If the phrases “Nice marmot,” or “You’re entering a world of pain,” or “I can get you a toe” mean anything to you, then “Lebowski” has entered your private sectarian world.
“THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours.Sorry, Pastor Warren - that kind of money is above my pay grade.
“I have thrilling news to share with you below but first some seriously bad news: With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then… this last weekend the bottom dropped out.
“On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.”
I love you so much. It is a deep privilege to be your pastor.
So, what is in the defense bill that Obama just signed?"If a project doesn't support our troops, we will not fund it," he said to a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix. "If a system doesn't perform, we will terminate it. And if Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with that kind of pork, I will veto it. "
A Sturgis woman had a blood-alcohol level of .708 percent, possibly a state record, when she was found earlier this month behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle parked on Interstate 90, according to Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal.Huh . . . amateur.
Checks with local and state labs where blood-alcohol levels are tested suggest Engle’s reading may be the highest ever recorded in South Dakota, Sondreal said.
"It's becoming clear that the system that's been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have," Obama said.Or the syetm is fine but no one follows it. Because maybe while they could not "conect the dots" in an unknown Nigerian's case, they sure as hell could see what was going on with guys like Nidal Hasan. But no one wants to admit it is dark-skinned Muslim males that seem to always be at the center of these things and focus on them.
An organization that advocates for Muslims in the United States is concerned about retaliation and profiling in aftermath of the attempted bombing of an airplane near Detroit Metro Airport. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports receiving hate mail since the Christmas Day incident.
Officials haven't confirmed how the woman contracted the disease but are focusing on a drum circle gathering she attended Dec. 4 at the United Campus Ministry center in Durham shortly before becoming ill. Public health officials who learned of her diagnosis last week immediately began investigating, and earlier this week shut down the ministry center after anthrax spores were found on two drums.
He added: “Terror and violence is not the way to convey a message however legitimate the cause may be. It is totally counter-productive.”
On one Air Canada flight from Toronto to New York's LaGuardia Airport, crew members told passengers before departure that they were not allowed to use any electronic devices - even iPods - and would not be able to access their personal belongings during the one-hour flight.
An hour before a US Air flight from Manchester, England, to Philadelphia landed, flight attendants removed passengers' blankets and told them to keep their "hands visible," said passenger Walt Swanson of Cumbria, England.
On Continental Flight 1788 from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, three airport security agents frisked everyone at the gate, including babies, prompting one to scream loudly in protest. On the plane, crew announced that the toilets would be shut down the last hour of the flight and passengers would not be able eat, drink, or use electronic devices.
The warning that the bathrooms would be shut down led to lines 10 people deep at each lavatory. A demand by one attendant that no one could read anything either elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter.
At Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Monday morning, every U.S.-bound passenger was subjected to a pat-down and luggage was inspected by hand. It took about three hours to get through the checks, with some information boards citing the security measures for several delays and cancelations.
Elsewhere, especially on domestic flights, passengers said they had not detected security upgrades.
"I honestly didn't notice a difference, and we didn't receive any special instructions from the crew," said James Merling, a 68-year-old doctor who flew from Marquette, Mich., to Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday.
Her daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation.
"He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly," said Patricia. "We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it."
Along with drinks like Slow Cow and Ex Chill, Mary Jane's is part of a new group of so-called slow-down or anti-energy drinks, which are expected to be among the top food trends of 2010, according to advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.My friend, Moneypenny of Orange, spent two weeks in Samoa this past summer, where kava plays a large part of social gatherings. Drunk from little bowls, he reported that the juice gives one a sense of slight euphoria, that all is right in the world. However, at these same social gatherings a lot of beer gets drunk, too, so it is difficult to say what effect the kava actually has. Plus, the Samoans make it straight from the root . . . no chaser.
They rely on folk-medicine sedatives, including kava, camomile and valerian, to provide an alternative to caffeine-laced and jitter-inducing energy drinks such as Red Bull.
WTH?The blubbery sea lions at Pier 39, one of San Francisco’s smelliest and most famous tourist attractions, are gone. During the last week of November, they left the wooden docks on which they’ve spent the last 20 years and no one knows if they’ll be coming back.
