helgaleena

druids use satire!

14 Jul 09 17:12:03 GMT

http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/07/international-so...

This is another way I support the art of Pie. :P

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15 Jun 09 13:34:33 GMT

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This is the British Dennis the Menace, who was created at exactly the same time as hank Ketcham's Dennis, only in Dundee for Beano and Topper.

He also has a dog called Gnasher, who looks like his hair combings, only with fangs.

A true Brit hero.

The Lord's Army from Hell

08 Jun 09 16:26:40 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eZCiAGTbCk

At the link is an eighteen minute report on the 'army' that abducts people, especially children, in Uganda and Sudan.

Africa is not a fun continent right now except on the coasts.

And oh spit, the Tamil Tigers have been doing it too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8121441.stm

http://stopchildslavery.com

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12 Apr 09 21:07:11 GMT

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12 Apr 09 21:05:48 GMT

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Easter spam

12 Apr 09 15:49:05 GMT

Space Program rant Update in honor of NASA

15 Jan 09 03:09:55 GMT

My romance- sci-fi author friend at Myspace Melodee Aaron combs the newsfeeds and comes up with some excellent ones.

NASA wants citizen input on what the Space Program's 'civilian' goals should be. TELL THEM FOR GOSH SAKES! click on the link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090113/sc_space/wa...

I asked them to shoot down giant asteroids please. Below is a repost of my earlier blog on the space program and why we need it. Nature is Good. But if we can keep from being incinerated or boiled off into the vacuum, that is a bonus...

Look here, all--

Star Wars geeks may think of ourselves as nerds but actually we are escapists. The real action is in the Real World in Actual Outer and Inner Space. Thank you to the NERDS for this crucial reminder.

On the whole I would say that the non-Star Wars sci-fi parts of my friendsbase at Livejournal have a much higher IQ overall, and know what the Real Nerds with Science Jobs are toying with lately. Whether it's giant particle colliders or Chandra or polar monitoring stations, they are better to spend time eavesdropping on than we 'Jedi' standing around cyberspace waiting for the next Lucas product to spend our grocery money on.

Having shaken my heavily splinted index finger at you all I give you the link.

<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/200...

It's from scifi author Jay Lake,

<a href="http://jaylake.livejournal.com/">http://ja...

a great provider of regular helpings of 'link salad'. I advise you to read each and every comment in the thread because the posts are NOT by the braindead.

Then form your own opinion on whether or not you think humanity is worth perpetuating in the best interests of the planet we parasitize. Tailor you citizenship practices accordingly.

New Years update ! If you click on the following link, there's a great commentary by sci-fi author Melodee Aaron, and a huge and interesting quote of JFK (deceased president John f Kennedy, for the younger crowd) regarding the USA space program.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog...

That is all.

It's that time--- tell me what a great editor I am! with adult exerpt

10 Jan 09 23:57:29 GMT

This is a repost from the group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MMRomancereadersandW... ....

For those who may not have gathered this info yet, I am the chief
editing Sith at Dark Roast Press. My public persona is a dreadlocked
Hutt, as I began my love of M/M romance with Star Wars fanfiction and
still have not fully left that phase of my evolution behind. There's a
pretty comprehensive collection of links to my Star Wars work in all
genres at the Myspace profile.

http://www.myspace.com/helgaleena

What I learned from that incubation was that I could get equally as
much satisfaction from beta reading and mentoring new writers and those
whose mother tongue was not English yet chose to write in it. My
masters in South Asian linguistics wasn't quite as useless as I thought!

In 2007 I followed a brave cadre of fanfiction writers into the world
of e-romance publishing, under the banner of Aphrodite's Apples Press.
I was priveleged to work with over fifty different authors at all
levels of expertise during that time, and count many of them as friends
still, though when the Apple Tree fell, our editing children had to
scramble for new homes.

Worst off was the Aphrodites GLBT line, scheduled to be born on
Valentines Day. Instead, the whole press went down. Rhiannon Rhodes
stepped in and made us a home-- Dark Roast Press.

http://www.darkroastpress.com

I am so gratified
that we are getting such kudos at the P&E Poll. And my work there with
all our writers has meant so much to me, and will continue to do so.

Adrianne Brennan is a former SW geek, yea one among many, whose paranormal romance novel
Blood of the Dark Moon has now been reissued by Freya's Bower at last,
and also her short Blood and Mint Chocolates, an F/F title in the same
universe-- both works are my satisfied editing clients. A vote for her (yes non-M/M
titles, sorry) is a vote for moi. And the books are doing well there at
P& E, http://critters.org/predpoll

also at the LoveRomances Cafe poll.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveRomancesCafe/

But that's not all! Claudia, my boss at Loveyou Divine Alterotica, has
been nominated for a CAPA! You know them; Carol McKenzie and Bryn Colvin and Nix Winter all the other cool writers are there.

Over there I got to do an M/M edit called One Night Stand. It's a paranormal
with plenty of kink. Do check it out.

http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=d...

EXERPT:

When their lips parted Arda whispered, "You'll appreciate
tonight. You'll see." He touched Greg's shirt and drew his finger down
his forearm. That feels nice. "I want to seduce you."

No kidding. "I realize this. But first, I want to get to know you."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything...just talk to me."

He shot Greg a bewildered glance and shrugged. "I'm just like you.
Well, almost. I enjoy good food, mostly earth food...Italian...some
Chinese. But I also enjoy food from other planets...like Klingdon
cuisine. Occasionally I drink a glass of fine earth wine." He raised
his glass in a wordless toast. "I have all the emotions you humans
experience. I have many enjoyments and many dislikes. I like to play
the piano and I can sing. I like to paint nudes in oils and belly
dance."

"Art?" He is toying with me...lying maybe. Greg shook his head and
rolled his eyes.

"We have things in common, don't we? Actually, if you got to know me
better, you'd find we have a lot in common. Unfortunately, we don't
have time to form a relationship."

He slipped his hand around Arda's neck and pulled him into a kiss. When
their lips parted he murmured, "Tell me about your being a Demi-Lord,"
wanting to get to know the situation better.

"I'm royalty of Dezcartia of Ghod ZoHepez. I'm in line to take the
throne and rule with the Uba Thaph, which is much like the Congress
that you know. I'm risking all that and death to be with you because
I'm not to mix with anyone, except the servants the Uba Thaph provides."

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." He paused in thoughtful silence, then added, "There's
not enough time, Greg, to tell you all of it. I'm sorry."

"You're risking death to be with me?" He's totally obsessed! I'm
impressed with his defiance.

"You're going to be my sexual entertainment for this evening. You'll
love it. It'll be different for you." He raised a hand. "Usba Echu?
Come here. It's time to prepare Greg for the rack."

While the servant stood nearby, Arda's eyes elevated and lazed over the
lowest point of the V in Greg's shirt, where a few sprigs of chest hair
showed. Taunting Greg, Arda fingered his own sex through his clothing,
running a finger up and down the outline of his bulge and down the left
leg of his pants, showing Greg his formidable length, maybe ten inches
or so. On second thought, maybe I'm the obsessed one.

He switched his attention to Greg's crotch and took his hand off his
own pants, reached over and brought Greg's hand into his lap.

