In the year 2006 I resolve to: Get 10 speeding tickets. Get your resolution here

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Never would I have expected this nation — which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty — would cower behind anyone just for promising to “protect us.”

President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretaps against U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he’ll continue doing it. His justification? He, as president — or is that king? — has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet or congressional mandate to protect the American people.

Is that America’s highest goal — preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, “What’s wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?”

[via: Mike Luckovich]

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Does your city have a New Year's Eve celebration planned?

Tempe, AZ, has a large Fiesta Bowl Block Party celebration centered around the Fiesta Bowl football game.

Atlanta, GA, has the Peach Drop at Underground Atlanta, which I've enjoyed a few times.

To celebrate New Year's Eve in Key West, Florida, they have a "wench" drop at Schooner Wharf Bar, the Conch Shell Drop from a 110-foot sailboat mast at famous Sloppy Joe's Bar, and the Drag Queen Drop, where, at the stroke of midnight more or less, a drag queen named Sushi, sitting inside a giant ladies' shoe, is lowered from the roof of a gay bar at Bourbon St. Pub/New Orleans House. Now you're talking. All taking place on Duval Street. (See Live Cam)

seen on: CNN

Many cities have recently elected to go alcohol-free and offer a "First Night" or "2006 Bash" celebration. Especially with DUI (driving under the influence) being the focus of many police officers.

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Enron Snitch Accountant Strikes Plea Deal

I can't decide who's worse -- Enron founder Ken Lay, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling or this guy, Richard Causey, who's the latest in a long line of cooperating defendants.

So that's...

1) Leeches
2) Pond Scum
3) Enron Snitches

Link

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Unconventional Marriage - Conventional Daughter

Throughout my life it seems I've either been taken care of, or have taken care of someone else. My long ago retired and widowed Mother is now all alone. Alone and a little frail with some health issues, but she's still sharp and witty as she ever was and she cooks, cleans and goes through the usual daily household grind.

My nurturing gene is strong. It gets stronger as I get older. Since my youngest child entered teendom, I've been dreading the time that she'd be ready to go out on her own. That time will soon be here. And through the unfortunate death of my sister on Thanksgiving, who also took care of our Mother, I feel it's my time to move in and take care of her.

This leaves my husband and teen daughter 90 miles away, which I admit is unsettling. The 'away from my daughter' part. She's in her last year of high school and wasn't thrilled about the option of moving in with her Nana and I didn't force it. My husband and I have always maintained an unconventional union, so a long distance marriage is certainly doable. And he really is a hell of a father. So I'm having some trepidation about being away from Skyler.

Many people my age are faced with tough decisions about their elderly parents. For some of them, it's the right thing to do to put their father or mother in a good nursing home, particularly if they require medical attention. Some are fortunate to have a sibling that can care for them so the parent moves in with the child and the child now becomes the caretaker. The traditional role of parent/child is often blurred. Some will hire a sitter or home health care nurse to come in to care for them there in their comfort zone of their own surroundings. It's never an easy decision to make, and many times life events make that decision for us.

For now moving in with my dear Mother feels like the right thing to do. One day my daughter may also comfort me in my twilight years.

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Hope you had a scintillating Solstice
A delightful Yule
May your mirth be multi-orgasmic
Your visions vibrant
Your glee glorious
Your festivities fulfilling
And your halls decked with Love and Peace.

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Black & White & Red All Over

* She Prefers Black Men - "Black men have something white guys don't have anymore: confidence in their masculinity, their sexuality. They clearly know they're men. White men appear to be waiting for the latest sociological research study to let them know if they are men or not. Yet black men are gentlemen, something else white men no longer are."

* White Cop On Dope - "I bought drugs in uniform. I had been doing drugs my whole life. So I learned the ins and outs of the alleyways. Just because I put a cop uniform on didn't change that. I would shoot dope five minutes before roll call when I was a cop. No one knew I lived this double life. Just my wife knew."

