Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up to the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends…and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit. These are the little guideposts on the footpath to peace.
– Henry Van Dyke
– Henry Van Dyke
Bush rides in a Border Patrol Dune Buggy
Hastert thinks people making $40K a year don’t pay any taxes and says so
President Bush, yesterday in Yuma: “I understand english…”
I think I could argue with that statement….:o)
Hastert: corrupt and clueless.
It’s incredible how little knowledge these guys have of the world outside the beltway, isn’t it?
If there was any justice in the world, Hastert would lose his re-election campaign this fall just for saying something that clueless. I know if I were his opponent, that clip would be my entire campaign: “Do you want this man making tax decisions for our nation?”
Hastert: corrupt and clueless.
He’s past that. Stupid doesn’t even start to explain it.
I still go with the idea of pay congress minimum wage and lets see how they react to that. Maybe then he would realize those few pennies taken out in taxes mean a hell of a lot to a lot of people.
And while they’re at it, put in a law that congress can’t vote themselves a raise.
A new reality tv show in the making…make congress memebers live on minimum wage with no healthcare and no backup savings account for 6 months in a major metropolitan area.
I’d actually watch that one.
and you know me and episodes. I only took a loyalty oath to the Sopranos and even Tivo has to give me a hand there sometimes because I forget on some Sundays.
Bood need to photoshop him as Marie Antoinette. That reeks of let them eat cake.
Fighter jets and packages on display in pickle suits and now dune buggies? Is he a movie star or a rock star in his own mind? Has he ever missed a photo op or has he ever missed a chance to create a photo op. Who would think this a cool photo though? Somebody needs to tell fricken Hastert that the only Americans not paying taxes are the Americans on the American payroll in Iraq blowing shit up and being blown up! Those are the only Americans that I know of paying no income tax and techically no other taxes on themselves at the time but I guess you would have to count the license plates on their vehicles that are in storage so I guess they pay the least in taxes of anyone.
yes. …that’s one more for my scrapbook and presidential library. Add that to my most memorable experiences pretending to be prez.
when I caught the big fish
bushcutting,
bushing aside the constitution
riding the dune buggy in Yuma
hehhhe, my signing statements
fooled ya’ll.
The median household income in Illinois in 2003 was $45,153 (down from $46, 510 in 1999!). So, he thinks close to half of the adults in Illinois don’t pay taxes.
If his opponent doesn’t take that statement straight to the advertising people for the campaign. . .
isn’t the only one kissing fundie butt: NYT
The middle class is leaving Iraq: NYT
Another smashing success story from the Bush administration.
Geez, CG, what will they do when the next election comes around??!!!! :o) Anyhow, I think they will come back when things change and there is no war, even if it is 25 years from now…
Good morning how are you today?
Hmm, do you think they’ll all vote by absentee ballot?
I’m fine this morning, how about you? Looking forward to the weekend.
Am very well, thanks…I have requested a long w/e off and got it! We are meeting in Memphis from booman. Am looking so to this.
Sometimes I wonder how people could think of them as so different from us. If I were in Iraq right now with my children what would my personal goals be right this moment in time? It’s pretty obvious to me and I would leave too….God knows when it comes to my kids, with my determination I would find a way to leave Iraq and get us to some kind of daily safety and sanity.
Me too Tracy. I can not imagine the fear and craziness they all have to live through on a daily basis.
the daily pot of gold
A group of scientists urged Congress on Wednesday to fund research for plug-in hybrid vehicles, touting the technology as another way to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil through the help of a simple electrical outlet. Plug-in hybrids combine hybrid technology – which uses both gasoline and electric power – with large batteries that can be plugged into a standard wall socket.
Using time series analyses of a 22-year record of satellite observations across the northern circumpolar high latitudes, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are assessing trends in vegetation photosynthetic activity. The results indicate that tundra areas consistently and predominantly show greening trends while forested areas show browning, indicating that the boreal forest biome might be responding to climate change in unexpected ways.
Bang, zoom, to the moon: China’s first lunar satellite may be launched during a fly-by mission in April in 2007, said Luan Enjie, director of the China National Space Administration. And NASA announced yesterday that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its mission confirmation review and is ready to proceed to its implementation phase.
