hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 330

Rumsfeld Charged with Torture in French Court

by Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK - Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. secretary of defense, is facing criminal charges in France for ordering the torture of prisoners in Iraq and at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Last week, some of the world’s leading human rights law groups filed a complaint before a French court charging Rumsfeld with authorizing and ordering torture.

The complaint was registered at the office of the prosecutor of the Court of First Instance in Paris when Rumsfeld was in the city for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“We will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in torture are brought to justice,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit human rights law firm in the United States.

In filing the complaint against Rumsfeld, Ratner’s group received full support from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the French League for Human Rights, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

“Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide,” Ratner added in a statement after filing the complaint. “A torturer is an enemy of all humankind.”

The charges against Rumsfeld were brought under the 1984 Convention against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has been used in France in previous torture cases.

The criminal complaint states that because of the failure of authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent investigation, it is the legal obligation of states such as France to take up the case.

Birth defects in heavily polluted China have increased by nearly 40 percent since 2001, with a deformed baby born every 30 seconds, state media reported on Tuesday.

The rate of defects appeared to increase near the country's countless coal mines, which produce the bulk of China's energy but are also responsible for serious air and water pollution, the China Daily newspaper said, quoting government officials.

Birth defects nationwide have increased from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001 to 145.5 last year, it said, citing a report by the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

They affect about one million of the 20 million babies born every year, with about 300,000 babies suffering from "visible deformities."

"A baby with birth defects is born every 30 seconds in China and the situation has worsened year by year," said Jiang Fan, deputy head of the commission and author of the report.

About 30-40 percent of the deformed children born each year die shortly after birth.


CAIRO -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced Monday that his nation, which lacks the oil reserves of some of its Middle East neighbors, would build several nuclear power plants to meet rising energy demands in coming decades.

The statement, made in a nationally televised address, seemed to have twin purposes: overhaul an energy policy to keep pace with economic growth, and support his son Gamal, who has emphasized the need for nuclear power and is seen by many analysts as a front-runner to succeed the 79-year-old president.

"We believe that energy security is a major part of building the future of this country and an integral part of Egypt's national security system," Mubarak said at an electrical power plant under construction outside Cairo. "We have to face the fact that oil and gas are not renewable energy sources. And we also have to admit that we are facing a great challenge to meet increasing consumption."

The president said the program would be transparent and seek the backing and help of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, and countries such as the U.S., which gives Cairo nearly $2 billion annually in military and economic aid.

Egypt's nuclear announcement comes as Washington has imposed new economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program, which the Bush administration says is seeking atomic weapons. Tehran says its program is for civilian purposes.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 329

Californians lost their homes to foreclosure in record numbers for a second straight quarter, and the trend is creeping into affluent communities, figures released Friday show.

Foreclosures statewide hit a new high of 24,209, besting the previous record by 39%, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Default notices - the first step toward foreclosure - rose to 72,571 for the three months ended Sept. 30, breaking a record set in 1996.

Separately, the Census Bureau reported that the nation's homeownership rate fell for a fourth straight quarter, the longest decline since 1981. The agency said foreclosures helped push the number of vacant homes to a record 17.9 million.

In California, foreclosures are concentrated largely in outlying areas such as the Inland Empire, the Antelope Valley and the Central Valley, where swarms of people with modest incomes used loans with low "teaser" rates to finance their purchases. But data released Friday show that the pain is spreading to higher-priced neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Orange counties and is even trickling into wealthy communities.

WASHINGTON - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

A State Department spokesman did not have an immediate comment Monday. Both Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd and FBI spokesman Rich Kolko declined comment.

In the minds of most mainstream international economists, there is never much doubt that the dollar must eventually decline significantly.¹ A trade deficit this big cannot persist indefinitely. Many analysts hope that the necessary real depreciation of the dollar might be gradual. After all, isn’t the avoidance of such jumps one of the reasons we abandoned the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange system for a floating regime? So why are there modern fears of a sudden discrete drop in the dollar?

