More Funny Photos
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Mexicans Boo Miss America for Speaking English in Mexico - Can You Fucking Believe It???
Smith was booed during her interview and several audience members chanted "Mexico! Mexico!" until she spoke in Spanish, saying "Buenas noches, Mexico. Muchas gracias!" which earned her applause. Mexico has a fierce rivalry with its northern neighbor. (Um, do you mean the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA???)
Also finishing in the top five were second runner-up Ly Jonaitis of Venezuela and third runner-up Honey Lee of Korea.
The winner travels the world for a year on behalf of charities and pageant sponsors.
The 15 finalists from a field of 77 contestants were announced early in Monday's show. They were picked last week during preliminary judging in the contest's swimsuit, evening gown and interview categories. Their names were not announced until Monday, allowing all 77 to be introduced to the television audience.
Contest met with protests
As soon as the final 15 had been selected, they immediately strutted across the stage in animal-print bikinis for the swimsuit competition. After the evening gown competition, five contestants were eliminated, and the judges chose the winner from the five remaining.
Missing from this year's contest was Miss Sweden, whose country is one of the few to win the crown three times. Isabel Lestapier Winqvist, 20, dropped out because many Swedes say the competition does not represent the modern woman.
Hours before the pageant began, dozens of protesters held a mock ceremony in downtown Mexico City that featured "Miss Marijuana," "Miss Sexual Health," "Miss Human Rights" and other candidates with obscenities written across their sashes. The group yelled "Neither ugly nor beautiful, should a woman be considered an object!" (LOL!!! Sounds like mexico is quite the political groupies now - complete with social agendas and everything.....sounds like socialism has invaded mexico!)
Pageant organizers say the Miss Universe contest carefully selects women who are intelligent, well-mannered and cultured.
1999 Miss Teen USA Vanessa Minnillo and "Extra" weekend correspondent Mario Lopez hosted the live, two-hour telecast, broadcast on NBC and Telemundo, expected to be viewed by more than 600 million people in more than 180 countries.
The celebrity judges included actor James Kyson Lee, model Lindsay Clubine, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, rocker Dave Navarro, Olympic figure skating champion Michelle Kwan, celebrity hairstylist Ken Paves, fashion designer Marc Bouwer, "Project Runway" judge and Elle magazine fashion director Nina Garcia and former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres.
The pageant was last held in Mexico City in 1993, when Torres was crowned.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
What a fucking joke to expect ANYONE to go to mexico and speak spanish when the Citizens of the United States are constantly demanded upon to have respect for others by spending their hard-earned tax dollars - billions of dollars per year, to be exact! - on the translations, printings, distributions, local translator services (who are paid more than average English speaking U.S. Citizens) and so much more just to "comfort" and aid the illegal immigrant mexican population into this Country! And this is how they repay us - by showing NO respect and making even more demands.......
Great things have been accomplished through the English language and while the rest of the world adopts it as a primary language - the United States insists on dumbing down it's people by neglecting it! Where is the logic in that?
Why is America insisting on giving itself away without demanding anything??
~Samantha
Censorship in Morocco? It Could Happen in the U.S.A.
This is a perfect example of the dangers of State and Government controlled processes. This is why capitalism works - because it keeps the functions of the people within the mercy of the people and the people benefit from those successes or failures. RABAT, Morocco -- Moroccans unable to access the video-sharing Web site YouTube since last week expressed fears Tuesday that the government had stepped up its campaign to restrict independent media. Moroccan bloggers were surprised to discover they could no longer open YouTube on Friday and promptly launched online forums to speculate about whether the site had been censured. Najib Omrani, a spokesman for state-controlled Maroc Telecom, which supplies most Internet access in Morocco, blamed the problem on a technical glitch but could not explain its nature or why it affected only the YouTube site. Government spokesman Nabil Benabdallah said he could not comment on telecommunications issues. Some Internet users were skeptical that a technical problem was to blame, noting that the site went down after people posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco took control of in 1975 after Spain, the colonial power, withdrew. "They've clearly blocked YouTube," said university student Abdelhakim Albarkani, sitting in a Rabat cyber cafe doing his economics homework. "I'm worried because YouTube allowed us to see things the state newspapers and television won't show." Several countries have blocked access to Youtube this year. The U.S. Defense Department said earlier this month it would begin blocking access "worldwide" to YouTube and other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, citing security concerns and technological limits. Thailand blocked the site last month because of a video clip deemed offensive to the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej. In March, Turkey blocked YouTube for two days after a complaint that some videos insulted Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. A Brazilian judge ordered a ban on Youtube in an attempt to stop steamy footage of supermodel Daniela Cicarelli from being viewed, but later reversed the decision. And in Australia, the state of Victoria banned the site from government schools. Internet use has flourished in Morocco since ADSL became available in 2004. Tech-savvy Moroccans have started blogs and Web sites, and the Internet is now the scene of lively debate on many topics off-limits to the country's mainstream media. Many bloggers say an upsurge of YouTube videos criticizing Morocco's rule in Western Sahara may have spooked government censors. A report this month by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists listed Morocco as one of 10 worst backsliders on press freedoms. In recent years, journalists have been sentenced to prison, heavily fined and sometimes driven into exile for broaching Western Sahara and other subjects. Moroccan telecommunications authorities have also blocked access to online mapping tool Google Earth for much of 2006 and sites promoting independence for Western Sahara. "The government should not interfere in free media," said Hicham, a member of a pro-democracy NGO who only gave his first name. "If Morocco is to be a practicing democracy, this sort of thing shouldn't happen." ___ Associated Press Writer Marco Oved in Paris contributed to this report.
Otherwise, any alternative venue places the people at the mercy of other Human Beings and therefor judged by their peers regardless of whether any true crime has been committed or not.
In previous blogs I wrote about the intense effort to remove God from the foundation of th United States and the implications of the removal of God from our Nation.
Before you go on thinking I'm trying to push some religious effort - let me just inform you that I am not religious in that I view ALL things as being alive (even rocks) since all elementary particles are alive with motion and therefor energy. God for me is the energy that creates all things.
However, even as a non-religious person, I see the values of having a God-based society. Without God there must be a replacement of Laws. Laws are limited because there is no higher enforcement than one's own moral compass. Laws are counter productive in everyday, general society because it's simply not in the Nature of any living animal to WANT to be caged. You might say - we need laws to avoid chaos and tragedy - no, those are rules. Rules are popular habits and MANY of the "laws" that we have today were simply formed out of popular habit and enacted into law by bored individuals who needed to boost their resume.
It is far more likely that a society will function on a more compatible level if left the responsibility to govern the self, rather than BE governed. Individual accountability is far more powerful than constant nagging about limitations. A free society is far more likely to do kind things for one another because such acts are rewarded upon the do-gooder, thus inspiring more good behavior to achieve the feeling of fulfillment again.
People do good things because they feel good and because they want to.
There should be laws regarding serious crimes and to maintain an overall collective among the people but our Founding Fathers knew that self-governance would develop a true Government among the People ad that's why we have the Constitution - to differentiate the United States from other Countries as a Nation of self-Governed People who own guns as individual nations with a Nation. Now we have HOA's - small, hypocritical groups which represent twisted, uncooperative, court laden bully systems that make little sense when truly examined. We have the U.S. Government trying to forsake the People by making rogue decisions with their own best interests at the helm.
Unless the People step up and defend themselves against this illegal immigration Bill, the U.N., the New World Order and local Government absorption of Rights, we will end up like Morocco not soon into the future.
XOXOXOXOXO
~Samantha
Moroccans Fear Youtube Has Been Blocked
By JOHN THORNEThe Associated Press
Tuesday, May 29, 2007; 6:02 PM
A Challenge of Political Correctness
RED NECK
REDNECK
Cracker
Honky
whitey
I wonder if any of you are offended by these terms???
I'm curious of the feedback on this. Do you feel bad about saying these words? Are you ashamed to read them??
Please note that I do not offend easily, I welcome free speech fully!. The only time I become offended is by attempts to manipulate me, labels of abuse directed towards me - such as "racist" because I am certainly NOT a racist - you are however entitled of your opinions of me but do not ASSERT your opinions on me. What you "think" of me and what I "am" may be two entirely different things.
Also, ignorance offends me. I expect you have some knowledge of the subject if you are to argue with me on any topic. Same holds true for me.
Otherwise, please leave whatever words your heart honestly desires. Nothing is accomplished through deceit, indirect talks and phony perceptions.
I am fascinated by the behaviors of people towards each other. I often times use words which are deemed inappropriate because I'm curious as to how people will react to how the words are presented, how they are used, who I am talking about and what the current even is in the environment of which the conversation is being held.
I painted a painting called "Subway Chatter" in which a Southern Bell type woman, a Pimp type man, and some others are talking on a subway and seemingly tolerating one another while coming from different backgrounds. Yet when we retreat to our homes, friends, respective environments that tolerance seems to change. It's that aspect that fascinates me - the "tribal" or "herd" agenda of all animals everywhere. I'm guilty of it myself!
What you view in your mind about what I write in my blogs may not be at all what I am viewing when I write them. And what I write may not at all be what you read.
The most personal reason I can apply to my own "tribal" agenda is survival of my tribe. I cannot discard the threats faced by my tribe regardless of how I look at whether perceived threats are viable or just in my head. Tribal threats for me, personally are often anything that threatens myself or those like me, which I often view my family and my fellow Americans as my tribe. I cannot recall a time when I considered another race, culture (outside of terrorists), people or sexual orientation as a threat to my tribe. Threats that are important to me are violations against the the U.S.A and the laws that MAKE this Nation the U.S.A, the idea of a United Nations Counsel (have we watched too much Star Wars?? The idea of a U.N is awful - what comes after the U.N.?? A revolt and displaced territories - new countries under new leaderships. - that will be the ultimate objective - coups! A blind person could see that, so why is the United States getting themselves into a plan for ultimate defeat?). I also feel the survival of my tribe is threatened by social and Government controls that hinder or stop the free progress of the Nation, which is my tribe.
My online participation is an expression of finding out about myself and others, about life, the politics of my Country and the survival of our tribe of People.
~Samantha
How I'm Losing Republicanism and Finding Independence Through Betrayal
How I'm Losing Republicanism and Finding Independence Through Betrayal
Hello Bloggers of the world, this is my first blog outside of the MySpace box and I couldn't be happier. No ore tedious, on-going correcting of HTML code or CSS hassles and no more waiting 30 - 60 seconds to go to a pointless email stage.
Now let me get to the point here.....I'm a 36 year old woman, I'm a single Mom, I'm a Republican. Well, at least I used to be a Republican.......but I'm finding that my own party has come to join the Democrats and there truly is no representation of the good People of the United States of America.
I'm one of those good people.
My voice is all but gone in the White House and so are the voices of 99% of this Country. There are no politicians for the hard working Citizens who are taxed to death, who are hindered and bogged down by local and state Government. Those of us who have demands are ignored and punished for voicing our concerns.
I am told that I have the Right to Free Speech and it appears to be true because I see many, many others who say and do whatever they want, huge petitions in the streets, signs, banners, flags, vocal insults on opposing on-lookers, etc. My Country offers political asylum to non-citizens who might suffer punishment for having certain beliefs or actions. However, being a Citizen - I seem to be denied the Rights to Free Speech, especially being a Republican. Apparently anything I want makes me a racist, a Nazi, and whatever other "labels" you want to put on me to try to silence my side. I honestly don't care what people think of me because no one is perfect enough to judge me, no one can predict my motives or desires. No one in this Nation has any authority to decide any life decisions for me - otherwise would make you a commie! So stop trying to label people and trying to manipulate the information to get your way.
I am not a racist, I am not against immigration and I am not against people coming to the United States to have a better life. However, if we don't protect what we have, there will BE no better life in this Country! Not for immigrants, not for the people who live here!
More and more I feel myself falling away from the Republican Party because less and less I feel my wants and needs being defended by the Republican Party. I have been Republican since I remember thinking. No joke! I have known I was Republican since I was born.
Now I am thinking there is no difference between the Republicans or the Democrats. This is true of the career politicians in Washington. However down here on the ground, where the REAL Republicans live - there is a HUGE difference between Republicans & Democrats.
I have all but turned against President Bush - who is only concerned with his Fathers New World Order agenda to even see any facts.
We, the People are being sold out on this illegal immigration Bill and I'm outraged!!
We can't afford it financially, socially, politically or resourcefully!
The same groups that are defending this illegal immigrant amnesty Bill are the same ones who complain about pollution, water shortages, and whatever else they can complain about. So why demand that even more people stay here??? If we are in such a state of resource shortage - why open ourselves up to supporting even more people????
If this immigration Bill passes and George Bush sells us out as a Nation of voters - I am giving up the Republican Party and devoting myself to starting a new Independent Party - one that's FOR the People of the United States of America. We will be known as the Rhinos and we will sweep the floor of the White House of corrupt Republicans who collaborate against the American People.
We will be against illegal immigration, against a New World Order, against the U.N. and for tax breaks, we will develop instruction packages for every person born which will guide parents or guardians to function in opportunities Nationally and Globally - "suggestions" to provide a positive foundation and direction for life. People are born in this Country, they are not shown any direction or guidance - instead they are told what they CAN'T do! A negative and counter-productive arrangement. From there, people will have a better idea of what choices they can make in life. From birth to death. People do not think of things unless its brought to their attention and that's what we should be doing to help our society.