Feeling him for himself, Greg relished the intimate touches that he
gave to Arda's cock, even though it was through fabric. Arda's member
pulsed under his pressing and plying palms and fingers. Greg began
squeezing it gently, causing Arda to squirm and moan as he lay back,
his eyes closed. Greg felt the old familiar, hard pang of his own
erection; he teased him until his organ engorged and ached.

"You have no idea what you do to me, love. All night I've been half-
hard in anticipation of this intimacy. Sweet, blissful agony." An
appreciative gaze twinkled in his eyes. "Let's get undressed and go to
the shower," Arda urged. "There's more to come. Much more."

"What will you do to me?"

"You'll see, my precious."
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=d...

I don't know what promo has been done for it, but I was told I
went 'above and beyond' on this one. Most of the other works I do at
LYD are het.

And someday, SOMEDAY, I am going to let another editor see the little
story of a blow up doll who comes alive, my first try at original
fiction that came out of November's NaNo WriMo.

So, am I Best Editor in the universe? Maybe not, but I have lots of fun
trying. Vote here.

http://critters.org/predpoll

What is ahead for 2009?

26 Dec 08 21:02:26 GMT

Your guess is as good as mine. We won't be Bush and Cheney's hostages anymore, but how much will change?

The very same source I am citing reports that Halliburton, Cheney's old chums, have moved their HQ from Houston to Dubai.

As Mr. Fahad notes, my fellow disabled American Bonnie Lackey writes truth. And I'm glad to finally come across it. Thanks, Bonnie.

This is a reprint from http://www.fahad.com posted in march 2006.

The following email I have received from (Bonnie Lackey) had touched me deep inside. It touched me so much because I felt the truth in every word spoken. The reason I'm publishing her email to me is because Ms. Lackey asked me to spread her message on behalf of the good Americans to the people of the United Arab Emirates .... Read her letter carefully to see what I mean ......

Dear Fahad Al Mahmood:

I am an American Woman of 55 years. I searched within the United Arab Emirates for someone to possibly explain the fears that Americans have with the Dubai Ports issue. I stumbled upon your site quite by accident, but felt that you might be able to communicate what I feel to many others.

Additionally, my cousin, attended Embry Riddle as you did and I live in Florida, as you evidently did at one time....perhaps our only common link in the world other than we are human beings watching the world crumble around our ears.

I wanted the people of the United Arab Emirates that this administration has made many mistakes, at least in my eyes, and now, a growing feeling in the minds of many Americans.

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Condeleesa Rice, their support staff, and many major Republican politicians have pounded into the brains of the U.S. citizens that the attack on the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001 had everything to do with terrorism and the majority of those who flew the planes into the twin towers were from Saudi Arabia.

In order to win the 2004 Presidential elections, Bush and Cheney...and all of the rest of their believers...constantly preached the fear of God into the hearts of Americans. Fear was their winning tool.

This administration has proven to be liars, spies, torturers, law breakers, manipulators and basically, a classic group of sociopaths...willing to do and say anything to back their cause.

Meanwhile, for example, George Bush gives tax incentives for American Corporations to go abroad and do business across the world. The Corporations, by the thousands, ran with that offer and invested in countries that normally, we would never do business with. However, these companies offered cost reductions in manufacturing, call centers, textile production, and everything that you could imagine. All while now, many of them, creating fake subsidiaries in various regions of the world...ulimately not having to pay into the tax base of the United States.

Second, this administration, allowed the wealthy major tax breaks...where those individuals pay virtually NO TAXES into our tax base. To divert attention to the working class, they offer a $400.00 a year tax break to win the hearts, minds, and pockets of those who are less savvy about the government, and those who are too busy trying to make money (perhaps working two jobs or the wife and husband are working to support their families) and still they are struggling to survive.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes Dick Cheney, who was the CEO of Halliburton prior to his election in 2000 to Vice President, has an opportunity to elevate Halliburton (in 2000) from number 17 to number 1 for the Pentagon's Vendor list. Halliburton sets up 58 seperate subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, and contracts services with other countries, one being IRAN, where the United States is suppose to have sanctions. Other companies follow suit and ultimately end up making billions of non-taxable income.

The war in Iraq was very pre-meditated. I had heard about Bush wanting to get rid of Saddam long before 9/11 ever occurred. It has been proven now that Saddam never had involvement with Osama Bin Laden, nor did he have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, Saddam did not have the military build-up to match the American Troops. He had poorly maintained everything except them many palaces that he had built. Even the oil refinerys were aged and in poor repair.

My early problem, prior to the truth about Iraq and Saddam ever came out, was with the United States preempting an attack on a soverign government, without the support of the United Nations nor the Inspectors having completed their final reports. This thought process reminded me of a "mad dog"...who attacks without reason or rational....no matter what anyone else thinks or believes. Here again the constant lies...all used to get the American people to support ths agregious act.

The lies and cover-ups from this administration have been constant and always imposed fear of other middle-eastern states. There are many radical religious leaders here in the United States, as well. They make a lot of money by supporting wars as do all of the corporations making supplies for the troops. These ministers preach from their pulpits the same things that this administration did, allowing this fear to have people fearful of death...thus turning to their God, filling the church pews, and paying what these ministers call Tithes...but, it is money...hoping that their prayers and money will buy them, in case of a war on American land, a way to go to heaven...to atone for their sins...I call it an epidemic of religious proportions! The law in the United States is suppose to be "separation of church and state". However, this is what George Bush put forth when he was running for office...his "supposed" Christian beliefs and that God had told him to run for office????!!!! If anyone else said that to the American public, they would have him in a straight jacket and placed in a mental institution. But this draws in these ministers

Please note at this juncture that these churches are also tax free. They pay NO TAXES for anything. So, once again, the middle and poor classes must bear the burden of supporting the budgetary needs of this government. Soon, as the war costs grow, since there is not enough money coming from just these hard working Americans, this adminstration, siphons money from all of the trust funds including Social Security Trust Fund, Federal Employees Retirement Fund, the Military Retirement Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Trust Fund, The Railroad Employees Retirement Trust Fund, the Federal Employees Life Insurance Trust Funds, the American Indian Trust Fund and more....now they try to say that the Social Security Trust Fund, that we have all paid into all of our working lives, is almost bankrupt....they do not tell us why...and they don't tell all of the other groups involved that there is anything wrong with their accounts. They have taken close to $4.1 TRILLION DOLLARS from these accounts since Bush came into office with no marketable assets to back the amount taken and no budget to pay back the trust funds. These Trust Funds are not suppose to be touched. They are only suppose to reinvest them to help them make more money.

Additionally, this administration starts borrowing from other countries (approximately 11 others), Japan being the one we owe the most to and China the second highest amount. However, they offer marketable assets to these countries, especially China. Now China, not only is in a major trade deficit with us, but holds our financial security in the palms of their hands. Much of what I am telling you is not publicised on American television as these stations are now all Corporate owned and the corporations are making much money doing lots of things including supplying the war, which only benefit them and their stock holders...not America in general. The CEO's of these Corporations also make lots of money, tax free due to tax loopholes for the rich. So they decapitate the the American Tax Revenue System in America, once again, also having the ability to control the information that is provided to the common American citizen.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of American jobs are being outsourced annually. Over 800,000 jobs in 2005 alone. High Tech jobs in America for American Corporations are being held back for Foreign Nationals...over 200,000 jobs.

