Thank You

Sanity prevails... finally... and maybe the population has finally decided to remove the blinders and use their brains rather than letting themselves be manipulated by the "rah rah" talk. I feel like I finally recognize my former neighbors once again...

Aside from me, who thinks that Lieberman will maybe decide after the vote challenge period is over that he is in fact not really an Independant after all, but a closet Republican? After that, it's 50/50 with Cheney as the deciding vote again. Bets?

The screeching harpy...

This woman is disgusting...

LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration: “These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process.”

And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about: “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.” Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: To speak out using the fact they are widows. This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to. No. No. No. We have to respond to someone who had a family member die. Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity.


Don't you just love it? Poor little Ann is whining because it's impossible to attack these women. Kind of hard to do the usual thing, wrap yourself in the flag and call them "unpatriotic" or accuse them of "helping the terrorists" when you are dealing with women who lost their husbands on September 11th. Poor frustrated Ann, how annoying it must be to discover that what you thought was the ultimate weapon bounces off of these ladies like a Nerf football. What a pathetic loser.

It's just not faaaaaaaaaaaair, waaaah waaaah waaah!

The same old BS...

Reading the news these days, you really have to wonder when people are going to wise up to the bullcrap that politicians of all stripes regularly play.

The country is sinking into a debt filled hole, in large part financed by China. The housing market is about to burst. The US dollar is sinking like a rock. The "war" in Iraq is heading from bad to worse. Afghanistan isn't much better, there are now parts of the country that are once again controlled by the Taliban. They seem to be doing their best to "create" another crisis, this time with Iran, so they can drop a few thousand mini-nukes on the population. Corruption scandals abound, these days it seems that the government is for sale to the highest bidder. Wholesale illegal electronic spying on innocent American citizens. Torture as a policy.

And so, with elections coming up in November, the politicians have decided to concentrate on what really matters...making sure gay people can't get married by amending the Constitution to include discrimination against them.

It's not as if they haven't had 5 1/2 years to deal with this pressing urgent matter. As usual though, they haven't done anything about it so far, because they keep these ridiculous "issues" up their sleeves for the day that they need them to get those idiots who don't realize just how they are being manipulated out to vote.

"Wedge issues", is there anything more dishonest? Aside from certain politicians, I mean. Year in, year out, the same old BS that gets dragged out right before election time, long enough to fool those with a 30 second memory span into voting for "their candidates", only to be shelved like some precious weapon until the next time it is needed. You have to wonder how many times it takes before "the dupes" finally catch on?

I used to laugh when I lived in West Africa, you knew that elections were coming up because the pond sized potholes that you had been driving around for several years were suddenly fixed. The streetlamps had working bulbs again, and the power didn't go off for a few weeks on end. Once the elections were past, the roads would again slowly fall into disrepair, power cuts would start, and one by one the streetlamps stopped working. I shook my head at how credible people could be, to be taken in by the same tricks time and time again.

Wouldn't it be nice if just for once, the voters decided to focus on what is REALLY important, rather than allow themselves to be led to the urns in favor / or against some trumped up, manufactured issue that fundamentally doesn't really impact their own lives unless they decide to let it do so?

Who is listening?

So now, they are trying to sell the illegal warrantless spying as being necessary. "A vital part of the war on terror". They are rebaptizing it "The Terrorist Surveillance Program". They have issued a 42 page justification for it. They sound scared shitless, and rightly so.

Let's look at this logically. What we have here is:

Eavesdropping on Americans with no judicial oversight. Why, IF those being listened to are legitimate targets, would there be any need NOT to get a warrant? No reason at all, so you have to ask yourself just how legitimate those targets actually were and are. Because despite having this program going on, they were also still asking the court for warrants against legitimate targets.

It seems that they have been listening in on and reading the emails of thousands of people. So, you say, if they haven't done anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong. Sorry to be a cynic.

As someone who has lived in countries that listen in on phone calls, reads emails and so on, all in the name of "security", let me tell you what it can do.

