Quotes, URL's, Links And References-by:older Femmes, Butches, Ftms, Mtfs, Queer, Etc. [Archive] - Page 11

sweetlady

08-19-2006, 09:43 AM

:) :)

August 16, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Camus Comes to Crawford

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Strangely enough, we find two famous men reading Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” this summer.

One is Jean Girard, the villainous gay French race car driver hilariously played by Sacha Baron Cohen (a k a Ali G and Borat) — the sinuous rival to Will Ferrell’s stocky Ricky Bobby in “Talladega Nights.”

Girard, a jazz-loving, white-silk-scarf-wearing, America-disdaining Formula Un driver sponsored by Perrier, is so smooth he can sip macchiato from a china cup, smoke Gitanes and read “L’Etranger” behind the wheel and still lead the Nascar pack.

Frenchie contemptuously informs “cowboy” Bobby that America merely gave the world George Bush, Cheerios and the ThighMaster while France invented democracy, existentialism and the ménage à trois.

The other guy kindling to Camus is none other than the aforementioned George Bush, who read “The Stranger” in English on his Crawford vacation and, Tony Snow told me, “liked it.” Name-dropping existentialists is good for picking up girls, as Woody Allen’s schlemiels found, or getting through the clove-cigarette fog of Humanities 101. But it does seem odd that W., who once mocked NBC’s David Gregory as “intercontinental” for posing a question in French to the French president in France, would choose Camus over Grisham.

Camus is not beach reading — or brush reading. How on earth did this book make it into the hands of our proudly anti-intellectual president?

“I don’t know how ‘L’Etranger’ made it onto his list,” Mr. Snow said. “I must confess, I read ‘L’Etranger’ 25 years ago.” The rest of W.’s reading list was presidentially correct: two books on Lincoln and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Polio: An American Story,” by David Oshinsky. (Not a word by Merleau-Ponty.)

Debunking the theory that W. had a sports section or Mad magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” tucked inside the 1946 classic of angst, Mr. Snow noted that he and the president had “a brief conversation on the origins of French existentialism, Camus and Sartre.” Pressed for more details by an astonished columnist having trouble envisioning Waco as the Left Bank, the press secretary laughed. “Confidential conversation,” he said, extending the administration’s lack of transparency to literature.

He brushed off suggestions that the supremely unself-reflective W. was going through a Carteresque malaise-in-the-gorge moment: “He doesn’t feel like an existentialist trapped in Algeria during the unpleasantness.”

It takes a while to adjust to the idea of W., who has created chaos trying to impose moral order on the globe, perusing Camus, who wrote about the eternal frustration of moral order in human affairs. What does W., the archenemy of absurdity as a view of life, kindle to in C., the apostle of absurdity as a view of life? What can W., the born-again monogamist, spark to in C., the amorous atheist? In some ways, Mr. Bush is supremely not a Camus man. Camus hated the blindness caused by ideology, and Mr. Bush wallows in it. Camus celebrated lucidity while the president keeps seeing only what he wants to see.

Mr. Bush’s life has been premised on his confidence that he will always be insulated from the consequences and the cruelties of existence, unlike Meursault. W. or his people always work to change fate, whether it’s an election or the Middle East.

If you think about it long enough, though, it begins to make a sort of wacky sense.

“The Stranger” is about the emotionally detached Meursault, who makes a lot of bad decisions and pre-emptively kills an Arab in the sand. Get it? Camus’s protagonist moves through an opaque, obscure and violent world that is indifferent to his beliefs and desires. Get it?

If there was ever a moment when this president could regard the unanticipated consequences of his actions, behold the world littered with the very opposite of what he intended for it and appreciate the gritty stoicism of the philosophy of absurdism, this is it. Iraq in civil war. Al Qaeda metastasizing and plotting. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria knitting closer, celebrating a “victory” in standing up to Israel, the U.S. and Britain, and mocking W.’s plan for a “new Middle East.” The North Koreans luxuriating in their nuclear capability. Chávez becoming the new Castro on a global scale.

Maybe next the president should pick up Camus’s other classic, “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Was there ever a national enterprise more Sisyphean than the war in Iraq?

If there was ever a confirmation of Camus’s sense of the absurdity of life, it’s that the president is reading him.

(y) (y) Does Maureen's incisive wit always make me smile as well as shake my head.

:) Speaking of good ole Albert Camus, one of my favorites, however paraphrased here is:

"In the midst of winter, I finally discovered within me, an invincible summer."

Yea, baby!!

(y) That and several other quotes helped get me through some tough times in 1988.

(f) (f) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the "Chewabaka from Star Wars" Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-19-2006, 09:56 AM

:| :|

August 19, 2006

EchoStar Runs Afoul of TiVo’s Video Patents

By KEN BELSON NYTimes

A federal district judge in Texas ruled on Thursday that EchoStar Communications, the satellite television provider, must halt the use of nearly all of its digital video recorders because the company infringed on patents held by TiVo. But another judge yesterday temporarily blocked the injunction, which may give the companies time to reach a licensing deal.

More than 3 million of EchoStar’s 12 million subscribers use EchoStar’s digital video recorders, and the company would probably have faced waves of defections if it had to disable those machines. The recorders are immensely popular and without them EchoStar would be hard pressed to compete with its chief rival, DirecTV, and cable companies like Comcast and Cox.

The companies have been arguing for nearly three years about whether EchoStar illegally used TiVo’s patents for technology that enables digital video recorders to simultaneously store and play back programs, pause live television and other features.

In April, a jury in Texas decided that EchoStar had willfully infringed on TiVo’s patents.

On Thursday, Judge David Folsom of Federal District Court in Texarkana, Tex., issued a permanent injunction preventing EchoStar, which operates the Dish Network, from making, using or selling its digital video recorders in the United States. The judge also ordered EchoStar to pay nearly $90 million in damages and interest.

The injunction would have begun in 30 days. But a federal appeals court in Washington yesterday blocked that ruling until it decides whether to issue a longer stay until the appeal is heard, EchoStar said in an announcement. TiVo has until Wednesday to respond.

Either way, EchoStar faces an uphill battle because the court has already ruled that TiVo’s patents are valid and that EchoStar violated them, analysts and lawyers say. As a consequence, EchoStar may feel compelled to license TiVo’s technology.

“TiVo is definitely in the driver’s seat,” said Paul Lesko, with the intellectual property and patent litigation practice at SimmonsCooper. “They’ve got their patents and they are battle-tested. If you’re EchoStar, you might want to talk about getting a license unless you think there is a great cause for appeal.”

Mr. Lesko said other companies that sell or lease digital video recorders might also strike licensing deals if they think they are at risk of being sued by TiVo.

EchoStar, with a market capitalization of $14.4 billion, might also consider buying TiVo, which is worth about $600 million, an industry analyst at Standard & Poor’s, Tuna Amobi, said.

Other companies might also be interested in TiVo, which has never made a profit but may now appear more valuable because of its patents, Mr. Amobi said.

TiVo’s stock rose 53 cents, or 8.2 percent, to $7.02, while EchoStar’s shares dipped 30 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $32.45.

(n) (n) What a shame for this Cheyenne, Wyoming-based firm. I wonder how good old Rupert Murdoch escaped similar scathing on DDRs (digital disk recorders similar to TiVo) with HIS DBS companies such as DirecTV and B-Sky-B, among others? :@

Hmm, perhaps follow the $$? As in paying the megas for powerful, well-connected lobbyists and patent attorneys? Or God/dess forbid paying under-the-table for rulings that are meant to intentionally destroy the competition?:|

:| :s Something really stinks about this. Murdoch and TiVo might be trying to edge Echostar out of the DBS (direct broadcast satellite) services arena. And THAT really pisses me off - just on the issues of ethical business principles and practices - not to mention personal integrity. No, I don't own any stock in Echostar....;) I do support the smaller firms struggling to stay in business, however.

<sigh>

(c) (c) and maybe pull on a light, baby-soft shawl as the air conditioning duct here in my office is in the ceiling, the cold air falls and my shoulders are getting a slight chill. Yes, I could get up and turn the thermostat higher but warm temps are expected this afternoon.:)

Sun Thoughts (f) (f) ,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the now-napping Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-19-2006, 10:19 AM

;)

August 17, 2006

Skin Deep

Throw Your Tweezers Away

By NATASHA SINGER NYTimes

WHETHER fake or farm-raised, fur makes a fashionable fall accessory. But this season the trendiest fluff is not the trim on coats or handbags. Autumn’s most prized pelt is the hairy eyebrow.

“For women who overpluck, this season will be about growing your eyebrows back so that they have a natural arch that extends out and ends in a beautiful point,” said Pat McGrath, a makeup artist for Max Factor and CoverGirl and the creative director for Procter & Gamble Beauty.

Ms. McGrath is one of the trend-setting stylists responsible for unleashing the feral eyebrow as this season’s beauty signature. At the Prada fall fashion show in Milan in February, she combed models’ eyebrows up with clear mascara so that they fanned out like plumage, lending their faces a wild expression which Ms. McGrath described as “sauvage.”

Her exaggerated runway look is already having an impact on personal grooming. Some women who once plucked zealously are now hoping that the thin brown lines on their foreheads bloom into thickets.

“On both coasts, everybody wants a thicker brow that reminds you of Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner,” said Robyn Cosio, an eyebrow stylist who works at the Salon by Maxime in Beverly Hills and Eiji salon in Manhattan. “People love that I leave the two bottom layers of undergrowth and don’t take out so much in between the brows so that they can stick up and look feathered.”

Ladies, lay down your tweezers. Facial hair hasn’t been this much in demand since the advent in 1978 of Brooke Shields. Indeed, this month French Vogue devotes an entire page to the tinted, brushed and glossed eyebrow, recommending a “dense and proud” brow as the best way to structure a face.

The fringed frons is making a comeback because of chunky, angular fall fashions, said James Kaliardos, a makeup artist in New York and Paris. Previous seasons were full of frilly, delicate, ladylike clothes best complemented by pink-hued cosmetics and a thinner hyper-groomed brow. But this season’s outfits with their pared-down constructivist silhouettes call for a more natural-looking face anchored by a prominent brow, he said.

“With a stronger, more graphic quality to the clothes like the fall collection from Balenciaga, you want strong eyebrows that make you look intelligent and empowered, and you want to keep the rest of the face clean,” Mr. Kaliardos said. For the fall advertising campaign for Chanel, for example, he strengthened the already well-endowed brows of Daria Werbowy, a Polish-born Canadian model, by shading them with an eyebrow pencil, but he left her other features almost unadorned, he said.

In addition to Ms. Werbowy, a clique of naturally Dracula-browed Eastern European fashion models —that means you, Natalia, Vlada, Eugenia, Sasha and Snejana — is inspiring a return to the bold brow. But the hairiest of them all is Hilary Rhoda, a fresh-faced American model possessed of eyebrows as furry as tufted caterpillars, whose eerie resemblance to Ms. Shields recently landed her on the covers of Italian and French Vogue.

“That baby face with an eyebrow that says ‘I know what I want’ is what made Brooke Shields so incredible,” Mr. Kaliardos said. “Hilary has that pure rich-kid look about her like Margaux Hemingway.”

To achieve the furry but tamed Hemingway eyebrow, Ms. McGrath suggested an appointment with a professional eyebrow groomer.

“Giving yourself a beautiful eyebrow is not one of the easiest things to do,” Ms. McGrath said.

For those who want to create fuller brows at home, she suggested a way to ensure that they look evenly shaped. Start by drawing over the straggly hairs you want to remove with a white eyeliner pencil to guarantee that the placement is right before tweezing them.

Next, to create fullness, use a brow pencil or brow powder that is two shades lighter than your natural eyebrow color to fill in between the hairs. The brow should look blended rather than drawn on, she said. Finally, use clear mascara or eyebrow gel to fluff hairs — push them up so they are almost vertical — and then brush them back down, fixing them into shape, she said.

For those with very sparse brows, some salons offer eyebrow extensions. At LuxLash on Newbury Street in Boston, for example, Suzanne Cats, the owner, thickens brows by gluing a tiny fiber onto each existing hair. The process, which costs $75 to $250, can take 45 minutes to two hours and the false eyebrow effect lasts two weeks, she said. She also offers brow prosthetics — hairpieces for the eyebrows — in 20 different shapes and shades.

“It’s for women who previously had their brows made too thin,” Ms. Cats said.

But Ms. Cosio, an author of a book on the history of brows called “The Eyebrow,” said that a furry fringe does not fit everyone.

“If you have wild, thick, dense hair, a thicker brow can make you look heavy, harsh and mad,” Ms. Cosio said.

For those who do wish to emphasize the brows, Mr. Kaliardos recommended playing down other facial features by going easy on foundation and wearing sheerer lipsticks in natural-looking pink-brown hues.

“The slightest amount that you do to your eyebrows makes a big statement,” Mr. Kaliardos said. “If you are not careful, you will end up looking like Groucho Marx.”

(n) So I guess ladies like me who tweezed the hell out of their eye brows to be skinny lines back in high school - now need an eyebrow "rug"?? F* that...LOL. ;) ;)

(o) to start thinking about grad school work again. I have been seriously considering dropping out of the PhD program that I have been in since January, 2005. It seems that the university is *trying* their best to p*ss me off the past couple of months and perhaps to get me to quit. Or maybe my hormones are impacting my perspectives.....:'(

:( Yesterday I received an email confirming my attendance at a conference in Dallas that starts today. I cancelled that last week (via email with a copy to my doctoral advisor) when the grant and loan check did not arrive in time to deposit and make plane and hotel reservations. When I called yesterday right after receiving the confirmation - I was told someone would call me back. I have been worrying ever since nobody did return my calls or emails. Maybe I should just let it go for now and if or when they try to charge me the entire $1,350 colloquia attendance fee despite my not going - tell them to pound sand - and that I have an email to prove that I cancelled it more than a week ago.

Get this. I wrote an email last week asking that I not be assessed the $150. cancellation fee because the university did not get me the funds in enough time to GO to this conference or colloquia.

Perhaps I found Maureen Dowd's recent Op-Ed article on Camus' absurdity to apply to my own life the past several weeks.

Between COMCAST digital services being completely OUT for days and this past week, I have been observing the digital errors that indicate another outtage - and the stupidity (or intentional actions) by folks at the online university I have been attending - added to the fact that I have not been feeling all that well. I think it's that I have a difficult time with managing stress sometimes - especially when things seem to come in continuous, endless waves. Geez, I can't hide out any more that I have been, hermit-lady that I have been feeling..;)

Last Sunday I did go and get a 90 minute massage, facial and body salt scrub. I intended to put a faux tanner on but haven't yet. Wyatt thinks his mama is a "pup-cicle" when I get out of the shower and put on body lotions, etc., so I need to do it when he's sleeping.

;) Right. I get up out of my desk chair and he's up and following me. He follows me every place including the "loo". Sweet puppy that he is just wants to follow his mama. Thank God/Dess for him! Walks and playing and taking care of him gives me such loving daily structure lately.

I hate this required course on educational philosophy and change. Five more weeks and then three weeks off!

Thanks for reading my Saturday thoughts which I have been holding inside and was not going to share with anyone, because to me, these thoughts all sound like I'm playing a victim and I absolutely hate that. I need to focus on what I am grateful for and make a list today. THAT always helps me to get back on track and outta the weeds.

({) (}) ({) (}) ({) (}) ({) (}) Hugs to friends across this digital tundra called the Internet.

Have a delightfully pleasant Satuday and rest of your weekend, all!

Adieu,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-19-2006, 05:30 PM

(h) (h)

Jackie Warner is owner and managing director of Sky Sport and Spa, an exclusive sports medicine and fitness facility centrally located in Beverly Hills, California. Since its establishment in January 2004, Sky Sport and Spa has gained a strong reputation among clients and industry experts for its distinctive design and superior personalized services. The only facility of its kind providing a 360° view of Los Angeles, Sky Sport and Spa offers multiple services including private personal training, nutritional counseling, chiropractic care, group exercise classes, yoga, kick-boxing, massage therapy, physical therapy....

http://www.bravotv.com/Work_Out/bios/Jackie_Warner.shtml

(h) (h) (h) HOT!!!!(h) (h) (h)

:) Drop the 26 year old loser Femme playing games and is such a loser! Find a real lady who loves you and wants to support you!! All my support, Jackie!! I have learned SO MUCH from you! Especially about dating new people.(l) (l)

Please, BRAVO Netork? RENEW the show!!!

Love from a middle-aged lady, however-admiring fan,

Sweetlady

sweetlady

08-19-2006, 05:37 PM

:) :)

http://www.bravotv.com/Work_Out/bios//index.shtml

(h) (h) (i) (i)

({) (}) ({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt and Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-20-2006, 02:00 AM

(h) (h)

August 15, 2006

Elusive Proof, Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Grisha Perelman, where are you?

Three years ago, a Russian mathematician by the name of Grigory Perelman, a k a Grisha, in St. Petersburg, announced that he had solved a famous and intractable mathematical problem, known as the Poincaré conjecture, about the nature of space.

After posting a few short papers on the Internet and making a whirlwind lecture tour of the United States, Dr. Perelman disappeared back into the Russian woods in the spring of 2003, leaving the world’s mathematicians to pick up the pieces and decide if he was right.

Now they say they have finished his work, and the evidence is circulating among scholars in the form of three book-length papers with about 1,000 pages of dense mathematics and prose between them.

As a result there is a growing feeling, a cautious optimism that they have finally achieved a landmark not just of mathematics, but of human thought.

“It’s really a great moment in mathematics,” said Bruce Kleiner of Yale, who has spent the last three years helping to explicate Dr. Perelman’s work. “It could have happened 100 years from now, or never.”

In a speech at a conference in Beijing this summer, Shing-Tung Yau of Harvard said the understanding of three-dimensional space brought about by Poincaré’s conjecture could be one of the major pillars of math in the 21st century.

Quoting Poincaré himself, Dr.Yau said, “Thought is only a flash in the middle of a long night, but the flash that means everything.”

But at the moment of his putative triumph, Dr. Perelman is nowhere in sight. He is an odds-on favorite to win a Fields Medal, math’s version of the Nobel Prize, when the International Mathematics Union convenes in Madrid next Tuesday. But there is no indication whether he will show up.

Also left hanging, for now, is $1 million offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for the first published proof of the conjecture, one of seven outstanding questions for which they offered a ransom back at the beginning of the millennium.

“It’s very unusual in math that somebody announces a result this big and leaves it hanging,” said John Morgan of Columbia, one of the scholars who has also been filling in the details of Dr. Perelman’s work.

Mathematicians have been waiting for this result for more than 100 years, ever since the French polymath Henri Poincaré posed the problem in 1904. And they acknowledge that it may be another 100 years before its full implications for math and physics are understood. For now, they say, it is just beautiful, like art or a challenging new opera.

Dr. Morgan said the excitement came not from the final proof of the conjecture, which everybody felt was true, but the method, “finding deep connections between what were unrelated fields of mathematics.”

William Thurston of Cornell, the author of a deeper conjecture that includes Poincaré’s and that is now apparently proved, said, “Math is really about the human mind, about how people can think effectively, and why curiosity is quite a good guide,” explaining that curiosity is tied in some way with intuition.

“You don’t see what you’re seeing until you see it,” Dr. Thurston said, “but when you do see it, it lets you see many other things.”

Depending on who is talking, Poincaré’s conjecture can sound either daunting or deceptively simple. It asserts that if any loop in a certain kind of three-dimensional space can be shrunk to a point without ripping or tearing either the loop or the space, the space is equivalent to a sphere.

The conjecture is fundamental to topology, the branch of math that deals with shapes, sometimes described as geometry without the details. To a topologist, a sphere, a cigar and a rabbit’s head are all the same because they can be deformed into one another. Likewise, a coffee mug and a doughnut are also the same because each has one hole, but they are not equivalent to a sphere.

In effect, what Poincaré suggested was that anything without holes has to be a sphere. The one qualification was that this “anything” had to be what mathematicians call compact, or closed, meaning that it has a finite extent: no matter how far you strike out in one direction or another, you can get only so far away before you start coming back, the way you can never get more than 12,500 miles from home on the Earth.

In the case of two dimensions, like the surface of a sphere or a doughnut, it is easy to see what Poincaré was talking about: imagine a rubber band stretched around an apple or a doughnut; on the apple, the rubber band can be shrunk without limit, but on the doughnut it is stopped by the hole.

With three dimensions, it is harder to discern the overall shape of something; we cannot see where the holes might be. “We can’t draw pictures of 3-D spaces,” Dr. Morgan said, explaining that when we envision the surface of a sphere or an apple, we are really seeing a two-dimensional object embedded in three dimensions. Indeed, astronomers are still arguing about the overall shape of the universe, wondering if its topology resembles a sphere, a bagel or something even more complicated.

Poincaré’s conjecture was subsequently generalized to any number of dimensions, but in fact the three-dimensional version has turned out to be the most difficult of all cases to prove. In 1960 Stephen Smale, now at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, proved that it is true in five or more dimensions and was awarded a Fields Medal. In 1983, Michael Freedman, now at Microsoft, proved that it is true in four dimensions and also won a Fields.

“You get a Fields Medal for just getting close to this conjecture,” Dr. Morgan said.

In the late 1970’s, Dr. Thurston extended Poincaré’s conjecture, showing that it was only a special case of a more powerful and general conjecture about three-dimensional geometry, namely that any space can be decomposed into a few basic shapes.

Mathematicians had known since the time of Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, in the 19th century, that in two dimensions there are only three possible shapes: flat like a sheet of paper, closed like a sphere, or curved uniformly in two opposite directions like a saddle or the flare of a trumpet. Dr. Thurston suggested that eight different shapes could be used to make up any three-dimensional space.

“Thurston’s conjecture almost leads to a list,” Dr. Morgan said. “If it is true,” he added, “Poincaré’s conjecture falls out immediately.” Dr. Thurston won a Fields in 1986.

Topologists have developed an elaborate set of tools to study and dissect shapes, including imaginary cutting and pasting, which they refer to as “surgery,” but they were not getting anywhere for a long time.

In the early 1980’s Richard Hamilton of Columbia suggested a new technique, called the Ricci flow, borrowed from the kind of mathematics that underlies Einstein’s general theory of relativity and string theory, to investigate the shapes of spaces.

Dr. Hamilton’s technique makes use of the fact that for any kind of geometric space there is a formula called the metric, which determines the distance between any pair of nearby points. Applied mathematically to this metric, the Ricci flow acts like heat, flowing through the space in question, smoothing and straightening all its bumps and curves to reveal its essential shape, the way a hair dryer shrink-wraps plastic.

Dr. Hamilton succeeded in showing that certain generally round objects, like a head, would evolve into spheres under this process, but the fates of more complicated objects were problematic. As the Ricci flow progressed, kinks and neck pinches, places of infinite density known as singularities, could appear, pinch off and even shrink away. Topologists could cut them away, but there was no guarantee that new ones would not keep popping up forever.

“All sorts of things can potentially happen in the Ricci flow,” said Robert Greene, a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nobody knew what to do with these things, so the result was a logjam.

It was Dr. Perelman who broke the logjam. He was able to show that the singularities were all friendly. They turned into spheres or tubes. Moreover, they did it in a finite time once the Ricci flow started. That meant topologists could, in their fashion, cut them off, and allow the Ricci process to continue to its end, revealing the topologically spherical essence of the space in question, and thus proving the conjectures of both Poincaré and Thurston.

Dr. Perelman’s first paper, promising “a sketch of an eclectic proof,” came as a bolt from the blue when it was posted on the Internet in November 2002. “Nobody knew he was working on the Poincaré conjecture,” said Michael T. Anderson of the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

Dr. Perelman had already established himself as a master of differential geometry, the study of curves and surfaces, which is essential to, among other things, relativity and string theory Born in St. Petersburg in 1966, he distinguished himself as a high school student by winning a gold medal with a perfect score in the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1982. After getting a Ph.D. from St. Petersburg State, he joined the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg.

In a series of postdoctoral fellowships in the United States in the early 1990’s, Dr. Perelman impressed his colleagues as “a kind of unworldly person,” in the words of Dr. Greene of U.C.L.A. — friendly, but shy and not interested in material wealth.

“He looked like Rasputin, with long hair and fingernails,” Dr. Greene said.

Asked about Dr. Perelman’s pleasures, Dr. Anderson said that he talked a lot about hiking in the woods near St. Petersburg looking for mushrooms.

Dr. Perelman returned to those woods, and the Steklov Institute, in 1995, spurning offers from Stanford and Princeton, among others. In 1996 he added to his legend by turning down a prize for young mathematicians from the European Mathematics Society.

Until his papers on Poincaré started appearing, some friends thought Dr. Perelman had left mathematics. Although they were so technical and abbreviated that few mathematicians could read them, they quickly attracted interest among experts. In the spring of 2003, Dr. Perelman came back to the United States to give a series of lectures at Stony Brook and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also spoke at Columbia, New York University and Princeton.

But once he was back in St. Petersburg, he did not respond to further invitations. The e-mail gradually ceased.

“He came once, he explained things, and that was it,” Dr. Anderson said. “Anything else was superfluous.”

Recently, Dr. Perelman is said to have resigned from Steklov. E-mail messages addressed to him and to the Steklov Institute went unanswered.

In his absence, others have taken the lead in trying to verify and disseminate his work. Dr. Kleiner of Yale and John Lott of the University of Michigan have assembled a monograph annotating and explicating Dr. Perelman’s proof of the two conjectures.

Dr. Morgan of Columbia and Gang Tian of Princeton have followed Dr. Perelman’s prescription to produce a more detailed 473-page step-by-step proof only of Poincaré’s Conjecture. “Perelman did all the work,” Dr. Morgan said. “This is just explaining it.”

Both works were supported by the Clay institute, which has posted them on its Web site, claymath.org. Meanwhile, Huai-Dong Cao of Lehigh University and Xi-Ping Zhu of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, China, have published their own 318-page proof of both conjectures in The Asian Journal of Mathematics (www.ims.cuhk.edu.hk/).

Although these works were all hammered out in the midst of discussion and argument by experts, in workshops and lectures, they are about to receive even stricter scrutiny and perhaps crossfire. “Caution is appropriate,” said Dr. Kleiner, because the Poincaré conjecture is not just famous, but important.

James Carlson, president of the Clay Institute, said the appearance of these papers had started the clock ticking on a two-year waiting period mandated by the rules of the Clay Millennium Prize. After two years, he said, a committee will be appointed to recommend a winner or winners if it decides the proof has stood the test of time.

“There is nothing in the rules to prevent Perelman from receiving all or part of the prize,” Dr. Carlson said, saying that Dr. Perelman and Dr. Hamilton had obviously made the main contributions to the proof.

In a lecture at M.I.T. in 2003, Dr. Perelman described himself “in a way” as Dr. Hamilton’s disciple, although they had never worked together. Dr. Hamilton, who got his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1966, is too old to win the Fields medal, which is given only up to the age of 40, but he is slated to give the major address about the Poincaré conjecture in Madrid next week. He did not respond to requests for an interview.

Allowing that Dr. Perelman, should he win the Clay Prize, might refuse the honor, Dr. Carlson said the institute could decide instead to use award money to support Russian mathematicians, the Steklov Institute or even the Math Olympiad.

Dr. Anderson said that to some extent the new round of papers already represented a kind of peer review of Dr. Perelman’s work. “All these together make the case pretty clear,” he said. “The community accepts the validity of his work. It’s commendable that the community has gotten together.”

(y) (h) (y) (h)

:) :) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-23-2006, 09:38 PM

:s :s

Who's hiring in the valley? Internet giants, retailers, food and drinking places

By Frank Michael Russell

Mercury News Assistant Business Editor

What's up with Silicon Valley's job market? The clues are mixed, according to a report today from the state Employment Development Department.

Beautiful Santa Clara and San Benito counties lost 1,300 payroll jobs in July compared with the month before, but the drop was primarily because of the usual seasonal drop in public-school employment. Other sectors of the valley's economy added jobs compared with the month before, including computer and electronics manufacturing, food manufacturing and retail.
Compared with a year ago, the number of payroll jobs jumped 2,200, or a relatively flat 0.3 percent, to 880,500. Leisure and hospitality employment (including those always popular food and drinking establishments) was up by 1,300 jobs. Economists have called that a sign of strength for Silicon Valley: It means business travel is up, and busy tech workers here have extra cash in their pockets, but not enough time to cook meals for themselves.

Other gains were in wholesale and retail trade, as well as information, which includes growing Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo that employ many busy tech workers.

Silicon Valley's unemployment rate, meanwhile, was 5.0 percent, the same as June but down from 5.8 percent a year earlier. By comparison, unemployment was at 5.1 percent throughout California and 5.0 percent nationwide.

:s Glad I don't live there anymore.....;)

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-23-2006, 09:41 PM

:o :o

You can see how the El Nino and La Nina years stand out.

ENSO is also a big factor in what to expect for the Atlantic hurricane season. La Nina favors more hurricanes in the Atlantic, while El Nino has the opposite effect. Last year's La Nina was just one of many positive factors in the record-breaking season. But now the La Nina is gone, and we are crossing into El Nino territory.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

Look at how the warmer waters have increased near the equator in the Pacific in recent months:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/sstanim.shtml

This ENSO swing could be a factor (along with others) in making this hurricane season much less active than last.
**********

And look at how warm the water is just beneath the surface, with nothing but unusually warm yellow and orange colors:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml

We're not really sure how much of that extremely warm water will make it's way to the surface during the rest of the year, but we can be very sure that we will be in some sort of El Nino. The more of those orange colors make it to the surface, the stronger the El Nino will become.

The intensity of the El Nino is very important in determining how this winter will turn out. The stronger El Nino's tend to give us very mild winters, with lots of Nor'easters, but we often only get close calls with snow since it's too warm. Weaker El Nino's lead to more coastal storms, but it's often cold enough for snow. So, snow lovers root for weak El Nino's or even neutral conditions in winter. The next few months in the tropical Pacific will be a big factor in what we can expect this winter. Stay tuned.

(*) Hmmm.....it's getting to the point where the weather is so completely different in so many geographic locations - that choosing a place to move to has become the luck of the draw - at least from a weather perspective. Maybe the North Pole......

;) ;s,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-23-2006, 09:43 PM

:o :o

http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com/DDTSecard.html

;) ;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-23-2006, 09:44 PM

:| :|

http://www.humancar.com/

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-23-2006, 09:45 PM

:)

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/08/22/the-virtuoso-self-playing-violin/#more-2959

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 05:16 PM

:| :|

;)

http://tinyurl.com/nxeth

(y) (y) (y) <tee-hee> ;)

Adieu,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 05:18 PM

:) :) :)

I would like to see someone else solve this one......:) :)

http://www.brl.ntt.co.jp/people/hara/fly.swf

(y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h)

;) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 05:20 PM

;) ;)

http://wcau.nbcweatherplus.com/weather/8674117/detail.html

(h) This is pretty cool. I spent about ten minutes learning all about tornados and other types of weather. The roll-overs and other cool tools made it "pace-through" really fast.

(y) (y) Someone at the local NBC TV station is taking time to attract viewers to their web site, particularly for Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz's weather predictions.