We will make suggestions for health care, employment opportunities, living locations - thereby marketing the good things of this Nation, generating new business, building hopes and dreams instead of killing them with universal laws of "regulation" that we have now.
Sometime I will write a blog on my views of laws and how they only apply to some and not others and the burdens laws are on overall progression. Laws should reluctantly implemented on the lives of people. Deep review should proceed any new laws!
Anyway, if the Republicans screw the People of the United States - they better look out for the Rhinos because we''ll take this Nation back for the PEOPLE!
Love,
Samantha
Bullet removed from head, 64 years later
Bullet removed from head, 64 years later
Current mood: 
apathetic
Category: Life
Bullet removed from head, 64 years later
From correspondents in Beijing
May 28, 2007 12:00
Article from: Reuters
A CHINESE woman's 64-year-old headache has ended after doctors removed a bullet that relatives said lodged in her skull when Japanese soldiers shot her during World War II.
Jin Guangying, now 77, lost consciousness after a Japanese patrol in Jiangsu province fired on her in 1943 as she went to meet her grandfather, a guerrilla fighter, the Beijing News reported today.
"When she came to, her head was wrapped in a bandage and she never realised there was a bullet lodged deep in her head," the paper said.
Later, she had regular headaches, would foam at the mouth and "talk nonsense ... like she had gone mad," the paper said.
Ms Jin's family had thought her symptoms were due to a tumour, the paper said, quoting Wang Zhengping, the woman's daughter.
"Because our family was poor, we were never able to have her taken for a thorough check-up," Ms Wang said.
A military expert in Nanjing, the Jiangsu capital, had identified the bullet as one used by Japanese soldiers at that time, the newspaper said.
Ms Jin's relatives plan to seek redress for her more than 60 years of suffering.
"As her children, we will soon go to Nanjing to consult with relevant experts as to how to seek compensation from the Japanese Government, and will definitely be seeking a public apology," the paper quoted Ms Wang as saying.
Illegal Sells Pot to Elementary Students
| Illegal Sells Pot to Elementary Students clock May 27, 2007 7:45 am US/Central 7:02 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment |
 | Nevada Lights   |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Google Programmer Blind
Google Programmer Blind and Crazy
Current mood: 
impressed
Category: Life
Actually, he's a super-Human....
Lundblad is a leading contributor to the Subversion open source code project, which has produced a widely implemented code management system. He was among five leaders of open source code recognized in August at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Unlike the others, Lundblad is blind, a fact that didn't bother Google, Lundblad's new employer.
By Charles Babcock
InformationWeek By Charles Babcock
Google Programmer
Interview by Charles Babcock
..>..>
  Photograph by Wiley Spiller/Getty Images | |
..>..>
| 1 | | In Transition "I have no idea exactly what I'll be doing for Google, but I know they already employ another blind programmer." Google uses Subversion to manage open source projects that it hosts on its site. Lundblad works in Google's Zurich facility." |
..>..>..>..>
| 2 | | Open Source Guru "My work on Subversion was really helpful. When you work for a private company, it's easy to just sit in a cave. You don't get feedback from other programmers because you're not allowed to show your code to anyone." |
..>..>..>..>
| 3 | | How He Does It "I was trained as a finger typist. I know from the feel of the keys if I've made a mistake typing. When looking at code, I prefer Braille." Lundblad uses a device that presents each line of code on the screen in Braille for him to read by touch. |
..>..>..>..>
| 4 | | First Contact "I was 13 years old in 1989 when I got my first computer. Then a few years later, the Internet came along. It was a revolution. I could search for whatever I wanted, instead of going to the library to see what books they had in Braille." |
| 5 | | Hands On "I've spent much time improving performance in various parts of Subversion, especially the working copy library, the Subversion component that manages the user's copy of files." |
Negligent Mother Told Off By Judge
Negligent Mother Told Off By Judge
Current mood: 
angry
Category: Life
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/13392846/index.html?source=
Good on the Judge, I say! About time people stand up for what's fair and just!!
Men in 30s earn less than fathers, income growth decelerates
Men in 30s earn less than fathers, income growth decelerates
Current mood: 
sad
Category: Life
Making less than dad did
Report reveals that American men in their 30s earn less than their fathers did, as family income growth decelerates.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- American men in their 30s are earning less than their father's generation did, challenging a long-held belief that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it, according to a new study published Friday.
The report, the first in an ongoing 18-month study on economic mobility in the United States, also revealed that the income growth of the median American household is declining.
The study was produced by a handful of politically diverse think tanks including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute. It looked at income levels of American men in their 30s, which can be a good indicator of lifetime income.Relying on Census Bureau figures, the study's authors found that after adjusting for inflation, men in their 30s in 2004 had a median income of about $35,000 per year, for a 12 percent drop compared with $40,000 per year for men in the same age group in 1974.
That stood in stark contrast to men in their 30s in 1994, who earned 5 percent more than their fathers did.
Similarly, American families, which experienced a 32 percent increase in income levels between 1964 and 1994, saw household income growth slow to 9 percent between 1974 and 2004, according to the report.
"There is clearly some story here that [U.S.] productivity gains are not trickling down to the median family," said John Morton, a co-author of the study and the managing director of economic policy initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Even as male incomes have declined and household income growth has slowed, the nation's productivity has remained robust. While the two once kept pace with each other, U.S. productivity has quickly outpaced income growth since the mid-1970s, according to the report.
The study's authors, who plan to examine relative mobility, or the ability of Americans to move up or or down in social strata, said their report shows the canonical belief in an American meritocracy may be unraveling.
"The expectation that each generation will do better than their parents has become a fundamental part of what we call 'The American Dream,'" said Morton. "But this new analysis suggests this bedrock belief may be shifting under our feet."Stunning High Res Photo of San Francisco After 1906 Earthquk
Stunning High Res Photo of San Francisco After 1906 Earthquk
Current mood: 
enthralled
Category: Life
Soft Drinks Blocking DNA Function?? Yikes!
Soft Drinks Blocking DNA Function?? Yikes!
Current mood: 
cold
Category: Life
Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health
Expert links additive to cell damage
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Published: 27 May 2007
A new health scare erupted over soft drinks last night amid evidence they may cause serious cell damage. Research from a British university suggests a common preservative found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA.
The problem - more usually associated with ageing and alcohol abuse - can eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's.
The findings could have serious consequences for the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who consume fizzy drinks. They will also intensify the controversy about food additives, which have been linked to hyperactivity in children.
Concerns centre on the safety of E211, known as sodium benzoate, a preservative used for decades by the £74bn global carbonated drinks industry. Sodium benzoate derives from benzoic acid. It occurs naturally in berries, but is used in large quantities to prevent mould in soft drinks such as Sprite, Oasis and Dr Pepper. It is also added to pickles and sauces.
Sodium benzoate has already been the subject of concern about cancer because when mixed with the additive vitamin C in soft drinks, it causes benzene, a carcinogenic substance. A Food Standards Agency survey of benzene in drinks last year found high levels in four brands which were removed from sale.
Now, an expert in ageing at Sheffield University, who has been working on sodium benzoate since publishing a research paper in 1999, has decided to speak out about another danger. Professor Peter Piper (hahah, this just keeps getting better!), a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology, tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory. What he found alarmed him: the benzoate was damaging an important area of DNA in the "power station" of cells known as the mitochondria.
He told The Independent on Sunday: "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether.
"The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it - as happens in a number if diseased states - then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA - Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing." Sounds like new super hero material for Marvel Comics
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) backs the use of sodium benzoate in the UK and it has been approved by the European Union but last night, MPs called for it to investigate urgently.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat (AHHAHAHAH!!!)chair of Parliament's all-party environment group said: "Many additives are relatively new and their long-term impact cannot be certain. This preservative clearly needs to be investigated further by the FSA."
A review of sodium benzoate by the World Health Organisation in 2000 concluded that it was safe, but it noted that the available science supporting its safety was "limited".
Professor Piper, whose work has been funded by a government research council, said tests conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration were out of date.
"The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are complete safe," he said. "By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago."
He advised parents to think carefully about buying drinks with preservatives until the quantities in products were proved safe by new tests. "My concern is for children who are drinking large amounts," he said. Fuck that - I'm not drinking any more soda. I can see where this makes sense.
5:36 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment
| "THE DEMON SLAYER"  |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
|
Las Vegas Memorial Day Parade - You Can Join Along !!
Las Vegas Memorial Day Parade - You Can Join Along !!
Current mood: 
amused
Category: Life
AMERICANS4AMERICA
IS REQUESTING YOUR PRESENCE TO JOIN IN THE MEMORIAL DAY MARCH UP THE LAS VEGAS STRIP
MONDAY MAY 28th 2007
MEET 8:30am parking lot of the
Laughing Jackalope bar
(across from Mandalay Bay)
we will begin walking N on the strip @ 9:00am(to flamingo-or before) AND will come back down)
[We will have a couple vehicles along the route in case anyone needs to stop walking]
if you have any questions call us
405-0526 or email us back
WHAT TO BRING:
1. American flags preferably small to medium sized.
2. Any sign you choose to bring please make sure it is no bigger than 18w x 30L.
we don't want to be accidentally bumping into folks if our signs are to big.
sign ideas:
* our soldiers are not dying for open borders/amnesty
* God Bless America
* Support our troops
Here, I will add a few of my own sign ideas...LOL....
* Mexico & Canada Suck
* Send the Beaners Home on the Aquaducts (insert Raft Pictures here)
* Mexicans Make Us Fat with Their Food
* Canadians = Dumb Hippies
* Save Our Water - Send the Illegals Home
* Down with Mexican Food! (draw a picture of a fat American)
* We Don't Need No Stinking Burritos !!!
XOXOXO
~Samantha
3:23 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
|
Rockin' Band
Rockin' Band
Current mood: artistic
Category: Life
They sound good, you should add em!
~Samantha
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Sanity
Date: May 27, 2007 12:13 PM
Click Here to Hear SANITY
My name is Brian and I manage a band from Buffalo NY called SANITY. I would like to invite you to give the bands music a listen. Our video "Stay Away" from the Lionsgate film "Penny Dreadful" recently debuted on FUSE TV "Oven Fresh" and finished the week No 1 beating out new video debuts from notable bands Audioslave and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. You can view the video on our myspace page here and at http:www.myspace.com/sanityusa or at the movies website www.pennydreadfulthemovie.com The music video is a bonus feature on the movies DVD which was released March 27th. Check out our music on both pages and let me know what you think. On our main myspace page there is a killer power ballad called "Close My Eyes" that I think you will really like. Just click on the SANITY link in the 1 spot on our friends list to take you to our alternate site.
If you like what you hear I would luv it if you could add us to your friends list. I strive to respond to each and every e mail we get. Thank you so much for your time and I hope you have a great day!
Brian JLT Music Management
brian07
This Memorial Day Weekend
This Memorial Day Weekend
Current mood: grateful
Category: Life
This Memorial Day Weekend is reserved for pause and reflection, appreciation and objection, for a chance to rearrange objectives and to remember those who have dedicated themselves to the future.
For me that doesn't only include the heroes of our Military but also Family members, friends, everyday Americans.
It's a positive day, one that reaffirms there is more beyond this if we only try. A day of love, rather than sadness.
This Memorial Day I want to give thanks to my Mom and Dad who gave everything for us for what they had. Our lives together were a sweet balance of our parents living their American Dream, their "American lives" and keeping us together and safe.
Often times I was ungrateful and rebellious and now that I'm older, I would thank my parents for giving me opportunities to live outside the norm, for the added values in my life which consisted of experiences over material possessions, meeting people over just passing them by, knowing what the TRUE meanings in life are all about! All priceless endeavors!
And this Memorial Day I want to thank the everyday Americans who struggle, who do little special things to improve someone's life out there and ask nothing in return. Those who work 30+ years at the same job doing the same thing everyday in exchange for expertise in their field before worthless "corporate schooling" came along (now everyone is "expert"). Thank you for having a strong work ethic and helping to build the Country.
And thank you to Rush Limbaugh and his staff for bringing things to our attention that we otherwise never would have known. Michael Savage, Matt Drudge and all the rest who stand up for the U.S.A.
Most of all, thank you to the people who have died, suffered, done without for this Nation of people and their futures. Thank you for sacrificing yourself for the sake of people you don't even know. Thank you for being brave, for negotiating yourself for the plight of others.
From the beginning of Man, people have fought for what they believed in and the ones who collaborate, stand strong as part of the team, those who defend the survival of all of us - Thank You!
Take this Memorial Day to ask yourself - is there someone in your life with whom you disagree and have you shut that person out?
Don't make the same regrets I did as a young person - reach out to them and appreciate the time you have with them now. Someday that person will be gone. Someday you will be gone.
Memorial Day is about memories we have and the memories we WILL have.
My Dad's last words to me:
"Maybe we can meet up somewhere else some time."
Indeed Dad.
Love to all of you good people and thank you for all that you do!
XOXOXOXO
~Samantha
I'm getting secret code from the CIA
I'm getting secret code from the CIA
Current mood: shocked
Category: Life
Check this out....if I send so many emails out MySpace sends me a code of twisted letters, which I have to decipher.
Well I have been saving mine and it seems they are more than just an inconvenience! They're secret messages from the CIA. Sure the letters are scrambled but you gotta use your brain!
Don't be hatin'........
NOTE: To those of you who thoughtI was joking...here they are...
