mood: aggravated

As a person with intrusive thoughts I had a chain start about a now x-friend. 

 I was thinking about our “Falling apart” and I started to realize exactly how shallow and manipulative she was and how bad in the long run my association with her was.

 At first we had a LOT in common… We met at an Alt Discussion Group I belong to and we really hit it off… She invited me to some parties that I, a noob, would otherwise not have been invited to… She had some clothes she didn’t want or that didn’t fit her and I got them either for free or for a few bucks here or there… We went out to dinner, did some educational Demo’s for the Alt Groups we both belonged to, and just hung out.

I’ll admit that at first I did have a LOT of fun hanging with her…

But then the odd stuff started…

The constant questions about “Did everyone pay attention to ME tonight and not *So and So*?” and “OHHH! They will be so jealous and angry that everyone paid attention to ME even though I wasn’t doing ANYTHING to BE the center of attention!”

The half an hour on the phone with her where I was not really supposed to talk and when I DID try to add something to the conversation would get yelled at and told to “Stop Talking Over Her”.

The odd anger when she would ask me questions about things that she knew I knew a LOT about yet would get mad when I would actually ANSWER the posed question.

She would tell me about how her foot hurts because her callous cracked and I tell her that I solved the problem and don’t have it anymore because of a product I purchased in Walgreen's and she acted as if I had ruined her fun!

And one of the worst moments of all was after one of the discussion groups when I asked the speaker about a “Sex Aid” device that I saw online and after the group got out Bella turned to me and, in an angry tone, something about how she can’t believe how I could have brought that up because her first girlfriend raped her with one of those… I had NO IDEA that she had been assaulted let alone that she was assaulted by a Feeldoe!! We were at a discussion group about sexuality… I just asked a question that had nothing to do with her.

After that the strange ranting about how George W. Bush has RUINED HER LIFE (as if he has done everything he has done specifically to ruin her day) and how I can’t understand racism and being offended because I’m VERY, VERY, VERY white while she, though also white, has been “the darkest face in the room” and how she is often mistaken as Latino or “half-black” so SHE understands things that I can’t comprehend.

The odd speeches about how I am “Racist” because I went off the last time that the homeless black drug addicts that camp in an underpass by our equipment broke in to our stuff and, when they didn’t find anything of value to steel because we learned from the last 4 times they broke into our stuff they destroyed as much as they could out of frustration. About how I am sick of finding used hypodermic needles next to the cars in the parking lot in the morning. About how I am sick of my porch stinking like urine in the morning. About how I am sick of having to bring a flashlight with when I come home when it is dark so I don’t step in the human excrement that they leave next to/behind cars and in front of the staircase to go up the back way…

About how I am “homophobic” and anti-gay even though I am 85% lesbian and 15% bi because I think that hate crime legislation is a load of crap and how I find no offence in using the word “Gay” as a cultural euphemism for “Stupid” or “Bad” and how I don’t get offended by the words such as “Queer” and “Faggot” because I believe that if WE are allowed to use them as a term of endearment we shouldn’t force anyone else to stop using them even if “Others” use them in a negative context. (Either EVERYONE can say it or NO ONE can say it, anything else is hypocrisy.)

I don’t understand how I can be BOTH Racist AND Homophobic when I am usually attracted to dark skinned women of Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American, and Asian decent… I’m attracted to A LOT of “black” chicks but their culture tends to be rather homophobic and the only lesbian black women I have met of late have either been WAY too sub or WWW AAA YYY too butch… I mean “Is that a guy?” butch. 

Again… I don’t judge but if I’m just not attracted to someone and there is no chemistry then I don’t think it is “Racist”. I’m just not into it… If I’m racist for not being into REALLY butch chicks then I am sexist because I am usually not attracted to men.

I explain over and over that I am pissed off at the PEOPLE THAT VIOLATE MY PROPERTY AND THREATEN THE LIVES OF MY FELLOW OWNER OPERATORS and not “All Black People” or “All Brown People” yet she refuses to see the difference…

When I was in Arizona I ALWAYS knew who it was breaking into the cars in my neighborhood… It was White-Trash Meth Addicts… At that time I REALLY REALLY hated White-Trash Meth Addicts… (I’m not all that happy with them to this day either…)

Does that mean that I hate all white people too? Hell no… Now if your addicted to substances and are abusing your kids or stealing to feed your habit then yeah… I’m not all that pleased with your life choices but it doesn’t mean that I judge every human I encounter by the standards of my dislike for meth-heads!!

I REALLY hate the drug dealing, thieving, whoring, child abusing, welfare abusing people that have ruined their own lives and the lives of their families because they refuse to accept responsibility for their own lives and feel that it is their due to take what they want form anyone that they want to take it from.

It doesn’t mean that I think the well dressed and clean black teeny-bopper drinking downstairs at the bar is going to break into my car…

Sigh... This thought cycle too shall pass but it is still shocking how  ignorant and close minded the people that proclaim to be the MOST open-minded can be.

Tolerance is only an option when the people around you believe the same things you do.

If you disagree in any way or if they just can't comprehend what you are saying then you must be silenced... and if you can't be silenced then they can't be in your presence anymore... LOL!

It amazing that I, the closed minded, racist, homophobe, believe that "Freedom of speech isn't about speech you agree with, but about the right for people to say that which you disagree with."

Saying that someone needs to be removed from the Media because he wounded someone's inner child is called censorship.

Letting that person stay on the air and continue to put his foot in his mouth and drive away anyone with intelligence that listens to him? That is called freedom!

If you don’t' want to listen to something then change the channel... There is someone preaching to YOUR choir on one of the hundreds of other channels out there!

mood: amused

Hooter Heaven
By KEVIN SITES, WED AUG 15, 9:48 AM PDT

Is Jason Grunstra’s MyFreeImplants.com the answer to some women’s dreams -- or just to those who want to see them naked?

Jason Grunstra's "eureka" moment did not occur while sitting under an apple tree like Newton — nor while flying a kite in the rain, like Franklin. Then again, Grunstra wasn't busy discovering the law of gravity or the conductivity of electricity. Grunstra's "discovery" was this: Americans are obsessed with breasts.

Appropriately enough, his eureka moment came in Las Vegas, at a bachelor party, in the company of strippers.

One of the strippers had recently gotten breast implants. Another was sad because she could not afford them. So Grunstra did what any gentlemen would do — he started raising cash for the flat-chested one.

"I said, 'I've got five on it!'" he recalls. "And everybody else said, 'I've got five on it, too.' By the end of the night we had $70 bucks."

That's a long way from the cost of a breast implant operation, which can run $4,000 and up. But for Grunstra, this was more than just crumpled dollar bills stuffed in a thong.  This was a big idea.

Thus the concept of "MyFreeImplants.com" was born, and it stayed with Grunstra even after he returned home from Las Vegas and sobered up. The idea was simple: Set up a Web site to raise money for women who want breast implants. The women pose for photographs on the site, and  so-called benefactors pay for the right to look — and to "interact," as Grunstra puts it, via email and blog posts.

Just two years later, Grunstra claims the site has over 10,000 benefactors and one thousand women competing for their attention and their dollars. He says 28 women have already made their goal and are featured prominently on the site in before and after photos.

Benefactors create profiles and buy message credits at $1.25 a pop, which allows them to send messages to women they see on the site. A dollar goes toward the women's goal; 25 cents goes to Grunstra and the site. Grunstra says the site has more than 5 million page-views a month, brings in $1,000 a day, and generates a monthly profit of about $3,000.

Not surprisingly, the site has drawn plenty of criticism. One blogger compared it to prostitution "but without the freedom provided by the money the women earn."

In fact, the money does not go directly to the women, but Grunstra says that's to avoid fraud. "We pay the doctors directly," he says. "The girls never touch the money. They could never take it on a shopping spree. We make sure that we are paying for the implants and nothing else."

That's fine with 23-year-old Ashley, a Californian who goes by the name Minxie on MyFreeImplants.com. Ashley has already had an implant operation but wants to go bigger.

"It's just that I've been small my whole life. I've always wanted them. I've always wanted to have big ones," she says.

She is a bright, athletic young woman, not someone easily dismissed as a stereotypical bimbo pushing to be so top-heavy that she will become little more than the sum of her breasts.

Ashley hasn't gone as far as other women on the site who have auctioned bras, panties and other articles of clothing, but she does send nude pictures to her benefactors. She says a $50 donation will get you something topless, maybe in a schoolgirl outfit; $100 will get you a full nude, not something raunchy, she adds.

How many has she sent out? "Um, quite a few," she says. "Maybe 200."

Ashley's photos are tame compared to some of the others on the site, but Grunstra insists that My Free Implants is not about pornography. Rather, he says, "It's a service for meeting other people with similar interests."

Breasts?

"Right."

Grunstra also rejects the criticism that his site in any way resembles prostitution. Benefactors and implant-hopefuls aren't allowed to trade personal information or to use the site to meet offline.

Still, Ashley says that one of her benefactors managed to find her page on MySpace. After that she switched to her "Minxie" alias on the MyFreeImplants site.

Some of the benefactors "are really nice but lonely," she says. She admits to having her moments of sympathy for them. When one told her he didn't know how to cook, she taught him how to cook a steak — online, that is.

But a lot of the men are creeps, she says. "It's a business thing for me. I mean, I hate to feel that way. Because I know some of these guys are thinking I'm their friend," she says. "I'm not really a fake person, so it's kind of a challenge for me. But at the same time, you know, you got to make the money."

Ashley estimates that it takes 100 hours of online chatting and emailing with her benefactors to raise $1,000. That's not a whole lot better than minimum wage. Nevertheless, she says it's worth it. "I mean a picture, it's just a picture," she says. "You know what I mean?"

Jason Grunstra also thinks My Free Implants is worth it, although his girlfriend disagrees. "She thinks it's setting [women] back 50 years," he says.

Producer: Erin Green
Video Editor: Tommy Morquecho

mood: shocked

NYPD Rejects 'Dopey' Meatball Defense
Thu Aug 23, 5:14 PM ET

 NEW YORK - So much for the meatball defense. A veteran counterterrorism detective's claims that he flunked a drug test because his wife served him marijuana-spiked meatballs "simply weren't credible," and he has been fired by the New York Police Department, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Thursday.

 With the dismissal, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly rejected an earlier recommendation by an administrative judge that the detective, Anthony Chiofalo, be reinstated. Kelly has final say on firings.

 An attorney for Chiofalo did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

 Chiofalo, a 22-year-veteran assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, was suspended without pay in 2005 after a random drug test found marijuana in his system. The officer denied ever using drugs and demanded a hearing.

 During an investigation, his wife said she had secretly substituted marijuana for oregano in her meatball recipe in hopes of forcing him to leave police work.

 The detective's lawyers presented evidence that she had passed a lie-detector test, and offered testimony from a toxicologist that the excuse was valid.

mood: disappointed

I encountered an interesting little news story on a show such as 60 Minutes. (I don’t actually remember which show but it was one of the weekly news shows I watch)

 After college he returned home to attempt to use his good fortune to expand the educational system of his poverty stricken South American Country.

 He visits the US often to both works as well as to fund raise for his organization but has never become an American Citizen and loves his home country in South America and will NEVER become an American Citizen as long as he is free to use his visas to come and go as his work dictates.