Carpe Diem,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:11 PM

:) :)

Be still my heart:

Fitness Guardian: http://www.fitnessguardian.com/

(y) (y) I was thinking today about getting some if Jackie had any workout DVD's.....and found this delightful web site.(h)

(k) (k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:14 PM

(h) (h)

http://www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/forum/thread/gossip/3636442/page-1.html?findpage=3637798

(y) Definitely a place where the fur flies! ;) ;)

(k) 's,

SL

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:15 PM

:) :)

http://mombian.com/category/entertainment/

(f) (f) For moms who also happen to be <insert whatever label you prefer>.(y) (y)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:20 PM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

(h) (h) (h) (h)

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=84054483

(h) (h) www.skysportspa.com

(*) (*) (*) Wow! The photos, graphics, everything rocks. Defiitely a site for sore eyes...;) ;)

Lovely evening, all.

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:27 PM

:) :)

Review of Work Out

by Suzanne Corson, Afterellen

07.19.2006 12:00 AM EDT

Bravo, the cable channel where "queer" has more often than not been synonymous with "gay men," finally has something to offer those who object to the self-styled lesbian-and-gay-friendly network's paucity of lesbians: their new summer docudrama Work Out stars lesbian Jackie Warner. Not only is this woman out--and in a visible relationship--she's in charge.

And how.

Jackie Warner, 37, owns and operates Sky Sport and Spa, an exclusive rooftop sports medicine and fitness facility in Beverly Hills. With a 360 degree view of Los Angeles and its environs, the scenery competes for attention with the hard bodies and beautiful faces within. And it's all her baby.

Confident, skilled, and determined, Warner's stated goal is to build the best team of trainers possible to help create a place that changes people's lives for the better. Like their buff, blonde, and tan boss, the seven trainers featured in Work Out are textbook examples of L.A.'s beautiful people. The four men and three women range in age from 25 to 43 and run the gamut of the Kinsey scale--from ladies man Brian, to "flirts with everyone" Rebecca, to gay men Doug and Jesse.

Reality shows and docudramas routinely feature stereotypically good-looking participants and depict them with hair and makeup intact even when engaged in an activity (hiking up a mountain, building a house) anyone else would look, at best, disheveled while doing. Work Out doesn't have to worry about such incongruities, since it's expected that employees at such a place would have toned (and in L.A., tan) bodies. In addition, though, this series films the trainers and clients as they sweat, grunt, and strain for those bodies. Yes, it really does take work, on and off the camera.

The women work it as much as the guys, and in fact, Rebecca, 30, and a former competitor on The Amazing Race, wins the boot camp fitness competition among the trainers in the second episode. Strong women, good. Much of the strength we see, though, is in Jackie herself.

Jackie Warner knows her stuff: fitness, wellness, motivation, and discipline. She insists the trainers follow her lead, declaring "My place, my rules." This sets the scene for plenty of conflict, especially between Warner and headstrong Brian, aka Peeler ("If you want to peel those pounds away, ask for Peeler," he boasts).

She is continually frustrated that Brian, 27, doesn't train the way she has instructed, and he's angry when she corrects his technique in front of a client. Testosterone clichés are alive and well, as we soon see him furiously pumping iron after that encounter.

Jackie decides to hire a new trainer in case she needs to replace Brian and conducts the training part of the interviews in the gym, in front of everyone. Threatened by this, Brian tries to bond with Jackie--by inviting her to a strip club. Jackie's astonished that Brian can be so clueless as to assume that just because she's a lesbian, she would enjoy such an outing.

Though Brian is the largest thorn in Jackie's side at the gym, Work Out also shows dyke drama aplenty, thanks to the coverage of Jackie's relationship with her passionate, quick to anger, and jealous girlfriend, Mimi. Together for nearly four years, the couple is now learning to deal with Jackie's increased concentration on her business: Mimi feels neglected; Jackie isn't feeling supported. They fight frequently but make up quickly. Jackie is growing weary of their arguments, but it's clear she loves Mimi and wants to build a future with her. She even good naturedly deals with her girlfriend's tendency to bite: "She bites me when she loves me, and she bites me when she's mad."

To its credit, Work Out gives Jackie and Mimi's relationship significant airtime, acknowledging its importance in Jackie's life; it's much more than the stated-but-not-shown relationships we're used to (not) seeing between lesbians on television. Work Out does not shy away from showing Mimi and Jackie in bed, cuddling together at restaurants, and at Jackie's home playing with her dogs. Nor does it paint a perfect picture; their coupling has tension and difficulty along with the playfulness and passion. It's great to see realistic glimpses of what a four-year-old relationship between two women looks like.

The series also addresses Jackie's lesbianism at the gym, as when she's asked by a male client if she gets hit on often. She says yes, but that's she's not available now since she has a girlfriend. "Oh, that's cool," he says, and then mentions how some women experiment with sexuality. Jackie casually but firmly says that's not the case for her, that she's gay. What a positive statement this makes for Jackie to emphatically and proudly declare her lesbianism in front of clients as well as in her personal life.

Bisexuality and/or bi-curiosity is also alive and well at Sky Sport, where sexual energy flies off the screen often, with lycra-clad bodies in suggestive positions. Rebecca, for instance, is fond of touching the breasts of her female clients and happily declares "I spanked a playmate!" after hitting Playboy cover girl Victoria Fuller's behind.

The trainers also spend one afternoon discussing in which order they'd have sex with each other, and the answers are definitely not straight-laced. Though this docudrama does not have the clearest nor most realistic depictions of bisexuality, it is a good sign that the such energy and dynamics are openly acknowledged.

While Rebecca and Brian enjoy lots of airtime in the first two episodes, the other trainers are interesting, too--and certainly more mature. With an Angelina Jolie-type look, brooding brunette Erika, 27, is the senior trainer and acts as Jackie's eyes and ears on the gym floor. Zen, 34, is a sporty-dyke looking cutie with an infectious grin and a great sense of humor. Ex-military man Andre, 35, comes off fierce, saying he works his clients hard and doesn't take no for an answer. California boy Doug is friendly, 43, gay, and has a (so far off-camera) boyfriend. Newest on the team is Jesse, 25, cute, vivacious, and also gay.

Work Out also explores Jackie's business acumen and management style in addition to her, and the other trainers', thoughts about nutrition, wellness, and fitness. We learn more about all of them when Jackie puts the trainers through their paces at the boot camp-type retreat in the second episode. It's a way for her to demonstrate her "work hard, play hard" philosophy.

It is refreshing to see that one Beverly Hills stereotype, an affinity for body-modifying surgery, is not embraced by Jackie and her staff. Jackie and Erika eagerly work with a client who wants to combat back pain with a workout regimen rather than undergo the breast reduction procedure suggested by her doctor. And in the previews of coming episodes, they work with a woman who is attempting to avoid a gastric bypass. From what I could see in brief glimpses of her, though, this woman didn't seem heavy enough to be a candidate for such a procedure (usually 100 lbs. over the "ideal" weight). Guess it would be too much of a stretch for them to show a supersize woman as a client.

The previews also reveal that Jackie's mom, who lives in Ohio, will visit and apparently has problems with her daughter's lifestyle and the concepts of gay marriage and parenting.

With Sky Sport's status as an elite private gym located in Beverly Hills, it's not surprising that celebrities are among their clients. Singer Jody Watley is a regular client and friend of Doug's, while Young and the Restless star Krisoff St. John works out with Jackie. Others we see in the first two episodes are actor and model Tara Gerard and actor Alex Quinn, son of Anthony.

If seeing a lesbian with a girlfriend and beautiful people doing the work needed to maintain their beautiful bodies isn't unique enough, we also get to hear the rare "f" word. When voicing her disdain of Rebecca's sexed-up "floor etiquette," Jackie declares "As a strong woman and a feminist, I have a hard time when someone plays the sex card all the time." I almost fainted from delighted surprise when I heard a lead character from a TV show call herself a feminist. When did that last happen--on Cybill?

Work Out has frenetic pacing, similar to sister Bravo show Blow Out. The blend of fitness and wellness philosophies, business dynamics, banter between the trainers, and Jackie's love life create a personable, amusing, though decidedly elitist show. The exclusive gym setting may be off-putting for some viewers, but Jackie is a complex character who is by turns sophisticated, mature, irreverent, harsh, compassionate, fun, workaholic, loving, and intense. It is interesting to see how she holds herself so well and with such integrity with many different kinds of people. The trainers are an entertaining bunch, too, though Brian's immaturity gets old very quickly.

Bravo, the network previously known for their queerness being laden with testosterone, gets kudos for airing a series with a lesbian lead character, but more importantly, for allowing the lesbian lead character to have a lesbian life in more than name only. Hopefully Work Out will serve as a warm up for their ordering more lesbian-themed programming in the future.

http://www.logoonline.com/news/story.jhtml?id=1536640&disableFeatureRedirect=true&contentTypeID=1300

(*) (*) Remarkable show. Wish I were in my 30's again. ;)

:) Not really. I would not want to live through those years again and am enjoying this self-assuredness that only experience and wisdom can provide.

Still - this weekly show was quite an enjoyable diversion. Not the high-quality (and dollar) production as the L-Word, but this might be the second (after "Queer Eye.....) reality show that I enjoy. All of the others are worthless time wasters in my view. However, everyone needs their mental bubblegum to chill out and vegetate, yes?

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the napping Boxer Pup (S) (&) (S)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:32 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

by Michele Helberg, August 17, 2006

(p) (p) (photos included!) (6)

HBO's Deadwood, with its landscape filled with foul-mouthed male characters, is one of the last places one might expect to find a fascinating, three-dimensional female character, let alone a queer one. But once viewers are roped into this multi-layered series from David Milch (co-creator of NYPD Blue), they have the pleasure of meeting a handful of women who hold their own in an environment that is at its best, dangerous, and at its worst, deadly. One such woman, Joanie Stubbs (played by Kim Dickens), is not only well-drawn, but by Season 3 is firmly established as preferring the company of women.

Deadwood isn't for everyone. The show's language and violence are both very graphic, and many critics have labeled the show misogynist. But because the series is modeled on the historic town of Deadwood, S.D., and takes place in the early 1870s when the women's suffrage movement was just beginning to take shape, the portrayal of female characters as disempowered is all too accurate.

Formed as a mining community, the real Deadwood was a dangerous place, full of harsh conditions. On the Deadwood Season 2 DVD, historians comment that because of this atmosphere, women in the camp were typically prostitutes who worked at the camp saloons. It is within the walls of one such "entertainment emporium" that one of Deadwood's unique and noteworthy female characters, madam Joanie Stubbs emerges.

Joanie is introduced during the first season in connection with the Bella Union Saloon, a high-class brothel owned by Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe). It is quickly apparent that Joanie, who uses both her street smarts and her grace to win people over, is a woman who understands society's rules but who also resists them.

As season one progresses, we learn that Joanie's father sexually abused her and then sold her to Cy Tolliver, an experience that will later be revealed to have had significant consequences.

Joanie's possible lesbianism is hinted at in the first season. In Episode 5, “The Trial of Jack McCall,” Joanie has a conflict of conscience which puts her at odds with Cy. Afterward, he walks in on her bathing some of the women who work at the Bella Union, and asks her if she has resolved her issue from earlier. Without blinking, Joanie kisses the woman she is washing, as if to tell Cy that she's back to her old self, but after he leaves it becomes clear that Joanie is full of sadness.

In Episode 7, the arrival of a new prostitute at the Bella Union, Flora (played by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars), once again revisits the question of Joanie's sexuality. In one of their first scenes together, Joanie gives Flora tips on working in the world's oldest profession, advising her that she needs to act happier if she wants to attract clients. Flora replies, “I thought I only had to act it with them that want to stick it in me.”

Joanie answers, “You never know who that might be, Flora.” From Kim Dickens' delivery, it's clear that Joanie is implying that Flora's potential clients might not be the typical men she expects — they might be female; they might be Joanie herself.

In Episode 8, Flora shows up at Joanie's door after being upset by witnessing a murder. Flora asks if she can stay with her for the rest of the night, and after Joanie agrees, Flora tries to seduce Joanie, who doesn't take the bait. The next morning Cy sees Flora sneaking out, and he teases Joanie, commenting that it's good to see her adding more notches to her belt.

From this point on and for most of the second season, Joanie's sexuality is put on the back burner. She leaves the Bella Union and opens her own brothel with the help of a friend from back East, only to have the brothel's working girls fall victim to a serial killer. Following the downfall of this endeavor, Joanie is at the end of her rope until she begins to form a friendship with Calamity Jane, one of the many historical figures sprinkled throughout the series.

The real-life Jane, one of Wild Bill Hickok's traveling companions, was known to be a hard-drinking frontier woman who could stand up to any man but who also had a softer side, even helping to nurse the citizens of the town during a small pox plague. It's worth noting that Deadwood's Calamity Jane follows this historical description and stands in stark contrast to the wholesome, blonde perkiness of the Doris Day version in the 1953 movie musical Calamity Jane.

Toward the end of Season 2, Jane (played with gusto by Robin Weigert) starts to spend a great deal of time in the company of Joanie Stubbs. At first their relationship is forged because Jane feels the need to look out for the former madam following her run-in with a killer. By Season 3, their friendship has developed, and both women are looking out for each other. Jane keeps an eye on Joanie, whose attitude about living is wavering, and Joanie keeps an eye on Jane, especially where Jane's drinking is concerned.

As awkward moments between the two increase, it becomes apparent that what is being said isn't as important as what is not said, thus setting up a developing subtextual lesbian relationship. The tension between Joanie and Jane finally comes to a head in the middle of the third season.

At the end of “A Rich Find,” Joanie finds a very drunk Jane in the streets and helps her return to the room she has rented. In the next episode, “Unauthorized Cinnamon,” Joanie tries to give the inebriated Jane a sponge bath while Jane, who is uncomfortable about stripping in front of Joanie, blusters about how she shouldn't care. “I never had a sister,” Jane offers as an explanation for her discomfort.

Joanie replies: “I had two. And I slept with both of 'em.” Although the suggestion that Joanie has engaged in incestuous relations with her sisters is one of the most disturbing aspects of her character, longtime viewers will recall the first season revelation that Joanie was sexually abused by her father. Joanie continues, “ I don't know why God let me or … if he forgives me when I pray, but — but I'd never hurt you, Jane, or touch you if you didn't want.”

Jane responds by inviting Joanie to kiss her, and after their kiss, the typically masculine Jane reveals a previously unseen vulnerability.

In the next episode, “Leviathan Smiles,” it is the next morning, and we see Joanie, fully dressed in her finery, staring out onto the streets of Deadwood. She walks to a pile on the floor who is revealed to be the sleeping body of Jane, whom Joanie wakens. Telling her she is leaving, Joanie offers up her bed to her friend. In an awkward moment, Jane leaps up and puts on her jacket and hat, never once making eye contact with Joanie.

As they both depart the lodging house, they come upon proprietor, standing in front of his door with what could be described as a protest sign. He quotes scripture about the sins he assumes are going on in the room upstairs. Although only moments before Jane was embarrassed about kissing Joanie, she nonetheless stands up to the man who is judging them.

But just as quickly she marches off, leaving Joanie behind. Joanie calls after her, saying she plans on finding another place to stay and that Jane is welcome to join her.

Deadwood concludes its third season on Aug. 27, and though the series has been canceled, two new two-hour movies will be filmed to wrap things up next year. Whether or not Jane and Joanie's relationship develops further during these last few episodes is not known, but Deadwood has made a unique contribution toward representing lesbian and bisexual women on television and, in particular, within the Western genre.

Some viewers may question whether the show included lesbianism merely to titillate viewers, but the depth of the series as well as the complex nature in which the characters have evolved is evidence to the contrary. In addition, the character of Calamity Jane differs from the majority of lesbians on television in that she does not conform to traditional feminine norms. In fact, Jane is much closer to a butch character than is typically seen on television.

Even if Joanie and Jane's story ends in tragedy or the relationship does not develop beyond friendship, Deadwood has done a wonderful job of showing a growing attraction between two women in a way that no other historical Western has dared.

http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2006/8/deadwood2.html

Deadwood airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on HBO. This Sunday, August 27th is the Season 3 Finale. Be there! :)

<fanning self....> I just love both actresses.:) Talk about talent. And beauty. HBO writers certainly did a superb job. These characters are indeed three dimensional. I believe they are in Deadwood because there were womyn like that back then. Oh, to have such an opportunity living in a much more supportive time and place in history.

(a) ,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:46 PM

:| :|

Language warning for the easily offended:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/34709834/m/594000430831

;) ;) Well, there were a few times when I did actually repeat a few of Jane's stellar exclamations to a man that deserved it. :o :o

I LOVE the script - every week I laugh my ass off or otherwise am enthralled by the lines various characters express. Talk about a good addiction! Good diction. ;)

;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:50 PM

(h) (h)

Monday, Mar. 22, 2004

True Grit

Get ready for a rough ride. In Deadwood, HBO's dark, idea- rich western, there are no black and white hats, just blue talk and shades of gray

By JAMES PONIEWOZIK

TIME MAGAZINE

As its hooves thunder on the horizon, HBO's Deadwood (Sundays, 10 p.m. E.T.; debuts March 21) might seem like the cavalry coming to rescue viewers affronted by Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash. Something innocent! Something wholesome! A nice western!

Sorry, pardner. In the opening minutes of the series, about a true-life gold rush town, a prospector says he's "f___ed up [his] life flatter 'n hammered s___," while the legendary Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) calls her associates "ignorant f___in' c__ts." Land o' Goshen! Has nobody in this burg heard of "consarnit" or "tarnation"?

Ask creator David Milch whether pioneers in 1876 really swore like the Sopranos, and the former Yale instructor quotes Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century The Miller's Tale, which used the same anatomical slur that Calamity Jane does (though, in Middle English, it started with a q). Milch says most of our high-megaton profanities are centuries old, and accounts of the West "are full of the testimony of people whose sensibilities have been scandalized by the resourcefulness of the human spirit in fitting so many obscenities in the most ordinary declarative sentence." This, he says, was the point: Deadwood, S.D., was outside the bounds of the U.S., the law and propriety — just as Milch is now beyond the long reach of the ABC censors who dogged him on NYPD Blue, the show he created with Steven Bochco. Take a group of criminals and scofflaws, mostly men, risking ruin or murder to seek their fortunes — who then blow said fortunes on hookers, craps, dope and booze — and in any century, their epithets will be frequent and stronger than "dagnabbit!"

Really, the language issue is a stand-in for a bigger question. There have been other dark and complicated takes on the western — Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove — but they, like westerns themselves in recent years, have been as occasional as tumbleweeds. We still associate the genre with the moral simplicity and cliche of its heyday: straight-shooting, black and white hats. (When President Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," he wasn't going for relativism.) Are we ready for the genre of John Wayne and Shane to get the gray-hatted HBO treatment?

Milch says he set out not to write a western but to explore a society just starting to form its laws. He first pitched to HBO a series about cops in Rome during Nero's reign. After that project fizzled, he started reading about Deadwood, a town that sprang up when reports of a gold strike were hyped to justify expansion into Indian territory. "It was like time-lapse photography," he says. "Two months before [Deadwood begins], there was nothing. Two years later, they had telephones, before San Francisco did." The settlement had no laws, purposely. "It was a primordial soup," Milch says. "How do people organize themselves, absent law?"

For starters, by killing one another. In this and other surface ways, Deadwood is like many westerns. There's a bad guy, saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), who lives large by relieving the locals of their gold nuggets and having his thugs plant a bowie knife in anyone who gets in his way. But he is threatened when — yes — strangers ride into town. Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) is a former marshal with plans to open a hardware store. He's less a good guy than a control freak. In his last act as marshal, he hangs a horse thief without trial, so a mob won't get the satisfaction of lynching him. Does he want to serve justice or just give chaos the finger? The impetus to law, Deadwood suggests, is as much one as the other.

Meanwhile, renowned shootist Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) has come to town with his retinue. (Most of the leading characters are based on real people.) To Swearengen, the formula is simple: former lawman + gunfighter = nascent police force, especially when the two stumble on a massacre-robbery perpetrated by "road agents" working for him. It seems, though, that Bullock just wants to kick his law habit and make a dollar, and Hickok, to drink and gamble his way into oblivion. "Hickok was acutely aware of his time having passed," says Carradine. "He had outlived his usefulness." Throw in abused prostitute Trixie (Paula Malcomson); Alma Garret, a laudanum-addicted lady from back East (Molly Parker); and E.B. Farnum, a hotel owner and Swearengen's beaten-cur sycophant (William Sanderson, Newhart's Larry), and you have a typical — if dysfunctional — horse-opera cast.

Deadwood HBO-izes this material, though, not just in its profanity but in its moral ambiguity and social criticism. The show is like McCabe for more reasons than that it involves whorehouses and business conflicts. Like the '70s movies of Altman, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola and others, HBO's dramas rework popcorny genre formats (the cop drama, the Mob flick) with dark, even cynical themes: that institutions are corrupt, that people and systems and families will screw you over, that heroes are never entirely heroic or villains alone in their villainy. Deadwood wants to show not just how the West was won, but who won, what they got and how the process mirrors our time.

Some of Deadwood's strongest insights are about the symbiosis between a racist society and the groups it despises. Take the camp's Chinese cook Wu (Keone Young), who is the butt of slant-eye jokes but has an indispensable role. When someone wants to keep a murder quiet, the corpse is fed — despite the cook's silent disgust — to Wu's pigs. (Which, yes, the townsfolk eat.) Even more essential are the Indians or, as they are dehumanizingly and incessantly called, "the godless heathen c__ksucker Sioux." Although it's two weeks after Custer's massacre at Little Bighorn, they don't appear, except as a constantly invoked and useful menace. Swearengen's road agents even scalp their victims to make it look like an Indian attack. You can't miss the post-9/11 point about the line between danger and exploitation. "An Indian was never seen in Deadwood alive," Milch says. "But if you keep people agitated, they'll drink more and they'll gamble more. So the deep thinkers — the guys who ran the saloons and the brothels — liked to keep people stirred up to the idea of an outside threat."

Milch knows a thing or two about the addict's mind-set. While studying and working at Yale in the '60s and '70s under literary giants Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, he says he led a double life as a heroin junkie and gambling addict before cleaning up and becoming a writer for Hill Street Blues. Addicts and gamblers, says Milch, have a "risk taker" personality — just like prospectors, which is why so few of them got rich and so many saloonkeepers did. Says director-producer Davis Guggenheim: Milch has "something most people with intellect don't have — very colorful life experiences."

The writer puts both intellect and experience to good use, especially in Deadwood's dialogue, which is vulgar but well crafted, even oddly formal. ("If you're going to murder me, I'd appreciate a quick dying. And not getting et by the pigs. In case there is resurrection of the flesh.") As with NYPD Blue's mannered police slanguage — or, for that matter, iambic pentameter — no human speaks this way. But the writing does what good dialogue should, which is firmly establish its own world and its own logic.

Deadwood is not the next Sopranos. Everyone likes Italian food, whereas this is beef jerky — slow chewing, an acquired taste but substantial. Sometimes Milch's Shakespearean ambitions get away from him, and the story can drag. But the acting is strong, especially Carradine's leonine, sad gunslinger, who asks his handlers, "Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?" Then there's Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif), the town's physician and its secret keeper — he inspects Swearengen's whores, covers up cases of smallpox, ignores evidence of murder under duress and hides a young girl who witnessed the road agents' massacre — and the pressure has him wound like a watch spring. The best moments in Deadwood happen at the margins, not in gunfights but in the pig pens and doctor's office, as we discover the ecology of this nascent community. It's worth a visit. Just so long as you don't mind getting a mite dirty.

http://www.robinweigert.com/timepress.html

:) :)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-24-2006, 07:51 PM

:o :o

http://boards.hbo.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800001602&tstart=0&mod=1155843711405

(f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f) (f)

SL & WTBP (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 04:57 PM

;) ;)

Sharp as a marble!

The wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead.

A few clowns short of a circus.

A few fries short of a Happy Meal.

An experiment in Artificial Stupidity.

A few beers short of a six-pack.

A few peas short of a casserole.

Doesn't have all his corn flakes in one box.

One Froot Loop shy of a full bowl.

One taco short of a combination plate.

A few feathers short of a whole duck.

All foam, no beer.

The cheese slid off his cracker.

Body by Fisher - brains by Mattel.

Has an IQ of 2, and it takes 3 to grunt.

Warning: Objects in mirror are dumber than they appear.

Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.

An intellect rivaled only by that of garden tools.

Elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.

Her sewing machine's out of thread.

His antenna doesn't pick up all the channels.

His belt doesn't go through all the loops.

Missing a few buttons on his remote control.

No grain in the silo.

Proof that evolution CAN go in reverse.

Receiver is off the hook.

;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 04:59 PM

(y) (y)

LibriVox

Free audio recordings of hundreds of books in the public domain—all recorded by volunteers. Download as many as you like, or volunteer to read something for others to enjoy!

http://librivox.org/

(y) (h) (y) (h) (y)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:01 PM

(h) (h)

Population Growth Map

Straight from the BBC, this interactive map of population growth shows changes to the world's major cities from 1955 to the present and projects growth up to 2015.

It's getting crowded in here...;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm

(y) (y) (y) Very cool. (h)

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:05 PM

(8) (8) (8) (8) (8)

Symphony of the obscure

Ever hear of the Kaval or the Tsabouna? How about the Electronic Bagpipe? Find these and many more on this photo gallery of weird and wonderful musical instruments. Includes sound samples.

Toot your own horn:

http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/index.html

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) Very, very, cool!

(k) (k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:12 PM

(y) (y)

Ask an astronomer

"The Web site for the astronomically disadvantaged." For anyone interested in space and physics but intimidated by the concepts, a working astronomer provides easy-to-understand answers.

You're from what planet? http://www.astronomycafe.net/

(y) (y) (y)

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:15 PM

;) ;)

It's older than you think

The premier site for yo-yo collectors. This online museum has the complete spin on the comings and goings (!) of the universally beloved toy. Check out photos of classic yo-yos and trade messages on the board.

It's yo-yo time! http://www.theyoyomuseum.com/

:D :D

(k) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:24 PM

:) :)

Soon, the World Series will be upon us, and then it will be time to stake your claim on the gridiron. Whatever Major League game you call your own, get your draft and auction skills honed and make ready your ranking and cheat sheets—because it's time for fantasy sports! Pick your game: football, baseball, basketball...

Football:

1. Fantasy Football Today: http://www.fftoday.com/

2. Fftoolbox - Draft cheat sheets and rankings: http://www.fftoolbox.com/index.cfm

3. Fantasy Football Cafe: http://www.fantasyfootballcafe.com/

4. NFL Fantasy Football - Official NFL site: http://www.nfl.com/fantasy

Basketball:

1. NBA Fantasy Basketball - Official NBA site: http://www.nba.com/fantasy/

2. Inside Hoops: http://www.insidehoops.com/fantasy-basketball.shtml

3. ESPN Fantasy Basketball: http://games.espn.go.com/cgi/fba/front

Baseball

1. MLB Fantasy Baseball - Official MLB site:

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/fantasy/index.jsp

2. Fantasy Baseball.com: http://www.fantasybaseball.com/

3. Fantasy Baseball Hub: http://www.fantasybaseballhub.com/

Soccer

1. SportShares Soccer: http://www.sportshares.com/prosoccer/live/

2. ESPN Fantasy Soccer: http://games.espn.go.com/fsl/front

3. Major Fantasy League Soccer: http://www.mfls.com/

(h) (h) (y) (y) These web sites should keep the avid fan busy for hours.:) Have fun!

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady & wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:26 PM

Loose Car Tire on a Race Track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugPPvDQ4ln4

:| :|

;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:31 PM

:o :o

Given two big factors of life these days -- the plethora of small, sophisticated electronic devices in use and the hypervigilance over security issues -- you can be sure we'll see more of this sort of thing.

Case #1: The hapless airline passenger who unknowingly flushed his iPod and jammed the plane's toilet, ultimately triggering this announcement from the captain: "Folks, this is the captain. I don't want to alarm you, but we've found a suspicious device in the front lavatory. Now, we think it's probably nothing, but in this day and age ... you can never be too careful. We'll be landing at Ottawa, where we will await further instructions." This was followed by an hours-long delay for a bunch of uneasy and inconvenienced passengers, despite the offender's embarrassed explanation, which he stuck to despite pointed questioning: What do you think about 9/11? What are your views on the Iran issue? Do you think government is too big, too powerful? Would you ever "make a point?" (And it probably didn't help that he was on his way to visit someone he'd never met, an online friend from ... "World of Warcraft.").

World of Warcraft:

:| :| http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11211166&pageNo=1&sid=1

:| :| Flying the paranoid skies:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=1c0072fe-4d98-44e4-8414-652f83e27868

Case "2: Robert A., who was sitting in his car in downtown D.C. playing "Tekken: Dark Ressurection" on his PSP while waiting to head to an event. Unfortunately, he was parked outside a federal building and suddenly found himself rousted by police and questioned about his "unusual behavior." Robert says he was actually pleased that he drew some notice, given the potential power of his plaything. "What I really wanted to get at was the true possibilities of the PSP; there is really nothing stopping anyone with malicious intent to be in my exact same position that night, utilizing a homebrew password decrypter/brute forcer/MD5 decryptor/mini-rainbow table setup/wireless bomb detonator rather than playing Tekken. Had I been sitting in the car with a laptop on my lap, it would have been many times more suspicious. A portable device equipped with wireless capabilities and the ability to launch custom, unsigned code, coupled with a small form factor is capable of anything. The terrorists and hackers of the next generation could be simply walking down the street and hacking away, using their concealed PSP to port scan and find a way to penetrate a victim's wireless network, and essentially, gather sensitive information."

http://psp3d.xhardwarereviews.com/index2.php?page=Hacking%20Wireless%20Networks%20Wi th%20The%20PSP?

(n) (n) For the love of God!

;) ;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:34 PM

:o :o :o

Q U O T E D

"I am a 21-year-old boy with a good heart and I made a mistake. I never realized how dangerous a computer could be."

- Christopher Maxwell, the orchestrator of a global botnet attack that wreaked havoc with the Defense Department, Seattle's Northwest Hospital and a school district in California, grovels away his street cred before being sentenced to 37 months in the federal pen.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/282674_botnet26.html?source=mypi

(n) (n) This kid should have gotten a whole lot more hard time. Oh well.

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:40 PM

(i) (i) (i)

Q U O T E D

"My! Very educated morons just screwed up numerous planetariums."

-- The winning entry in Kottke.org's contest for a new solar system mnemonic that reflect's Pluto's demotion (see "Astronomers delist Pluto, citing weaker than expected planethood")

Pluto mnemonic device contest results:

http://www.kottke.org/06/08/pluto-mnemonic-device-contest-results

Astronomers delist Pluto:

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/08/astronomers_del.html

(n) (n) I liked Pluto. I remember making a nine planets mobile type display for a science project.....in grade school.:)

Have a relaxing Monday evening, all.

(k) 's,

Swetlady & Wyatt the napping Boxer Pup (l) (S) (&) (S) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:43 PM

:o :o

One man and his attempt to eat a fully loaded 5 pound burger with 54 toppings......in under 30 minutes:

http://jimmylin.imeem.com/blogentry/8TViehBk

;) ;) And this little piggy went to market.....;)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-28-2006, 05:45 PM

:o :o

The S.S. Minnow:

http://www.ablboats.com/details.asp?ListingID=74883

Description:

ORIGINAL S.S. MINNOW from GILLIGANS ISLAND TV SHOW. Engine rebuilt in 1997, 10' Dinghy, 3 batteries, sleeps 5.

:| The asking price must mean it truly *was* from Gilligan's Island! Pretty cool but I wouldn't buy it, would you?