IFsmUUAKB
AKwuNJR
ExRRuVuWk
FDAYYFUm
FUAPKVcXG
FkNXEIDER
GAXJPFJN
GPEVFEAN
HuBAHXKH
INRSSGFPX
JIDSVFPRI
RHWEykIm
PmTHTvGsE
SIISzvyCU
TAEAUKvcZ
TcXDkHk
YwPKETsYv
ZWzAYHS
mFEIWBV
yyDNHNk
zNYUIRD
Oops, just got another one..
DAFPGPC
Airport customs workers say false info collected
Airport customs workers say false info collected
Current mood: aggravated
Category: Life
Have you folks seen Dragon SLAYER'S blog?? You know, so many terrorists are coming into this Country that we really can't stop them...the obvious choice is just to unite with Iraq and make them a State in the United States of the World...........and make them tax playing slaves.............
~Samantha
WHERE DO TERRORISTS GO FOR VACATION? DISNEY WORLD OF COURSE!!!!
Current mood: calm
Category: News and Politics
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Airport customs workers say false info collected
Ex-agent: 'They keep manipulating the numbers to create an illusion that they're doing their jobs'
Posted: May 26, 2007
5:55 p.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
If al-Qaida is intent on infiltrating more terrorists into the U.S., it might want to send them to Disney World first.
Six U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the Orlando Sanford International Airport have come forward alleging they were told to falsify customs records for arriving international passengers in order to handle large volumes of traffic and to create the impression they were carrying out the required number of enforcement screenings.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the six federal whistleblowers – all agricultural specialists – charged they were given stacks of forms, called IO25s, for people they had not personally interviewed and told to enter false information into the Treasury Enforcement Communication System database.
TECS is a computerized information system used by CBP officers and agricultural specialists to aid in the identification of individuals and business involved in, or suspected of involvement in, violations of federal law. CBP personnel use the TECS workstations to check incoming travelers, querying names at the initial Primary Passport Control station.
The collected data is passed on to Secondary Baggage Control area as IO25s. "Rovers" – CBP officers who roam the baggage area, randomly selecting passengers and airline-crew personnel for additional checks – may refer travelers to a secondary, more thorough questioning that includes a baggage inspection.
According to the complainants who worked in the secondary inspection area, they were given IO25s that had not been completed at Primary Passport Control for individuals they had not personally interviewed, and were told to "guess at the information ... such as race, length of stay and number of bags. The standard information they were told to enter was 'white, two weeks, two bags,'" the report from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel read.
All the agents said they were told the IO25s needed to be entered so that Sanford could reach the required percentage of enforcement screens. They indicated the number of such entries were "in the hundreds."
Further, the workers charge they were told to code the IO25s as ENF, for "Enforcement Action," instead of the less serious code of PPQ, for "Plant Protection and Quarantine."
"This would falsely reflect that the passenger or crew member had been stopped, interviewed, and bags inspected in connection with a suspicion of possessing contraband or engaging in unlawful activity," reported the special counsel. "Several of the whistleblowers questioned this and were told that things were done differently at Sanford, and that they should go ahead and enter the information as directed."
Supervisors at Sanford denied the information entered on the forms was false, only that it was "incomplete" or "generic" data used to fill in queries missed at the earliest customs inspection.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, inspectors at the 324 U.S. ports of entry have been tasked with identifying and stopping foreign criminals, smugglers and terrorists among the 1.1 million visitors to the U.S. each year. CBP's standard of clearing each foreign flight within one hour means arriving passengers are often screened within a minute or less.
The Sanford Port of Entry was originally designed to accommodate 800-900 passengers per hour, but during the summer of 2005 when the six whistleblowers were assigned to the facility, upwards of 3,000 passengers per hour, on their way to Central Florida's many tourist attractions, needed to be processed.
To deal with the increased traffic, CBP transferred eight officers from the secondary inspection area to the Primary Passport Control booths. Despite rotating in other personnel from other Florida ports of entry, "the staffing configuration typically left only one CBP officer available to work secondary referrals from Secondary Baggage Control," noted the special council.
"This desire to push through the passengers leaves these inspectors to do roughshod jobs," Michael Cutler, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, told the Sentinel. "They keep manipulating the numbers to create an illusion that they're doing their jobs."
Cutler, who retired in 2002 after 30 years with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, is a former senior special agent and airport inspector.
While an internal-affairs investigation "partially substantiated" the whistleblowers' charges, including claims they shared passwords to the secure database, supervisors received only "letters of counseling" as discipline. Practices such as using the more serious enforcement code to meat quota was said not to be covered by any agency rules.
The whistleblowers also complained that very few airline crew members were subjected to secondary searches since they tended to pass through the custom check as a group.
10:37 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment
"THE DEMON SLAYER"
That's Demon Slayer not Dragon Rider! LOL I think you need more coffee or me! LOL
Posted by "THE DEMON SLAYER" on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 10:03 AM
[Reply to this]
Nevada Lights
You can be any number of the following:
Dragon Rider
Dragon Slayer
Demon Rider
Demon Slayer
Sorry but screen names are not very important to my brain and therfor they are easily forgotten, confused and abused.
I'll apologize now to everyone regarding that.
XOXOXO
Posted by Nevada Lights on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 11:32 AM
[Reply to this]
See? We CAN leave shit on the lawns of White House!!
See? We CAN leave shit on the lawns of White House!!
Current mood: relieved
Category: Life
Dragon Rider's Blog:
Doo doo dump ruled protected political speech
Jury says pile on doorstep was expression of opinion
Posted: May 25, 2007
7:30 p.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave
A jury in northeastern Colorado has ruled that a pile of dog doo left in the entrance of the office of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was protected political speech, acquitting a critic of the congresswoman who admitted dumping the load.
"In Colorado the courts and jury have now made dog crap a right of freedom of speech. I can't wait to be able to use this now," said an anonymous commenter on the Free Republic website.
According to a report in the Greeley Tribune, a Weld County jury found Kathy Ensz, a 64-year-old retired university professor, innocent of charges for depositing, the, well, deposit.
"Democrats are ALWAYS dumping figurative doodoo on Republicans. So, now a judge says the literal expression is legal? Hmmmmm… wonder if I could talk the local septic truck operator into dumping the contents on Pelosi's office doorstep," another participant in the comment forum said. "In the name of political free speech, of course…"
County prosecutor Ken Buck said it was a legitimate case.
"It's easy for someone who's not in office to say what the tolerance is for an elected official," he said. But he said his office would have pursued the case even if the victim wasn't a member of Congress.
"I think it would be worth prosecuting whether it's a member of the public or an elected official," he told the newspaper. "It's a criminally obnoxious thing to do."
Musgrave's chief of staff, Guy Short, said the congressional staff did not follow the case after it was reported. But he said perhaps Ensz could communicate in a "more dignified manner."
"In the future, if she has a comment for the congresswoman, she can write us a letter, and we'll treat her with the respect that she didn't treat the congresswoman with," he said.
The incident happened during Musgrave's re-election campaign in 2006. Ensz, vice chairwoman of the Colorado Senate District 13 Democratic Central Committee, admitted she left the envelope filled with her, ahem, "message" on May 31, 2006. It "wasn't in the office doors, it was in the foyer," she said.
Ensz admitted the trial concerned her. "When you get prosecuted like this, when the powers that be come after you for something like this, it's very intimidating," she said.
But Buck said the potential of threats cannot be taken lightly these days.
"Public officials should be protected from this type of conduct," he said, noting Musgrave has received death threats in the past.
Ensz told jurors she just wanted to make a point, but was sorry and would not do it again.
"It was only a political message," she said.
Her lawyer also claimed Ensz's civil rights were violated. "Her only intention of going over there was to make a political statement that Marilyn Musgrave's politics stink," lawyer Shannon Lyons said.
One chat forum participant had an entirely different view:
"Greeley is BACK! This is going to be all over the nation for the next couple days."
Musgrave won her third term in Congress representing Colorado's 4th District over Democrat candidate Angie Paccine in 2006. Musgrave was elected first in 2002, after spending several years representing Colorado voters in the Colorado House and Senate. She's on the House Committees on Agriculture and Small Business, as well as the Republican Study Committee.
10:27 AM - 4 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment
"THE DEMON SLAYER"
I POSTED THIS, THIS MORNING ,BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN AWAKE!
Posted by "THE DEMON SLAYER" on Saturday, May 26, 2007 at 2:55 PM
[Reply to this]
Nevada Lights
That's probably why it says -- you ready?? ----- "Dragon Slayers Blog" at the top.
Oh, I wrote Dragon Rider.....Dragon Rider, Dragon Slayer.......yahdda, yahdda, yahdda....Dragon something.......
Dragon Rider, Demon Slayer...........I don't have time for these technicalities............
It's all confusing....
Posted by Nevada Lights on Saturday, May 26, 2007 at 4:08 PM
[Reply to this]
The Official Brian Baumgartner Page
I don't see why it even went to a jury. For such a minor [though disgusting] offense, a judge should have just ordered her fined for littering or some similar charge. Although, it would have been interesting if the "leavings" had caused the Congresswoman to become ill. Then perhaps a more serious charge could have potentially been filed.
Posted by The Official Brian Baumgartner Page on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 6:58 PM
[Reply to this]
Nevada Lights
It's vandalism and harassment, pal. It should have been treated as such.
Posted by Nevada Lights on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 7:04 PM
[Reply to this]
Top Secret Self-Destructing Emails
Top Secret Self-Destructing Emails
Current mood: calm
Category: Life
So where are the men who are supposed to take care of us women?? Who will help get this MySpace stalker off of my profile??
Yes. I'm Dominate but the best form of flattery is a man that takes care of a woman without having to be told.
Being Dominate doesn't mean one hates men, although it seems ALL Dominatrix go for that persona.
I, on the other hand, love men and have the highest expectations of them, while being supportive at the same time. I'm demanding, bossy, active in the relationship and
Do not email me and ask me dirty questions or ask to cyber or ask if you can do dirty things because the answer will always be NO!
In 10 seconds this email will self-destruct and you're nipples will feel a pinch. Do not pinch them yourself.
Thank you for reading.
~Samantha
10:14 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment
MySpace "Moderator" Deletes MY Photos....
| MySpace "Moderator" Deletes MY Photos.... MySpace Help 8:31 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
Sponsored Li
Who wants to smell..........my thigh highs???
| Who wants to smell..........my thigh highs???
1:06 AM - 10 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment |
| Bill Butler  |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Rambarr  |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Rambarr |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Rambarr |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Rambarr |
|
My Proposal to Stop Uncle Sam in His Tracks !!!
My Proposal to Stop Uncle Sam in His Tracks !!!
Current mood: angry
Category: Life
First - We all withdraw every dollar we have from bank accounts, credit cards, loan centers, etc.etc......any way you can get money! INVEST IN GOLD!!
Secondly - we ALL refuse to pay our taxes, our mortgages, our credit cards and any other bills, except electricity, gas, water ....you don't need to pay your trash bill either!
Third - we ALL go to Washington DC and we dump our trash on the lawns of the White House! Piles and piles of trash!!!
They expect you and me to live in filth with the trash that they demand stays in this Country then we will see how THEY like it!
They want to support rogue hippies, let's give them rogue hippies!!
They haven't seen the definition of hippie until Republicans go bad!!!
It's clear that nothing less than a Revolution is going to change the direction of this Nation!
I read in a friend's blog where the Chinese have shot a satellite out while it orbited the Earth - while we sit over here fighting for basic Human Rights from our OWN Government, the Chinese are shooting missiles into the atmosphere and HITTING targets!!
We are lacking focus, we are being sold out by a bunch of GREEDY politicians and we are losing the race for greatness! We are told that science doesn't matter, self-defense doesn't matter, we're force fed small-minded topics such as global warming, mercury laden light bulbs, recycling and abortion when there is a much greater threat out there - and that would be OTHER Human Beings!!!
Who gives a fuck about global warming if we're all dead from a bomb?? Do you think the Chinese or Muslims are going to stand on our ashes and worry about global warming????
If anyone defeats Muslim terrorists it's going to be the Chinese, they won't pussy foot around like the Ted Kennedy's and the Harry gReids - but whether the United States survives such an ordeal, I don't know! We're being led by spineless pussies that don't even add up to being PEOPLE - much less meeting the requirement of being "enlightened" people qualified to lead a Nation!!
Donald Trump could be a better President than the one we have now! Donald Trump could be a better ANYTHING than we have now!
So could any number of other people!
Why wasn't that big eared guy - Ross Perot voted in?? He offered to work for FREE and he built multi-million dollar companies! So he was untraditional but so what??? Americans are too picky about superficial things! The results are what matter!! The end result that effects ALL of us is what matters!!!
The end result that effects ALL of us is what matters! The superficial shit means nothing!
For fucks sake - date someone who might be considered "ugly" because you just might be surprised!!!
If you all saw a picture of my ex boyfriend you'd ask me what I was thinking - well, he turned out to be a huge mistake but it wasn't because he was ugly....it was because he was a butthole!
Come on folks - lets look at how silly our Government has become....where is the respect for US - you and me???
It's all but gone!!!
I say, if they pass this illegal immigration amnesty thing - we should go on the war path!!! We must protect the VALUES of The United States - let's give people of VALUE a reason to come here again......
Cheap labor makes a few people rich while bringing down the Nation - but making progress in the science arena, encouraging people who THINK to come to The United States seals our success for many generations!
I know something - I know of something that I'm betting hasn't even been thought of yet - it's a new way to process energy and it would change everything we know and do today! Fuck these stupid little light bulbs that do nothing really! It's like putting new Perelli tires on a Model T car!