Now let me add one additional fact to this story…
He is a Black Man.

 How is it that a man that has no ties to either Africa or America other then the color of his skin and the decision of his mother to leave him in South America to immigrate to the United States and a man that is not and will never be (by a choice) an American Citizen is to be constantly referred to as an “African American”?

 He is of African heritage yes but HIS family came to South America by CHOICE and not by being forced into enslavement by their fellow tribesmen in order to make a profit.

 So how the FUCK is he an “African American” in ANY sense of the word??

 He is a Black Man from a South American Country… (It starts with a B but is not Brazil… I can’t remember…)

It was because of what the paperwork said… It said that the man in custody was an “African American”. Factually correct but there was a problem… The man they arrested was white.

He was born and raised in Africa but decided to immigrate to the United States in his 20’s… He, and his fellow’s that were born in Africa, are the only true “African Americans”.

mood: scared

Back in the day... about 1998... I went to a psychiatrist for the first time… Initially it was because my “egg donor” (A.K.A. “Mom”, A.K.A. Munchausen Biproxy Mother, A.K.A. The opiate addicted, alcohol addicted, blood sucking, soul destroying whore) had off’ed herself and my family decided that though the trauma of being mentally and physically abused by this waste of life was not worthy of receiving help or therapy the suicide of said abuser WAS…

So I went… and there I was diagnosed with P.T.S.D., Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, and B.P.D.

I was never really told what “B.P.D.” was or what it meant… EVERYONE focused on the crying, suicide attempts, and panic attacks… I was only told that “People with Borderline Personality Disorder cut and burn themselves, a.k.a. self mutilate, but are not attempting to kill themselves.”

That fit me to a T.

When I tried to kill myself I was REALLY trying to kill myself…

When I was burning myself or scratching out chunks I was doing it in a concentrated effort to produce a level of pain required for the emotional release of the current stressful situation I was in.

No one ever described the varied and predictable emotional patterns that accompany B.P.D. until I was on my Fave Depression/Codep Forum and a woman read my story and said “Has anyone ever said B.P.D. to you? Because it sounds appropriate from what you have put in your question.”

I was all “yeah… I was told I had it because I cut/burn.” And she replied with “There is so much more to it then that… Search it…”

So now I am sitting here… Thinking about everything I had read… And realizing that it is a 2 edged knife…

On the one side I have an explanation for why I am angry all the time… why my moods shift so quickly from EXTREME, almost scary, Happy to almost uncontainable anger to crying in the span of an hour!

Yet the other side is that everywhere I look it says that this is one of the hardest mental illnesses to treat and that it accounts for a LOT of “in-patient” treatment… and that terrifies me…
 

But at least I now I UNDERSTAND what is going on…

It explains everything from the automatic anger to why I have such “Child Like” happiness…

The most memorable example of the happiness was when I went to see Men In Black II at the theatre… It had the preview for Star Trek The Next Generation’s Last Movie “Nemesis”. I was LITERALLY overwhelmed with happiness! It was this giddy, almost “High” feeling that had me literally bouncing in my seat! I had been waiting for this movie to come out for a long time and when I saw the preview I had a mini-nova exploding inside me!! (Stupid though the plot seemed and knowing that it would be horrible because it was a NextGen movie involving Romulans and just from the preview alone I knew it didn’t really fit into the O.S./NextGen/D.S.9. time line.)
 

I was twitching with joy!

 And when I started to talk about it quietly to my X he looked at me and said “Calm down! It’s just a movie.” And I realized that something WAS wrong… That going from a normal, lucid feeling of wanting to enjoy a movie to “OMG I can’t sit still I am so overjoyed!” was not normal…

I questioned this the next time I was able to afford to see a psychiatrist but unfortunately this doctor was so intent on putting me on expensive drugs that required monthly expensive blood tests that he wouldn’t even listen to me when I told him that one of the side effects of the drug was that it was making me want to kill people… I had to take MYSELF off the drug after the 1 scariest incident in my life!

I was standing in the kitchen with my best friend and at the time roommate when she said something that made me have an instant flash, so strong that it was more of a hallucination then a thought, of me grabbing her TINY neck in my hand and slamming her head against the counter so hard that I killed her.

It was so intense that I had blacked out for a second and had to just stop and back away from her and leave the house so that I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do her harm…

The doctor didn’t care…

He was the last doctor I was able to afford to see and though I have been trying ever since to find someone to take me on for therapy at a cost I can afford I am still having to rely on the diagnosis I received so long ago and use the internet to try to explain what is going on with me.

 Well, this is part 2 of my story… It is getting late and I need to go… Business to do and family to pick up…

 To Be Continued…

mood: disappointed

One In Four Read No Books Last Year

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 21, 11:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON - There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing — you are not alone.

One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

When the Gallup Poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started — a similar but not directly comparable question — the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled "Reading at Risk" found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.

Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn't read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

At the same time, book enthusiasts abound. Many in the survey reported reading dozens of books and said they couldn't do without them.

"I go into another world when I read," said Charlotte Fuller, 64, a retired nurse from Seminole, Fla., who said she read 70 books in the last year. "I read so many sometimes I get the stories mixed up."

Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.

Pollyann Baird, 84, a retired school librarian in Loveland, Colo., says J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series is her favorite. But she has forced herself to not read the latest and final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," because she has yet to file her income taxes this year due to an illness and worries that once she started the book, "I know I'd have to finish it."

People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books, mostly religious books and romance novels, than people from other regions. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently.

There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.

The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers.

More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.

"Fiction just doesn't interest me," said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Ala. "If I'm going to get a story, I'll get a movie."

Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives.

The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from August 6 to 8 and involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

(This version CLARIFIES that people in the West and Midwest are more likely to read at least one book a year, but that Southerners who do read tend to read more books.)

mood: enraged

Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child
By JILL ZEMAN, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - It's a girl — again — for the Duggars. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their 17th child, and seventh daughter, into the world Thursday.

Jennifer Danielle was born at 10:01 a.m. at Saint Mary's Hospital in Rogers, Ark., the Duggars said in an interview. Jennifer weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and arrived five days after Michelle's due date.

Less than 30 minutes after giving birth, the Duggars already were talking of having more.

"We'd love to have more," Michelle said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. "We love the ruffles and lace."

Jennifer joins the fast-growing Duggar brood, who live in Tontitown in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old.

"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."

Jennifer joins siblings Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.

The family includes two sets of twins.
 
Michelle Duggar said that Joshua, Janna, Jill and Jessa were at the hospital, but that the rest of the family planned to visit their new sister later Thursday.

Michelle Duggar said she started feeling contractions Wednesday night and went to the hospital at about 5 a.m. Thursday.

"It actually went fast," she said. "I guess once I started progressing, it went within 30 minutes."

Jennifer was born via a VBAC — or vaginal birth after Caesarean, Jim Bob Duggar said.

The Duggars have been featured on several programs on cable's Discovery Health Network. The next special, the Duggar Family Album, is scheduled to air next month, Jim Bob Duggar said.

Among the "fun facts" listed on Discovery Health's Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the Duggars have gone through an estimated 90,000 diapers, and Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months — or 10.5 years — of her life.
 
On the Net:
Duggar family Web site: http://www.duggarfamily.com
Discovery Health site: http://health.discovery.com/convergence/duggars/duggarfamily.html

mood: apathetic

16 Organic Apples and a Gallon of Gas
By Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience’s Bad Medicine Columnist
posted: 27 June 2006 08:40 am ET

Do you like the taste of juicy organic apples from Washington?  They're not bad, but they could taste sweeter if each one didn't involve a cup of gasoline.

In your quest to eat healthier food and do better by the environment, you might want to place more value on local food products than on organic foods.

It might seem sacrilegious to pooh-pooh organic food-that is, food grown in pooh-pooh as opposed to synthesized fertilizers and pesticides.  But as revealed in the June issue of Sierra magazine, the environmental price for organic foods is sometimes hidden.

Simply put, one must consider transportation costs.  Apples grown in the state of Washington are trucked, on average, more than 1,700 miles.  That adds up to a cup of gasoline used to ship each apple.  California grapes require up to 4 cups of gasoline per bunch when shipped across the country.  And so on.

These calculations were originally published in 2004 in a book chapter in "Environment Development and Sustainability 6," by David Pimentel of Cornell University and his colleagues.

Go local
Also, mass-produced foods, either grown by organic or conventional methods, are usually picked well before ripening to prevent rotting during shipping.  They are less tasty and contain fewer vitamins and minerals compared to local varieties.  In fact, this summer is a good time to visit a local farmers' market and talk to the sellers about these issues.

I'm not anti-organic.  I need to state that up front considering the angry email I received after I suggested that visiting untrained, unlicensed naturopaths practicing medicine based on medieval superstition could harm your health.  I am, after all, reading Sierra, the pro-environmental magazine of the Sierra Club.

I merely hope to point out that blindly buying organically can be foolhardy.

Consider that unless you are eating rocks, all food is organic.  Technically, organic refers to anything with a chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms.  All living organisms are organic.  So is gasoline.  So is dry-cleaning fluid, which I now see advertised as "organic" by unscrupulous merchants capitalizing on the public perception that "organic" equals "safe."

What's in a word
The word "organic" has come to mean plant-based food grown without synthetic fertilizers, as well as animals fed organic food during the few months to few years they were alive.  It doesn't inherently mean healthy or fair.

Organic manure could contain lead and cadmium, naturally.  Organic junk foods can be just as unhealthy as conventional junk food, albeit with organic fat and sugar.  The organic label says nothing about the rights of Central American workers growing organic bananas in squalid conditions, nor is it concerned with the similarly disgusting conditions in which organic meat, eggs and dairy products are often manufactured.

After all, organic is big business these days-nearly $14 billion in 2005, according to the Organic Trade Association-and big business is often business as usual.

Not so with local farming.
Local almost always means small-scale and thus more environmentally benign, fresher, healthier and cruelty-free.  Talk to the farmer at the farmers' market.  He might use a little pesticide but likely not much because the food product is well-suited to the environment.

Less gas
The apples I buy at a farmers' market in Baltimore are grown less than 50 miles away, and each apple "consumes" less than a teaspoon of gas on its journey to the market.  Unlike the strangely happy cow on a carton of Horizon organic milk, the cows producing the (non-organic but hormone-free) milk sold locally walk freely and feed on grass and hay; they're not pen-raised and fed organic grains they cannot digest, as can be the case with some organic milks. [Related story: Even the Cows are Unhappy]

With support of local farms, fewer farms get turned into asphalt-covered shopping malls and housing complexes, which in turn means fewer natural wetlands, forests and deserts are turned into mass-commercial farms.  Supporting local farms, organic or not, also fights our perverse global food market in which $20 million in U.S.-grown lettuce is exported to Mexico while $20 million Mexican-grown lettuce is imported to the United States each year, as reported in the May-June issue of Mother Jones.

Some of the food at my farmers' market is organic; other food is not.  I don't worry so much, as long as it is local.  I can trust the food because I'm buying it from the person who produced it.

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." Got a question about Bad Medicine? Email Wanjek. If it's really bad, he just might answer it in a future column. Bad Medicine appears each Tuesday on LIveScience.
 