“We have no idea where they moved on to or why,” said Shelbi Stoudt, who manages a team that helps stranded animals in the San Francisco Bay from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that airline security failed in allowing a Nigerian on a terror watch list and allegedly armed with explosives onto a Detroit-bound flight, a turnaround from her declaration a day day earlier that "the system worked."
On CNN's "State of the Union," she said: "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked."
The statement was swiftly condemned. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the system "failed in every respect."
On Fox News, Napolitano clarified Monday that she was referring to security precautions that went into effect for other flights following the incident in Detroit.
Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, 22, who studied mechanical engineering beside Abdulmutallab – nicknamed Biggie – at University College London, said that he graduated in May 2008 and showed no signs of radicalisation or of links to al-Qa'ida. "We worked on projects together," he said. "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray.So this was not a disaffected Muslim youth, driven to jihad by wretched poverty. It is someone taken up by radical Islam, which frankly seems to be the only variation making headway in its recruitment drives worldwide.
In the same vein, I always wondered why the foes on the Batman television series would dream up exotic ways to kill Batman and Robin when a .45 would have been the nmost effective. Not that I minded those exotic ways, which thrilled me as a child.
My dad was a D.C. policeman, and I would like to apologize (not “recalibrate”) to the Cambridge police for the president’s assumption that they “acted stupidly.” You would think that Mr. Obama would have afforded the police the same consideration he gave to the mass-murdering Muslim Army major when he said: “I would caution against jumping to conclusions.”
If you have an iPhone and want a few of the easy-to-use features of Photoshop without having to know all of that software, go and download a free app that allows you to have some fun with camera phone shots.
My friend was petting my dog when he was over for Christmas, and I took a photo with my phone. I cropped the shot, added some sketch detail and soft focus, adjusted the tint before desaturation, and added a vignette.
One gift I have already shown here on my blog. I made a custom t-shirt featuring the fictional "Killer Rabbit of Kancer", Lumper, for my friend Mariana. I purposely chose a long-sleeve variation, knowing how chilly hospitals can be so she can stay comfortable while receiving treatments. On Christmas Eve, Mariana decided to take the plunge and shaved off all her hair, rather than face the gradual loss that had begun, so for 2010 my project for her will be to knit chemo caps in the UCLA colors and in all liturgical colors for coordinate church wear. Anyone having a good pattern for a chemo cap, let me know.
Then there is my friend, John. John has become more than a friend, as my Husband and I have pretty much adopted him as our younger brother and the kids see him more like an uncle (last night, as my daughter was serving dessert, I admonished her to "serve the guests first," so she walked right past John to give the plate intended for him to my step-son's girlfriend instead - after all, he's family). I am worried about John, though. He has joined a dangerous and insidious cult called "Farmville" on Facebook. He has what I called the Farm of Misfit Animals because every animals that wanders onto his farm seems to have issues, like loneliness, rejection, and problems with self-esteem. Thus, he received a custom coffee mug (along with some books on CD because he prefers to listen than to read) with his own Farmville logo (hey, I am pretty proud of the way I recreated the font, including the gradiated coloring).
BTW, both Mariana's and John's gifts were created at cafepress.com. I recommend their services highly.
Finally, there is my husband, Mark. Mark loves nothing better than homemade gifts and he has said to me that he is grateful for my love of photography as every family moment gets recorded. Recently, we visited New Orleans at Thanksgiving, and it was Mark's first time in the city, and he fell in love with the place. While we were on a tour of the bayou, I asked the guide whether it was true that Cajuns would just about eat anything. He replied, "I'll try anything twice . . . just in case they didn't cok it right the first time!" Mark thought that answer was hilarious and so I took the photos and made him a custom coffee table book using the guide's reply as its title. Mark said it was the best gift he has ever received and loves it. Here is a picture of the book (sorry for the reflection as the cover is shiny) and if you want to make your own, I cannot recommend enough blurb.com, who made it incredibly easy to put together and they print for you a professional quality work.
Things like this make me happy.
I made a custom t-shirt for my friend, Mariana, who is fighting breast cancer.Oops.A DVD rental company is moving fast to remove outdoor promotional posters of Brittany Murphy -- posed lifeless in a bathtub -- for her movie, "Deadline."
Jimmy Carter's recent apology to Jews for actions he acknowledged have stigmatized Israel is not timed to a decision by his grandson on whether to enter Georgia politics, the former president told an online Jewish news agency this week.