;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-29-2006, 09:07 AM

(y) (y) (y)

August 27, 2006

Questions for CC Goldwater

Goldwater Girl

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON NYTimes Sunday Magazine

Q: Your grandfather, Barry Goldwater, was both adored and vilified during his lifetime as the rightest of the right-wing senators. Yet your new documentary, “Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater,” which will be shown on HBO starting Sept. 18, rehabilitates him as a kind of liberal compared with today’s conservatives.

That was part of the reason I thought a film could be done about him.

He emerges as a complex figure — a half-Jewish cowboy from Phoenix who believed the government should stay out of our hair. He thought gays should be allowed in the military and was also pro-choice.

My mom had an abortion in the mid-50’s, before she had me. She was in college, and she wanted to finish and get a degree and not have a child then. Barry felt it was a woman’s right to make that choice.

On the other hand, what does it say about the current state of American politics if Barry Goldwater is held up as a model of social enlightenment? Many people considered him a bigot because he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That was a wart on his career, and he knew it. He was the furthest thing from a bigot there was.

In the film, you manage to assemble a chorus of mostly admiring Democrats — Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, James Carville and Hillary Clinton, who actually campaigned for your grandfather in 1964, when he ran against Lyndon Johnson for president.

Hillary was a Goldwater girl. Isn’t that hysterical? She passed out cookies and lemonade at his campaign functions.

Ben Bradlee calls your grandfather “an unsung hero of Watergate.”

Barry didn’t go to Nixon’s funeral. He ended up feeling that Nixon really cheated the country and lied to the country, and that was something you just didn’t do in Barry’s book. You don’t lie.

It’s odd to see so many East Coast people praising your grandfather when he famously said that the U.S. might be better off “if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.”

What you saw is what you got from him.

Are you a Republican?

No, I’m an independent. My mom is an independent, because she has always been supportive of initiatives in women’s rights, and so am I. The Republican Party has shifted so far away from the center that I don’t know if I can get over there.

Did you try to interview President Bush for the film?

No.

Where was Bill Clinton?

He said, “You’re interviewing my wife, you don’t need to interview me.”

I was surprised you left out William Buckley, who probably did as much as Goldwater to shape conservative ideals in this country.

My co-producer, Tani Cohen, and I just had so many people who were of the same genre. We were trying to get different voices.

It would have been interesting to compare the Buckley and Goldwater styles of conservatism.

It’s the white bucks vs. the cowboy boots. Argyle socks vs. no socks and Birkenstocks.

Buckley, no doubt, is read more, as the founder of National Review. You don’t hear too much anymore about your grandfather’s “Conscience of a Conservative,” which was a huge best seller in 1960.

It is going to be reissued by Princeton University Press. The book is the first in Princeton’s series of classic works of American politics.

Did you always want to be a filmmaker?

I never set out to be a filmmaker. I wanted to tell a story. It’s a big thing to do when you don’t have the background to do it, but I was blessed to have HBO on board from an early stage. They were our partners on this, 50-50.

How large was your budget?

A little over $750,000, closer to $800,000. I tried to raise my half, and then I realized I would have to give up too much creative control, so I just put it up myself.

How do you have that much money?

I don’t. Barry was not materialistic. We were not the Rockefellers, so I refinanced my house to come up with the money.

Do you plan to do another documentary?

There’s nothing that comes to mind. I don’t have enough interesting family members to allow me to do a boxed set.

(p) (p) :

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/magazine/27wwln_q4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(*) (*) (y) (y) (y) (h) (h)

(k) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-29-2006, 09:12 AM

(y) (~) (y) (~) (y) (~)

August 27, 2006

Being Catherine Keener

By LYNN HIRSCHBERG NYTimes Style Magazine

This past year, you were nominated for an Oscar for your portrayal of Harper Lee in “Capote,” and you co-starred in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which was a comedy; “The Interpreter,” which was a thriller; and “Friends With Money,” which was a contemporary drama about four female friends. At a time when there are so few parts for women and even fewer for women over 35, you are doing all this great work. What’s your secret?

Well, for one thing, I like being a supporting actress. I like to come and go in the film. The interesting characters are very few if you want to be the lead, and they depend on you being beautiful. Since I’m not interested in those parts, the pressure’s off, in a way. I’m not cast for my physicality. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to be in the moment. That was, to me, growing up Catholic, the appeal of the clergy — they address the moment. So, short of being a priest, I am an actor.

You grew up in Miami, and as a girl you wanted to be a nun.

I still love anything connected to nuns. That’s why I love all of Yohji Yamamoto’s designs — they look like a nun’s habit, and if I had my way, I’d always dress like a nun. As a girl, I saw every movie with nuns: “The Trouble With Angels,” “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.” I saw them all. I love the nun’s lifestyle: the quiet, the solitude. But then I realized they were subservient to priests, and I decided I wanted to be a priest. That’s when the trouble began. I desperately wanted to be an altar boy, and I stole a bag of unconsecrated wafers. They weren’t yet the body of Christ, but they were delicious. That was the first of my many run-ins with Catholic law.

How does Catholicism relate to show business?

Well, there is something about Catholicism that is both theatrical and pure, and movies can have that quality. There are other benefits to Catholicism: you grow up with a great sense of shame and hope and faith and naïveté.

How do you pick projects?

I’ll take a part for the director. I heard about Spike Jonze’s video work when I read “Being John Malkovich,” and I had seen “Freaks and Geeks” and knew how talented Judd Apatow was when they approached me about “40-Year-Old Virgin.” That movie has given me a new audience. The other night a group of guys who left their trash in the alley near my house got really excited when they saw me. They screamed, “Will you take my virginity?” That’s my new audience: a bunch of punks.

When you decide on a part, do you think about your co-stars?

Of course. On “The Interpreter,” I got to spend six months hanging out with Sean Penn, who I fell for hook, line and sinker. That movie was the first time my son, who is 7, ever came to the set. Now, I’m anti-gun and anti-violence, and here I am on the set with a Glock. I’m playing a woman in law enforcement, and I had handcuffs and this huge gun. That’s the first time my son really knew about my job.

Did you watch films growing up?

My dad grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, but he showed me a lot of old movies, great Bergman, Hitchcock. I loved “Marnie.”

The clothes and her hair. She had a horse and Sean Connery, every girl’s dream. If there’s a boldness — an aesthetic of sorts — I’ll take notice. And if I have a talent, it’s an ability to see the potential in any form, whether it’s “40-Year-Old Virgin” or “Capote.”

How did you get your start as an actress?

First I worked as a casting intern, and that was very helpful. It showed me how impersonal personal comments are. And yet when, years later, I went up for a movie and the note came back that I wasn’t sexy, it was a turning point for me. There’s no way to fight that criticism. I packed up the car and went to Roswell, New Mexico, with my dog and stayed for three months. Finally I realized that I could say no as easily as they could, and I somehow knew that a good job — the right job — would change everything, especially how they saw me. For me, that was an independent film called “Johnny Suede.”

Which was directed by Tom DiCillo and co-starred Brad Pitt, who was then unknown.

Yes, he was another great co-star. And that’s when I became an indie darling. The independent-film world wasn’t that established in 1991, but I realized that it was the party where I wanted to be friends with everyone. What is that expression? Luck favors the prepared. My good luck presented itself at that moment.

Is that when you first realized the power of a director with vision?

Absolutely. There can only be one messiah, and that’s the director. Also, I don’t want to be the keeper of the entire production.

But you’re doing a kind of directing on your next film, “Where the Wild Things Are.”

No, Spike Jonze is directing. I’m co-starring as Max’s mom, and I’m going to help coach the movements of the wild things. I’m just there to assist.

You were nominated for an Academy Award for “Being John Malkovich” in 2000, and you didn’t think you were right for the part.

That’s the director, again. It took Spike’s imagination to cast me. I wasn’t who I saw for the part of Maxine. She was sexy and bold, and

I didn’t really like her. During shooting, someone on the crew said, “Maxine’s not my type,” and I took it so personally.

How were the Oscars this year?

Well, the day I got nominated, I had jury duty — a D.U.I. case. The morning the nominations were announced, I reported to jury duty as scheduled. That was good — it gave me perspective. If you start feeling too important, it’s always good to go sit in a jury for a D.U.I. charge.

(p) (p) and multimedia slide show:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/style/tmagazine/t_w_1595_1597_well_keener_.html

(y) (y) (y) (h)

Carpe Diem,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-29-2006, 09:21 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

August 26, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

The Czars’ Reefer Madness

By JOHN TIERNEY NYTimes

AMSTERDAM

Arjan Roskam, the creator of the award-winning marijuana blend named “Arjan’s Haze,” has dozens of pictures of celebrity visitors on the wall of his coffee shop in Amsterdam. He’s got Eminem, Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys, Mike Tyson — but so far, unfortunately, not a single White House drug czar.

The czars have preferred to criticize from afar. In the past, they’ve called Dutch drug policy “an unmitigated disaster,” bemoaning Amsterdam’s “stoned zombies” and its streets cluttered with “junkies.” Anti-pot passion has only increased in the Bush administration, which has made it a priority to combat marijuana.

More than half a million Americans are arrested annually for possessing it. The Bush administration can’t even abide it being used for medical purposes by the terminally ill. Why risk having any of it fall into the hands of young people who could turn into potheads, crack addicts and junkies?

But if America’s drug warriors came here, they would learn something even if they didn’t sample any of the dozens of varieties of marijuana sold legally in specially licensed coffee shops. They could see that the patrons puffing on joints generally don’t look any more zombielike than the crowd at an American bar — or, for that matter, a Congressional subcommittee listening to a lecture on the evils of marijuana.

And if they talked to Peter Cohen, a Dutch researcher who has been studying drug use for a quarter-century, they would discover something even more disorienting. Even though marijuana has been widely available since the 1970’s, enough to corrupt a couple of generations, the Netherlands has not succumbed to reefer madness.

The Dutch generally use drugs less than Americans do, according to national surveys in both countries (and these surveys might understate Americans’ drug usage, since respondents are less likely to admit illegal behavior). More Americans than Dutch reported having tried marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Among teenagers who’d tried marijuana, Americans were more likely to be regular users.

In a comparison of Amsterdam with another liberal port city, San Francisco, Cohen and other researchers found that people in San Francisco were nearly twice as likely to have tried marijuana. Cohen isn’t sure exactly what cultural and economic factors account for the different usage patterns in America and the Netherlands, but he’s confident he can rule out one explanation.

“Drug policy is irrelevant,” says Cohen, the former director of the Center for Drug Research at the University of Amsterdam. It’s quite logical, he says, to theorize that outlawing drugs would have an impact, but experience shows otherwise, both in America and in some European countries with stricter laws than the Netherlands but no less drug use.

The good news about drugs, Cohen says, is that the differences among countries aren’t all that important — levels of addiction are generally low in America as well as in Europe. The bad news is that the occasional drug fad get hyped into a crisis that leads to bad laws.

“Prohibition does not reduce drug use, but it does have other impacts,” he says. “It takes up an enormous amount of police time and generates large possibilities for criminal income.”

In the Netherlands, that income goes instead to coffee-shop owners and to the government, which exacts heavy taxes. It also imposes strict regulations on what goes on in the coffee shop, including who can be served (no minors) and how much can be sold (five grams to a customer). Any unruly behavior or public disturbances can quickly close down a shop.

To avoid problems at the Green House, Roskam has closed-circuit cameras and a staff that urges novices to stick with small doses, and to protect their lungs by taking hits from a vaporizer. Unlike street buyers in America, customers know exactly what strength they’re getting, which is especially useful for the hundreds of people with multiple sclerosis and other ailments who use his marijuana medicinally.

Roskam sneers at the street products in the United States, which he considers overpriced and badly blended. But he acknowledges there’s one feature in the American market he can’t compete with.

“Drugs are just less interesting here,” he said. “One of my best friends here never smoked cannabis, never wanted to even try my products. Then when she was 32 she went to America on holiday and smoked for the first time. I asked her why, and she said: ‘It was more fun over there. It was illegal.’ ”

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

:) :)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

08-29-2006, 09:33 AM

:( :(

August 28, 2006

Editorial Observer

What Is the Latest Thing to Be Discouraged About? The Rise of Pessimism

By ADAM COHEN NYTimes

The early stages of the Iraq war may have been a watershed in American optimism. The happy talk was so extreme it is now difficult to believe it was sincere: “we will be greeted as liberators”; “mission accomplished”; the insurgency is “in the last throes.” Most wildly optimistic of all was the goal: a military action transforming the Middle East into pro-American democracies.

The gap between predictions and reality has left Americans deeply discouraged. So has much of what has happened, or not happened, at the same time. Those who believed New Orleans would rebound quickly after Hurricane Katrina have seen their hopes dashed. Those counting on solutions to health care, energy dependence or global warming have seen no progress. It is no wonder the nation is in a gloomy mood; 71 percent of respondents in a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll said the country is on the wrong track.

These are ideal times for the release of “Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit,” by Joshua Foa Dienstag, a U.C.L.A. political theorist. Mr. Dienstag aims to rescue pessimism from the philosophical sidelines, where it has been shunted by optimists of all ideologies. The book is seductive, because pessimists are generally more engaging and entertaining than optimists, and because, as the author notes, “the world keeps delivering bad news.” It is almost tempting to throw up one’s hands and sign on with Schopenhauer.

Pessimism, however, is the most un-American of philosophies. This nation was built on the values of reason and progress, not to mention the “pursuit of happiness.” Pessimism as philosophy is skeptical of the idea of progress. Pursuing happiness is a fool’s errand. Pessimism is not, as is commonly thought, about being depressed or misanthropic, and it does not hold that humanity is headed for disaster. It simply doubts the most basic liberal principle: that applying human reasoning to the world’s problems will have a positive effect.

The biggest difference between optimists and pessimists, Mr. Dienstag argues, is in how they view time. Optimists see the passing of time as a canvas on which to paint a better world. Pessimists see it as a burden. Time ticks off the physical decline of one’s body toward the inevitability of death, and it separates people from their loved ones. “All the tragedies which we can imagine,” said Simone Weil, the French philosopher who starved herself to death at age 34, “return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.”

Optimists see history as the story of civilization’s ascent. Pessimists believe, Mr. Dienstag notes, in the idea that any apparent progress has hidden costs, so that even when the world seems to be improving, “in fact it is getting worse (or, on the whole, no better).” Polio is cured, but AIDS arrives. Airplanes make travel easy, but they can drop bombs or be crashed into office towers. There is no point in seeking happiness. When joy “actually makes its appearance, it as a rule comes uninvited and unannounced,” insisted Schopenhauer, the dour German who was pessimism’s leading figure.

As politicians, pessimists do not believe in undertaking great initiatives to ameliorate unhappiness, since they are skeptical they will work. They are inclined to accept the world’s evil and misery as inevitable. Mr. Dienstag tries to argue that pessimists can be politically engaged, and in modest ways they can be. Camus joined the French Resistance. But pessimism’s overall spirit, as Camus noted, “is not to be cured, but to live with one’s ailments.”

President Clinton was often mocked for his declarations that he still believed “in a place called Hope.” But he understood that instilling hope is a critical part of leadership. Other than a few special interest programs — like cutting taxes on the wealthy and giving various incentives to business — it is hard to think of areas in which the Bush administration has raised the nation’s hopes and met them. This president has, instead, tried to focus the American people on the fear of terrorism, for which there is no cure, only bad choices or something worse.

Part of Mr. Bush’s legacy may well be that he robbed America of its optimism — a force that Franklin Delano Roosevelt and other presidents, like Ronald Reagan, used to rally the country when it was deeply challenged. The next generation of leaders will have to resell discouraged Americans on the very idea of optimism, and convince them again that their goal should not be to live with their ailments, but to cure them.

(*) (*) Well, the good news is like the 1970's (or was it the late 1960's?) book, "Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me" - there is hope for a major seachange starting with this November's mid-term elections. Personally, I'd like to see more Independents getting elected. Oh, except for the latest Independent from CT. :| :| Lieberman is a Republican in sheeps' clothing.;)

I liked this particular quote from this article:

"Optimists see the passing of time as a canvas on which to paint a better world."

Sun Thoughts,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 08:33 AM

:) :)

Domain Names That Weren't Proof Read:

All of these are legitimate companies that didn't spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear...

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is:

www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:

www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at: www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at: www.therapistfinder.com

5. There's the Italian Power Generator company: www.powergenitalia.com

6. And don't forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales:

www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always:

www.ipanywhere.com

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is: www.cummingfirst.com

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their site:

www.speedofart.com

:| :| ;) ;) :D :D Well, I thought some of these were pretty funny - especially in that they were actually chosen for legitimate businesses and nobody noticed the creation of new words when they ran them all together.....hilarious! At least, definitely silly.;)

Dry thoughts to those in what was once a Hurricane, and now Ernesto's path of heavy rain. Hmmm, where *is* my faux leopard polyester rain poncho?

I need to go to an appointment this afternoon......:| :)

Have a fabulous Friday!

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 08:42 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

Deadwood Season Three Finale:

http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/episode/season3/episode36.shtml

(p) (p) Lots of photos including a few of Calamity Jane and Joanie Stubbs together sharing that fur robe of Will Bill's. (l)

<good sigh>

Sun Thoughts,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 08:45 AM

;) ;)

Toilet-themed dog bowls:

http://www.collectionsetc.com/Item76062.aspx#

(n) I would not buy one of these but it did make me smile when I saw it and remembered how many times years back, after a big gathering with friends over, my boxer would remind me to put the seat down in the guest powder room.;) ;)

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 08:57 AM

:) :) :) :) :)

:| Espresso Warning!!:|

I read today, that the French will lead the UN Peacekeepeer Force in Lebanon. Also, they will contribute 200 troops.....so we can breathe easy.

Speaking of France:

"France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes."
--Mark Twain

------------------------------

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me."
--General George S. Patton

------------------------------

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."
--Norman Schwartzkopf

------------------------------

"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it ."
--Marge Simpson

------------------------------

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure."
--Jacques Chirac, President of France

------------------------------

"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee.
--Regis Philbin

------------------------------

"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky I don't know."
--P.J. O'Rourke (1989)

------------------------------

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it."
--John McCain U.S Senator from Arizona

------------------------------

"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people."
--Conan O'Brien

------------------------------

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get Hitler out of France either."
--Jay Leno

------------------------------

"The last time the French asked for 'more proof ' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
--David Letterman
------------------------------

"Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada."
--Ted Nugent

------------------------------

"War without France would be like ... World War II."
--Unknown

------------------------------

"The favorite bumper sticker in Washington D.C. right now is one that says
'First Iraq, then France.'"
--Tom Brokaw

------------------------------

"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against DisneyWorld and Big Macs than the Nazis?"
--Dennis Miller

------------------------------

"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us."
--Alan Kent

-----------------------------

"They've taken their own precautions against al-Qa'ida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house."
--Argus Hamilton

------------------------------

"Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day -- the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once.'"
--Rep. Roy Blunt, MO

-----------------------------

"The French will only agree to go to war when we've proven we've found truffles in Iraq."
--Dennis Miller

------------------------------

"Raise your right hand if you like the French, ... raise both hands if you are French."
--Unknown

------------------------------

Q. What did the mayor of Paris say to the German Army as they entered the city in WWII?
A. Table for 100,000 m'sieur?

-----------------------------

"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It's not known, it's never been tried."
--Rep. R. Blount, MO

------------------------------

"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining."
--John Xereas, Manager, DC improv

------------------------------

The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the London bombings that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide. The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

------------------------------

French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney
(AP), Paris March 5, 2003

The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at Euro Disney. The decision comes the day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists.

(y) (y) :D :D :D

Adieu, ;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

-

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 09:07 AM

:D :D :D

Q U O T E D

"Every day I logged in and discovered more and more cruel spoofs, harassing videos, death and rape threats, incredibly nasty comments and God knows what else. I can't take it anymore. YouTube 'popularity' is hell unless you're a f---ing saint with nothing to hide, or you have indestructible confidence."

-- 18-year-old YouTube star Emmalina calls it quits after tallying up the high price of online fame

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/youtube-star-quits/2006/08/28/1156617251368.html

(*) (*) And the moral is? Keep videos of yourself to yourself. Or better yet? Don't make any!

;) ;) Okay, maybe share with your lover, ONLY after she/hye signs an iron clad non-disclosure agreement! ;) ;)

Sun Thoughts,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 09:22 AM

:| :| :|

RadioSacked.

That's the status of about 400 RadioShack headquarters employees who received an e-mail earlier this week notifying them that they had been let go. "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress," read a message delivered Tuesday morning. "Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated." The e-mail went on to give employees 30 minutes to say goodbye and then leave work. Not exactly a compassionate or even a socially acceptable way to fire your employees. Still, the electronics retailer stood by it, saying it had explained termination notices were going to be issued beforehand and had invited employees to ask questions about them through RadioShack's intranet site. "We wanted to treat our employees with as much dignity and respect as possible," RadioShack spokeswoman Kay Jackson told the Dallas Morning News. "It's a difficult thing to do, and everyone will have a different opinion on how to do it."

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15400139.htm

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/083006dnbusradioshack.30c5bc1.html

(n) Yea, yea, dignity and respect alright. That is pretty cold - firing or laying off via email. But then, not exactly the classiest firm or its executives that are the sharpest knives in the drawer either, in my view....:s

:|

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 09:35 AM

:) :) :)

THE TELECRAPPER 2000 TELEMARKETER INTERCEPTION SYSTEM

http://www.pagerealm.com/tc2k/

(y) (y) I love it! I already have a tele-zapper - which sends out a DTMF (dual-tone, modulation frequency) - a telephone company term for the different tones each "number" makes on the hand set. The tone sent in the telezapper when I pick up the telephone to answer is basically a specific standard tone that is the first of several in a string of tones before the womyn's voice saying that the number is no longer in service. The telemarker's computer/networking system that dials out to poor folks like us, "hears" it and immediately hangs up since it thinks it has reached a disconnected number. Brilliant!

This one at the URL above goes even further in terms of customizing outgoing replies. Even more brilliant as it takes up the telemarketer reps' time - which keeps them from making other calls.(y) (y) (y)

I LOVE it!

;) ;) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-01-2006, 09:42 AM

:D :D :D

The great flash animation of it (Telecrapper) in action at DeviantART:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/22995489/

(y) (y) (y) I am still laughing!!!(y) (y) (y)

(o) Oops, got to run errands and have an appointment this afternoon - before the deluge comes in this afternoon through Saturday.:|

(h) I'll have nice-looking hair though since the appt. is at the hair salon. ;)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-02-2006, 09:41 PM

(y) (y)

(~) Sleepers (1996)

In this drama based on characters in Lorenzo Carcaterra's controversial book, four boys from Hell's Kitchen enter a reformatory where a cruel guard (Kevin Bacon) abuses them. Years later, two of them avenge their tormenter and stand trial, defended by a druggie lawyer (Dustin Hoffman) and aided by their scheming cohort (Brad Pitt) and other friends from the 'hood (Robert DeNiro, Minnie Driver), who face the moral dilemma of justice vs. loyalty.

Cast:
Robert De Niro Brad Pitt
Jason Patric Dustin Hoffman
Kevin Bacon Brad Renfro
Bruno Kirby Minnie Driver
Billy Crudup

Director:
Barry Levinson

(~) Reviews:

I find that often in movies, there's either absolute realism (in art movies) or none at all (Disney). Whatever balances the two are usually good. Sleepers might've not been the most eloquent courtroom drama, and the tactics used might be unrefined, but I absolutely loved it! It showed the consequences of the guards' sadism, which affected the boys for the rest of their lives. Kevin Bacon was great in the movie because he knew how to make you hate him. It's always easy to have to like someone, but to get the opposite is marginally harder, In the beginning, you don't really know how everything fits together until the vengence. I don't think it's the boys (grown up) who've revenged themselves; the guards' old crimes caught up with them. It's a latter-day Count of Monte Cristo, but in a rough-spoken world with its innocence lost. They way it was filmed didn't idealise or moralise, which was good, and showed things merely as they were, and they as they are. None of them were perfect, and they all had their angles. So whether or not it really happened or it's just a book Cracaterra decided to write to get even with someone, it's a really enjoyable movie. It was so sad, but not boo-hoo sad. Rather, it's a bad car accident, the kind that's all torn up, but you can't look away. So it's not for everyone, that much is true. The irony was devastating, and I didn't expect the ending. Also, you don't exactly SEE what they described in their flashbacks, but it's deftly blended to see the past and present pain. Like even when they're grown up, they don't escape the pain, but live in it. :|

(~) This is an exquisitely crafted tale of revenge out of Hell's Kitchen. Four young teenage boys are sent to a reform school where they are regularly sodomized, beaten, and molested by four homosexual guards. Their shared experience is life altering as they suffer in silence, drift apart, and grow up. Years later, an opportunity to even the score arises. The four re-unite and execute an ingenious plan to expose the heinous perversion of the guards and exact their revenge. The story is tension filled and grips you from the outset. Solid performances and excellent direction by Levinson make this film one of the best dramas of the 90's.

(*) I gave it a four star rating on netflix.It was one of the best films I have ever watched - and my, all of the major actors! I stayed up late and watched it on commercial TV and it took from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.! Of course I always MUTE the commercials and Wyatt was sleeping with his mama as his "dog bed". ;) Don't ask. ;) Talk about sore walks (hips especially and then knees) for limping to ther bathroom for bio breaks...:o

Whew! :s Although the news and weather folks said the wind and drenching rain were supposed to be done by 3:00 p.m. this afternoon - it's already slightly past 10:32 p.m. and still going at it. :| I was out in it today and it only got worse. Poor Wyatt needed a warm towel dry-off - and THAT was only for the mad dash from my SUV parked (across the street) to the front door!

I am so completely tired of the rain. Actually, my poor body is tired during these rains and is due to old "war wounds" from an 1. airplane crash, 2. a couple of auto accidents and 3. one dramatic tumble down hill in knee-deep powder at Alta near Salt Lake City, Utah. There are more war wound "events" but I forget right now.;)

(y) (y) Tonight, I am having fantasies of living within the Arctic Circle. Snow is just fine with me as long as it is a DRY POWDER. :) It never, ever hurts in places like that. (l)

Carpe Diem!

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-02-2006, 09:49 PM

(~) Little Voice (1998)

Telephone repairman Ewan McGregor and music promoter Michael Caine play second fiddle to Little Voice (Jane Horrocks), a young woman whose beautiful pipes could pack a thousand cabarets. Trouble is, she can only sing along to records in her room. This British charmer was a sleeper hit among the indie set thanks to its winning mix of romance, hope and humor.

Cast:
Brenda Blethyn Jane Horrocks
Ewan McGregor Philip Jackson
Annette Badland Michael Caine

(~) Reviews:

I was shocked and surprised to see "Bubble" from Ab Fab as "Little Voice". Very compelling and sometimes comical movie. Jane is fantastic as she sings her own songs. I heard she used to be an impressionist. I have to say I was impressed!

(~) I fell in love with "Little Voice" when I saw it in the theatre with a friend. What a complete delight to be able to see it again on DVD and fall even deeper in love with the story of a painfully shy and very talented girl LV (Jane Horrocks) who lives with her brassy, coarse, vulgar mother Mira (Brenda Blethyn). Into their lives comes snake-oil salesman Ray Say (Michael Caine) who only wants some easy "slap and tickle" and his ticket to the big time entertainment sweepstakes. Ray hears LV sing an astonishing array of cabaret tunes including Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Bassey and knows this is his ticket out and up. He manipulates both mum (who has no idea how to relate to LV) and daughter into giving him what he wants, a performance on the stage at the local show palace (Mr. Boo's) owned by the greasy Mr. Boo (Jim Broadbent). But of course, nothing ever goes as planned. In the meantime, shy telephone man and homing pigeon trainer Billy (Ewan McGregor) meets and falls in love with LV. She reciprocates in the way that only a extremely shy person can. Special kudos to Annette Badland who portrays the great lumbering neighbour untalkative Sadie with sensitivity. Sadie "gets" LV but Sadie's not quite sure why. She steps in to offer support expressing her confusion and concern through her very expressive eyes and face. Jane Horrocks did all her own impressions for the movie, showing a dramatic range of skill heretofore hidden behind the ditzy Bubbles in the BBC's Absolutely Fabulous series. Her blow up with her mother near the end had me applauding and giggling. Her interaction with Ewan McGregor is touching, as they reach across the distance of shyness to make contact. The very talented cast of this movie makes it one to watch repeatedly, giving you the chance to fall in love again and again.

(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) Another five stars like the last time. One of these days, I need to rent it and share with a friend.:)

(y) That unforgetable voice imitating various actresses and singers is absolutely amazing - in addition to the story wrapping it up so nicely.(y)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 04:49 PM

:) :) :)

The Boston Globe
August 21, 2006

Roxbury MA (AP) - A seven-year-old boy was at the center of a Boston
courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who
should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his
parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping
with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be
maintained to the degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him
more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When
the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy
cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning
that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the
judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who
should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references
and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary
custody to the Boston Red Sox, whom the boy firmly believes is not
capable of beating anyone.

:D :D :D

;) ;) 's to those Boston fans!

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 04:51 PM

:| :| :| :|

:o :o :o

:)

Here is a video clip of a US Representive from Ohio who seems to
have about as much love for W as we do!

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/51259/Bush_Getting_Owned.html

;) ;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 05:03 PM

:| :| :| :| :|

September 2, 2006 NYTimes

At 2-Year Colleges, Students Eager but Unready

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

DUNDALK, Md. — At first, Michael Walton, starting at community college here, was sure that there was some mistake. Having done so well in high school in West Virginia that he graduated a year and a half early, how could he need remedial math?

Eighteen and temperamental, Mickey, as everyone calls him, hounded the dean, insisting that she take another look at his placement exam. The dean stood firm. Mr. Walton’s anger grew. He took the exam a second time. Same result.

“I flipped out big time,’’ Mr. Walton said.

Because he had no trouble balancing his checkbook, he took himself for a math wiz. But he could barely remember the Pythagorean theorem and had trouble applying sine, cosine and tangent to figure out angles on the geometry questions.

Mr. Walton is not unusual. As the new school year begins, the nation’s 1,200 community colleges are being deluged with hundreds of thousands of students unprepared for college-level work.

Though higher education is now a near-universal aspiration, researchers suggest that close to half the students who enter college need remedial courses.

The shortfalls persist despite high-profile efforts by public universities to crack down on ill-prepared students.

Since the City University of New York, the largest urban public university, barred students who need remediation from attending its four-year colleges in 1999, others have followed with similar steps.

California State set an ambitious goal to cut the proportion of unprepared freshmen to 10 percent by 2007, largely by testing them as high school juniors and having them make up for deficiencies in the 12th grade.

Cal State appears nowhere close to its goal. In reading alone, nearly half the high school juniors appear unprepared for college-level work.

Aside from New York City’s higher education system, at least 12 states explicitly bar state universities from providing remedial courses or take other steps like deferred admissions to steer students needing helping toward technical or community colleges.

Some students who need to catch up attend two- and four-year institutions simultaneously.

The efforts, educators say, have not cut back on the thousands of students who lack basic skills. Instead, the colleges have clustered those students in community colleges, where their chances of succeeding are low and where taxpayers pay a second time to bring them up to college level.

The phenomenon has educators struggling with fundamental questions about access to education, standards and equal opportunity.

Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford professor who was a co-author of a report on the gap between aspirations and college attainment, said that 73 percent of students entering community colleges hoped to earn four-year degrees, but that only 22 percent had done so after six years.

“You can get into school,” Professor Kirst said. “That’s not a problem. But you can’t succeed.’’

Nearly half the 14.7 million undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions never receive degrees. The deficiencies turn up not just in math, science and engineering, areas in which a growing chorus warns of difficulties in the face of global competition, but also in the basics of reading and writing.

According to scores on the 2006 ACT college entrance exam, 21 percent of students applying to four-year institutions are ready for college-level work in all four areas tested, reading, writing, math and biology.

For many students, the outlook does not improve after college. The Pew Charitable Trusts recently found that three-quarters of community college graduates were not literate enough to handle everyday tasks like comparing viewpoints in newspaper editorials or calculating the cost of food items per ounce.

The unyielding statistics showcase a deep disconnection between what high school teachers think that their students need to know and what professors, even at two-year colleges, expect them to know.

At Cal State, the system admits only students with at least a B average in high school. Nevertheless, 37 percent of the incoming class last year needed remedial math, and 45 percent needed remedial English.

“Students are still shocked when they’re told they need developmental courses,’’ said Donna McKusik, the senior director of developmental, or remedial, education at the Community College of Baltimore County. “They think they graduated from a high school, they should be ready for college.’’

Across the nation, federal and state education officials are pressing for a K-16 vision of education that runs from kindergarten through college graduation. Such an approach, they say, would help high schools better prepare students for college.

In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a Board of Regents to oversee education at all public institutions, from elementary through bachelor’s programs. At Cal State, professors are advising 12th-grade teachers on preparing students to succeed in college.

Starting at a Deficit

As the debate rages, nearly half of all students seeking degrees begin their journeys at community colleges much like the Dundalk campus of the Community College of Baltimore County, two-story no-frills buildings named by letters, not benefactors or grateful alumni. The college’s interim vice chancellor for learning and developmental education, Alvin Starr, said he saw students who passed through high school never having read a book cover to cover.

“They’ve listened in class, taken notes and taken the test off of that,’’ Dr. Starr said.

Though remedial needs are high, Dr. Starr said, the courses offer something invaluable, the chance to overcome basic deficiencies in reading, writing or math.

“You have to figure the cost to society on the other side if you don’t educate these students,’’ he said.

Most of the students expect the transition to community college to be seamless. But the first, and sometimes last, stop for many are remedial math classes.

“It’s the math that’s killing us,’’ Dr. McKusik said.

The sheer numbers of enrollees like Mr. Walton who have to take make-up math is overwhelming, with 8,000 last year among the nearly 30,000 degree-seeking students systemwide. Not all those students come directly from high school. Many have taken off a few years and may have forgotten what they learned, Dr. McKusik said.

More than one in four remedial students work on elementary and middle school arithmetic. Math is where students often lose confidence and give up.

“It brings up a lot of emotional stuff for them,’’ Dr. McKusik said.

She told of 20 students who had just burst into tears on receiving their math entrance exam scores and walked out on college. Mr. Walton remembers a fellow student who failed to hand in a math assignment for the fourth time in the last week of class and learned that he would fail. The student lunged toward the professor and said, “I’ll kill you.”

“You can say whatever you want, but this really isn’t helping your grade,” the professor replied, Mr. Walton said.

The student stormed out the door with a final expletive, leaving the professor shaken.

Fear of Appearing Ignorant

The biggest challenge, professors say, is trying to engage students, to persuade them that ideas matter. Dr. McKusik suspects that behind the apathy is a fear of appearing ignorant.

“Everything in society is geared to celebrate, to value, the winner,” she said. “These are students who haven’t been at the top. They won’t show themselves as vulnerable at all.’’

With most students having commitments to jobs and families, community colleges typically offer little in the way of a social life or school spirit. So they need to find ways to reach their less traditional audience.

“That’s why we’re trying to use pop culture in the classroom, to get their attention,’’ said Betsy Gooden, an English teacher who, in a remedial reading class one day last spring, tried to coax students to discuss a television documentary.

Two or three students in a class of 10 women carried most of the discussion, which seemed more like Ricky Lake than Lit 101, with students reacting to the film almost exclusively in terms of their personal experiences.

They covered love, sex and cheating boyfriends. Before the class was over, two women disclosed that they had been raped. About half the students said nothing at all.

Karen Olson, a history professor, and David Truscello, who teaches English, are trying another common strategy, mixing remedial work with other subjects. They are co-teachers of a course that combines African-American history with composition.

Professor Olson says teachers should stop making “unrealistic assignments’’ like chapters from “600-page textbooks’’ and should meet students at their level, raising abilities by degrees.

In her class, she assigns more manageable readings and carves up the load, so no student is responsible for doing it all.

“It’s not like they’re living four years in a dorm,’’ Professor Truscello said.

Most are working, sometimes at more than one job.

“That impinges on everything,’’ he added. “I have students who take two buses to come to school. It’s amazing that they do it.’’

Solutions and Successes

Another part of the solution at community colleges is in Student Success Centers. They are actually tutoring centers. Dundalk’s is open 63 hours a week.

Along a wall is a rack of handouts explaining points of grammar that might have last been explicitly taught in middle school, a measure of the immense ground to be made up. One covers comparative adjectives, explaining “more” vs. “most” or “smarter” vs. “smartest.” Another discusses using pronouns and verb tenses.

At one table, Kirn Shahzadi, 20, once an A student at Parkville High School, was being tutored a few hours before her final in remedial algebra. In addition to math, Ms. Shahzadi needed remedial courses in reading and one in helping with basic skills like note taking, researching and organizing schedules. By the second week of that course, she said, half the students had dropped out.

Still, the school has winners who make it through and feel that they have to fit into the changing workplace.

Mr. Walton said careers like his father’s as a welder for a major construction company were now harder to find. His father rose to foreman, putting Mr. Walton’s older brother through Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Walton, who married soon after high school, put himself through the Baltimore community college working as a security guard at $7.80 an hour. He has had shoplifters pull knives on him and spray him with Mace, he said.

His salary covered the utilities and phone bills, and left his wife, an administrative assistant at Johns Hopkins, to pay the mortgage. He added that at times he suspected that she had felt more like a caretaker than a wife, and he worried for their future.

“I know she’s sick and tired of taking care of me,’’ he said in May. “It’s rip-your-hair-out-at-night difficult.’’

But Mr. Walton made it through that remedial math class four years ago, ultimately praising the dean for standing firm. In June, he crossed a stage to receive an associate’s degree in computer science. Next year, he plans to earn another degree in, of all things, math.

He said he would like to earn a full bachelor’s, but hesitates.

“I’m scared to death of going to college,’’ he said. “I’ll be up to my eyeballs in debt.’’

This summer he sent his résumé even to employers demanding bachelor’s degrees and several years’ experience, hoping that his enthusiasm would compensate where credentials fell short. He sought positions that included tuition breaks for employees.

His strategy paid off with two offers, one in data entry at the community college here, a job he held on work study before graduating, and another as a technician repairing copying machines. Mr. Walton went for the second.

It offers benefits, tuition reimbursement and a salary of $22,850 a year, with extra money toward buying a new car every few years.

“I feel a little bit more — I don’t want to say confident — but maybe worthy,’’ Mr. Walton said. “Now, I feel like I’m all that, and a bag of chips.’’

(n) (n) (n) Definitely NOT like it was in the old days, that is for sure!

:@ I see PhD learners in my online course rooms that cannot spell, use correct grammar or SYNTHESIZE the graduate content we are supposed to as we read and write our weekly assignments and papers. It is absolutely appalling to me that these for-profit online graduate schools accept anyone (it seems), even those with fifth-grade writing skills. :|

Although - I don't know the fall out or drop out rates. I have heard they are high and the for-profits keep accepting new adult learners to keep the $$ buckets filled to balance out the lost revenue of those dropping out.:s

Here I am with 22 courses and sliding into my LAST two courses starting Fall Quarter in realy October, (before Comps and Dissertation start next year) and an "A" G.P.A. - and haven't wondered until I read an article such as the one above - about how many of my fellow course learners don't make it through because they simply can't read, comprehend, synthesize the materials and write. Those are MUST HAVE skills for Comps and Dissertation from what I hear.

Whew! One more course ends in about ten days and I can't wait!! This course made my head hurt...;) Educational philosophies and change.....is (sometimes lately) like having my head in a vise, in my opinion. Too much jabberwocky gibberish also known as scholarly discourse and academic research.

Feels more like bullsh*t, more like! :o

(f) (f) Adieu,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Napping Boxer Pup (S) (l) (&) (l) (S)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 05:22 PM

:| :| :| :| :| :| :|

Valerie Plame was no mere analyst or paper-pusher at the CIA, David Corn writes, in an article based on his new book, Hubris. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration: searching out intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. By revealing her identity, Richard Armitage, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby harmed her career and put vital intelligence at risk.

What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA

David Corn The NATION

[posted online on September 6, 2006]

In the spring of 2002 Dick Cheney made one of his periodic trips to CIA headquarters. Officers and analysts were summoned to brief him on Iraq. Paramilitary specialists updated the Vice President on an extensive covert action program in motion that was designed to pave the way to a US invasion. Cheney questioned analysts about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. How could they be used against US troops? Which Iraqi units had chemical and biological weapons? He was not seeking information on whether Saddam posed a threat because he possessed such weapons. His queries, according to a CIA officer at the briefing, were pegged to the assumptions that Iraq had these weapons and would be invaded--as if a decision had been made.

Though Cheney was already looking toward war, the officers of the agency's Joint Task Force on Iraq--part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations--were frantically toiling away in the basement, mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have. The JTFI was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House's assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger. Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson.

Her specific position at the CIA is revealed for the first time in a new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by the author of this article and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. The book chronicles the inside battles within the CIA, the White House, the State Department and Congress during the run-up to the war. Its account of Wilson's CIA career is mainly based on interviews with confidential CIA sources.

In July 2003--four months after the invasion of Iraq--Wilson would be outed as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction" in a column by conservative journalist Robert Novak, who would cite two "senior administration officials" as his sources. (As Hubris discloses, one was Richard Armitage, the number-two at the State Department; Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, was the other. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, also talked to two reporters about her.) Novak revealed her CIA identity--using her maiden name, Valerie Plame--in the midst of the controversy ignited by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, her husband, who had written a New York Times op-ed accusing the Bush Administration of having "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

The Novak column triggered a scandal and a criminal investigation. At issue was whether Novak's sources had violated a little-known law that makes it a federal crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert US officer (if that official knew the officer was undercover). A key question was, what did Valerie Wilson do at the CIA? Was she truly undercover? In a subsequent column, Novak reported that she was "an analyst, not in covert operations." White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that her employment at the CIA was no secret. Jonah Goldberg of National Review claimed, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already."

Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case. In doing so, they harmed her career and put at risk operations she had worked on and foreign agents and sources she had handled.

Another issue was whether Valerie Wilson had sent her husband to Niger to check out an intelligence report that Iraq had sought uranium there. Hubris contains new information undermining the charge that she arranged this trip. In an interview with the authors, Douglas Rohn, a State Department officer who wrote a crucial memo related to the trip, acknowledges he may have inadvertently created a misimpression that her involvement was more significant than it had been.

Valerie Plame was recruited into the CIA in 1985, straight out of Pennsylvania State University. After two years of training to be a covert case officer, she served a stint on the Greece desk, according to Fred Rustmann, a former CIA official who supervised her then. Next she was posted to Athens and posed as a State Department employee. Her job was to spot and recruit agents for the agency. In the early 1990s, she became what's known as a nonofficial cover officer. NOCs are the most clandestine of the CIA's frontline officers. They do not pretend to work for the US government; they do not have the protection of diplomatic immunity. They might claim to be a businessperson. She told people she was with an energy firm. Her main mission remained the same: to gather agents for the CIA.

In 1997 she returned to CIA headquarters and joined the Counterproliferation Division. (About this time, she moved in with Joseph Wilson; they later married.) She was eventually given a choice: North Korea or Iraq. She selected the latter. Come the spring of 2001, she was in the CPD's modest Iraq branch. But that summer--before 9/11--word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq. Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, the JTFI grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group.

There was great pressure on the JTFI to deliver. Its primary target was Iraqi scientists. JTFI officers, under Wilson's supervision, tracked down relatives, students and associates of Iraqi scientists--in America and abroad--looking for potential sources. They encouraged Iraqi émigrés to visit Iraq and put questions to relatives of interest to the CIA. The JTFI was also handling walk-ins around the world. Increasingly, Iraqi defectors were showing up at Western embassies claiming they had information on Saddam's WMDs. JTFI officers traveled throughout the world to debrief them. Often it would take a JTFI officer only a few minutes to conclude someone was pulling a con. Yet every lead had to be checked.

"We knew nothing about what was going on in Iraq," a CIA official recalled. "We were way behind the eight ball. We had to look under every rock." Wilson, too, occasionally flew overseas to monitor operations. She also went to Jordan to work with Jordanian intelligence officials who had intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubes heading to Iraq that CIA analysts were claiming--wrongly--were for a nuclear weapons program. (The analysts rolled over the government's top nuclear experts, who had concluded the tubes were not destined for a nuclear program.)

The JTFI found nothing. The few scientists it managed to reach insisted Saddam had no WMD programs. Task force officers sent reports detailing the denials into the CIA bureaucracy. The defectors were duds--fabricators and embellishers. (JTFI officials came to suspect that some had been sent their way by Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, an exile group that desired a US invasion of Iraq.) The results were frustrating for the officers. Were they not doing their job well enough--or did Saddam not have an arsenal of unconventional weapons? Valerie Wilson and other JTFI officers were almost too overwhelmed to consider the possibility that their small number of operations was, in a way, coming up with the correct answer: There was no intelligence to find on Saddam's WMDs because the weapons did not exist. Still, she and her colleagues kept looking. (She also assisted operations involving Iran and WMDs.)

When the war started in March 2003, JTFI officers were disappointed. "I felt like we ran out of time," one CIA officer recalled. "The war came so suddenly. We didn't have enough information to challenge the assumption that there were WMDs.... How do you know it's a dry well? That Saddam was constrained. Given more time, we could have worked through the issue.... From 9/11 to the war--eighteen months--that was not enough time to get a good answer to this important question."

When the Novak column ran, Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator--to rise up a notch or two--and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again. Moreover, she would now be pulled into the partisan warfare of Washington. As a CIA employee still sworn to secrecy, she wasn't able to explain publicly that she had spent nearly two years searching for evidence to support the Administration's justification for war and had come up empty.

Valerie Wilson left the CIA at the end of 2005. In July she and her husband filed a civil lawsuit against Cheney, Rove and Libby, alleging they had conspired to "discredit, punish and seek revenge against" the Wilsons. She is also writing a memoir. Her next battle may be with the agency--over how much of her story the CIA will allow the outed spy to tell.

For more information about Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, go to Amazon.com and Corn's blog at www.davidcorn.com.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

(*) This lady has twins who are young! If I were her, I would change my name and go live someplace safer than the D.C. area. Find a well-known publisher (perferably outside the U.S. since the U.S. government has a stranglehold on mass media and publishing - and write a TELL ALL book. (y) (y) Have the proceeds sent to a Swiss bank account (or other country with anonymous banking laws - like Dubai, UAE).

<sigh> Oh, that sigh is because I have yet one more paper to write (already did three) for last week's unit and have been posting late into the evenings and all day today. I have never, ever fallen behind in a course, but the professor isn't taking any points off since I am never late in posting assignments before now. It's been so mind-numbing!:|

Draft final papers are due in by this Sunday and at least one other learner feedback that will be graded as well. This course has WAY too many assignments and papers - and I will make sure to mention it in the anonymous course evaluation. ;)

Thank goodness final papers will be due and posted next week.

Then OFF until Oct. 2nd. (o) Hmm, perhaps a trip someplace?

Have a lovely Thursday evening and week-end,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 05:29 PM

:o :o :o :o

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/dj_compilation_.html

:) Sometimes I "get it" and sometimes I just feel old....er. ;)

:D

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 05:34 PM

:) :)

http://www.babygeared.com/hewapa.html

(y) Nice idea to fast-track or eliminate those trips to the wallpaper store. That is, if I ever wanted wall paper....;)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-07-2006, 06:00 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

www.mymms.com/everyday2

(y) (y) (y) Expensive but very, very cool! I tried out all kinds of colors and names, sayings, etc. and had a ball! Hope you do too.

(S) (S) Pleasant dreams tonight,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:30 PM

(~) (~) 1. Agnes Browne (1999)

Salt-of-the-earth working mom Agnes Browne (Anjelica Huston) must fend for herself and her brood of seven children when her husband suddenly dies. Fortunately for Browne, her best friend (Marion O'Dwyer) is on hand to add support and plenty of laughter. The film, directed by Huston, effectively captures a slice of Irish life in the late 1960s.

Cast: Anjelica Huston, Marion O'Dwyer, Niall O'Shea, Ciaran Owens, Roxanna Williams

Director: Anjelica Huston

Review:

(~) For anyone who want's to gain insite on the Irish psyche, this is a great movie. It's 100% Paddy.....warts and all. The Mackerel Snappper in you will love it! Shot in Dublin, Angelica Houston puts in a great performance of a Irish housewife recently widdowed, and turns to her family and friends for support. Okay, so her Irish brogue wasn't the best, you can overlook that. This movie is part comedy, and part triumph over adversity; it speaks volumes about the lives of everyday Irish people. Fortunately, there's no reference to the North/South Ireland struggle; this is a story about individuals working to better themselves within the framework of the "cards" they've been delt.

This movie is beautiful throughout, and it's nice to see a movie in which the women aren't playing so-called "pansy roles". The movie had me laughing out of my seat a couple of times and I often find myself repeating some of the lines to friends........The movie is a perfect parallel to the phrase "S**t Happens"......The movie reflects life from a widowed mother's point of view, with lots of humor.........I loved this movie

(y) (y) (y) (y) 4 Stars!

**************************

2. The Wings of the Dove (1997)

Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) lives with her wealthy Aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling) after the death of Kate's mother. Maude, not wanting her niece to follow in her mother's footsteps by marrying a commoner, introduces Kate to rich gentleman Lord Mark (Alex Jennings). Kate, however, wants the penniless Merton Densher (Linus Roache). But Kate also enjoys fine things and schemes to win not only Densher's love, but an heiress's money.

1998 Academy Award®: Best Actress nominee: Helena Bonham Carter
1998 Academy Award®: Best Writing Adapted Screenplay nominee
1998 Academy Award®: Best Costume Design nominee
1998 Academy Award®: Best Cinematography nominee

Cast:

Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliot

Review:

In ``The Wings of the Dove,'' there is a fascination in the way smart people try to figure one another out. The film is acted with great tenderness. If the three central characters had been more forthright, more hedonistic, we wouldn't care nearly as much. But all three have a certain tact, a certain sympathy for the needs of the others. At the end, when Millie knows the score, she can at least be grateful that she got to play the game. - Roger Ebert

This may be the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. I don't recall seeing another film where every scene was so stunningly created that it etched itself in my mind like a painting. It's almost cheating that the movie was filmed in Venice, but it is such a visual tour de force, that you almost don't notice the remarkable dialogue and even better acting. For my money, this is not just a great film, but one of the very best of the '90s. I can't recommend it highly enough. Stop here if you have not seen the movie because I don't want to wreck the ending: I was particularly astonished by the rendering of the end of the film.

(*) (*) (*) 3 Stars.

'****************

3. Imagine Me & You (2006)

In this delightful romantic comedy that gives new meaning to the term cold feet , bride-to-be Rachel (Piper Perabo) is love-struck ... but not with her groom. Instead, as she's marching down the aisle with her longtime sweetheart, Heck (Matthew Goode), Rachel is immediately bewitched by a beautiful guest (Lena Headey). Now, the newlywed must choose between the safety of a familiar relationship and her heart's true desire.

Cast:

Matthew Goode Piper Perabo

Lena Headey Rick Warden

Anthony Head Sue Johnston

Celia Imrie Darren Boyd

(~) Review: This movie is one of the best romantic comedies I've ever seen. The movie has a lot of charisma and style that make one's heart pound. The writing of this movie is quite impressive. I'd imagine this movie is emulated after someone's true experience, cause I don't think anyone could write something so true to life. The acting by both Piper Perabo and Lena Headey is truly wonderful. It made me want to fall in love all over again. I recommend this movie to anyone; particularly the hopeless romantic.

(~) Review: I had the opportunity to watch it on a special film screening for the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in January. The movie is basically about how one can fall in love at first sight...even if it's two women falling in love. That’s one of the refreshing things about the film. It doesn’t spend a lot of time slapping labels on its characters...but overall, the movie has a feel good feeling to it...I laughed...felt a bit sad...was happy at the end...I highly recommend this film when it comes out in selected city or in film festivals...This film is high up there with Saving Grace which was an awesome GL film I also say last year at the GLFF...Enjoy!

(y) (y) (y) (y) Four Stars!

Enjoy!

Have a lovely Wednesday,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:33 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

1. DOGS WHO CARE

Help make a difference in saving the lives of homeless pets across the country.

www.dogswhocare.com.

Spokesdog Schmitty, a five pound Yorkshire Terrier, recently appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and ACCESS Hollywood to "bark" about DOGS WHO CARE. Schmitty's the little guy helping the little guy make a big difference.

(Too bad the dog collars, etc. are all for little pooches on the porch and not for the BIG DOGS!...;-)
*************************

2. Paper Craft

Create paper animals and models
Think 3-D models. Not origami. This site from Yamaha Motors offers free, downloadable, printable templates that you cut out to make detailed paper sculptures. The exquisite templates range from rare animals of the world to realistic models of Yamaha's popular motorbikes.

Scissors on stand-by!

http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global/entertainment/papercraft/

*****************

3. Which Sports Car Are You?

Do you like to go topless? :-O

Am I stylish and nimble or all about raw power? Ah, those deep, introspective questions you're always asking yourself. Now you can finally get some answers! Yup, this is one of those fun personality tests that, if nothing else, make your workday go by a little faster.

Discover your inner Ferrari: http://www.tomorrowland.us/sportscar/

********************

4. Mr. Doubletalk
[Best with Broadband]

Confusing people is an art form

"Mr. Doubletalk" (AKA Durwood Fincher) is a comic and doubletalk expert who makes it his occupation to talk nonsense—and he has the videos to prove it. Watch him in action as he skillfully baffles his latest victims (including some celebs!).

Say what?! http://doubletalk.com/

****************

5. BookMooch.com
Dust off those bookshelves

Have piles of books you'll never read again? Someone out there wants them! Join the BookMooch community and exchange your used books for other ones you're interested in reading now. Registration is free, you can receive as many books as you give out, and all you ever pay for is postage

Wanna trade? http://bookmooch.com/

(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (h) (h)

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:35 PM

:o :o

:| :|

And, the last sentence kind of says it all.

:) :)

***********************

The Scotsman Tue 12 Sep 2006

Can Al Gore save the World?

AN Inconvenient Truth is an expanded version of the ten-minute multimedia lecture about global warming, which Al Gore - America's former vice-president, who this week said he may yet join the presidential race as a candidate for the 2008 election - has been touring for years.

Currently, this film is the third-highest grossing documentary in American box-office history, after Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins

An Inconvenient Truth is also the title of a companion book by Gore, which topped the New York Times bestseller lists in July. Gore packed out a Charlotte Square auditorium when he spoke at the Edinburgh Book festival last month, where the launch of his treatise on global warming was well received.

In spite of the seriousness of his topic, the environmental crusader is not without a sense of humour and currently likes to introduce himself thus: "I'm Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States."

This week he is promoting the film in Australia, where he stated in a radio interview that global warming is a greater danger to humanity than terrorism. "We should not ignore the crisis that is by far the most serious threat civilization has ever faced, and if in the process we stop sending so much money to Persian Gulf oil-producing countries, we will choke off some of the flow of wealth to terrorist groups," he said.

A video spoof titled Al Gore's Penguin Army appeared on YouTube.com in May, purportedly made by a 29-year-old Californian. Controversy kicked off when the film-maker was linked to a PR and lobbying firm in Washington DC led by Republican Party officials.

It's not the first time Gore has starred in a movie, though. The hip young American director Spike Jonze (ex-husband of the film-maker Sofia Coppola) made a short documentary about the politician in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election.

Former US president George Bush Senior says of Gore: "This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme, we'll be up to our neck in owls an' outta work for every American." George Bush Junior, when asked whether he would watch the film, replied: "Doubt it."

Three people who have watched it with great interest, however, are leading lights in Britain's environmental movement: what do they think?
Gore's life and times

• 1948: Born on 31 March 1948, son of Tennessee congressman Albert Gore Snr and Pauline Gore, née La Fon, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School.

• 1969-1971: After graduating from Harvard with a BA Honours in government, is drafted and serves in the Vietnam War as an army reporter.

• 1970: Marries Mary E "Tipper" Aitcheson

• 1973-76: Works as a journalist in the Nashville-based Tennessean newspaper while also studying law at Vanderbilt.

• 1976: Gore is elected a United States congressman on a Democratic ticket, and is subsequently re-elected three times

• 1984: Elected Senator.

• 1988: Stands unsuccessfully for Democratic nomination for the presidency

• 1992: Is chosen by Bill Clinton, below, as his running mate in the presidential election. Both men are elected, and then re-elected in 1996, Gore spending eight years as vice president

• 2000: In August, Gore becomes Democratic nominee for president, with Senator Joe Lieberman as running mate. Running against Republicans George W Bush and Dick Cheney, Gore wins more popular votes than Bush - 50,158,094 compared to Bush's 49,820,518, but after winning Florida, Bush leads in electoral votes, 271 to 267. Following acrimonious recounts and lawsuits filed on both sides, in December, Gore concedes the election to Bush.

• 2006: Davis Guggenheim's film An Inconvenient Truth charts Gore's tireless crusade to heighten awareness of global warming and halt its progress. Released in the UK at the weekend, the film was the hit of this year's Sundance Film festival.
I wonder what it is that so frightens his critics?
ZAC GOLDSMITH Editor of the Ecologist and environmental adviser to the Conservative Party

I WASN'T wildly excited about the prospect of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. This is the man said to have had an anaesthetic effect on America's environmental movement when he was vice-president. But two hours or so after taking my seat, I understood why everyone was talking about it. Gore has discovered a perfect mechanism for telling the story of climate change. Visually compelling - with almost unbearable before-and-after images of shrinking icecaps and fast-changing landscapes -it leaves us in no doubt about the gravity of the threats we face.

If the film has a flaw, it is that Gore dwells too long on the problems. For a British audience, where there is political consensus on climate change, it is the solutions we crave. Not so in the US, where the debate continues at the expense of action. He also calculates that whereas not one of the 928 climate-change-related articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the past ten years has doubted the cause of global warming, more than half the articles in the popular press have done exactly that.

Gore does eventually address the solutions - and crucially he debunks the myth that tackling climate change will cause global economic collapse. On the contrary, where initiatives have been taken by communities and even large corporations, the effect has been hugely positive.

More than that, the steps needed to combat climate change are steps we need to take irrespective of climate change.

Reducing our dependence on oil would mean reducing our dependence on the volatile Middle East. Fuel efficiency, reducing the distance food travels, energy efficiency and so on are hardly the stuff of nightmares. So we have to wonder what it is that so frightens Gore's critics.

If he is wrong, but we act in any case, there is no downside. If he is right, and we fail to act, the consequences do not bear thinking about.
The wittiest treatment of our planet's survival
GEORGE MONBIOT Environmental activist, author and newspaper columnist

HERE is the most shocking revelation from An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore is charismatic.

The former vice-president must have turned himself into a monotone android solely to survive the madhouse that is American politics.

Now freed from captivity, and starring in the film based on his book of the same title, the former presidential candidate proves that he has fooled us: he was human all along.

If anything, An Inconvenient Truth is a little too human and occasionally slips into schmaltz. But setting aside Gore's meandering tales about his family, this is the wittiest treatment of climate change I have come across.

Gore studied under one of the great pioneers of climate science and has kept himself up-to-date since.

But somehow "the world's most boring man" lays out his case so lightly that he makes this illustrated lecture on atmospheric physics almost gripping.

The greatest virtue of An Inconvenient Truth is its clarity. Gore explains how the greenhouse effect works, how the planet sort of breathes in and out as the year turns and why the poles are heating up much faster than the rest of the Earth.

He also explains how the concentration of has fluctuated in the past, how those changes have been tracked by global temperatures and how wildly and unequivocally anomalous the current concentrations are.

The film's greatest failing is that it says little about how the problem can be tackled. Gore almost throws the film away with a handful of platitudes about changing light bulbs and improving fuel efficiency.

There seems to be a truth too inconvenient even for Al Gore to handle: that the American way of life is incompatible with the survival of the planet.

• George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning is published by Penguin on 28 September.
Disease and poverty are bigger challenges
BJORN LOMBORG Author of The Skeptical Environmentalist

An Inconvenient Truth makes three points: global warming is real; it will be catastrophic; deterring it should be our top priority. Inconveniently for Al Gore, only the first statement is correct.

While Gore shows glaciers that have been receding over the past 50 years, he doesn't acknowledge that, in fact, they've been shrinking since the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s - long before nations started pumping out . We see scary pictures of the consequences of the sea level rising 20 feet and flooding large parts of Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing and Shanghai. But why, when the UN climate panel talks only of a sea-level rise of one to two feet this century? Maybe the realistic level wasn't provocative enough?

But Gore's greatest error lies in his suggestion that humanity has a moral imperative to act on climate change. From a seasoned politician, this seems surprisingly naïve. There are many other global challenges that we could easily solve. HIV, diarrhoea and malaria take 15 million lives each year; malnutrition afflicts more than half the world's population; 800 million people lack basic education; a billion don't have clean drinking water. Why should climate change be our top priority?

Gore proposes that the world embrace the Kyoto Protocol. But the annual cost of Kyoto would be $150 billion (£80 billion). For half that sum, the UN estimates that we could provide clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare and education to every person on Earth. Shouldn't we do that first?

Recent hurricanes killed thousands in Haiti and few in Florida because Haiti is poor and cannot afford even basic preventive measures. Breaking the circle of poverty will not only do obvious good, but also make people less vulnerable to climate fluctuations.

You have to wonder why - in a world filled with inconvenient truths - Gore focuses on the one where we can achieve the least good for the highest cost.

Related topic

* Climate change:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=52

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1344462006

(y) At least it's a different "take" than what American media has been spouting. ;)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:38 PM

;) ;)

Posted 09/11/2006 @ 08:57am

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=120112

Cheney, 9/11 and the Truth about Iraq

Dick Cheney commemorated the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by sticking to the MO that he and his running-mate used to lead the nation into the current mess in Iraq.

Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Cheney encountered a decent grilling from host Tim Russert, who pressed him on how Cheney and George W. Bush had justified the war in Iraq. "Based on what you know now, that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction that were described, would you still have gone into Iraq?" Russert asked. Yes, indeed, Cheney said, hewing to the company line. And he pointed to what appeared to be evidence that supported that no-regrets stance:
Look at the Duelfer Report and what it said. No stockpiles, but they also said he has the capability. He'd done it before. He had produced chemical weapons before and used them. He had produced biological weapons. He had a robust nuclear program in '91. All of this is true, said by Duelfer, facts.