Related Stories
Organic Cows (and Consumers) Unhappy
We've Got to Save the Chickens! Really!
The Biggest Popular Myths
When Healthy Food is Not
More Bad Medicine
Liposuction, The Gift That Sucks
Newborn Screening: Birth Right or Something to Fight?
Fat Genes: Flawed Logic in New Research Fad

mood: ecstatic

Superman's Fortress of Solitude Found
By Bill Christensen
posted: 01 August 2007 12:21 pm ET

Superman's fabled Fortress of Solitude has been depicted in films as a vast complex comprised of enormous crystal beams. Fans know that it built itself from a single crystal in the far north.

Imagine the surprise of miners when they actually found it! Not in the frozen north, but buried a thousand feet below Mexico's Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan desert.

This has been quite a year for Superman fans; the deadly remnants of planet Krypton were discovered in a mine in Serbia this past April (see Kryptonite Discovered By Scientist).

Actually, of course, the Cueva de los Cristales is a purely natural formation consisting of enormous beams of gypsum. Some of the crystals are as long as 36 feet (see photo).

Geologist Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz has described the probable origin of the crystals in the journal Geology. The cave was drained by mining operations; for millennia, however, the crystals grew in mineral rich, 136 degree Fahrenheit water.

Via National Geographic.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)

Video: Appear to Levitate
Real Mineral Nearly Identical to Superman's Kryptonite
How Spider-Man Compares to the Real Thing

Click Here For Pictures of The Cave!

mood: busy

WOW… This has been a REALLY tough week…

An accident with the truck… An appointment with a Mentor… Writing a business plan from scratch… trying to get the appropriate financial documentation together and printed… Getting invoices done… Getting checks in… Finding time to pet the kitten!

WHEWWW…

I’m not even ½ done with the business plan but this IS just a meeting with a mentor… It’s not like I’m going to an interview with an SBA loan officer… I HOPE that they can direct us TOWARDS a meeting with an SBA Loan Officer but this seems to be a more laid back meeting where we get advice on expanding.

Well… time to get back to the grindstone!

Wish me luck!

mood: curious

Subordinate Fish Starve Themselves to Avoid Conflict

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 27 June 2007 09:27 am ET

Dieting in the fish world can be the ticket to survival. Goby fish starve themselves so they can stay smaller than their superiors and present no threat that could lead to eviction from the group.

A new study reveals how the threat of punishment can keep coral-dwelling goby fish (Paragobiodon xanthosomus) from trying to climb the social ladder and to instead accept, and even work to maintain, their subordinate status. The result is a stable, non-competitive group. 

In goby societies, only the top male and top female mate. The other females have to wait in line, the order of which is based on their relative sizes, to achieve alpha breeding status.

“Many animals have social queues in which the smaller members wait their turn before they can mate,” said lead scientist Marian Wong at James Cook University in Australia. “We wanted to find out how they maintain stability in a situation where you’d expect there would be a lot of competition.”

Wong and her colleagues studied a group of goby fish at Lizard Island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Measurements of the fish showed each fish had a 5-percent size difference from the goby above and below it in the queue. When the size difference varied, say an inferior fish boosted its size, the superior would try to drive the over-eater out of the group.

“Social hierarchies are very stable in these fish and in practice challenges and expulsions are extremely rare,” Wong said, “probably because expulsion from the group and the coral reef it occupies means almost certain death to the loser.”

The discovery, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has implications for the whole animal kingdom, including humans, Wong said.

“It is clear the fish accept the threat of punishment and cooperate as a way of maintaining their social order—and that’s not so very different to how humans and other animals behave,” Wong said.

While maintaining a slim physique might not help humans avoid conflict, certain actions in the workplace could be viewed as parallel to the goby dieters’ behavior. For instance, performing tasks too well could overshadow the boss and just tick him or her off.

“Some employees may face the choice of restraining their own potential goals in order to appease their bosses and so avoid any negative consequences,” Wong said, adding that research would be needed to substantiate this fish-human parallel.

Images: Freaky Fish

Mating Game: The Really Wild Kingdom

Fish Mating Preferences Change With Age

mood: bouncy

One of our trucks was up in Hanover Park, on West Bound Lake Street at Barrington Road, when there was an air leak… The truck “Broke” and he had to pull over at that VERY dangerous intersection…

While waiting for our mechanic to arrive and fix, what we come to find out is his fault, a police car pulls up…

Now I know everyone will think “OH god what does this asshole do?” but it is actually the exact opposite… He was the MOST courteous and helpful police officer that I don’t drink with…

Officer Roel Aganon did everything in his power to make this already pissed off moment go as smoothly as possible… Without him we wouldn’t have had the time it took for the mechanic to get there and might have had to get towed… A VERY expensive procedure for a tractor trailer with a full load on…

He was so wonderful that the driver actually told me to call his superior and tell him how great he was…

So if you up in Hanover Park and you get pulled over by Officer Roel Aganon just be cool… He saved our ass and he might just be as cool to you if you’re cool with him.

mood: content

Irrational anger is a symptom of a plethora of mental illness… I encountered it again with someone I should have expected it from…

This girl only calls if she hears that something bad happened so that she can tell the person how great her own life is while their life is in the shitter…

My life hasn’t been all that bad of late… a LOT of emotional issues but I suffer from depression… it happens… but because I told a mutual friend that I was feeling shitty and had panic attacks over the weekend she called.

She periodically picks up on the fact that most people don’t appreciate hearing how great her life is in that “Tone” that just screams “I’m doing this to boost my own self esteem” and told me that she has a HORRIBLE cold sore… Well, as she well knows, I get them CONSTANTLY and so I have a variety of ways that can make the virus retreat with in 24 hours and healing of the remaining wound in 48… It’s not as if I am just “breaking” the news to her… So she starts talking about how it is impacting her job hunt because it isn’t a positive thing to go into an interview with a gaping wound on your face so I 4 words that have solved my cold sore problems: Abriva and Spirits of Camphor. Use um both and it will be GONE in about 40 hours.

Well… she hates it when someone knows something she doesn’t and so she gets mad… “I’ve had these before and I KNOW how to handle it!”

It has a striking familiarity with how Bella reacted when she told me that the callous on her heal had cracked and was causing her great pain… I didn’t even say I knew how to “Cure” it but I have the problem too (Since I wear sandals all year or no shoes whenever I can and that tends to build up a wicked callous) and ALL I did was start to describe the Pumice Stone on a stick I use because both of us have a hard time pulling our heals up to our face… “I’ve been getting these for years and I know how to deal with it!” meaning soaking it and suffering… A callous doesn’t get to the cracking point if you use a pumice stone on it as it gets thicker…

It is a simple idea, a simple product, and a simple act… but elicits irrational anger…

It’s like getting mad at the mechanic for telling you that you need air in your tires… Yeah.. you have had that car for a long time but maybe the guy that sees cars all the time can give a recommendation on how to do something better…

It’s not calling “you” stupid when someone knows something you don’t… Hell… if that were the case then everyone would be running through the streets, foaming at the mouth because EVERYONE knows something that you don’t… Your not stupid unless you freak the fuck out when you hear something new…

My relationship with Leslie has really become clear now that I have dropped other poisonous relationships of late… She never has anything positive to say unless it is about herself and she seems to take pleasure in other’s pain… and not in that good BDSM sort of way…

I’m done dealing with other peoples insecurities, insanities, and self-esteem issues… It isn’t worth the drama and anger that comes along with the periodic good times…

I’d rather stick with the long distance friendships I have with people that have their heads on straight (or gay as the case may be) then have to cope with borderline assholes in real life if it means having to walk on pins and needles to hang out.

It’s just not worth it… I'm better then and am finished letting others drag me down into their drama...

mood: disappointed

Court Upholds Prisoners' Right To Porn

Tue Jun 26, 8:20 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Convicted sex offenders in Sweden are free to read pornography in their cells following a court ruling that has angered the prison service.

The Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm last week ruled that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had no right to deny a rape convict access to his porn magazines.

Prison officials had argued that reading porn would interfere with the man's rehabilitation program. They also said the magazines posed a security problem for staff and other inmates because they could increase the risk of the man relapsing into criminal behavior.

But the court, whose ruling cannot be appealed, said the prison service failed to prove that the magazines could "jeopardize the security of the institution."

Prison officials said they had asked the government to change the law so that they could continue to ban porn magazines at the Nordic nation's prisons.

"It increases the risk of assault for other interns and it is provocative for personnel," Elisabeth Kwarnmark, a prison service psychologist, said about the ruling.

Kwarnmark said that other pornographic material, such as adult movies, channels and Web sites, are not permitted in Swedish prisons. Child and violent pornography are also banned.

mood: crazy

Fossil Of Giant, Spear-Fishing Penguin Found In Peru: Study

Mon Jun 25, 4:37 PM ET

CHICAGO, United States (AFP) - Hollywood gave us all-singing, all-dancing penguins, and surfing penguins, but leave it to evolution to give us giant, prehistoric spear-fishing penguins from Peru.

In a case of fact being stranger than fiction, or at least animation, paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a fearsome new species of penguin that lived on the southern coast of Peru about 36 million years ago, according to a study released Monday.

The ancient bird, Icadyptes salasi, stood five foot tall and had a pointed seven-inch beak which it probably used to spear its prey.

The now extinct penguin species is one of the largest ever reported and was recovered from the coastal desert of Peru.

Paleontologists also discovered the skull and partial skeleton of a second extinct penguin species, called Perudyptes devriesi, in the same region.

That penguin lived around 42 million years ago and was comparable in size to the modern King Penguin, 0.75 to .90 meters (2.5 to three feet), which makes its home on sub-Antarctic island groups, including the Falkland Islands.

The penguin fossils are among the most complete ever recovered and are challenging long-held assumptions about the timing and patterns of penguin evolution and dispersal.

Paleontologists and students of the penguin lineage had assumed that penguins evolved in colder climates in the Antarctic and in New Zealand and had only moved to lower latitudes closer to the equator about 10 million years ago -- long after significant global cooling about 34 million years ago.

"We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species, even the small penguins in equatorial regions today," said Julia Clarke, a paleontologist and assistant professor of marine, Earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh.

"But the new fossils date back to one of the warmest periods in 65 million years of Earth's history. The evidence indicates that penguins reached low latitude regions more than 30 million years prior to our previous estimates."

What's more, paleontologists generally assume that species moving from cold to warm climates become smaller as the animals do not need to conserve heat.

It's all the more surprising, then, to find giant penguin fossils close to the Earth's equator, especially during the waning days of a greenhouse Earth, the authors of the study noted.

The paper appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

mood: disappointed

God damn… how gullible are people that this spreads like herpes?

“Happy Thoughts” and a positive outlook are essential to not just blowing your own head off with a shot gun but this is taking things too far…

It is just another symptom of our sick mindset when you start to believe that a positive mindset will suddenly make you rich, famous, and POPULAR!!

That is sad… It is the materialism and jealousy that are making us unhappy in the first place… so now you get a promise of wealth and fame without having to do more then think Happy Thoughts? That is not the way to go to be truly happy…

Critics Of 'The Secret' Bemoan Claims

By TARA BURGHART, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 23, 2:22 PM ET

mood: curious

Cartoon Seizures: Are They Real?

