VP Palin???

I hate forwards, but I had to share:

Must see pics of Biggest Rally in Alaska 's History - Opposing Palin

Wow! Look at these pictures of a great bunch of people, carrying home-made signs…

ASK YOUR TV STATIONS WHY WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE BIGGEST RALLY IN ALASKA ?

Enjoy….pass it on!

The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage . Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to l ocal m edia outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage , if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing "socialist baby-killing maggot" haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska , who know her best, have things to say.

997... 998... 999...

I lost count a long time ago, of how many FORWARDED emails I have received; especially as of late - given the current political contest. Most anyone who knows me, knows that I'm kind of (read really) liberal politically speaking. I'm also open-minded, considerate and very inquisitive. I wish other people were more open-minded, considerate and inquisitive. I wish this because those of you who aren't, can really piss me off.

I'm tired of getting forwarded emails that have taken facts and twisted them so far outside their means. Talk about taking things out of context. Please, before forwarding, do a little digging of your own to find the truth & come to your own conclusions, instead of just passing along the bologna that was set on the plate in front of you.

We live in a very fast-paced world and don't always have time to check the facts. If you don't have the time to check the facts, then you don't have the time to forward emails filled with lies written by fundamentalist nut jobs.

We all have our own opinion and beliefs. This is a great thing! Even though we may disagree sometimes, I'm glad we don't live in a one-size-fits-all world. Think about how boring that would be! That said, we all need to be more considerate of each other and their beliefs. I'm not saying we should tip-toe around certain topics, careful not to offend anyone, cause we all know how NOT politically correct I am. But damn – I wouldn't think of sending you a forward, bashing someone I know you like, no matter how true the email may be. The phrase "think before you speak" also applies to forwarding emails.

I am not a politician. Therefore, I do not, and will not, debate my political beliefs with you; just as I do not, and will not, debate my personal or spiritual beliefs with you. Unless you are running for political office, I do not seek to hear your political beliefs either; just as I do not seek your spiritual guidance unless I ask for it.

In closing: Opinions are not facts, even facts are not always facts (history is written by the winners). Nothing is black and white. There's always a shade of gray, another side, another view, another story, and another interpretation of that story. Think before you speak, and think before you forward a bullshit email full of lies meant to breed ignorant contempt.

Love, Me

PS - Go Barack HUSSEIN Obama!!!

We Lost A Great One Today :(

In Memoriam: Randy Pausch, Innovative Computer Scientist at Carnegie Mellon, Launched Education Initiatives, Gained Worldwide Acclaim for Last Lecture