Now the Budget, which they are actually withholding large sections of it from being devulged to the Congress and Senate and the American People, is such a large, black hole that they start cutting the budget. Where do they start?
With Medicare (medical assistance for elderly and disabled), Medicaid (medical assistance for the very poor), and grants for college for poor and middle-class students. They also cut subsidies to American Farmers, because of the trade agreements, they can import fruits and vegetables for much less money than helping the American Farmers.

Now, as corporations find that they can make more money abroad...example...GM, General Motors has now cut thousands of American jobs, but is the number one car maker and seller in China. Also, since we outsourced so many jobs to China, we are in competition for the world sources of oil. Chinese use to ride bicycles, now they drive General Motors and Ford cars. Yet the Japanese car makers in America are doing very well and now a Korean car maker is moving to the United States to build cars for Americans. Do you see any problems as yet???

Now thousands of American Corporations are laying off or letting go thousands of American Workers. Americans don't have health insurance. If they do, it is very high in cost. The doctors are in cahoots with the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Companies in raising the cost of all of their services and products. Only the well-off can afford nice cars and Health insurance.

Halliburton, meantime, is overcharging the U.S. for oil, food, and other items. This is a "no bid" contract, (how convenient for Halliburton and Dick Cheney whose stock options for Halliburton has gone up 3,128% since he took office and he still gets close to $200,000. in deferred salary from Halliburton, six years since he quit his job as CEO.)

Now the U.S. is trying to sell off American Assets to Foreign Companies...anything to make a dollar...which has been so devalued, as has our reputation, since Bush took office. This adminstration has functioned in a vacuum. They are so busy "cooking the books" as they say in America for those misrepresenting and doing fraudulent and dishonest things with the Nations money, they are also so busy lying and deceiving the American Public, they are so busy looking out for their own best interest, which is a conflict of interest for elected officials to be making money or seeking long-term benefits for themselves. They are so busy undermining the people paying their salaries, helping their rich friends get ahead, and making sure all of those corporations make big donations to their party for the concessions made in tax incentives and tax breaks and the poor and middle class can just go to hell, plain and simple.

The schools are very poor in America, there are so many illiterate students, and we now have the greatest high school drop-out rate ever in America. Students who so graduate can't afford to go to college now that the grants and scholarships have been either eliminated or reduces.

The chemical companies, pharmaceutical companies, the Federal Drug Administration, and the doctors are not providing good health care. The toxins that they are putting into the drugs are making healthy people sick, they can't afford to get well, the chemicals as preservatives and toxins, such as anti-biotics, anti-parasitics and body enhancers to fatten up the animals.... they are feeding and injecting into our animal food chain and spray on our foods in the fields are ingested by the poor and middle class...who still can't afford good health care. The toxins they use in our injections, our teeth, our blood streams...supposedly to prevent illness, fix our teeth, and kill cancer and other diseases are really still killing us. Only the wealthy can afford "natural products" which won't invade their systems with toxins. People are getting frustrated and many low and some, now, middle class are doing illegal drugs and even legal drugs in order to cope with their financial problems. Husbands and wives fight over finances or work so much they never see each other...so they usually break up. The fathers don't pay for child support, the mothers then live with the children way below the poverty level. They now create gettos where there are gangs, crime, and illegal drugs everywhere. Kids and women are getting raped and killed, and kidnapped all of the time.

The police and hospitals do not have enough money or resources to handle all of this craziness! They let criminals out of prisons and crazy people out of mental institutions because there is no money to take care of them. Then these people go out and victimize innocent people...breaking and entering their homes...sometimes when they are at home, stealing their possessions and robbing them of peace of mind. They do drugs which then usually calls for guns of all kinds even semi-automatics, they run the streets at night. Good and honest people must lock themselves up in their homes with security systems in order to protect themselves....all this because there are not enough police, because there is not enough money.

Meanwhile...the crooked politicians are cooking up deals with lobbyists, taking their money, then acting on their behalf to get the things they want done. The politicians live in big homes in Washington, D.C. and their home states. They have excellent salaries that they increase regularly.
They have guaranteed pensions for life and wonderful health insurance for life...for themselves and their families. They can buy anything they want, invest in anything they want, send their kids to the best private schools because they don't have to pay any taxes...and the money keeps rolling in.

These things that I am telling you are just the TIP of the iceberg...which is another thing. The EU wanted the U.S. to join in acting against Global Warming. The U.S. refuses since they don't believe that there is Global Warming. But artic glaciers are melting down at a rapid rate. One huge glacier in Alaska floated away and crashed into a port. The hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, snow slides, mud slides due to extensive rain, droughts due to extensive dry spells...on and on...these are not enough to convince Bush to do anything about Global Warming....why???? Because then he would have to impose enviromental laws that would impact the bottom-line figure for all of their corporate buddies!!! That's why! Even though he is not up for re-election...his party, the Republican Party is up for election...and they all have their hand in Corporate profits either through stock options, lobbyists, or undercover reasons. They couldn't get the donations for their re-elections from the corporations if they imposed environmental restrictions, because the companys couldn't make as much money. Which now brings up the subject of environmental pollution....rivers with chemicals in them, air pollution due to fumes and exhaust from manufacturing smoke stacks. Nuclear reactors in every state...heaven forbid a melt-down or a terrorist attack.

I forgot to mention that the chemicals used in our products have caused millions of deaths due to cancer. Other toxins cause Autism, heart arrythmias and other heart disease issues, Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers Disease...neurological brain diseases. Even if you have health insurance, the hundreds of thousands of dollars for Cancer treatment is more than people can pay over and above the coverage of their insurance policy provides. If you become disabled, it takes years to be approved to get the money that you worked all of your life for. Many people die or get worse leaving them in such bad condition that they will never recover, before they are approved. Having Health Insurance doesn't mean that you are going to get help...because if your doctor doesn't accept it, because it doesn't pay enough...you will then die or loose everything you have trying to raise the funds to pay the remaining costs.

All the while, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld (involved with a pharmaceutical company producing billions of dollars in tamiflu doses which may or may not ever be used and may not be the right product for whatever may hit America and other countries depending on the varient types of flu found), Rice, Karl Rove, Bush's right hand man, and all the rest of his crew...are saying, "We must fight terrorism abroad so that it never comes to our shores". The Al Quieda, the Hamas, the insurgents, whoever is the group of the day or all of them everyday...are coming. That is why we must fight in Iraq. That is why we must tap your phone lines, watch everyone with the Patriot Act...spy on those who may hurt us! The one's who drove the planes into the towers were from Saudi Arabia. Everyone in the Middle East are our enemies...we can't even trust Israel. Now we must watch Venezuela...our borders are being invaded by Mexicans, and other South American Countries, then Terrorist could come through there also.....THIS IS WHAT WE HEAR ON A DAILY BASIS!

The Bush goes and makes arrangements with a foreign country to buy American ports.....No wonder the American people didn't want this to happen. Then Bush goes to India and offers nuclear materials to them. He tells us that they are going toseparate their military nuclear needs from their civilian nuclear needs....How stupid do they think the American people are....??? Much of them are stupid because they don't hear what really is going on behind the scenes. Americans are too busy working...they don't like to read...the middle and lower class are not that bright or else they would be wealthy....so they tell us what they want us to know and now it backfired with Dubai.