By Benjamin Radford, Special to LiveScience

posted: 20 June 2007 10:56 am ET

A marketing logo designed to promote London, England, as host for the 2012 Olympics was roundly criticized by Britons, whose politicians wasted no time in labeling the design “hideous.” While the logo simply offended some people, others claim it is actually dangerous.

Earlier this month the logo was blamed for causing seizures in about two dozen people who watched a short animated promotion clip on the London2012 Web site. Studies have shown that, under certain circumstances, bright flashing lights can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. While the mechanism is poorly understood, those diagnosed with epilepsy are at a higher risk than the general population. A public outcry arose, with parents and doctors concerned about the image’s influence on massive numbers of British children. The clip was quickly removed, and while little or no permanent damage was done, it raised fears about new technologies and public safety.

The incident was reminiscent of the Pokémon panic in Japan ten years ago, in which up to 12,000 children reported minor illnesses ranging from nausea to seizures after watching an episode of the wildly popular cartoon "Pokémon."

Despite many studies and theories, a clear cause of the panic remained elusive for years. How could a cartoon cause seizures in thousands of children? The answer is simple: It didn’t. The scare was largely the result of mass sociogenic illness, better known as mass hysteria.

Many aspects of the Pokémon panic suggest this diagnosis. For example, the Pokémon-induced symptoms (headaches, dizziness, vomiting) are less typical of seizures than of mass hysteria, and symptoms often associated with seizures (drooling, stiffness, tongue biting) were absent in Pokémon victims. Furthermore, the incidence of photosensitive epilepsy is estimated at about 1-in-5,000. Such an incidence (0.02 percent of the population) comes nowhere near explaining the sheer number of children affected (in some cases nearly 7 percent of the viewers).

While some children did endure brief seizures from the cartoon, the vast majority of those affected did not. Instead, once the children learned of the cartoon’s attacks at school on the following day, the number of kids reported to have been affected shot up by more than 10,000. The first accounts of thousands of students being affected appeared only after mass media coverage and the opportunity for contagion in the schools. And schools are among the most common places for outbreaks of mass hysteria to begin.

While photosensitive epilepsy is a real condition, it is also very rare and its risk should be put into perspective. Children are in greater danger while riding in a car or eating peanuts than they are of being injured by flashing cartoons or video games.

Benjamin Radford investigated the Pokémon panic and co-authored, with sociologist Robert Bartholomew, the 2001 article "Pokémon contagion: Photosensitive epilepsy or mass psychogenic illness?" in the "Southern Medical Journal." This and other articles are noted on his website.

Toothbrushing Can Trigger Epileptic Seizures

Many Seizure-Prone People Continue to Drive

Surgury Ends Tot's Laughing Seizures  

mood: curious

Public Farce: Pundits Clueless About School Shootings

By Benjamin Radford, Special to LiveScience

posted: 21 April 2007 11:45 am ET

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, police, the news media, and psychologists have pored over the crime, picking it apart from every imaginable angle. Everything from the gun lobby to the university president to violent entertainment and racism have been cited as possibly contributing to the worst shooting rampage in America's history.

Predictably, the killings have spawned calls for action and the usual questions that follow any well-publicized violent tragedy.

Pundits come out of the woodwork to muse about how to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, but of course it's a public farce. The simple fact is that no one knows why a troubled person will suddenly turn violent. 

No amount of after-the-fact psychological analysis will tell police how to prevent other attacks. In the current climate of media coverage overkill, panic and concern often replace rationality and reason.

Time for a reality check:

1) Are schools safe?

Yes. Despite rare incidents like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech, schools are and always have been among the safest places to be. A student is far less likely to die on a school campus than in a public park or on a highway driving to the school.

2) Are shootings like this preventable?
Rarely. Unless the attacker shares his plans with others who warn authorities, there's little anyone can do. Students who are intent on harming others will always be able to do so. The efficacy of psychological profiling is greatly exaggerated; police already have good profiles of potential mass murderers, which were useless in preventing Seung-Hui Cho's attack.

3) Could the heavy media coverage of the shootings spur further threats and violence?

Yes, and it already has. According to the FBI, there have been nearly 50 copycat threats across the country since the Virginia Tech attack, often shutting down schools. Apparently not all of the nation is in mourning; some use the opportunity to play hoaxes.

The news media suggest that America is asking why the tragedy occurred, but most of us already know why: bad things happen. Every now and then, some deranged person will shoot up a school or blow up a building. Innocent people will die. Cho was a violent, mentally ill man who had access to a gun. There's no big mystery. 

Yet the news media, and some Americans, won't accept that. 

Just like conspiracy theorists for whom the death of Princess Diana was too easy, too understandable, they will continue asking why, pressing for answers they already know.

In the wake of events like this, reflection and analysis are good, but asking why is often pointless and unproductive. It does not help people grieve, it does not help us understand the event. Of all the lessons that these tragedies teach us, this is the one most often forgotten.

Benjamin Radford wrote about the news media's coverage of school shootings in "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us" (2003). This and other books are noted on his website.

Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

Scientists: You Can't Profile School Shooters

Shot Stopper: Smart Guns Get Smarter

mood: depressed

Fuck… What a week…

First my business partner… the guy that has been driving trucks since before I was born… Had his windows up and radio on and backed the fucking 10-Ton RIGHT into the machine at the job site…

The other driver was there and so we called and Mike said “NO! I had my windows down… I was paying attention…” but the Driver said “HELL NO! He had his windows up AND both the air conditioner and radio on!” 

So he not only ended up fucking both trucks for that day (They only got 2.5 hours each) but had to pay $500.00 out of pocket AND gas to go and get the part from the shop!

We are lucky that the customer didn’t charge us for the down time at the site!!

Top that off with being turned down for an over-draft line of credit because the cock-sucker waited over a fucking YEAR to agree to fill out the application and so all our over-draft’s, bounced checks, and late payments counted against us… Let’s just say that I am fucking pissed…

The jag-off goes fishing for 2 weeks and then comes back and fucks the company… It is so much easier when he stays the fuck away from me!

He still can’t get it through his head that I can’t pay his credit card bills with company funds without receipts… I’ve even had the CPA explain it to him… And ALL he says is “Well, I spent the money on the company! Why can’t you pay it?”

So I’m all, “Look… Lets pretend I’m the IRS… ‘Here, why did the company pay your MasterCard bill?’”
Response, “Because I spent that money on the company.”
IRS Person, “Prove it…”
Mike, “Um… I can’t.”

*BAM!* 

We get busted for misuse of corporate funds…

I understand that he DID use the cards on purchases for the company… But I have no proof either way… The IRS doesn’t give a shit about half assed explanations if you don’t have the paperwork to back it up!!

Then I start dealing with the City of Chicago AGAIN!

Turns out, a FULL YEAR LATER, that our handler at the Hired Truck Program never forwarded on our claim to get reimbursed for damage caused two days in a row by City Equipment!!

A faxed it in more then FOUR TIMES… Mike dropped off a hard copy to their fucking offices…

And we heard “Oh… yeah… We got it… And we passed it along to the proper department.” But they refused to tell us WHAT department that was…

So now, a full fucking year later, we FINALLY get a hold of the right department and they say that they have no idea what we are talking about…

So it never went to the department… It never went before the committee… It never even got logged in…

So NOW we need to get documents from our insurance company stating that we DID NOT file a claim… Bills… Witness Statements… The works…

AND the driver that was working isn’t an employee anymore because work has been so slow of late (Slow because the City spent all it’s money and isn’t handing out permits) so they will need to interview him on HIS time…

Then there is the Welding Shop that did the repairs… That was a year ago and this mother fucker can’t find his cock with two hands and a fucking flashlight… He’s the reason for the last series of bounced checks… HIS payment to US over drew his account…

We got nothing to hide… We got investigated by the fed’s and we never did anything wrong while in the H.T.P. but having this issue come back up more then a year later?

This is gonna piss some people off…

They can confine me to a room with a spot light and interrogate me… they can go through the books… but it is the annoyance factor that pisses me off…

Then I kept having my father say “We NEED to pay *Blank* $1000.00” and “We NEED to pay *Blank* another $800.00” and so now we are SOL as far as the bank balance is concerned and our insurance came up and the guy is putting the check in TODAY… 

There is ZIP in the bank right now so that check will bounce and I have no idea how badly this will fuck everything up…

If we could just get it postponed for a week… Then all the invoices would be coming in… I KNOW we got $11,000.00 from one customer and another $10,000.00 from another… Then we got the odd jobs through the brokers that will come in… But in about a week and a half…

This one cock-sucker claims that he “Never received” our invoice… I’ve been faxing it to him EVERY OTHER DAY for the last week and a half… I EVEN got QuickBooks to Email it to him… But this fucker needs to go out of town to his kid’s birthday party of some shit like that so he won’t cut us a check until “Sometime next week.”

Mother fucker… His payment is 60+ days past due! We are NEVER working for THEM again!

Shit…

The tractor doesn’t even have any gas in it… We might need to siphon off some from 103… 

Luckily only 101 & 102 are working Monday…

But we need to cash in our change jug to pay for ANYTHING else… I got $20.00 to my name… 

I need to sell the shit I have in storage… I have a FULL APARTMENT up in jack-ass’s second floor empty office…

I could sell my couch and love seat… I could sell my dining room table… I have kick-knacks galore! 

Too bad my books are not worth shit… I have, literally, over 1000 books… If they were worth even $3.00 each I would sell um… 

OH! And Mr. Spectacular Driver (Our other older driver) cut a fucking drive axel tire on a hunk of concrete... AGAIN! This is the THIRD time he has fucked up a drive axel tire... $900.00 a POP!

Mother fucker actually looks at my father and asks "What? Don't you have your tires insured?"

I have no idea how much crack this jag-off is smoking to belive that "Tire Insurance" for tractor trailers exists... Yeah... We fuck up back tires ALL THE TIME... But Drive Axle Tires are suposed to last a VERY long time... They are expensive and so they are made better to handle the stresses placed upon them... Fucking retard...

Shit…

 I DID have a wonderful C.L.A.W. meeting on Wednesday… The only problem is the emotional back lash I had the next day through today… I feel like shit… Like someone had been kicking me in the face…

A scene can really fuck you up…

I’m gonna take it more carefully next time…

mood: curious

Families' Eldest Boys Do Best On Tests

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

Thu Jun 21, 5:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Boys at the top of the pecking order — either by birth or because their older siblings died — score higher on IQ tests than their younger brothers. The question of whether firstborn and only children are really smarter than those who come along later has been hotly debated for more than a century.

Norwegian researchers now report that it isn't a matter of being born first, but growing up the senior child, that seems to result in the higher IQ scores.

Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal report their findings in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

It's a matter of what they call social rank in the family — the highest scores were racked up by the senior boy — the first born or, if the firstborn had died in infancy, the next oldest.

Kristensen, of Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health, and Bjerkedal, of the Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Services, studied the IQ test results of 241,310 Norwegian men drafted into the armed forces between 1967 and 1976. All were aged 18 or 19 at the time.

The average IQ of first-born men was 103.2, they found.

Second-born men averaged 101.2, but second-born men whose older sibling died in infancy scored 102.9.