I would happily give up what I know today - right here in this blog - if I had Faith in my Government....but I don't!
That why I write to my fellow Citizens for support to ensure that we make the right decisions. Defend us - defend ourselves - defend the Nation!
Anything I invent goes to The United States - not to the highest bidder!
Lest I will die with it.
Love to all of you!
~Samantha
9:44 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment
| WA  |
| |
| WA |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
One mexicans Opinion -
One mexicans Opinion -
On the streets of downtown Houston,
May 1, 2006,
Jim Moore reporting for a Houston TV station:
Jim : Juan , I see that you and thousands of other protesters are marching in the streets to demonstrate for your cause. Exactly what is your cause and what do you expect to accomplish by this protest?
Juan: We want our rights. We will show you how powerful we are. We will bring Houston to its knees!
Jim : What rights?
Juan: Our right to live here...legally. Our right to get all the benefits you get.
Jim : When did you come to the United States ?
Juan: Six years ago. I crossed over the border at night with seven other friends.
Jim :Why did you come?
Juan: For work. I can earn as much in a month as I could in a year in Mexico .
Besides, I get free health care, our Mexican children can go to school free, if I lose my job I will get welfare, and someday I will have the Social Security. Nothing like that in Mexico !
(Why do you think that is Juan? Because mexicans are stupid!)
Jim: Did you feel badly about breaking our immigration laws when you came?
Juan :No! Why should I feel bad? I have a right to be here. I have a right to amnesty. I paid lots of money for my Social Security and Green Cards.
Jim:How did you acquire those documents?
Juan : From a guy in Dallas . He charged me a lot of money too.
Jim : Did you know that those documents were forged?
Juan: It is of no matter. I have a right to be here and work.
Jim : What is the "right" you speak of?
Juan : The right of all Aliens. It is found in your Constitution. Read it!
Jim : I have read it, but I do not remember it saying anything about rights for Aliens.
Juan :It is in that part where it says that all men have Alien rights, like the right to pursue happiness. I wasn't happy in Mexico , so I came here.
Jim : I think you are referring to the Declaration of Independence and that document speaks to unalienable rights ... Not Alien rights.
Juan :Whatever.
Jim :why then are you carrying a Mexican Flag?
Juan: Because I am Mexican.
Jim : But you said you want to be given amnesty ... To become a US citizen.
Juan: No. This is not what we want. This is our country, a part of Mexico that you Gringos stole from us. We want it returned to its rightful owner.
Jim: Juan , you are standing in Texas . After wining the war with Mexico , Texas became a Republic, and later Texans voted to join the USA . It was not stolen from Mexico .
Juan: That is a Gringo lie. Texas was stolen. So was California , New Mexico and Arizona . It is just like all the other stuff you Gringos steal, like oil and babies. You are a country of thieves.
At least we achieved SOMETHING - mexico has nothing in the 20th century to lay claim to - a bunch of losers!!!
Now you "think" someone owes you something for being lazy and stupid!! HAH!
Jim: Babies? You think we steal babies?
Juan: Sure. Like from Korea and Vietnam and China . I see them all over the place. You let all these foreigners in, but try to keep us Mexicans out. How is this fair?
Jim: So, you really don't want to become an American citizen then.
Juan: I just want my rights! Everyone has a right to live, work, and speak their native language wherever and whenever they please. That's another thing we demand. All signs and official documents should be in Spanish. Teachers must teach in Spanish. Soon, more people here in Houston will speak Spanish than English. It is our right!
Jim: If I were to cross over the border into Mexico without proper documentation, what rights would I have there?
Juan: None. You would probably go to jail, but that's different.
Jim:How is it different? You said everyone has the right to live wherever they please.
Juan:You Gringos are a bunch of land grabbing thieves. Now you want Mexico too? Mexico has its rights. You Gringos have no rights in Mexico . Why would you want to go there anyway? There is no free medical service, schools, or welfare there for foreigners such as you. You cannot even own land in my country. Stay in the country of your birth.
Jim :I can see that there is no way that we can agree on this issue. Thank you for your comments.
Juan: Viva Mexico !
*******************
George Bush and a corrupt Government - working hard to embolden the enemy!
~Samantha
8:42 PM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Feeling Sexy Photo Contest
| Feeling Sexy Photo Contest Here are some highlights you might have missed: 11:52 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Horrible, Just Awfully Horrible - Where is the JUSTICE??
| Horrible, Just Awfully Horrible - Where is the JUSTICE?? The animals pictured below; car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!
If two white people are tortured, raped, and murdered by a group of black people, it barely gets a blip in the news.
Pass this around, and maybe, just maybe, it will land in the hands of someone in the media or politics, that has the balls to stand up for the white people!!! ..>..>..>..>
7:21 PM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
pissed off 
| ♥Dori♥  |
| |
| ScottA  |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| YOHLI'  |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Overview of a weird, weird day.......
| Overview of a weird, weird day....... Several days ago I inadvertently send a bulletin out which housed a link that included my full name, full address and phone number. 1:22 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment |
weird | "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| The Official Brian Baumgartner Page  |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
Kevin
Kevin
Category: Life
The man who owns the Internet
Kevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you've never heard of, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. Here's how the master of Web domains built a $300 million empire.
..endclickprintexclude-->.. CONTENT -->
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Kevin Ham leans forward, sits up tall, closes his eyes, and begins to type -- into the air. He's seated along the rear wall of a packed ballroom in Las Vegas's Venetian Hotel. Up front, an auctioneer is running through a list of Internet domain names, building excitement the same way he might if vintage cars were on the block.
As names come up that interest Ham, he occasionally air-types. It's the ultimate gut check. Is the name one that people might enter directly into their Web browser, bypassing the search engine box entirely, as Ham wants? Is it better in plural or singular form? If it's a typo, is it a mistake a lot of people would make? Or does the name, like a stunning beachfront property, just feel like a winner?
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> .. KEEP -->..>..>
 |
| UPWARDLY MOBILE: Kevin Ham's kitchen-table business now inhabits the 27th floor of a skyscraper in Vancouver. |
.. KEEP -->
.. KEEP -->
.. KEEP -->
.. KEEP -->
.. KEEP -->
When Ham wants a domain, he leans over and quietly instructs an associate to bid on his behalf. He likes wedding names, so his guy lifts the white paddle and snags Weddingcatering.com for $10,000. Greeting.com is not nearly as good as the plural Greetings.com, but Ham grabs it anyway, for $350,000.
Ham is a devout Christian, and he spends $31,000 to add Christianrock.com to his collection, which already includes God.com and Satan.com. When it's all over, Ham strolls to the table near the exit and writes a check for $650,000. It's a cheap afternoon.
Just a few years ago, most of the guys bidding in this room had never laid eyes on one another. Indeed, they rarely left their home computers. Now they find themselves in a Vegas ballroom surrounded by deep-pocketed bankers, venture-backed startups, and other investors trying to get a piece of the action.
And why not? In the past three years alone, the number of dotcom names has soared more than 130 percent to 66 million. Every two seconds, another joins the list.
But the big money is in the aftermarket, where the most valuable names -- those that draw thousands of pageviews and throw off steady cash from Google's and Yahoo's pay-per-click ads -- are driving prices to dizzying heights. People who had the guts and foresight to sweep up names shed during the dotcom bust are now landlords of some of the most valuable real estate on the Web.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->The man at the top of this little-known hierarchy is Kevin Ham -- one of a handful of major-league "domainers" in the world and arguably the shrewdest and most ambitious of the lot. Even in a field filled with unusual career paths, Ham's stands out.
Trained as a family doctor, he put off medicine after discovering the riches of the Web. Since 2000 he has quietly cobbled together a portfolio of some 300,000 domains that, combined with several other ventures, generate an estimated $70 million a year in revenue. (Like all his financial details, Ham would neither confirm nor deny this figure.)
Working mostly as a solo operator, Ham has looked for every opening and exploited every angle -- even inventing a few of his own -- to expand his enterprise. Early on, he wrote software to snag expiring names on the cheap. He was one of the first to take advantage of a loophole that allows people to register a name and return it without cost after a free trial, on occasion grabbing hundreds of thousands of names in one swoop.
And what few people know is that he's also the man behind the domain world's latest scheme: profiting from traffic generated by the millions of people who mistakenly type ".cm" instead of ".com" at the end of a domain name.
Try it with almost any name you can think of -- Beer.cm, Newyorktimes.cm, even Anyname.cm -- and you'll land on a page called Agoga.com, a site filled with ads served up by Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500).
Ham makes money every time someone clicks on an ad -- as does his partner in this venture, the West African country of Cameroon. Why Cameroon? It has the unforeseen good fortune of owning .cm as its country code -- just as Germany runs all names that end with .de.
The difference is that hardly any .cm names are registered, and the letters are just one keyboard slip away from .com, the mother lode of all domains. Ham landed connections to the Cameroon government and flew in his people to reroute the traffic. And if he gets his way, Colombia (.co), Oman (.om), Niger (.ne), and Ethiopia (.et) will be his as well.
"It's in the works," Ham says over lunch in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. "That's why I can't talk about it." He's nearly as reluctant to share details about his newest company, called Reinvent Technology, into which he's investing tens of millions of dollars to build a powerhouse of Internet businesses around his most valuable properties.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->Given Ham's reach on the Web -- his sites receive 30 million unique visitors a month -- it's remarkable that so few people know about him. Even in the clubby world of domainers, he's a mystery man. Until now Ham has never talked publicly about his business. You won't find his name on any domain registration, nor will you see it on the patent application for the Cameroon trick.
There are practical reasons for the low profile: For one, Ham's success has drawn enemies, many of them rivals. He once used a Vancouver post office box for domain-related mail -- until the day he opened a package that contained a note reading "You are a piece of s**t," accompanied by an actual piece of it.
Bitter domainers are one thing, lawyers another. And at the moment, Ham's biggest concern is that corporate counsels will come after him claiming that the Cameroon typo scheme is an abuse of their trademarks. He may be right, since this is the first time he's been identified as the orchestrator.
When asked about the .cm play, John Berryhill, a top domain attorney who doesn't work for Ham, practically screams into the phone, "You know who did that? Do you have any idea how many people want to know who's behind that?"
Spreading the word
Kevin Ham is a boyish-looking 37-year-old, trim from a passion for judo and a commitment to clean living. His drink of choice: grapefruit juice, no ice. His mild demeanor belies the aggressive, work-around-the-clock type that he is. Ham frequently steers conversations about business back to the Bible. Not in a preachy way; it's just who he is.
The son of Korean-born immigrants, Ham grew up on the east side of Vancouver with his three brothers. His father ran dry-cleaning stores; his mother worked graveyard shifts as a nurse. A debilitating illness at the age of 14 led Ham to dream of becoming a doctor. He cruised through high school and then undergraduate work and medical school at the University of British Columbia.
Christianity had long been a mainstay with his family, but as an undergrad, he made the Bible a focal point of his life; he joined the Evangelical Layman's Church and attended regular Bible meetings. Ham recalls that it was about this time -- 1992 or 1993 -- that he was introduced to the Web. A church friend told him about a powerful new medium that could be used to spread the gospel.
"Those words really struck me," Ham says. "It's the reason I'm still working."
After he graduated from med school in 1998, Ham and his new bride took off for London, Ontario, for a two-year residency. By the second year, Ham had become chief resident, and when he wasn't rushing to the emergency room, he indulged his growing fascination with the Net, teaching himself to create websites and to code in Perl.
Information about Web hosting at the time was so scattered that Ham began creating an online directory of providers, complete with reviews and ratings of their services. He called it Hostglobal.com.
From there it was a short step to the business of buying and selling domains. About six months after he launched Hostglobal, Ham was earning around $10,000 per month in ad sales. But when one of his advertisers -- a service that sold domain registrations -- told him that a single ad was generating business worth $1,500 a month, Ham figured he could get in on that too.
From doctor to domainer
It made sense: People shopping for hosting services were often interested in buying a catchy URL, so Ham launched a second directory, called DNSindex.com. Like similar services operating at the time, it gave customers a way to register domain names.
But Ham added the one feature that early domain hunters wanted most: weekly lists of available names, compiled using free sources he found on the Web. Some lists he gave away; others he charged as much as $50 for. In a couple of months, he had more than 5,000 customers.
By the time he finished his residency in June 2000, his two small Web ventures were pulling in more money in a month -- sometimes $40,000 -- than Ham made that year at the hospital. That was enough, he reasoned, to put off starting a medical practice for three more months, maybe six. "It just didn't make sense not to do it," he says.
With a new baby in tow, Ham and his wife moved back to Vancouver, settling into a one-bedroom apartment. Ham's timing, it turned out, was spot-on. Tech stocks were tumbling, dotcoms were folding left and right, and investors were fleeing the Web. More important to him, hundreds of thousands of valuable domain names that were suddenly considered worthless began to expire, or "drop." Ham and a handful of other trailblazers were ready to snap them up.
Figuring out when names would drop was tedious work.
At the time, Network Solutions controlled the best names; it was for a long time the only retail company, or registrar, selling .coms. It didn't say when expiring names would go back on the market, but twice a day it published the master list of all registered names -- the so-called "root zone" file (now managed by VeriSign (Charts)). It was a fat list of well over 5 million names that took hours to download and often crashed the under-powered PCs of the day.