Through all of this, the biggots and racists in America are becoming worse in their attitude towards foreigners, even second and third generation immigrants, born in America, but look Chinese, Middle Eastern, black...even though this country was founded on immigrants...these under-educated, gun-toting, American Nazi's are growing in numbers.

I have spent this time telling you this long, true story because, I know that feelings have been hurt because of the Dubai incident. I tell you this to let you know that it is not all Americans! I would love to go to Dubai, I love the customs, the beauty of different religions and cultures. I just wanted someone to tell the story of the GOOD AMERICANS!!! Those of us who recognize what is going on, who read books, research on the internet...those of us who can read between the lines...see what is really going on.

I am disabled due to a car accident. I, actually have more time available that I would like. I watch programs and documentarys that would bore most people to tears. However, I want to be a vital human being...maybe my body has problems, but I want my brain to still function at a high level. I spent my life helping the needy, people that others turned away. I hope that someday, I may be much improved in my health and that I can help others again. I speak three languages, I type 62 words a minute without an error. I read and spell very well. I love computer technology...yet I am stuck, most of the time in bed.

Today, though, I feel good that I tried to let someone know what we Americans are up against. This administration is the worst, the most corrupt, uncaring, vicious, manipulating that I have ever seen in my 55 years. And for the moment, I have the freedom to tell this story, due to my Freedom of Speech. However, many who have spoken out about the wrongs of this administration have lost their businesses, lost their careers, lost contracts, and face constant scruitany by our Federal Government.

So when George W. Bush and Condeleesa Rice go to other countries and tell them what to do and how to do it....it really sickens me...because, as you saw after Hurricane Katrina, it took them five days to save thousands of people right here in America...Bush lied and said that he didn't know. Someone found the tapes to prove that he did...tapes of a conversation that the president had with the person he put in charge of the disaster...that was timed and dated. Still thousands are homeless, here in America, with nothing left but a bag of donated clothes..wandering around. However, they did get to Pakistan and Indonesia after their disasters in two days...because he was trying to impress them!

Most of the money, the National Guard (troops suppose to be used here in America for National Disasters), high-water vehicles, and supplies were in Iraq. Where I live in Florida, there has been 3 terrible hurricanes that have hit within 18 months, I have received NO HELP. I am disabled, with no homeowner's insurance (because at first I couldn't afford it, then, when I had it, it closed down and cut off all policies in Florida, right before the next hurricanes hit this year. I have just a plastic tarp on the roof of my home. Last year I had one, Hurricane Wilma tore it off, so now I have another one on now.

I have asked God that if he will help me get well, that I will travel abroad to help other countries. I know there are many others that would be willing to do so also, except they are all so afraid.

So, I beg of you, sir, please tell the people of the United Arab Emerits and Dubai, for me, and the thousands who would tell them if they could, that there ARE GOOD AMERICANS....but unfortunately, we are not in power at this time...and we cannot even change our own situation and problems...as Bush puts us deeper in debt and continues to incite additional problems. On behalf of the Good Americans, my deepest apology for the change in heart about the Dubai Port deal. However, after reading this story, I am sure they will understand how everything evolved and why most Americans are afraid of their own shadows right now.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Lackey
bonnie462@adelphia.net

Thank you Bonnie for your honest words and I hope I have done my part in delievering your message to the UAE people and all those who started to believe there no good Americans left ....

Labels: UAE

Solstice Reposting of THE AGENDA

12 Dec 08 06:29:18 GMT

The original sermon is here:

I am much too chintzy to write another one just because it's nearly winter solstice. It's hibernation season and I'm fighting that as it is.

http://helgaleena.mylivepage.com/blog/141/1034

Remember you can never have too much Sex. But if it's leading to reproduction you are doing it wrong unless you want the world to die from having too many damn humans on it. And if it involves long term harm to any involved then you are not nice and will get coal in your stocking or your wooden shoe depending on your ethnicity.

This time of year creates intense craving for sleep, or lights twinkling and hot stimulants if action is involved. (y/n)

You know what's pernicious mythology? Soulmates. the One and Only. In the flush of initial compatibility after long searching for a comfortable fit, couples think every single thing is going to go chronically right forever after due to this. Then they go and evolve into better people who might no longer fit each other so well. What's more, if narrowmindedly they think there is no other option than each other, they are stagnant and stuck.

Guess what? It is guaranteed that Death Do Us Part. All things pass from one stage to the next. We can only do our best for one another and hope for the same in return. It doesn't always last, and it doesn't always work, and the least we can do is give the old shoe a decent burial when it wears out. Oh the roads it's been down!

Yours truly keeps outlasting things I thought fondly might kill me. Including 'the love of my life' who turns out to be as steadfast in venom as he was in sweetness. And both turn out to be non nutritious after all. I did my best and try to play by the rules still, whatever illusion he dresses me in with his increasingly unfamiliar mind.

All this had me trying to remember why I am helgaleena, whether I still am, because, that man I married once is seeming so strange suddenly. I came across THE AGENDA and behold, it still fits.

So I box it up and put new paper on so all the people who didn't read it before will think it's tinsely and festive.

http://helgaleena.mylivepage.com/blog/141/1034

A year ago this time I was helping Nikki Watson with her first full length novel for Aphrodites Apples Press. It was about a girl who loses her fiancee and falls apart for months, then is pulled out of herself again by the love of her friends. The title was SPIRAL and I hope it makes its way to print again. It was strung together out of fragments, much like the protagonist herself. AA is gone, but there is Dark Roast, and there is Nikki, now a multi published Australian author of our fine genre.

May your downward and inward spirals tighten into little clumpy lumps in the middle and then unwind outward into increasing illumination as you unfold again.

This is the time of year for it. Must sleep now.

PIE versus chaos

18 Nov 08 22:08:41 GMT

Pie Out of Anything

No, I am absolutely serious. Hard times are coming, if they haven't already hit, and we may not be able to get a turkey to stuff this year and have to buy the two dollar ‘breast roast' instead. It is a lot more festive if you have pies around the lump on the platter. And they can be full of just about anything.

Day by day, there are times when it's hard to know what to make out of the miscellany they handed you at the food pantry, if you were far enough forward in line to get a sack.

Just invest the five bucks in flour instead of a footlong sub at the takeout place and you will have some options. Oh, and another five bucks for a jug of generic vegetable oil. They'll last you two whole weeks at the least, and probably all month if you don't bake your own bread.

Pie crust is simple. You mix oil into the flour until it's almost holding together on its own, then add the last bit of water needed to achieve workable dough. Half a cup of flour should be enough for a top or bottom crust in a standard tin. Biscuit dough is similar, only you only add enough oil to get it crumb state, and also add leavening so it'll rise, and make your more bread like product with buttermilk and water. If you aren't already familiar with producing biscuit and pie crust, learn fast. And I have not mentioned the salt. Lots of people object to me not adding it, but I am allergic to it, you could say. Commercial baked goods are full of the stuff so you hoi polloi probably will miss it.

I shall be dealing with main course pies first and dessert pies second. As I am steadfast in my contention that they can contain anything, I will subdivide by method.

