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Pink Politics"We're all wearing the blue dress now." 03 February Quote of the Day - 2/3"It will be a great day when schools get all of the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." --from now.org 11 January Mouse Burns House DownCHICAGO (AFP) - A mouse took fiery revenge on a man who threw it into a pile of burning leaves by burning his house down.
The flaming mouse ran back into the wooden house of 81-year-old Luciano Mares, in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, setting it afire and virtually destroying the building.
Mares said he had caught the mouse in his home on Saturday and threw it on a pile of refuse and leaves he was burning in the garden. "The mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," he told the Clovis News Journal newspaper. Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the mouse stood below a window and set the wooden wall ablaze. Firefighters from two stations spent two hours battling the blaze.
I thought this was bazaar and had to post. :) 31 December My Absence, Dee, and a Promise to ReturnHeya fellow bloggers!
I would first like to apologize for my absence here in blog world. When I first started my space here on msn, I had the time to update daily and comment elsewhere. Lately, however, I have not been afforded that time, unfortunately. However, I do have a few reasons as to why. It's not that I feel the need to explain my lack of blogs lately, but I enjoy it so and have truly missed updating as frequent as I was used to, not to mention corresponding with you guys.
Anyhow...
Earlier this month, a close friend of mine from college and co-worker was killed and, well, to put it bluntly, that kinda sucked. It was really unexpected, harsh, and devastating to me and our close friends. The story, in short, is this...
She had been having some problems with her ex-boyfriend for a few months. After having her tires slashed and her apartment broken into twice, she was granted a temporary restraining order against him. He made bail later that night and the next evening he shot and killed her.
So, for the past few weeks, I have been steadily, in my spare time, researching the domestic violence laws throughout Virginia (my home state) as well as others in the country as well as researching and looking up cases and circumstances similar to that of my friend's.
I just feel that there is no need to even have this thing called a restraining order if it is not going to do the job it is there for. As many law-enforcement officials with Dee's case stated, it is "just a piece of paper." What's the point then? So, I've been looking around here and there and, with a few others, I will try to help change this. I guess there's a lot more to her story (i.e. her ex-boyfriend's mental state at the time) that would help you guys better understand my want to do this, but perhaps I will disclose at a later date.
So yeah, that has been occupying a lot of my time, as have the holidays.
I guess I just wanted to pop on and post why I haven't been around and also to assure that I will continue to post blogs and comments on yours. But for now, it may be a bit sporatic. Then again, it may not be.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I wish a Happy New Year to yas too! :)
Holly
01 December Ugh.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
I attended a second screening of this movie tonight and I have to say I found myself leaving tonight more pissed off than when I originally saw it.
You know, I don't claim to know everything there is to know about economics or free trade, but I've researched and read enough to know that this documentary covers and exposes a lot of truths that many consumers of the Wal-Mart Corporation are very unaware of.
This movie, at times, is very personal and shows two in-depth stories about local, family-owned businesses that (like thousands) have had to close their doors due to falling profits caused by a new Wal-Mart coming to town. In between, it touches on Wal-Mart's factories in China, its environmental negligence, and mistreatment of employees (including the shaving of hours, its very, very poor health and medical insurance coverage, and its paranoia concerning Unions being formed within the walls of their stores.
Watching it, even for the second time, made me want to vomit. Really.
What made me cringe the most was to learn that every new Wal Mart that opens receives, on average, 8,000,000 dollars in subsidies - money that taxpayers pay, money that could be used for education, money that smaller, local, non-corporate companies are almost never granted.
Ugh.
For more information, go to www.walmartmovie.com or to www.wakeupwalmart.com
I think I am going to post some unknown facts about this tomorrow. Right now, I am tired. I know I haven't updated this blog in over a week, but with the recent holiday, I have been extremely busy and haven't been able to find the time to. Lo siento!
But yeah, I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart ever, ever again. In addition, I refuse to buy anything made in China. I went into a Champs yesterday at a mall close to my job and I looked at every single shoe on display - not ONE was made in the U.S.A. - 90% of them were made in China...where my father's job currently is. He lost it two years ago. I refuse to support communism. It'll be hard, but I will do it. For the past two weeks, I have checked every label on everything I have bought and I can safely say that no one on my Christmas list will receive anything that comes from China. Trade gaps. Communism. Ugh. I have to go. I need to vomit.
