In Reality, Cindy Sheehan Does Not Want to Meet Bush

'I look back on it, and I am very, very, very grateful he did not meet with me, because we have sparked and galvanized the peace movement,' Sheehan told The Associated Press. 'If he'd met with me, then I would have gone home, and it would have ended there.'" Cindy Sheehan's comments came as war protesters packed up their campsite near the ranch and prepared to leave Tuesday for a three-week bus tour.

Operation Liberation or Operation Looting

The storm is over and now the oppressed people of New Orleans are free - free to steal. Here's some quotes:

One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store. "No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."

Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.

Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

Home Sales Keep Falling

Single-family home sales in Greater Hartford fell for the sixth straight month in July, a further sign that the area's housing market is cooling a bit from the torrid sales pace of the past four years.

US heading for house price crash, Greenspan tells buyers

WALL STREET shuddered yesterday after Alan Greenspan, the United States’ central banker, warned American homebuyers that they risk a crash if they continue to drive property prices higher. He said that the US house-price spiral had become an economic imbalance, threatening stability like the country’s trade gap or its budget deficit.

In a pre-retirement speech Greenspan said that people were investing in houses as if they were a one-way bet, not allowing for the risk of price falls. He said “history had not dealt kindly” with investors who kept ignoring risks.

Traders said that Greenspan’s comments were reminiscent of his 1996 inveighing against “irrational exuberance” on the stock market, for fear that a crash there would hit consumers and push the economy into recession. When the share price bubble finally burst, Greenspan cut Federal interest rates to 1 per cent, triggering the flood of cheap loans for housing. He fears that rate increases set in train as the economy recovered could throw the housing market into reverse and suggested that the twin deficits would now restrict his room to manoeuvre if a house price downturn hit spending. Asset prices were, he complained, driving monetary policy more than ever before.

About a third of US local homes markets are now markedly overpriced. Over the past five years, the average US house price has risen by 50 per cent. However, prices have risen more sharply in favoured areas, such as New York, and more than doubled in a few cities, such as San Diego. [org pub Financial Times, UK, by Graham Searjeant]

Farrakhan kind of invites Black Gays to his rally

In an attempt to mainstream himself, Louis Farrakhan, leader of the hate-spewing Nation of Islam, has sent a letter asking the National Black Justice Coalition to be one of 100 co-coveners of the October 15th Millions More Movement rally. Farrakhan and his cult, Nation of Islam, is an equal opportunity racist organization, although has a special hatred for Jews. Whenever Farrakhan is accused of being anti-semitic, he denies it by using an old racist trick: he can't being anti-Semitic because he loves the semite (arab) speaking people of the middle east, and since the Jews are not semites he's not "anti-Semitic." He does not deny being an anti-Zionist, which is the European code word for "hates Jews" and he does not deny hating 'Neo-Cons,' which is the American politically correct code word for hating Jews.

Despite all this, mainstream Blacks desire to stand next to him at these rallies. What a disgrace.

The last minute invitation follows activist outrage after a controversial, July 3rd sermon by the Rev. Willie Wilson, the Farrakhan handpicked executive director of the Millions More event. Rev. Wilson, pastor of Union Temple, a prominent DC Baptist congregation and considered one of the city's most politically influential ministers. At the July 3rd sermon Wilson accused lesbians of attempting to “take over” the black family and other disparaging remarks about sexual acts among gays.

In response, Farrakhan sent out an invitation that stated: "The Millions More Movement is for all of us and is aimed at creating a tent big enough for all of us to come together," but he did not include the words gay or lesbian and did not invite the group to speak at the rally.

The Black Gay rights group quickly accepted the cold invitiation and then announced "“While I would not count this as a victory, it is not a defeat,” ..."This is an historic act." it's another step toward gaining inclusion... however, being a co-convener is almost like being on a laundry list...It'’s easy for them to say this is important, but it doesn'’t get us into the inner sanctum.".”

The inner sanctum? Hopefully the Natl Black Coalition will not share their member list with Farrakhan. Doing that would be like pre-WWII Jews signing up as a Jew for Hitler, and we all know what happened to them.

Jordan - Palestinians not welcomed here

The loving country of Jordan has decided that Palestinians cannot resettle their. Nevermind that after 50 years the Palestinians in Jordan are still living in refugee camps.

King Abdullah said Jordan would not resettle any Palestinian refugees in its territory. Addressing Parliament in Amman last week, Abdullah said that Jordan would insist that Palestinian refugees go to lands under Israeli control.

“It is the right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland and create an independent state on Palestinian land and nowhere else,” he said.