* Why Are Your Reading the Little Red Book? - Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, also known as the Little Red Book, a book once rivaling the Bible in circulation. To really monitor its readership would involve watching all internet access to the text, purchases of the book, and library loans of it. A formidable task and insane waste of FBI time, surely. But these are mad times.

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How to Serve the Ministry of Reshelving

1. Select a local bookstore to carry out your reshelving activities.

2. Download and print "This book has been relocated by the Ministry of Reshelving" bookmarks and "All copies of 1984 have been relocated" notecards to take with you to the bookstore. Or make your own. We recommend bringing a notecard and 5-10 bookmarks to each store.

3. Go to the bookstore and locate its copies of George Orwell's 1984. Unless the Ministry of Reshelving has already visited this bookstore, it is probably currently incorrectly classified as "Fiction" or "Literature."

4. Discreetly move all copies of 1984 to a more suitable section, such as "Current Events", "Politics", "History", "True Crime", or "New Non-Fiction."

5. Insert a Ministry of Reshelving bookmark into each copy of any book you have moved. Leave a notecard in the empty space the books once occupied.

6. If you spot other incorrectly classified books, feel free to relocate them.

7. Please report all reshelving efforts to the Ministry. Email your store name, location, # of 1984 copies reshelved, and any other reshelving activities conducted, to reshelving @ avantgame.com. Photos of your mission can be uploaded to Flickr, tagged as "reshelving", and submitted to the Ministry of Reshelving group.

Our goal is to relocate one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four copies, and to complete successful reshelving of 1984 in all 50 United States. Global contributions are welcome.

I missed The Ministry Of Reshelving when it occurred in August 2005. But many did not as the 97 comments will certainly attest before they were closed down and the BBC also reported on it. So why did people get bent out of shape? Looks like fun to me.

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Fair and Balanced Predictions for 2006

* Soymilk will give me bitch tits. My attemps to get emo-thin by going vegan will backfire when all the estrogen from my soy-rich diet causes me to grow some B-cup boobies. On the bright side, my long lonely nights will not seem quite so lonely with my two new friends.

* “Intelligent Design” will become the cornerstone of science curricula across the country. Students will also be required to learn Chinese and Korean, so that when those countries figure out how to use stem cells to cure every disease known to man we can be their bitches and beg for them to save our lives.

* Looking to bolster his image, President Bush will team up with Mel Gibson to star in Passion of the Christ 2: The Second Coming. Broadcast exclusively on Fox News, Passion 2 stars the President as a loose cannon messiah, kicking ass and taking names. An action packed romp in the spirit of Lethal Weapon, Passion 2 was filmed entirely in the rare English dialect of Bushisms. Fundamentalism for the whole family!

* And more...

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George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens.

It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the presidency had become too powerful, secretive and dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough, and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for accountability. [MORE...]

Go Cheney yourself, Dick. Just how does a soul-less stooge who's driven by greed and power get away with so much for so long? How he still has supporters astounds me.

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saturday morning me//
long purple slinky gown & robe/ballet flats/lap quilt/
took out the dog/got the paper/a brisk 17° F/
visine/zantac/ginseng/milk thistle/
coffee/oj/banana/g-blonde cigs/
listening: left of center on sirius radio/
hows about you?/

* How many blue and red people live in your zipcode? Following The Dollars, a Google Maps mashup that points out 2004 election donations in your zipcode. [via]

* Interactive Pimp My Nutcracker is a fun time-waster.

Quote For Today
"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."
~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Welcome To Austria

Tourists are causing a lot of anxiety — and are costing money — to a tiny village where signs keep disappearing. What do the signs read?

"Welcome to Fucking, Austria."

Pronounced "fooking," the little hamlet of Fucking is named after the man who founded the village in the 6th century. His name? Focko. The town sign has been stolen seven times in the last few months. With signs costing several hundred dollars apiece, much of the tiny town’s budget is being spent replacing the signs, says Siegfried Hoeppel, the Mayor of Fucking. He went on to express his hope that further thefts will be avoided through the use of increased concrete and . . . bigger screws.

Click on Link to see the town signs.