Here is the basic idea underlying dollar ‘plunge scenarios.’ Foreign investors have long demonstrated an increased appetite for US assets, moving a greater share of their portfolios into dollars and thus generating large capital flow into the US. But the capital flows needed to maintain an increased dollar share are much smaller than those needed to achieve it. Thus, when investors reach their desired holdings, there will be a drop off in capital flows into the United States, leading to an abrupt decline in both the current account deficit and the value of the dollar.

Standard asset-price logic, however, argues against this sort of anticipated sudden depreciation. Investors should see it coming, and this will dampen their shift into dollars. Under the ‘gradual scenario’, the adjustment process is smoothed as dollar assets become more attractive while the greenback drops towards its sustainable level.

The asset-pricing logic is impeccable. The only reason to predict a sudden dollar plunge is if we believe today's capital flows are driven by investor myopia. That the markets are due for what Krugman calls a 'Wile E. Coyote' moment – a reference to the Warner Brothers’ cartoon where a greedy, shortsighted coyote chases a roadrunner off a cliff but doesn’t start falling until he looks down and realizes he’s left solid ground. Up until this 'Wile E. Coyote' moment, his belief that he’s on solid ground prevents him from falling. For investors in dollars, the 'Wile E. Coyote' moment comes when they realize that their expectations are inconsistent with any feasible adjustment path.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 328

Blackwater Guards Involved in Mass Shooting of Iraqis Back in U.S.
The news comes as the New York Times has revealed that the leader of the Blackwater squad that carried out the shooting and two or three subordinate guards involved are now back in the United States. An anonymous Blackwater employee says the squad leader supposedly left Iraq to have shrapnel removed from his leg. The other guards are said to have left Iraq because their contracts expired. But their departure will likely fuel speculation that Blackwater is trying to avoid scrutiny and punishment. Blackwater is already embroiled in a controversy for ferrying out a guard accused of shooting and killing a bodyguard to Iraq’s Vice President last Christmas eve. The guard was allegedly intoxicated at the time of the shooting. He’s now living in Seattle. Meanwhile the New York Times also reports of a growing feeling within the Blackwater compound in Iraq that the killings were unjustified. Four current and two former Blackwater employees say guards widely expect to see criminal charges.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

Across America, the picture is critically clear - the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

"Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the Denver-based American Water Works Association.


NEW YORK -- Wall Street's pain from the housing slump and credit crunch intensified Wednesday as Bank of America Corp. announced layoffs and Merrill Lynch & Co. recorded $3.4 billion more in mortgage-related losses than it had forecast less than three weeks ago.

Merrill's disclosure raised the prospect that investment banks, which seemed a few weeks ago to be getting a handle on the sub-prime crisis, could face further losses on complex mortgage-related securities.

"The trend is not in the direction of 'This is over,' " said Richard X. Bove, an analyst at Punk Ziegel & Co. "The trend is in the direction of 'This is building.' "

The news from Merrill shocked the stock market and, along with a report of tumbling sales and prices of homes in September, sent the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 200 points before it recovered, in part on rumors of an imminent interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve. The Dow ended the day virtually unchanged.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 327

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congressional committee investigating the performance of Blackwater USA questioned whether the private security firm may have evaded paying millions of dollars in taxes.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, holds a committee hearing on Blackwater USA earlier this month.

By classifying workers in Iraq as "independent contractors" rather than employees, Blackwater appears to have engaged in an "illegal tax scheme" that avoided an estimated $31 million in employment-related taxes in the last year of its contract alone, said Rep. Henry Waxman on Monday.

Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also accused the North Carolina-based company of preventing a guard who discovered the practice "from contacting members of Congress or law enforcement officials."

"It is deplorable that a company that depends on federal tax dollars for over 90 percent of its business would even contemplate forbidding an employee to report corporate wrongdoing to Congress and federal law enforcement officials," the California Democrat wrote in a letter to Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince.