Jordan was created from land included in Britain’s original Palestine Mandate, and its population is mostly Palestinian."

Brigitte Bardot calls for halt to use of puppies as shark bait

DO YOU THINK IT'S REAL? I THINK SOMEONE IS PULLING A JOKE/SCAM. This is the only photo I could find. I couldn't find any thing on the web that talked about different incidents.

Brigitte Bardot, the 1950s and 1960s film star turned animal rights campaigner, has called on the French government to halt the reported use by fishermen on the island of Reunion of live puppies and kittens as shark bait.

From the Brigitte Bardot Foundation:
Live baits for sharks
Another issue that is very important to us and that we discussed with the minister remains shark fishing in the Reunion Island. A local custom consists in going shark fishing with dogs used as live baits.

Last September, a dog came back to its owner in a very sad state. It had run away the previous night and came back the next morning with a hook planted in its muzzle. The owner brought the poor dog to the nearest SPCA to nurse him back to health. Before removing the hook, the vet noticed a fracture of the lower jaw. There was no doubt that the animal was destined to serve as a bait for big game fishing. It is indeed a common habit on the island. Back in 2000, a stroller was intrigued by whining noises from the trunk of a car.

Inside, she discovered two small dogs with their paws tied up; they had multiple injuries around the muzzle, paws and sternum. The veterinarian examination disclosed that they were left by a large hook. The Foundation sued the fisherman for deliberate acts of cruelty against animals. Unfortunately, the court could not condemn the culprit, because he had already been judged a few months before by the police court, where the fisherman keen on using live baits was given a one month suspended prison sentence and a 6 000 francs fine.

We asked the government to be more vigilant and make sure animal protection laws are put into practice in the same way as Metropolitan France.

Gore Won the 2000 Election according to Paul Krugman

Another case of a big name columnist who doesn't have fact checkers: Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist. According to Krugman's August 19th column, Al Gore clearly won the 2000 election:

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida'’s ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore.

The only problem is the media consortium Krugman is referring to, of which the NY Times was part of, found that Al Gore DID NOT win the election:

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff --— filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties--— Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations...… The media consortium included The Times ...

I'm not sure what's more ridiculous: the 'old gray lady' The New York Times doesn't has fact checkers OR that Krugman is still bitching about the 2000 election.

Jihadis are like Nazis, says Tory leadership hopeful

This is a very interesting article. David Cameron, a member of the British Tory party compares Jihadists with the Nazis. It's a good comparison and it makes sense. A little historical tidbit: after WWII, the Nazi SS scattered and made their new goal, the destruction of Israel. Some of these SS elite went to various Arab countries and helped form the current ruling governments. I always wonder what role that has on today's problems?


A Tory leadership contender today likened Islamic extremists who justify violence by the concept of a holy war to the ideology of Hitler in the 1930s. David Cameron said that a strain of Islamist thinking developed during the last century "which, like other totalitarianisms, such as Nazism and Communism, offers its followers a form of redemption through violence". Mr Cameron, in a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre in London, said that after the Arab world declined in power and prestige, some Islamic thinkers had argued that the reason was because it had abandoned true Islam. Some, including Osama bin Laden, argued for a jihad (holy war) to "purge" the Arab world.

He said that it would be a huge mistake to bow to the pressure from a violent minority, or to believe that the jihadists' desire for blood would be assuaged by, for example, Britain withdrawing from Iraq. He said: "Jihadism, like Nazism and Communism before it, often bewitches the minds of gifted and educated young men. Just like the Nazis of 1930s Germany, they want to purge corrupt cosmopolitan influences. "The parallels with the rise of Nazism go further. Just as there were figures in the 1930s who misunderstood the totalitarian wickedness of Nazism and argued that Hitler had a rational set of limited political demands, so there are people today who try to explain Jihadist violence with reference to a limited set of political goals.

"If only, some argue, we withdrew from Iraq, or Israel made massive concessions, then we would assuage Jihadist anger. That argument, while often advanced by well-meaning people, is as limited as the belief in the Thirties that, by allowing Germany to remilitarise the Rhineland or take over the Sudetenland, we would satisfy Nazi ambitions. "As we discovered in the 1930s, a willingness to cede ground and duck confrontation is interpreted as fatal weakness. It can provide an incentive to escalate the struggle against a foe who clearly lacks the stomach for the fight. Indeed, in the 1990s the inaction of the West fed the belief among Osama bin Laden and his allies that we lacked the strength to defend ourselves." Mr Cameron added: "The lesson from all of this with respect to our presence in Iraq is clear. Premature withdrawal - and failure to support the Iraqi authority - would be seen as a surrender to militant jihadism. Nothing would embolden the terrorists more."