Method one-- stewed anything into an egg pie

Start with a pint of leftover anything with chunks and juice or gravy. Line your tin or casserole with your pastry crust; you probably won't be needing a top crust for this one as the egg will hold it together. Scoop the solid parts of the stew out with a slotted spoon and into your crust. Then whisk together the remaining liquid, three to four eggs, and enough milk to make enough scrambled egg to completely immerse the solids. If the top surface is too unsightly, top with crumbs or grated cheese or something. Bake at medium heat until completely set all the way to the middle.

In England they will put whole small sausages in this. In Finland they will leave out the anything and just bake the eggs. In Spain they will serve you tiny slices of this, call it tapas and charge you a lot of money.

Method two-- tins of anything cobbler

This calls for biscuit dough and has no bottom crust. Mix several tins of things together and add any spare diced vegetable you may have until there is at least a pint but less than a quart of food in the casserole. Make two cups of flour into biscuit dough and cover the top of the casserole of food with roughly walnut or tablespoon sized chunks of the dough. Scrape out the bowl very well, stir into a solution with water or milk, and pour over the casserole so that liquid surrounds the hunks of dough. Bake at medium heat uncovered until the top is a sentimental golden brown and the stuff underneath is bubbling and no longer smells like the inside of the tin. You'll be fine. If it's brown already and hasn't bubbled yet, put a lid on it and keep baking till it smells better.

Method three-individual pies

This calls for twice as much pastry and dry textured anything that can be spooned into a six inch or larger circle of crust, the edges moistened and aggressively sealed, and baked on a cookie sheet. Do not try to fill with more than you would put in a burrito. Unless you like Cornish pasty that requires knife and fork or a towel wrapped around it, that means under a quarter cup per pastry. This is simple engineering.

Method four- the custard pie

Here we are probably entering the realm of dessert, unless you have no teeth. The basic custard pie has one half cup of sugar, an egg, no top crust, and pureed anything. Blend well to fill the crust, and bake until set and bottom crust is completely done. If you are feeling positive about eating, experiment with spices and flavorings.

Method five -fruit pie or tart

If you are lucky enough to have a can of something labeled ‘pie filling' you can use it as is. Otherwise you need to cook and/or thicken the fruit juice with flour or tapioca or cornstarch. It's easy to do this in a saucepan on the stove. In Finland you'd skip making pie at this point and just eat a bowlful. One quarter cup of flour or starch will thicken your quart of fruit. Sweeten to taste.

Are you still making pie? Okay, the bottom crust you will fill, then attach your lattice work or your entire attractively vented top crust and bake. This is also how steak pie is done, and that anomaly, rhubarb. Just as tomato is a fruit we treat as a vegetable, rhubarb is a vegetable we treat as a fruit.

If your fruit is sufficiently presweetened and cooked that it's better to refer to it as jam, the resulting pie is called a tart. Pizza is in my opinion merely a large savory tart on a yeasty crust. However we are not dealing with yeasty crusts or strudels here.

Surprisingly, an onion will cook down to tart state, but not a squash or yam-- too starchy. Treat them as custard.

Method six-gelatin, ice cream or pudding pie

I cannot bear to deal with these until summer, but the directions are on the box. Just cook your crust and not the pudding; put it in later, genius. Precooked crusts are also nice piled full of potato salad or fruit salad which you then weigh down with the correct dressing. Expensive versions from the ice cream store cost big bucks and you can do it at home for cheaper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie

Actually, I am only posting this to console myself on a day when I have been too out of it to do anything else constructive but lecture thou internet that cannot object.

Method seven-- the no-bake cream pie.

This is very romantic but difficult to arrange. It requires cooperation from at least two people, but I can think of no more delicious pie or one that is more pleasant to serve to the appreciative consumer. Do not let a pie like this go to waste. It's extremely nutritious and it doesn't keep.

proposition 'h-eight'

12 Nov 08 20:25:18 GMT

Sadly a few places in my nation voted to reduce the constitutional rights of their own residents at the same time we put in our first ethnic minority president.

Romantic suspense author Rick R. Reed took this broadcast to heart and shared some of his own life story.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

Fellow romance author Brenna Lyons reports on the sad plight of romance distributor and author Terry Pray and her husband (who are Not gay and Are Married) in Greene Iowa. Seems the inhumanity has spread to the corn belt.

http://brennalyonsden.blogspot.com/2008/11/town-ne...

Fellow romance author AJ Llewellyn was outside City Hall in Los Angeles and found it an uplifting experience, no matter how the vote came out, because in the crowd, "the good people far outweighed the bad."

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.... Way to smile in the middle of the thundershower, AJ.

Why it is Important to Have a Space Program

14 Oct 08 21:25:53 GMT

Look here, all--

Star Wars geeks may think of ourselves as nerds but actually we are escapists. The real action is in the Real World in Actual Outer and Inner Space. Thank you to the NERDS for this crucial reminder.

On the whole I would say that the non-Star Wars sci-fi parts of my friendsbase at Livejournal have a much higher IQ overall, and know what the Real Nerds with Science Jobs are toying with lately. Whether it's giant particle colliders or Chandra or polar monitoring stations, they are better to spend time eavesdropping on than we 'Jedi' standing around cyberspace waiting for the next Lucas product to spend our grocery money on.

Having shaken my heavily splinted index finger at you all I give you the link.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/200...

It's from scifi author Jay Lake,

http://jaylake.livejournal.com/ a great provider of regular helpings of 'link salad'.

I advise you to read each and every comment in the thread because the posts are NOT by the braindead. Then form your own opinion on whether or not you think humanity is worth perpetuating in the best interests of the planet we parasitize. Tailor you citizenship practices accordingly.

New Years update! If you click on the following link, there's a great commentary by sci-fi author Melodee Aaron, and a huge and interesting quote of JFK (deceased president John f Kennedy, for the younger crowd) regarding the USA space program.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

That is all.

bloomin' genius blogger

07 Oct 08 19:13:33 GMT

from http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.... which is the blog of a french experimental music group, HERB PROJECT

Tuesday 19/02/2008

Monday 28 01 08
Current mood: angry
Category: News and Politics

I can't believe what I've just heard!

The poor sod who's lost 5 BILLION euros for the Société Générale (one of France biggest banks) had, previously, GAMBLED MORE THAN FIFTY BILLION euros (the equivalent of Morocco's BNP!!)

I gave up trying to properly understand macroeconomics a long time ago when I specialized in literature (a mistake, that's for sure, economics should be on top of the list of the things ANYONE should know nowadays!) but I can at least tell you this: a country (or, more precisely, a WORLD) where a dummy like that one CAN, I mean is ALLOWED TO gamble 50 billion euros on his own because he (I quote the journalist) wants to be considered as the greatest trader in his bank is a WORLD GONE MAD.

I won't go to such extent as summoning the poor children dying of AIDS and malnutrition in Africa, or the havoc to come caused by global warming, 'cause you know that already don't you?

I just wanted to say that the people who let such a system happen (no matter how many and how individually "well-intentioned" they were) deserve to be SHOT ON SIGHT.

Yep, I mean it: shot on sight. Killed. Disposed of. Eradicated...

And, dear reader, that's US! (no I didn't write The US, I wrote US as in YOU and ME.

Yes, dear fans, listeners and readers, WE deserve to be SHOT ON SIGHT because WE let this world happen.

WE never had the pluck to ask such questions as "Er... How does it work in fact?" and, more important: "Why does it work like that and couldn't it work better?" or more daring "What could I do to make it work better?"

