effort" to save the northern White Rhino - the project itself has been oddly enough titled the "Last Chance to Survive" Project. Yet, four of the last remaining eight northern White Rhinos on the planet are being flown from the Czech Republic to Kenya to live out their last years and (hopefully) make a little love in the process.
Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address December 19, 2009
Over the past few decades, there has been an intense struggle in Washington between the lobbyists for the insurance industry and the interests of the American people over what has been called a Patient’s Bill of Rights – a set of rules to protect Americans from some of the worst practices of the health insurance industry; rules to ensure that all Americans are getting the care they need from their doctors and the care they deserve from their insurance companies.
The last time a Patient’s Bill of Rights was within reach was roughly a decade ago, and it was supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, from Ted Kennedy to John McCain. It included the right to an appeals process so you could challenge an unfair decision by an insurance company before a third party. It included the right to choose your own doctor. It included the right to access information about what your health insurance plan means for you. And it called for a new level of transparency so that patients would know if their doctors had a conflict of interest when providing services.
Now, this Patient’s Bill of Rights never made it into law. It fell victim – again and again – to the same special interest lobbying that has blocked passage of health insurance reform for so many decades. But today, we are being given another chance to make it a reality, because each of these rights, and many more, are incorporated in the health insurance reform bill that recently passed the House of Representatives and in the bill that is currently making its way through the Senate.
Both the House and Senate bills would make it against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition or illness. Both would stop insurers from charging exorbitant premiums on the basis of age, health, or gender. Both would prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage when you get sick. And both would put a limit on how much you have to pay out of pocket for the treatments you need in a year or lifetime.
Simply put, the protections currently included in both the health insurance reform bill passed by the House and the version currently on the Senate floor would represent the toughest measures we’ve ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t read the bills. Just open these proposals at random and you’ll find on almost any page patient protections that dwarf any of those passed by Congress in at least a decade.
These protections are just one part of a landmark reform that will finally reduce the cost of health care. When it becomes law, families will save on their premiums. Small businesses and Americans who don’t get any insurance today through their employers will no longer be forced to pay punishingly high rates to get coverage. This legislation will also strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program, while saving senior citizens hundreds of dollars a year in prescription costs. And reforms to target waste, inefficiency, and price-gouging by the insurance industry will help make this the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.
The insurance industry knows all this. That’s why they’re at it again, using their muscle in Washington to try to block a vote they know they will lose. They’re lobbying. They’re running ads. They’re spending millions of dollars to kill health insurance reform, just like they’ve done so many times before. They want to preserve a system that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people.
But now – for the first time – there is a clear majority in the Senate that’s willing to stand up to the insurance lobby and embrace lasting health insurance reforms that have eluded us for generations. The question is whether the minority that opposes these reforms will continue to use parliamentary maneuvers to try and stop the Senate from voting on them.
Whatever their position on health insurance reform, Senators ought to allow an up or down vote. Let’s bring this long and vigorous debate to an end. Let’s deliver on the promise of health insurance reforms that will make our people healthier, our economy stronger, and our future more secure. And as this difficult year comes to a close, let’s show the American people that we are equal to the task of meeting our great challenges.
Thanks for listening, and on behalf of Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and Bo, happy holidays, from our family to yours.
Markham, Ontario, Canada Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Nottingham, England, United Kingdom Leeds, England, United Kingdom Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom Budapest, Budapest, Hungary Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam Ranchi, Jharkhand, India Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
as well as Scotland, the Philippines, and the United States
If you want things done correctly, sometimes it's just better to do them yourself instead of relying on secondary sources for help. This is a good time to plan for the future, but you might not be able to solidify all of your plans just yet. It's a good idea to leave some room open for negotiation anyway, especially where your financial situation is concerned. Find out all you can before you actually make the big move you're contemplating, but make sure you check your sources.
The Winter Solstice occurs at 12:47pm EST on Monday, December 21.
According to a recent poll (sponsored, albeit, by a pro gun-control organization) gun owners are more supportive of tighter gun laws than the NRA.
Giving and receiving presents is a simple pleasure, isn't it?
Forget the plastic icicles, brightly colored balls and tinsel.
Surgeons on Friday successfully removed four sewing needles from the lung and near the heart of a Brazilian toddler, allegedly plunged into him by his stepfather during a month-long series of bizarre rituals.
An undercover officer surreptitiously trailed Lazarus, 49, as she ran errands, waiting until she discarded a plastic utensil or other object with her saliva on it. The DNA in her saliva was compared with evidence collected from the murder scene. The genetic code in the samples matched conclusively, police and prosecutors have said. 
The court granted a request from the attorney general's office Friday afternoon, shortly before Alford Jones and Faye Brown were set to go free.