And for third-borns, the average was 100.0. But if both older siblings died young, the third-born score rose to 102.6.

The findings provide "evidence that the relation between birth order and IQ score is dependent on the social rank in the family and not birth order as such," they concluded.

It's an issue that has perplexed people since at least 1874, when Sir Francis Galton reported that men in prominent positions tend to be firstborns more often than would have been statistically expected.

Since then, several studies have reported higher intelligence scores for firstborns, while other analyses have questioned those findings and the methodology of the reports.

While the Norwegian analysis focused on men, other studies have included women, some indicating a birth-order effect and some not.

Frank J. Sulloway of the Institute for Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, welcomed what he called the Norwegians' "elegantly designed" analysis.

"These two researchers demonstrate that how study participants were raised, not how they were born, is what actually influences their IQs," said Sulloway, who was not part of the research team.

The elder child pulls ahead, he said, perhaps as a result of learning gained through the process of tutoring younger brothers and sisters.

The older child benefits by having to organize and express its thoughts to tutor youngsters, he said, while the later children may have no one to tutor.

mood: crazy

High-Wire Squirrels Torch Man's Home Twice In 8 Days

BLUE ISLAND | But owner finds fault with ComEd

June 21, 2007

BY ANGELA CAPUTO Daily Southtown

If you think Alan Turcott has bad luck, just think of the squirrels in his neighborhood.

For the second time in eight days, Turcott's Blue Island home caught fire when squirrels knocked high-voltage wires loose from a utility pole and onto his three-story house, fire officials said.

"This is unbelievable," Blue Island Fire Chief Robert Copp said. "I've seen where squirrels have shorted things out or blown a fuse, but nothing like this before."

Two scorched squirrels were found after the fires, confirming the critter cause, Copp said.

It appears they transferred power from one line to the next as they bounced across the wires June 9 and 17.

"It's like a battlefield around here," Turcott said as he pointed to his plywood-patched home. "I think it's a total loss. It's just a big nightmare."

But Turcott isn't so quick to point the finger at his furry neighbors. The lines should be able to handle squirrel traffic, he said.

"If [ComEd] would have maintained and repaired [the wires] properly, the fires wouldn't have started," he said.

mood: curious

Readers rant on 'Evan', Con’s, & Why does Chicago need 50 aldermen, but L.A. only 15?

Dewey Sprenzel: Con's

"Two years ago I worked at the Virgin store at Ohio and Michigan. One day as I was going to lunch, I happened on a young woman. She was holding a sign that said 'Stranded, purse stolen, need $ to get home.' Her story was she was visiting from Seattle, her purse was stolen and had no money to get back to Seattle, but it would be OK because her friend was driving out from Seattle to pick her up and would be there in a week or so. She just needed money to get by.

"She worked that corner for three months. Being a young, white, attractive-enough girl, she made plenty of cash . . ."

That's why I'd rather give money to the guy with the sign saying, "I'm broke and you're not." It's not the panhandling that bothers me as much as the con job.

Donald E. Soula, Ph.D. candidate in Biblical Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary:

"I thought I'd provide you with a detail that should have had a major impact on 'Evan Almighty.'

"In the movie, a big point is made about Genesis 6:14, God's command to Noah to build an ark. A modern man is told to build an ark because God is going to cause a worldwide flood once again.

"The problem is that according to Genesis 9:11, God promised Noah that 'never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.'

"This makes the 'God' of this movie either forgetful or a liar. . . . It's one thing if you just make up a story, but it's another to ignore that the original story flat-out precludes your new story."

What about "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," which really should have been called, "I Still Know What You Did Two Summers Ago"? Huh huh huh?

In "Bruce Almighty," Jim Carrey uses his omniscient powers to make his girlfriend's breasts bigger and to teach his dog to use the toilet. And you're worried that the SEQUEL isn't going to be faithful to the Bible? Trust me, that's the least of this movie's problems.

Bill Papadakis: Aldermen

"How is it that Los Angeles, a city larger than Chicago, can function with only 15 council members, but Chicago needs 50?"

Somebody ordered 50 leather chairs, and we don't want to waste 'em.

mood: content

I have noticed a dramatic drop in my “Drama Factor” since I stopped talking to a bunch of people…

No more “It’s not MY fault” and “I should be CEO by now… My High School told me that I could be anything I wanted but then Bush had to ruin it all!”

No more conspiracy theories… No more Excuses… No more veiled hostility…

I LOVE the peace that comes from not talking to delusional and self important people that think the world and everyone in the group is against them, specifically…

Now I can go to any meeting I want with out having to hear about how petty and small everyone else is…  No drama… no “I can’t help being the center of attention”.

The best part of all is that NOW I can actually hear BOTH sides of the argument and see how BOTH SIDES are delusional and retarded.

I’m sick of the drama… I’m sick of people bitching for the sake of bitching… I’m sick of being a “Yes Man” to keep the peace and stay friends with people that need a MAJOR boost of self esteem and a VERY big reality check…

I had a SPECTACULAR meeting last night and not once did I have to hear about how EVERYONE has an attitude because “I’m different” or “I’m special” or “They are just bitches that can’t handle having my glory in the same room as them because it makes them realize how small they really are.”

It was WONDERFUL… Just people talking to people… Equals talking to Equals…

A gathering with no drama and no self-perpetuating hostility…

No constant reinterpretations of every word said to find the meaning that could be insulting to the listener. No rehashing every statement afterwards to seek out the veiled insult.

Just women, gathered together, from every walk of life and every industry with a goal of having fun and talking about a common interest…

It was WONDERFUL!

I got home and actually felt relaxed and free…

Instead of feeling tense and worrying about every word I post because I don’t want to piss anyone off while complementing the evening…

I actually had a good night’s sleep and will never again need to worry about pissing anyone off by talking and being nice to anyone I want.

I LOVE the peace… Never again will I put up with such bullshit…

Thank the god’s that such venom filled relationships are finally over… I didn’t realize how horrible it was until the stress and tension is gone…

Now I can enjoy the community the way that it is meant to be enjoyed… Drama Free…

mood: jubilant

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 01 May 2006 04:00 pm ET

About $23 billion every year is spent on alcohol that is consumed by underage U.S. drinkers, a new study concludes.

That's 17.5 percent of the total $129 billion market for alcohol in the country.

The study, using data from 2001, is detailed in the May issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

In citing other work, researchers note that people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to become dependent on alcohol compare to those who do not drink before age 21. They further point out that alcohol abuse and alcoholism cost the United States $184 billion a year, more than cancer or obesity.

The scientists say these numbers point to a twisted motivation in advertising alcohol.

"Almost all (96.8 percent) of the adult drinkers with alcohol abuse and dependence began drinking prior to the age of 21 years," the researchers write. "With at least 37.5 percent of sales linked to underage drinking and adult abusive and dependent drinking, the alcohol industry has a compelling financial motive to attempt to maintain or increase rates of underage drinking. Alcohol advertisements in magazines, for example, expose youth aged 12 to 20 years to 45 percent more beer advertisements and 27 percent more advertisements for distilled spirits than adults of legal drinking age."

Girls Equal, Exceed Boys in Substance Abuse

Hangover-free Buzz: Star Trek's Synthehol Now Possible

Indoor Tanning Addictive, Study Suggests

Why Smokers Feel Good

mood: depressed

Bleeding… Hormones… Pregnancy… And now THIS?
We chicks just can’t win can we?

Women Get Drunk, High and Addicted Easier Than Men

By Christopher Wanjek, Special to LiveScience

posted: 17 May 2006 12:27 am ET

Snake oil salesmen used to prey on women with their "medicinal" tonics packing 40-proof alcohol.  Mick Jagger sang of "mother's little helper." 

A woman's addiction to alcohol, pills and other narcotics has long been a wink-wink topic-one that garners a few smirks, rarely taken seriously.  The focus has always been on men, who traditionally have had higher rates of substance abuse. 

But now the gender gap is closing.  More than 20 million girls and women in the United States abuse drugs and alcohol and 30 million more are addicted to cigarettes, according to a 10-year research effort from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

The study documents how women, pound-for-pound, not only get more drunk or higher faster then men, but also become addicted more easily.  The research results are presented in a new book from CASA called "Women Under the Influence" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

Double shot

The numbers could get worse, warns Susan Foster, CASA's director of policy research and analysis, who directed the research behind the book. 

Teenage girls now smoke, drink and abuse drugs as often as teenage boys.  For certain drugs, such as prescription painkillers, the abuse rate is higher in girls than boys.

Yet even as the rate of abuse becomes equal, physiological and psychological factors combine to ensure that females are more greatly affected by drugs and alcohol.

According to Foster, each single drink hits a woman like a double.  A woman's body contains less water and more fatty tissue-which increases alcohol absorption-compared to a male body.  And women have a lower activity level of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase  (ADH), which breaks down alcohol.  Similar biological factors are at work in metabolizing illicit drugs. 

Hooked on less

The risk of addiction to alcohol and drugs, including nicotine, is approximately doubled as well.  The reason may be hormonal or psychological, according to ongoing research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.  Males and females abuse drugs for different reasons.  For example, teenage girls are more likely than boys to abuse substances in order to lose weight, relieve stress or boredom, improve their mood, reduce sexual inhibitions, self-medicate depression, and increase confidence, according to CASA.

"Whereas the substance abuse field has a fairly good understanding of the biological basis of gender differences in susceptibility to alcohol addiction, the research on such differences with regard to narcotic addiction is still in the early stages," Foster told LiveScience.  "Women become addicted [to narcotics] faster than men.  Our understanding of why this may be the case is more limited."

Foster is calling for more research funding for this neglected area.  Similarly, CASA president Joseph Califano said that drug-treatment programs have long had a male-dominated, one-size-fits-all focus and need to better embrace women and their needs.  More than 90 percent of American women in need of treatment don't get it, he said.

Other Articles:

Hangover-free Buzz

Underage Drinking: A $23 Billion Industry

Elite Women Made Beer in Pre-Incan Culture

Food, Drugs, or Designer Shoes: Mind Treats All Cravings Equal

Girls Equal, Exceed Boys in Substance Abuse

Why Smokers Feel Good

mood: horny

Sexy Dreams Are No Rarity

By Randy Dotinga, HealthDay Reporter

posted: 14 June 2007 04:17 pm ET

(HealthDay News) -- If your dreams are hot enough to burn the sheets, you've got company.

A new Canadian survey, apparently the first of its kind in four decades, reports that 8 percent of dreams swirl around sexual situations.

Men are much more likely to have fantasies about sex with imaginary people, while women prefer current or past sexual partners and celebrities.

Women, meanwhile, report about as many sex dreams as men, a sharp contrast with previous research from the 1960s. "Men used to report many more sex dreams, twice as many as women, and we don't find that difference anymore," said study author Antonio Zadra, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Montreal. "Either women are having them more, or they're more likely to report them. Either way, it's interesting."

According to Zadra, researchers have devoted very little attention to the study of sex dreams, even though they are extremely common.

In his study, Zadra looked at surveys of 109 women and 64 men who compiled diaries of their dreams for as long as a month. The total number of dreams topped 3,500.

The Canadian participants, aged 20-89, responded to advertisements about the survey. Researchers didn't gather data about their sexual orientations.

Zadra was to report his findings Thursday at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting, in Minneapolis.