The western world is under the spell of what psychologists could call a double-bind: we both want comfort and don't want to know HOW it happens. But the fact is that when the shit eventually reaches the ventilator -which it is BOUND to do: be it either ecological mayhem, final depletion of fossil resources, the final war between the Poor South and the Rich North (or any kind of fanatics having their dear old apocalypse for their invisible gods and the invisible rewards of the invisible world... "sigh" Oh the power of the almighty invisible on the frail visible!... "sigh" (again))-... When THAT shit reaches the ventilator we will all be moaning and turning our shit-smeared faces toward a superior being that doesn't exist wondering "how could you let this happen" when WE should be wondering NOW : "How can WE let this happen".

Shut down your bloody TV (for it's worth nothing, even the bloody news are filled with political lies to make you be quiet and shut the f**** up instead of asking embarrassing questions), open books, roam the Internet, find information where it hides (because it does hide... away from all the bastards who would like to see it disappear), vote, shout, join clubs and unions and non-governmental agencies, demonstrate, demonstrate again, create, express yourself, practice civil disobedience, demonstrate while practicing civil disobedience (and read Gandhi's opinion about that), question the world around you, spit back the shit that is spat at you, be it cultural indigency, political cynicism or economical dictatorship (which is at the root of both cultural indigency AND political cynicism), in a word: FIGHT BACK!

It's time to react NOW.

For WE will be the ones to blame when the shit hits the ventilator!

No gods, no masters, no bad-luck; just US being unable to feel responsible for the mess we let happen on a daily basis.

BG For HP

Recently we had a big old recession fall on us, and the USA government decided to 'bail out' the corporate idiots responsible, which means the same IRS that didn't send me my tax refund or my 'economic incentive' this year is earmarking billions for the gamblers. Same thing this post is about, but that was back in January. That means it's a trend.

Howdy Doody It's Banned Books Week!

03 Oct 08 19:56:08 GMT

Romance author Terry Odell has been keeping this event at the top of her blog this week, and since I am involved with a company that produces an adult-rated product, erotic romance, it seems apropos to mention this.

United States libraries and bookstores are all featuring displays of such 'objectionable' titles as A Wrinkle in Time, Huckleberry Finn, the Harry Potter books, Lysistrata, Rabelais, Gulliver's Travels, and so on, and shouting READ A BANNED BOOK! Amazing the things narrow minds can find to protect their fellow minds against.

It's a slippery slope in our so-called free country, with its so-called free press. First they censor the things you can do in public, then they burn your books and bleep your broadcasts, and before you know it they're burning your neighbors instead of their books.

But Helga, weren't you in favor of Burning Man (and burning other things) just last August?-- you might ask. And I might answer, Yes, my children, there is a positive side to discrimination, when it is used synonymously with discernment. One must learn to tell red from green, and white from black, and warm from cold, and edible from recyclable. But we do not eliminate any color from our spectrum without distoring the entire color scheme and making it hide things best seen! Just because I know the difference between having sex with love and having sex without it, which is no better than rape, does not mean there should be no sex!

Burning is for cook-fires and sweat-lodges, and I am not in favor of burning people unless you are meaning to eat them yourself. If you are just doing it to frighten others, you are despotic. I don't like burnt witch. I like steamed witch, fresh from sauna and cooled by a swift dip in the lake and then moistened with a nice beer and snacks table in the kitchen before serving under the covers, at this season. And surely at a well-managed homestead you have enough cordwood ready for the coming snows that you don't need to burn books or other furniture.

So, let's read as many banned books as we can, just to annoy the banners and see what they are being so silly over!

Here are some links to Terry's postings,

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&...

and some nice stealable quotes.

Banned Books Week
Category: Writing and Poetry

We're in the middled of Banned Books Week, as evidenced by my quotes of the day.

"The trouble with censorship is that once it starts it is hard to stop. Just about every book contains something that someone objects to."

~Studs Terkel

"A Texas town has banned the Harry Potter books because they glorify magic, and learning to read."
~Craig Kilborn

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
~Joseph Brodsky

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
-- Mark Twain

"Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent."
-- Mark Twain

"All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!"
-- Kurt Vonnegut, author

"The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book."
-- Walt Whitman

"There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all."
-- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

"The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame." Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." -- Oscar Wilde
Continuing with the Banned Books Week theme, some more banned titles:

http://www.highlands.edu/academics/library/banned/... William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, Henry Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, George Orwell, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Steig, Joseph Heller,various Newberry Award winners, Salman Rushdie, DH Lawrence, Kurt Vonnegut, Maurice Sendak, William Faulkner, my goodness they've got most everybody in all sorts of genres! Including the Bible!

thanks to author Mechelle Armstrong for this link to the ALA multiple banned list source.

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/banned...

Damien finally a saint

25 Sep 08 23:52:25 GMT

This is a repost from writer AJ Llewellyn's blog at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.... He says:

I want to talk about Unconditional Love today, in particular a Cause I have been passionately committed to: the canonization of the Belgian born priest, Father Damien. They called him the hero of Molokai because this incredible man was the only one who volunteered to service Molokai when death was almost certain.

He defied the Vatican's orders not to have direct physical contact with his flock and went to the Hawaiian island of Molokai, a leper colony in 1873 to serve the sick and dying. Single handedly. Hundreds of islanders were banished to this island during the terrible plague traced to a ship load of Chinese farm workers brought unwittingly to the Hawaiian kingdom causing widespread panic and disease.

I have been devoted, along with many others to the Cause of seeing this Blessed man declared a saint. Make no mistake. I'm not Catholic, nor has God whispered in my ear dictating this long and winding road, but I did have an encounter with Father Damien that I have never forgotten.

Damien, thanks to the new Pope, Benedict XVI is on the road to Sainthood. At last.

The spiritual patron for Hansen's Disease, HIV and AIDS patients and other 'outcasts' has finally been embraced by the Vatican, once embarrassed that Father Damien, in caring for what he deemed his Children, fell victim to leprosy (now called Hansen's Disease) himself and died in agony of it at the age of 49.

His story is remarkable. When he arrived on the lonely, isolated Kalaupapa peninsular, he was shocked to find so many sick and dying men, women and children, banished to the island with no food, shelter or any treatment for this hideous, progressive disease. Damien stopped the women from being raped, demanded food and medicine to be shipped to Molokai, built housing and a church for his children. He fed them, bathed them. Respected them. And he loved them. Utterly and unconditionally.

He must have been a talented builder because every single structure he erected is still standing and in use, by the remaining two dozen patients who will by Hawaiian state law be allowed to live at Kalaupapa until their last breath.

Visitors are allowed to Molokai, but a permit is required and no more than 100 tourists can be on island at the same time. A few years ago, after the death of my grandmother, who raised me, I fell into a deep depression and during a long stay in Maui, found a compilation of oral histories from former patients at Molokai. Their stories were devastating. So many families were destroyed by the "Separating Sickness." I felt increasingly compelled to visit Molokai and read everything I could on Father Damien.

I became obsessed with the wonderful Australian movie, Molokai in which the extraordinary David Wenham portrayed Damien. Like many islanders, I became enraged when Father Damien's steps toward Sainthood resulted in the Belgian government digging up his body from his grave in Kalaupapa.