Last update: 10:28 a.m. EDT July 25, 2008
PITTSBURGH, July 25, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Randy Pausch, renowned computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, died July 25 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47 (b:10/23/60).
..Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software tool known as "Alice," Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his inspirational "Last Lecture."
That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to live. Titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," the humorous and heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video footage of it.
Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science, spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three "Persons of the Year" for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the lecture became a 1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30 languages.
A Gifted Teacher
Many who knew Pausch before he became famous were not surprised that he touched others so deeply. They had seen this ability in him during his years as a professor.
"Randy had an enormous and lasting impact on Carnegie Mellon," said University President Jared L. Cohon. "He was a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher. His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games. Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them."
"Randy was a force of nature," said Gabriel Robins, a computer science professor at the University of Virginia and Pausch's former colleague. Robins recalls Pausch drawing large crowds, long before he was famous, for his entertaining and thought-provoking lectures about time management. "He had a very visceral, fundamental resonance to the core of humanity. It's not an accident that people flocked to him; people of all ages, cultures and religions. I thought of him as a genius of many things -- not just science and research, but marketing, branding, selling, convincing, leading and showing by example."
Pausch was well-known within the academic community for developing interdisciplinary courses and research projects that attracted new students to the field of computer science. He also spent his career encouraging computer scientists to collaborate with artists, dramatists and designers.
"Good teaching is always a performance, but what Randy did was in a class all by itself," said Andy van Dam, co-founder of the computer science department at Brown University, which Pausch attended as an undergraduate. Van Dam, a longtime mentor to Pausch, was impressed by "the care and affection he lavished on his students. They responded to him as athletes do to a great coach who cares not only about winning but about the team players as individuals."
Pausch, the father of three young children, saw it as his mission to help enable the dreams of his students. In his last lecture, he spoke of how grateful he was to those who had helped him along the way: professors, colleagues, a football coach, and especially, his own parents. He explained how he had dreamed of writing a World Book Encyclopedia entry, experiencing zero gravity and creating Disney attractions -- all dreams that were fulfilled. He said he learned even more from dreams that didn't come true, such as being a pro football player. He also shared a host of lessons -- about finding the good in other people, about seeing "brick walls" not as obstacles but as challenges, and about living generously.
"If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself," Pausch said. "The dreams will come to you."
At the end of the talk, he revealed that he had given it mostly to serve as a roadmap for his three young children. The book based on the talk has a similar purpose. As he explained it: "I'm attempting to put myself in a bottle that will one day wash up on the beach for my children."
The book, titled "The Last Lecture," was a 1 New York Times bestseller, and also topped bestseller lists in USA Today, Publisher's Weekly, and other publications around the world. It was co-written by Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal (a 1980 Carnegie Mellon alumnus). The lecture and book led to intense media interest in Pausch. He appeared twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Pausch and his wife Jai were also the subjects of an hour-long ABC News Primetime special in April hosted by Diane Sawyer and viewed by 8.2 million people.
Bridging Computer Science and the Arts
Pausch joined the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science faculty in 1997 with appointments in the Computer Science Department, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and the School of Design. He soon launched an interdisciplinary course, called Building Virtual Worlds, in which student teams designed interactive animations. The results were so spectacular that roommates, friends and even parents of the students would attend class on days when projects were presented. A showcase of the projects attracted a standing- room-only crowd to the campus' largest auditorium. These end-of-semester shows have established themselves as a premier event on campus during finals week.
Pausch and Don Marinelli, professor of drama and arts management, extended this approach by creating the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a joint program of the School of Computer Science and the College of Fine Arts. This master's degree program trains artists, engineers and computer scientists to work together as they spearhead developments in digital storytelling and other new forms of entertainment technology.
"In an era of ever-increasing specialization, Randy promoted interdisciplinary teams based upon mutual respect, building bridges between fine arts and computer science," said Dan Siewiorek, head of the Human- Computer Interaction Institute. "Randy's legacy is his technology that made computer science accessible to the non-specialists."
Inspiring New Generations of Computer Scientists
Perhaps his most ambitious effort was Alice, a computer programming environment that enables novices to create 3-D computer animations using a drag-and-drop interface. "The best way to teach somebody something," Pausch explained, "is to have them think they're learning something else." With Alice, students concentrate on making movies and games, but they also are learning to program.
Carnegie Mellon makes downloads of the Alice software available for free at www.alice.org. Eight textbooks on Alice have been written. Alice is used by 10 percent of U.S. colleges and in many high schools. Also available is a version for middle school children called "Storytelling Alice," which was designed by Caitlin Kelleher, Pausch's Ph.D. student, to appeal in particular to young girls with hopes of increasing female interest in computer science careers. A new version of Alice, featuring animated characters donated by Electronic Arts from its best-selling game "The Sims," is slated for release in 2009. In his last lecture, Pausch said: "Like Moses, I get to see the Promised Land, but I don't get to step foot in it. That's OK. I will live on in Alice."
A Footbridge to the Future
Pausch earned his undergraduate degree in computer science at Brown University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon in 1988. Before joining the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 1997, he served on the computer science faculty at the University of Virginia from 1988 to 1997 and spent a 1995 sabbatical working at Walt Disney Imagineering's Virtual Reality Studio.
A fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), he is the recipient of the ACM's Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education from the ACM's Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). He authored or co-authored five books and more than 60 reviewed journal and conference articles.
Last September, Carnegie Mellon announced a plan to honor Pausch's memory. A computer scientist with the heart of a performer, he was a tireless advocate and enabler of collaboration between artistic and technical faculty members. That role will be signified by the Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge, which will connect the Gates Center for Computer Science, now under construction, with an adjacent arts building. "Based on your talk, we're thinking of putting a brick wall on either end," joked President Cohon, announcing the honor. He went on to say: "Randy, there will be generations of students and faculty who will not know you, but they will cross that bridge and see your name and they'll ask those of us who did know you. And we will tell them."
Pausch is survived by his wife, Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe. Also surviving are his mother, Virginia Pausch of Columbia, Md., and a sister, Tamara Mason of Lynchburg, Va. The family plans a private burial in Virginia, where they relocated last fall. A campus memorial service is being planned. Details will be announced at a later date.
The family requests that donations on his behalf be directed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund ( www.cmu.edu/giving/pausch), which primarily supports the university's continued work on the Alice project.
About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia and Europe. For more, see www.cmu.edu.
SOURCE Carnegie Mellon University

Dr. Valerie Raskin

"There is no such thing as a perfect mother, and we are entitled as moms to have non-mommy needs," Raskin explains. "The biggest threat to American children is divorce, not maternal short cuts, and it might be helpful to realize that a good sex life is, truly, a family value."

