April 6, 2012

"I Am Not Trayvon Martin" - powerful message from a 'middle class white girl'

That IS powerful!

April 6, 2012

Nikki Haley’s Imaginary Mark Sanford Scandal-BOOK INCLUDES BIZARRE REF TO APPALACHIAN TRAIL SAGA

We knew that S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s new book would take all sorts of artistic license, but the governor’s “Fiction Addiction” may have jumped to a higher energy level as it relates to a bizarre claim involving former Gov. Mark Sanford.

According to Haley, unidentified members of the mainstream media questioned her back in 2009 about her proximity to the sex scandal that ended the governor’s presidential aspirations and nearly brought down his administration.

Specifically, Haley claims that she was accused of having been in Argentina with the former governor at the time he was purportedly “hiking the Appalachian Trail.” This line of questioning – which Haley says was initiated because her SUV was discovered in a parking space next to Sanford’s SUV at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport on June 23, 2009 – forced her into a “humiliating position” and caused her to “for the first time come face-to-face with what it meant to be a woman in the (gubernatorial) race.”

There’s only one problem with Haley’s version of events … like virtually everything else that comes out of her mouth, it appears to be a complete and total fabrication.
<snip>
much more: http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/04/05/nikki-haleys-imaginary-mark-sanford-scandal/

She cannot stop lying.

In all the hooha about Sanford's proclivities in the wild, she was barely mentioned. I don't remember her being even remotely at the center. Her SUV was never found next to his car. Believe me, that would be easy to prove and would have made the front pages. She didn't have enough clout or powerful friends to cover it up.

She goes out of her way to put herself in the middle of that mishegas. I would want to stay as far from it as possible.

I have no idea what she is up to. I think she is a pathological liar or has some bizarre theory on how to get ahead politically. Few had any idea that she was this type of person. It is beyond weird. I think she is overtaking Alvin Greene in that respect.

April 5, 2012

Teen Girl Exorcism Squad: Three Arizona Girls Claim to Cast Out Demons

Brynne, Tess and Savannah from Phoenix are black belts in karate, expert horseback riders and avid musical theater fans. And they perform exorcisms.

"We're just normal girls who do something extraordinary for God," Brynne said. "After seeing an actual exorcism in person, led by us, you will walk away with no doubt, whatsoever."

Brynne, 17, is the leader of the pack, the one the others call the "enforcer." She is home-schooled and a regular on the beauty pageant circuit. Savannah, 20, is known as the "compassionate one," a college student who likes to shop. Finally, there's Tess, "the middle man" because the others say this 17-year-old can play both good and bad cop. She also performs in local musicals.

"There is a war going on every day, being waged against us," Brynne said. "Satan hates us. We know how the enemy is, we know what he's attacking and we can fight back."

Their teacher is Brynne's father, the Rev. Bob Larson, who says he has performed more than 10,000 exorcisms in the last 30 years.
<snip>
Watch the full story on "Nightline" Tonight at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT.
much more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-girl-exorcism-squad-arizona-girls-claim-cast/story?id=16074541#.T32GOBB5mK1

Out of control!
What happened to Nancy Drew? Even Sweet Valley High?

Give me those noxious teenage vampires any day. The Hunger Games could only be better if Katniss were hunting this Trio of Terror!

Can't make this shite up.

April 5, 2012

Why The U.S. Is The World's No.1 Threat To Internet Freedom

<snip>
Yet more than two years after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her first speech declaring "Internet freedom" to be a major component of U.S. foreign policy, it turns out that many of the most sophisticated tools used to suppress online free speech and dissent around the world are actually Made in the USA. American corporations are major suppliers of software and hardware used by all sorts of governments to carry out censorship and surveillance -- and not just dictatorships. Inconveniently, governments around the democratic world are pushing to expand their own censorship and surveillance powers as they struggle to address genuine problems related to cybercrime, cyberwar, child protection, and intellectual property.

Even more inconveniently, the U.S. government is the biggest and most powerful customer of American-made surveillance technology, shaping the development of those technologies as well as the business practices and norms for public-private collaboration around them. As long as the U.S. government continues to support the development of a surveillance-technology industry that clearly lacks concern for the human rights and civil liberties implications of its business -- even rewarding secretive and publicly unaccountable behavior by these companies -- the world's dictators will remain well supplied by a robust global industry.