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The Human Rights Campaign’s Buying for Equality guide provides you with the information you need to support products from companies that support equality.
We can help affect real change in workplaces across the country.

Please view the online version of the Buying for Equality guide for the most up-to-date information.

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Friday Random Ten - Haven't done this in a while. If you'd like to play along, shuffle 'em up and show us your ten in the comments or on your site.

1. Hide And Seek - Imogen Heep
2. Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
3. Rollin' and Tumblin' - Jeff Beck
4. Glosoli - Sigur Ros
5. Positively 4th Street - Bob Dylan
6. Heard Somebody Say - Devendra Banhart
7. Lay My Love - John Cale & Brian Eno
   
8. And It Stoned Me - Van Morrison
9. I Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
10. Bitch - Rolling Stones

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WEB OUIJA

The Internet's leading website on Ouija boards.

Ask Your Question!

Then hold your mouse lightly on the pointer and follow it as your answer is revealed.

Link from Museum of Talking Boards

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* TEST POST - With my post on Stonehenge below, I'm trying out the new tool for Firefox called Performancing which I found on Bloglines popular links.  It's a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox. Just hit F8,  right-click, or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.

Currently my feed won't publish, but this extension has possibilities.

* Tom Goskar of Past Thinking was at Stonehenge for the solstice and has posted an album of photos on his Flickr account.

Winter Solstice at Stonehenge - a photoset on Flickr

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This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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BEST JOKE OF THE WEEK -- And it comes from Comedy Central star Jon Stewart:

"Senator Bill Frist, he's a doctor and he says that AIDS could be transmitted from sweat and tears. Not unless your penis weeps while you're fucking somebody."

[via Doug Ireland]--who also has the "A Time To Impeach" piece in Alternet.

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I just ran across this link asking if you maintained a secret site. Either sites that no one knows you're the author, (one you have anonymously or may use a nom de plume) or sites to which the general public does not have access. The consensus is that many people keep a secret site -- in fact many keep several. Count me among those who keep a secret site, although long time readers already know about it.

Do you keep a secret site?

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URLS GONE WILD
Several mini-posts follow below for those of you reading this through Bloglines, Feedburner, etc.

Zombie Claus was celebrated in Michigan last night. [via]

* My favorite quotes: "...you've never seen the likes of it. A whole bunch of Santa Clauses, drunk as lords, cussing and cursing and scraping, all in broad daylight..." and "...Santas were brawling, swearing & falling about..."

* For Seattle, Denver, Nashville, Detroit, and More

* University Of Michigan newspaper does an online parody of Windows XP. Nicely done.
Link

* Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!
Link

* LSD Story Causes Flashbacks

* Reverend Billy exorcised the building, while the security guards looked on, wondering just how much damage control their PR people would have to do if they arrested a preacher and a gospel choir.
Link

* Howard Stern's free speech ride signs off.
Link

* Neil Young to keynote SXSW 2006

* A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Allen Ginsberg's book as well as the American book launch for the 2005 publication of The Baby Beat Generation (The 1970s San Francisco Renaissance)
Link

Why is Christmas just like a day at work? You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit?

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Novak Out At CNN, In At Fox News...HuffPo Comments:

• "Who's my little douchebag of liberty???"


• "Fox News-where you go when your media/journalism career is in decline
(need we mention Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera?)"


• "Novak to Fox? That's like shit crawling back up into an asshole."

Could Novak be on Patrick Fitzgerald's Christmas list? [via]

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Sergey Hrapov Illos - [via]

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What has 1572 tips, is 7-feet tall, and can be purchased at your local Wal-Mart for $79.98? The artificial Christmas tree I promised my Mum I'd put up for her this year.

Not only do you have to assemble the 1572 individual tips (which are actually on about a couple of hundred color coded branches or so-- which is the easy part), but you have to put together the holder and the staff which comes with assorted odd pieces. The kind where you end up with 3 extra thing-a-ma-bobs you never figure out where they belong.