In the words of Megan Fox

"I really enjoy having sex, and that's offensive to some people. I'm young and have a lot of hormones - I'm always in the mood! But I like sex with one person when I'm in a relationship. Sex with random people who I've met at clubs is not really my thing."

It's Where I'm At

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/custom/msn/careeradvice/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1541&SiteId=cbmsnhp41541&sc_extcmp=JS_1541_home1>1=23000&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=4d9b369395d54ca8a302acbf713881b8-268246690-RH-4

Are You Burned Out?
By Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com writer
Almost anyone who has held a job knows the twinge of dread on Sunday evenings as the countdown to the workweek nears its final hours. Friday afternoon becomes the light at the end of a dark, five-day tunnel.
For most people, this is a momentary feeling that comes along when work is particularly stressful or when it's been too long since a vacation. Unfortunately, that feeling doesn't disappear for many workers. If you can relate, then you might be burned out on your job.
"Most people will experience temporary periods of burnout or imbalance," says Jim Bouchard, author of "Dynamic Components of Personal Power." "Long periods of imbalance can be dangerous to your health, destructive to your relationships and can endanger your job."
How do you know when you've crossed from a rough patch into a burnout?
Burnout creeps up and you don't know until you're in the midst of it, says Dr. Todd Dewett, author of the book "Leadership Redefined."
"It does not happen overnight. It happens in tiny little chunks slowly. This is why it is difficult to read any given instance for what it is, let alone judge where you are in the process of becoming burned out."
If you're not sure whether you're just having a bad day or are experiencing something worse, here are some signs that you're burning out, according to Dewett:
o Your professional relationships don't matter anymore.
If the breakroom chats and hallway conversations with your colleagues went from fun diversions to nonexistent, your heart is obviously not in the job anymore.
o The quality of your work isn't what it used to be.
When you're disillusioned with your job, you're not going to perform to your best abilities. Maybe you don't notice the drop in quality or maybe you do notice but just don't care.
o Your're no longer goal-oriented.
When your motivation is getting to the end of the day instead of getting that new job title, something's not right.
Recognizing that you're burned out is a good first step, but it won't mean much unless you take action to change the situation. Talk about it, both to yourself and to other people, Dewett suggests. When you share your newfound realization with the important people in your life, you make a strong commitment to doing something about it, he says.
Here are some other ways to beat burnout:
Spice up your routine. Figure out what new responsibility you are capable and willing to assume and ask that it be given to you. "You may have to apologize and/or show a rejuvenated effort at work in order to get what you are asking for," Dewett warns, "but do it because new variety and stimulation is vital to overcome burnout."
Rediscover your motivation. "Goals work. Be specific and set deadlines," Dewett recommends. Analyze each goal and figure out what skills you will gain, what new experiences you will have and whom you might meet. "Make the goals at least modestly challenging, and feel free to share them with others to increase your commitment," Dewett encourages.
Have a plan. Create a list of skills you need to obtain, people you need to network with, financial items to take care of, and overall steps you need to take to get into a job or business that you are passionate about.
Sometimes you need to remove yourself from the situation if you want to make any progress. If your boss has written you off entirely, if you don't have the resources to improve your skills or you were never a fit for the job, Dewett says there's no way to work from within the system. For example, if you're an accountant whose passion has always been photography and not numbers, you can't make yourself love your current job. So don't be afraid to make the jump to a better career.
Anthony Balderrama is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. He researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.
Copyright 2008 CareerBuilder.com. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authority.

Story Filed Friday, June 06, 2008 - 3:35 PM

R.I.P.G.C.

What I've Learned: George Carlin
Comedian, 64, Venice, California

By Larry Getlen

Back in January 2002, George Carlin revealed his intimate thoughts on censorship, racism, and how the IRS saved his comedy career. With his recent passing, we represent his words here.

I was in my mother's belly as she sat in the waiting room of the abortionist's office. Dr. Sunshine was his code name. I was fifty feet from the drainpipe, and she saw a painting on the wall that reminded her of her mother, who had recently died. She took that as a sign to have the baby. That's what I call luck.

My father drank and was a bully. For the first five years of my brother's life, my father beat him with a leather-heeled slipper. Had I been subjected to that kind of treatment, all bets are off. His absence saved my life.

My mother had great executive-secretarial jobs in the advertising business and raised two boys during the Second World War. She used to say, "I make a man's salary." That's heroism.

I'm sure Hitler was great with his family.

I don't like authority and regulation, and I do my best to disrespect it, but I do that for myself. It's self-expression only.

Sex without love has its place, and it's pretty cool, but when you have it hand in hand with deep commitment and respect and caring, it's nine thousand times better.