American-made technology has turned up around the Middle East and North Africa over the past year -- from Syria to Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, from pre-revolutionary Tunisia to Egypt -- in contexts that leave no doubt that the software and hardware in question were being used to censor dissenting speech and track activists. While much of this technology is considered "dual use" because it can be used to defend computer networks against cyberattack as well as to censor and monitor political speech, some members of Congress are seeking to prevent its use for political repression. To that end, the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), which passed through the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights last week, takes aim not only at U.S.-headquartered companies but also overseas companies funded by U.S. capital markets.
<snip>
Make no mistake: American tech companies are up to their eyeballs in bad behavior. Despite industry and government efforts to keep the media in the dark about a traveling trade show for surveillance technology known as the "Wiretappers' Ball," recent media reports have revealed the extent to which American corporate innovations in surveillance technology are driven by U.S. government demand. And the U.S. government is by far those companies' biggest customer.

According to the Washington Post, at last year's trade show just outside Washington in Northern Virginia, 35 federal agencies as well as representatives from state and local law enforcement mixed with representatives of 43 countries. Despite the Obama administration's proclaimed commitment to Internet freedom, the executive branch of the U.S. government makes no effort to be honest or transparent with the American public about the types of surveillance technologies it is sourcing and purchasing, what capabilities these technologies have, or which other governments are purchasing these technologies.
<snip>
the entire outrageous story: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/03/The_Worlds_No_1_Threat_to_Internet_Freedom


And you can bet the US government is using the same sotware to monitor groups here.
This is on Obama's head. I don't care when it was started because he sure hasn't stopped it. In fact he appears to have expanded it.

'The Wiretappers' Ball'? seriously?

And all the Vulcan Salutes in the world won't make it right!

April 5, 2012

Arsenic in Our Chicken? Cipro? Benadryl? Prozac?

<snip>
That’s because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic. He said that the researchers had intended to test only for antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn’t cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.
<snip>
Big Ag doesn’t advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to detect them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a poultry byproduct made of feathers.

One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. These antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production because they can breed antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that harm humans. Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl. The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html?_r=1

Good on the scientists for figuring out a way to get around Big Ag.

And a big WTF! Yes, I knew they were feeding animals antibiotics and other things. This is scarey.

April 5, 2012

Inside a Military Court Hearing: How the Government Is Railroading Bradley Manning

The WikiLeaks/Bradley Manning debacle provides us with a startling example of how brutally the US government treats those brave enough to provide even a glimpse of the machinations of its imperial assault on the rest of the world. Manning and the whistleblower web site WikiLeaks are credited with providing information that helped precipitate earthshaking historic events, including the Arab Spring and the recent withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. More notably, Manning and WikiLeaks are also credited with (and criminally accused of) release of the so-called "Collateral Murder" video footage of the slaughter of Reuters reporters and other civilians by the US military in Baghdad. For his alleged role in this "crime," Manning is enduring one of the most aggressive legal prosecutions in American history.
<snip>
Under usual circumstances, Military Rules of Evidence (MRE) establish a low threshold of relevance for turning over evidence to defendants.[1] "[M]ilitary law has been preeminent, zealously guaranteeing to the accused the right to be effectively represented by counsel through affording every opportunity to prepare his case by openly disclosing the Government's evidence."[2] In its request to compel production of evidence, Manning's attorneys explained: "To ensure that R.C.M. 405 and 703 will have meaning at trial, 'each party shall have adequate opportunity to prepare its case and equal opportunity to interview witnesses and inspect evidence.... The accused is entitled to inspect both exculpatory and inculpatory evidence."[3]

This standard requires the government to turn over relevant items that are within its control, even if that evidence is not already in its immediate possession. The prosecution and defense, "shall have equal opportunity to obtain witnesses and evidence,"[4] and the "prosecutor will be deemed to have knowledge of and access to anything in the possession, custody, or control of any federal agency participating in the same investigation of the defendant."[5]