So Ham wrote software scripts that compared one day's list with the next. Then he tracked names that vanished from the root file. Those names would be listed briefly as on hold, and Ham figured out that they would almost always drop five or six days later -- at about 3:30 a.m. on the West Coast. In the dark of night, Ham launched his attacks, firing up five PCs and multiple browsers in each. Typing furiously, he would enter his buy requests and bounce from one keyboard to the next until he snagged the names he wanted.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->He missed a lot of them, of course.
Ham had no clue that there were rivals out there who were way ahead him, deploying software that purchased names at a rate that Ham's fingers couldn't match. Through registration data, he eventually traced many of those purchases to one owner: "NoName." Behind the shadowy moniker was another reclusive domain pioneer, a Chinese-born programmer named Yun Ye, who, according to people who know him, operated out of his house in Fremont, Calif.
By day Ye worked as a software developer. At night he unleashed the programs that automated domain purchases. (Ye achieved deity status among domainers in 2004 when he sold a portfolio of 100,000 names to Marchex (Charts), a Seattle-based, publicly traded search marketing firm, for $164 million. He then moved to Vancouver.)
Ham went back to the keyboard, writing scripts so that he, too, could pound at the registrars. Ham's track record began to improve, but he still wasn't satisfied. "Yun was just too good," he says.
Then Ham did something brash: He bought his way to the front of the line. Since registrars had direct connections to Network Solutions's servers, Ham's play was to cut out the middleman. He struck deals with several discount registrars, even helping them write software to ensure that they captured the names Ham wanted to buy during the drops. In exchange for the exclusivity, Ham offered to pay as much as $100 for some names that might normally go for as little as $8.
Within weeks Ham had struck so many deals that, according to rivals, he controlled most of the direct connections. "I kept telling them to hit them harder," Ham says in a rare boastful moment. "We brought down the servers many times." During one six-month period starting in late 2000, Ham registered more than 10,000 names.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->Rival domainers, locked out of much of the action, didn't appreciate Ham's tactics. It was one of them, most likely, who sent him the turd. "Kevin came in and closed the door for everyone else," says Frank Schilling, a domainer who figured out what Ham had done and sealed similar deals. "There was a ton of professional jealousy."
Ham, in fact, owes a lot to Schilling. Both men lived in Vancouver at the time, and after Ham sought out Schilling in November 2000, the two met at a restaurant to compare notes.
"How much traffic do you have?" Schilling asked. An embarrassed Ham replied that he had no idea. Schilling mentioned that he was experimenting with a new service, GoTo.com, that would populate his domains with ads. Ham spent the next week figuring out how much traffic his sites were generating, and he was amazed by the initial tally: 8,000 unique visitors per day from the 375 names he owned at the time.
"From then on," Ham says, "I knew that what I was building would be very, very valuable." He soon signed up with GoTo (which was later purchased by Yahoo). On his first day, Ham made $1,500.
The system worked then as it does now: People don't always use Google (Charts, Fortune 500) or Yahoo to find something on the Web; they'll often type what they're looking for into a browser's address bar and add ".com."
It's a practice known as "direct navigation," or type-in traffic, and millions do it. Need wedding shoes? Type in "weddingshoes.com" -- a site that Ham happens to own -- and you'll land on what looks like a shoe-shopping portal, filled with links from dozens of retailers.
Click on any one of those links, and the advertiser that placed it pays Yahoo, which in turn pays a cut to Ham. That single site, Ham says, brings in $9,100 a year. Small change, maybe, but the name cost him $8, and his annual overhead for it is about $7. Multiply that model several thousand times over, and you get a quick idea of the kind of cash machine that Ham was creating from his living room.
By early 2002, roughly $1 million a year was pouring into Ham's operation, which he ran with the help of his high school friend and current partner, Colin Yu. But again he felt the tug of his conscience. He occasionally left Vancouver to do medical missionary stints, helping patients in Mexico, the Philippines, and China. He found the experience rewarding, but the development boom he saw taking off in China just reminded him of the virtual real estate boom he was leading back home.
Soon Ham was back working full-time on the Web. "There was just too much more to do," he says.
A little taste
There was no looking back. The next few years were among Ham's most aggressive. One of his most valuable tricks was one he had experimented with in the early days, a practice called domain "tasting." Tasting takes advantage of a provision that allows domain-name buyers a free five-day trial period. Intended to protect customers who mistakenly purchase the wrong name, it handed aggressive domainers another means with which to expand -- and exploit -- their portfolios.
Ham cobbled together new lists of domain words in every combination, registering hundreds of thousands of new names for free, monitoring the traffic, and then returning the duds. By 2004, Ham had amassed such a deep portfolio that he pulled his names from third-party registrars, launched his own registrar, and then created another company, appropriately named Hitfarm, that could do a better job than Yahoo of matching ads with domain names -- for himself and 100 or so other domainers.
Like any shopping spree, though, Ham's tasting binge didn't last. It brought in so many names -- offbeat strings of letters, names with too many dashes, and other variations that humans would be hard-pressed to think of -- that Ham saw the quality of his portfolio dropping in proportion to its growing size. For every few thousand names he'd register, he'd toss back all but a hundred or so.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->Tasting exacerbated another problem too: Ham's software grabbed all kinds of typographical variations of trademarked names. Called typo-squatting, it's a practice now coming under the same intense scrutiny long faced by cybersquatters. Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) and Neiman Marcus are just two companies whose lawyers have brought anti-cybersquatting lawsuits, charging domainers with intentionally profiting from variations of their trademarks.
"Tasting changed everything," says Ham, who has since abandoned the practice, though he concedes that Hitfarm still holds some problematic names. "I said, forget it," he says. "Generic names are already too hard to come by. And the legal risks are too great."
The legal risks should diminish, however, if you don't own the domain names at all -- and that's the secret behind the Cameroon play.
New world order
The domain confab in Vegas is like any other trade conference: The real intrigue happens at cocktail hour. One subject in the air is Cameroon. Late last summer, domainers began noticing that something odd happens to .cm traffic: It all winds up at a site called Agoga.com. Domainers know, of course, that .cm belongs to Cameroon. And they know that whoever controls Agoga.com has created a potential gold mine.
What they don't know is who's behind it all.
At one of the meet-and-greets, Ham is standing drinkless, as usual, sporting a polo shirt, chatting with a few people he knows and some he's just met. In this crowd, it seems, everyone wants to know Ham. Finally, he is alone.
"I hear you're the guy behind .cm?"
Ham looks surprised by the reporter's question, then flashes a big smile and says, "I had help."
Over a series of conversations a few weeks later in Vancouver, Ham shares some details about a deal that, despite his innate reticence, he's clearly proud of. About a year ago, he says, he worked his contacts to gain connections to government officials in Cameroon. Then he flew several confidantes to Yaoundé, the capital, to make their pitch. His key programmer went along to handle the technical details.
"Hey," Ham says, flagging his techie down near the office elevator. "Didn't you meet with the president of Cameroon?"
"Nah," the programmer says. "We met with the prime minister. But we did see the president's compound."
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->It's an odd scene to picture: a domainer's reps in a sit-down with Ephraim Inoni, the prime minister of Cameroon, to discuss the power of type-in typo traffic and pay-per-click ads. And yet, as with most of the angles Ham has played, the Cameroon scheme is ingeniously straightforward.
Ham's people installed a line of software, called a "wildcard," that reroutes traffic addressed to any .cm domain name that isn't registered. In the case of Cameroon, a country of 18 million with just 167,000 computers connected to the Internet, that means hundreds of millions of names. Type in "paper.cm" and servers owned by Camtel, the state-owned company that runs Cameroon's domain registry, redirect the query to Ham's Agoga.com servers in Vancouver.
The servers fill the page with ads for paper and office-supply merchants. (Officials at Yahoo confirm that the company serves ads for Ham's .cm play.) It all happens in a flash, and since Ham doesn't own or register the names, he's not technically typo-squatting, according to several lawyers who handle Internet issues.
The method is spelled out in a patent application filed by a Vancouver businessman named Robert Seeman, who Ham says is his partner in the venture and who also serves as chief adviser at Reinvent Technology. (Seeman declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Ham won't reveal specifics but says Agoga receives "in the ballpark" of 8 million unique visitors per month. Fellow domainers, naturally, are envious.
"As soon as it started happening, there was a huge sense of 'Why didn't I think of that?'" says attorney Berryhill, who represents Schilling and other domainers.
Still, several companies have already tracked down Ham's attorneys, claiming trademark infringement. Ham argues that his system is legally in the clear because it treats every.cm typo equally and doesn't filter out trademarked names.
Berryhill concurs. "You can't really say that [wildcarding] is targeting trade-marks," he says. "It captures all the traffic, not just trademark traffic." Moreover, the anti-cybersquatting statute applies only to people who register a trademarked domain; using a wildcard doesn't require registering names.
Clever though it may be, .cm is "a very small part of our operations," Ham says. He won't disclose how much he pays to the government of Cameroon, whose officials could not be reached for comment.
The partnership has been a rocky one so far, and the system has sporadically shut down. But .cm is only one of several country domains where the typo play can work. According to Ham, he and his team are working with other governments. The dream typo play -- .co -- belongs to Colombia, to which Ham says Seeman paid several visits long before they began working on Cameroon. (Citing safety concerns, Ham hasn't yet made the trip. "I would only go if the president requests to meet me," he says.)
As for other countries he might soon invade, Oman (.om) is an obvious target. Niger and Ethiopia are out there too, but since they would play off less lucrative .net typos, they might not be worth the trouble.
As for Colombia, Ham says, "we're making progress."
The long view
Ham leans over his office PC to check on a domain auction. Steven Sacks, a domainer based in Indianapolis who works for Ham, is telling him about some names up for sale. Ham shoots back an instant message: "I like doctordegree.com ... and rockquarry.com ... sunblinds.com."
The days of figuring out the drop are long over. Everything's open now. Lists are easy to obtain. You can preorder a name before it drops and hope to get it. Or, like Ham, you can shell out five or six figures in online auctions. The only great deals, at least for .com names, tend to happen privately, when a domainer manages to find an eager or naive seller.
Ham still buys 30 to 100 names a day, but he's no longer getting them on the cheap. In fact, he and Schilling, who today maintains a $20 million-a-year portfolio from his home in the Cayman Islands, are often accused of driving up prices.
Take, for example, the $26,250 Ham paid for Fruitgiftbaskets.com, or the $171,250 for Hoteldeals.com. "The amount he will pay is crazy," says Bob Martin, president of Internet REIT, a domain investment firm that has raised more than $125 million from private investors, including Maveron, the venture firm backed by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz.
Nonsense, Ham says. The names are expensive only if you value them the way people like Martin do. The VCs and bankers, who were late to the domain gold rush, assess names by calculating the pay-per-click ad revenue and attaching a multiple based on how long it would take to pay off the investment.
Viewed that way, Ham's personal portfolio alone is worth roughly $300 million. But some of Ham's recent domain purchases would also look silly: They'd take 15 or 20 years just to justify the price, and that assumes continuation of the pay-per-click model.
.. REAP -->..startclickprintexclude--> ..endclickprintexclude-->.. /REAP -->But Ham is taking a longer view. The Web, he says, is becoming cluttered with parked pages. The model is amazingly efficient -- lots of money for little work --but Ham argues that Internet users will soon grow weary of it all.
He also expects Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to find ways to effectively combat typo-squatting. Some browsers can already fix typos; Internet Explorer catches unregistered domains and redirects visitors to a Microsoft page -- in effect controlling traffic the same way that Ham is doing with .cm. "The heat is rising," Ham says.
When Ham buys a domain now, he's not doing pay-per-click math but rather sizing it up as a potential business. Reinvent Technology aims to turn his most valuable names into mini media companies, based on hundreds of niche categories.
Among the first he'd like to launch, not surprisingly, is Religion.com. Ham recently leased the entire 27th floor in his Vancouver building and is now hiring more than 150 designers, engineers, salespeople, and editorial folks.
Much of that effort is going into developing search tools based more on meaning and less on keywords. "Google is only so useful," Ham says.
The aim is to apply a meaning-based, or "semantic," system across swaths of sites, luring customers from direct navigation and search engines alike. Religion.com would then become an anchor to which scores of other sites would be tied.
"It's time to build out the virtual real estate," Ham says. "There's so much more value in these names than pay-per-click." Seeman's patent application even mentions the possibility of turning Web traffic from Cameroon and other future foreign partners into full-fledged portals.
It's all part of the master plan, as Ham aims to become the first domainer to move from the ranks of at-home name hunter to Internet titan. Smaller players have been selling out to VC-backed groups, and Ham expects that the best names will eventually be owned by just a handful of companies.
If he bets right, he might very well be one of them. "If you control all the domains," he says, "then you control the Internet."
Paul Sloan, an editor-at-large at Business 2.0, covers the ever-changing Internet landscape on his blog, The Key. 
1:23 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment
| Bill Butler |
|
One Queers Disrecpectful Opinion - Mark Morford
One Queers Disrecpectful Opinion - Mark Morford
Current mood: 
disappointed
Category: Life
Check out this San Fran liberal who speaks of other people with the utmost disrespect - assuming as though EVERYONE is blindly stupid and he is somehow amazingly brilliant! The fact of the matter is - he writes such dribble that it doesn't even make sense half the time. Good thing he's up in San Francisco !!
~Samantha
Rejoice, The Hummer Is Dead
It might be the end of the world's most phallically sad SUV. But has the damage been done?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The late Rev. Jerry Falwell? He was exactly like a Hummer H2. Oh yes he was. Bloated, arrogant, offensive to millions and deeply wrong in a thousand ways and yet blindly worshipped by a shockingly large and happily uninformed throng of devout minions for no other reason than he was, well, bloated, arrogant and wrong.