Long before he contracted Hansen's Disease, he considered himself a leper. I felt in death, as in life he would want to sleep with his children and when the Belgian government bent under international pressure and returned his right hand to the people of Hawaii, I felt even more strongly about paying homage to the man I considered a true hero.

Coincidentally, I won a book on ebay called Margaret of Molokai and couldn't wait to receive it. Then I got an email from a man on Molokai who was devastated because I had beaten him out on the book auction. He had tried to win it for his mother, a still-living resident at Kalaupapa. I offered to give him the book as soon I had read it. I promised him I would read it quickly and send it to him immediately.

He responded with a kind email saying I was the embodiment of the spirit of Aloha. This man and his wife and soon, his mother, started corresponding with me regularly and I ended up going to visit them. Anyone who has read my Phantom Lover series might be interested to know that Lopaka's tutu [grandmother] is based on the woman who became my surrogate mother on Molokai.

She took me on a tour of the hospital. I was shocked to see all the barriers still in place, as a sort of memorial and living museum where family members were allowed to come and visit their loved ones in the disease's curable stage, thanks to new drugs.

We went to Damien's church and we sat in a pew. I will never forget the sun shining on me, the dizzying scent of ginger stems washing over me. I looked at the floor as I thought about my grandmother and all the things I might have said to her given the chance to say goodbye. I saw all the holes in the floor. That, I hadn't expected.

"What are they?" I asked my friend.

"Spit holes. In the latter stages of leprosy, the victims during Damien's time, before there was a cure, could not swallow. Damien still wanted them to come to church and he put spit holes in the floor so they could still come to church and pray."

And then, a wondrous thing happened. I felt him. I really did. His beautiful, Holy ghost was in his House, and I, like all his other outcasts had just become one of Damien's children. It was an indescribable feeling. It was a high feeling of pure love.

"He's here, you can feel him, can't you?" my friend whispered and I just sat, stunned. Had I been alone, I know I would have dismissed that moment as a fantasy. That feeling has stayed with me for years now and I reach in for it, whenever I need it.

Recently, Pope Benedict declared the inexplicable healing of 80 year old Audrey Toguchi's cancer as a Miracle. Her fatal illness miraculously disappeared after a long visit at Father Damien's grave. He has pushed Damien's case to the head of the line where he should be.

Earlier this year, I went back to Molokai and took Father Damien a lei. I know it's only his right hand there, but it still belongs to him. The hand that touched, nurtured, fed and held people terrified and feeling abandoned by their God.

In Hawaii, Father Damien Day is celebrated on April 15.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, the Catholic Church commemorates Damien on May 10.

Known officially as "Blessed Damien of Molokai," he will soon be known as Damien, hero, father...SAINT.

Aloha oe,

Admirable human who shines with great beauty, I make pilgrimage to you as I would to a holy wellspring at this season.

helgaleena

How to subvert a voting machine with no paper backup ---Go USA!

25 Sep 08 21:18:36 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ewsDxXQD4

thanks to romance author Gracie McKeever for this very depressing insight into the non-health of our electoral process in the USA. My town doesn't have this Diebold machine, but reads our paper ballots and then shreds them. Not much more confidence inspiring really. I'll still be voting, and hope for no virus in the works ....

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

"There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation."
W. C.
Fields

seriously meme

15 Sep 08 17:12:35 GMT

Do you have the guts to answer this and post it? Hey let's piss more people off why dont we...
That is the title of this meme I have commandeered from http://anakin415.livejournal.com ... and the answers in pink are the ones she gave that I recycled because I agreed. The ones we differed on are by me in blue.

Would you do meth if it was legalized? Hell frackin no. Why would we consider Meth... weed is better.

Abortion: for or against? I am Pro-Choice. And if a woman makes a choice to terminate a pregnancy, that choice should be readily and safely available to her.

Would our country fall with a woman president? No it will not... whoever said two heads are better than one was not refering to a mans dick however small it may be. Have these people never heard of Golda Meir? Indira Gandhi? Tarja Halonen? Get real!

Do you support the death penalty? No. We have too many overcrowded prisons, and either they reinstitute slavery to fund them or they quit sending so many people to them. Death penlty is too simple a solution.

Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already? Yes! Marijuana has its benefits.

Are you for or against premarital sex? What consenting beings choose to do privately should have nothing to do with me.

Do you believe in God? I believe in more than one God, and they are all manifestations of a force that can also be termed God.

Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized? Yes! The more encouragement of love, the better!

Do you think it's wrong that so many illegal Hispanics are moving to the USA? Illegal from whose POV? They were here first.

A 12 year old girl has a baby... should she keep it? Whoever caused her to have the baby should pay for her and it as well, and they should be with her parents whether they like it or not. Poor things. To cause a child to have a child is criminal neglect.

Should the alcohol age be lowered to 18? If people can vote and die for their country at 18, then they damn well should be able to buy a beer.

Should the war in Iraq be called off? All wars everywhere ongoing should be called off, at once, and other ways found to decrease the population and fuel economic stability. Will it happen?

Assisted suicide is illegal... do you agree? All suicide should be legalized.

Do you believe in spanking your children? When all else fails... and there are so many things to try first!

Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars? Doh! I could have gotten money for burning it? Now you tell me!!

A mother is declared innocent after murdering her 5 children in a temporary insanity case... do you agree? Poorly worded, this one. Yes, this has happened. What am I agreeing to?

Are you afraid others will judge you for reading some of your answers? What else is new? I get judged every day.

Are you brave enough to answer these questions in a public post? Are you??

Power

15 Sep 08 01:01:47 GMT

I don't know if the HTML editor is on the fritz here or what. But today I spent commenting on the Times Online re: Creationsm.

http://www.coolscifi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2... this is a recent editorial at the sciffiorums about it.

I am in favor of it being taught as myth. Especially if it includes Flying Spaghetti as the Creator. I have been debating internally the proposition that what makes us happy makes us wiser, and the reverse, what makes us unhappy makes us idiots. It pleased me to 'follow my bliss' today. It made me feel wiser.

This piece of homily is from a book called Little, Big by John Crowley. In it the old gods are deposed and replaced by a nest of sybaritic rustics who rigorously practice that philosophy and manage to get the 'door' open to where the old gods were. Most intriguing and useful pseudoscience. Would it not be marvelous if what made us happy made us wise in real life as well?

They also were in possession of a microcosmos machine which once started, ran by perpetual motion. Fixing it was instrumental to liftoff, as it were. Would it not be lovely if the yoga of the subtle bodies worked like that? for it is alleged, and fondly wished, that we all contain the cosmos if we look within at the correct angle.

But so far, all I have been sure about is that they who make you happy allow you to be wise, and they who make you unhappy ultimately turn you stupid if you believe them. It's not exactly the same. But it does help me justify my extreme distrust of both myself and the rest of my species. Humans, you are not making Helga happy enough. Yet you did invent this nifty toy I am expressing myself with so thank you for that. Expressing myself is udderly necessary.

No, that is not a gratuitous pun, it is deliberate and the literal truth when looked at from my angle.

Foo Fighters make good vid of myhome life here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p4lhWwkCDo

Scary how much it feels exactly like that, o poor pitiful me, huh? Yet incredibly I continue to exist and breathe and stink and sweat and weep and exude and express. I Ching says: care of the cow brings good fortune. Nobody caring for this cow but herself?