Well, let's look at the report of Charles Duelfer who headed up the Iraq Survey Group, which was responsible for searching for WMDs after the invasion. (Duelfer took the job following David Kay's resignation in late 2003.) It just so happens that in our new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Michael Isikoff and I quote from that report, and it noted that Saddam's WMD capability was essentially destroyed in 1991.

That is the opposite of what Cheney told Russert the report said. Cheney went on to remark,

Think where we'd be if [Saddam] was still there...We also would have a situation where he would have resumed his WMD programs.
Yet Duelfer reported that at the time of the invasion, Saddam had no
plan for the revival of WMD.

Cheney even justified the invasion of Iraq by citing an allegation that was just debunked in a Senate intelligence committee report released on Friday. Claiming there was a significant relationship between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda, he cited the case of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was recently killed in Iraq). After the US attacked the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Cheney said, Zarqawi
fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02 and was there from then, basically, until basically the time we launched into Iraq.

The implication here is that Baghdad sanctioned the terrorist activity of Zarqawi, a supposed al Qaeda associate. But the Senate intelligence committee report--released by a Republican-run panel--noted that prior to the invasion of Iraq Zarqawi and his network were not part of al Qaeda. (That merging came after the invasion.) More important, the report cites CIA reports (based on captured documents and interrogations) that say that Baghdad was not protecting or assisting Zarqawi when he was in Iraq. In fact, Iraqi intelligence in the spring of 2002 had formed a "special committee" to locate and capture him--but failed to find the terrorist. A 2005 CIA report concluded that prior to the Iraq war,

the [Saddam] regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.

So why is Cheney still holding up Zarqawi as evidence that Baghdad was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden? If he knows something the CIA does not, perhaps he should inform the agency.

During the Meet the Press interview, Cheney blamed the CIA for his and Bush's prewar assertions that Iraq posed a WMD threat. That's what the intelligence said, Cheney insisted. Our book shows that this explanation (or, defense) is a dodge. There were dissents within the intelligence community on key aspects of the WMD argument for war--especially the charge that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Cheney dwelled on that frightening possibility before the war, repeatedly declaring that the US government knew for sure that Iraq had revved up its nuclear program. Yet there was only one strong piece of evidence for this claim--that Iraq had purchased tens of thousands of aluminum tubes for use in a centrifuge that would produce enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. And that piece of evidence was hotly contested within the intelligence community.

One CIA analyst (whom we name for the first time in Hubris) was fiercely pushing the tube case. Yet practically every other top nuclear expert in the US government (including the centrifuge specialists at the Department of Energy) disagreed. This dispute was even mentioned in The Washington Post in September 2002. But neither Cheney nor Bush (nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rce) took an interest in this important argument. Instead, they kept insisting the tube purchases were proof Saddam was building a bomb. They were wrong. And the nuclear scientists at the Department of Energy (again, as our book notes) were ordered not to say anything publicly about the tubes.

This is but one example of how the Bush White House rigged the case for war by selectively embracing (without reviewing) convenient pieces of iffy intelligence and then presenting them to the public as hard-and-fast proof. But Cheney is right--to a limited extent. The CIA did provide the White House with intelligence that was wrong (which the White House then used irresponsibly). The new Senate intelligence report, though, shows that this was not what happened regarding one crucial part of the Bush-Cheney argument for war: that al Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots.

Before the war, Bush said that Saddam "was dealing" with al Qaeda. He even charged that Saddam had "financed" al Qaeda. The Senate intelligence report notes clearly that the prewar intelligence on this critical issue said no such thing.

The report quotes a CIA review of the prewar intelligence: "The data reveal few indications of an established relationship between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime." The lead Defense Intelligence Analyst on this issue told the Senate intelligence committee that "there was no partnership between the two organizations." And post-invasion debriefings of former Iraqi regime officials indicated that Saddam had no interest in working with al Qaeda and had refused to meet with an al Qaeda emissary in 1998.

The report also augments the section in our book on Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al Qaeda commander who was taken by the CIA to Egypt where he was roughly--perhaps brutally--interrogated and claimed that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al Qaeda. Though there were questions about al-Libi's veracity from the start, Secretary of State Colin Powell used al-Libi's claims in his famous UN speech to argue that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were partners in evil--that there was a "sinister nexus" between the two. Al-Libi later recanted, and the CIA withdrew all the intelligence based on his claims. In other words, the Bush administration had hyped flimsy intelligence to depict Saddam and bin Laden as WMD-sharing allies.

The Senate intelligence report concluded that "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support."

What did Cheney tell Russert? Saddam, he insisted, "had a relationship with al Qaeda." When Russert pointed out that the intelligence committee "said that there was no relationship," Cheney interrupted and commented, "I haven't had a chance to read it."

Perhaps he should before he talks about 9/11 and Iraq again.

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) Amen to the last sentence!!

:) :) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:41 PM

(y) (y) (y) (y)

This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/just_response

A Just Response

by KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL

[posted online on September 10, 2006]

"On Tuesday morning, a piece was torn out of our world. A patch of blue sky that should not have been there opened up in the New York skyline.... the heavens were raining human beings. Our city was changed forever. Our country was changed forever. Our world was changed forever." So wrote Jonathan Schell in the first issue of The Nation following September 11, 2001.

At The Nation's office, in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, like everyone else in America we watched television--horrified, saddened, angry. People wept, and at the same time took notes and got on the phones. For we had an issue closing the next day. We quickly learned that our communications links to the outer world were severed--our phone lines had run under World Trade Center 7. So, in those first days, we had no incoming calls and the office computer links to the Internet were down. The facts were sketchy and causes of the attack shrouded in a pall of uncertainty thick as the smog rising from the demolished World Trade Center.

The issue that we assembled and put to bed the next day struck a tone and purpose that the magazine has striven to maintain in the past five years. Paying respect to the human reactions of anger, hurt and grief, our editorials in that first week, and in the ones that followed, have made the case for an effective and just response to the horrific terrorist acts. We argued that such a response may include discriminate use of military force but that the most promising and effective way to halt terrorism lies in bringing those responsible to justice through nonmilitary actions in cooperation with the global community and within a framework of domestic and international law. As Richard Falk warned in his indispensable "A Just Response," the "justice of the cause" would be "negated by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends."

As the US military response unfolded in the ensuing days, there seemed to be more questions than answers. Who is Osama bin Laden? What is the involvement of the Taliban? What are we doing in Afghanistan anyway? Did US foreign policy create historic resentments and injustices abroad that spawned the terrible attacks? What is the best way for this country to address the root causes of terrorism? What are the aims of the war on it? What are its limits? What is the potential political and human fallout? Who are our allies? What role should the United Nations play? How to limit civilian casualties and provide humanitarian relief? As autumn in New York merged into Ramadan and Afghanistan's winter, these questions only deepened. It is striking how the essential themes laid out in The Nation in those initial weeks, far from being outrun by events, have gained in resonance.

One of my roles as editor has been to figure out the bridge from personal to political. How do you balance individual grief and anger at the attacks with proportionality, justice and wisdom in response? How do we reconcile legitimate fear of future attacks with protection of civil liberties, and carry on a political debate that doesn't ignore concerns of economic and social justice?

To deal with those complex issues, I was fortunate in being able to call on some of the most respected figures on the progressive left. They responded with a series of thoughtful, informed and provocative essays that have appeared in our pages. Among them: the late scholar-philosopher-activist Edward Said demolishing the clash of civilizations argument; Mary Kaldor on the new wars and civil society's role in halting terrorism; Michael T. Klare on Saudi-US relations and the geopolitics of oil; Ellen Willis on homefront conformity; Chalmers Johnson on blowback and the role of US foreign policy; William Greider on war profiteering; Bill Moyers on Americans' restored faith in government; John le Carré on why this war can't be won. Our regular columnists weighed in with their independent takes. And peace and disarmament editor Jonathan Schell filed a weekly "Letter From Ground Zero"--lucid, illuminating, frightening, humane essays that advanced the case for sensible and moral nonmilitary actions.

The Nation has a long tradition of providing a forum for a broad spectrum of left/progressive views, which sometimes erupted in spirited debates in those weeks after 9/11. Christopher Hitchens's column, "Against Rationalization," which castigated those on the left who drew a causal relationship between US foreign policy in the Middle East and the terrorist acts, provoked a heated exchange with Noam Chomsky. This exchange ran on our website and drew a raft of comments, with readers almost equally divided. Richard Falk's article "Defining a Just War" also provoked numerous letters pro and con.

As a fog of national security enveloped official Washington and the war front and the mainstream media enlisted in the Administration's war--flag logos flying--the need for an independent, critical press seemed never more urgent. The speedy passage of the repressive PATRIOT Act, with scarcely a murmur of dissent in Congress, the secret detentions of more than 1,000 people and the establishment of military tribunals were troubling signs that a wartime crackdown on civil liberties was under way and called for vigorous opposition. Criticizing government policy in wartime is not a path to popularity. Our independent stand on the war and criticism of what we called "policy profiteering" by conservative Republicans in Congress (who sought to use the war as a pretext to push through their own agenda) drew virulent attacks by the pundits and publications of the right, who questioned our patriotism and trotted out the old chestnut of the left's "anti-Americanism."

Such attacks are nothing new. The Nation has always marched to a different drummer, opposing US involvement in the Spanish-American War and World War I and the Vietnam War, while giving all-out support to the US effort in World War II. Former Nation editor Ernest Gruening of Alaska was one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that led to the Vietnam morass. As Eric Foner wrote in the days after the attacks, "At times of crisis the most patriotic act of all is the unyielding defense of civil liberties, the right to dissent." Also in times of crisis, the enduring concerns of this magazine and progressives take on new relevance: the dangers of American unilateralism, corrosion of civil liberties, authoritarianism in any nation, dependence on Big Oil, military quagmire and the urgent necessity of international law and institutions.

The commentary this magazine has published in the five years since the 9/11 attacks was designed to inform honest debate in this country on key questions that confront us and to enable us to ask hard questions of policy-makers and the media. It is my hope that the ideas expressed here will guide and enrich the policies that will--and must--come.

(y) (y) Definitely The Nation, and especially this article provide much-needed perspective as well as a calming influence to counteract the fear-mongering network anchors of trash-TV networks. Even many Internet news sites are D.C. PR distribution engines. I prefer the far left and progressive media.

<stepping off soap box...>

:) :) 's

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:51 PM

:| :| :| :| :| :| :| :|

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._O'Neill

:( :( :( :( :(

I wonder if a good author has written and had published a book about O'Neil? I would love to buy and read it - oh, that is, if the perspective was on how hard he pushed (and was successful) in helping prevent the Millenium and other pre-9/11 terrorist attacks, etc. Poor guy! Just started to work as chief of WTC security (after the FBI threw him out for making so much noise) and died in the attacks. :( I wonder why I haven't seen much written about him? I think O'Neil's life, work and unfortunate death provides HUGE PROOF that the FBI, CIA, NSA and others were asleep at the switch.

(like we all don't know that now!)

GRRRRR.:'( :'(

The good thing? Harvey Keitel's portrayal of O'Neil in the much-ballyhoo'd ABC two-night film of 9/11 this past Sunday and Monday nights - definitely brought up lots of B.S. the Bushies and Repubs in general would have preferred NOT come up SO CLOSE to the upconing mid-term elections in November. I am delighted that clinton and others files defamation lawsuits against Disney, ABC's parent company.

I am definitely voting this November - and have been researching the candidates. I am not voting for a Republican however. They have done enough damage that will take longer than the rest of our lifetimes - to get course-corrected. Maybe, just maybe, what seems like the whole world hating Americans might slowly change back to where it was when our country had the world's sympathy. That is, until Bushies decided to bomb Irag. THAT's when the support of the world changed, in my opinion.

:o

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:57 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

Mocking Bush is my patriotic duty

A comedian explains how cruel jokes about the president can stop terrorism.

By Bill Maher

Sept. 8, 2006 | New rule: Bad presidents happen to good people. Amid all
the 9/11 anniversary talk about what will keep us safe, let me suggest
that in a world turned hostile to America, the smartest message we can
send to those beyond our shores is, "We're not with stupid." Therefore, I
contend -- with all seriousness -- that ridiculing this president is now
the most patriotic thing you can do. Let our allies and our enemies alike
know that there's a whole swath of Americans desperate to distance
themselves from Bush's foreign policies. And that's just Republicans
running for reelection.

Now, of course, you're gonna say, "But Bill, ridiculing Bush is like
shooting fish in a barrel," or, as Dick Cheney calls it, "hunting." Maybe,
but right now it's important, because America is an easily misunderstood
country these days -- a lot of the time it's hard to make out what we're
saying over the bombs we're dropping.

But we are not all people who think putting a boot in your ass is the way
to solve problems, because even allowing that my foot lodged in your ass
would feel good, which I don't -- what then? OK, my boot is in your ass,
but I can't get it out, so I'm not happy, and it's in you, so you're not
happy -- there's no exit strategy.

Anyone who opposes the indefinite occupation of Iraq shouldn't be labeled
an al-Qaida supporter. That's like saying that if I tell my exterminator
that there are more efficient ways to rid the house of vermin than hitting
them with a hammer, I'm "for the rats."

Questioning whether it still makes sense to keep troops under fire is
supporting the troops. Asking for a plan supports the troops; asking when
they'll be leaving supports the troops. Sitting around parsing the
definition of "civil war" doesn't support the troops, it supports the
president, and he's not a soldier, he just plays one on TV.

So yes, for the sake of homeland security, I ridicule the president -- but
it gives me no pleasure to paint him as a dolt, a rube, a yokel on the
world stage, a submental, three bricks shy of a load, a Gilligan unable to
find his own ass with two hands. Or, as Sean Hannity calls it,
"Reaganesque."

No, it pains me to say these things, because I know deep down George Bush
has something extra -- a chromosome. Cruel? Perhaps, but it may just have
saved lives. By doing the extra chromosome joke, I sent a message to a
young Muslim man somewhere in the world who's on a slow burn about this
country, and perhaps got him to think, "Maybe the people of America aren't
so bad. Maybe it's just the rodeo clown who leads them. Maybe the people
'get it.'" We do, Achmed, we do!

And that's why making fun of the president keeps this country safe. The
proof? I've been doing it nonstop for years, and there hasn't been another
attack. Maybe the reason they haven't attacked us again is they figured
we're already suffering enough.

If I could explain one thing about George W. Bush to the rest of the world
it's this: We don't know what the hell he's saying either! Trust me,
foreigners, there's nothing lost in translation, it's just as incoherent
in the original English. Yes, we voted for him -- twice -- but that's
because we're stupid, not because we're bad. Bush is just one of those
things that are really popular for a few years and then almost overnight
become completely embarrassing. You know, like leg warmers, or Hootie and
the Blowfish, or white people going, "Oh no you di-int."

So while honoring the anniversary of September 2001, we must also never
forget September 2000. That's the month when Gov. George W. Bush said, "I
know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully." If you don't
believe me, you can look it up on both internets. The world changed on
9/11. He didn't. That's why we owe it to ourselves, and our children, to
never stop pointing out that George W. Bush is a gruesome boob.

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) You go, Bill!

:D :D

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 12:59 PM

:) :) :) :) :)

WALKING EAGLE

Invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation
last weekend in Arizona, President Bush spoke for almost an hour of his
future plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of
living.

Though vague on the details of his plan, he appeared enthusiastic
about his ideas for helping his "red brothers."

At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented the President
with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name -- 'Walking Eagle'.

As the President departed waving to the crowd in his motorcade, a news
reporter asked the group of chiefs how they came to select the new
name given to the President. They explained that Walking Eagle is the
name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly.

:D :D

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:02 PM

;) ;)

September 10, 2006

The Magnificent Obsession of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail

By PAUL SCHNEIDER NYTimes

THE northern boreal forest once stretched unbroken from Maine to Minnesota, a vast, mossy sea of trees, punctuated only by archipelagoes of rocky mountaintops and thin ribbons of water. To early European visitors who came in ships to its fringes, the great north woods were even more impenetrable and mysterious than the real ocean of water they had just crossed to get to it.

But impenetrable and unbroken did not mean it was trackless, or even a pure wilderness. The Algonquins, Iroquois and others who lived there traversed the region in canoes and on foot, and the paths they used to carry their boats between major water systems — from the Hudson River to Lake Champlain, say, or over the so-called Indian Carry from the Raquette River to the Saranac Lakes — were worn more than a foot deep in places by centuries of traffic. It was all a part of the Great Longhouse, as the Iroquois of upstate New York called it. It was home.

Toward the end of the 20th century, after a half millennium of change left not much of either the forest or its network of watery trails intact, three recreational paddlers — Mike Krepner, Ron Canter and Randy Mardres — came up with a seemingly audacious idea. Calling their project Native Trails, they set out to recreate what they could of those ancient routes, charting for modern travelers a new contiguous water trail from the top of Maine to the bottom of New York’s Adirondack Park.

This past June, after a decade and a half of exploration, infusions of cash and new partnerships, the officially designated 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail was finally dedicated. With festive ribbon-cuttings in four Northeast states, the event was a bit like a blockbuster art opening that redefines a genre. The major segments were familiar to paddlers: some, like the Adirondacks and the Allagash, are legendary. But when entwined with lesser known pieces, like Lubber Lake and Pensioner Pond in Vermont or the two short dips into Quebec, a new singularity emerges that seems both obvious and brilliant. The canoe trail, which some have compared to the Appalachian Trail, is more closely akin to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, the Everglades Wilderness Waterway in Florida or the Maine Island Trail for kayakers. As such, it may be the most important thing to happen to the northern eco-tourism trade since the invention of gorp.

Not long after the official opening, I paddled out onto Middle Saranac Lake on a breezy summer afternoon, having been driven to the put-in by the folks from St. Regis Canoe Outfitters in the town of Saranac Lake, where I had traded my rental car for a rental kayak. There were plenty of reasons to choose the heart of the Adirondack Park for a launch.

As a purely practical matter, this is the portion of the trail best equipped with guides and outfitters capable of supplying travelers with as much or as little as they may need in the way of boats, equipment, food or even instruction, making it relatively simple to put together a comfortable voyage.

As a purely personal matter, it was a chance for me to revisit the scene of voyages I had undertaken during the writing of my first book, a history of the Adirondacks, and fill in a few blanks in my own map of the park as well. The Adirondacks are where Americans in the 19th century invented the idea and language of wilderness recreation as both a business model and a restorative activity. The park is New York’s greatest environmental (not to mention bipartisan) achievement, a place bigger than the entire state of Massachusetts where “forever wild” forests range over high and low peaks and right down to the water’s edge in the form of great gnarled giants clinging by serpentine roots to boulders left by long gone glaciers.

It is the birthplace of eco-tourism, a treasure that The New York Times in an 1864 editorial called “a tract of country fitted to make a Central Park for the world.”

“Ask you, how went the hours?” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem about “the philosophers’ camp,” a trip he took to the Adirondacks in 1854 with the scientist Louis Agassiz and eight other luminaries. “Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air that circled freshly in their forest dress made them to boys again.”

With no intention of making it all the way to Maine, I whiled away happy hours poking up into deserted coves, pushing up streams to the foot of beaver dams, lunching on sunny rocks, trolling for fish and pulling up sweet memories of other trips and other times. Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac Lakes are not the wildest stretch of the Adirondacks, but they’re surely among the most beautiful. There are constant views to the high peaks and, in stretches where the protected Adirondack Forest Preserve gives way to private land, I paddled silently past the huge and fanciful twiggy great camps of bygone financiers and industrialists.

In the late afternoons I pitched my tent on thimble-size islands that I had all to myself and was not at all offended to find that the state had provided a little firewood and, down a short path, a tidy outhouse. The idea of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, after all, is not to go where no one has gone before. Along its way, the trail incorporates some waters well known and well traveled by local paddlers. The 347 miles in Maine include the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, the West Branch of the Penobscot River and the Rangeley Chain of Lakes. The 72-mile New Hampshire section includes portions of the Androscoggin and Ammonoosuc. In Vermont there is a fairly long open passage on Lake Champlain that can be full of sailboats. One night on Lower Saranac Lake I heard the sounds of a family of campers on another island, but more often it was only a bona fide loon singing like a madman across the water.

Passing through the rustic locks at the bottom of Lower Saranac Lake, which were built to allow the passage of steam-powered ferries up to the great camps of the upper lakes, I made my way along the lesser camps and summer places that line Lake Flower and paddled into the center of the town of Saranac Lake. One of the goals of the trail is to tie together the villages along the route, encouraging inns, restaurants, Chambers of Commerce and the like to cater to through-paddlers. This approach, alternating tenting with town life, makes for an extremely civilized way to get away from civilization.

The course of civilization is often winding, however, and for the first decade of its existence, the Northern Forest Canoe Trail hovered somewhere in the dark woods that stretch between “a great idea” and “a great achievement.” During those years, Mr. Krepner, Mr. Canter and Mr. Mardres navigated obscure waters, studied old maps and assembled blueprints for the route, but ultimately none of them had the time or money to undertake the organizational effort required to turn the fruits of their hobby into a marked and maintained route of interconnected rivers, lakes and portage trails.

In the late 1990’s their work was taken up by Rob Center and Kay Henry, who owned the Mad River Canoe Company at the time. “Did we have any idea that making the trail a reality was going to completely consume us for five years of our lives? Well, no,” Ms. Henry said recently. “But it was a great project, and it’s becoming a great resource for paddlers and as importantly for local communities along the way that want to get more involved in taking care of their rivers and lakes.”

From their position in the heart of the paddling industry, Ms. Henry and Mr. Center were able to line up a Who’s Who of outdoorsy corporate sponsors to help support the work, including Timberland, L. L. Bean, REI, Thule, Old Town and Eagle Creek. Local guides and other experts lent a hand in creating 13 detailed waterproof maps that can be bought individually or in state-by-state sets at the Web site (www.northernforestcanoetrail.org). Teams of volunteers from towns along the route were dispatched to make sure that trees hadn’t fallen across the trail and to plant signs and markers from Old Forge, N.Y., to Fort Kent, Me.

The town of Saranac Lake is making progress in its long effort to recapture some of the tourist trade from nearby Lake Placid. There’s music in the streets at night and a decidedly local feel to the shops compared with those at its Olympian neighbor. “The best thing about doing a trip like this here in the Adirondacks is that you get a little bit of almost everything the canoe trail has to offer in terms of paddling conditions and traveler accommodations,” Dave Cilley said over lunch. Mr. Cilley owns St. Regis Canoe Outfitters and had a hand in developing the Adirondack section maps for the trail. “You get the lakes, the river, the white water and the town.”

Oh yes, as if I had forgotten, the white water. “You should have no trouble with the first two rapids, but definitely get out and scout the Permanent Rapids,” said Mr. Cilley. “They should be running pretty well with the rain we’ve had.”

Thinking about the Permanent Rapids and how many years had gone by since the last time I navigated a similarly angry stretch of water, I almost stayed in Saranac Lake a second day. It occurred to me that if I skipped the Saranac River below, I’d have time to climb tall mountains and visit the Robert Louis Stevenson cottage, where he wrote a remarkably dark little novel, “The Master of Ballantrae,” while recovering from tuberculosis at the famous Trudeau Sanitarium. But pride got the better of me, and by midmorning the next day I was back in my little boat heading out of town toward the Permanent Rapids. Toward the rapids, that is, and, I hoped, beyond.

THE river heading out of Saranac Lake was lazy at first, winding in oxbow curves through relatively flat land that alternated from agricultural to woodland. The lonely peak of Whiteface Mountain acted as a sort of pivot around which I and the river were slowly circumnavigating, and I ate lunch onboard while sliding easily off the continent. Some of the camps along this stretch look more Appalachian than Adirondack, though never quite to the point where you might wish you had Burt Reynolds paddling in the stern with a loaded crossbow.

But when the river turned decisively back into the deep woods, the mountain and camps disappeared. As Mr. Cilley had predicted, one small Class II riffle was easily navigated without even scouting, then another. The third, though, was the beginning of the Permanent Rapids, and when I saw the island that marked its entrance, I got out soon enough to scramble up onto a mossy outcrop and look the thing over and mumble unkind things about my friends who had bailed out on coming along to the Adirondacks at the last minute.

Down below, the Saranac River that had been winding peacefully for miles through pastures and woodlands now squeezed itself between steep walls on its way out of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It was positively hurtling toward Lake Champlain over a series of ledges and boulders, piling itself up into standing waves two, or even three feet high. But on the whole, it looked much more doable to me than the alternative, which was to haul both boat and gear around the outside. I strapped on my life vest.

Pulling, tugging and generally yee-hawing, I made it into the channel past the island. The standing waves soaked, but didn’t swamp me. The rock I hit — O.K. there were two rocks that I hit — alarmed but didn’t upset the boat. They just slid under the forgiving plastic hull, giving me another reason besides flashlights, bug stuff and periodic inns and pizza to be glad that I wasn’t, in fact, an Iroquois trapper in a birch-bark boat. As quickly as it all started, I was beyond the Permanent Rapids, soaked and wishing I had the energy to drag the boat back up to the start so I could have the ride again. Then it was back to camping on a private island — this time in Franklin Falls Pond — where I dived from rocks and ate reconstituted freeze-dried black-bean tortilla pie in lieu of that big trout that I had failed to catch and wrap in foil to roast in the low coals. Happy and stuffed, I watched the last bit of sun catch the distant top of Whiteface Mountain and turn it a surprising salmon pink.

Like me, most travelers on the trail will not choose to do the entire route in one great push (typically from south to north). Most won’t ever do the entire trail, even in pieces. But even for less goal-driven wanderers like me, somehow just knowing that I could paddle all the way to Fort Kent, if I ever really wanted to, added a bit of grand adventure to that portion I did travel.

And, you know, you never know. When I got back home, I dug out a yellow highlighter and filled in on the map those portions of the trail I’ve completed over the years, both on this trip and others. Rangeley, the Connecticut River, the West Branch of the Penobscot are all filled in, as is the entire Adirondack section from Old Forge to the Permanent Rapids. Yes, that little yellow band of personal achievement goes right over the little hatch marks on the Saranac River indicating the Class III Permanent Rapids. It stops right before the little hatch marks indicating the Teft Pond Falls. That’s a Class V rapid and will have to wait for another trip, with other friends, perhaps in another life.

VISITOR INFORMATION

THE BASICS

Along its 740 miles the Northern Forest Canoe Trail incorporates many of the crown jewels of Northeast paddling — the Adirondacks, the Allagash, the Rangeley Lakes, the West Branch of the Penobscot, the Adroscoggin and Ammonoosuc — and most short and midlength adventurers will probably gravitate toward one of these. The place to begin any voyage on the trail, however, is www.northforestcanoetrail.org, where you can find an overview of the entire trail and plenty of suggestions for trips of varying lengths. You’ll also want to call the organization’s office in Vermont (802-496-2285) for help finding local outfitters and accommodations, or more up-to-date information on conditions along the trail.

If you choose to paddle in the Adirondacks, which at a drive of six to seven hours is the closest section of the trail to New York City (multi-leg flights to the Saranac Lake airport will take almost as long), start with Dave Cilley at St. Regis Canoe Outfitters www.canoeoutfitters.com) in Saranac Lake. He can outfit you for as long or short a voyage as you’re up for, with or without as much assistance in the way of cooking, car ferrying or guiding as you might need. You will need to reserve campsites on the Saranac Lake Islands through Reserve America ( www.reserveamerica.com).

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) Who is ready to go?

:) :) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:05 PM

:) :) :)

September 8, 2006

Wedding Off, Jilted Bride Turns Party Into a Benefit

By STEPHANIE STROM NYTimes

Six weeks before Kyle Paxman’s scheduled wedding, a stranger walked into her office with e-mail messages and other evidence that Ms. Paxman’s fiancé was cheating on her — with the stranger’s girlfriend.

“The dress had arrived, the flowers were done, the menus were chosen,” said Ms. Paxman, manager of two food and beverage outlets at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. “One hundred and eighty guests had tickets from all over the country and the Virgin Islands to come and make a weekend of my wedding.”

But rather than cancel the reception, planned for this Saturday in Vermont, Ms. Paxman, 29, has turned it into a charity benefit, at which strong women will be celebrated. “How do you turn something so awful around?” she said. “We needed to turn this into something positive and start the healing process.”

Right after getting the bad news on July 28, her mother, Patricia Carbee, began canceling reservations and events like a golf outing, but she learned that the family was still on the hook for the reception costs, a block of rooms at the Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain, in Vergennes, Vt., and other expenses.

“We had already spent the money, and I started trying to think of other ways we might be able to put the things we’d bought to use,” Mrs. Carbee said.

Ms. Paxman and her parents have invited 125 women, only some of whom were among the original invitees, to enjoy the cocktails and four-course dinner and, in return, she hopes they will write checks to two charities she has chosen, the Vermont Children’s Aid Society and CARE USA, the American affiliate of the international relief group.

“If you think about it, she’s not only empowering herself, she’s reaching out and helping to empower other women,” said Bibiana Betancourt, a fund-raising executive at CARE. She said Ms. Paxman’s plans were the most unusual she had encountered in her seven years raising money for CARE.

Ms. Paxman and her parents came up with the plan over dinner one night, she said, and quickly hit upon the Vermont Children’s Aid Society as one beneficiary. “We had supported things like the March of Dimes in the past, but this had to be something Kyle could embrace and support,” Mrs. Carbee said.

The next morning, as she and Ms. Paxman were mulling other possibilities over coffee, they were distracted by an advertisement for CARE on television. It shows hundreds of women from various countries striding across a desert, then zeroes in on four who stare straight into the camera and declare, “I am powerful.”

It ends as a narrator says: “She has the power to change her world. You have the power to help her,” and it spoke to Ms. Paxman. “It was the most powerful commercial I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I knew then that I had found my other cause.”

She said she did not know whether her former fiancé, whom she declined to name, knew what she was doing, but said his parents were aware of the benefit. They have not been invited. “It would just be too hard to have them there on the day I was supposed to be marrying their son,” she said.

After the event, she and her mother will head for Tahiti and the honeymoon trip she planned.

“It’s going to be hard, of course,” she said of appearing before her guests. “But the end of my story now isn’t so awful.”

(i) (i) (i) I loved this! Go grrl!

(k) (k) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:07 PM

:) :) :)

September 9, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

The Unslammed Phone

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Sandy Berger is lucky they didn’t show him stuffing government documents into his bra.

After all, cinematic license is cinematic license.

Regarding ABC’s tarted-up 9/11 movie that sparked a furor among Clintonites who felt they were unfairly blamed for the rise of Osama, I hate to be so quaint as to defend reality. There’s not much point. It’s as dead as dial-up.

In Hollywood, reality comes with quotation marks around it, as in fixed and scripted “reality” shows. In New York, hybrids of fiction and nonfiction are lavishly rewarded; publishers want the reality part to sell the fiction part and the fiction part to enhance the reality part. In Washington, the Bush team is on a cynical and dangerous new pre-election push to present its fantasies about Iraq as reality, accusing reality-based critics of “moral or intellectual confusion,” as Rummy put it.

When a reporter asked President Bush a couple of weeks ago what Iraq had to do with 9/11, he blurted out the truth: “Nothing.” But momentarily dismissing that fantasy isn’t about to dissuade him from others. “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,’’ President Bush told Katie Couric this week. I bet. Making up is hard to do.