Atlanta attorney Jason Carter, 34, is debating whether to run for Georgia's state Senate from the district representing suburban DeKalb County, which has a significant Jewish population in the area around Emory University.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said the White House and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives have been pressuring him not to speak out on the "compromise" abortion language in the Senate version of the health care bill.
“They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language,” Stupak told CNSNews.com in an interview on Tuesday. “Well, I don’t need anyone to sell me the language. I can read it. I’ve seen it. I’ve worked with it. I know what it says. I don’t need to have a conference with the White House. I have the legislation in front of me here.”
The current version of the Senate bill contains so-called “compromise” language crafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). This language does not bar taxpayer funding of health plans that cover abortion, but does create a firewall to supposedly keep federal money from being used to pay for abortions. Over the weekend, Stupak issued a statement calling the proposed Senate language "unacceptable."
For years, high schools have been retreating from singling out students as valedictorians and salutatorians to ease the competition and pressure that the quest for the top class rankings can place on teenagers.Why is a little competition a bad thing for high school seniors? My God, we are emasculating them, aren't we?
High schools in Huntington Beach are adopting a different approach, replacing the traditional recognitions with the broader, more inclusive Latin honors used by colleges and universities: magna cum laude for students with grade-point averages of 4.0 and above and summa cum laude for students earning 4.4 and higher.
"Before, there was only one recognized," said Janie Hoy, principal of Huntington Beach High School. "Now we're opening it up to many."
You're talking about students who are within fractions of a point of each other competing for that top spot," said Carol Osbrink, assistant superintendent of educational services for the Huntington Beach Union High School District. "In our way of thinking, that's borderline unhealthy."
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking a court order to compel county public health officials to require condom use on porn sets or take other reasonable steps to stem the spread of disease.
Judge David P. Yaffe rejected the petition, noting that the county has broad discretion in how it oversees public health.
[U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William] Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.
All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.
Under Reid’s “manager’s amendment,” there is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the Exchange. Instead the amendment includes layers of accounting gimmicks that demand that plans participating in the Exchange or the new government-run plan that will be managed by the Office of Personnel Management must establish “allocation accounts” when elective abortion is a covered benefit (p. 41). Everyone enrolled in these plans must pay a monthly abortion premium (p. 41, lines 5-8), and these funds will be used to pay for the elective abortion services. The Reid amendment directs insurance companies to assess the cost of elective abortion coverage (p. 43), and charge a minimum of $1 per enrollee per month (p. 43, lines 20-22).
In short, the Reid bill continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The new language does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.
As I learned from news stories this morning, Tuesday, December the 22nd, was the solstice this year. I'll give it to the Druids on this one, rather than my Hallmark calendar that said winter began yesterday.
But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way.
I posted this on my Facebook page last week for Hanukkah, but I like klezmer music and I like House of Pain, so I think this mashup is f***in' brilliant.
All I can say is, thank God my late father, God rest his soul, is no longer alive or he'd buy one of these and walk around the Bronx, completely unperturbed . . .Many Catholics in Mexico aren't fussy about bookkeeping when they see churches rising. They view Mexican priests like Figueroa as Robin Hood figures who raid relatively wealthy parishes in the U.S. to build up their impoverished churches.
Martha Gonzalez, 47, of Chula Vista said a fast-track first Communion for her son appealed to her. As a working single mother, she didn't have time to shuttle her then-10-year-old to catechism classes and church for two years.
The classes, held in a garage, were supposed to last six months, she said. After a month and half she got a call from the teacher saying her son was ready for Communion. The classes were $160 and it would cost $20 more for flowers and chairs for the ceremony.
Ben Nelson didn’t come cheap. In addition to the abortion restrictions he wanted, he also got a very nice pay out to his state of Nebraska: the feds will pay 100% of its Medicaid costs, forever.
Senate Majority Leader Harry insisted federally funded Medicaid for Nebraska forever was just a small part of it all for Nelson, and he said there were also deals cut to try to win a few Republicans.
"For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?"
More than 2,000 passengers spent Friday night trapped in the Channel Tunnel, some without anything to eat or drink, in stuffy conditions with no power. There were reports that at one point they were advised to "breathe shallowly".
Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.WTF?
“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it.“, says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“
The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.
Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics," the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.Of course Democrats report seeing dead people more - they come out at every election to vote in their districts!
You know what, my Jints are sucking this year, but I am happy for the Saints. Their fan base in New Orleans, where I visited recently, is loyal and exuberant. Good for them. I like their cry of "Who dat?" - it is seen everywhere in the city.Thus it seems that if it is a new religion, it is a new religion in the same vein as Scientology - another scam foisted on the public for the purpose of making gold. Al Gore is the new L. Ron Hubbard.Global warming is a "new religion," not a science, [Czech President Vaclav Klaus] said in an interview with FoxNews.com.
"I'm convinced that after years of studying the phenomenon, global warming is not the real issue of temperature," said Klaus, an economist by training. "That is the issue of a new ideology or a new religion. A religion of climate change or a religion of global warming. This is a religion which tells us that the people are responsible for the current, very small increase in temperatures. And they should be punished."
"Politicians and their fellow travelers, the media and the business community, simply understood that this is a very good topic to take on. It's an excellent idea to escape from the current reality. Not to solve the crisis, but to talk about the world in 2050, 2080, 2200. This is for them an excellent job. They will not be punished by the voters for making a totally wrong decision, a wrong forecast."
Usually, I leave the "nun gazing" pictures to The Crescat, but this one is just too good. I wish I knew how the other nun returned fire.Then President Chavez brought the house down.
When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.
When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.
But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
Song: A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss)
Artist: Glasvegas
Why I Like This Song: because it reminds us that we are never alone at Christmas, for unto us a Son is born.
The District of Columbia appears poised to free up taxpayer money for abortions after Congress passed a spending bill over the weekend that ended a ban on the funding so long as locally raised taxes are used.
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton applauded the passage Sunday of the $1.1 trillion spending bill, which contained the abortion provision.
She has argued that the restriction created "severe hardships" for poor women in the city and that the law singled them out for "unfair and unequal treatment" -- since states can use their tax dollars for abortion services.
Indulge me in some black humor here. Yes, it is very sad, but that had to be one of the slowest murders imaginable.A 98-year-old woman was indicted Friday on a second-degree murder charge that alleges she strangled her 100-year-old nursing home roommate after making the victim's life "a living hell" because she thought the woman was "taking over the room."
In his speech, Gore told the conference: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."
However, the climatologist whose work Gore was relying upon dropped the former vice president in the water with an icy blast.
"It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at," Dr. Maslowski said. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."
Gore's office later admitted that the 75 percent figure was one used by Dr. Maslowski as a "ballpark figure" several years ago in a conversation with Gore.
Give us money or we walk . . .Representatives from developing countries - a bloc of 135 nations - said they refused to participate in any formal working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved.
In Washington, The White House on Monday announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend $350 million over five years to give developing nations clean energy technology to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce global warming.
More from my "Cellular Obscura" set on Flickr. Photographs that I have taken with my iPhone.
Then again, maybe Don Draper knew just what he was doing . . .So, with the Obama family celebrating its first Christmas in the White House, who all has stockings?
“Everyone,” the first lady says. “The President, the first lady, Malia, Sasha and Bo.”
Ah, but it must be good, because it is based on a book that inspired a 10-year-old Matt Damon!The point is not to understand the past, according to the actors who participate, but to inspire people to make their voices heard today, not to tell it “from the standpoints of generals and kings and presidents,” which “encourages passivity, a sense of hopelessness.” Change only comes to these people through dissent, struggle, strikes, boycotts and the like. Thus one of the major participants, actor Josh Brolin, says in the trailer for his video performance, that “there is a need to speak out” and the people who did in the past were not heard, and now we can hear “the gold in their words.” As for the present, Brolin adds, people have to “speak out” and that is “the only goal,” so people can be “empowered” to take action which is “fantastic.” Does Brolin, I wonder, apply his view to the tea parties, where citizens who are empowered take action? No one seems to have asked him that question.
"When I was 10, I had one of the first copies of that book, and I took it to school on Columbus Day to read about Columbus to a shocked group of kids," the star told E! News. "The book's been a part of my life since then."