Mr Cameron is currently the Tory spokesman on education. In his speech on terrorism and homeland security today, he said that shared British values could be summed up as "freedom under the rule of law". He called for a number of reforms to protect British freedoms, including: a dedicated UK border police force; withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights; a special commission to investigate the July 7 bombings; more resources for MI5; encouraging every citizen to learn English; ensuring that the national curriculum was enforced in faith schools, with lessons conducted in English; a Mosque Commission, led by Muslims, to "provide proper regulatory oversight" of mosques. [org pub Times Online, by Jenny Booth]

Cadaver exhibit opens in defiance of ban -

This is just morally wrong. Where are these people coming from? Are they Chinese prisoners who didn't want to perform salve labor for the People's Republic of China? More to follow tomorrow. Here's an example of the "art".

Shark Fishing From Shore is Discouraged!

Beach officials worry people attempting to catch sharks intentionally

Fort Myers Beach town government thinks new fishing restrictions will help keep swimmers safe from sharks. The town is asking Lee County Parks and Recreation to impose stricter regulations on fishing at the county's pier.

The request comes after two big sharks – including a nine-foot lemon shark – were caught off the pier this summer. One man denied it, but council members worry that people are intentionally fishing for sharks.

They want Parks and Recreation officials to put restrictions on the size of fishing rod and line. 'I think it's a good idea,” said a man who would only identify himself as Chris. “Cause you don't need to bring the sharks in here, but they're already here anyway, they're already here.'

Placing chum in the water to attract sharks is already illegal. People at the pier Friday said they often accidentally catch small sharks. Town officials will meet with Parks and Recreation officials in the next week to talk about the issue."

Crusty Crab, no relation to Mr. Krabs or Krabyy Patties

Crusty proves a hard nut to crack. Aquarist Becs Smith with Crusty the edible crab. The crab also has the ability to snap pencils in half. A giant crab which was caught in waters off Cornwall is proving to be a cracking draw for visitors.

Crusty the half-metre edible crab, thought to be about 20-years-old, was pulled up in a crab pot off the Lizard.

In the wild, edible crabs use their giant claws to fight with other crabs and crush shellfish. He was taken to the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, where he is now amazing visitors with his ability to crack walnuts with his fist-sized claws. They wanted to demonstrate how powerful Crusty's claws were.

The edible crab is the largest species in Britain.

College Level Cheating

Cheating happens at all levels. AND, for the most part, it's covered up. MIAMI- Two employees at a Florida university with access to computer databanks have been charged with accepting cash -- and one with accepting sex -- in exchange for changing the grades of dozens of students, authorities said.

Ellis Peet and Clifton Franklin allegedly used generic passwords or those belonging to other registrar employees to make the switches at Florida Memorial University. They both had graduated from the school and were fraternity brothers there, authorities said.

Peet, 37, was fired and Franklin, 32, resigned during the investigation at the school in the working class suburb of Miami Gardens.

The former students received payments ranging from $75 to $600 to change more than 650 grades for 122 students over three years, ending in 2002, authorities alleged in court records. Franklin also allegedly received sex from female students after changing their grades, and both men were accused of changing their own grades.

Peet, a computer technician in the registrar's office, and Franklin, a data entry clerk, acted on their own to organize the scheme, school officials said.

'We were very disappointed and very dismayed by the actions of these individuals,' Marty Pinkston, the school's director of governmental and public affairs, said Thursday.

Peet was arrested last month. He has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and violating intellectual property and computer access laws. His attorney, J.C. Dugue, declined to comment on specifics but said his client hopes to be vindicated at trial.

Franklin, who faces identical charges, has not been found by police. Of five students charged as middlemen, three have been arrested, police said. They were charged with racketeering.

The school discovered in May 2002 that unauthorized access to its computer system had happened and grades had been illicitly improved. The school hired a private investigation firm.

The school has taken several safeguards to prevent a repeat of the scheme, including a mandatory change in passwords every 40 days, and the elimination of generic passwords, Pinkston said."

Public School Segregation: OK if you're not white

Virginia Tech University agreed to created sex segregated classes to appease visiting Muslims faculty from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis bribed Virginia Tech $246,000 to violate the law. If a group of white male students did this, it would have never been. Those white guys would have been instantly thrown out for racism.