The administration’s shameless mau-mauing was undercut yesterday by a 376-page Senate Intelligence Committee report slapping Bush hawks for relying on the flawed information provided by Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress to help make the case for war. The report also reaffirmed that Saddam viewed Osama in a negative light, and unveiled a C.I.A. assessment rejecting the president’s continuing claims about prewar links between Saddam and the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The 2005 C.I.A. finding concluded that Saddam “did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.”

W. is pulling out all the stops this week to try to make people forget he was in charge when the twin towers were hit, but if he’s doing so great, why is Osama releasing new tapes while Afghanistan crumbles while Pakistan stands ready to implode while Lebanon has already exploded while Iran goes nuclear and taunts us while Al Qaeda in Iraq calls on its followers to kill Americans “by a sniper bullet, spear, explosive or martyrdom car”?

Conservatives are crowing at the prospect of an ABC movie written by one of their own that blames 9/11 on a flaccid Clinton national security team.

Bill was distracted by the Monica fallout, just as W. was distracted, on Osama and Katrina, by his insistence on living life as usual in Crawford. Bill had no natural inclination to use American force and fumbled on how to strike back at Osama. W., petulantly, did not want to focus on terrorism because his predecessor had.

W. had a clear narrative thread in 2001; all he needed to do was go after the bad guys who hit us. Instead, he obsessed about other bad guys who happened to pose no danger to us.

Why do presidents and filmmakers dealing with the most stunning events in recent American history feel the need to go beyond facts? Isn’t the dire actuality enough? Oliver Stone implied that Lyndon Johnson and Nixon might have been in some tortuous way connected to plots to kill J.F.K.

The ABC movie promoted itself as a serious work based on the 9/11 commission report and featuring Tom Kean, the commission’s co-chairman, as a co-executive producer. (It’s impossible to imagine Earl Warren producing a movie about the events in Dallas.) But if it’s making a claim upon people’s attention as a trustworthy and accurate description of events that bear on all our lives, you’ve got to stick with the truth. You can’t pick and choose when you want it to be history and when you want it to be art. (Quel art.)

Sandy Berger yelped about a scene that depicted him refusing to authorize a military strike to kill Osama and slamming down the phone on a C.I.A. officer at a key moment. Cyrus Nowrasteh, the Republican and Limbaugh pal who served as the writer and a producer, told KRLA-AM in Los Angeles that the scene was improvised.

They distorted history to throw in a standard cliché of melodrama? (The 9/11 Commission Report as Douglas Sirk would have filmed it.) Why compromise your movie by adding tacky things that don’t increase its aesthetic power and detract from its moral power?

The argument over which president is to blame for 9/11 is tiresome. Both obviously bear some blame. There are no West Wing heroes in this story.

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) I LOVE Maureen's writing! " Bush Admin's shameless mau-mauing" just made me laugh out loud. :D

Lovely rest of your day,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:08 PM

:) :) :)

September 6, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

New Themes for the Same Old Songs

By MAUREEN DOWD

Washington

W. and Katie were both on TV at 6:30 last night, trying to prove they were a man.

Katie won, by a whisker.

The president and the anchor were on a big push this week to prove they could be the daddy at the helm, trustworthy authority figures who could guide America through tumultuous times. She wanted to prove that she was a commander; he wanted to prove that he was an anchor.

The fate of a network, and the fate of a republic, would appear to hinge on gender issues.

W., Dick Cheney and Rummy are on a campaign to scare Americans into believing that limp-wristed Democrats will curtsy to Islamic radicals and Iranian tyrants, just as Chamberlain bowed to Hitler, and that only the über-manly Republicans can keep totalitarianism, fascism and the Al Qaeda “threat to civilization’’ at bay. If they were women, their rhetoric would be described with adjectives like shrill, strident, illogical and hysterical. But since they are men, we’ll just call it Churchill envy.

“Now, I know some of our country hear the terrorists’ words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say,’’ Mr. Bush said in a speech yesterday to a military group, which was the second story on the first evening news show anchored by the first solo female network anchor. “History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake.’’ Mr. Bush said that the world failed to heed Lenin and Hitler, and it was essential to pay attention to bin Laden.

Too bad the president didn’t take time out from clearing brush at the ranch long enough back in August of 2001 to pay attention to an intelligence paper headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’’

After playing down bin Laden for years, barely mentioning him and minimizing his importance, W. has once more picked up a metaphorical bullhorn on the cusp of the 9/11 anniversary to make Osama the villain, using his name 18 times in a 40-minute speech. Once it would have made a difference to decapitate Osama, and it would still be great to do it. But it’s too late to stop Al Qaeda that way now. The organization has diffused to a state of mind, fueled by hatred of U.S. occupation of Muslim land.

W.’s plan to save his legacy and keep Congress out of Democratic hands is to absorb a misbegotten and mishandled war, Iraq, into the good wars of the 20th century, World War II and the cold war. Instead of just admitting he bollixed up Iraq, W. and his henchmen are ratcheting up, fusing enemies willy-nilly, running around giving speeches with the simplistic, black-helicopter paranoid message: All those scary Arabs are in league to knock us off and institute the rule of Allah.

The president and his men have been trying to get everyone excited by repackaging and giving a new theme song to the same old things, just as Katie and CBS were trying to get everyone excited by repackaging and giving a new theme song to a newscast that turned out to be the same old newscast, just with more legs.

Les Moonves and Ms. Couric tried to wrap her debut in historical significance. She’s the Jackie Robinson of network news, Mr. Moonves told me.

In an interview on the local CBS affiliate that aired just before her debut, Katie said she had taken the job at her daughters’ urging, and her daughter Carrie told her to do it “because you’ll be the first woman to do that job by yourself. So I was like, cue Helen Reddy. Who knew I was raising such a little feminist?”

The press had lots of commentary like the one by Lauren Stiller Rikleen, titled “Women need Katie Couric to succeed.’’

Actually, the minute Katie Couric was given a $15 million paycheck to read from a teleprompter for 15 or 20 minutes a night, women won. Women have been doing that at the BBC and on American cable stations for years, and for a lot less dough. Jackie Robinson represented a revolution; Katie Couric represented a promotion.

The sad truth is, women only get to the top of places like the network evening news and Hollywood after those places are devalued.

He’s got ratings and she’s got ratings. His party’s voters; her network’s viewers. So we’re talking about the personal fulfillment of two people — W. and Katie — disguised and peddled as the fulfillment of a higher ideal. It’s marketing tricked out as ideology.

Courage, as Dan Rather used to say.

(y) (y) (y)

;) ;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:14 PM

Q U O T E D

"Could it be galactically stupid? It doesn't get much worse."

-- California Attorney General Bill Lockyer upgrades his stupidity rating on the HP scandal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801857.html

:| :|

;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-13-2006, 01:19 PM

:o :o

It's degrading my connection ...

Broadband over power lines (BPL) hasn't even come of age yet and already it's being upstaged by a newcomer in utility computing: BIG, or Broadband in Gas. Nethercomm, a San Diego-area start-up, says it has developed technology that uses ultrawideband wireless signals to deliver broadband services through natural-gas pipes. Sounds crazy, I know, but Nethercomm claims it can deliver up to 10 gigabits per second to our homes and says that it can do it with no modification to existing natural gas distribution infrastructures. "It's kind of like those old ships where you used to talk into a pipe, and they'd hear the message at the other end," CEO Pat Nunally explained last year. "This is a cheap way to distribute broadband to everyone, without necessarily having to invest a whole lot of money." An intriguing idea, and one that could sharply cut costs for companies currently investing lots of money in broadband rollouts. But only if Nethercomm can persuade someone to test it in a real-world environment. And that hasn't happened yet. Said JupiterResearch analyst Joe Laszlo, "It's really easy to make these kinds of claims, but it's much harder to prove in practice."

http://www.nethercomm.com/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060911/tc_usatoday/gaslinebroadbandapipedream

How to Use Your Oven to Surf the Web:

http://www.forbes.com/home/services/2005/05/18/cx_de_0518gas.html

:| :|

;)

(k) (k) 's and Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-15-2006, 10:12 AM

;) ;) ;) ;)

Click on this link and you will see a man. Put the cursor of your mouse

on his nose and leave it there and see what happens... bizarre. How

do they do it?

http://fun.from.berdyczow.org/2004-05-26/posmeraj-goscia-w-nos.swf

(y) (y) They could have used a much different person than the one they did. ;)

Sun Thoughts,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-15-2006, 10:16 AM

:) :) :) :)

:D :D

SALON.COM

Garrison Keillor

In Search Of Coffee, Tea Or Triacetone Triperoxide

Published September 13, 2006

And now you can't bring your cup of coffee on board the airplane.
It's the latest new rule laid down by the nation's security
wizards. Everyone knows it's ridiculous--the notion that you can
toss together a few liquids and make an explosive is a fiction from
late-night movies. You might as well prohibit bald men on the
grounds that the evil Lex Luthor was bald and so was Blofeld, the
head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

But we ditch our venti latte in the trash barrel (goodbye, four
bucks) and board the flight, and there we read in the paper that
aggressive CIA questioning of an Al Qaeda bigwig, stripping him,
turning the air conditioner to 40 degrees, blasting him with Red
Hot Chili Peppers music, broke him so he ratted on Jose Padilla, a
terrorist who set out to make a dirty bomb and who believed that by
swinging a bucket of uranium in a circle over his head he could
separate plutonium. It's like a cartoon.

The way to stop terrorists on planes is to encourage passengers to
bring loaded firearms aboard: guys in orange vests sitting in exit
rows with deer rifles on their laps, ladies with Mr. Colt in their
purses, kids with peashooters. Somebody wake up the National Rifle
Association. Does the 2nd Amendment say "The right of the people to
keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except on commercial
airliners"? Where is the right wing when you really need them?

This way, if some guy in a burnoose sets up a chemistry lab in row
24 and mixes hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid and acetone in a big
beaker that is packed in 15 pounds of dry ice to keep it cool, and
cooks up some triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, the passengers will
be able, in the several hours it will take him to make the deadly
explosive, to bring him under control, assuming the fumes haven't
knocked Ahmed out. And they could nab the mastermind too, the
monocled guy in first-class petting the white cat.

It all began with the name Homeland Security. Somebody with a tin
ear came up with that, maybe the pest exterminator from Texas, or
Adm. Poinduster, because, friends, Americans don't refer to this as
our homeland. It's an alien term, like Fatherland or Deutschland or
Tomorrowland. Irving Berlin didn't write "God Bless Our Homeland."
You never heard John Wayne say, "Men, we're going over that hill
and we're going to kick those krauts out of there. And we're going
to raise the flag of the homeland."

"Homeland" was a word you heard shrieked by a cruel man flicking
his riding crop against his shiny black boots: "Zie homeland--ve
shall defend it at all costs, achwohl!" Americans live in Our
Country, America, the nation of nations, the good old U.S.A.

But they couldn't call it the Department of National Security
because there was one of those already, so they created this new
Achtung bureau to make us take off our shoes and put the toothpaste
in the checked luggage and dump the coffee. The jihadists we're
afraid of are, so far as we know, young Muslim men from the Middle
East, not old grandmas named Evelyn and Gladys married to soybean
farmers, and not even old white guys like me, but nonetheless they
pat us down for plastic explosives under our Sansabelts and have us
raise our stockinged feet to be wanded for possible toe bombs. It's
all to make us feel we're in a movie and it will have a happy
ending.

God forbid somebody shows up at an airport somewhere in the world
with an explosive tucked in his lower colon. The Achtung people
will come up with some new security procedures that will
effectively kill airline travel, and then this enormous bureaucracy
can turn its attention to the nation's highways. Pull over at the
checkpoint, get out of the car, open the trunk, take off your
shoes, put your hands on the top of the car, turn your head to the
right, and cough.

They can search each laptop for possible terrorist-type writing and
confiscate cell phones, white powder, shoelaces, car keys, pencils,
anything sharp or cylindrical or made of glass, and interrogate
people randomly, putting them naked into cold rooms with ugly music
played at top volume. It's all fine with me. I'm a liberal and we
love ridiculous government programs that intrude on personal
freedom. But where are the conservatives who used to object to this
sort of thing?

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

I LOVED THIS!!

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-15-2006, 10:20 AM

;) ;) ;)

I swear, you add the term "social network" to anything right now, you can get $1 million in VC funding. Take a stroll down Sand Hill Road and tell anyone you pass, "I've got a social network for sugar gliders." Cha-ching. A million bucks.

Don't believe me? Take a look at Ted Rheingold, founder and chief executive of Dogster, a Friendster parody that became a business and just bagged $1 million in angel funding. Now to be fair, Dogster has done quite well for itself. With 250,000 registered users, the company is profitable and expects to generate $1 million in advertising revenue this year. And that's likely a reasonable target. Pets are a $36 billion industry and the people who own them are obviously good targets for pet-unrelated advertising as well. Little wonder then that Rheingold, who followed up Dogster with Catster, plans to use his new Series A capital to stretch further into the animal kingdom and beyond. "The investment allows us to test out how big Dogster and Catster can become, and to invest in more pet properties, such as horses, fish, birds, reptiles -- all kinds of critters," he told ZDnet. "We feel confident with our foundation and rounding out our pet offerings. We can take advantage of our head start and then start with non-pet topics."

http://www.sugarglider.net/

http://www.dogster.com/

http://venturebeat.com/?p=1888

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3609

:| :| :| :| :|

:o :o

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-15-2006, 10:22 AM

:) :) :) :) :)

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

http://www.waghotels.com/

:D :D :D (h) (h) (h)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-15-2006, 10:25 AM

:D :D :D

Cecil Dill and his musical hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZynEsdGnQ

:D :D

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 08:38 AM

:) :) :)

(~) (~) 1. Wooly Boys (2001)

Grizzled North Dakota rancher Stoney (Peter Fonda) heads to the big city to see his daughter and winds up bonding with the grandson he never knew in this heartwarming tale. Stoney's city-bred grandson, Charles (Joseph Mazzello), tricks him into getting help for a serious health issue. But with the aid of his rancher pal (Kris Kristofferson), Stoney escapes the hospital -- with Charles in tow -- for what becomes a life-altering adventure.

Cast: Kris Kristofferson, Peter Fonda, Keith Carradine, Joseph Mazzello, James Cada, Robin Dearden, Jim Westcott, Adam Stradlin

Reviews:

I wasn't expecting that I would enjoy this movie much but to my pleasant suprise, found myself thinking that this is a movie worthy to be in a dvd collection. I would consider this movie a cross between a comedy and drama (issues of life, death and relationships) but definately more on the side of comedy. This movie does not delve heavily in the emotional "arena" and will not put you in tears. As for the comical aspects, I would think this type of comedy would appeal more to the down-to-earth individual, who has an understanding of this kind of life (rural) and people within these types of communities. As a side-note, I think this movie will also appeal to law enforcement. Particularly those who work in similiar, rural communities. A movie that I felt "right at home" watching. I for one wish there were movies out there, just like this one. Here's hoping for a Wooly Boys II! ;-)

I really enjoyed this "little" movie with a funny and touching story. Peter Fonda & Kris Kristofferson play two ornery and cantankerous characters, that you actually begin to like and root for. Keith Carradine and the whole cast did an excellent job of portraying their roles. This is a definite recommendation for a very entertaining movie.

Fout Stars!

***********************************

2. Love's Long Journey (2005)

(~) (~) Brimming with pioneer spirit, young marrieds Missie (Erin Cottrell) and Willie LaHaye (Logan Bartholomew) hit the trail west in a covered wagon, intending to set down roots as homesteaders. But while she's elated at the new adventure that awaits, Missie's at once saddened by the separation from her kinfolk. Armed with faith and fortitude, the couple seeks out "family" in their new home, fortuitously finding it in unexpected places.

Cast: Erin Cottrell, Logan Bartholomew, William Morgan Sheppard, James Tupper, Irene Bedard, Colin McCabe

Director: Michael Landon Jr.

Reviews:

Sure, it's sappy. It's HallMark. But it's also clean entertainment and it's romantic and adventurous. It's got pioneer spirit.

3 Stars. I don't think that I will watch the other two Landon, Jr. - directed films though. This and other two are definitely good for religious folks though. And couples with kids. Wholesome.

Have a wonderful Monday and week! The sun is out, so "one out of two ain't bad". (The other is the temperature...;) Chilly Fall nights.....I can't wait!

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 08:48 AM

(h) (h) (h) (h)

by Andy Collins

From the Fall 2006 issue of The OUT Traveler

When the aspens turn gold and the scent of roasted piñon fills the air, the fiesta season has begun. Here's your guide to the perfect Santa Fe weekend.

A progressive, gay-friendly magnet for creative spirits and outdoorsy types, Santa Fe draws opera fanatics in summer and ski bums in winter, but many travelers overlook the cool yet sunny days of autumn, a time to attend festivals, hike the stunning countryside, and savor the taste of fresh-roasted green chiles.

In October, the aspen trees turn golden, and by mid-November, it's not uncommon to see a white shock of snow crowning Santa Fe's spectacular 12,500-foot Sangre de Cristo Mountains. By then, the nutty aroma of piñon wood burning in hundreds of fireplaces permeates the air.

Day one

Fiesta: For 10 days in early September, you can watch the colorful events of Santa Fe Fiesta (www.santafefiesta.org), including the fabled Burning of Zozobra on Sept. 7. Over the first two weekends in October, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (www.balloonfiesta.com), the largest such event in the world, is just an hour's drive away.

Numerous villages in and around Santa Fe host studio tour weekends (www.abqarts.org/resources/studiotours.htm) from September through November, during which you can chat with artisans and browse their wares.

Browse: On the off chance you're in town when there's no event on tap, spend your first day strolling historic Canyon Road (www.canyonroadarts.com), a narrow, winding lane that climbs from downtown into the piñon-studded foothills, fringed by several renowned art galleries.

Eat: Pause for a meal at gay-popular Geronimo (724 Canyon Rd; 505/982-1500; www.geronimorestaurant.com), one of the Southwest's temples of haute cuisine. Don't miss the mesquite-grilled lobster tails with sautéed gnocchi and a spicy chile-wine sauce.

Day two

Head for the hills: Saunter through Aspen Vista (off Hyde Park Road, 13 miles east of downtown), a dense grove of quaking aspens just below the Santa Fe ski area. It's about a four-mile walk to reach an amazing promontory that affords panoramic views of the city and surrounding high desert. Remember, this is high-altitude country: Pace yourself, and drink plenty of water, even on a cool fall morning.

Decompress: On your drive back to town, stop at Ten Thousand Waves (3451 Hyde Park Rd; 505/982-9304; www.tenthousandwaves.com), a Japanese-inspired spa retreat, where you can bliss out to an Indo-Asian hot-oil massage before soaking in one of the serene hot tubs.

If it's you and your honey, opt for the private New Ofuro tub, with its balcony and adjacent sauna. If you're going solo, hop into the chummy communal tub, a favorite hobnobbing spot among the many queer folks in town.

Groove: Little Santa Fe isn't the hottest clubbing destination in the world, but Swig (135 W. Palace Ave; 505/955-0400), a chic, mixed lounge and dance club, has a decidedly gay following.

Day three

Breakfast on the patio: Begin your morning with a meal at one of the most atmospheric restaurants in town, Harry's Roadhouse (Old Las Vegas Hwy; 505/989-4629), a funky adobe spread on the outskirts of town. On the sunny patio nosh on hearty breakfast burritos or blue-corn waffles.

Hit Museum Hill: On your way back into town, stop at the city's Museum Hill (Camino Lejo, off Old Santa Fe Trail), home to several superb repositories of art and artifacts relevant to Santa Fe's rich, tri-cultural heritage. Highlights include the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (505/476-1250; www.miaclab.org), the Museum of International Folk Art (505/476-1200; www.moifa.org), and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (505/982-2226; www.spanishcolonial.org). Then continue downtown to visit the famed Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (www.okeeffemuseum.org) (217 Johnson St; 505/995-0785).

Cocktails and dinner on the patio: As the sun sets, grab a seat on the open-air Rooftop Cantina (132 W. Water St; 505/983-1615; www.coyotecafe.com/cantina.htm), a favorite hangout for people watching, chips and "guac," fish tacos, and mango margaritas.

Stay

The Far East-meets-Old West vibe of the intimate, ultraplush Inn of the Five Graces (150 E. DeVargas St; 505/992-0957; www.fivegraces.com) delights discerning travelers. Stylish Rosewood Hotels & Resorts recently bought and renovated the swank Inn of the Anasazi (113 Washington Ave; 505/988-3030; www.innoftheanasazi.com), an artful 57-room adobe hotel just steps from the historic Plaza (it has one of the hottest restaurants in town).

The gay-owned Inn of the Turquoise Bear (342 E. Buena Vista St; 505/983-0798; www.turquoisebear.com) occupies the rambling, Pueblo Revival estate of gay 1920s poet Witter Bynner. Affordable yet quite elegant, the Old Santa Fe Inn (320 Galisteo St; 505/995-0800; www.oldsantafeinn.com) offers a hip, spotless, modern take on a vintage motor court in Santa Fe's lively Guadalupe District.

Getting there

Santa Fe is served by Albuquerque International Sunport (2200 Sunport Blvd. SE, off I-25, 505/244-7700; www.cabq.gov/airport), which has flights on all major U.S. airlines and lies just 60 miles from town via Interstate 25. If you have time, take the slightly longer but incredibly scenic Turquoise Trail (Hy. 14).

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) I am *so* there! During one of my first of many, many visits, I stayed at a B&B that was exquisite, called El Paradero. I went over a Thanksgiving weekend and experienced my first Santa Fe style turkey dinner. Yes, the stuffing had pine nuts and chiles.:)

Since I was living in California at the time of my initial Santa Fe visits in 1984, I didn't take warm-enough clothes the first time. I still enjoyed walking all over town. It snowed and all of the adobe buildings (the whole town) seemed surreal at night when the luminarias were lit.

Of course, it's quite warm the first week of august for Indian Market. But that's another story for another post.;)

Autumn in Santa Fe. (l) (l) One of the next best things to heaven. (a)

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 08:54 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

(~) (~) Goodnight Mister Tom (1998)

A bitter old man is transformed when he takes in a war refugee in this moving adaptation of Michelle Magorian's World War II novel. When young Willie (Nick Robinson) is evacuated from London and sent to live in a small village, grumpy Tom (John Thaw) begrudgingly agrees to harbor the boy. Gradually, Tom manages to coax the distrustful lad from his shell, and when it's time for Willie to return to London, the two realize the depth of their bond.

Cast: John Thaw, Nick Robinson, Annabelle Apsion, Thomas Orange, William Armstrong, Geoffrey Beevers, Mossie Smith, Peter Engman, Ivan Berry, Merelina Kendall, Marlene Sidaway, John Cater, Denyse Alexander, Avril Elgar, Michael Cronin, Pauline Turner.

Reviews:

This is a wonderful movie. John Thaw plays a tough old man in WWII England who takes in a sad, troubled boy and together they learn to heal their wounds, and find hope again.

I watched this lovely story with tears in my eye the whole time. We will never see this wonderful actor again, what a loss. John Thaw was a gem. Great love story.

This was a touching and moving movie. Great acting by John Thaw and Nick Robinson. I recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of British Masterpiece Theater. Great character development and authentic time period scenes.

An unexpected WWII refugee boy comes to the care of a lonely old man always morning his wife and son death. A beautiful, neat, typical small English town as the background and the mutual relationship fullfiling each other's lives, and the personalities which the actors give to those lovely characters, make this story very especial to understand real love to overcome long lasting wounds. The role of Mr Tom (John Thaw) representing a fatherly figure reassuring self-esteem to a boy burdened with a deep pain. A Masterpiece of art.

(*) 5 STARS! After a good night's rest, I woke up earlier this morning knowing why I loved this film so much and accepted it as a cosmic wink. ;)

:) :)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:11 AM

(y) (y)

When the weather gets cold, real men (and womyn) head to the mountains for a white-hot gay ski weekend. Yep, it's time again for some good old-fashioned, red-blooded, white-powdered gay winter fun.

Follow us as we slalom through this year's best gay and lesbian winter events. Take every mogul in your path, or pick your favorite and savor the experience -- just hop in your car, fly, walk or ski to your favorite resort and hit the slopes for a weekend (or longer). (Note that some events had incomplete information at press time. Be sure to check back here or with the organizers for the most up-to-date information.)

Need more weekend gay ski getaway ideas? Click here for the perfect gay-friendly gay ski resorts to wrap a weekend around.

January 4-8
Utah Gay & Lesbian Ski Week
Park City, Utah

This event, now in its sixth year, is more intimate, relaxed and community-oriented than some of the larger ones. Skiing takes place on the slopes at Park City, the Canyons and Deer Valley.

January 15-22
Aspen Gay & Lesbian Ski Week
Aspen, Colorado

This is the longest-running gay and lesbian ski event in the world, attracting thousands of skiers, boarders and après-skiers with a diverse lineup of activities, parties, entertainment, a film festival and -- oh yes, skiing on four different mountains.

February 4-11
Vail Gay and Lesbian Ski Week
Vail, Colorado

From the same people who organize the gay ski week at Park City, Utah (see above), this outing (formerly known as Summit County Gay Ski and Snowboard Week) provides a more select experience for those with a penchant for powder -- with access to the slopes of Vail and Beaver Creek.

February 4-13
GayWhistler Ski Week 2006
Whistler, British Columbia, Canada

Altitude has hit a few bumps. The original event has been canceled, but others have stepped in to plan events during the week in the hopes that participants still attend the function. The founders of Gay Whistler in conjunction with Tourism Whistler will host an event during the same week that Altitude was supposed to take place. All event, booking and ticket information will be available at http://TourismWhistler.com and www.GayWhistler.com.

February 17-20
Winter Explosion 2006: "Family Reunion"
www.winterexplosion.com, don@winterexplosion.com

The largest and longest-running gay and lesbian African-American winter event on the East Coast (2006 will be its 12th season), Family Reunion attracts close to 1,000 participants to New York's Hudson Valley Resort and Spa over Presidents Day weekend.

February 17-20
Denver Meltdown: Black Gay Ski Week
http://denvermeltdown.com

For three days beginning February 17th, thrill-seeking men from around the country will converge in Denver for a massive Meltdown; The Largest Black Gay Ski weekend of events ever over Presidents Day weekend.

February 26-March 5
Telluride Gay Ski Week Telluride
Telluride, Colorado

In-drag skiing is just one of the events at this relatively young but increasingly popular Rocky Mountains affair, which includes sleigh rides, snowmobiling, an Oscar party at the Sheridan Opera House and the Telluride AIDS Benefit and fashion show.

February 26-March 5
Ascent, the Winter Party at Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe, NV

So you can navigate the slopes and the weeklong party like a VIP, the adventurous OutWest people offer a package to this serious snow fiesta, which also draws plenty of lesbians.

March 5-12
Lake Tahoe WinterFest 2006
Lake Tahoe, NV
Nevada Gay and Lesbian CVB (877/777-4950; www.laketahoewinterfest.com, nglvcb@aol.com)

During the 11th annual ski WinterFest, skiers and boarders enjoy morning socials and nightly entertainment, including comedians and dance parties. The highlight is a dinner-dance cruise on Lake Tahoe.

March 15-19
Elevation 2006
Mammoth, CA

Come for four days of spring skiing and snowboarding. Stay for seven major après-ski and nighttime events, including world-famous DJs and a crowd of 1,500-plus guys and girls from across Southern California.

March 12-19
SWING (SWiss and International Gays in the Swiss alps)
Lenzerheide, Switzerland

This intimate affair usually attracts around 50 gays and lesbians of different ages to a magical mid-size ski resort in the Graubünden mountains.

March 20-26
Switzerland Gay and Lesbian Ski Week
Hosted by Swiss Tourism; Booking agent: Eurobound (888/672-7476; http://eurobound.com/gay_pack/gayski05.asp)

Late-spring skiing in Switzerland is an unforgettable experience. You'll find yourself in a fairy tale landscape, surrounded by some of the most stunningly beautiful mountains in the world. Davos is one of the largest and most popular winter sport regions in Europe.

March 24-26
Powder & Pride
Panorama, British Columbia, Canada

The first gay ski and snowboarding weekend hosted by not-for-profit travel organization Gayoutdoors.com includes nightly dancing to DJs and a Winter Wonderland Ball. Check back here or on organizer's Web site for updated information.

Late March or early April
European Gay Ski Week 2006
Pila, Italy
Alternative Holidays (+44-20/8795-6567, fax +44-20/8903-7357; www.alternative-holidays.com, info@alternative-holidays.com)

London-based Alternative Holidays has organized successful gay ski events for 10 years running. This year, the shussing takes place in the Aosta Valley of the Italian Alps, with lodging in the resort town of Pila. Participants can also book add-on trips to Rome, Milan or Florence. (Dates are not confirmed as of press time. Check back here or on organizer's Web site for 2006 dates.)

April 5-9
OutBoard 2006
Keystone, Colorado

Begun in 1997, OutBoard is the oldest and largest gay and lesbian snowboarding event in the world, drawing more than 300 boarders. Steamboat, about 180 miles northwest of Denver, is known for late-season snow and its legendary "champagne powder."

April 1-7
Gay Snowhappening
Soelden, Austria

End-of-winter skiing in the splendiferous Austrian Alps: It's the perfect way to bid the season auf wiedersehen. This is the seventh year for this festive event.

September 2-9
Gay Ski Week
Queenstown, New Zealand

A social whirl of a week in the self-professed "après-ski adventure capital of the Southern hemisphere" in this gay-popular resort town. It drew nearly 300 revelers in 2005.

Early September
WhiteOUT!
Mt. Buller, Victoria, Australia

Melbourne's gay and lesbian Midsumma Festival organization will be hosting their seventh annual ski weekend, which draws a smallish crowd of 150 bunnies of all levels, who register in August.

(*) (*) Deer Valley, Utah is near the top of my list for downhill skiing. They sell only a limited amount of lift tickets so there was never a line at the lifts when I was there. ANY ski resort in Utah has knee-deep powder to die for! So when I fall, it's into snow so incredibly light, my ski clothes don't get wet as they did when I learned to ski at Seven Springs, PA and Killington, Vermont back in the mid-1970s. Wet and cold do not go together. Brrrrr.

Anyone thinking Utah in early January? :) :) Or the legendary "champagne powder." in Keystone, Colorado in April? Just being there and watching the second event would be fun.

(y) (y) (y) Final Paper.....finally submitted late yesterday afternoon to the online course room. I'm done for two weeks. Yay. I must really be tired......that "yay" wasn't that enthusiastic.;) Two more courses until Comps Exams. The light at the end of the PhD Program tunnel and that's not a train comng at me either.:o ;)

(c) (c) More coffee, that's the ticket. And getting out this afternoon for some fresh air at a park with Wyatt.

({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:16 AM

:( :( :(

PC Forum, one of the tech industry's most elite conferences, is no more. Earlier this week, the event's organizer quietly announced that PC Forum 2006 would be the last. "It had a great run, from 1977 to 2006, and we decided to end it before anyone asked us to," Esther Dyson explained. "We've grown up with this industry and we love it -- but last year's Forum was as close to perfect as we think we could get. So we're leaving while you still miss us." A gathering of high profile valley execs, venture capitalists and government nabobs, PC Forum was often a good barometer of tech's mentality, but like Comdex before it, it's seen attendance decline in recent years. Sadly, folks these days seem far more interested in discussing the latest Web 2.0 trend than machine versus human intelligence or whether or not open source development ensures better quality software.

http://www.release1-0.com/pcforum/

:( :(

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:18 AM

:) :) :) :) :)

http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/images/pages/home.jpg

(y) (y)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:21 AM

:| :| :| :|

:o :o :o

:) :)

http://www.adoptamime.com/mimulator/

;) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:24 AM

:| :| :| :| :|

Q U O T E D

"The message body contains the following prohibited content: 'Engadget.' You must remove this content before submitting your post. When writing your message, remember to keep the language clean."