Is that too harsh? Lacking in prudent subtlety? I'm completely OK with that.
See, it is time for much rejoicing. It is time for an upraising of hands and a hallelujah and a praise be to the heavens despite how, of course, the heavens don't really exist.
No, not for the death of Falwell, for that would be pointless and in poor taste and besides, the ever-acerbic Christopher Hitchens did it much better over at Slate. And as I pointed out last week, Falwell's own collection of (in)famous quotes do a far better job of revealing the man's true nature and worth to humanity than any sort of carefully articulated, cheerful celebration of his demise ever could.
No, this minor offering of joy is for the imminent and forthcoming death of the Hummer H2 itself. Oh my yes.
See, sales of this particular model -- perhaps the most idiotic consumer vehicle ever produced in your lifetime -- are down. Way down, a full 27 percent from last year alone, which was already way down 22 percent from the year prior, with sales continuing to plummet as fast as gas prices are rising and Bush's war is raging and Americans are generally snapping awake to the fact that dumping well over 100 bucks to fill the tank of this monster abomination every other day might not be the best way to waste their kid's college fund.
Hence, it's heavily rumored that GM will soon kill the model entirely, which is already being supplanted by a slew of smaller, less disgusting H2 offspring like the H3 and the H3 pickup and the H3 whatever-the-hell-else-they-can-think-of to milk this horrible idea until it's deader than Dick Cheney's black soul at a pagan tree festival.
Is this not good news? Is this not a sign that times, at long last, might be changing for the better, even just a little? Wait, don't answer just yet.
First, a flashback. Do you remember the time, that dark and skanky period of bleakness way back in, say, 2003, when gas was (relatively) cheap and Bush's war was still being spun as some sort of righteous, WMD-justified love-in and the dour, global-warming-is-a-liberal-hoax Republicans controlled the sour American universe? It was a time when GM dealers couldn't sell the giant hunk of laughable penis compensation known as the Hummer H2 -- which was nominated that very year for North American Truck of the Year -- fast enough.
GM even went so far as to build ridiculous, theme park-like Hummer dealerships and to contract with special plants in Indiana to crank out America's ugliest, most dangerous, least environmentally friendly monster truck, and celebs and rappers and pro athletes and supermodels and senators and glitz wannabes of every ilk everywhere couldn't waste 50 grand on the horribly built, lunkish hunk of karmic contempt fast enough. Oh what a time it was.
Fast forward to right now. The Republican party is grumbling on the sidelines, kicked to the curb by their own impressive corruption and warmongering and excessive kowtowing to the extreme religious right. America feels slightly more wary, awake, a tad more environmentally aware, slightly more in touch with something resembling its soul. And the H2 -- essentially the emblem of all that is/was wrong with Bush's America -- the bloat, the recklessness, the false machismo and unchecked waste and bigger-is-better senselessness -- might very well end production entirely. Something, at long last, seem to be changing for the better.
Or is it?
See, there's this snag (isn't there always?): Because despite the H2's apparent demise, despite $4 gallons of gas, despite a huge increase in sales of hybrids and the move toward alternative energy and despite all the talk of the "greening" of America, sales of giant SUVs seem to be surging once again, just this year, after many months of slumping sales.
What the hell is going on? Is it because, like Dick Cheney, like Karl Rove, like Jerry Falwell, like reality TV, the dumb-as-lead Hummer H2 has had its nasty, permanent effect? Has the giant SUV now become so mainstream, so deeply tattooed into the pasty, overweight flesh of American culture that it doesn't even really matter that the H2 is on its way out, essentially turning into a sad, silly cultural footnote? Do you already know the answer?
Perhaps it is simply the way of the culture, the evolution of a very bad idea, made slightly more palatable through slick, careful marketing. Today, manufacturers are simply redesigning and rebranding their luxobarges as crossover vehicles, offering slightly improved handling and slightly improved fuel economy and not at all improved emissions and slightly less chance of flaming rollover death at the slightest need for emergency handling at any speed over about 20 mph, and hence many Americans somehow think that buying the newer, sleeker three-ton Chevy Suburban with 23 cup holders instead of the 2005 model with only 14 must be, you know, a healthy improvement.
Or perhaps it's a remnant of the careless Boomer worldview, that all-American, use-it-before-it's-gone attitude that spins on an axis of a truly horrible irony: The more we learn of our desperate environmental straits, the more we learn of dwindling oil reserves and the more we learn that our shiny happy United States might not be the responsible, beneficent global superpower we once dreamed it was, the more we say "screw it" and grab onto the last gasp of pleasurable excess and vice no matter the future repercussions, telling ourselves we might as well enjoy that stupid, chromed-out three-ton GMC Yukon Denali before the oil runs out and the terrorists eat my babies and the damn liberals change the laws and make us all drive Smart cars to the Tofu Hut in order to turn us all gay. Sound familiar?
But no matter how you slice it, the ongoing SUV phenom is, in its way, one of our most fascinating cultural studies, a neat -- if rather depressing -- measure of American attitudes.
The truth is, the comically irresponsible H2 represented and encapsulated its brutal -- though mercifully brief -- time period in Bush's America perfectly. And now perhaps we are simply moving on to the next phase, slightly improved, a tad more aware, but somehow remaining completely unfazed by $120 tanks of gas and ongoing pollution and the rather obvious idea that, despite the slick marketing hype, nothing significant has really changed at all.
Bottom line: You can hope for the big shifts. You can hope for some sort of grand awakening, some sort of removal of the tumor and a relief from the pain of excess waste and abuse and happy ignorance.
But, of course, what you get instead is, well, a nice drive to the megamall in a shiny 2008 Escalade for a couple of aspirin and some compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a copy of "An Inconvenient Truth" on DVD. Ain't that America.
see what others say about this shit-for-brains:
Mark Morford is a columnist for sfgate.com and the San Francisco Chronicle.
He also teaches yoga, subscribes to magazines, admires trees, detests shrill alarmism (including his own), sleeps naked. He has not seen your blog, but is sure it's amazing. He never wears sneakers. He writes about politics, pop culture, sex, music, design, a wry and punch-drunk universe, vibrators, scotch, media, spirituality and small European cars. And sometimes, parrots.
"[A] misguided, lost and carnal individual... filled with vexation and ignorance of God [who will] gladly cheer the anti-christ."
-- Christian Resource Network
Morford writes like a man possessed by demented angels. His twice-weekly column routinely features jaw-dropping, unflinchingly liberal prose so biting and sweet and innovative it amazes us that a mainstream daily would keep this guy on the payroll.
-- Detroit Metro Times
"I've been reading your column with unbridled glee, righteous indignation, and an occasional sidelong glance of mock disapproval for some time now. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I am, for the moment at least, not yet entirely dead."
-- Ken W
"Your columns are a complicated formula of biting sarcasm, convoluted wording, and comical pessimism, equaling a stinging liberal slap in the face. Surely your views and blunt attacks on the status quo turn some people off to your writing, which makes you my new idol."
-- Meg
"I'm sure you know that you are going straight to Hell. You should be ashamed of youself, publishing your filth. I serve a merciful God. I only hope you seek forgiveness for the lies you spread. I pray for you and all the poor people you speak to in your publication. I hope that they have the intelligence to know that you are full of bologna."
-- Michelle C
"I'm truly all on my knees in stunned awe of your inspiring, wry, tasty, irreverent, fluid, continuing ode to Ultimate Truth and Goodness and Self Realization and Strange and Intimate Sex for us all. Really."
-- Shakya, SF
My opinion is that the guy is a douche!
~Samantha
10:54 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment
| Ms. Maikaefer  |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| YOHLI' |
| |
| The Official Brian Baumgartner Page |
| |
| YOHLI' |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Steve Elliot (- Grassfire.org) for President of The United Sates
| Steve Elliot (- Grassfire.org) for President of The United Sates If any of you know Steve Elliot, president of Grassfire.org you know how organized his organized is and how dedicated this group of people are to this Country. 9:50 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
busy | "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Mexican MySpace ??? How Un-American!!
| Mexican MySpace ??? How Un-American!! YAY! We're told how we're racists and that the American People should be United and end segregation, etc........ and now to concur that....MySpace presents All mexican, all the time..... 1:24 AM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
sick 
| Ms. Maikaefer |
| |
| Ms. Maikaefer |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Ms. Maikaefer |
| |
| YOHLI' |
|
Post Card from SANITY to George Bush - Wish you were here!
| Post Card from SANITY to George Bush - Wish you were here!
8:59 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
An Overview of What's REALLY Going ON !!
An Overview of What's REALLY Going ON !!
Current mood: 
irate
Category: Life
Illegal aliens and their offspring show their true colors in Los Angeles.
During a rally to demand the pardon of border agents and a deputy sheriff wrongly convicted, AmericanResolve and another rallier confront two Mexican extremists supporting the communist/anti-American group, A.N.S.W.E.R.
During a rally to demand the pardon of two wrongly convicted border patrol agents a notorious Mexican Supremacist troll named "Naui" and other Communist goons attempt to agitate Americans.
Mexican Supremacists in Maywood get an ass-reaming by a Hispanic American patriot during an anti-illegal immigration rally.
During a march to Los Angeles City Hall a group of Americans protesting the illegal alien invasion are stalked by groups of anarchist, communist trash
Call your politicians and DEMAND they address the illegal immigration crisis. The fate of our nation depends on YOU to get involved.
MS-13, La Mara Salvatrucha and other violent gangs that follow on to migrations of illegal aliens is detailed in Lou's broadcast.
Watch as Indiana companies exploit the American H1B visa program and drive down wages of American IT workers.
$100 Billion is is the estimated cost of low skilled illegal aliens in America.
Why are our immigration laws being written to provide amnesty for criminal illegal aliens? Lou Dobbs wants to know and so does America!
Lou Dobbs explores the decision by the Bank of America to provide credit cards to illegal alien invaders.
Protester speaks his mind about the illegal alien invasion.
Save Our State's Don Silva talks about the corrupted Bush Administration and the dangers of open borders.
Listen/read carefully what the illegal immigrant/amnesty supporters really
think about our laws. "El TRI" has been a rock band for over 35 years in
Mexico and Latin America. They are considered the mexican Rolling Stones.
Home Depot shopper flaunts his illegality.
Montage of footage shot during anti-illegal alien demonstration. Hundreds of illegal aliens and their communist, Brown supremacist supporters shown ranting against America.
A poster on Congress.org uncoverd a plot to infect US citizens with E Coli by putting their feces in the food. This plot was carried out and explains the outbreak of E Coli. It all pointed to Taco Bell one of themost robust employer of Illegal Aliens. Your children are at risk of eating any food prepared by Mexican Aliens. Protect your family and STOP buying Fast Food. All Fast Food resturants are staffed by IIllegal Aliens or Mexican sympathizers
Susan is a senior citizen that went to an anti-illegal immigration rally carrying an American flag. She didn't know that she would be attacked before the day was over.
During a protest against an illegal alien day labor center an intoxicated illegal alien rants against America.
An interview with George Bush regarding the Mexican border.
Grassfire.org President Steve Elliott reports from the U.S.-Mexico border as an illegal alien is caught trying to enter the U.S.
"Minutemen" authors Jim Gilchrist and Jerome Corsi examine a tunnel running under the wall along the US / Mexico border.
Dr. Jerome Corsi, co-author of "Minutemen," explains why Mexico encourages its economic refugees to come into the U.S.
A new video dedicated to my adopted country, U.S.A.. The blood, sweat, tears, and years I worked getting here is insulted by illegal immigrants coming here demanding rights I worked hard for. God bless the U.S.A.
www.immigrationwatchdog.com
GEORGE BUSH HAS ALREADY SOLD OUR COUNTRY TO BIG BUSINESS ....SLAVERY BEGINS SHORTLY........
Canadian View on the North American Union.
Music by:
http://www.myspace.com/planetgobbler
IN THIS VIDEO CLIP LOU DOBBS PUTS THE BIG FAT SMELLY FISH RIGHT UP ON THE TABLE FOR EVERYONE TO LOOK AT - THE NEW WORLD ORDER.
IN THIS CLIP YOU WILL SEE:
1. THE 1991 VIDEO OF DADDY bUSH ANNOUNCING THE
NEW WORLD ORDER !!
2. LOU DOBBS CALLING THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION A PART OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER !!
3. DOBBS SAYING THAT "W" IS FULFILLING DADDY'S DREAM OF A NEW WORLD ORDER !!
4. THE NEW PROGRAM GOING INTO EFFECT TO BRING ALL OF THE AMERICAS INTO ONE UNION CALLED THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS. I GUESS THEY WILL MERGE WITH HUGO CHAVEZ'S TRADE AGREEMENT IN SOUTH AMERICA.
5. LOU DOBBS SAYING, "IT'S A NEW WORLD ORDER THEY ARE TRYING TO CREATE" !!
6. IT'S THE SURRENDER OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE UNITED STATES !!
7. IT'S A STEALTH AGENDA BY THE PRIVATE CORPORATE ELITE !!
8. LOU DOBBS SAYS, "ITS A STRAIGHT FORWARD ASSAULT BY THE ELITIST" !!
THE NEW WORLD ORDER HAS NOW BEEN ANNOUNCED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND EVEN SAYS THAT IT WAS AN AGENDA ANNOUNCED BY DADDY bUSH BACK IN 1991 !!