If it's morally wrong to kill anyone, then it's morally wrong to kill anyone. Period.

It's amazing to me that literacy isn't considered a right.

I was arrested for possession and cultivation of marijuana in the early '70s, and it was thrown out. The judge asked me how I felt about it, and I said, "I understand the law, and I want you to know I'll pay the fine, but I cannot guarantee I will not break this law again." He really chewed me out for that.

Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices.

The first thing they teach kids is that there's a God -- an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There's no mystery why they start that with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want.

I would die for the safety of the people I love.

I wish that we could measure how much the potential of the mind to expand has been stunted by television.

Because of my abuse of drugs, I neglected my business affairs and had large arrears with the IRS, and that took me eighteen to twenty years to dig out of. I did it honorably, and I don't begrudge them. I don't hate paying taxes, and I'm not angry at anyone, because I was complicit in it. But I'll tell you what it did for me: It made me a way better comedian. Because I had to stay out on the road and I couldn't pursue that movie career, which would have gone nowhere, and I became a really good comic and a really good writer.

I stopped voting when I stopped taking drugs. I believe both of those acts are closely related to delusional behavior.

There's no morality in business. It doesn't have a conscience. It has only the cash register. They'll sell you crappy things that you don't need, that don't work, that they won't stand behind. It's a glorified legal form of criminal behavior.

If everybody knew the truth about everybody else's thoughts, there would be way more murders.

There's nothing wrong with high taxes on high income.

Lenny Bruce opened all the doors, and people like Richard Pryor and I were able to walk through them.

Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life.

I think that the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King showed that all of the wishing and hoping and holding hands and humming and signing petitions and licking envelopes is a bit futile.

Blacks are deliberately kept down. Poor communities are deliberately underfunded.

I don't think people should get credit for being honest and brave. I think there's a lot of genetic sh** going on there.

Someday they'll find a gene for putting on your overcoat.

There's a pulse in New York, even on the quietest street, on the quietest day. It's full of potential.

If there's ever a golden age of mankind, it will not include men over two hundred pounds beating children who are less than one hundred pounds, and it will not include the deliberate killing of people in a formal setting.

I did something in a previous life that must have been spectacularly good, because I'm getting paid in this life just magnificently, more than one would dare imagine or hope for.

http://men.msn.com/articlees.aspx?cp-documentid=8176686>1=32001

My true feelings exposed...

"Fuck Soulja Boy! Eat a dick! This ni-a single handedly killed Hip Hop. That shit is such garbage man. We came all the way from Rakim, we came all the way from Das EFX, we came all the way from motherfuckers flowing like Big Daddy Kane and Ice Cube, and you come with that Superman shit? That shit is garbage. Hurricane (Chris) take them fuoking beads out of your hair ni-a! Man up. You ni-as is making me feel real fucking mad about this shit."

- Ice T on the sad state of rap music

XXX

I better get going if no. 8 is true.

10 Quirky Facts About Kissing By Laura Schaefer

Think you know a thing or two about kissing? You probably do. But the facts below are so off the beaten path, we'll bet you don't know them all-and they could come in handy. Not only could they provide some steamy "Did you know…?" chit chat, but they'll help you see all the benefits a satisfying lip lock can bring into your life. Happy smooching!

1. Two out of every three couples turn their heads to the right when they kiss.

2. A simple peck uses two muscles; a passionate kiss, on the other hand, uses all 34 muscles in your face. Now that's a rigorous workout!

3. Like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two lip impressions are alike.

4. Kissing is good for what ails you. Research shows that the act of smooching improves our skin, helps circulation, prevents tooth decay, and can even relieve headaches.

5. The average person spends 336 hours of his or her life kissing.

6. Ever wonder how an "X" came to represent a kiss? Starting in the Middle Ages, people who could not read used an X as a signature. They would kiss this mark as a sign of sincerity. Eventually, the X came to represent the kiss itself.

7. Talk about a rush! Kissing releases the same neurotransmitters in our brains as parachuting, bungee jumping, and running.

8. The average woman kisses 29 men before she gets married.

9. Men who kiss their partners before leaving for work average higher incomes than those who don't.

10. The longest kiss in movie history was between Jane Wyman and Regis Tommey in the 1941 film, You're in the Army Now. It lasted 3 minutes and 5 seconds. So if you've beaten that record, it's time to celebrate!

Laura Schaefer is the author of Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor: The Best and Worst Personal Ads of All Time.

http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=8952&TrackingID=516311&BannerID=544657&menuid=6>1=26000

Quote

If you mean it, "I'm sorry" is enough...

Truman Rocks!

If we falter in our leadership, we may danger the peace of the world. - Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States of America

So true then and so true now… Thanks PBS!

