You never really get the full picture until someone shows you a real picture. Here’s 13 pictures of the apartment PW and El lived in near the 17th Street Canal. These were taken six to eight weeks after the hurricane, if I remember correctly, which was the first they could get into the area.
Tags: Hurricane Katrina, photo
Molly Ivins isn’t the only discontented voice out there. Coast to coast, disenchanted Democrats and former Dems are calling for a party to believe in and leaders who actually lead and the DNC and the crowd in Washington don’t appear to be listening yet.
‘TOGETHER, America can do better.” When you hear that, do you feel inspired?
I didn’t think so.
[…]
Watching the Democrats stumbling around in search of a “message” is the only thing more agonizing than watching the Republicans destroy this country. Five years of Republican-controlled government have brought us an unwinnable war, a global reputation in tatters, incomprehensibly irresponsible
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: politics, Democrats, liberals, DNC, Washington D.C, cowards, age of discontent
comments See also in Politics & Causes, The World
Molly Ivins has had Enough of the D.C. Dems and Jill over at Brilliant at Breakfast points out that there’s quite a few liberals out there who agree. It’s time for a change of guard in Washington — though I think it’s time for a change on both sides.
Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating,
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: politics, Molly Ivins, Democrats, age of discontent
1 comments See also in Politics & Causes, The World
Barnes & Nobles and Amazon are my own personal crack-houses.
– Layne @ Running Scared
Tags: Quote of the Day, books, Amazon
The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats. The letter followed an NBC report focusing on the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, report.
Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Roger W. Rogalski’s letter came in reply to a memo from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who had demanded answers about the process of identifying domestic protesters as suspicious and removing their names when they are wrongly listed.
“The recent review of the TALON Reporting System … identified a small
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: politics, Conspiracy Theories, Pentagon, spying on Americans, protestors, TALON, NBC News, Defense Department
4 comments See also in The World, Conspiracy Theories
Everyone on the Left and the Right over here in the comfort of our lazyboys is always arguing about whether or not the Iraqis love or hate the U.S. Mind you, we’re being fed stories from NPR and Fox News and accusing each other of only listening to biased sources.
Occassionally, it’s good to hear from actual Iraqis without the filter. The Real Ugly American interviewed two Iraqi bloggers to find out what Iraqis really think. It’s a mixed bag of news from the front line, a little bit of what both sides have
Read the rest of this entry »
In Vermont, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney joined Newfane’s Tuesday vote with endorsements for resolutions to impeach President Bush. [“Four Vermont Towns Back Bush Impeachment” (CBS News)]
Tags: politics, Impeach, George W. Bush, Vermont
Did some blog-related house-cleaning today.
Media Girl stopped by and dropped me a note to let me know that some script running on my site was breaking her mouse scroll button/bar. I tried it on Windows 2000 and Windows XP with Firefox and IE (bleh) and couldn’t recreate it. I’m not sure what OS she has or what browser. I’ll drop her a line later, but programmer that I am, I did some code digging and decided that it had to be the script I got from dynamic drive to fold my links menu in my side
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: none
I haven’t done these in a while. As reminder, here’s what this is about. Anyway, I decided to get off my lazy writer’s azz and do some. Hopefully this’ll kickstart some creative juices.
Tags: writing, Friday Five 1rst Sentences
“The Conspiracy” is alive and thriving in Portland, ME…
Tags: fnord, Conspiracy Theories, photo
I forgot to mention that I’m a hostage now. I can’t leave the country. When I turned in my passport paperwork yesterday, they took my only copy of my birth certificate. Now if I want to go to Canada or Mexico again, I’ll need to write Ohio and get another copy. Heh. 
I didn’t realize they get to keep the copy you present until they mail you your passport. I guess I should have read the instructions better. I would have gotten another copy and gotten it notarized too if I’d paid better attention.
Tags: none
There’s so much going on in the news and on the web that I really wanted to comment on it all today but it’s got my brain buzzing. Still I didn’t want some of these things to slip away without sharing because they really are worth a good read.
Tags: politics, Iraq, Vietnam War, Women's Rights, warrantless wiretapping, patriotism, Men's Rights
Well, I must admit that I had to pick my jaw up off the ground earlier when I learned that House Republicans had not only listened to their constituents but grown back bones. It would seem that despite threats by President Bush, who has yet to veto anything since he took office, to actually veto anything from Congress blocking the UAE ports deal, yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee went right on anhead and blocked the deal by voting 62-2 for an amendement to a $68 billion emergency supplemental funding bill for military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan — tricky
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: UAE, House of Representatives, George W. Bush, Hurricane Katrina, Port Deal, politics, Republicans
(Note: Icky personal ahead, but bear with me for the point…)
Over the past sixteen years I’ve been very vocal on the subject of insurance and contraceptives — mostly I’ve been a walking billboard for proponents fighting to force insuance companies to cover contraceptives as part of universal basic coverage.