1) Private information gathered can be used to stifle dissent or embarrass potential critics.
2) Business information gathered can be sold or given to your competitors, because they donate to the right people.
3) Business information gathered can be used for untraceable insider trading by those who are privy to it.
4) Personal information gathered can be used to destroy the reputations of political opponents.
5) Information gathered from political opponents can give the politicians in power a massive advantage.

The end result is that you no longer have freedom of speech because you are afraid to use it. Not unless you are all ready to invest in the same technology that the governments use to avoid having their communications monitored.

Imagine that you are a peaceful anti-war protester. In the course of exercising your right of free speech, you come to the attention of the government. (Yes, they have been monitoring the anti-war people, the anti-recruitment in high schools people and so on). From that day forward, your phone calls are monitored, your emails are read, every detail of your intimate life is laid bare to strangers and all of this was decided upon by an individual who apparently doesn't feel that he has to justify why YOU were chosen for monitoring.

Now, let's say that you own a business making widgets. At the office, you are in negotiations with a foreign company to sell your widgets overseas. In order to prepare your reply to their bidding process, you discuss over the phone and via email with several of your top managers about the bid details. This foreign company has also invited other companies to respond to their bid request. One of them is a big donor to the current political party in power. Your confidential business information concerning the bid that you are prepared to submit is passed on to the big donor, which he then uses to craft his own bid to be lower than yours, and you lose out on a million dollar contract. Because no one has to justify why YOU were chosen for monitoring.

Let's say that certain politicians have day traders working out of their offices, as has been allegated about Frist and Delay. It doesn't take much of an imagination to realize what value confidential business information (aside from the "political intelligence") would have for these people. You would be charged for insider trading, but no one knows that they got this information from YOUR phone calls and emails except a few insiders and they aren't telling.

Can you imagine what it's like to fear sending a naughty email to your husband while he's on a two week business trip, because maybe someone else is reading it? And storing it in a database somewhere? How about fearing that forwarding a political joke that makes you laugh will land you on the "persons to be monitored list"? How about fearing to speak to your lawyer on the phone about an ongoing problem? Your doctor? Or anyone with whom your conversations are not for public consumption?

So, the big question is: Are you willing to take this government on their word that the only people they are listening to are terrorists? They don't need to justify to anyone other than themselves how they are choosing targets, according to what they are saying. How about the next government, or the one after that or any of those that follow? Hard to say, isn't it? Maybe right now, you are on the side of the current administration. But maybe the next administration or any that follow won't be one that you agree with. How will you feel then? Because according to these guys, the "War on Terror" is going to last a long long time.

Random thoughts

Being a fearless 4 year old really means that you are transferring the fear that you don't have x 10 to your mother. Your mother now sympathizes with her own mother, since said 4 year old is really a complete mini-me.

Maybe the real reason that oil prices are so high is because it's being used as a WMD (weapon of massive deficits) to signify the displeasure of those who produce most of it against the country who uses the most of it. Driving Russia into bankruptcy worked...

If you're ever in Egypt, don't tell any man that his zipper is down, and then point when he looks at you really oddly because you don't think he understood. Very important, zipper = sosta, zipa = penis...

How much more do you need to impeach the guy????

4 year olds who have been told about Egyptian mummies being dead people also need to be told that Mommy and Mummy are not quite the same thing, and especially that when the time comes that Mommy is no longer around, she won't come back as a "bad Mummy" who chases people around like in the cartoons "Scooby Doo".

Beware the working single mother of your 11 year old's best friend, said best friend invited over regularly for lunch after school because mother is working, and whose mother SMS's you while you are on holidays in Sharm el Sheikh to see if we can all get together. When you SMS back to invite them out on the boat that you have chartered for the next day, you get a "ok for my daughter, but I'm tired" response, thereby having daughter pawned off on you for free babysitting while said single working mother spends the day on the beach with her boyfriend.