More Truman Quotes:

If we falter in our leadership, we may danger the peace of the world.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Herbert Hoover once ran on the slogan, "Two cars in every garage". Apparently the Republican candidate this year is running on the slogan, "Two families in every garage".

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Republican. But I repeat myself.

I do not understand a mind which sees a gracious beneficence in spending money to slay and maim human beings in almost unimaginable numbers and deprecates the expenditure of a smaller sum to patch up the ills of mankind.

The Republicans believe in the minimum wage - the more the minimum, the better.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

We must build a new world, a far better world -- one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

WTF? A bible quote?? From Shannon???

Job 12:7 - Ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. For the life of every living thing is in God's hand, and the breath of all humanity.

My Little Pony, Poor Little Pony

Current mood: sad
http://msn.foxsports.com/horseracing/story/8105724?MSNHPHCP>1=39002..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Eight Belles' death shows dark side of horse racing by Michael Rosenberg

Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg is a contributor to FOXSports.com.

Updated: May 5, 2008, 5:54 PM EST

Well, I don't know about you, but I sure won't watch the Preakness the same way now. Big Brown will go for the second leg of the Triple Crown, but my thoughts will be with the filly who should be challenging him.

Horse racing's dark side

After Eight Belles' tragic death at the Kentucky Derby, Michael Rosenberg wonders if horse racing has become too brutal on its equine participants. What do you think? Discuss right here.

Eight Belles is dead. She broke two ankles after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, and since horses can't live after that kind of injury (for various reasons), she was euthanized on the track.

Eight Belles is dead. It is strangely appropriate that the second-place finisher is the one who died.

If Big Brown had broken his ankles after winning, he would have been the biggest story in America this morning. There would be many calls to rethink the sport of horse racing. There would be a national conversation about whether horse racing is a worthy sporting endeavor or unfit for a civilized society.

If a horse had broken his ankles after finishing last, it would have been one paragraph in newspaper stories - a footnote. Fans would not have paid much attention, because it would be easy to separate the death from the reason we watch the Kentucky Derby - to see who wins.

But when the second-place finisher breaks down and must be euthanized on the track, it becomes a nasty little thought that you can't get out of your head. You might just find yourself blocking it out and concentrating on the winner, but that will only bring guilt.

Why? Why do we put racehorses at risk for our own amusement? Where do we draw the line? I have done zero polling on this issue, but I suspect most people would agree with this statement:

It's OK to train horses to race but not OK to train dogs to fight, because the frequency of death and pain is much lower in horse racing.

Heck, that's how I have long felt. But what is an acceptable fatality rate? If Churchill Downs goes to an increasingly popular synthetic racing surface, which is believed to reduce injuries, will we feel better because we're doing something?

According to The New York Times, "Dr. Mary Scollay, a veterinarian at Calder Race Course, organized an equine injury reporting system for more than 30 tracks and has found that fatality rates have been lower on synthetic surfaces: 1.47 fatalities per 1,000 starts for synthetic surfaces against 2.03 per 1,000 for dirt tracks."

This is not just about horse racing. It cuts to the heart of our relationship with animals. It is a relationship that, for most of us, is steeped in denial.

Hunters love deer but also love to kill them. Chick-Fil-A cannily uses a cow as its spokesman - eat some chicken and you'll save the big lug. The quintessential American scene is the backyard barbecue, with slices of cow on the grill and the family dog playing catch. I'm not judging - I have two cats and eat meat. But try making sense of any of this.

Last summer, I joined most of the Western world in excoriating Michael Vick for his dog fighting operation. My feelings on Vick haven't changed. But I wonder, more than ever, about the level of outrage. Did we call Vick a thug so we would feel superior?

There is only one other major sport where we understand that the participants are risking death. That, of course, is auto racing, and it brings its own brand of denial. While we subconsciously tell ourselves that racehorses are just animals, we also tell ourselves that racecar drivers have a choice. They don't have to race. They choose to. It is a risk they are willing to take, and it seems almost un-American to try to stop them.

With horse racing, we pretend that it is perfectly normal for a horse to sprint 1¼ miles down a track with a jockey on her back and a whip in the jockey's hand.

In our minds, racehorses fall somewhere between Michael Vick's dogs and our own pets. They are there to entertain, but we fall in love with the best of them.

And when Barbaro or Eight Belles dies, we tell ourselves that nothing could have been done. The truth is that if nothing had been done, if no race had been held, then those horses would have lived.

We don't like to admit that. We'd prefer to think that these deaths are part of life instead of just a part of racing. We say that Eight Belles was "euthanized," as though we did her a favor.