WASHINGTON — Whenever the world's tropical seas rose several degrees, Earth experienced mass extinctions over millions of years, according to a first-of-its-kind statistical study of fossil records.

And scientists fear it may be about to happen again — but in a matter of several decades, not tens of millions of years.

Four of the five major extinctions over 520 million years of Earth history have been linked to warmer tropical seas, something that indicates a warmer world overall, according to the new study published today.

"We found that over the fossil record as a whole, the higher the temperatures have been, the higher the extinctions have been," said University of York ecologist Peter Mayhew, co-author of the peer-reviewed research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal.

Earth is on track to hit that same level of extinction-connected warming in about 100 years, unless greenhouse-gas emissions are curbed, according to top scientists.

A second study, to be presented Sunday, links high carbon-dioxide levels, the chief man-made gas responsible for global warming, to past extinctions. The study was conducted by a University of Washington scientist.


(Naomi Klein's op-ed) "We didn't want to get stuck with a lemon." That's what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said to a House committee last month. He was referring to the "virtual fence" planned for the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. If the entire project goes as badly as the 28-mile prototype, it could turn out to be one of the most expensive lemons in history, projected to cost $8 billion by 2011.

Boeing, the company that landed the contract -- the largest ever awarded by the Department of Homeland Security -- announced this week that it will finally test the fence after months of delay due to computer problems. Heavy rains have confused its remote-controlled cameras and radar, and the sensors can't tell the difference between moving people, grazing cows or rustling bushes.

When the controversial border project was launched, the department admitted that it had no idea how to secure the borders and, furthermore, didn't think it was its job to figure it out. Homeland Security's deputy secretary told a group of contractors that "this is an unusual invitation. ... We're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business."

Southern Califonia fires...

i guess we love to think that this calamity is Nature fucking with us. "Be careful of wild and impetuous Mother Nature! She can be a real gash!" but really...who's fault is it? if downed power lines ignite an open field, or a construction crew welding in 70 mile an hour winds start a fire - is it really some environmentalists fault?

lets look as some history..

• Colorado, 2002 ..Terry Barton, a federal Forest Service employee started the Hayman fire (five deaths; 138,000 acres) after confessing to incinerating personal letters from her estranged husband.
• A former firefighter was sentenced to 10 years in prison for starting the largest wildfire in the Arizona's history in 2002. The man, Leonard Gregg, 31, told the authorities that he set the fire in June 2002 to create work for himself. That fire merged with one started by a lost hiker and burned 469,000 acres and hundreds of homes. The hiker was not charged with a crime. Mr. Gregg has also been ordered to pay restitution of $27 million.
• California, 2006..Authorities on Thursday filed murder and arson charges carrying the death penalty against a man suspected of setting the Esperanza wildfire last week that killed five firefighters.
  The suspect, Raymond Lee Oyler, 36, was already under arrest on suspicion of setting two other wildfires over the summer. Officials were investigating whether he was involved with more than three dozen fires since May.
  Last week's blaze was the deadliest for firefighters since July 1994, when 14 were killed near Glenwood Springs, Colo., according to the National Interagency Fire Center statistics.
• CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire -- which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage -- is being officially declared an arson, and a $70,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist. Investigators have said that at least two of the huge wildfires, one in Orange County and the other in Temecula, were the work of arsonists.

• In Tennessee five years ago, six volunteer firefighters were arrested for setting an abandoned home ablaze, accidentally killing another volunteer fireman. But he didn’t die fighting the fire; he died spreading gasoline in the attic, when the home burst into flames.

sounds like some of us have not evolved past Neanderthal.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 326

WASHINGTON -- Navajo tribal officials asked Congress on Tuesday for at least $500 million to finish cleaning up lingering contamination on the Navajo reservation in the American Southwest from Cold War-era uranium mining, an industry nurtured by its only customer until 1971: the United States government.