What's more annoying about the box-o'-evergreen is that there are no instructions. Nothing but a perfectly adorned photo on the box of the finished fir unit.

Do I pour me a drink before or after the tree is put up?

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May we have a moment of silence, please, for the funniest motherfucker ever.

Link

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You Can’t Eat A Soccer Ball - a poignant piece from Traveling Soldier. A site with great insight, if somewhat outdated, but the stories ring true with raw honesty and emotion. [via]

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SANTARCHY

from laughing squid website...

Well boys and girls, it’s that time of year. Santarchy is starting to spread again as Santas are taking to the streets for the annual Santacon events in cities around the world. It all started back in 1994 as a small Cacophony Society event in San Francisco called “Cheap Suit Santas”, and now it’s a global phenomenon. As my good friend Klaus Maginrannus says, “No force on earth can stop one hundred Santas!”

Looking for a Santacon in your town? Check out the Santarchy and Santacon tribes on Tribe.net. I’ll be updating the santarchy.com archive as notifications of Santacon events come in. You can also follow all the Santarchy action online using Technorati’s blog search and Flickr photostreams.

Always looks like fun.

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Extensive site of all things cosmic. Enjoy. [via]

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Friday Cat Blogging, Sans Cat.

Like a Casual Friday. But today I'm raw. I'm flying without a net or a cat. No editing my thoughts, they're dangerously flapping from my keyboard before I have the time to reel them back in and clean them up. Just speaking my mind today about dog shit. Yes, the shit of dogs is the topic of the day.

Back at my house in North Carolina, dogs roam the neighborhood and spread their respective fertilizer on everyone's lawn and it evens out nicely. Nobody complains that they're getting a disproportionate share of dogshit. That was the unspoken rule when we moved there, so we gladly comply.

In Tennesse, my old childhood neighborhood ain't what it used to be. Everyone's all grown up and gone that I used to play with. We all played down by the golf course, skateboarded on the hills and rode horses in a nearby pasture. Many of the neighbors have passed on, leaving behind the widows and widowers where baseball fields and neighborhood plays and lemonade stands once ruled.

This morning, one old fart almost broke his neck getting out the door to ask me if I was "going to take care of that mess?" before my dog Buddy's mess had actually hit the frozen blades of grass below. Fuck, man. I had the fucking plastic bag in my hand! But I usually wait until my dog is actually finished before I pick up 'that mess'. And this wasn't even in his yard.

I really hope I'm more mellow than that when I get older. I'd like to think that I would greet the dog walker with a "Good Morning! Nice dog", and wait to see if the dog mess was picked up. If not, I'd politely explain the neighborhood policy.

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New York Gets Venezuela Cheap Oil

An oil company controlled by the Venezuelan government has made its first delivery of cut-price heating oil to the Bronx borough of New York City.

The firm, Citgo, is supplying fuel to thousands of people in deprived areas in co-operation with charities.

Under the deal, Citgo said it would provide heating oil at a 40% discount to fill in tanks at properties owned by three non-profit housing corporations in the Bronx.

About 8,000 tenants from 75 buildings will benefit from the project, according to the company and the corporations.

This is a important story in my eyes. But of all the US news I read and watched yesterday I never saw this mentioned once. I should follow my own advice better. The advice about reading international news to get all sides of US news stories. And sometimes you get info the US hasn't acknowledged or printed.

[MORE »]

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Great Lennon Info


Where were you when John Lennon died? A friend called me and I recall explaining it to my young son. I lit a candle in the dining room and turned off all the lights and sat at the dining room table overlooking all the twinkling lights in the Gap Creek valley below. I picked up my 12-string and began playing 'Imagine', showing Xyon who Lennon was.

A couple of neighbors (Landon and Mott) came by with smiles and beers. My sister, Robin, was inconsolable because John had always been her favorite Beatle from the very beginning.


October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

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Re-Blogging

* John Lennon Day Dec 8 - 25th anniversary of his death.

* Captain Beefheart and his mother, an elf or a freak, and the plastic, horned devil.