But on the official Web site of the Kentucky Derby, the death of Eight Belles was neatly squeezed into a single sentence, in the fifth paragraph of a story about Big Brown's historic win.

Some favor.

Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg is a frequent contributor to FOXsports.com.

I don't known which is worse

Kmart or Walmart

For the love of money, not of language.

This is what I've been trying to say all along! You bitch cause you have to press 1, but you bitch when they come here to work for pennies & then send their pennies back home. If you want their pennies to stay here, in your good ole US of A, then quit bitching about pressing 1 and just press the damn button!

¡Ask a Mexican! Press 1 for English
by Gustavo Arellano

Phone Tree Love: Press 1 for a good explanation for why you should press 1

Q. Dear Mexican: I work at a Seattle-based company, and our customer-service department uses a PhoneTree system that asks all callers to press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish, and a few other numbers for commonly spoken languages in our area. I handle customer complaints as part of my job, and I get a surprising number of complaints from people who feel they shouldn't have to press a number to be spoken to in the "normal" language of English. They are offended by our PhoneTree for some reason that is mysterious to me. You seem to have a fairly high readership of people who are generally offended by Spanish-speaking people-could you please deliver a message to them for me? The message is this: The PhoneTree is for your own good. If we didn't ask non-English-speakers to identify themselves at the beginning of the call, English-speaking people would have to wait in line behind those who don't speak English, and would have to wait for those non-English-speakers to get on the line with a non-Spanish-(or other language)-speaking representative. They'd then have to wait for the non-English-speaking customer to be transferred to a representative who speaks their language. There is no law against not speaking English in this country-companies have English-speaking customers and non-English-speaking customers, and a company isn't going to give up revenue by refusing to serve people who don't speak English just to please you jingoists. People should just be grateful that they're asked to press 1 for English, and not 8. -Press 2 For Tough Tamales

A. Dear Gabacha: I get this question asked mucho, and yours is as good a respuesta as I could ever scrawl. Can I pick you up at Home Depot if I ever need a cheap replacement?

All the patriotism you'll get out of me…

To Kill an American

(Supposedly written by an Australian Dentist)

..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as Native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place; they are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Quote

D: You can't change nature.

R: Change is nature - the part that we can influence and it starts when we decide.

The Tennessean's Old Ass

Subject: i forgot to tell you...

S: you'll never guess who i saw at the gym on sunday... brad f-ing schmidt! as usual, he was walking around like he's god's gift. i had to laugh to myself each time he walked past. just wanted to share the humor

C: is he still a nasty fat ugly fu*k?

S: pretty much, although i think he lost one of the 3 babies he was carrying in his tumtum.

C: well that's good I guess....too bad nothing can fix A.) his face and B.) his ego

S: lol - agreed.

Overheard

I overheard a woman who weighs over 300 lbs. telling someone on the phone, "you need to eat healthier." This coming from a woman who can barely (& rarely will) climb a flight of steps. I just found this curious.

Amen!

Why Men Crave Real (Not Perfect) Bodies

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articleglamourmatch.aspx?cp-documentid=9495249&page=1..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Actor Gabriel Olds has dated his fair share of surgically enhanced women. Now he tells us why most men prefer the real deal-"flaws" and all.

I met Tessa* at a premiere party in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Hollywood several summers ago. It was held in a decked-out airline hangar, and everything, from the stunning cocktail waitresses to the champagne fountain, was over-the-top. But even in the midst of all that glitz, Tessa was the main attraction. She was a slender, vibrant redhead in a bright orange dress-you couldn't miss her. After a few minutes of sneaking nervous glances in her direction, I got up the guts to approach. "You're wearing my favorite color," I said. "I like orange because it rhymes with-"

"Nothing," she finished. The spark was undeniable. Tessa was smart-an investment banker-and had a great laugh. Somehow, she was still single. When she casually slipped me her card at the end of the night, I was ecstatic.

On our date the following week, things got even better. Tessa wore a clingy black dress, and over dinner she lit up with stories of four-million-a-minute losses in the futures market. Sexy. When she asked me back to her place after the check came, I couldn't say yes fast enough. Soon, as we stood in her hallway, groping each other like teenagers, my hand fumbled to her chest, anticipating the plush, nurturing flesh of her…

Wait a minute. Was her breast rippled? As I felt the telltale implant bag under her skin, I thought, Damn it-fake boobs. My mind overflowed with images of hospitals and scalpels. I froze up, and Tessa noticed.

"You're acting weird," she said.

"I am not. I mean, maybe I am. It's just, um, are these, uh," I stammered, still sheepishly groping at her chest.

"Are you frisking me?" she asked.

I stammered on.

"Get out," she said.