Sex dreams were occasionally productive: Four percent of sex dreams among both men and women resulted in orgasms. Both genders were most likely to dream about sexual intercourse, followed by sexual propositions -- such as flirting -- and kissing, fantasies and masturbation.

In women, a whopping 18 percent of sex dreams involved unwanted sex; the number was 5 percent among the men.

Fantasies about celebrities made up 9 percent of sex dreams among women and 5 percent among men.

Men were much more likely to dream about having sex with more than one person. However, none of the men reported dreams about intercourse in which their partner had an orgasm; 4 percent of women's dreams featured a partner having an orgasm.

"There's a stereotype that many men only think about themselves. At least in the dream scenarios, that appears to be the case," Zadra said.

Still, there might be another explanation. "It could be it's more difficult in REM sleep to attribute these kinds of affects and emotions to another character," Zadra said. "Maybe it's easier for women."

Indeed, it's difficult for people to take part in some activities -- like reading -- during dreams, and powers of judgment often don't exist, Zadra said. He suspects this may be because part of the brain slumbers during dreaming.

People, meanwhile, weren't the only subjects of sexual fantasies. One woman reported being aroused by a giant plant which she found to be "extremely erotic," Zadra said.

Despite Freudian analysis and countless books about dream analysis, dreams remain a big mystery. Still, specialists figure that if you dream about a topic, it's something that occupies your waking thoughts too, Zadra said.

"If the sex dreams tend to involved unknown or fantasy characters, it is probably a reflection of your waking state, that your desires and fantasies are with strangers," Zadra said.

From a purely physical perspective, dreams reflect an "activated brain state" in which the brain gobbles up oxygen, blood and glucose, said Dr. Carlos Schenck, a sleep researcher and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

In terms of subject matter, he agrees with Zadra. "Dreams often reflect our daily life activities, concerns and fantasies," said Schenck, author of Sleep: The Mysteries, the Problems and the Solutions. "So, sex dreams are part of that picture."

More information

Learn more about dreams from howstuffworks.com.

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

mood: contemplative

Endurance Athletes Risk Deadly 'Water Intoxication'
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 16 June 2007 02:53 pm ET

Health experts cautioned yesterday that some endurance athletes drink too much water during exercise and are at risk of deadly "water intoxication."

Marathon runners, triathletes and cyclists are familiar with dehydration, caused by not drinking enough. But fewer are aware that too much water can kill.

Water intoxication is formally called exercise-induced hyponatremia (EAH). One recent study found that 13 percent of Boston marathon runners suffered from EAH, though most cases were mild. But since 1985, there have been at least eight documented fatalities from EAH related to long-distance events.

The disorder occurs when endurance exercisers drink more fluid—water or sports drinks—than their kidneys can excrete. Excess water can dangerously dilute the level of sodium in the blood needed for organs to function.

“The public’s impression of the amount of water that is necessary to drink for good health is not based on real factual data,” said Dr. Joseph Verbalis at Georgetown University Medical Center. “Many in our society have promoted the idea that you need to continually drink a large amount of fluid, such as 8 ounces of water eight times a day. But most people don’t really need that much.”

Verbalis and colleagues wrote about the causes of this disorder in the May issue of Sports Medicine and released a statement yesterday.

EAH "could be prevented if only people would respect their personal thirst 'meter,' or would undertake a 'sweat test' to determine how much water they actually need to drink in order to replace just the body fluids lost during exercising," the researchers stated.

EAH mostly afflicts people participating in events for 4 hours or more. “The average person who goes out for an hour or two of strenuous exercise is not going to be at risk for this,” Verbalis said.

The issue remains controversial, however. Some trainers and sports physiologists contend that by the time you’re actually thirsty, you have lost enough fluid to already be dehydrated, so they say you need to drink in anticipation of becoming dehydrated, Verbalis explained. “We dispute that notion," he said, "and contend that thirst is a good indicator of your body’s need for fluids, and that there is a window of time over which you can rehydrate safely.”

mood: sad

I was watching the show “The Wire” on HBO and it really made me think…

They show all these PJ Animals slinging dope, killing, breeding like rats, and completely pissing away everything that this country has to offer and then they move on to a plot about the deaths of 14 women smuggled into the US in a cargo container.

They had 14 women shoved into ¾ of a cargo container with packets of chips, bottles of water, and a portable camping toilet.

Not enough air, not enough water, not enough food, not enough space… Top that off with the men of the ship cracking into their container and using them as mindless sex objects… Either sleep with the men or you will never be seen or heard from again…

Women all over the world that are willing to put themselves through the worst possible hell in order to make it to the US.

Women that KNOW that once they get here they will need to work as prostitutes and strippers until they pay off the cost of shipping them here and sneaking them in.

Women that know that the possibility of actually making it here ALIVE is pretty much 50/50…

Women that KNOW that a LOT of the women that make it here will NEVER work their way out of bondage…

Women that know that they are dealing with the WORST scum of the earth for the mere CHANCE to achieve the American Dream…

With people from all over the globe willing to do this just to GET here how dare you say that YOUR life is so fucking bad because you are not taking advantage of the opportunities presented to you…

“I’m gay and the discrimination is keeping me down”

“I’m black and the discrimination is keeping me down”

“I’m white and affirmative action is keeping me down”

“I’m WHAT FUCKING EVER and so I can’t be happy”

B U L L S H I T !

ANYONE born in the US, nationalized, or smuggled in has the chance to accomplish their dreams if they are willing to work for it!

Yeah… Life is un-fucking-fair… Blah-Blah-Blah… But at least you didn’t have to sell your soul to a Coyote or some Russian-Mafia-Fuck or be forced into prostitution to get here…

 You think that life is so unfair? That EVERYONE is holding you down? That our country is a pit of intolerance and hell? Where do you get off?

Yeah… There is a LOT of shit about America… We can be real pricks… But we are STILL the dream destination of a majority of the rest of the world that is still under oppression… still in unending conflict… still in bonded-servitude… still enslaving… still repressing… still killing… still in barbarity…

Yeah… your life may suck but why is that anyone’s fault but your own?

If you really think that this country sucks so bad and that your life here is SOOOOOO horrible then how about we start an “Exchange” program so that you can go anywhere else in the world and see just how wonderful your life here really is?

How about we take you to Africa and exchange you for a black woman that was sold into slavery because her parents couldn’t pay the ruler of their area? Or because the father committed a crime and his punishment was having his daughter put into slavery? Or where you are married off to a guy you have never even seen before? Where you are put in a “Fattening Hut” for MONTHS before the ceremony where you are forced to eat and drink incessantly so that you will be FAT ENOUGH for your marriage ceremony?

Where, if your a virgin, you might be raped by a man with AIDS/HIV because they believe that if you rape a virgin it will cure your AIDS? Where practically the whole continent is being ravaged by AIDS... Orphans left in the care of an impoverished state because their parents are dead... Genocide... Civil War... Disease... MONKY'S!

No more half-caf mocha latté’s… no more “I only eat raw vegan foods”… no more “I need to stop eating at McCrap every night because I need to lose 20 pounds… Lets take you to the middle of Africa where poverty and starvation are the norm… where Blacks are enslaving Blacks AS YOU READ THIS…

Yeah… Reparations my ass… I’ll give up MY tax dollars when they stop their brethren from continuing the same brutality and slavery that they claim that my ancestors are responsible for.  Imagine that… The 21^st century and Slavery STILL exists… (Though I’m clean… my family didn’t come here until 1900. I’m only 3^rd generation American.)

Or how about we send you to Russia where you need to choose between prostitution or death? Where you are owned by the Russian Mafia and are nothing but property because where 1 woman comes from you can get a thousand replacements?

Or how about to Latvia where the economy is so shitty that, again, your parents sell you into prostitution?

Or Brazil where if you get married and your husband catches you cheating on him he can LEGALLY KILL YOU.

Or in China where the "Middle Class" THERE is considered ABJECT POVERTY here? Where your husband may make you abort your baby if it's a girl. Where you are manual labor and a baby machine.

Or the middle east where you will have your labia cut off and your clitoris removed at the age of 8 by a “Doctor” with a shard of glass and no pain killers or sanitation while your mother and your aunt hold you down?

Or India where, depending on your caste, you will either live in luxury or be a public toilet cleaner, a princess or an open wound beggar all based on the status of your parents? Yeah… India is SLOWLY changing but their Caste System is still going full force in a MAJORITY of the country.

Women have no rights in a LARGE portion of this planet.

Fuck you if you think your being oppressed based on the Melanin Content of your skin… Women in general have been fucked since we crawled out of the primordial ooze!

How about we send you “There”, where ever you want to go, for just a month?

Life the average life of the Average citizen of this planet… A life of poverty, war, repression, oppression... Disease and rape...

Do you REALLY hate your life so much that you can’t see how good you have it compared to MOST OF THE REST OF THE WORLD?

Pull your head out of your ass and start appreciating everything you DO have and stop bitching about everything that you are “being denied” because of the situation of your birth.

There are a LOT of people out there that would KILL to be you… no matter how “Bad” you think your life is.

There are people dying RIGHT NOW in container ships, in the dessert, in the ocean clinging to an old tire… ALL risking their lives to come here with NOTHING but what they were born with…

How is it that a guy that floats ashore in Miami, naked and bruised, can succeed in the US while you bitch about how “Unfair” and “Horrible” your life is?

How dare you… 

How dare you spend all of your time bitching about how bad you have it when if you were almost anywhere else in the world you would be beaten into submission for saying that your unhappy... that your oppressed... that your being discriminated against...

Grow Up...

Stop being a little bitch and start appreciating your life!

If you’re not happy with your life then quit complaining about it and start working to fix it!

mood: excited

This is THE coolest thing I have ever seen... I have had the opportunity to try MANY different International Flavor Sensations and it has RUINED me to the standard American fair... I seem to just have an affinity with the Asian pallet and I have loved everything from Honey, Seaweed, Peanut Bars to eating EVERYTHING raw... So this is no surprise to me that I REALLY want to try this!

If you agree PLEASE call/email/fax/write the Pepsi Corporation!!! (PepsiUSA.com)

Cucumber-Flavored Soda Sold In Japan

Wed Jun 13, 7:47 AM ET

TOKYO - Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" — a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.

The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn't actually have any cucumber in it — but has been artificially flavored to resemble "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber," said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan's Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.

"We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect."

The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.

Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.

Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda.

mood: disappointed

If Paris Hilton’s stupidity was “All an act” then she must be the BEST actress ever born… and considering how badly her actual acting is, in movies she was PAID to “Act” in, I can only doubt that this excuse will continue to last past her next gallon of Vodka.

But I digress… If it took a force as powerful as the Myth of God to close her legs then I guess I can only look towards the heavens and pray that she can pull her head from the cavernous depths of her own cooch.

Paris Hilton says God has given her a new chance

By Michelle Nichols Mon Jun 11, 12:39 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Imprisoned hotel heiress

Paris Hilton has said she believes God has given her a new chance and she plans to stop acting dumb and put her influence to good use.

Hilton called television journalist Barbara Walters on Sunday from the medical wing of a Los Angeles jail, where she is being held for violating probation in a drunken-driving case, and Walters recounted the conversation on her ABC television show "The View" on Monday.