Robert Shapiro (New York University) argues against the widely held theory that the origin of life began with the spontaneous appearance of a large, replicating molecule such as RNA. Instead, Shapiro raises an alternative that does not depend on a “stupendously improbable accident,” presenting the more plausible idea that life began within a mixture of simple organic molecules, multiplied through catalyzed reaction cycles and an external source of available energy. Shapiro introduces the idea of a “driver” reaction, linked to a free energy source, that helps convert an unorganized mixture into a organized, self-regulated metabolic network. “If we wish a more plausible origin of life, then we must work with the assumption that life began, somehow, among one of the mixtures of simple organic molecules that are produced by abiotic processes,” writes Shapiro. “Nature will be instructing us, rather than we attempting to impose our schemes onto it.” [If you don’t know how order can arise from disorder, go here.]
Fish stocks in international waters are being plundered to the point of extinction, a leading conservationist group has said. Illegal fishing and bottom-trawling in deep waters are to blame, according to a report from WWF. It says the current system of regional fishing regulation is failing to tackle the problem, with not enough being done to enforce quotas or replenish stocks. Species under severe threat include tuna and the orange roughy. But this won’t slow down Conressman Richard Pombo, R-CA [from CA only because the seat from hell isn’t open this election], who is looking to weaken the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s primary ocean fisheries law. [How much slime can you cram into one human frame?!?!?]
A new study of dwarfing in a range of mammals suggests that Homo floresiensis, the Indonesian “hobbit” fossil, was a modern human with a pathological condition. The researchers who proposed that the fossil was a separate species reject the new explanation.
What do month-to-month changes in temperature have to do with century-to-century changes in temperature? At first it might seem like not much. But scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found some unifying themes in the global variations of temperature at time scales ranging from a single season to hundreds of thousands of years. These findings help place climate observed at individual places and times into a larger global and temporal context.
Another day, another planet discovered: An international team of professional and amateur astronomers, using simple off-the-shelf equipment to trawl the skies for planets outside the solar system, has hauled in their first catch. The astronomers discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a Sun-like star 600 light-years away in the constellation Corona Borealis. Their planet-finding technique involves nightly sweeps of the sky to note the brightness of the stars. A computer software program sifts through many thousands of stars every two months looking for tiny dips in the stars’ light, the signature of a possible planet passing in front of a star.
In order to determine the health of salt marshes, scientists are counting the number of parasitic worms in common marsh snails. The more parasites, the healthier the ecosystem. Organisms under stress in a damaged ecosystem do not have the stamina to support many parasites and die off, interrupting the life cycle of their parasites as well.
link
A seven-year-old Japanese boy with a gender identity disorder has been given permission to attend school as a girl in another sign that the country is relaxing its traditionally rigid attitude towards sexual identity. Local media reported yesterday that the boy, who has not been named, was diagnosed with the disorder before he started primary school in April.
He is said to have complained that he felt uncomfortable being a boy and asked his parents if he could have a sex-change operation. Japan’s first such procedure took place in 1998, but patients must be aged 20 or over.
The school, in Kobe, western Japan, agreed to enroll him as a girl after consulting his parents and doctors in what is thought to be the first decision of its kind in Japan. According to reports, he will be allowed to use the girls’ bathrooms and changing facilities, and to wear girls PE kit. Only his teachers have been informed of his condition.
[snip]
An estimated 10,000 Japanese say they have some form of gender identity disorder…
[snip]
In 2004 they won a significant victory when the law was changed to allow some transsexuals to alter their name and gender on official documents.
Japan is relaxing those taboos and gradually giving rights to transexuals. Just as we in America, full of rightous religious indignation, are loosing basic rights (like unmarried couples living together in Missouri). I’m sorry, but try as I might I just can’t wrap my head around letting a 7 year old boy attend school as a girl.
Link
Confirming what we already knew.
There’s been some doubt thrown on this claim. Does anyone have additional sources?