Before I knew what had hit me, I was back in my car, driving away from the first woman who'd sparked my interest in months. What just happened? Was I really going to let plastic surgery get in the way of my search for love-again?

That's right. Tessa wasn't the first surgically enhanced woman I'd dated, and she wouldn't be the last. Let me explain: I'm an actor in my thirties, and I live in Los Angeles, a town that seems overrun with silicone. Before I met Tessa I'd already dated women with nose jobs, huge breast enhancements and lips plumped to bee-stung proportions. With each of these women, I'd tell myself that what they did with their bodies was their choice, that it wasn't my place to judge. But then questions would fill my head: Is this woman really who she seems to be? Am I dating the person or the persona? Inevitably my attraction to them floundered, and the relationship did too. I had, it seemed, a real issue with all the nipping and tucking going on in the dating world. And this wasn't just an L.A. phenomenon either-I have college friends who've noticed the same trend in America's heartland. In 2006, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there were nearly 11 million cosmetic procedures in the U.S.-that's nearly a 50 percent increase from 2000.

Certainly, men are partially responsible for this trend. We can be superficial creatures: abandoning faithful life partners for younger, prettier versions, TiVo-ing Skinemax movies and wondering why we, mere mortals, aren't married to the likes of Jenna Jameson. But as much as we lust after images of hyper-real beauty in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or even in the apartments or cubicles next door, we don't quite know how to react when those unreal bodies actually belong to the woman in our lives.

Was surgery something I could handle? Or was it time to start looking for a "natural" woman, "flaws" and all? It would take me three more relationships and a handful of blunders to figure that out-starting with Mia…

I met Mia soon after the Tessa "frisking" incident, and I was relieved that all of her looked and felt natural. She was pretty and feisty, cracking me up with stories about her two schnauzers with rhyming names. Within weeks of meeting, we were an item, taking weekend trips and storing toothbrushes at each other's apartments. So imagine my surprise when, during a rainy day many months later, Mia decided to show me an old photo album-and I didn't recognize anyone in the pictures. "Where are you?" I asked.

Silence.

Finally, she laughed nervously and said, "I'm right there, silly." I looked closer.

Same hair, same smile, but when I finally focused between her eyes, I blurted, "You had a nose job?!"

I was baffled, and more than a little hurt. We'd been dating for almost a year. She'd trusted me enough to tell me about losing her virginity and her secret dreams of moving to Spain, so why hadn't she trusted me enough to tell me about her surgery? She made light of it, and insisted there was nothing to talk about, but I couldn't let it go. It seemed dishonest. A lie by omission, surely-but also a lost opportunity for intimacy. Why had she gotten the nose job? How did it feel before and after? These were things I wanted to know. And once I realized she didn't feel the need to share them with me, the trust between us was gone. Our relationship ended pretty quickly after that.

Trying to see past the nips and tucks

Not long after things went south with Mia, I met an ad executive who was elegant and quirky (one of my favorite combinations) and whose proportions seemed perfectly normal. I asked her to dinner, and we met a few weeks later at a Japanese restaurant. But something was different about her that night. As she nibbled at a bowl of edamame, I figured it out: Her lower lip seemed much fuller than it was the first time we'd met-it looked like the mouths of actresses I'd worked with who'd gotten collagen and talked about it openly. And since those actresses were so comfortable discussing it, I felt comfortable asking the ad exec, "When'd you get your work done?"

"Work done?" she shot back. "Who do you think I am, a stripper?" I was beginning to get the picture: Women might chat about their surgery-or adventures at the dermatologist's office-with near strangers, but the new guy they're dating is probably the last person they feel like sharing with. If I wanted to know whether my date still had all her God-given parts, I needed to figure it out from visual cues alone. When it came to implants, if the boobs were pert with no bra: fake. If they were too rounded on top: fake. Needless to say, my obsession with all of this became a topic of great amusement for my coupled friends. "What was it this time, Gabe?" they'd ask when we gathered for dinner.

Then I met Callie, who didn't make me guess. She singled me out at a friend's birthday party, regaling me with childhood stories, most of which involved some sort of brawl. "By the way," Callie suddenly said, "these fake boobs are so not me." This was a change: I'd hardly had time to notice her breasts-all my attempts to check her out discreetly had been foiled by her gaze, and she was already revealing that they weren't real. Her forthrightness was a breath of fresh air, and I felt comfortable asking why she'd gotten fake boobs in the first place- if they weren't "her"? It turned out a former boyfriend had woken her up one morning with a very romantic question: "Hey, you ever think about getting better boobs?" Callie loved this guy, and after a series of failed relationships, she wanted to please him, so she went out and bought big, D-cup implants a few months later. Unsurprisingly, they broke up soon after that, and Callie was left with a very strange relationship souvenir. Some girls have tattoos of old lovers' names; Callie had an $8,000 pair of breasts.