"I'm not the same person I was," Hilton told Walters. "I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me.

"I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."

Hilton was ordered back to jail on Friday after a judge overruled a sheriff's decision to place her under house arrest on Thursday because of psychological problems. She had spent three days of an expected three-week term behind bars.

Walters said Hilton told her she had not been wailing, sobbing or screaming during her first three days in prison, as had been reported.

She asked Hilton what had led to her being "reassigned" to house arrest.

"I was not eating or sleeping. I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage. I was not myself. It was a horrible experience," Hilton said.

"I feel as if I'm a different person," said Hilton, known for her party-going lifestyle. "I've dropped my appeal. I don't want to cause any more problems."

Hilton's reassignment to serve her sentence under house arrest by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca sparked national outrage and accusations of preferential treatment because of her celebrity status.

She was sentenced last month to 45 days in jail, but with good behavior, Walters said, Hilton was due to be released on June 25 after serving a total 23 days.

"I feel that the purpose of my life is to be where I am," Hilton told Walters. "My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail. God has released me."

When she is released, Hilton said, she might like to help in the fields of breast cancer or multiple sclerosis, diseases that her grandmothers suffered, or build a "Paris Hilton playhouse" for sick children.

Hilton, who said other inmates had been friendly, added that her skin was very dry because she was not allowed any moisturizer.

"It doesn't matter," she said, "I'm not that superficial girl. I haven't looked in the mirror since I got here."

mood: happy

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer Fri Jun 8, 9:52 AM ET

NEW YORK - Can sensibly priced clothing from a down-to-earth actress stand out in an increasingly crowded market for celebrity-branded fashion?

Sarah Jessica Parker's bubbly personality was evident as she strode through the Manhattan Mall's Steve & Barry's store Thursday at the launch of her clothing line, Bitten, greeting shoppers with a cheerful, "Hi guys!"

With Bitten, Parker joins Madonna, Kate Moss,Jennifer Lopez, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and other stars who are seeking success with celebrity clothing collections.

"They haven't saturated the market yet but we're getting kind of close," said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group Inc., a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm. "Celebrity branding makes it easy for a company to a sell a brand because it becomes a talking point."

So far the lines have done well, but since most are in their first season, there isn't much to compare them with, Cohen said.

Parker and Steve & Barry's — best known for its inexpensive college apparel and $14.98 Starbury One sneaker — are hoping the Bitten line stands out because of its cheap prices. While other celebrity lines sell items for up to $100 or more, nothing in Bitten's 500-piece collection, Steve & Barry's first for women, is over $19.98, and sizes range from 2 to 20.

That mass accessibility is what attracted Parker to the project.

"I really loved the idea of making fashion accessible to every woman in this country despite her economic standing, despite her size, her shape and her ethnic background," the 42-year-old actress said. "The idea of the democratization of fashion was extremely appealing to me."

At the launch in New York, Parker wore a Bitten outfit — the name comes from being "bitten" by the theater bug — that showed its emphasis on basics: a striped tank, a willow-colored cardigan and gray straight-leg pants.

Wendy Liebmann, president of marketing consulting company WSL Strategic Retail in New York, said Parker, best known for playing the adorably neurotic Carrie Bradshaw on HBO's "Sex and the City," is a smart choice to front the line because consumers relate to her.

"Whether she's wearing an Oscar de la Renta ball gown in a fragrance ad or whether she's wearing something inexpensive for Bitten, she's able to play both sides," Liebmann said.

Parker worked with two Steve & Barry's designers to develop the line, which includes suit separates, shirts, dresses, lingerie, denim, T-shirts, nightgowns, cashmere sweaters, swimwear and other items.

Steve & Barry's held down costs by using virtually no advertising, manufacturing its own clothes and selling in large volume, said Howard Schacter, the retailer's chief partnership officer. Steve & Barry's is based in Port Washington, N.Y., and operates 200 stores in 33 states.

Shoppers who showed up at the launch snapped up jeans, shoes and accessories. "I love Sarah Jessica Parker, and the fact that everything is under $20 is amazing," said Peyton Capps, 18, who flew from Tallahassee, Fla., with her mother for the launch.

"It's New York after all, she is a style icon here," said Andrea Morgan, 29, from Manhattan. "Steve & Barry's isn't exactly the kind of place I'd come to. She definitely made me come here."

mood: contemplative

What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?

I LOVE any word that ANYONE finds offensive...

As a culture and as a species we are constantly cycling through what we consider acceptable and unacceptable...

100 Years Ago if you told a Religious Person that s/he preached "Hum-Bug" he would become enraged... Yet today we consider it a quaint little piece of history that isn't offensive to ANYONE.

The more we are exposed to "Bad', "Naughty", "Offensive" words the more we will start to realize that Language is NOTHING to be afraid of...

I LOVE the “N-Word”, the “C-Word”, the “F-Word”, (ALL of the “F-Words”) and any other of the HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of words that are “Naughty”.

We need to start focusing on the things that we REALLY need to be afraid of...

Lack of Health Care...
A culture that encourages vapidness and willful ignorance...
People that get WAY too involved in causes that have nothing to do with them while turning a blind eye to the atrocities happening right under their noses...
(Such as a quarter of ALL kids being molested or abused... MORE then a quarter of ALL women being abused and sexually assaulted... STD's... Rap Music... And General Apathy in our population...) 

The old saying goes “ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THEN WORDS” and that goes for ALL words…

We ALL need to get over ourselves and start realizing that it isn’t language that is “Bad” but the actions that accompany them…

mood: happy

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer Fri Jun 8, 9:52 AM ET

NEW YORK - Can sensibly priced clothing from a down-to-earth actress stand out in an increasingly crowded market for celebrity-branded fashion?

Sarah Jessica Parker's bubbly personality was evident as she strode through the Manhattan Mall's Steve & Barry's store Thursday at the launch of her clothing line, Bitten, greeting shoppers with a cheerful, "Hi guys!"

With Bitten, Parker joins Madonna, Kate Moss,Jennifer Lopez, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and other stars who are seeking success with celebrity clothing collections.

"They haven't saturated the market yet but we're getting kind of close," said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group Inc., a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm. "Celebrity branding makes it easy for a company to a sell a brand because it becomes a talking point."

So far the lines have done well, but since most are in their first season, there isn't much to compare them with, Cohen said.

Parker and Steve & Barry's — best known for its inexpensive college apparel and $14.98 Starbury One sneaker — are hoping the Bitten line stands out because of its cheap prices. While other celebrity lines sell items for up to $100 or more, nothing in Bitten's 500-piece collection, Steve & Barry's first for women, is over $19.98, and sizes range from 2 to 20.

That mass accessibility is what attracted Parker to the project.

"I really loved the idea of making fashion accessible to every woman in this country despite her economic standing, despite her size, her shape and her ethnic background," the 42-year-old actress said. "The idea of the democratization of fashion was extremely appealing to me."

At the launch in New York, Parker wore a Bitten outfit — the name comes from being "bitten" by the theater bug — that showed its emphasis on basics: a striped tank, a willow-colored cardigan and gray straight-leg pants.

Wendy Liebmann, president of marketing consulting company WSL Strategic Retail in New York, said Parker, best known for playing the adorably neurotic Carrie Bradshaw on HBO's "Sex and the City," is a smart choice to front the line because consumers relate to her.

"Whether she's wearing an Oscar de la Renta ball gown in a fragrance ad or whether she's wearing something inexpensive for Bitten, she's able to play both sides," Liebmann said.

Parker worked with two Steve & Barry's designers to develop the line, which includes suit separates, shirts, dresses, lingerie, denim, T-shirts, nightgowns, cashmere sweaters, swimwear and other items.

Steve & Barry's held down costs by using virtually no advertising, manufacturing its own clothes and selling in large volume, said Howard Schacter, the retailer's chief partnership officer. Steve & Barry's is based in Port Washington, N.Y., and operates 200 stores in 33 states.

Shoppers who showed up at the launch snapped up jeans, shoes and accessories. "I love Sarah Jessica Parker, and the fact that everything is under $20 is amazing," said Peyton Capps, 18, who flew from Tallahassee, Fla., with her mother for the launch.

"It's New York after all, she is a style icon here," said Andrea Morgan, 29, from Manhattan. "Steve & Barry's isn't exactly the kind of place I'd come to. She definitely made me come here."

mood: angry

"Grey's Anatomy" star Washington angry at firing

OOOOOOhhhhh... He called someone a Fag!

WTF happened to this country?

He wounds the inner child of his co-star and they FIRE him for it?

Lets us count the lawsuits:

1. He will say it is because he is black.
2. He will say that it is a freedom of speech matter. (Which it is)

How about we all put our inner child away and get the fuck over it…

The “Faggot” should be able to turn around and call Washington a “Nigger” or some other slur on par with “Faggot” and everyone should get on with their goddamned lives…

I can’t believe that this is lingering on for a FUCKING YEAR!

How little is there in these people’s lives that being called a fucking NAME causes this kind of uproar?

This is even bigger bullshit then Paris Hilton!

GET OVER YOURSELF… BOTH OF YOU!

Fuck…

Donate some money to PFLAG and move on… Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ…

Has NOTHING more important happened on this planet that we need to focus on these two dipshits?

mood: drained

Considering how I just couldn’t get away from pictures and news stories about Paris Hilton getting out of prison, getting put back in prison, and how she has some “Undisclosed Medical Condition” I am losing even more hope in the ability of American Culture to recover from the Vapid pit of Hell that it has become…

My father and I were listening to the Roe Kahn Show and they were going off on this dip-shit and we decided that this is yet another reason why “They” hate us…

If Alquida decided to fly a plane into another building and declared it is because of the American Decadence and Paris Hilton I think I’d have to give um one… Because that is exactly how I feel right now…

Who the fuck is this whore think she is that she can dictate her own prison sentence?

Though I would have to admit that if they put cameras all around the prison and then threw her tiny little ass into general population it would be a reality show that would make MILLIONS… Even I would watch it!

In fact… Since this whole stupid thing started I have been having fantasies about Paris Hilton getting gang raped by a large group of Prison Hardened Bull-Dykes… (I’m thinking about writing a short erotica story about it!)

Fuck this little rich cunt…Getting the shakes because you can’t down vodka by the gallon is no excuse to get out of Jail!

Fuck… I know some Cook County Prison Guards in the Woman’s Section and ALCOHOL withdrawal is the LEAST of the prison’s worries… It’s the crack, heroin, and meth withdrawal that they WORRY about…

Sigh… What happened to REAL news?

This bullshit fluff is almost as bad as the big conspiracy theories of the last presidential election…

I REALLY think I need to move to Canada… Or Mexico…

mood: happy

L.U.G.

Lesbian Until Graduation…

I KNOW that this has probably been around since the first university was established but I had never heard it before and I find it VERY FUNNY…

It goes along with this comedian I heard a few months back…

A Woman can go gay and say that it was “Just a Phase”.

“Yeah… My roommate Stacy and I experimented in college but it was just a phase…”

While NO MAN can EVER go back… You got it for LIFE! LOL!