What would you do if you held the staff Christmas party at your home for all of the personnel of your husband's company, invited the expatriate staff of the other foreign partner because their company was doing nothing, had it catered by a top hotel here at your company's expense, and one of the expatriates from the partner company went to the chef without asking you and had him prepare a doggy bag of virtually all the white meat from the roast turkey? And you of course, don't know anything about it until he and his wife are leaving and he goes to the kitchen to collect it, shamelessly? Would it make any difference if you knew that his wife is a vegetarian and probably doesn't cook anything but plant matter at home?

You have to love friends who phone you and decide on the spur of the moment that they are coming to visit in 4 days. I love surprises like that!

It's really weird to be sitting with those friends in front of the Pyramids, and hearing the husband talking on the phone to the meet and greet airport guy that you used to use in an un-named West African country where you all met in the first place. It was probably even weirder for the meet and greet guy when the husband said hello from me too, and explained that we were sitting in front of the Pyramids in Egypt.

I've finally got it figured out!

As most of you know, I'm not a big Bush fan. But today, I had an epiphany! Following this, it became clear to me that Bush is doing an excellent job and I'll tell you why.

As he said shortly after September 11th:

" Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

" These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends."

" I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith."

In order to protect the United States, GW has done the following:

They hate a democratically elected government

• Introduced paperless electronic voting machines with easily hackable databases, thereby making the possibility of the government NOT being democratically elected much easier to envision. Whether you think it's already happened or not, it just became much easier to do.

They hate our freedom of religion

• Has publicly come out and said that "Intelligent Design" aka Creationism should be taught in schools.
• Is trying to stack the Supreme Court with Right Wing Conservative Christians in order to overturn laws that offend his Born Again sensibilities.
• Is giving taxpayer money to faith based organizations
• And every year, his rabid wingnut media mouthpieces drone on and on about the "War on Christmas" as if somehow the stores using the inclusive term of "Happy Holidays" meant anything other than trying to appeal to the maximum number of shoppers regardless of their faith. As if sending out cards that say "Happy Holidays" to your friends, not all of whom may be Christian, is somehow an attack on those who are.
  

They hate our freedom of speech

• 19 year old visited by the Secret Service for an anti-Bush bumper sticker.
• Couple arrested and hauled off in handcuffs for wearing anti-Bush t shirts to a Bush appearance.
• The establishment of police enforced "Free Speech Zones".
• The news that the Pentagon has been maintaining a database in which one finds anti-war protesters, activists wanting to restrict recruitment efforts in their local schools and various other political protestors.

With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends

• Instituted a "colour code" threat level system designed to scare the crap out of everyone, up to and including at one point to recommend that people stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting. Oddly, this usually happened when Bush's poll numbers were dropping and you may have noticed that since he has been re-elected it has stopped completely.
• the Niger Uranium lies in the State of the Union address, and the subsequent Plame outing
• scaring the pants off of everyone by talking about a "mushroom cloud" and Iraq
• Castigating and vilifying the French and others for not going along with invading Iraq to look for those non-existant WMD. Recently, it turns out that not only did the CIA know that this whole story was bogus, but they knew it because they asked the French not just once, not twice, but three times to investigate. It also turns out that the French warned them that the documents that they were basing their information on were forged, since the same person had tried to sell them to the French.

I ask you to uphold the values of America...we are in a fight for our principles and our first responsibility is to live by them

• Refusing to sign off on a ban on torture until he had no choice
• Throwing American citizens in military jail with no charges, no lawyer, no representation, and then when it seems like the Supreme Court will rule on the legality of it all, try to switch him into the criminal court system on charges that have nothing to do with the reason he was supposedly held incommunicado for three and a half years
• Authorized warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens, and is proud of it, despite that this is what got Nixon impeached. Despite that the court set up to deal with this has only turned down a handful of requests in all of it's years of existence, and despite that it is possible to get a warrant 72 hours after the fact.
• Although Bush is not the first President to compile a political "enemies list", he has, according to this article, been using the Patriot act to do so.
• According to the same website, the NSA is just one of many agencies and private companies contracted by the government involved in spying on Americans.
  