Despite these requirements, the Investigating Officer (IO) in Manning's Article 32 hearing, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, denied most defense requests for witnesses, as well as requests for the production of inculpatory and exculpatory evidence in the possession of the government. Almanza is a civilian reservist and senior prosecutor in the Department of Justice (DOJ). During the first day of the Article 32 hearing, Manning's attorney made an impassioned motion for his recusal. Citing the conflict of interest in light of the DOJ's ongoing investigation of Manning and WikiLeaks, as well as his regular employment as a Justice Department prosecutor, Manning's attorney David Coombs made the point that Almanza's role as IO raised issues of apparent conflict of interest. Coombs also pointed to Almanza's pre-hearing decisions to exclude nearly all defense witnesses. Almanza refused the invitation to step down and also denied a motion to stay the proceedings until an appellate body considered the issue of bias. The Article 32 hearing then immediately proceeded forward.
<snip>
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8297-inside-a-military-court-hearing-how-the-government-is-railroading-bradley-manning?tmpl=component&print=1

Justice? MEH!
They can't afford to allow a trial that follows standards to go forward.
They want to connect Assange to Manning. That has been their aim from the beginning.

April 4, 2012

Fire crews rescue 18 puppies from burning house

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP — A firefighter from the West Trenton Fire Company emerged from the side of a smokey house last night carrying his helmet upside down in his hands.

Rushing to a contingent of area firefighters huddled together on the front lawn, he reached into his hat and pulled out a newborn puppy smaller than the palm of his hand.

The puppy was just one of 16 that fire crews saved from the basement of a burning home in the 2300 block of Pennington Road last night. Crews set up a makeshift animal hospital and kennel on the front lawn, using special canine oxygen masks to aid dogs being removed from the home and later putting them in crates.

Pennington Fire Chief Jim DeForte, who served as incident commander, said that the fire began in one room of the house and created a lot of smoke.

While the two occupants of the house were able to make it out safely and 15 puppies were rescued and transported to local veterinary hospitals, one dog died of suspected smoke inhalation, DeForte said. That dog was not with the others in the basement, he said.
<snip>
more: http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/04/fire_crews_rescue_15_puppies_f.html

Some of the puppies were only 2 weeks old and fit completely into the oxygen masks.

HEROES!

April 4, 2012

Some comfort when your fur babies cross the Rainbow Bridge:

More poems and such here: http://www.petloss.com/poems/poems.htm

There are also 2 great books by Cynthia Rylant. They are usually in the kid's section.
They always make me feel a tad bit better at first when my buddies pass. Then as time goes by, they bring me more comfort and gentle smiles.
I want to go to this Heaven!


My buddies are 15 years old. I got them after they were rescued from a dumpster. They have been with me through thick and thin. There has been a lot of thin like ice.

April 4, 2012

If you are in a car and there are tornadoes around,

GET OUT and hit a ditch or any type of depression. Do not take shelter under overpasses.

If there are tornadoes around, the entire area could quickly develop them. They might drop right in front of you or worse.

I know people are loathe to leave their cars, but if these storms can toss 18 wheelers like toys, imagine what they can do to much smaller vehicles.

FYI!

April 4, 2012

Betty White Honors Elton John's Birthday With Crocodile Adoption

To honor the 65th birthday of music legend Elton John, actress-animal rights activist Betty White has adopted a crocodile in his honor.

White and the Lifeline Program, a life settlement company that helps seniors discover a new financial option for retirement, adopted a Malayan gharial crocodile for the music legend to acknowledge his milestone birthday. The reptile will live in the Los Angeles Zoo as part of its just launched LAIR (Living Amphibians, Invertebrates and Reptiles) program.

“Elton has been a wonderful advocate for animals and wildlife issues, so we decided to honor him by adopting a crocodile on his behalf at The Los Angeles Zoo,” White says in a statement.

John, who had a number 1 hit in 1973 with "Crocodile Rock," has been a supporter of wildlife issues for many years, including the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association and the Morris Animal Foundation, which is another of White's favorite charities. 
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/04/03/Betty_White_Honors_Elton_Johns_Birthday_With_Crocodile_Adoption/

Loves me some Betty White and Elton John!