“Yeah… My roommate Larry and I experimented back in college but it was just a phase…”

So true yet so sad…

mood: confused

If I want to hear the Pitter Patter of little feet I will put shoes on my cat...
- Magritte Chow (I think...)

mood: calm

Words To Live By…

I received another of those quaint little email forwards and it really stuck… It says the same thing that I have been saying… appreciate the day, don’t let everything bother and offend you, just live life to the best of your ability because only you can make you happy…

I’m going to send this out to those I know will get it but I thought it would be nice to put it here where anyone can read it:

A friend of mine opened his wife's underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package: "This, - he said - isn't any ordinary package."

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box. "She got this the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on, was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is it.”

He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral home because his wife had just died.

He turned to me and said: "Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion".

I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less.

I spend more time with my family, and less at work.

I understood then that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through.

I no longer keep anything. I use crystal glasses every day...  I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.

I don't save my special perfume for special occasions; I use it whenever I want to.

The words "Someday..." and "One Day..." are fading away from my dictionary.

If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now.

I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she knew she wouldn't be there the next morning, this nobody can tell. I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends. She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I'd like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

It's these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.

I would regret it, because I would no longer see the friends I would meet, letters that I wanted to write "One of these days".

I would regret and feel sad, because I didn't say to my brother and sisters, son and daughters, not times enough at least, how much I love them.

Now, I try not to delay, postpone or keep anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives..

And, on each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day… Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

If you got this, it's because someone cares for you and because, probably, there's someone you care about. If you're too busy to send this out to other people and you say to yourself that you will send it "One of these days", remember that "One day" is far away... or might never even come...

Stop worrying what other people think about you…

Stop interpreting every look, every statement, every half heard comment as someone wishing you ill…

Stop changing who you are because you think it is what others want…

Stop needing the validation of another to love yourself today…

Stop getting offended and start LIVING!

There is no time like RIGHT NOW… You can either live life to be happy or live life to be miserable… the choice is up to you and only you…

mood: apathetic

Well… I saw a commercial about Pirates of the Caribbean and it said that Pirates is the most popular movie across the globe for the second week in a row…

That one statement completely eliminated my last shreds of hope for the human race…

Well… if THIS movie is a HORRIBLE as the other two…

Then right after that there was a commercial for the Seinfeld DVD Box set and the commercial “Offended” me FOR Jews…

There it was… a commercial forcing the concept of TOTALLY unfounded stereotypes about Jews on the world…

I mean… Yeah… the characters of that show DOOO act like every Jew I have ever met… Everyone from my best friend in Ohio and his family to my Uncle and his whole family… but STILL!

As we ALLLLLL know… ALL stereotypes are COMPLETELY unfounded and put out by racists and bigots to Hold Down the ethnic group that is being represented…

Just like how on all the reality TV Shows on HGTV, Style Network, and DIY they feature gay couples decorating their homes with the hippest and most up to date designs… and how they ALLLLL end up having VERY pronounced lisps…

Now I can’t watch any of THOSE shows either because even though it doesn’t seem to offend the people actually being filmed I feel it is my duty to get offended FOR THEM… to protect them from their own obvious ignorance and from being exploited as a stereotype to hold down their whole minority group…

Or BET... Black Entertainment Television… I remember the night that Bella informed me that it is ALLLLLL due to the White Man that such horrible, offensive, degrading, and stereotypical shows are created…

Apparently the black actors in these shows have been black mailed or maybe even brainwashed into acting on these shows that encourage ignorance, stupidity, and the over all continuance of a culture that encourages dependence on the Democratic Party and disparages the idea of actually integrating into American Society and just being an American… NO! They are African Americans! A term that sets them apart form the rest of America under the premise of making them more equal to “the rest of us”.

I feel that it is not only my right but a REQUIREMENT that I get offended FOR these people since they obviously have no problem with the programming themselves…

The ONLY reason that they are not offended MUST be that they are too stupid to realize the social injustices that are being perpetrated upon them as individuals and as a “Culture”. (Even though I THOUGHT that they were supposed to be part of AMERICAN Culture… but there I go again… A bigoted white woman that has never had anyone discriminate against me or look down upon me for such things as melanin content, culture, economic status, or anything else that these poor, unfortunate people must cope with on an hourly basis… Yeah… I feel stupid just typing that statement but apparently I’m too bigoted to really understand and therefore I must just regurgitate the pap being force fed to me by more “Enlightened” individuals… Sigh…)

Then I heard that they took the George Lopez show off the air! He was actually being quoted as saying “The airwaves of America have just gotten a LOT whiter.” Think about that… his show got canceled because he was demanding too much money per episode… The first example of Latino’s losing their jobs because white’s are willing to work for less money… (I heard that one on the Show Biz Show… If you have a problem with that please go to the Comedy Central website and put your little protest and angry comments on them…)

Don’t even get me started on Queer Eye, Boy Meets Boy, Will & Grace… ALLLLLLLL shows that force HORRIBLE and unfounded stereotypes on these poor repressed minorities…

Even going to the extent of portraying gay men as being into fashion and being attracted to other men? HOW DARE THEY!?!? That is just an unfounded stereo… Oh, wait… That is the definition of homosexuality isn’t it? Being attracted to the same sex? Hum… I’m queer and even I forgot about that little definition in my Being Offended To Help These Poor Minorities…

How about people that have nothing to do with these situation leaving the offence factor up to those that are actually being portrayed in a negative light?

If your not Black or Queer or a Jew how about we let the Blacks, Queer’s, and Jew’s get all hot and bothered?

Why do you feel it necessary to get involved with their problems?

If you were not on that basketball team you had no business getting involved in their problem…

How about this…

I heard on the radio that the L Word was a show about Lesbians that want to have kids, love, and live their lives… I don’t have Cable… Hell, I don’t even own a TV or a Computer… ALL I know about this show is the sound clip that they continue to play on the radio 50 times an hour… ALL I hear is how offended I should be that lesbians have their own TV show…

I have never seen this show…

I WILL NEVER see this show…

How is it my right to force this show from the air?

You, whoever you are, had never heard the Imus show… You had never seen the Imus show… ALL you knew of the show was what was shoved down your brain from people that had nothing better to report that week… What you heard was taken completely out of context and had no back story to it…

You disagreed with what you heard and so you joined the movement to rip him from the airwaves…

You respect his right to free speech… except that you had him removed from the air because you disagreed with what you heard…

If I hated lesbians then I should be able to get The L Word removed from Show Time too then… Right?

No… it IS the same thing… The only difference is that Lesbians have better lawyers then this Dip-Shit white guy…

It is in vogue to bash the rights of the Evil White Male and his repressive power structure…

It was OK to remove HIM from the air… with no regard to his target audience and THEIR love of this TARD…

How about we all start worrying about our day to day problems like paying the rent, paying off our credit cards, raising our own children, exc. instead of butting into stupid bullshit that has NOTHING to do with you?

mood: distressed

I’m sick of hearing about how unhappy people are when there is nothing wrong with them.

I’m sick of hearing how mad people get when information that they tell EVERYONE gets used against them.

Nothing is holding you back but your own mouth and inability to keep it closed when appropriate!

Your sexual orientation is not holding you back… It is no one’s business who you like to fuck so if you think that others will have a problem with that then keep your personal life personal.

YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT FUCKING AT WORK!

Straight, gay, or neuter… Your sex life has no place in the business world… It doesn’t matter if you work at McDonald’s or in the Pentagon. If you go around telling everyone your personal business then it is no one’s fault but your own if others react negatively.

Think people are discriminating against you because of your Religious affiliations?

YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT FUCKING RELIGION AT WORK!

Christian, Jew, Pagan, Atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist, Muslim, WHAT-FUCKING-EVER… It’s no one’s god damned business and you wouldn’t have the problem if you didn’t go around bringing it up. What does your faith have to do with the latest invoice you had to submit or the hamburger you just handed to a customer?

YOU KNOW that EVERYONE reacts differently to different religions… MOST of them tell their followers that people that believe different from you are EVIL… So why the fuck would you go around telling people what your PRIVATE FAITH is?

I’m not saying that you should “Hide” anything or be “Ashamed” of ANYTHING in your life but if it is a non issue then you know that there will be nothing to worry about since you offend SOMEONE no matter what you are or what you do!

It is no one’s business… so just leave your personal life at home and your business life at the office and *BAM* half of your supposed “Issues” magically vanish!

Hell… To keep the peace at work don’t even tell people that you’re a vegetarian or a vegan or a raw food follower or on Atkins or South Beach… Don’t tell them that you prefer Ford Car’s over Honda… Don’t tell them you like dogs over cats… Don’t tell them ANYTHING but what is relivant for the job at hand and your personal life has nothing to do with your work.

It has nothing to do with anyone but you so keep it to your self!

No one but the HR Person that read your resume should know how you should have been in Mensa… Because guess what… It tends to alienate people when you CONSTANTLY mention how much smarter you think you are then E V E R Y O N E else… It’s no one’s business and should be kept between you and your boss…

No one but the HR Person should know about your volunteering for Gay Organizations, or Environmental Organizations, or Political Organizations… Hell… If it doesn’t have anything to do with the job you are applying for then it shouldn’t even be on your resume!

IT IS NO ONE’S BUSINESS… SO KEEP IT PRIVATE!

If you want to be friends with people at work then save your friendship until after you clock out and even then make sure that you have a hard line between Work – Personal.

If you go around telling everyone your personal business why are you upset when SOMEONE turns around and uses it against you?

Personal, Private information should remain that way… Between you and your friends and family.

Quit using it as an excuse for why your so unhappy or why you can’t  get a raise…

If it is such a big problem then fuck um and go get another job but keep your god damned mouth closed this time!

mood: excited

Teen finds 2.93-carat diamond along path

Wed Jun 6, 6:41 PM ET

MURFREESBORO, Ark. - Walking along a path taken by thousands of others at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, Nicole Ruhter noticed something everyone else had missed — a tea-colored, 2.93-carat diamond.

Ruhter, 13, of Butler, Mo., said she would name her find the "Pathfinder Diamond" after pulling what she described as a broken pyramid from the ground. Her parents, grandparents, brother and two sisters had already spent the day digging in two other fields before heading down the path just after 7 p.m. Tuesday.

"We were walking through the path and I just walked and saw this little shine," said Ruhter, who has just finished the seventh-grade. "We wrapped it up in a little dollar bill and took it back and showed them."

Ruhter said both park rangers and her vacationing family got excited about the diamond, found along a service road. So far this year, visitors to the park have found 332 diamonds, three of them Tuesday alone, said Bill Henderson, assistant park superintendent.

While the park does not do appraisals, Henderson said experts appraised a 4-carat diamond found previously in the park between $15,000 to $60,000. Henderson said Ruhter's diamond did have chips and several imperfections.

"It's a nice diamond," he said. "It looked like it had been broken off at one side."

For now, Ruhter and her family said they'd keep the diamond for a time and find out how much it is worth before attempting to sell it.

"I was kind of praying to God. I was saying, 'I don't care if it's worth whatever it's worth, I don't care if it's a tiny little sliver of something, I just want something,'" Ruhter said. "Ten minutes later, I just found it."

Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public and visitors are allowed to keep the gems they find. On average, two diamonds are found each day at the park.

The largest of the 25,000 diamonds found since the state park was established in 1972 was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, a white diamond found by a visitor from Texas in 1975.