No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith

• Monitoring, without a warrant, mosques, businesses and private homes belonging to Muslims for radiation
• "Flying while Arab, Muslim or suspiciously brown". I've heard several unpleasant stories about this one, where the person involved gets "randomly selected" each and every single time they fly. Or a group of Turkish doctors going for a convention and the entire lot, all 32 of them, "happened" to be "randomly selected" for extra questioning. Fine, those who crashed the planes into the WTC and the Pentagon were probably Muslim. At least, that is what their ID' implied... but 6 or 7 of them have turned up alive and victims of identity theft. Maybe the rest were who they said they were, but maybe they weren't either. Then there is the black haired olive skinned Costa Rican immigrant who was recently shot and killed by Air Marshalls. They claim that he said he had a bomb, but not one of the passengers on the plane heard him say that. I don't know if you wondered, but I did, if he had been blond with blue eyes, would they have shot him so easily?

So there you have it, GW has obviously worked up a master strategy. Since he's been singularly unsuccessful at capturing OBL, dead or alive, since he's managed to create a whole new training ground for radicals, he has obviously decided that the best way to make his country safe is to remove the reasons that "the terrorists hate us". I have to admit, I feel much better knowing that this is a Man with a Plan!

Luxor, and the best laid plans

A couple of weeks ago, my husband turned 40. Something to celebrate, and in fact since last summer I had been cooking up a surprise party for him. Friends from various countries were contacted, plans were made, and a number of them had made airline reservations to join me in helping to make this occasion one that he would remember. Ah...the best laid plans...

About 2 months before the big day, Mr. Right threw a serious spanner into the works by declaring that he wanted to spend his birthday in Istanbul. Trying not to let my panic show, and caught short by this unexpected development, I said "Sure, why not, Istanbul would be great!" The following days were spend in a flurry of phone calls, contacting those who had been planning on coming to let them know that the location had changed. Result: several of our new friends who are living here had to drop out. Those living in Turkey were delighted, saves an airline ticket. Some of those living in Europe ended up having to cancel anyways, due to difficulties in their scheduling. It pretty much whittled down the guest list to half.

THEN, (I swear the man knew what I was up to and was doing this deliberately) about 3 weeks before his birthday, he had yet another change of heart. Istanbul would be too cold at this time of year, so he declared that Luxor was the perfect spot for celebrations.

More phone calls, this time totally cancelling the surprise party, since I had no idea if he was going to pull the same thing on me once again or not. It's a good thing that I had warned everyone to make the reservations, but not pick up their tickets until the last minute. It's also a good thing that it was a weekend thing, and not a longer stay, so no one was stuck with time they had already booked off. Sigh...

A few pictures of some of the joys of Luxor. This first was taken in Karnak, I was really taken with the carvings on the pillars, so simple yet so elegant. This one represents a lotus.



This next probably doesn't need much explaination, the wasp is easily recognizable, as is the Ankh.



Ducks, also easy to recognize. Hard to believe that the construction of this temple started over 4000 years ago, and that the most recent additions are about 2500 years old. The various Pharaohs added to it over a total of 1300 years.



Anyone who has been to Paris might appreciate seeing the "sister" obelisk to the one that is standing in the Place de la Concorde. Interesting story that. The ruler of Egypt in 1831 offered BOTH of the obelisks to France. France chose to move the one that was in better condition first, and 5 years later it was set into it's new home in Paris. Originally, it stood to the left (in this picture) to this one. The undertaking was so long and difficult that the second one, pictured here (the tall one) was never moved. Interestingly, it wasn't until 1980 that France renounced it's right to the second one. Apparently the base of the one in Paris boasted bevy of carved nude women, but that bit was judged too risque to put on display and is languishing somewhere in storage in the Louvre.



As usual, every evening brought the most amazing sunsets. This was taken from the front terrace of our hotel. It's no wonder that the ancient Egyptians worshipped the Sun God Ra, to be treated to a virtual living work of art each and every evening still fills me with awe, even after a year of seeing them.