The tribe also sought a moratorium on new mining in Navajo country, which extends beyond the formal reservation borders into New Mexico, until environmental damage from the last round is repaired.

The requests came at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, marked by angry exchanges between the members and officials from five federal agencies with varying degrees of responsibility for protecting Navajo health and the environment.



WASHINGTON -- The White House heavily edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two officials familiar with the documents.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, CDC director, told a Senate hearing that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."

But her testimony was devoted almost entirely to the CDC's preparation, with few details on the effects of climate change on the spread of disease. Only during questioning did she describe specific diseases that would probably be affected, again without elaboration.



Insurance claims could haunt houses.
If past history is any measure, many homeowners affected by the wildfires burning throughout Southern California will find that claims they submit to insurers will result in higher rates or even dropped policies.

What they, and you, may not know is that virtually all such claims also will end up in vast, privately run databases that are routinely accessed by the insurance industry to determine what rates they'll charge -- or if they'll cover you at all.

In other words, a claim filed with one insurer can be used by another insurer to jack up premiums, even though your record with that other insurer may be spotless.

Moreover, the databases don't just reflect all claims filed by individual policyholders. They also reflect claims filed for specific addresses.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 325

Report: U.S. Wants to Build Military Bases in Lebanon
In other news from the Middle East, the Lebanese newspaper Al Safir has revealed the U.S. wants to expand its ties to the Lebanese military by building a string of military bases inside Lebanon. According to the report the U.S. wants to build three military bases, use two Lebanese naval bases near Tripoli and build three new radar stations. A senior Pentagon official admitted last week the U.S. wants to develop what he called a strategic partnership with the Lebanese army. Vice President Dick Cheney addressed the situation in Lebanon on Sunday.

• Dick Cheney: "Through bribery and intimidation, Syria and its agents are attempting to prevent the democratic majority in Lebanon from electing a truly independent president. Lebanon has the right to conduct the upcoming elections free of any foreign interference. The United States will work, with free Lebanon's other friends and allies to preserve Lebanon's hard won independence, and to defeat the forces of extremism and terror, that threaten not only that region, but U.S. countries across the wider region."

An Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11 and the hotel emptied out when the planes hit the towers. The hotel later found in the closet of his room a device that allows you to communicate with airline pilots. Investigators thought this guy had something to do with 9/11 so they questioned him. According to Higazi, the investigators coerced him into confessing to a role in 9/11. Higazi first adamantly denied any involvement with 9/11 and could not believe what was happening to him. Then, he says, the investigator said his family would go through hell in Egypt, where they torture people like Saddam Hussein. Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his family suffers ungodly torture in Egypt or he confesses and his family is spared. Of course, by confessing, Higazy's life is worth garbage at that point, but ... well, that's why coerced confessions are outlawed in the United States.

So Higazy "confesses" and he's processed by the criminal justice system. His future is quite bleak. Meanwhile, an airline pilot later shows up at the hotel and asks for his radio back. This is like something out of the movies. The radio belonged to the pilot, not Higazy, and Higazy was free to go, the victim of horrible timing. Higazi was innocent! He next sued the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession. The bottom line in the Court of Appeals: Higazy has a case and may recover damages for this injustice.



Halliburton's 3Q earnings up 19 percent

By JOHN PORRETTO

AP Business Writer

HOUSTON — Halliburton Co. continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings.

The Houston-based oilfield services company said Sunday its net income rose to $727 million, or 79 cents a share, in the July-September period from $611 million, or 58 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

The most-recent results included a favorable income tax benefit of $133 million, or 15 cents a share.

Third-quarter revenue rose 16 percent to $3.93 billion.

Excluding the income tax gain, the results matched analysts' average earnings estimate of 64 cents on revenue of $3.87 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

In a statement, Halliburton Chairman and Chief Executive Dave Lesar said the company's capital expansion in the Eastern Hemisphere resulted in revenue growth of 29 percent versus the third quarter of last year.