* Tea Time and more to come soon from Lightning Is My Girl

* For a sleepy beach town known for having more white people with dreadlocks than any other place in the nation, Santa Cruz is a Mecca for the self-proclaimed ideological liberal. [More »]

* Students send chocolate vagina to douchebag Rush Limbaugh. [via]

* Happy Dreams Can Become Reality. So what are you all waiting for? Didn't you hear? You can make the choice, right now, this moment sitting in your chair reading this, to maximize your level of happiness for all time. And if it is my permission you are looking for, then yes, go for it!! Follow your bliss, be happy, and the universe will take care of you. Because that is what the universe wants more than anything else, for you to be truly and deeply happy for all eternity. [via]

Most definitely. We can choose to be miserable or choose to be happy. Totally up to you.

* Peace On Earth is a nice outdoor setup, if a wee bit chilly.

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Interview with Stephen Gaghan, Director and Writer of Syriana

"… and they’re all back! Just look at them! They’re all like a hundred and ten years old, they cut their teeth under the first Nixon administration ... they hang upside down like vampire bats when they’re out of power and they wait around. It’s the same guys: ‘Hey, don’t conserve energy! There’s no problem! Party on!’"

"... and I’d noticed some times when you could be in somebody’s house, and it could be a totally genteel type of drug dealer, or it could be a more gangster-y drug dealer, but whatever – there was often something similar about them, which is they have children, and the children are staring at violent television, cartoons or some shit, and they’re eating sugar-coated breakfast cereal and they look malnourished, there’s a handgun on the table – there’s always a handgun on the table, like on a coffee table or a table, and it’s so unsettling, and the TV’s going and you’re looking at the handgun and the children are over there and you want to say, 'I’ve got this great parenting book by Mary Hartsell and I just want to give it to you, because I think you could use some advice on parenting. …' But you don’t say that – because that would be breaking an unwritten code. And the unwritten code is the guy has something you need, and you really need it, and you’re not going to fucking bum him out."

It's a very compelling and raw interview and I'm anxious to see if this movie follows his vision.

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Did you know.......?

...that Andy Warhol created his version of A Clockwork Orange...SIX YEARS BEFORE it was even released? He called his movie, Vinyl; both are taken from Anthony Burgess' novel.

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» Introducing: The Beatles (or Retirement Plan #7129)

Release Date: July 22, 1963? That's disputable. There are at least 3 different back covers of the album. I have the "Titles On Back" cover.

While visiting my old home place I looked through some of my old albums I asked my Mother to keep safe for me; after a few too many methaqualone do si dos and drinking games had left many vinyl treasures broken and spent.

I pulled out a few albums from their covers and researched them on Ebay with one eye towards my dream of sailing around the world and the other eye on it's ugly step-sister, reality. With so many variables on this particular Beatles' record-- (cover, sleeve, song selection and label,) and it's 'lovingly listened to' condition, I think I'll just hang onto it.

» Only $2.99 for Zappa's 200 Motels Soundtrack from 1971? But Ringo Starr is Larry the Dwarf. 2 lps and a booklet, too, and the booklet is priceless. 2 by gawd dollars and 99 frickin' cents.

» Blonde On Blonde and Ebay asks $7.49 for my favorite Dylan album.

That's always the way. Captain, unhoist those sails. Stuff I think should be worth more is given away while I'm amazed at the high prices on some generic crap.

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For 11 weeks, PETA supporters have hammered retailer J.Crew with letters, and phone calls, and protests, demanding that the chain stop selling fur. This pressure paid off on November 30, when J.Crew confirmed that it will pull fur from its stores and never sell it again. Most fur sold in the United States comes from China, where investigators found that fur farmers swing animals by their hind legs and smash their heads on the ground—breaking the animals’ necks or backs but leaving them panting, blinking, and conscious as they are skinned alive. So this is a huge victory for animals throughout the world, and we hope that you will celebrate with us!

Good to see the hard work pay off. JCrew has a distribution center in Asheville and used to have a call center here which was later phased out. Actually, I was surprised when they recently began selling fur products.

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