NOW IT'S TIME TO DO SOMETHING !!
I don't know how to download videos off of YouTUBE so please bear with me on this video - I did not have the original video, and had to record it with my cell phone camera, because that's all I have right now.
Libertarian Stan Jones is running for Senate from Montana. He tells the Truth about Globalization, North American UNION, our new money the AMERO and the NAFTA Super Highway. Stand up and fight for America before it's completely gone and it's too late!
Funny - I'm not a Libertarian, but I support the good message Stan is sending to President Bush and to everybody else that this nonsense has to STOP!
TAKE ACTION!
www.StopTheNAU.org/On_Line_Presentation. htm
www.TruthBeTolled.com/action.php
www.SATollParty.com/PHPList/?p=subscribe
www.NoNationalID.com
European trends are about 10 years ahead of America....but their trends eventually make it here to the United States....will this be one of them?....most likely!
Find out why: www.EUTruth.org.uk
The Strangest Disaster of the 20th Century.
| The Strangest Disaster of the 20th Century. ..>..>
11:12 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment | |||||
On the morning of August 22, 1986, a man hopped onto his bicycle and began riding from Wum, a village in Cameroon, towards the village of Nyos. On the way he noticed an antelope lying dead next to the road. Why let it go to waste? The man tied the antelope onto his bicycle and continued on. A short distance later he noticed two dead rats, and further on, a dead dog and other dead animals. He wondered if they'd all been killed by a lightening strike – when lightening hits the ground it's not unusual for animals nearby to be killed by the shock. 
One of the first important clues was the distribution of the victims across the landscape: The deaths had all occurred within about 12 miles of Lake Nyos, which some local tribes called the "bad lake." Legend had that long ago, evil spirits had risen out of the lake and killed all the people living in a village at the water's edge. 
The scientists also discovered unusually high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved or "in solution" in the water. Samples from a as shallow as 50 feet deep contained so much CO2 that when they were pulled to the surface, where the water pressure was lower, the dissolved CO2 came bubbling out of solution—just as if someone had unscrewed the cap on a bottle of soda. 
Scientists spent the next decade trying to figure out a way to safely release the gas before disaster struck again. They eventually settled on a plan to sink a 51/2-inch diameter tube down more than 600 feet, to just above the floor of the lake. Then when some of the water from the bottom was up to the top of the tube, it would rise high enough in the tube for the CO2 to come out of solution and form bubbles, which would cause it to shoot out the top of the tube, blasting water and gas more than 150 feet into the sky. Once it got started, the siphon effect would cause the reaction to continue indefinitely, or at least until the CO2 ran out. A prototype was installed and tested in 1995, and after it proved to be safe, a permanent tube was installed in 2001. 
| YOHLI' |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
|
The Fast and the Furry-ous
| The Fast and the Furry-ous
11:04 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
confused 
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
|
Homeless Teen Who Graduated High School
| Homeless Teen Who Graduated High School Homeless Teen Who Graduated High School To Get National Attention18-Year-Old Lived In Shed Behind Friend's HousePOSTED: 7:17 am EDT May 22, 2007 UPDATED: 9:36 am EDT May 22, 2007  Daniel Lazzatti overcame homelessness and a learning disability to graduate from Edgewater High School on Saturday. Lazzatti, who lived in a friend's back yard shed while going to school, would ride his bike to school every day. The teen not only graduated with a high grade point average, but he also received a special award for the accomplishment. Local 6 reported that since Lazzatti's story originally aired, people have come forward to offer him money, cars, bikes and even shelter. However, the teen said he does not want the help. "If people really use this inspirational story in their every day lives to make them work better, then I would feel a lot better," Lazzatti said. Lazzatti's story will air on The CBS Evening News after viewers voted overwhelmingly to see the report. "This kid is strange in that he's homeless and really doesn't want any help," CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman said. "When we put this on national television people are going to want to send him money and he really doesn't want that." Hartman's project titled "Assignment America" lets viewers decide where he goes and what he covers. The report is scheduled to air Friday night on The CBS Evening News. Watch Local 6 News for more on this story. Copyright 2007 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 10:49 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment |
| YOHLI' |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
Getty Claiming Copyright to National Archives Images
| Getty Claiming Copyright to National Archives Images
10:45 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment |
aggravated | YOHLI' |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
A dream lay dying
A dream lay dying
Current mood: sad
Category: Life
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/20/Opinion/A_dream_lay_dying.shtml/
A dream lay dying
Times columnist and editorial board member Bill Maxwell kept a promise to himself, to become a professor at a small historically black college, to nurture needy students the way that mentors had encouraged him as a young man. His second year started with promise but ended in despair.
By Bill Maxwell
Published May 20, 2007
..>..>
| Students in a freshmen English class prepare for debate on differences between attending a historically black college and a predominantly white one. Tiara Gipson, center, says, "I think HBCUs are relevant because they allow African-American students to get back to their roots. In my high school we learned about white history." |  |
..>..>
..>..>
|
After spending the summer trying to shake off the disappointment over my first year as a professor at Stillman College, I began the 2005 fall semester looking for even the smallest signs that I could make a difference in the lives of black students by setting high standards and inspiring them to rise to the challenge.
The first ray of hope that August morning came as I unlocked my office door and was greeted by Constance Bayne, my most diligent journalism student. The mere fact that she had bought her textbooks made me feel some degree of success. My first year, many students had refused to get the textbooks even when they had vouchers to cover the cost. Constance's enthusiasm was reassuring, and I remember thinking that if I had 10 students like her I could transform the college into a place that attracted other high achievers from throughout Alabama.
I became even more hopeful that afternoon when I met with Stillman president Ernest McNealey. He had invited me in 2004 to leave the St. Petersburg Times editorial board, revive the journalism major at the small historically black college in Tuscaloosa and fulfill a promise I had made to myself years ago. Now McNealey agreed it was time to order new computers and other supplies to open a newsroom for the student newspaper and for editing and design classes.
During those first few weeks of school, the new equipment began arriving and my hopes continued to rise. My first year at Stillman, which had fewer than 1, 000 students, had not been as smooth or as fulfilling as I had hoped. My students' academic performance had been generally disappointing, and I could not persuade most students to even attend class regularly.
Still, I believed that with a real newsroom we were ready to make significant progress. Before my arrival at Stillman, my colleague Lucinda Coulter had produced the student newspaper on her home computer without charging the college a dime. With a campus newsroom, we assumed that our students would begin to take the profession seriously and would love hanging out in their own space.
We soon learned that we had been naive. Nothing changed. Students rarely came to the newsroom except for classes. The majority preferred to socialize with their friends during their spare time, and others knew that one way to avoid an assignment for the newspaper was to avoid the newsroom where story leads and tips were posted on the bulletin board.
My colleagues and I were witnessing the result of low admission standards. Were we expecting too much of young people who scored poorly on the SAT, who were rarely challenged to excel in high school, who were not motivated to take advantage of opportunities to learn, who could not imagine where a sound education could take them?
An unfortunate truth was that most of my colleagues and I never got an opportunity to teach the breadth of our knowledge. I had great difficulty, for example, teaching something as simple as the distinction between "historic" and "historical" or between "infer" and "imply, " distinctions that careful writers, especially journalists, want to know.
I wasn't the only one. A white professor labored to get her students to critically read the assignments. She could not discuss the major themes and literary conventions when her students did not read. When she got nowhere with Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she asked me to speak to the class. Perhaps a black professor would have more success talking about one of the best-known black authors.
A few minutes into my exchange with the class, I realized the white professor was not the problem. The students simply did not - or could not - read closely. My colleagues and I could not teach what we had been trained to teach.
"My students don't use me, " an English professor said. "At most, I may run into two or three a year who make me work. Talking over your students' heads is a waste of everybody's time."
Treat students as your own children
Nonetheless, president McNealey and his administration wanted us to nurture our students. During faculty meetings, we regularly were encouraged to treat our students as if they were our own children. We were responsible for saving them all. This was familiar terrain; a generation earlier my professors had nurtured me at two historically black colleges, Wiley in Marshall, Texas, and Bethune-Cookman in Daytona Beach. Some of them even had given me a few breaks I may not have deserved.
Many of my Stillman colleagues regularly invited their students to their homes for dinner. The discussions often were about personal matters involving romantic relationships, family crises and money problems. Professors were the first confidants many students ever had. Indeed, they often became surrogate parents.
As a single man living in a small apartment, I did not feel comfortable inviting students over. I did go to my colleagues' homes whenever I was invited to have dinner with students, and faculty members often attended student-sponsored events on and off campus. Some professors even showed up at their students' churches on Sundays. I am not a churchgoer, but I rarely missed a football or basketball game.
The bottom line was the same as it is at most HBCUs. Professors who had the best success connecting with students, especially below-average male students, emphasized friendly, personal and supportive involvement in their lives. For example, Stephen Jackson, who taught sports writing, was an effective professor because he understood the importance of winning students' trust. He even ate lunch in the cafeteria with students each day.
This style of teaching, which I grudgingly adopted, was unlike anything I had used during my previous 18 years of teaching on traditional campuses such as those of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northern Illinois University. On those campuses, professors were respected for their achievements and position. Subject matter usually was taught without developing strong personal relationships between students and professors, and professors may not have cared if students liked them.
At Stillman, being professional but impersonal created frustration for the student and the professor. Students, especially males, liked and respected the flexible professor, and they learned when they respected the professor.
The flexible professor encouraged lively exchanges of subject matter, ideas, beliefs and opinions during class discussions. The flexible professor often did not require written responses or exams. The flexible professor let students keep pace by retaking exams, completing take-home exams or giving classroom presentations.
I had difficulty becoming flexible. The majority of my students in the English class failed to complete most of the assigned readings. Most of their essays were unacceptable, and attendance was low. I had a choice: Abandon my syllabus or flunk more than half of the class.
I abandoned the syllabus. Instead, I lectured and made assignments based on the problems and errors in the students' writing. I went over the same material, such as writing the topic sentence, again and again because some students could not master it.
"We're crippling these kids by mothering them, " I told a colleague over a drink one evening.
"We're loving them to death, " he replied.
'Some of them don't belong here'
During the fall semester, I would try to make eye contact with students and speak to them as we passed in the halls and on The Yard, the grassy campus gathering spot. Very few of them would return my greetings. Most were sullen. But I also saw something more disturbing in their faces: Many of these young people were sad and unhappy. Very few smiled.
A colleague who had taught at Stillman for more than 10 years confirmed my observations. "Our kids haven't had many good things in their lives, " she said. "Many of them are angry and negative and rude. They've had hard lives. Some of them don't belong here."
She was right. A number of students had criminal records, and others were awaiting trial on criminal charges. Stillman accepted them because they could not attend college anywhere else.
Terry Lee Brock, a 41-year-old freshman, was shot several times by a woman around 2 one morning in early February in front of the Night Stalker's Lounge. He died a short time later at the hospital. His trial for rape had been scheduled to begin the following week.
I did not learn until after his death that many of our female students were afraid of Terry. At least two told me they had complained to college officials that an alleged rapist was allowed on campus.
While we had students such as Terry who had no business being on a college campus, we went out of our way to help others who faced adversity and worked to overcome it.
"A lot of my students reared themselves and their sisters and brothers, " Lucinda said. "They're adults before they're ready to be adults."
One of my students, a 25-year-old senior journalism major, grew up in several foster homes in different states. At Stillman, she had a part-time job, carried a full academic load and wrote for the student newspaper. She was an inspiration. When she graduated, I wrote a letter of recommendation that helped her land a public relations job in Atlanta. Her boss e-mailed me a few months later to say that my student was doing well and could stay with the firm as long as she wanted.
The college did not keep an accurate count, but we knew many young women on campus were mothers. One of my students was a 20-year-old mother of two pressed for time and money. But she had good attendance and turned in passable homework.
I met several students who had legally adopted their siblings. For one reason or another, their parents were temporarily or permanently absent. Some of my colleagues and I empathized and gave these students breaks, such as giving them take-home quizzes and exams and sometimes excusing them from class if they had written excuses from their employers.
We also had a handful of exemplary students. Leonard Merriman IV, who wrote for the student newspaper, was from New Orleans and did not know the whereabouts of his mother for several weeks after Hurricane Katrina. He was an inspiration to students and professors because he was intellectually curious, read voraciously and dared to be a nerd in an environment that celebrated everything hip-hop and categorized students by their fraternities or sororities.
After I had assigned a paper on the 2004 presidential election and required students to quote at least three political experts, a football player raised his hand one day and asked if he could use Leonard as an expert. The class cracked up, but I had to think about the question. Leonard claimed to have read all of George W. Bush's campaign speeches, and he easily rattled off statistics and summarized Bush's positions.
I decided Leonard was an expert and the football player could quote him. But we did not have many students like him. Instead of taking pride in being exemplary students, many were devotees of hip-hop culture. They were anti-intellectual, rude and profane.
I always was amazed that so many of the women tolerated the crude way the men spoke to them. One afternoon in my English class, a male student called a young woman "a big-assed ugly bitch." I expected her to slap him, and I would not have intervened. Instead, she dismissed the whole thing with a wave of her hand and turned to chat with her roommate. After class, I asked her about the insult.
"That fool don't mean nothing to me, " she said. "He ain't nothing but a stupid brother from Anniston or somewhere."