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 324

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S.-led forces reported killing 49 insurgents on Sunday during predawn clashes with renegade Shiite militia members.

The fighting was the deadliest in recent months and further stoked furor among Iraqis over the heavy toll the war is taking on civilians.

The U.S. military claimed that no civilians were killed or injured during the raid, while Iraqi police said at least 13 were dead, including three children and a woman. Iraqi authorities said 69 people were injured.

The U.S. military could not account for the differing tally of casualties.

Television news broadcast images of caskets and grieving families in the streets of Sadr City.

The gun battles erupted after armored military vehicles, backed by helicopter gunners, arrived on the fringes of Sadr City to conduct a door-to-door sweep for a rogue militia cell leader the United States accuses of masterminding the kidnapping of coalition soldiers and other foreign nationals in May and last November.

The target of the manhunt was neither captured nor killed, the military said.

"It's the biggest raid in two months," said Karem Hellal , 45, who was out on the street when the soldiers descended on his neighborhood.

In August, the U.S. military reported killing 32 suspected insurgents during air strikes in Sadr City.

Hellal said gunfire killed a neighbor's 6-year-old child and seriously wounded the same neighbor's 2-year-old son.

Poor quarterly results from banks across the US over the past two weeks suggest credit problems once confined to high-risk mortgage borrowers are spreading across the consumer landscape, posing new risks to the economy and weighing heavily on the markets.

US banks have raised reserves for loan losses by at least $6bn over the second quarter and by even larger amounts from last year, indicating financial executives believe consumers will be increasingly unable to make payments on a variety of loans.

Banks are adding to reserves not just for defaults on mortgages, but also on home equity loans, car loans and credit cards.

“What started out merely as a subprime problem has expanded more broadly in the mortgage space and problems are getting worse at a faster pace than many had expected,” said Michael Mayo, Deutsche Bank analyst.

The Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin, is proposing to do away with media ownership rules that bar companies from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Martin's push to rewrite existing rules were revealed by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan during a Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday. If approved the new rules could take effect as early as this December. But Senator Dorgan vowed to put up a fight and said, "If the chairman intends to do something by the end of the year, then there will be a firestorm of protest and I'm going to be carrying the wood." Martin has backed a series of studies criticized for an alleged bias towards media consolidation. In 2003, Martin voted with the then-FCC chairman to lift the same media ownership rules, but the effort was overturned by the landmark Prometheus v. FCC decision. The FCC was ordered to justify the changes and their impact on diversity and localism.

Jenna Bush's face.

what a disastrous punim! i mean...holy fucking hell, she looks like GEORGE W.! what an unfortunate curse. and she's engaged? what man would go near that face...intimately? i am assuming a couple things: her fiance has 20/80 vision, she gives dynamite oral ..daily, and she must allow this guy to look at pictures of her sister, Barbara while fucking her.
at least Barbara looks like a prototypical narcissistic suburbanite cunt with some redeemable hotness walking into a Coffee Bean ... hot, but cunty. not like her sister. ole Garbage Pail Face.

Traffic info at 12:30am Friday morning on KGO 810

"Northbound Highway 1 in Santa Cruz County at Freedom Blvd. - a man reportedly jumping in and out of the roadway - reportedly pretending to be a dinosaur. CHP is on the scene."

hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 323

In Iraq, three Iraqi civilians, including a journalist, were wounded Thursday when guards from the private British security company Erinys opened fire on a taxi near the city of Kirkuk. The British company is in Iraq under a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Injured in the attack was a female journalist who worked at the Kurdish TV station Zagros.


WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress apologized Thursday to a Canadian engineer seized by U.S. officials and taken to Syria, where he says he was tortured.
Maher Arar said he was ensnared in an "immoral" terrorism-fighting program known as extraordinary rendition. The 37-year-old appeared by video from Canada before a joint hearing of House subcommittees.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) apologized but said he still supported the program.
Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by U.S. immigration agents on Sept. 26, 2002, as he stopped over in New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on the way home from a vacation. Days later, he was sent by private jet to Syria where, according to Canadian officials, he was tortured.
"Life in that cell was hell. I spent 10 months and 10 days in that grave," Arar said.