The story appears to be a fabrication [propaganda, mis-information] according to Raw Story…
Gotta crank up the anti-Iranian hatred in advance of the next great mis-adventure…<shrug>
Peace
I just went back to the same source – National Post (and that should have been a clue: conservative) – to see if they were revising etc., and this is the latest story:
This looks like text book 101 misinfo — nothing is factual and it’s all speculation and fearmongering. And straight from the PM’s lips. I’m sure the reporters tossed the question off at Harper (who is meeting w/ Howard today) and have created this article around his not well-informed responses. Chalk one up for the msm anti-iranian propo-campaign.
.
Fri May 19th, 2006 at 12:02:16 PM PST
A quick Google news search reveals that no other major media outlets are carrying this story. Instead, the links mostly go to blog or news sites that have reacted in horror to the National Post article. To this point, there has not been any other independent verification.
PM Stephen Harper only said the claims “might be true”, but an Israeli reporter and expert told a Montreal radio station that the reports are false.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
From today’s Think Fast over at Think Progress
The House yesterday voted to repeal $7 billion in subsidies for oil companies drilling in publicly owned waters. The vote was “approved 252 to 165 over the objections of many Republican leaders,” and now goes to the Senate. “In a separate defeat for energy companies, the House voted 279 to 141 to reject a provision that would lift a 25-year ban on oil drilling in coastal areas outside the western Gulf of Mexico.”
The Blotter has the scoop
A draft investigative report by the House Judiciary Committee, obtained by ABC News, finds that terrorists could easily spot undercover federal air marshals because of airport boarding policies Homeland Security has “been oblivious to” or refused to change.
[snip]
A three-month undercover investigation found five separate places at airports where air marshals are required to identify themselves in front of waiting passengers.
The investigation also found air marshals are required to stay in the same hotels, which often advertise their presence.
“Welcome Federal Air Marshals, Company of the Month” read the sign outside a Sheraton hotel in Florida.
At a Holiday Inn, a list of the air marshals with their names and room numbers was kept in public view at the front desk.
I hope this doesn’t get lost in the sea of scandals washing over the Bush administration, but it probably will. This report will be released next week sometime. Stay tuned.
.
KANDAHAR (BBC News) May 19 — A top Taleban leader, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan, Afghan officials have told the BBC. The senior military commander was said to have been detained by international troops in southern Kandahar province.
Governor Assadullah Khalid told Reuters: “We’ve arrested three high-ranking Taleban, members of their leadership council.” Mullah Dadullah was a member of the Taleban’s 10-man leadership council before the US-led invasion in 2001.
The BBC’s Alastair Leithead in Kabul says Mullah Dadullah is very close to the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar. Mullah Dadullah has survived a number of attacks and lost one leg in battle. He has a reputation for being one of the Taleban’s most brutal commanders.
High-ranking Afghan officials have told the BBC that he was captured in Kandahar and is being held by the coalition forces. There are no details as to how he was caught.
KANDAHAR (CBS News) May 19 — The militant was captured in a joint Afghan-coalition operation in Kandahar province, said Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, head of the Afghan military’s southern region.
Mullah Dadullah, who lost a leg fighting for the Taliban during its rise to power in the mid-1990s, is one of the hard-line militia’s top commanders, responsible for operations in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.
Raufi said coalition troops captured the militant in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province during fighting that led to the deaths of 18 militants and a female Canadian soldier. About 35 militants were detained in that fight.
Raufi said the militant without a leg was seriously wounded and unconscious in a military hospital. He said there was a “good chance” the fighter was Dadullah but that he did not know for sure.
A senior Afghan government official said “we’re pretty sure” Dadullah was in custody, though officials had not confirmed his identity. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, said “a couple of other big fish” may have been caught, but he gave no further details.
Both Dadullah and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are Pashtun, and Dadullah is one of the most trusted followers of Omar.
RISE IN HOSTILITIES IN AFGHANISTAN
What the Taliban wants, ideally, is to fill the void in each village as U.S. forces pull out of southern Afghanistan later this year and hand over operations to ISAF/NATO.
“The Taliban never really went away,” CBS News consultant Jere Van Dyk says. “What happened was the Americans felt, and a lot of observers felt throughout the world, the Taliban were defeated very easily. But, in fact, what they did was move back into the countryside, they took off their black turbans, went and became farmers, and they observed.”
≈ Cross-posted from my diary —
The Role Iran Is Planning in the Country – Baghdad Burning ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY