Remember on Monday:

Observe a moment of silence, where ever you may be, at 3:00 p.m.

Current U.S. Senate Bills

S.687 - SpyBlock Act - A bill to regulate the unauthorized installation of computer software, to require clear disclosure to computer users of certain computer software features that may pose a threat to user privacy, and for other purposes.

S.737 - Security and Freedom Enhancement Act - A bill to amend the USA Patriot Act to place reasonable limitations on the use of surveillance and the issuance of search warrants, and for other purposes.

S.1033 - Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act

Kill Me

What if you could choose when to die?
But once you decide, you can't change your mind.
Ever.
No matter what.

I just read Kill Me by Stephen White and was thoroughly entertained and fascinated with the question that some of us have pondered in the deeper, darker regions of our heart ... of the choices we would make based on the "if"(s) of life and how we define our own version of living. Read excerpt from book

Thank You

You train for combat. You leave the ones you love. You risk your life - So we may enjoy freedom. Thank You:

Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines

"... Our Servicemen and women are serving throughout the world as guardians of peace--many of them away from their homes, their friends and their families. They are visible evidence of our determination to meet any threat to the peace with measured strength and high resolve. They are also evidence of a harsh but inescapable truth--that the survival of freedom requires great cost and commitment, and great personal sacrifice." ~President John F. Kennedy, 1963

For 'Lo:

You can have your Army khaki's and your Navy blues, for here's a special fighting man that I will introduce to you. His uniform is different - the finest you have ever seen, the Germans called him 'Devil Dog' ... His title is United States Marine. OOH-RAH!

Jimmy Hoffa

Thirty-one years later and the search is still on.

In one of the most intensive searches in decades, the FBI summoned archaeologists and anthropologists and brought in heavy equipment to scour a horse farm in Milford Township, MI for the body of former Teamsters boss who vanished in 1975. story at New York Post

The Blue Marble

NASA's Earth Observatory provides free Internet publication of satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. Browse around for more spectacular images or click on the photo for NASA's library of images. Take a moment to maybe learn something new.

Stay Tuned:

President George W. Bush will address Americans (7:00 p.m. CST) for about 20 minutes (fair warning for TV junkies: programs will be running behind schedule) from the Oval Office to announce tougher security measures along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, and the plans to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to support efforts to curtail illegal immigration as debates over the divisive issue heats up. full story: Reuters

Welcome to Supermax

5:17 a.m., prisoner 51427-054 (use # if you want to write out of morbid curiosity) began serving his life sentence at the nations' most secure prison. At Supermax, the soundproofed cells are designed so inmates cannot make eye contact with each other. Each 7-by-12-feet cell has a long, narrow window looking out at other prison walls or the small concrete recreation yard. Concrete platforms topped with mattresses function as beds. Each cell also contains a concrete stool, shower and toilet. Inmates get one hour out of their cells each day to eat or play basketball or handball, though some earn longer recreation periods through good behavior. They can take courses via closed-circuit television in each cell. Religious services are conducted in a small chapel. read story

We Need Public Opposition

Oh Hell No! The government is secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans. The NSA who is run by the Pentagon is using a new tool to hunt terrorists by "monitoring" phone traffic to identify threats and stop them. Think about this: The government can track (but not wiretap) every call that you make and receive - even on your cell phone! So, if you are a customer of AT&T, BellSouth or Verizon ... you're screwed because they caved into the pressure without a court order. A database will be compiled, updated and continually expanded. Even if this programs intentions are merely to look for call patterns that reveal terror networks it raises many troubling questions and issues.
A double-edged sword.
* Is it legal? - Questionable. * Is it useful? - Depends on who you ask.
* Is it foolproof? - Of course not! * Will it be abused? - Not at first ... countless administrations with who-knows-what interests and motives ...

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires a court order to gather a person's current phone records. A 1934 law requires phone companies to protect customers' privacy. And the Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures."

"Juiced"

Who would pay to see this?
O.J. Simpson has a new candid-camera program - "Juiced" - where he pulls a prank involving the infamous white Bronco. As part of the pay-per-view show, Simpson pretends to sell the Bronco at a used car lot and boasts to a prospective buyer that he made the vehicle famous. read story

Shut The Hell Up!

No one one is willing to hear or listen to your bs pleas.
- Zacarias Moussaoui, who was sentenced last week to life in prison, filed a motion on Monday to withdraw his guilty plea and said he lied when he testified that he was meant to be part of the 9/11 hijacking plot. He states in his affidavit that he pleaded guilty because his understanding of the U.S. legal system was "completely flawed." (wtf?!?)
And that he now sees that it's possible to have a fair trial to prove that he was not a part of and did not have any knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Can you believe this MoFo? He's been proudly claiming his knowledge and intended involvement in the attacks for the past 4 years! U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema quickly rejected the motion to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial. (good for her!)
Ignorant man, did you think that the American public would forget how you laughed, mocked, and taunted us throughout your trial? You thought that you had an easy way out. You wished for the death sentence so that you would be made a martyr through execution and were surprised when we instead chose to sentence you to a life of solitary confinement. Enjoy contemplating our legal system now since all you have to look forward to is the deterioration of your mind and body and realize that we know how to serve out justice.
full story at Washington Post

A Fighter of Truth

Atwar Bahjat, one of Iraq's most gifted journalists. 1976-2006

Read her story and ask yourself afterwards why she chose to report on the core issues of Iraq and confront extremists with the results of their actions. Her cruel murder is one of many and no one, regardless of race or religion should ever have to be put in the position where their possible death may bring the world a flicker of truth in the form of a cry for help.

Fat Man Walking

Twelve States and two kidney stones later, the fattest man to walk cross-country will finally reach his last stop - The Big Apple.
He's lost 115 pounds and still tips the scales at 305 pounds, but he says "I am a changed man. I can't believe I could walk across the country when before I couldn't walk across Target."
Steve Vaught's Blog: Fat Man Walking

Spread The Word

Help Shatter Immigrant Stereotypes:
Visit the new "I am a Proud American" campaign.
read story

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is widely celebrated by Mexican-Americans and their descendants in the United States and Canada. Many cities with significant Mexican and Chicano populations throughout the U.S. schedule special events on the 5th of May.

Although the celebration of this holiday has historically been limited to Latin-America communities, particularly in the southwest, it has become increasingly popular across the U.S. and Canada, and among all ethnic groups in the last 10 years.
click graphic for more info

Mexico ... WTF?!

President Vicente Fox did not sign a bill (due to pressure) that would legalize small amounts of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, LSD, ecstasy, marijuana, methamphetamines and peyote - a psychotropic cactus found in Mexico's northern deserts.

Measures such as the one Fox was so eager to sign just one day ago make no sense at all. On the one hand we are told to fight against the drug trade and on the other we have to allow consumption. Sales of the above mentioned drugs would have remained illegal, but the possesion in small amounts would be legal. Where is the distinction? To obtain a legal amount of drug, you would have to purchase it illegally. Where is the sense in that?

Justice Served or Denied?

Zacarias Moussaoui claimed victory over America after a jury rejected the government's effort's to put the Sept. 11 conspirator to death and instead decided to lock him away in prison for the rest of his life.
Moussaoui, who spent much of his two month trial cursing America, blessing al-Qaida and mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims, offered one more taunt after the jury reached its verdict Wednesday: "America, you lost ... I won, " he proclaimed, clapping his hands as he was escorted from the courtroom. full story

Defiant to the end. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema firmly refused to be interupted by the defendant, saying, "Mr. Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun ... hear the birds ... and they can associate with whomever they want," she said. She went on: "You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won." "Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper." full story

An appropriate hell for a man who invited an execution to achieve his sick ambition of martyrdom:
He is expected to join other notorious prisoners at ADX Florence, the federal government's most secure prison, known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, set in harsh, mountainous terrain south of Colorado Springs. Prisoners there are confined in cells, 12 feet by 7 feet. Each has a cement bed, toilet, desk and stool. Inmates stay in solitary for 23 hours a day. They shower, sleep and exist alone, their meals pushed through a slot in the steel door. No one has escaped the 12-year-old prison.

Book = 'Lost' Clues?

Bad Twin, a just published novel may have mysterious links to the hit TV show Lost.
It boosts the popular therory that the island on which the cast is stranded is purgatory. Fueling the supposition: The author's name, Gary Troup (a nom de plume), is an anagram for "purgatory".

Requests to discuss Bad Twin over the past few months have been deflected, but the Lost ties can be tantalizing nonetheless. - In the Feb. 8 episode, the character Hurley is seen reading the Bad Twin manuscript, found among the wreckage of Oceanic Air Flight 815.

On the cover of the new book, under Troup's name, it reads "His Final Novel Before Disappearing on Oceanic Flight 815". On the back is a note from Hyperion explaining that Troup has been missing since the jetliner disappeared and that reason tells us that the author and his fellow travelers cannot have survived this disaster. The book jacket also lists another Troup book, The Valenzetti Equation, apparently about a mathematical eqation that can predict the apocalypse.

The plotline has no apparent link to Lost. It is a traditionally told mystery about private detective Paul Artisan hired by the wealthy Cliff Widmore to find his missing twin Zander. There are, however, details of interest to Lost fans:

There is a reference to the 17th-century British philosopher John Locke, who shares a name with one of Lost's main characters. A sloop in the novel is named "Escape Hatch". "The Hatch" is a mysterious bunker where part of Lost's action takes place. Much of Bad Twin takes place on islands real and imagined: Manhattan, Cuba, Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef and the fictional Peconiquot Island. At one point, Manny Weissman, Artisan's mentor, says, "Life is complicated ... It isn't like a string of numbers, you add them up, there's only one solution". A string of numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 - and what they might stand for is one of Lost's mysteries.

May Day Impact

The economic impact of the day's events was hard to gauge; though economists expected a one-day stoppage to have little long-term effect. In large swaths of the country, life went on with no noticeable difference.

While the boycott may not have shut down the country, it was strongly felt in a variety of places. Stores and restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York closed because workers did not show up. In Los Angeles, the police estimated that more than half a million people attended two demonstrations in and near downtown. School districts in several major cities reported a decline in attendance.
Lettuce, tomatoes and grapes went unpicked in fields in California and Arizona, which contribute more than half the nation's produce, as scores of growers let workers take the day off.
Truckers who move 70 percent of the goods in ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach did not work.
Meatpacking companies, including Tyson Foods and Cargill, closed plants in the Midwest and the West employing more than 20,000 people, while the flower and produce markets in downtown Los Angeles stood largely and eerily empty.
The Ports of Los Angeles were hardest hit by the Day Without An Immigrant protest.

Boycott

May Day aka International Workers' Day, has long been a focal point for demonstrations and is the commemoration of the Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, and a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement.

Thousands of illegal immigrants and their allies across the country plan a show of force to illustrate how much immigrants matter in the U.S. Economy.

Why are we protesting?
The debate over the estimated 12 million undocumented migrants in the US became critical with the passage of bill HR4437 by the
House of Representatives in December. Known as the Sensenbrenner legislation, it would criminalise illigeal immigrants, while toughening border control. Crucially, it does not offer any route to citizenship for those already inside the US.