The lesson was clear and disheartening: Personal insult, crude language and threatening behavior were a way of life for many students. I saw this kind of exchange repeated dozens of times in the classroom and on The Yard. I had no doubt that the influences of hip-hop contributed greatly to this ugly reality and other deleterious trends.
"Have you noticed that our students never have a sense of urgency?" a colleague asked one afternoon as we walked to a faculty meeting. "They don't seem to be going anywhere in particular. They just stand around or mosey along. Frivolity."
He was right. Greek organization activities such as step shows - the rhythmical, patterned dance movements favored by fraternities and sororities - and any excuse to party and play music were the most important events on campus.
When a professor brought a special lecturer to campus, the rest of us would require our students to attend the event. But more often than not only a handful would show up, a great source of embarrassment for the professors. I never invited any of my fellow journalists to campus. Besides the stinging embarrassment of low attendance, I resented the hassle of rounding up students for their own enlightenment.
'I'm going to be a nurse'
The effects of poverty made teaching and learning arduous. I asked a student why she always fell asleep in my reporting and news writing class.
"I work full-time at Target at night, " she said. "I can't get enough sleep."
I asked the obligatory questions: Why did she work so many hours? Did her family help her? What was she spending her money on? Did she have financial aid? Did she have a scholarship? Did she live on campus?
Her life's story was heartbreaking and yet typical of so many others. Born and reared in Selma, she was 19 years old. She had met her father once when she was 10. Her mother had been in and out of jail until her death in 1996 at age 34. Her then-64-year-old grandmother had assumed responsibility for her and her three siblings.
Although she had a student loan to help pay tuition, she had to pay for everything else and needed a car to get to work and to drive back to Selma. She also had to send money to her grandmother, who was living on Social Security and money from a part-time job as a caretaker for a disabled woman. Everyone except her grandmother said this teenager had no business attending college. Her place was in Selma with the rest of the family.
"Everybody told me I was just going to be a hoochie mama, " she said. "I'm going to be a nurse."
I had no doubt she would become a nurse. Although she had a C average, she was one of my hardest-working students and had one of the best attendance records.
As we talked, I noticed her stealing glances at the basket of cosmetics and toiletries (soap, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion) I had placed on my desk for the first time the day before. These were items I had collected when I traveled and stayed in hotels.
Trying to ease her embarrassment, I said: "If you want some of that stuff, take it. I need to get rid of it."
She hesitated. Faking nonchalance, she studied the items without touching anything.
"Go ahead and take what you want, " I said.
She picked up bottles of shampoo, lotion and conditioner.
"Take some toothpaste, too, " I said.
She took a tube of toothpaste, smiled and thanked me. I told her any time she needed something to feel free to take it. Embarrassed, she thanked me again and left.
Word got around about the basket. A few days later, several other students dropped in to inspect the items. A week later, the basket was empty.
Each week after that, I went to Kmart and CVS and shopped for travel-size cosmetics and toiletries to replenish the basket. I learned that several other professors also found acceptable ways to make personal items available to students free of charge.
We treated the students, even those who disappointed us, as if they were our children. I often wondered if we were doing more harm than good with our generosity.
One taker for a big trip
In early October, Lucinda and I planned a field trip to Washington for the 10th anniversary celebration of the Million Man March. Learning often takes place outside the classroom, and we thought our students would benefit from being around thousands of other black Americans who would travel from across the country to the National Mall. They also would see how professional journalists cover a national news story.
We reserved a college van for the 800-mile drive from Tuscaloosa. Six students agreed to come, and Lucinda and I reserved several Washington hotel rooms on our personal credit cards. But the day before we were to leave, all but one student backed out and we canceled the trip. Once again, I was angry and disappointed.
This wasn't the first nor the last time many students would pass up an opportunity to escape the campus and learn something.
We took only four students on a three-day trip to the University of Georgia and its student newspaper because eight others refused to go.
One didn't want to spend four hours in a van. Two others said they had quizzes on the morning that we were to leave, even though they would have been excused from class. When it was time to go, they simply did not show up.
They missed a great experience. At the University of Georgia, our four students attended lectures and spent two evenings at the office of the Red & Black, the student newspaper. They had never seen the newsroom of a daily publication. They attended a budget meeting, where the staff members decided which stories to publish in the next issue. Each Stillman student shadowed an editor and a reporter, and each worked on a real story in real time.
Since the college would not give us an advance for expenses, Lucinda and I paid more than $1, 200 for the trip. We never were reimbursed.
We also personally paid for several in-state field trips to places important to the civil rights movement, such as the Safe House Black History Museum in Greensboro. That is where a handful of local residents hid the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. overnight from a white mob. We took students to other civil rights landmarks in Anniston, Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery.
Lucinda bought two digital cameras, one that she and I used to shoot photographs for the student newspaper and one for our students to use. I regularly bought disposable cameras for our students without seeking reimbursement.
Campus-wide, professors bought many of their classroom and office supplies. In my building, for example, we rarely had an ample supply of paper for our copy machine. I learned early to buy my own paper and keep it in my desk.
Chalk? Forget about it.
The mean women behind the counter
Early in the spring semester, I realized I had never received an official roster for one of my classes. I went to the appropriate office to find out what had happened.
The woman who waited on me sharply responded that famous newspaper people would be treated no differently than anyone else.
"Why are you being so rude?" I asked.
"Rude?" she responded. "You just have to wait like everybody else."
That episode reflected my ongoing difficulties with the staff, the majority of whom were middle-aged to older black women with local roots. Instead of feeling like a professor, someone of relative importance and value, I felt insignificant. Even worse, students routinely experienced similar problems.
In an essay, a female student wrote: "Each time I go to the financial aid office, I get my feelings hurt. The ladies behind the counter talk to you like you're dirt. I hate to go in there. They don't know how to treat people, and they don't try to help you. They make everything so hard. My mother said they're just a bunch of sadiddy niggers, and I shouldn't worry about it. But I have to worry. They give me my check or they don't give me my check. You better not make them mad."
Many of my colleagues agreed. They told me that much of our students' hostility was the result of the constant rudeness and humiliation they experienced while trying to do something as routine and essential as completing the right forms for a loan or a grant.
I tried to conduct all of my affairs by e-mail. Unfortunately, I had to go to the business office to deduct funds from the $100, 000 that a Tampa donor provided for me to establish the journalism major. The woman in charge was routinely arrogant and uncooperative.
Another example: The Tuscaloosa News printed our student newspaper for $1, 500 and billed the college. One of the News' designers, Danny Dejarnette, did our layout for each issue for the bargain price of $500. On more than one occasion, the college did not pay the News or Dejarnette in a timely manner.
Embarrassed by such a lack of professionalism, Lucinda would pay the printing bill out of her pocket and I would pay for the layout. We would submit our receipts and proper forms to the business office. After several months and regular reminders, the college would reimburse us.
Setting fires in the dorm
While disagreeable staff members and financial red tape were constant irritants, nothing was more appalling than the students' disregard for college property.
During the spring semester, the Tuscaloosa Fire Department put out trash can fires in King Hall. I was angry and embarrassed to see a team of white firefighters trying to save a dormitory named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that black students had trashed.
"Why do they do this to their own buildings?" a white firefighter asked me.
I went inside the dorm to see the damage. Students had stuffed trash cans with paper and fabric and set them on fire. The smoke damage was enormous. The walls were blackened, the windows were smudged and the pungent smell of smoke lingered and stuck to everything.
Even without the fire damage, the place would have looked like a war zone. Holes had been kicked and punched in the walls. Windows were broken, floors were scarred and most of the furniture was damaged. The two dorms routinely underwent major repairs after each semester.
Two of my students, both journalism majors, were desperate to move out of King Hall. The last time I saw them, one had found an apartment and the other was looking for a place he could afford.
I've wasted two years
By the end of the spring semester, I knew that I could not remain at Stillman another year. I had a few good students, but a few were not enough. One morning as I dressed for work, I accepted the reality that too much of my time was being wasted on students who did not care. I felt guilty about wanting to leave. But enough was enough.
A week before I left Stillman as a professor, I drove through the main gate en route to a final exam. As always, I saw a group of male students hanging out in front of King Hall.
The same four I had seen when I drove onto campus nearly two years earlier were milling about on the lawn. I parked my car and walked over to the group.
"Why don't you all hang out somewhere else?" I asked.
"Who you talking to, old nigger?" one said.
"You give the school a bad image out here, " I said.
They laughed.
"Hang out somewhere else or at least go to the library and read a book, " I said.
They laughed and dismissed me with stylized waves of the arm.
I walked back to my old Chevy Blazer, sad but relieved that I would be leaving.
In my office, I sat at my desk staring at a stack of papers to be graded. I'm wasting my time, I thought. I've wasted two years of my professional life. I don't belong here.
I put the papers in a drawer. I did not read them. Why read them?
Two years at Stillman
May 13: The first year: Trying to make a difference.
Today: The second year: A bad situation gets worse.
May 27: The epilogue: Should historically black colleges be saved?
Join the discussion about this series on It's Your Times .
Some comparisons by the numbers
The chart below compares a private historically black college, a public one and a traditional large public university in Alabama and in Florida.
..>..>..>..>
College | Student Body | Percent black | Tuition/fees | Acceptance rate* | Pell Grants** | 6-year graduation rate |
| Stillman | 804 | 92 percent | $11, 605 | 23 percent | 77 percent | 29 percent |
| Alabama A&M | 5, 047 | 94 | $4, 420 | 43 | 70 | 33 |
| University of Alabama | 17, 550 | 12 | $5, 278 | 72 | 23 | 63 |
| Bethune-Cookman | 3, 090 | 91 | $11, 230 | 74 | 73 | 35 |
| FAMU | 11, 913 | 92 | $3, 264 | 71 | 58 | 33 |
| Florida State | 30, 783 | 12 | $3, 175 | 62 | 25 | 66 |
[Last modified May 19, 2007, 10:42:06]
Super Plastic Both Attracts and Repels Water
Super Plastic Both Attracts and Repels Water
Current mood: 
excited
Category: Life
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Super Plastic Both Attracts and Repels Water
An odd new material could be a boon in dry regions with limited access to clean water.
By Prachi Patel-Predd
A new, practical method for making surfaces with patterns of areas that strongly attract and strongly repel water could lead to a highly efficient method for capturing clean water. This versatile material could also find uses in fabricating new types of devices for medical tests and chemical synthesis.
Scientists have reported numerous applications of water-attracting (superhydrophilic) and water-repelling (superhydrophobic) surfaces, including fog-free eyeglasses and windshields, and self-cleaning cloth and glass. Now a group of researchers in MIT's materials science and engineering department has combined those opposing characteristics on a single surface, by using a simple and versatile fabrication process.
[For images of this new dual-quality material, click here.]
Robert Cohen, Michael Rubner, and colleagues started by assembling a nano-structured film made of alternating layers of positively and negatively charged polymers and silica nanoparticles. The film's structure and a coating of waxy fluorinated silane cause water to bead on it, forming near-perfect spheres that easily roll off. To add the superhydrophilic regions (to which water droplets cling), the researchers applied a naturally hydrophilic polymer to selected areas.
In dry regions of the world, without easy access to clean water, such a material could be used for collecting water. In this application, the hydrophilic areas of the material would attract moisture in the air, collecting water drops that accumulate, until they spill over into the hydrophobic regions and roll into a collecting channel. Currently, in countries with limited access to clean water, the inhabitants typically use large polypropylene fiber meshes to harvest water from fog.
The new technology "would provide a more than tenfold increase in water capture compared to the inefficient nets that are used currently," says Andrew Parker, a biologist at Oxford University and the Natural History Museum in London, who has studied the desert beetle that inspired the MIT work. If the new material "could be added simply to the roofs of houses in areas subjected to desert fogs," says Parker, "then a water supply could be gained with little effort."
Rubner's lab is also taking the technique further. "When we harvest water, we have chemistry built into the hydrophilic area so that it has an antibacterial agent to kill off bacteria and other things that cause harm," Rubner says. This decontaminates the water as it accumulates so that the collected water is safe for use. Applying this technique, the researchers have been able to kill common harmful bacteria in four minutes, he says.
The coating could also find uses in biomedical applications to make microfluidic chips. Typically, microfluidic devices contain enclosed micrometer-wide channels etched into silicon, glass, or plastic plates. Then pressure or electric fields drive tiny volumes of fluids, typically nanoliters, along these channels for diagnostic tests and genetics research. For instance, to test for the presence of a certain protein in blood you could take blood in one channel and direct it to another channel containing a chemical reagent that identifies the protein.
Compared with conventional microfluidics, a microfluidic chip based on the new surface would have the advantage of easier mixing, Rubner says. Right now, the chips need pumps and valves that move the liquid around to induce mixing. "In our case you can mix the liquids by just controlling the amount of liquid you put on the surface," he says. With a pipette, you could add precise amounts of fluid into two hydrophilic grooves placed close to each other. As you add more fluid, the droplets bulge out at the edge of the grooves because of the surrounding hydrophobic area. Eventually, the bulging surfaces touch and mix. Being able to confine liquids to a small region could provide densely packed reaction sites with more control over the reaction, he says, since adjacent drops won't mix unless they are forced to.
While the exact uses of this new material are still uncertain, it opens up many possibilities, says Kenneth Wynne, a chemical engineering professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Patterning ultra-hydrophilic patches on a ultra-hydrophobic surface in this way is new and useful," he says.
Copyright Technology Review 2006.
1:16 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
| |
| "THE DEMON SLAYER" |
| |
| Nevada Lights |
|
New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power
| New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power
| ||||||||||