King and his wife, Tabitha, who live in Bangor, are paying $13,000 toward the cost of two bus trips so that members of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit can travel from Camp Atterbury in Indiana to Maine for Christmas. The soldiers left Maine last week for training at Camp Atterbury. They are scheduled to depart for Afghanistan in January.
When contacted by RadarOnline.com Allred confirmed that she is representing not only this new woman, but also "a number of women" in regards to Tiger Woods.
Who's the bigger whore?It's more bad news for Tiger, especially with Allred involved. Sources tell RadarOnline.com that Allred negotiated a seven-figure payday for Uchitel, whose affair with Tiger during the past five months was first exposed by the National Enquirer and Star magazine.
The Times article continued:
"The lunch conversation inevitably turned to whether the White House would display its crèche, customarily placed in a prominent spot in the East Room. Ms. Rogers, this participant said, replied that the Obamas did not intend to put the manger scene on display — a remark that drew an audible gasp from the tight-knit social secretary sisterhood. (A White House official confirmed that there had been internal discussions about making Christmas more inclusive and whether to display the crèche.)"
In the next sentence we learn that this radical idea was eventually scotched. (Perhaps the "audible gasp" from the bipartisan audience tipped them off.) But the fact that it was going to happen reveals a level of political tone-deafness in the current administration that is staggering. To most average Americans -- who did not grow up in an Ivy-League, inside-the-Beltway hothouse governed by the rules of the French Revolution -- the idea of keeping Jesus out of "the people's house" at Christmas evokes disturbing images of the Holy Family being turned away from the Inn, or worse yet, images of Herod. But to a super-secular White House afraid to offend anyone -- except for average Americans -- it probably just seemed like another fab "progressive" innovation.
If President Obama wanted to fuel the fears of every serious Christian in America and actually prove that he is every bad thing they've ever heard about him on every crazy Web site, the idea of symbolically taking Jesus out of the White House at Christmas would be just the ticket!
Song: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
Artist: Ian Drury and the Blockheads
Why I Like This Song: the music of Ian Drury was fun and naughty and you could dance to it. What more did you need?
Jerry at a party last October
Tomorrow, my friend the Liar (aka Mariana) starts the chemotherapy for her breast cancer. We at Team FPR (F***in' Pink Ribbons) say, "FIGHT ON!" 
While it is bad enough that for $14.99 (plus shipping and handling), some pathetic Baby Boomer can recreate a childhood memory of A Charlie Brown Christmas, the ABC network decided to take a hatchet to scenes decrying the commercialism of Christmas so as to . . . air more commercials.How many minutes did you cut out of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" so you could run more commercials?
Gone was Sally's materialistic letter to Santa, which finally sends Charlie screaming from the room when she says she will settle for 10s and 20s.
Gone was Schroeder's miraculous multiple renditions of "Jingle Bells" from a toy piano, including the one that sounds distinctly like a church organ.
Gone was Linus using his blanket as an improvised slingshot to knock a can off the fence no one else can hit, complete with ricochet sound effect.
Gone were the kids catching snowflakes on their tongues and commenting on their flavor.
Gone even was poor Shermy's only line. He thought he had it bad because he was always tasked to play a shepherd. He had no idea.
According to a poll published by the daily tabloid VG, 44% of Norwegians believe it was rude of Obama to cancel his scheduled lunch with King Harald, with only 34% saying they believe it was acceptable.That's because a Black man ain't gonna bow down to any honky. Asian yes, and Muslim most definitely, but not no lily-white Viking man!
"Of all the things he is cancelling, I think the worst is cancelling the lunch with the king," said Siv Jensen, the leader of the largest party in opposition, the populist Progress party. "This is a central part of our government system. He should respect the monarchy," she told VG.
"Why are women being singled out here? It's so unfair," Boxer said on the SenateSee, because abortion has to do something with sex and Viagra has to do something with sex and so denying health insurance coverage for abortions is just like denying men the opportunity to get their prescriptions for Viagra filled.
floor Tuesday. "We don't tell men that if they want to ... buy insurance coverage through their pharmaceutical plan for Viagra that they can't do it."
The most sensitive parts of the 93-page Standard Operating Procedures manual were apparently redacted in a way that computer savvy individuals easily overcame.
The document shows sample CIA, Congressional and law enforcement credentials which experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.
Halp us, Al Gore!The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Suckahs!