WASHINGTON -- The number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits shot up by the largest amount since early February, a far bigger increase than had been expected.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless benefits hit 337,000 last week, an increase of 28,000 from the previous week. That was the biggest one-week surge since jobless claims jumped 42,000 the week of Feb. 10.
The increase was four times larger than the gain of 6,000 that economists had been expecting and could be a sign that the labor market is starting to weaken under the impact of a severe downturn in housing and the credit crisis that jolted financial markets in August.

It's The Great Ostentatious Pumkin, Charlie Brown

okay. so when did going and getting a pumpkin suddenly have to involve a traveling carnival atmosphere?? i drive by one of those local, seasonally-installed "pumkin patches" and there's trampoline bungee rides, huge blow up kiddie slides, food stands and God knows what else.
i remember as a kid...walking home from school, seeing some pumpkins in the kitchen and thinking.."OH. MOM MUST HAVE GONE TO THRIFTWAY AND PICKED UP SOME PUMPKINS...COOL." end of excitement. i didn't have to be enticed or prodded with the thrill or anticipation of being shoved on rides to get a goddamn pumpkin. some consumer activities do not necessarily involve rides. here are a few i've thought of that do not need bungee jumping or the Zipper to draw you to your purchasing goal.
1) buying tampons.
2) buying insurance.
3) buying a puppy.
4) BUYING FUCKING PUMPKINS!

Abortion.

Conservatives (F-R's) want to outlaw abortion...they say America is a culture of life. We need to ban all abortions. Okay..so lets say we ban abortion tomorrow...all abortions cease. The first 1.5 million babies born have to be shipped to Iraq for compensation, right? 500,000 for economic sanctions in 1990's. And 1 million for this current human wood chipper we call a "war."

BTW..wouldnt it be great if Jesus resurrected and came back in physical form but didn't say anything. Not one word! no Bible quoting, no Love your enemies, no turn the other cheek. But the only thing the holy carpenter does is construct an abortion clinic staffed entirely by gays.

An Open Letter to D.J. Hackett

An Open Letter to D.J. Hackett.

To: D.J. Hackett, receiver, Seattle Seahawks
CC: Shaun Alexander, running back, Seattle Seahawks

First off, Go Hawks. I hope we go 9-7. This would exceed my wildest expectations of the Hawks going 8-8. In fact, we should have a commemorative/anniversary logo patch on the left breast of the jersey, "Celebrating 31 years of 8-8 or 9-7. With a few 4-12's in there too." I hope this fits in a complete circular patch.

I've noticed that D.J. Hackett has a documented, regimented, stringent and fervent ritual of pointing to the sky after every successful catch in the field of play. I am going on the assumption that is a deep devotion to a Christian God and concomitant reverence, humility and adoration for the skill and health to obtain such a wonderful achievement bestowed by an Omnipotent power.

My questions are as follows.

1) Do you believe there is a huge white Anglo, gray-bearded man that lives in the sky? Are you able to look up God's robe after every catch? Do you see his sweaty, old-man balls? Are God's balls only visible immediately following a first down or score? Doesn't this contradict or violate the prevalent, dominant, Western Judeo-Christian dogma on homosexuality? If you see his balls, is this a divine apparition that will bring continued athletic success in catching more balls (footballs, not God's balls)? Playing predominantly in Seattle, are you able to thank God through the clouds?

2) Conversely, do you point to the ground when you drop a catchable pass? This would seem to be consistent with Christianity's inherited and supplemental, Cartesian, mechanized, biblical condemnation of nature. Do you point to the ground in condemnation of all the filthy, naked, capricious and treacherous serpents that inhabit the natural world? Do you go back to the huddle and speak to the ground and Earth with derogation? Do you want to put nature up on a medieval rack and torture the secrets out of her? Do you speak directly to John Locke's spirit? Who lives in the center of the Earth? Satan? Hades? Ronald Reagan? Sam Walton?