Japanese politican comes out as Lesbian

Kanako Otsuji, 30, came out as a Lesbian at the Tokyo Pride Festival. Otsuji is a member of the Prefectural Assembly in Osaka, the country's second largest city. She decided to come out because she said

"...too many people had kept silent in the past, fearing "discrimination and prejudice. By declaring I'm homosexual, I would like to highlight the problems and put an end to a vicious circle of discrimination and prejudice."

Worlds Ugliest Dog

Here he is the three time champion of the World's Ugliest Dog contest. Sam, a Chinese Crested dog, shows that no industry is safe from outsourcing. Sam’s human, Susie, is the kind of human dogs dream about. Cutey Sam with a wink and a tail wag convinced his human, Susie Lockheed, to bring home 2 more of these adorable dogs. According to Sam, Susie massages his fleshy potato-chip thin ears, then runs her fingers through his small patch of white hair (on his head) and then she kisses him all over his hairless body, complete with blackheads, brown warts, moles and a large hernia lump near his rump. Note: Sam is very sensitive about his eyes and he refused to talk about them. He apparently suffers from a cataract which has made his right eye reddish-purple versus his left eye, a very attractive milky white. Sam's website is:
www.samugliestdog.com

Man dies while fishing with rod still in hand

I guess if you have to go, this is a pretty good way. A 71 year old Yonkers New York man was found dead at the bottom of a pond clutching his fishing pole in upstate Brighton after he suffered a heart attack and fell out of his canoe while fishing Wednesday, authorities said.

Pity the Mother

Cindy Sheehan, the mother who's son died in Iraq has planted herself outside the Western White House and is demanding to see President Bush, again. I say again, because she already saw him a few months ago. According to her TV interview, she asked to speak to Bush, it was arranged and she got 6 minutes with him. The first problem was her ex-husband, the father, whom Bush felt that he should meet to. Ms. Sheehan feels that she is a single mom, a family of one and thus she didn't want to sit with her ex. Thus they split the time and she got 3 minutes. At that point she thought Bush was an OK guy, and she supported the war. Now, she claims Bush "got into her face," "was very aggressive" and "wanted to hug her". If she felt so strongly against the war then, why didn't she say anthing at that time, to either Bush or the media? If she admitted this I would have a little more sympathy. But she wants to rewrite history and I'm sorry to say there are no do-overs.

Man dies from 50 hour computer game marathon

A South Korean man died after playing the online battle stimulation game Starcraft for 50 hours. The man who was recently fired because of his game play, apparently had a heart attack minutes after he finished the game. Online computer games are very popular in South Korea and strangely enough this is not the first time someone died from a marathon gaming session.

The game that did the man in was Starcraft, a game about galactic warfare where humans must fight for their survival.

Tommy Boys: Lesbians in Africa

A South African women's jail was host to a book launch for "Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-Sex Practices in Africa". The book provides an insight into lesbians in Africa with special contributions from South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Swaziland and Namibia.

Here is an excerpt from the chapter entitled same-sex Sangomas in South Africa:

Traditionally every sangoma is allowed to have an ancestral wife to help them with their healing work. The issue of a sexual relationship within an ancestral marriage is historically taboo. However the taboo has been secretly broken by some sangomas such as Hlengiwe. The relationship described here is secret due to the fact that these two women live in a conservative rural area: “My relationship with ‘Nomsa’ started the day she came out to find out why my husband wanted to pay lobola [bride price] for her although she never met him before. So when we explained everything to her and told her that she will not stay with my husband but with me. I believe that’s where it started because after my husband paid lobola for her, she didn’t waste any time and moved in with me…Two weeks later when we were alone…she started to ask me if I was a lesbian and why I got married [to a man]? I told her the reason why I got married and asked her to explain the words ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’ and ‘homosexuality’ to me ... she then explained them to me, then we kept on talking. Then during our lovely conversation, she asked me how I felt about her. Did I feel attracted to her or what? I just didn’t know what to say then my heart started to beat so fast that I found myself mumbling. She kissed me and told me that she was a lesbian but that she had to hide it because of how life was in the rural areas. She explained if you talk about these things you are a sinner so let’s keep it to ourselves. I just shook my head then we kissed and we never told anybody. We sleep together staying in the same house. She helps me inside the house and even assists with teaching the trainees [amathwasa]. She has learned to beat the drums and the trainees take her as their mother. They love her so much although they don’t know that we are lovers. It's just between me and her.”

A whale of a receipe!