20 November Goblet of Fire a BustDisappointment. (The "books are always better" line has never been so true.)
Avid Harry Potter fan here. Read the books thrice. The latest theatrical installment was not up to par. Very disappointed.
It's late, but I will update on this later today - and tomorrow back to politics. :) 16 November Endorsing a No-No?The Church-chasing IRS
The Washington Times
November 14, 2005
How political can a priest's or minister's or a rabbi's sermon be before the government treats his church or synagogue like a lobbying firm? The Internal Revenue Service appears to be borrowing a page from the Clinton administration by testing a new, stricter standard on All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif.
At issue is a fiery sermon delivered there two days before the 2004 presidential election, "If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush," in which he preached that "Jesus would have told the president that his Iraq policies had failed." That apparently was enough for the IRS to conclude the church had endorsed Mr. Kerry -- to the point that over the summer, the IRS informed the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon that it might revoke his church's tax-exempt status. This is a terrible idea. If the IRS takes it on itself to parse theology and police sermons for political content, it would monitor a range of activities that are none of its business. Churches are already uncertain as to what is permissible and what is not under the current rules, but this -- whatever one thinks of the rector's sermon -- is clearly an attempt to muzzle preachers and discipline churches.
It's sad to see the IRS church-chasing under President Bush, a man of faith who wants to be seen as a "compassionate conservative." There is nothing here that is remotely compassionate or conservative. The relevant tax-code provisions have been on the books since 1954, when Sen. Lyndon Johnson sponsored them, but until Bill Clinton became president the IRS never invoked them. Suddenly, in 1995, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of a Binghamton, N.Y.-area church that had placed newspaper advertisements urging voters to reject Mr. Clinton's candidacy.
This was probably inevitable: The relevant tax-code language invites overreaching. It prohibits undesirable things like fundraising and endorsements, but further prohibits any activity "that may be beneficial or detrimental to any particular candidate." That's pretty murky; we pay lawyers for shoddy language like that? This could mean no public campaigns against abortion or euthanasia. Just last week, Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles endorsed his state's parental-notification ballot initiative on abortion. Does this mean Archbishop Mahony's endorsement was "beneficial" to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who backed the initiative and whose governorship undoubtedly benefited from this support? Under the new standard, arguably so.
Clearly, then, it's not just liberals who should be worried. Everyone who values the free speech and religious freedom should be concerned. Short of prohibiting speech that foments riots or encourages terrorism, government should not be able to intrude on the pulpit. The Constitution says so.
If the IRS does not retreat to a constitutional hands-off policy, Congress will have to fix the statute. Reasonable language would prohibit explicit endorsements and fundraising, but anything more should be disallowed. The IRS no doubt understands what "disallowed" means.
15 November Ani Difranco LyricsThis post was insprired by my last "Quote of the Day" as well as a recent suggestion of Ani DiFranco to Erik in California. Ya know, Ani is not for everybody, but for true lovers of great, original music, she is a must-know. And for the poets and songwriters out there, you'll find her a genius. You can listen to her music without her lyrics and vice versa and still be in awe.
So anyway, I decided to thumb though some of her lyrics and post a few.