-- Cingular discovers a new profanity

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/13/cingular-bans-the-word-engadget-from-its-customer-forums/

:| :| Huh? A mobile telephone services company filtering language? I'm glad they're not MY service provider. What B.S. as well as scary, "Big Brother" business behavior. Oops, that alliteration was unintended....;)

(k) 's
SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-18-2006, 09:36 AM

:D :D :D

Car versus 747:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I_2kmtJynM

(y) (y) :D :D (h) (h) Of course it was done in Australia! They're the only ones crazy enough to try this.

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:04 AM

:o :o

http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=2578&title=Finger%20Forks

:| :|

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:05 AM

:) :)

The Muppet Show's Beaker sings "Feelings":

http://www.devilducky.com/media/50953/

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:07 AM

:o :o :o

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

How to Talk Like a Pirate:

http://loadingreadyrun.com/showmovie.php?x=480&y=360&url=talklikepirate.mov

;) ;) Arg, arg!

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:09 AM

:D :D

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w-rBc9jxG1U

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:34 AM

:o :o

1. http://www.chezpim.typepad.com/

Fantasy Sushi: http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2005/09/fantasy_sushi.html

Tuna Tartare (exquisite!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/chezpim/123576502/

In vino veritas: http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/in_vino_veritas_or_otherwise/index.html

2. http://www.thefoodsection.com/

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) Superb treasure trove of links!

3. http://www.shewhoeats.blogspot.com/

Absolutely gorgeous, including "succulent fresh peaches for the whole month". (y) (y) Made my mouth water.....;)

Enjoy!

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the napping Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:43 AM

:o :o :o :o :o

"Mattel unveiled Tanner, Barbie's new pet dog can be fed little brown "biscuits", which he then defecates, so that Barbie can scoop them up with her new, magnetic pooper scooper."

-The Week Magazine, September 15 Issue

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000ELIXA4.01._SS400_SCLZZZZZZZ_V65933827_.jpg

www.barbie.com

http://www.jacotei.com.br/boneca-barbie-e-cachorro-tanner-mattel.html

;) ;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:52 AM

:) :) :)

Long isolated by mountain ranges and high altitude, Tibet is the last region of China to be connected to the rest of the country by train. The new 710-mile track, linking Golmud in Qinghai province to the Tibetan capital Lhasa, took five years to lay at a cost of $4.2 billion. The distance traveled from Beijing to Tibet: 2,500 miles.

Only China could build "a railway like this so quickly," said civil engineer Yan Xiao, a U.S. passenger who was on the first express train from Beijing to Lhasa Saturday. The train was scheduled to arrive in Lhasa 48 hours later — tonight. "There are so many challenges, like overcoming the permafrost and getting so many workers to function at high altitude," said Yan, who teaches at the University of Southern California. Permafrost is permanently frozen soil or rock that creates a building challenge because temperature fluctuations can make the soil shift.

To counteract the thin air when the trains reach the highest altitudes, oxygen is pumped through the carriage ventilation. If needed, passengers can access additional oxygen from a socket under the seat. The highest point the train reaches is Tanggula Mountain Pass at 16,640 feet (Mount McKinley in Alaska is 20,320 feet).

Zhu chose engines made by General Electric because they prove their metal every day high in the Peruvian Andes, the world's highest railway before this weekend's launch of the Qinghai-Tibet line. "On the plateau, not only people have trouble breathing, but machines too," said Zhu.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-02-china-tibet-train_x.htm

*******************

http://en.tibet.cn/news/tin/t20060628_127352.htm

*******************

(p) (p) (p) Photos: http://en.beijing2008.com/46/68/article212026846.shtml

(*) (*) Definitely built and completed in record time for the upcoming 2008 Winter Olympics to be held in China! I wonder what the Dalai Lama thinks about this project.

(f) (f) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 08:59 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

To commemorate such a significant milestone, Mesa Verde National Park staff, the Mesa Verde Museum Association, the Mesa Verde Foundation, ARAMARK Mesa Verde Company, and surrounding communities are working together to plan a yearlong celebration in 2006.

http://www.mesaverde2006.org/

Astoundingly, breathtakingly beautiful night photo of Cliff Palace lit up when you scroll down a little bit. "Wow" doesn't even come close. I have climbed down into a kiva there on a visit during the mid-1990s. I could feel ancient spirits. <at a loss for words to describe it...>

Respectfully,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 09:01 AM

:) :)

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

- Aldous Huxley

(f) (f) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 09:06 AM

:) :)

http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Madame_X.htm(l)

When Madame X was shown at the Salon of 1884 it became instantly a salacious painting and a scandal in French society as a result of its sexual suggestiveness of her pose and the pail pasty color of her skin. The "X" of Madame X was actually Madame Gautreau (1859-1915) who’s reputation was apparently destroyed and John left France shortly to never truly regain his former standing as the darling of Paris.

The size of the painting is enormous, measuring 82 inches by 43 inches or nearly seven feet tall (2 meters) -- and with the underlying sensuality of the painting, in the time that it was done (if it isn't still to some degree today), almost threatening to the viewer.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=2&viewmode=0&item=16.53

:o :o

SL & WTBP (l) (&)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 09:13 AM

:) :)

http://altura.speedera.net/ccimg.catalogcity.com/210000/212000/212085/Products/9191114.jpg

http://www.laks.com/images/133bild.jpg

http://www.sgallery.net/news/11_2004/03.jpg

http://www.dottavi.net/public/Monet_Houses_of_Parliament_London_Sun_Breaking_Thr ough_the_Fog%20_1904.jpg

London at the turn of the last century was enveloped in a pervasive fog. Visiting French artist Claude Monet trained his view on the city’s Houses of Parliament on the banks of the Thames and painted their spires in “smoky atmospherics,” said Georgette Gouveia in the Westchester, N.Y., Journal–News. It was a “more personal, abstract style” for the celebrated impressionist, and once he exhibited his London pictures in 1904, he inspired other continental painters to come to London as well. In a 1903 version of Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog, a sunset creates a high-contrast purple-and-orange glow, while in a 1904 painting of the same subject, the towers “rise like a phantom, enveloped in a milky lavender haze.”

The dark, hazy Thames visions of British artists J.M.W. Turner and James McNeill Whistler preceded Monet, however, said Lance Esplund in The New York Sun. London was the busiest port city in the West, and by the end of the 19th century it was full of factories, docks, bridges, and steamships. “It was also filthy, smelly with raw sewage, and steaming with fog and smog,” which, paradoxically, led to Monet’s famously pretty paintings. Today, the fluttery pastel brush strokes of impressionist paintings seem to be “calming, almost nostalgic.” But in its day, they reflected “the rapid speed, continual change, and anxiety of the modern city.”

http://www.tamsquare.net/thumbnail/M/Claude-Monet-London-The-Waterloo-Bridge-.jpg

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) on the artwork. Bummer on the smog. Gorgeous effect though. Much cleaner since.

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 09:22 AM

:) :)

http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/WhereToGo/se/index.html

You could spend a year cruising this coast from Kusadasi to Antalya and still not see everything.

http://www.flamatours.com/

(p) (p) "Untouristed southeast Turkey":

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0311/untouristed_se_turkey.shtml

(p) (p) 's:

http://www.melitour.com/2005%20SOUTH%20EAST%20EASTERN%20TURKEY/index.htm

:) :) :)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-20-2006, 09:24 AM

(y) (y) (y)

http://www.thehiddenwoods.com/

<sigh>

(c) (c) Off for fresh coffee and a Wyatt walk!

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:12 PM

(y) (y) (y) (y)

Fri 21 Jan 2005 Scotsman.com

John Logie Baird
LIAM PATERSON

Born: Helensburgh

A CURSE as much as a blessing, television must surely rank as one of the most all-pervasive and important devices of our modern age, and the man credited with inventing the first practical version of it is John Logie Baird.

Baird was born in Helensburgh, a small coastal town in the west of Scotland on 14 August 1888. He was one of four children raised by his mother, Jessie, and his minister father John. As a child, Baird demonstrated his budding engineering prowess by installing not only a telephone exchange in his home but also a system of electric lighting.

His adult education began when he took a diploma in engineering at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, now the University of Strathclyde. He then went on to Glasgow University to commute the diploma to a degree. Although obtaining the diploma, he did not complete his time at Glasgow, his studies being interrupted by the beginning of the First World War in August 1914.

Although Baird was found to be unfit for military service /no spamming of other sites/ having suffered a serious illness at the age of two and plagued by lung problems throughout his life /no spamming of other sites/ he was able to take up a position as an engineer at the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. He resigned from his post (before being sacked) when he apparently blacked out half of Glasgow following a failed attempt to manufacture diamonds from coal. Baird was, it seems, a natural inventor responsible for products such as damp-proof socks, the Baird patent Undersock.

After the war's end, profits from these inventions paid for a trip to Trinidad, where he planned to make his fortune producing jam. This was not a success. All the while he had been intrigued with the idea of making a machine to show moving images, so he soon returned to Britain to resume experiments with what was to eventually become television.

Baird moved to Hastings on the south coast of England and began trials with an optical scanning system known as the Nipkow disc (named after its German inventor Paul Nipkow). This disc used a series of holes to dissect an image into a series of lines which are then put together by the eye due to persistence of vision. Display was from the light of a neon bulb which had a disc spinning in front of it. The system was known as "electro-mechanical" television because of the mechanical action of the disc to capture the image.

There were several scientists aiming to produce working television systems at the time, some with extremely good claims to be co-inventors along with Baird. Nipkow had himself patented a proposed form of television in 1884. His system was similar to Baird's eventual design, but the state of existing technology was not sufficiently advanced to produce a working machine. Other candidates are Russians Boris Rosing and Vladimir Zworkin whose research was aimed at producing a fully electronic system without the use of spinning discs. Finally, there was Philo Farnsworth, an American inventor, who was the first to combine both an electronic method of capturing an image with an electronic way of displaying it. This method would eventually go on to be the method used for all television broadcasting.

However, Baird still remains the first to produce moving television images. After numerous accidents and failures, he eventually achieved success in 1925, being able to show a crude image of a ventriloquist's dummy (named Stooky Bill. 'Stooky' is a Scots term for plaster). A more formal demonstration was given to members of The Royal Institution and reporters on 26 January 1926 in the Soho district of London. A blue plaque now marks the site of the historic demonstration.

The BBC stood behind Baird's 30-line Televisor system, using it in 1929 for the company's first experimental broadcast. Baird Television Ltd started public broadcasts from 1930 and then in 1932 the BBC took over these broadcasts. Baird's system remained in operation until after trials starting November 1936 ended with the BBC choosing a more practical and effective Marconi-EMI electronic version of television. By that time Baird was estranged from the day to day running of the business of Baird Television Ltd (BTL) anyway.

It is often forgotten how comparatively sophisticated television was in the 1920s and 30s. Baird was capable of making transatlantic transmissions as early as 1928 and three years later produced the first outdoor broadcast with coverage of the Epsom Derby. He also developed colour television and stereoscopic broadcast systems as well as a distant forerunner of the video recording system called the Phonodisc.

Baird was married in 1931 to Margaret Albu, a concert pianist. The couple had two children. But the ill health that had dogged Baird for years finally caught up with him: he had a heart attack in the early 1940s and in February 1946 suffered a stroke. After struggling on with various projects, he passed away on 14 June 1946 at age 57.

http://heritage.scotsman.com/timelines.cfm?cid=1&id=40082005

:o :o Some folks such a RCA with their Sarnoff research labs would most definitely disagree!

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Sweetlady & Wyatt the napping Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:14 PM

:s :s :s

H-P Chairman Dunn Resigns In Wake of Media-Leak Probe

A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP

September 22, 2006 4:41 p.m.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said Patricia Dunn has resigned as chairman and board member, effective immediately, in the wake of the company's ill-fated investigation of media leaks. She will be replaced as chairman by Chief Executive Mark Hurd.
In his first public statements on the scandal, Mr. Hurd defended the company's decision to probe boardroom leaks, but apologized for some of the tactics used. Some of the company's actions are "very disturbing to me," Mr. Hurd said at a press conference. "I extend my sincere apologizes to the journalists investigated and everyone impacted."

H-P had earlier said Ms. Dunn, who authorized the leak investigation, would step down from the chair in January and be replaced by Mr. Hurd, but remain a member of the board.

Mr. Hurd yesterday offered to testify before a House committee examining the "pretexting" scandal at the company. The hearing, scheduled for Thursday. already has a witness list that includes H-P General Counsel Ann Baskins and Ms. Dunn, the H-P chairman who pushed for an investigation of board leaks.

Determined to protect confidential board discussions, H-P hired investigators who impersonated board members, employees and journalists to obtain their phone records. The detectives also surveilled an H-P director and concocted an email sting to dupe a reporter.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and several federal agencies are investigating whether H-P and its executives broke any laws in their crusade to find a media leak on the company's board. Earlier Friday, Mr. Lockyer said he does not yet have evidence linking Mr. Hurd to potential wrongdoing, but his investigation is still ongoing.

"We don't yet have any evidence that would lead to the CEO as one of those that committed the crimes,'' Mr. Lockyer told CNBC in an interview. But we're not complete yet. We haven't finished the investigation.''

As part of its inquiry, the Securities and Exchange Commission also asked HP to turn over documents related to its probe as well as the May departure of former board member Tom Perkins, who quit in protest over the company's tactics. H-P said it intended to cooperate.

(n) (n) (n) What in the world is going on with HP?:| :| :|

:(

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:15 PM

:) :)

What's my line? If you have got a job at the BBC, it's anyone's guess

FERGUS SHEPPARD MEDIA CORRESPONDENT

IF YOU are lucky enough to get an interview, be sure to leave your car with the resource operative, before requesting that the communications centre adviser calls the head of brand guardianship to tell them you have arrived at the BBC.

Or you could simply give the keys to the valet before asking the switchboard operator to let the marketing manager know you are there.

While the BBC has always been known for its love of jargon, a recent series of adverts for jobs with extravagant titles is likely to leave prospective applicants scratching their heads.

Posts on offer include "head of brand guardianship" (marketing manager) , "head of measurement" (audience monitor) and the mystifying "deployment project manager, content management culture".

In a triumph of doublespeak, one post - that of "resource operative" - actually involves cleaning cars and checking oil, water and tyre pressure on BBC vehicles, coupled with the ability to "fill out forms". With an eye on equal opportunities sensitivities, the advert clarifies the employee will be a "handy person".

Another advert defines the key duties of a "communications centre adviser" as being to "use the appropriate conversation cycle to ensure calls are transferred to the correct destination".

The raft of titles prompted a mocking letter from a BBC staff member in its in-house magazine, Ariel. Radio journalist Toby Friedner writes: "Does the position of head of brand guardianship come with a sword, shield and space for a horse in the White City car park?"

The BBC, which employs about 27,000 staff, defended the titles. A spokesman said: "They may sound odd to the public, but these are very specific jobs with specific titles and anyone who works in those areas will instantly know what they are."

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development believes corporate jargon is harmless, as long as everyone involved knows the code. Its spokesman, Robert Blevin, said: "If you are bunch of engineers talking in engineering jargon, and everyone listening understands, then there is nothing wrong with that. If that self-same group goes and uses the same jargon to customers, that's not a good thing."

However, one expert in corporate psychology suggested extravagant job titles were typical of "paranoid bureaucracies".

Brian Baxter, of the Business Psychology Company, said: "The BBC is a good example of this. The job titles at senior levels are fantastically self-important, so it's a natural extension of the process of egalitarianism to give them to others."

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1400222006

(y) (y) (y) :D :D :D

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:17 PM

:) :) :)

(p) (p) Celebrity Scots and their favourite photos:

http://heritage.scotsman.com/places.cfm?id=1329422006

(*) (*) Too beautiful for words.(y) (y)

({) (}) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:19 PM

:o :o

That should give me enough time to fly to Liguria and have a slice of focaccia col formaggio, a plate of insalata di mare, a bowl of trofie al pesto, and then move on to alternating cones of nocciola and stracciatella gelato until armageddon comes. Arrivederci!

http://www.eatdrinkonewoman.com/2006/09/you_are_what_you_eat_josh_frie.php

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

;) ;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:21 PM

(h) (h) (h)

Grub Street, a blog "covering everything from the cult street vendor, nameless yet venerated, to the latest temple of gastronomy, awash in renown."

http://nymag.com/daily/food/

(y) (y) (y)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:22 PM

:| :| :| :| :|

:o :o :o :o

:) :) :)

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/09/egg_scrambling_drill_attachmen.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

;) ;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:25 PM

:| :| :|

http://www.lightsideup.com/

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:35 PM

(h) (h) (h)

You gotta fight (blarng blarng) for your right (blarng blarng) to Skyyyyyy-yyyype: If you were listing markets that are ripe for Skype, you'd get to college campuses pretty quickly. You've got students on student budgets with far-flung friends and family; you've got faculty on faculty budgets with far-flung colleagues; and you've got them all in well-wired environment. But Skype is getting poor reception on some campuses, including San Jose State University, smack in the center of Silicon Valley. Following in the footsteps of the University of California-Santa Barbara and California State University-Dominguez Hills, SJSU plans to ban use of the pioneering VoIP system on its network because installation of the client software allows machines to serve as third-party relays for phone calls, chat and messages.

In Santa Barbara, this raised only scattered objections, but at techier SJSU the howls were loud. In a plea to keep Skype, Steve Sloan, a teacher and member of the IT department, wrote, "Since I started using Skype daily in my work I have been contacted by educators from Europe, Asia and Australia. Educators have contacted me via Skype to collaborate on teaching and learning methods. One contact was from a group of educators who wanted to use Skype technology, combined with podcasting and iPods, to extend the reach of the Internet into the Outback to reach Aboriginal children. Thanks to Skype, we are able to have easy and free international communications with colleagues. ... Banning Skype, in my opinion, would be like banning the web ten years ago." Student Kyle Hansen pleaded earnestly, "Skype is a tool that expands our universe as students; we now are able to connect with people all over the world in a way never before imaginable. Just think of the possibilities!"

Luckily, eBay, which owns Skype, is located nearby, and the university has invited some company reps to come over on Tuesday and see if there's a way to work things out. Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for eBay, said Skype was looking forward to having "a direct dialogue with SJSU officials to discuss their concerns and educate them about how Skype works." And you better believe Skype will put a lot into that lesson plan, given the stakes should this get to be a trend.

(n) (n) Campus May Ban Skype:

http://www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2006/09/18/News/Campus.May.Ban.Skype-2282334.shtml?norewrite200609231728&sourcedomain=www.thespartandaily.com

Skype Prohibited at SJSU:

http://www.mercurynews.com/multimedia/mercurynews/news/skype_092206.pdf

Students Fight for Skype: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15583417.htm

"Skype is more than a program it is a global communications and collaboration platform. It’s also a pipe into a flat world where easy communications is a strategic advantage and the loss of which is a disadvantage. It is a platform of change as well as a delivery pipe of media-voice, video and data." - Steve Sloan

http://sloantech.blogspot.com/2006/09/save-skype-at-sjsu.html

(y) (y) (y) (y) Support Skype! Tell campus adminstrators who an acute case of cranial rectitus when it comes to emerging technologies for adult and lifelone learning - to crawl back under their desks.Better yet? Retire!

:s It figures conservative academics would try to put the kybosh on such a cool tool.....:| :|

<stepping down off soap box...>

Adieu,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:42 PM

:| :| :| :|

http://www.glumbert.com/media/beerbottle

(*) Too silly - but then again the pilots had to be extremely precise! ;)

Safe virtual & f2f travels and relaxing Saturday night thoughts,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-23-2006, 04:57 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8JmN_-oudY

(y) (y) (y) Absolutely astounding, amazing impressions. I never knew Spacey could do so many with hitting the bulls-eye perfection. If you close your eyes, you'd never know it wasn't the actor/actress he was doing an impression on!

One of the BEST I have seen in a long time - and many of the actors aren't with us anymore, which makes it all the more touching and hilarious!

Enjoy!

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

Dat_NYC-Guy

09-24-2006, 12:31 AM

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 09:57 AM

Hi,

I was reading the Wall Street Journal and they mentioned a few websites that I thought were fantastic - if anyone loves books as much as I do this looks like a pretty cool site. It is a book exchange. I am going to try it - it sounds like a great way to exchange books - for folks on a budget or not on a budget it's a great way to get new books to read or get rid of your old ones.

http://www.whatsonmybookshelf.com/

http://www.whatsonmybookshelf.com/

David

Hi David,

Thanks you, thank you, thank you!(f) What a terrific web site and idea! I must have at least a couple of hundred books to trade - and those are the ones I've bought over the past three or four years. (I have dozens of boxes of books in storage.) I was thinking just yesterday about donating some of my books - to make room for new ones on my book shelves. Definitely a cosmic wink - reading your nice post this morning.:) :)

Thank you so much for sharing for the URL for those who are passionate about books.

One of my personal philosophies is: "A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Have a lovely Sunday and start of your week.(f)

Kindest Regards,

Sweetlady

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 10:02 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf

I LOVED it!

(k) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 10:07 AM

(y) (y) (y)

With so much uncertainty surrounding its business model, it seems a bit hubristic for YouTube to value itself at $1.5 billion (see "BoobTube"), but according to the New York Post, that's just what it's done. "If they were willing to take $200 million to $300 million, I would buy it tomorrow," a senior industry source told the Post. But they're not. They're hoping for more than $1.5 billion from a list of potential suitors that includes everyone from Viacom and Disney to eBay and News Corp. Could YouTube possibly command such a price? Techcrunch says that $1.5 billion, although high, "isn't crazy" when you consider Sony bought Grouper.com for $65 million. The site suggests YouTube could generate $1 million a day if it delivered advertising along with its 100 million videos. Of course, there's a million dollar question attached to that $1 million figure: How will YouTube monetize copyrighted content it doesn't own? If the company were to suddenly begin profiting from the infringements of its users, it would very quickly find itself in a world of legal hurt (see "YouRubes").

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/08/boobtube.html

http://www.nypost.com/business/youtubes_got_a_fat_idea_of_itself_business_sam_gus tin.htm

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/21/youtubes-magic-number-15-billion/

"YouRubes": http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/08/heres_a_metric_.html

So what does it do? Alex Rowland says it sits tight until it becomes an irreplaceable part of the new video marketing and distribution model. And he figures it won't be long. "YouTube hosts and streams copyrighted content," he writes. "No argument. But unlike the Napster days in which there was no evidence that this type of large scale 'piracy' actually helped distribution, today the signs are everywhere. Even the marketing departments of most major studios understand this when they upload their own copyrighted material to the site. But YouTube is, in its essence, a massive syndication platform for content. YouTube is not about monetizing this content directly; it's about getting tons of people to watch a video clip at the lowest cost possible. This type of massive low-cost syndication of low-quality streamed content is less than a year away from becoming the de facto launch strategy of professional and amateur content alike. While the lawyers may not understand this yet, the marketing guys certainly do. When content owners begin taking down copyrighted materials from YouTube, they become less culturally relevant. Has Jon Stewart's relevance and consequent profitability to the studio declined as a result of his frequent free appearances on YouTube?"

(y) (y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h) (h) (i) (i) (i) (i)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 10:14 AM

:| :| :|

Characterize anything as a weapon against child porn and you pretty much inoculate it against criticism, so it's not surprising to see Attorney General Alberto Gonzales waving that banner once more as he asked Congress for a law requiring Internet service providers to retain customer records for as long as two years. "This is a problem that requires federal legislation," Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. "We need information. Information helps us makes cases. ... We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them." Data retention policies vary widely, from a few days to a year or so. The AG has already been in talks with some of the biggest ISPs and acknowledged that they had some concerns about customer privacy (which was nice to hear). "We respect civil liberties," Gonzales said, "but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information."

http://news.com.com/Gonzales+ISPs+must+keep+records+on+users/2100-1028_3-6117455.html

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/15557367.htm

But retaining information, like retaining water, can be troublesome because information, like water, has a tendency to leak. And a nervous public that has watched gigabytes of personal data get stolen, lost, subpoenaed or secretly shared month has every right to be skeptical of anything that keeps the record of their private travels and communications out of the bit bucket for any length of time ... no matter what bulletproof banner it's wrapped in.

:| :| As the Jetson's pet dog Astro would say "Rutt-Roh!" ;)

(*) I read the other day that the far most northern Canadian provinces are looking for American workers, due to aging Baby Boomers retiring. There are always other places to move to as America slowly loses its priceless freedoms including those of privacy and free speech. Just take lots of winter woolies though!:o :o

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 10:21 AM

:) :)

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/09/fishing-with-nanotech/

(*) (*) Ah, those peaceful days while learning to fish stripped bass in the Sacramento River Delta.....such quietude until all hell broke loose when I caught one! I thought the bass fishing lures were pretty and slightly dangerous looking.:| Although I admit that I ate some of the biggest fish I ever caught which was 36 inches long and about 18 pounds - after that, I always caught and released and then stopped fishing altogether.

I still miss the peace and quiet where large speed boats and "water motor-cycles" could not go. ;)

"Carpe" Diem, ;)

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 10:27 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/51200/

(y) Pretty amazing kid.(y)

(c) (c) Time for fresh coffee. (decaf this time though).

:) :) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 11:21 AM

:) :)

http://www.town.lunenburg.ns.ca/

(p) (p) Photos: http://www.kestan.com/travel/lunenburg/index.htm

1. <sigh>: http://www.robwilliams.ca/images/scan/04D-6460aS.jpg

2. http://www.4homex.com/images/20499l3.jpg

3. (p) (p) By night:

http://www.canvisit.com//images/Locations/Canada-Nova-Scotia-Lighthouse-Route-Lighthouse-1.jpg

4. B&B's, etc.:

http://www.canvisit.com/Canada/Nova-Scotia/Lighthouse-Route/Lighthouse.html

:D Happy digital trails.

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 11:22 AM

(y) (y)

http://www.massbayrre.org/RhoIrl03/RI0311.jpg

http://www.newportdinnertrain.com/index2.htm

(y) (y) Seems like a delightful evening. :)

:)

SL *& WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 11:24 AM

:o :o :o

Arctic Cathedral, Tromso, Norway:

1. http://www.homeatfirst.com/IMAGES/Arctic_Cathedral.jpg

2. http://www.wordtravels.com/dbpics/countries/Norway/thumbs/arctic-cathedral-tromso.jpg

3. http://www.keeping-up.co.uk/Travel/Norway/Norway0026r.jpg

4. <sigh>: http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/7405/tromso_s_.jpg

******************************
Nidaros Cathedral, Norway:

1. http://www.vad1.com/photo/stock/n9-24-1.jpg

2. Breathtaking!! http://www.vad1.com/photo/stock/n46-8-4.jpg

3. http://www.ekd.de/bilder/03_2003_12(1).jpg

*****************************
Alesund, Norway

1. http://www5.worldisround.com/photos/7/100/346.jpg (I want to go here!)

2. http://ifip35.inf.elte.hu/alesund/files/ar0033lm_s.jpg

3. http://www.thomsonbeach.co.uk/asset/v00/244/745.jpg

4. http://www.naxos.com/gif/110080.gif

5. http://www.dieneueepoche.com/pics/2006/04/01/xl/2006-04-01-xl--norway-aboutpixel_20041212-121658-00435_2.jpg

******************************

Svartisen Glacier, Norway:

1. http://www.hockeyphotos.com/norway_2003/svartisen/4f8e3505_std.jpg

2. Sparkling! http://www.keeping-up.co.uk/Travel/Norway/Norway0021r.jpg

3. http://www.buyimage.co.uk/norway/norway/images/746.jpg

4. http://www.uib.no/norpec/pictures/background/glacier.jpg

Background: http://www.uib.no/norpec/background.htm

(y) Again, with the winter clothes.....but fewer, if any "summer moments", that's for sure!(y)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-24-2006, 11:32 AM

:| :|

September 24, 2006

A Dog’s Life, Upgraded

By CARLA BARANAUCKAS

NEW GERMANY, Minn.

ON a sunny day in August, a half-dozen large dogs — mostly Labrador retrievers — bounded in and out of the swimming pool here at Top Dog Country Club. Others lounged on the artificial-turf lawn, or looked on with envy and vocal protests from “time out” pens on the edge of the play yard.

Overseeing the goings-on was a member of the care staff, who served as both instigator, throwing tennis balls and jumping into the pool, and mediator, banishing dogs to time out when they became too rambunctious.

When Top Dog’s owner, Jean Beuning, hired a contractor three years ago to install a tiled, in-ground, heated swimming pool for dogs, the builder initially told her that she was out of her mind, she said.

But Ms. Beuning had heard that kind of comment before, particularly in the fall of 2000 when she left her job as a regional vice president for ExecuStay by Marriott to open a dog kennel, which she describes as a “Club Med for dogs.”

Top Dog Country Club is emblematic of one of the most sweeping changes in the boarding kennel industry in decades, said James Krack, founder and executive director of the American Boarding Kennels Association, in Colorado Springs.

“Twenty years ago, the dog run was where the dog lived when he was in the kennel,” said Mr. Krack, who started the association 30 years ago and ran a kennel for 16 years. “Today a dog run is where he rests between activities.”

And the menu of diversions is growing longer and, some might say, more extravagant. Depending on the kennel — or hotel or spa or resort — a dog’s activities can include hiking, swimming, listening to music, watching television, dining on gourmet meals and getting a pedicure, complete with nail polish.

The kennels’ amenities are becoming more lavish as well. Heated tile floors and high-tech ventilation systems are de rigueur. In many cases, chain-link dog runs have given way to rooms — for marketing purposes, kennel owners refer to them as “bungalows,” “villas” and “suites” — that come with solid walls, windows and custom-made furnishings. And even as the prices for such pampering rise — in some instances well beyond $100 a night — dog owners are lining up to give their pets what they view as the perfect vacation.

Kennels are not the only pet-related business that’s booming. The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association estimates that people will spend $38.4 billion on their pets this year; that would mean an increase of $2.1 billion, or 5.8 percent, over 2005. For services, like grooming and boarding, pet owners are expected to spend $2.7 billion this year.

The increase is partly a result of rising pet ownership: about 63 percent of United States households now have pets, compared with 56 percent in 1988. But it is also an indication of the changing role of the pet in the family and growing emotional ties between owners and pets.

The trend “highlights the profound love that many of us have for our dogs,” said Patricia B. McConnell, author of “For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend,” published this month by Ballantine Books.

That love “has not been critically examined as much as it deserves to be,” said Dr. McConnell, who has a doctorate in zoology. “It’s a biological phenomenon. Hurricane Katrina reminded us that people actually risk and sometimes choose to lose their life over their dog. That’s a biologically amazing fact.”

The luxury kennels reflect the complexity of the bond between humans and dogs, she said. “There’s actually one that just opened up in Madison — called Club Bow-Wow — that I would be just perfectly happy to stay in,” said Dr. McConnell, who teaches a course called “The Biology and Philosophy of Human-Animal Relationships,” at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

If a dog stays in the $50-a-day “ambassador suite” at Club Bow-Wow, a staff member sleeps overnight in the room. Dogs that opt for the “presidential suite,” also $50 a day, spend the day in the office of the center’s owner and manager, though they aren’t quite interns.