Stay off my ferry & my beach! signed Greenwich, CT

Island Beach, also know as Captain's Island is an exclusive Greenwich park that makes no exceptions for non-residents. As I was reading this Greenwich Time article, I wondered why I had never heard of this island getaway. You hop on a ferry and suddenly you're in paradise. The writer interviewed some atypical Greenwich residents, i.e. working class people, who have lived in Greenwich for generations. They described Island Beach as an 'everyman's Nantucket' where families who can't afford Martha's Vineyard could go to. At this point I couldn't wait to find out where it was, so I quickly went to my map and to the Greenwich town website.

Curiosity and anticipation quickly turned to sorrow and thoughts of a lawsuit. This is what I found: If you have a resident park pass ($100), the ferry ride is only $2/adults, $1 under 14 and free for seniors. Guests are allowed but only when accompanied by a resident who has the $100 park pass. Visitors, the term used for non-residents who are not welcomed, I mean, who are not with a resident, cannot go to Island Beach. I'm very disappointed and wondering why I was born beautiful and not rich! Seems like those ordinary folks all have had an employment relationship with the town (which sometimes comes with reduced housing). Then there is the very curious statement: "And we pass it along down to generations." Hmmm. Do I detect a non-resident in the bunch? someone with a Greenwich ID who doesn't live their anymore? A, gulp, visitor? I wonder if they'll get arrested like the 75 year old man who bicycled into Greenwich Point Park without a non-resident, visitor, daily park pass.

PETA: dog euthanasia ok, just don't go fishing

PETA truly has no shame. It's only been a few months since North Carolina's PETA was caught dumping dead dogs into other people's dumpster. PETA had made an agreement with various North Carolina agencies to pick up and place dogs for adoption. According to PETA these dogs were unadoptable and thus had to be euthanized. The only problem was PETA is neither licensed to do this nor did anyone know they were doing this. Even though some of the dogs were not completely dead PETA threw them out anyway.

Now comes PETA's new anti-fishing campaign. Ironically it not ok for us but it's perfectly ok for PETA.

CT Muslim March against terrorism and radical islam

The war against terror, which is really the war against radial Islam and their followers Islamasists, Muslims will have to stand up and denounce them. All American Imans need to issue Fatwa's that jihad is immoral and that suicide bombing is immoral even if it's against Israel. American Muslims must use the soap box and proclaim that America is an accepting nation where everyone has an equal chance to succeed or an equal chance to fail. We have rarely seen these demonstrations except maybe post-Operation Iraqi Freedom in Detroit. When American Muslim group leaders appear on TV they only talk about real or perceived discrimination towards Muslims and somehow they always manage to weave the Israeli and Palestinian conflict into the conversation.

In today's Hartford Courant an AP story ran about the yesterday's march at the Connecticut state capital denouncing terrorism. It was attended by 150 Pakistani and other Muslim Americans. They openly proclaimed their love for the US, they denounced terrorism and the Islamasists who have hijacked their religion.

One hundred fifty people is not many but hopefully it will start a trend and more marches, and bigger rallies, will follow across the nation. When that day comes, Isalmasists and terrorists will see the might of the USA and they will realize they have lost their jihad. blog for sandy

Americans didn't flock to Canada after Bush win

The mass exodus to Canada never occurred. What a surprise! But Hollywood, which writes it's own facts, and continues to promote the non-exsistant migration. On the most recent episode of "Queer as Folk" the characters were talking about fleeing to Canada and following everyone else. And since the last time I checked, no 'celebrities' left. As long as your educated, talented or a professional Canada will take you. If you're just an unhappy Democrat looking for cheap prescription drugs, Canada doesn't want you.

How the tables turn on reporters

Reporters are like the Catholic Church in the medieval Ages. They know what the truth is and they will always tell it. We trust them that their annoymous sources are legitimate, trustworthy and not just seeking revenge (think Watergate). Reporters, unlike lawyers, do not take an oath to be ethical or truthful. Yet somehow we have a million lawyer jokes but no reporter jokes.

The reporter who published Helen Thomas' statement about wanting to kill herself if Vice President Cheney ran for office is getting grief from Helen and is looking for an out. He found it in Matt Drudge, that "cybergossip" who "would pounce on" anything.

Albert Eisele of "The Hill" is apparently upset that his column was read worldwide by millions. It seems that his Helen Thomas article was meant for a select few.

Mr. Eisele apologizes profusly to Ms. Thomas for including the quote. While at the same time wondering why Ms. Thomas didn't realize the quote would be used. However, at least 50% of the column is devoted to trashing Drudge and his readers, which would include all the major television news media, for his Helen Thomas problem.

George Bush made me fat

story to follow after I eat my bag of chips and finish watching the soaps.