Why? Didn’t I just confess to the blog world the other day that I am the world’s oldest living virgin?
Tags: Women's Rights, birth control, contraceptives, Senate, HIMMAA, Mike Enzi
The rumblings of a disgruntled America are starting…
February 28, 2006
San Francisco,CA
The City and County of San Francisco became the first large municipality to call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, by a 7-3 vote.
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, San Francisco, Impeach, Dick Cheney, Vermont, Iraq, spying on Americans
WTF is wrong with you people out there?
Just in case you don’t know, Google isn’t the only one keeping track of your searches. Those of us with blogs and websites can keep track of referring search strings to our sites. Yup, we
know what you’re searching on.
I was a little bothered by the people searching for naked grandmothers and naked Iraqis and naked afghan women and I wondered about the person who wanted to see Jessica Lynch naked. I’m particularly concerned about the person who mispelled “wemen”. There really are a lot looking for naked grandmothers.
However, I want you all to know that it’s only a matter of time before this programmer figures out how to dump a report out of my database with the IP addresses of those of you searching for naked children to send to the FBI.
Tags: none
Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.
One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, and 10% of sexual assault victims are men.
In 2003-2004, there were an average annual 204,370 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. In 2004 alone, there were 209,880 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assaults according to the 2004 National Crime Victimization Survey (pdf). Of the average annual 204,370 victims in 2003-2004, about 65,510 were victims of completed rape, 43,440 were victims of attempted rape, and 95,420 were victims of sexual assault.
About 44% of rape victims are under age 18, and 80% are under age 30.
Since 1993, rape/sexual assault has fallen by over 64%.
Because of the methodology of the National Crime Victimization Survey, these figures do not include victims 12 or younger. While there are no reliable annual surveys of sexual assaults on children, (pdf) the Justice Department has estimated that one of six victims are under age 12.
In 2002, according to the 2002 National Crime Victimization Study, 86,290 women were raped. According to medical reports, the incidence of pregnancy for one-time unprotected sexual intercourse is 5%. By applying the 5% pregnancy rate to 86,290 women, RAINN estimates that there were up to 4,315 pregnancies as a result of rape.
Source: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network
National Sexual Assault Hotline • 1.800.656.HOPE • Free. Confidential. 24/7.
One in six women? How many women do you know in your social circle? In your family? I know of two people in my life who’ve confided to me that they’ve been raped, but I certainly know more than 12 women. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
5% might get pregnant as a result of such an attack — I pray to God none of them live in South Dakota…
Tags: rape, sexual assault, Women's Rights, incest
Between 1999 and March of 2003, in Iraq there were 22 attacks on women and one death where the victims were attacked for not wearing the traditional headscarves and veils. That’s before the U.S. invasion.
According to the Women’s Rights Association (WRA), a local NGO in Baghdad, the number of attacks has trippled; there have been 80 attacks to date against women and reports of four women being killed by their families in 2005.
“It’s difficult to say how many women wear headscarves and veils,” [WRA spokeswoman Mayada] Zuhair added. “But, before 2003, roughly, seven out of 10 were wearing
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: Iraq, Women's Rights, Honor Killings
comments See also in The World, Featured, Iraq & Afghanistan, Women's Rights, The Middle East
Feeling hopeless? Feeling like nothing is getting done? Feeling like the whole world is going to crap and no one’s doing anything about it?
There was a thread last night on yesterday’s Conyers hearing re: Impeachment over on that Orange site. It had lots and lots of people saying hopeless things like “We need action NOW” and “People just don’t know the truth” and “How do we get around the fact that the media won’t cover [x]?” and “We’ll never get public support if…”
Well there is a way. It IS possible for You to do something, right now. You can be the change, all it will take is a little work…
If you really, really want it: “Do It Yourself Impeachement - A Guide“
Tags: politics, Impeach, George W. Bush, John Conyers
Well, apparently there isn’t going to be an investigation into Bush’s post-9-11 warrantless wiretapping. It pisses me off becauce I know that if the roles of the parties were reversed Rush and O’Reilly and the Republicans would be calling for an investigation and an impeachment and saying it was the American public’s right to know.
It’s even more suspicious after all the threatening and posturing Frist did last week when it looked like the committee in question might indeed vote to investigate.
Instead, as a compromise, a new seven-member subcommittee is being formed to scrutinize the eavesdropping under a plan approved
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: politics, warrantless wiretapping, George W. Bush, Republicans, hypocrisy, Terrorist Surveillance Act
The Naked Truth
& Other
Discombobulated Thoughts
of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
Bad Behavior has blocked 1916 access attempts in the last 7 days.