So Vote already!!

10 Sep 08 21:07:26 GMT

repost from Sabrina's blog at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 I AM A WOMAN --AND I VOTE!

*Note from Sabrina Luna: This was recently forwarded to me in an email. It made me heartsick...and made me think. I am a voter, yet there are still women out there who don't exercise their right to vote. I sincerely hope this will change their minds! WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE: This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were wives and mothers and unprepared for the fury that would be unleashed on them. Initially they were jailed for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. By the end of the night, they were fighting for their lives. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women accused of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

Lucy Burns

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to 'teach a lesson' to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

Alice Paul

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/n...

Some women won't vote this year because-why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Recently I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's movie 'Iron Jawed Angels..' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my voice heard. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO has released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote. History is being made. Read more:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/n...

+ + + Sabrina Luna

Spicy Romance with a Touch of Magick

http://www.sabrinaluna.com

WATCH Your Moose!!! the republicans have rifles

02 Sep 08 15:25:56 GMT

Posted originally at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog....

Monday, September 01, 2008 SARAH PALIN ~ LOCK UP YOUR BEAR CUBS.

Current mood: cynical Category: News and Politics

Ahh well, I was going to say "you've gotta laugh haven't you ?" when it came to the subject of Senator John McCains 'sex ticket' Republican running mate Sarah Palin, but after reading the following I have my doubts... I think I'll laugh AND cry instead.

http://twincities.indymedia.org/2008/sep/sarah-pal...

Enemy of the species ? nahhh, of course not ~ and to prove it here's a rather fetching photo below of Governor Palin posing quite happily in her Alaskan office with a grizzly bear skin draped across the back of her sofa, accompanied by an equally and enormously dead crab on the coffee table.... Now then Sarah... Where exactly DO you stand on the subject of animal rights ?

11:42 PM - 4 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment -

RIP CRUNCHER

Posted by RIP CRUNCHER on Sep 2, 2008 12:11 AM [Reply to this]

crazy christina

Dam Rip this subject was wild fire in my home, Alaska WOW he came out of no where with that if they win "Oink" will be the next head on there wall!!! I got lot's more to say but I'll bite my tongue a little NOT that crab you know where that crawled out of Christ she should have fired downward BANGGG !!!!!!!!! Posted by crazy christina on Sep 2, 2008 2:42 AM [Reply to this]

Teresa

At the moment I am speachless from seeing the bear thow and crab ashtray or whatever the hell that is supposed to be but give me some time to recover. Posted by Teresa on Sep 2, 2008 3:50 AM [Reply to this]

helgaleena

Holy schmear, Rip, you get the repost-to-helgas-blog award. But hey, when she hunts moose she has the guts to do her own skinnin'. Animal rights bleeding hearts aside, this is the shocking true state of American politics, BP and all. They bought my credit card debt from Amoco years back. They are in the Brits' back pocket. :( Posted by helgaleena on Sep 2, 2008 6:49 AM [Reply to this]

THE BIG PICTURE (if the world had only 1000 inhabitants meme)

18 Aug 08 03:08:07 GMT

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.... is the origin for this reprint of a nice guy and punk rocker called Thom Bone. He got it from someplace else again. See, I'm climbing off the pity pot, kids...

If the world were a village of 1000 people
Current mood: restless
Category: News and Politics

Source: (Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.) http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnN1c3RhaW...

If the world were a village of 1000 people:

584 would be Asians

123 would be Africans

95 would be East and West Europeans

84 Latin Americans

55 Soviets (still including for the moment Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, etc.)

52 North Americans

6 Australians and New Zealanders

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating:

165 people would speak Mandarin

86 would speak English

83 Hindi/Urdu

64 Spanish

58 Russian

37 Arabic

That list accounts for the mother-tongues of only half the villagers. The other half speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French, and 200 other languages.

In the village there would be:

300 Christians (183 Catholics, 84 Protestants, 33 Orthodox)

175 Moslems

128 Hindus

55 Buddhists

47 Animists

210 all other religions (including atheists)

One-third (330) of the people in the village would be children. Half the children would be immunized against the preventable infectious diseases such as measles and polio.

Sixty of the thousand villagers would be over the age of 65.

Just under half of the married women would have access to and be using modern contraceptives.

Each year 28 babies would be born.

Each year 10 people would die, three of them for lack of food, one from cancer. Two of the deaths would be to babies born within the year.

One person in the village would be infected with the HIV virus; that person would most likely not yet have developed a full-blown case of AIDS.

With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village in the next year would be 1018.

In this thousand-person community, 200 people would receive three-fourths of the income; another 200 would receive only 2% of the income.

Only 70 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one automobile).

About one-third would not have access to clean, safe drinking water.

Of the 670 adults in the village half would be illiterate.

The village would have 6 acres of land per person, 6000 acres in all of which:

700 acres is cropland

1400 acres pasture

1900 acres woodland

2000 acres desert, tundra, pavement, and other wasteland.

The woodland would be declining rapidly; the wasteland increasing; the other land categories would be roughly stable. The village would allocate 83 percent of its fertilizer to 40 percent of its cropland -- that owned by the richest and best-fed 270 people. Excess fertilizer running off this land would cause pollution in lakes and wells. The remaining 60 percent of the land, with its 17 percent of the fertilizer, would produce 28 percent of the food grain and feed 73 percent of the people. The average grain yield on that land would be one-third the yields gotten by the richer villagers.

If the world were a village of 1000 persons, there would be five soldiers, seven teachers, one doctor. Of the village's total annual expenditures of just over $3 million per year, $181,000 would go for weapons and warfare, $159,000 for education, $132,000 for health care.

The village would have buried beneath it enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself to smithereens many times over. These weapons would be under the control of just 100 of the people. The other 900 people would be watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether the 100 can learn to get along together, and if they do, whether they might set off the weapons anyway through inattention or technical bungling, and if they ever decide to dismantle the weapons, where in the village they will dispose of the dangerous radioactive materials of which the weapons are made.

Something to think about...

5:42 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment -

Julie

Don't forget the 2 people in town dumpster diving everyone amazing wastefulness
man does this world know how to be wasteful.

The 10 homeless people cause why don't the other 9,990 people help them
and last but not least the 5 people in town stealing from everyone they can greed

Posted by Julie on May 10, 2008 3:23 AM
[Reply to this]

churchlady.jpg

01 Aug 08 17:19:55 GMT

churchlady.jpg

17,99 KByte 450x488

Gacked from GWENDOLYN at Myspace, because the admin there kept deleting its splendorous presence.

cameragirl_945_w.jpg

01 Aug 08 17:19:53 GMT

cameragirl_945_w.jpg

19,80 KByte 130x175

It's August-- Lammas Lughnasadh and Burning Man!!

http://www.burningman.com

Beijing Olympics 2008

20 Jul 08 22:19:26 GMT

bejing2008 logo by ~suckup on deviant ART

oh pishposh, the thing Does exist; you'll simply have to click on the link preceding to view it.

Remember Tienanmin Square? Anybody? Nice they are buying Coca Cola and letting their citizens have Internet, but hey! the real athletes, like the seven foot tall b-ball players and the martial artists, they all move away!

Ah well there's always table tennis.