Millenium Theatre
millennium theater
get out there and buy that water and gas running on an orange alert everybody put on your gas mask first leak it out about the president then stand up and shout "impeachment" pulling coat tails out from under that little V.P. before he has a chance to get in the driver's seat millennium spectacle everybody put on a show slip a little prince in the back door 21st century here we go digital whiplash so many formats so little time while out in TV nation under darkening skies the resistance is just waiting to be organized millenium spectacle chief justice is for sale yucca mountain goddesses their tears they form a trail trouble in Israel patriarchy's realize the ice caps melt and new orleans bides her time new orleans bides her time ladies and gentlemen welcome to tonight's show the millennium theater asked that you not smoke please turn off your cell phones and forget what you think you know To The Teeth
the sun is setting on the century and we are armed to the teeth we're all working together now to make our lives mercifully brief and school kids keep trying to teach us what guns are all about confused liberty with weaponry and watch your kids act it out and every year now like christmas some boy gets the milk fed suburban blues reaches for the available arsenal and saunters off to make the news and the women in the middle are learning what poor women have always known that the edge is closer than you think when the men bring the guns home look at where the profits are that's how you'll find the source of the big lie that you and i both know so well by the time it takes this cultural death wish to run it's course they're gonna to make a pretty penny and then they're going to hell he said the chickens all come home to roost malcolm forecast the flood are we really going to sleep through another century while the rich profit off our blood yeah it may take some doing to see this undoing through but in my humble opinion here's what i suggest we do open fire on hollywood open fire on mtv open fire on nbc and cbs and abc open fire on the nra and all the lies they told us along the way open fire on each weapons manufacturer while he's giving head to some republican senator and if i hear one more time about a fools right to his tools of rage i'm gonna take all my friends and i'm going to move to canada and we're going to die of old age Animal more and more there is this animal looking out through my eyes at all the traffic on the road to nowhere at all the shiny stuff around to buy at all the wires in the air at all the people shopping for the same blank stare at america the drastic that isolated geographic that's become infested with millionaires when you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you have to believe mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you have to grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall more and more there is this animal looking out through my eyes seeing that animals only take from this world what they need to survive but she is prowling through all the religions of men seeing that time and time and time again their gods have made them special and above nature's law and the respect thereof and i think when you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you have to believe that mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you just grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall ask any eco-system harm here is harm there and there and there and aggression begets aggression it's a very simple lesson that long preceded any king of heaven and there's this brutal imperial power that my passport says i represent but it will never represent where my heart lives only vaguely where it went cuz i know when you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you learn that mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you just grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall 'Tis of Thee they caught the last poor man on a poor man's vacation they cuffed him and they confiscated his stuff and they dragged his black ass down to the station and said "ok the streets are safe now. all your pretty white children can come out to see spot run and they came out of their houses and they looked around but they didn't see no one. and my country tis of thee to take swings at each other on talk show tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun 'cause we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to you and above 96th street, they're handing out smallpox blankets so people don't freeze the old dogs they got a new trick it's called criminalize the symptoms while you spread the disease i hold on hard to something between my teeth when i'm sleeping and i wake up and my jaw aches and the earth is full of earthquakes and my country tis of thee to take shots at each other on prime time tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun 'cause we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to you they caught the last poor man flying away in a shiny red cape and they brought him down to the station and they said "boy you should know better than to try and escape" and i ran away with the circus 'cause there's still some honest work left for bearded ladies but it's not the same goin' town to town since they put everyone in jail 'cept the cleavers and the bradys and my country tis of thee to take swings at each other on talk show tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun 'cause we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to youI swear - she does sings about love and happiness too! More tocome later.Peace! 11 November Quote of the Day - 11/11"Are we really going to sleep through another century while the rich profit off our blood..." --Ani Difranco (from 'To the Teeth', 1999) Pat's New Pitch
Pat Robertson Warns Pa. Town of Disaster
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.
All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club." Eight families had sued the district, claiming the policy violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The federal trial concluded days before Tuesday's election, but no ruling has been issued. Later Thursday, Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences." "God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever," Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them." Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
Where's my DSM-IV when I need it? 09 November Blue in a Red StateKaine Defeats Kilgore
Okay, I'm finally back from another hiatus. Hopefully, I should be able to update now that Kaine has been elected as the Governor of my state. Between my days at work the last few days, I have been doing my little share of campaigning for Mr. Kaine and today handed out literature at the voting precints to the ones who were, ya know, clueless. I think I swayed one or two. Maybe. Probably not. Whatever, he still won.
However, it wasn't a sweep here. The Lt. Governor and Attorney General that were elected were of Republican...nature.
I'm not Kaine's biggest fan, but I did vote for him today the same reason I voted for Kerry last year - he was the far, FAR, better of the two. And I can tell you why Jerry Kilgore didn't win. Well, he sucks for one, but he also pulled a last-minute stunt to have President Bush speak at a campaign rally he held last night at Richmond International Airport. Did he not receive the memo? People don't like him, doofus! Ohhh, I almost drove out there to see him. I had just the sign to hold up: F.U.B.A.R. Meh.
Anyway, Kaine won and now I have the time to get back to my blogs. :)
On a crappier note, Texas approved an amendment to ban gay marriages in their state today. Don't they have better things to worry about? Seriously.
I'll be back tomorrow! Night guys!
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