I'd started to really like Callie. And as we talked about the problems her implants caused for her-the way people took her less seriously at work, the unsettling way she no longer recognized herself in the mirror-I came to a realization about why I was so wary of women with plastic surgery. As far as I could tell, almost all the women I'd met who had changed their bodies through surgery had either done it to bandage some adolescent body issue or to make themselves more attractive to men. I didn't like that-it didn't seem like a celebration of beauty, but a scrambling attempt to fix something. What I wanted was to be with a woman who worshiped herself as much as I worshiped her. I mean, come on, this is the female form here, the most beautiful thing on earth. To me, surgery somehow implied a lack of confidence. It was as if something purchased to say, "Hey, check me out," actually said, "I don't like myself very much." I knew that in some ways, this was a ridiculous generalization. Women get surgery for all kinds of reasons. Who was I to decide that every person with a chiseled nose also came with psychological baggage? But I couldn't help it; that's how I felt.

When I explained this theory to Callie, she said she understood. In fact, she told me, she'd decided to get her implants removed. Great, I thought. Callie would get back her real body, and I would get a girlfriend with natural breasts. But part of her transformation, apparently, included cutting me out of her life. I'll never know exactly why she disappeared without a word after her surgery, but I have a feeling she wanted to rethink her relationships with men-what they wanted from her, and what she was willing to do for them. I have to admit, I understand. And looking back now, I can appreciate what she taught me: that choosing to have surgery doesn't make you a dishonest person.

Understanding what I really needed

After that, determined to change my dating luck, I tried looking for women outside of my Hollywood circle-at the gym, at the grocery story, even at the library. That's where I met Kara. Kara was a novelist from New York who looked lean and fit and, best of all, completely real, in jeans and a T-shirt. When I thought about getting my hands on her au naturel parts, my mind reeled. During our second make-out session, she stopped me as my hands slipped under her shirt. "Don't get too excited," she joked. "They're awful." Were they? Well, one was noticeably larger than the other, and they didn't look like breasts I was used to seeing on lingerie billboards, but I loved that they were…hers. Kara turned out to be one of the great loves of my life. We dated long distance until the lack of regular contact drove us apart. Sometimes I think I'm still not over her.

In fact Kara (and her gorgeously imperfect body) helped me figure out that dating women who'd been under the knife would probably never feel right to me. There are a thousand enhanced goddesses out there who will one day make other men very happy. I know those women are worth dating, and I've fallen in love with a handful of them myself. But I'm pretty sure that the woman for me will deal with her physical peccadilloes with humor and self-acceptance, not surgery.

This is the part I think women don't understand. When a guy falls in love, his lover's body parts become bewitching. I'm not going to tell you that our heads don't turn when we see a stacked blond walking down the street. But when we fall for you-really, really fall for you-you hijack our sense of beautiful. What's sexy to us? You-in the "before" picture.

*Names and identifying details have been changed.

Gabriel Olds has appeared on CSI, Law & Order: SVU and Six Feet Under. He's usually the bad guy (on TV). His most recent film is Life of the Party.

Quote

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Insurance Plans

A wealthy hospital benefactor was being shown around the hospital. During her tour she passed a room where a male patient was masturbating furiously. 'Oh my GOD!' screamed the woman. 'That's disgraceful! Why is he doing that?' The doctor who was leading the tour calmly explained, 'I'm very sorry that you were exposed to that, but this man has a serious condition where his testicles rapidly fill with semen, and if he doesn't do that at least five times a day, he'll be in extreme pain and his testicles could easily rupture.' 'Oh, well in that case, I guess its okay,' said the woman. As they passed by the very next room, they saw a male patient laying in bed while a nurse performed oral sex on him. Again, the woman screamed, 'Oh my GOD! How can THAT be justified?' Again the doctor spoke very calmly: 'Same illness, better health plan.'

It's all good in the Nipper's Corner hood!

S: guess who i go my nails done w/ last night!

C: who?

S: mandisa

C: lol are you serious!? That's hilarious

S: yup, totally serious. my girl couldnt get me in last night, so i went to this place closer to my house owned by the same chick & she came in while i was getting my pedi

C: did you talk to her at all? or just recognize her?

S: no, i wouldnt have wanted to been bothered if i were her. besides, what would i say? its not like im a fan of hers, soooooo... i'd have been like, "hey mandisa - i guess your still living in antioch (it's right down the road) since the whole "idol" thing didnt work out for ya..."

C: ha ha ha!! lmao