3) Can you ask Shaun Alexander why he gave his daughters stripper names? (Heaven, Innocence, Trinity) This would seem on the surface to be very un-Christian and unload tremendous amounts of stress and pressure on these girls' psyche's when they enter college.

Sincerely,
E N Orloff
Simi Valley, CA

Go Hawks!!

EPA approves new pesticide

Chemists say methyl iodide, a neurotoxin that can mutate DNA, has 'serious potential for accidents.' But federal officials say safeguards in place are sufficient to protect farm workers and field-adjacent neighborhoods.

"You know,..my kid was born with Autism, asthma, ADHD, no legs, no arms, no eyelids and a cleft pallet ...but hey! My tomatoes had no bugs or worms on them!"

chicks

gotta love em. i do. but not these ones...the girls that wear the women's cap sleeve v-neck T shirts with "BOSTON," "STEELERS," or "YANKEES" emblazoned across the chest. i'm going on record as saying half these chicks cant locate all three of those accompanying cities on a US map. then i'm going to predict they couldn't name 3 back-ups on their "favorite" team. then i'm going to say that they, nor anyone they know - grew up within a 25 mile radius of said teams.

cancer..lolol

well, it's not funny.. but if any of you know me..i tackle the hard stuff. i was trying to think about a joke about those Lance Armstrong "Live Strong" bracelets. i notice i don't see them anymore. (i guess they served their purpose as a highly successful fashion trend)
anyway..i'm in Malibu...near Kanan Road and a BMW pulls up next to me at a stop light. The driver puts up his arm to rest it on the door/window. AND HE'S WEARING TWO LIVE STRONG BRACELETS. not one. but ....TWO. i did the whole Shaggy and Scooby rub my eyes bit. "Zoinks! Two!"
so here goes..
Do two bracelets form an extra cancer force shield around you?
Does God pass out cancer? ...
Does he see you with two bracelets on one hand and exclaim, "Whoa, hold on...I think I'm defeated here?"
Can you wear them as neck rings or ornaments and stretch out your neck to signify marriages?
Doesn't one cancel the other out?
Everyone knows theres only three fool-proof activities to assure you do not get cancer:
1) Be good-looking.
2) Use lots of hand sanitizer.
3) Buy organic everything.

And why are we trying to cure cancer anyway? Let's say we find a vaccine today. A vaccine that totally eradicates every form of cancer, leukemia, metastases, melanoma and tumor virus. I guarantee you tomorrow - Dow chemical, Monsanto, DuPont, Suterra, Arysta, Chevron, Pratt and Whitney, United Technologies and the Military will be dumping toxic waste and radioactive sludge on babies. Then everyone will have cancer...and pretty soon you'll hear people say, "Will you sponsor me? I'm walking to help stop a cure." or ..."Tomorrow I'm in a Relay for an Un-Cure."

and why must there be a rubbery awareness/cause wristband for everything??
"What's your bracelet for?"
"Oh my friend Bill had diarrhea last night..I'm hoping to spread awareness."

so i was thinking about Republicans (FR's)...

and FR's (fundamentalist regressives) are what i like to call..."discretionary illiterates." Most FR's love the passivity or passiveness of simple media, i.e. talk-radio, advertising, pictures, TV, bright colors and 11 second news stories. I mean, why sit down and read a treaty? Case law? A history book? The entire newspaper? A joint global warming statement issued by the Australian Academy of Sciences, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Caribbean Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, Indian National Science Academy, Indonesian Academy of Sciences, Royal Irish Academy, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy), Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Turkish Academy of Sciences and Royal Society (UK)?
Why take up oxygen isotope paleoclimatology as a hobby when Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter can tell you everything there is to know about science and global climate change?