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"We're all wearing the blue dress now."
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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 Down

CHICAGO (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 Return

Heya 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 Bust

Disappointment.  (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.
 
Any thoughts on this guys?
15 November

Ani Difranco Lyrics

 
 
This 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 you
I swear - she does sings about love and happiness too!  More to 
come 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 State

Kaine 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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