Other luxury kennels offer services from pedicures to parties for pets, charging as much as $185 a night.

Of course, how much of this is for the dog’s benefit, as opposed to its owner’s, is open to debate. Corey Cohen, an animal-behavior consultant whose business, called A New Leash on Life, works with dogs and horses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, says that some services at luxury kennels are more meaningful to people than to pets. “Because it’s away from its owner, the dog is either going to be stressed or not stressed whether it’s in a regular old-fashioned kennel or a camp for dogs,” he said. “Any time there’s change, they’re stressed. From the owner’s perspective, they’re going to want to reduce their guilt.”

At Top Dog Country Club, on 42 acres about an hour’s drive west of Minneapolis, dogs check in at a hotel-style front desk in a lobby filled with photographs of dogs that are or have been part of Ms. Beuning’s family. The 5,000-square-foot building has 46 rooms spread over six bays.

The suites have heated concrete floors and textured walls topped with trellises and faux plants. “They’re harder to clean,” Ms. Beuning said of the walls, “but they give the dogs something a little more interesting to look at.”

Inside the suites are custom-made wrought-iron beds with orthopedic mattresses and tapestry covers. (And just like the beds in some hotels for humans, the dog beds can be bought for home use.)

Pampering is certainly part of the package. In the afternoon, when the dogs return to their suites from their daily activities, they get freshly baked biscuits. Baths and massages are available for an extra charge. And before lights-out, around 9 p.m., Ms. Beuning or one of her employees reads a bedtime story over the sound system. The stories, written by local schoolchildren, may tell of dogs “chasing kitty cats in their dreams,” she said.

But Ms. Beuning said she rejected some amenities that might be offered only to impress owners.

“The priority here is always about the dogs,” she said. So her center plays soothing music — classical, with a good helping of Frank Sinatra mixed in — but there are no televisions. Then again, she said, the dogs don’t need TV’s because they exercise so well during the day that they are ready to sleep at night.

Some dogs spend five or six hours a day in one of the three play yards that cover a total of 18,000 square feet, she said. They romp on artificial turf, chase one another and play with the 15 staff members. The supervised group play time, she said, is an important draw for her 4,000 customers who are willing to spend up to $55 a night to board their dogs.

The notion of play time — having a kennel employee take a dog for a walk, throw it a Frisbee or groom it — goes back about 10 years, Mr. Krack said. It allowed kennel owners to increase their income without increasing the number of dog runs. A kennel that charged, say, $10 a day for boarding could charge an additional $5 for play time. If an owner wanted his dog to have two play times a day, the kennel could double its revenue.

“That service really was, I think, the start of this concept of socialization for boarding pets,” Mr. Krack said. At first, he added, dogs from different families were never allowed to mingle.

That, however, soon changed. Customers who were accustomed to taking their pets to dog parks began to expect more: community play. “The kennel operators began to realize that this is what their customers demanded, whether they were comfortable with it or not,” Mr. Krack said.

COMFORT has been the essential business challenge for Emerson Hughes since he became a kennel operator in 1972. When he opened the first of his two Holiday Barn Pet Resorts in the Richmond, Va., area, he was proud of its modern operations. From the beginning, though, customers would drop off their pets and make comments like, “I hate leaving my dog in a place like this.”

Initially insulted, Mr. Hughes said he learned that the comments were not criticisms of his kennel but reflections of the perception that boarding kennels were “doggie jails.”

“We were a necessity that the public had to tolerate,” he said.

For a customer flying off to spend a week on the beach in Tahiti, the thought of a precious pet’s incarceration could put a damper on the entire trip. Mr. Hughes said he knew that no matter how immaculate his kennel was and no matter how well he cared for the animals, the customer could still feel guilt.

“We were providing an institutional service that was just enough for the customer emotionally to get by,” Mr. Hughes said. “We would keep that dog and we wouldn’t let him escape. And they felt like that was enough. We had to learn to present an image that satisfied the owner’s needs, not just the pet’s needs.”

It’s important for owners to feel good about their pets’ stays, he said, adding with a laugh, because “I never could get these dogs to write checks.”

Mr. Hughes decided to convert the fear factor into a fun factor. In the 1970’s and early 80’s, he hired teenagers, mostly girls, to pet the dogs during holiday periods.

“We put them in candy-stripe jackets, and it was their job to walk down the rows and pet every pet that they could touch,” he said. “The public loved it, but we didn’t charge for it. I didn’t know any better.”

In the mid-1980’s, Mr. Hughes began to hire managers who had more business experience than dog-handling experience and encouraged his staff to try new things.

After adding activities for dogs, he said, “our animal health improved because these animals weren’t stuck in a pen all day — they had human contact.”

Now he offers community play and swimming, along with special events like turkey barbecues for Thanksgiving and weekly tailgate parties during college football season.

When customers are confident that their dogs are having fun, Mr. Hughes said, they can better enjoy their own vacations.

Even pet owners who choose just the basic boarding package seem more confident that their dogs are getting good care.

Where it will stop is anyone’s guess, said Mr. Krack of the boarding kennel association. “You can always do more,” he said. And unlimited fun appears to be leashed to unlimited revenue enhancers.

At Mazzu’s Canine and Feline Hotel in Philadelphia, Jenee Mazzu offers a luxury pet hotel for “the discriminating pet owner.” A night in a suite costs $155 to $185, depending on the size of the room. (The largest is 7 feet by 7 feet.)

The daily rate includes the “personal suite, platform bed, comforter, toys, TV/DVD, two walks, one 40-minute jaunt to the dog park, feedings, unlimited bottled water, climate-controlled facility, daily maid service, 24-hour on-site care,” the Mazzu’s Web site says. For an additional $25, Mazzu’s will serve the dog a filet mignon dinner.

The hotel can accommodate up to seven dogs, Ms. Mazzu said, and since it opened about eight months ago, occupancy has averaged about three dogs a day.

The response to the hotel runs to the extremes, she said. “Either people say, ‘Thank God you started this company,’ or, ‘This is crazy,’ ” Ms. Mazzu said. “There’s not a lukewarm response.”

One man kept his Doberman at the hotel for nine days, she said, and ordered a filet for it every other day.

A DOG’S experience in a boarding kennel depends largely on the dog’s personality, said Mr. Cohen, the pet behaviorist. “People are trying to push dogs into Stepford dogs,” he said, noting that many dogs enjoy socializing with other dogs but that some do not. “I think they’re individuals.”

Beyond being companions, dogs serve different purposes for different owners, Mr. Cohen said. In some cases, a dog can be a surrogate child. In others, the dog is a source of entertainment. And it is important for owners to be aware of the function the dog is being asked to fulfill.

When it comes to luxury kennels, he said, “dog owners need to understand that it’s not necessary.” But he also said that there was little harm in most of the special services and amenities.

“I dress up my own dogs for Halloween,” Mr. Cohen said. “But I’m aware that I’m doing it to entertain myself, not because the dogs need to dress up.”

Carol Boerio-Croft, who has two locations in the Pittsburgh area for her Cozy Inn Pet Resort and Orchid Spa, has built her kennel business on what she calls canine feng shui. “Cozy Inn’s mission is to create and provide a loving, sensitive, healthy, safe naturally controlled environment for our guests; take care of them completely: mentally, emotionally, medically, spiritually and physically,” she says on her Web site. “And to always treat them with love and respect.”

With that in mind, she offers an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool, a choice of full-body, Swedish or sports massages, and hot-oil treatments. “Our clientele are not dog people,” Ms. Boerio-Croft said in a telephone interview. “I always correct that because normally dog people go to kennels. But our clientele is above average and elite. And we are an environment where the pets are very anthropomorphically treated like little people.”

KENNEL operators are not the only ones profiting from dog owners’ separation anxiety. Blake Walliser of Denver runs Online Doggy, a business that uses Web cameras to let dog owners peek in on their pets whenever they wish, from wherever they are; Mr. Walliser said his pet business grew out of a failed plan to offer the same service to day care centers for children.

Online Doggy has four full-time employees and provides Web camera services for 200 pet care providers, he said.

As trends go, the luxury kennel seems here to stay. Joe Timko of Canyon View Ranch in Topanga, Calif., near Malibu, said, “From the day we opened the doors, we filled up.” And Canyon View Ranch is already fully booked for Christmas 2008.

“Isn’t that something?” he said.

:D :D A wee bit over the top. I have however, paid several "added cost activities" at a very nice Torrance, CA-based pet spa when I lived out there. One "perk" (which I had to pay for of course), was being able to pick up my pet on my way home from LAX - even as late at 10:00 p.m. and on Sundays as well. Each extra dog walk was $2.50 back then and oh, giving pills twice a day was another $2.50 for each. The bills started looking like the hotel ones for ME during my business travels...:o :o :) :)

Off the computer and away from anything electronic, including the boob tube for a while today. Too much digital interaction and activities - and Fall Quarter starts a week from tomorrow. Only one course but here comes that ball and chain feeling with weekly deadlines.:|

Sometimes it seems as if Wyatt wonders why his mama looks at these glass boxes, AKA computer monitors and TV set.;) ;)

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:04 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

Comfort Seeker
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Crumpled pillow, tangled sheets,
A snore like raging thunder.
The boxer dog sleeps soundly.
The covers, he's half under.

Lips and eyebrows boogie,
Deep in his dream state.
He's settled for a hearty snooze,
Although it isn't late.

I beckon, "Time to go outside."
"Let's go. I'm waiting, dear."
Both eyes pop open; then they close.
He pretends he didn't hear.

Too hot, too cold, wet, lumpy, hard -
He's not a dog for in the yard.
He craves his comfort in full measure.
A hedonist, quite bent on pleasure!
Like the princess and the pea,
Or maybe just a bit like me!

"C'mon you lazy slobberdog.
Get off that stinking bed!
You have 4 legs; Now use them!"
My face was turning red.

I hovered over, swore a bit,
Waved a sausage past his nose,
Shoved his limp weight to the floor.
Reluctantly he rose.

"Finally dog, now let's go out."
But just as I had feared,
By the time the door was open,
The dog had disappeared.

Too hot, too cold, wet, lumpy, hard -
He's not a dog for in the yard.
He craves his comfort in full measure.
A hedonist, quite bent on pleasure!
Like the princess and the pea,
Or maybe just a bit like me!

He'd tucked himself back into bed.
Every muscle, flaccid.
"Oh sure, you've picked the perfect time
To pretend that you are placid!"

Patience gone, I had no choice.
I really beg your pardon.
I hauled that dog out through the door
And dumped him in the garden!

He looked at me with wounded eyes.
So maudlin, ohh the pain!
How dare I make a boxer dog
"Do his business" in the rain!

Too hot, too cold, wet, lumpy, hard -
He's not a dog for in the yard.
He craves his comfort in full measure.
A hedonist, quite bent on pleasure!
Like the princess and the pea,
Or maybe just a bit like me!

Toy Dog
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

The AKC is all confused.
They say I am a guardian,
And lump me with the working breeds,
When I'd rather be out partyin'.

I may look sober as a judge.
That's just a skin-deep mask.
If I'm not playing with my toys,
It's hard to keep on task.

This working dog is unemployed.
Truth be told, I'm overjoyed.
Work just gets folks all annoyed.
I'll have no part of that!
Play is all I really need.
Work ethics aint part of my creed.
Group me as a toy dog breed.
That's what I'm all about!

Stuffies, chewies, ropes to tug,
Balls that bounce and giggle -
Carried, tossed, or batted 'round,
They cause my stub to wiggle.

Tough nut? Oh that's foolishness.
Boxers don't know how to frown.
I always wear a great big smile,
But I wear it upside-down!

This working dog is unemployed.
Truth be told, I'm overjoyed.
Work just gets folks all annoyed.
I'll have no part of that!
Play is all I really need.
Work ethics aint part of my creed.
Group me as a toy dog breed.
That's what I'm all about!

Colorblind
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Bereft from losing my old dog,
A void I had to fill.
Researched breeds, concluded that
A boxer fit the bill.

Sought a pup most nosey,
Lively, friendly, bold,
Healthy, strong and playful,
And likely to grow old.

Play with junior, jog with Dad,
Chase tennis balls I throw -
Asked the breeder for advice.
Which pup? I didn't know.

Brindle, fawn, light or dark -
Which puppy should I take?
Flashy, plain, all so cute -
Decisions hard to make.

She cautioned me 'bout color:
"Deeper you must look.
Don't focus on the cover
And neglect to read the book.
Turn the pages, look inside.
Get to know them, then decide.
The irony? They're colorblind.
I wish we were, as well."

Their pedigrees impressive,
Eyes mischievous and bright.
One was nearly perfect,
Except that he was white.

A D.Q. in the show ring,
He'd make some breeders frown.
Officially a boxer
Must be painted mostly brown.

I surely didn't want him
With so blatant a defect.
Cull the mismarked puppy!
Mine had to be correct!

And yet that snow white puppy
Was determined to be charming.
He pretzeled into my closed mind.
I found him most disarming.

I reflected on his breeder's words:
"Deeper you must look.
Don't focus on the cover
And neglect to read the book.
Turn the pages, look inside.
Get to know them, then decide.
The irony? They're colorblind.
I wish we were, as well."

He licked my face and nibbled ears,
Bounced like a jumping jack.
Wiggled, wagged, and tugged my pants.
Charisma was his knack.

That ivory pup enchanted me.
In every way, so fine.
Right or wrong in color,
I had to make him mine.

The rulebook says my dog's all wrong,
But that's the AKC.
The standard held within my heart
Says he's just right for me.

Who cares about a show ring
Or ribbons never earned?
He'll be the perfect family pet.
And the lesson I have learned:

When it comes to boxer color:
Deeper you must look.
Don't focus on the cover
And neglect to read the book.
Turn the pages, look inside.
Get to know them, then decide.
The irony? They're colorblind.
I wish we were as smart...
For inside each and every dog
Is a great, big, loving heart.

Reckless Buster
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Our dogs were romping, full of play,
On that balmy, autumn day
At the park in town.
We traded gossip, local chat,
When Bob exclaimed, "Oh dear! What's THAT?"
Our heads all swiveled 'round.

There was Johnson, ex-Marine,
Big and strong and shaven clean.
His hands were very full.
He headed toward the gate at speed,
Four-legged muscle on his lead -
Strong as a Brahma bull.

It dragged him to and fro with ease,
Hiked its leg on all the trees.
In disbelief, we stood.
In unison, we dropped our jaws.
Golden brown with ivory paws -
Adonis never looked as good.

Johnson set that boxer free.
It was a shocking sight to see,
Like a demolition burst.
He barreled right into a hound,
Knocked others flat upon the ground.
Maddened owners cursed.

Snorting, contorting, cavorting - reckless as a child.
On the surface, chaos. Countenance most wild.
Don't let him fool you.
There's more than meets the eye.

He ricocheted from pup to pup,
Delivering a roughing-up,
Akin to some earthquakes.
Tucked his butt, ran laps full-tilt.
Like a freight train, he was built -
De-railed and without brakes.

I spilled a latte on my shirt,
Dropped my cell phone in the dirt,
Then fell on my big butt.
Body-slammed and growing bruised,
Patience gone and not amused.
Yelled, "Johnson! Listen up!"

"You fool, you're daft, flat-out insane!
That dog of yours has got no brain.
What an awful beast!
Take a class and get him trained,
Or keep the stupid brute restrained.
Stay outta here, at least!"

The other dogs, they tried to hide
I longed to join them, I'll confide.
Most of my comrades prayed.
First boxer that I'd ever met -
Why on earth have such a pet?
I shook my head, dismayed.

Snorting, contorting, cavorting - reckless as a child.
On the surface, chaos. Countenance most wild.
Don't let him fool you.
There's more than meets the eye.

Just then, the rusted gate, it creaked.
Across the field, the boxer streaked -
Hellbent on an attack.
A mother pushed a stroller through.
We screamed, "He's charging right at you!"
There was no turning back.

"That dog will eat her in her diaper.
He's demented, bold and hyper."
Grim visions of her death.
But then he skidded to a stop.
You could have heard a hairpin drop.
We all held our breath.

He carefully sniffed her little toes,
Wiggled right from stub to nose.
There was no cause for fright.
He licked her cheek to tell her "Hi."
She laughed and poked him in the eye.
His little tail reflected his delight.

She yanked his lip and tugged his ear.
Mother cautioned, "Stop that, dear."
But he just stood his ground.
He lay his chin on her small chest.
And Johnson swooned, "That dog's the best.
Loves having kids around."

Snorting, contorting, cavorting - reckless as a child.
On the surface, chaos. Countenance most wild.
Don't let him fool you.
There's more than meets the eye.

We've come to know good-hearted Buster
Self-control, so hard to muster,
Still not a risk to maul.
He comes on strong; that is a fact
A sweetheart he, but short on tact.
But sometimes aren't we all?

Black and white, no shades of grey.
He can't be any other way.
He is who he must be.
His love is gentle, play is rough.
Heart is fragile, body tough.
Offers no apology.

Passion courses through his cells.
No moderation where he dwells.
Much like an ardent poet.
His life is rich, 'though not too long.
His outlook can't be very wrong.
A lesson there; I know it.

A fixture now at our dog park,
We've come to envy Buster's spark.
A gift from up above.
Funny that in my old age,
A boxer dog should be the sage
To teach of life and love.

Snorting, contorting, cavorting - reckless as a child.
On the surface, chaos. Countenance most wild.
Don't let him fool you.
There's more than meets the eye.

The Sentinel
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

The family safe, at home, in bed;
Loyal boxer there on guard.
A prowler sneaks his way towards them,
In stealth, across the yard.

This hearing watchdog dreams of toys
Thrown by the family daughter.
Rolls over, yawns, then stumbles out
Toward the kitchen for some water.

Alerted by a careless squeak -
A toy stepped on in the grass.
Muscles tense and ears perk up,
As he looks out through the glass.

Devoted friend, courageous guard,
This sentinel - the best.
But what if real life danger
Put him to the test?
Could the family's simple pet
Defeat an evil guest?

Sneaky menace pries the door,
And enters through the side.
Boxer tip-toes toward him.
The man's preoccupied.

Never knowing he's surveilled,
But not a man that lingers,
He glides right through the darkened house,
Loot held in his deft fingers.

The boxer doesn't understand,
Then suddenly grows bolder
When the prowler fills a pillowcase
And slings it on his shoulder.

Devoted friend, courageous guard,
This sentinel - the best.
Bt what if real life danger
Put him to the test?
Could the family's simple pet
Defeat an evil guest?

Suddenly he comprehends.
He knows how to play tug.
He launches at the burglar,
And knocks him to the rug.

He wrests him all across the floor.
His little stub is spinning.
The family rushes in the room,
And boxer dog is grinning.

Astride the stranger, sack in mouth,
A jolly game of fun.
If only every boring night
Brought this nice man with the gun.

Devoted friend, courageous guard,
This sentinel - the best.
But what if real life danger
Put him to the test?
Perhaps the family's simple pet
Could defeat an evil guest.

Saddened when the men in blue
Leave with his new play mate.
He sleeps a little lighter now,
Ready for another date.
Full of fun and full of play,
But never full of hate.
Fearsome image, puppy's heart -
That's what makes him great.

Devoted friend, courageous guard,
This sentinel - the best.
But what if real life danger
Put him to the test?
The family knows he's on patrol,
And they don't need to know the rest!

Living for Today
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Bright eyes blaze with vigor.
Grown up, still full of glee.
Not just a dog, this boxer.
She's true family.

Simple pleasures for a dog:
Your time, your touch, your care.
Important as she is to you,
Life isn't often fair.

You stroke her glossy coat,
Swap a biscuit for a sit,
Observe a swollen blemish,
Suspect it's not a zit.

Sudden sinking sense of loss.
Uncertain now the future.
Hope and fears are intertwined
With veterinary suture.

Don't worry 'bout what could have been,
Or count on what might be.
Celebrate the moment
Right now with you and she.
She lives in the present -
A brilliant gift, I'll say.
This watchdog isn't counting time;
She's living for today.

Priceless is her life.
Prayers that it might be spared.
Glassy-eyed, the vet himself -
You hadn't known he cared.

The verdict in - metastasis.
A crashing sense of dread.
To look into her soft brown eyes,
She's anything but dead.

The mercy of not knowing
Spares her any grief.
She'll live each day until she dies,
No matter if it's brief.

Don't worry 'bout what could have been,
Or count on what might be.
Celebrate the moment
Right now with you and she.
She lives in the present -
A brilliant gift, I'll say.
This watchdog isn't counting time;
She's living for today.

Enrich her life as best you can,
Then face that final choice.
No one knows her better.
She speaks through your voice.

Time to serve her favorite foods,
Get her extra toys,
Play hookey just to take a hike;
Indulge her simple joys.

Cancer's rude reminder -
Make the most of each dog day,
But you don't need a reason
To do it anyway.

When they are gone, we surely grieve
For each lost boxer friend.
Now's our chance to make the most
While we have the time to spend.

Don't worry 'bout what could have been,
Or count on what might be.
Celebrate the moment
Right now with you and she.
She lives in the present -
A brilliant gift, I'll say.
This watchdog isn't counting time;
She's living for today.

It might be weeks; it might be months.
A decade would be nice.
Sick or well, young or old,
There's truth in that advice:

Don't worry 'bout what could have been,
Or count on what might be.
Celebrate the moment
Right now with you and she.
She lives in the present -
A brilliant gift, I'll say.
This watchdog isn't counting time;
She's living for today.

No Prozac
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Day one of beginner class -
A slobbering, jumping bean.
Rocky's just a bit high strung,
Like a crackhead on caffeine.
He wiggles, bounces, strains on lead.
His focus, awfully brief.
His owner sucks another Tums
In search of some relief.

A lady has a border collie
That does foreign car repair.
She frowns at hyper Rocky,
Tells his owner, “Don’t despair.”
She doesn't really mean it,
Thinks that Rocky is a fool.
Doesn't get the appeal
Of clothes all wet with drool.

Rocky's owner downs a Prozac,
Chases that regret.
Could have had some other breed
As his chosen pet.

At the obedience trial,
"Forward," says the judge.
Her owner marches out ahead,
But Ginger doesn't budge.
She contemplates airplanes,
Leers at a kid's Big Mac,
Has visions of a poodle
Becoming mid-day snack.

The neighbor with the poodle
That she longs to use as floss
Insists if Ginger runs away,
It wouldn't be a loss.
Fifi knows her logarithms,
Darns the children's socks.
She vows that boxers got their name
For "dumber than a box of rocks."

Ginger's owner downs a Prozac,
Chases that regret.
Could have had some other breed
As her chosen pet.

Agility the outlet
For this lively pup.
"Weave, jump, go tunnel!"
Daisy's eyes lit up.
She bolted like Seattle Slew,
Looped the dismayed crowd -
Deaf to any "come" command
No matter how sweet or loud.

Her instructor's blonde retriever
Is worth its weight in gold.
Has titles up the wazoo,
Isn't even 6 months old.
He sneers at Daisy boxer,
Insists retrievers are the best.
Just can't grasp the reason
To own any of the rest.

Daisy's owner downs a Prozac,
Chases that regret.
Could have had some other breed
As her chosen pet.

These 3 dejected owners
Call on the local shrink,
"Help us cope with these darn dogs,
Or we'll be forced to drink!"
The doctor smiles knowingly,
"Throw away your drugs!
The cure is right beside you
In the form of boxer hugs."

"Who wants a dog that's serious?
Overrated is IQ.
The smartest dog that you can have
Is the one that laughs with you.
It may seem rather flattering
A dog programmed to heed,
But there are more important things.
That's the brilliance of this breed."

"Humor is a gift.
Boxers love to give.
Laugh at him, and at yourself,
And then you'll learn to live!"

The owners flushed their Prozac.
Regrets, they now have none.
While other breeds are sucking up,
Their dogs are having fun!

They'll get them trained, imperfectly.
They've become okay with that.
A dog that has a mind of its own
Is more appealing than Prozac.

The owners flushed their Prozac.
Regrets, they now have none.
While other breeds are sucking up,
Their dogs are having fun!

Boxer Shorts
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

Her tongue, it drowns my kids in drool.
She snores upon the couch.
She steals their toys and passes wind,
But never is a grouch.

His nose, his stub, they point my way.
His pretzeled happy dance.
The boxers that I value most
Are not my underpants.

They are the same, but just in name.
To swap would be deranged.
Companion dog or lingerie;
They can't be interchanged.

Vocabulary can mislead.
Words tend to confuse.
So listen up, I'll tell you
Which boxers you should choose.

I bought new boxers yesterday.
Limp cotton, not much fun.
They wouldn't chase a ball for me,
Eat treats, or even run.

They are the same, but just in name.
To swap would be deranged.
Companion dog or lingerie;
They can't be interchanged.

Boxer shorts can do the trick
Where a dog would not.
Having Rocky stuffed inside my jeans
Would really be too hot.

Itchy too, and kind of weird.
I imagine that I'd prance
If I wore a boxer dog
In place of underpants.

They are the same, but just in name.
To swap would be deranged.
Companion dog or lingerie;
They can't be interchanged.

My old brindle would object,
Although she thinks I'm dear.
No one really wants to be
That cozy with my rear.

A homonym, this boxers thing -
Different words with the same sound.
Boxer shorts, not boxer dogs
Are the ones to wear around.

They are the same, but just in name.
To swap would be deranged.
Companion dog or lingerie;
They can't be interchanged.

Both kinds of boxers have their place
But do not mix them up.
Undergarments can't compare
With a real, live, boxer pup.

So learn these fine distinctions
Or you might regret
Which boxers you let guard your house
And which you try to pet.

Lap Dog
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

I'll jump into a heated fray,
Tell the rival, "Make my day!"
Yet whimper on a simple "stay."
I crumble when you walk away.

This breed's image - stern and rough,
And so very wrong.
A boxer can't get close enough.
Your lap's where I belong.

Obedience is kind of weak.
That's my independent streak.
Deep down lies a shameless geek.
When by myself, all looks bleak.

This breed's image - stern and rough,
And so very wrong.
A boxer can't get close enough.
Your lap's where I belong.

I exude athletic power.
Alas, my temperament's not dour.
Time alone, the longest hour.
I'm really just a fragile flower.

This breed's image - stern and rough,
And so very wrong.
A boxer can't get close enough.
Your lap's where I belong.

For Adoption
(lyrics ©2004 Kate Connick)

I said a prayer to St. Bernard.
He turns lost into found.
I languish in this prison cell
At the local pound.

A boxer out there needs you.
She's past the puppy stage.
Heart heavy now and lonely,
Abandoned in her cage.
Breeders are one way to go,
But don't forget adoption.
One thoughtless person's discard
Might be your winning option.

My first home said they loved me,
But not enough, I fear.
When other interests took their time,
They chose to leave me here.

They never taught me manners.
I jump and pull on lead.
Too long, my snout and toenails.
I won't win best-of-breed.

Whenever someone greets me,
I end up being told,
"You're sweet but mighty stinky,
And really just too old."

A boxer out there needs you.
She's past the puppy stage.
Heart heavy now and lonely,
Abandoned in her cage.
Breeders are one way to go,
But don't forget adoption.
One thoughtless person's discard
Might be your winning option.

And so I wait and hope and pray,
Not giving in just yet.
I've heard rumors of a miracle
They call the Internet.

Find a date, a quote, cheap pills,
Or maybe a stray pup.
I keep hoping that the timing's right
And someone looks me up.

Delete the spam, bypass the porn.
This is your reminder.
Go find a homeless boxer
From the listings on Petfinder.

A boxer out there needs you.
She's past the puppy stage.
Heart heavy now and lonely,
Abandoned in her cage.
Breeders are one way to go,
But don't forget adoption.
One thoughtless person's discard
Might be your winning option.

http://www.kateconnick.com/store/boxersongs.html

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

:) :)

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:08 PM

(l) (&) (l) (&) (l) (&) (l) (&)

(p) :

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/bonzer.jpg

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:10 PM

:) :)

Me neither. <grinning>

;) ;)

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/rustyNhavoc1.jpg

(y) (y) PRICELESS!!

(k) (k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:13 PM

:) :)

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/bxrbestfriends.jpg

I'd love to hang out with someone like this:

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/naptimeboxers.jpg

(y) (y) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

(k)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:16 PM

:| :| :|

I do this:

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/conanrunning.jpg

(y) (y) (y) LMAO. I guess that is why I enjoy solitude devoid of drama. Oh, except those on the cable channel, TNT. ;)

:) :)

SL& WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:18 PM

:) :)

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/2box2703.jpg

(k) (k) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:22 PM

:) :)

And this looks a little like Wyatt will be in about two or three months:

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/pals0605.jpg

;) Oh, the boxer that is, not the Pug. :o I was so pleased to see this photo.

(u) Doc Holliday's oncologist had four or five pugs as pets. I asked her why. And know what she said? "Pugs had one of the lowest incidences of any kind of cancer."

Things that make me go "hmmmm".

Carpe Diem,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the napping Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:24 PM

(l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l) (l)

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/boxer0605r.jpg

({) (}) ({) (}) ({) (}) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

09-26-2006, 07:26 PM

;) ;)

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/georginaglasses.jpg

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:23 PM

:) :)

You choose the weather conditions...;-)

http://www.weather.com/activities/driving/drivingsafetytips/driving_game_justlx.html?from=FallFoliagefl

(y) (y) (h) (h)

;) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:25 PM

(y) (y) (y)

October 2, 2006

American Album

A Farmer Fears His Way of Life Has Dwindled Down to a Final Generation

By CHARLIE LeDUFF NYTimes

LEBANON, Kan. — The heart of the heartland, the exact geographic middle of the continental United States, is owned by a middle-aged Kansas man named Randall Warner. He exports wheat, beef and soon his second grown son to the city. He stands in his boots in his field and wonders what’s become of his way of life.

“I drive through the city and I wonder what all those people do for a living,” says Mr. Warner, a sturdy, square-faced man. “I see that, and it makes me sad that my children see it too and think that there is something better there for them.”

Lebanon, the nearby town where Mr. Warner learned to read and write, has lost nearly 25 percent of its population over the last 15 years.

Large corporate farmers are taking over. Mr. Warner doesn’t understand the ins and outs of the international trade policies and government subsidies that are changing the landscape, only that to make it nowadays “you work harder — sunup past sundown.”

Next year, Mr. Warner believes, there will be even fewer farmers here, in part because of fuel costs.

And he wonders what will become of his legacy and his land.

His son Travis, 18, wants to know more people besides his dad and the salesman at the John Deere dealership. The nearest pretty girl is 20 miles away.

He wonders if there isn’t something better than stumbling out to the fields with sleep still in your eyes and working past midnight. The summer air here is as stifling as corduroy drapes. Travis hasn’t spoken about this to his father, but his father suspects it just the same.

Travis is a state wrestling and hog breeding champion. He is going off to college soon and doesn’t know if he’ll ever come back. His brother, Dustin, left for good. “I like to work with people, I guess,” Travis says. “Be around people. And we come out here every day. It’s Dad and myself; that’s not working with people.”

He says this while sitting in the cab of his blue pickup, a dirty older model, eating the sandwich his mother made him.

His father is far off in the field, unable to hear the gloomy truth of the matter.

“I told my dad he could retire and cash-rent the land to the big farmer, but then what’s he going to do with his time? This is all he knows. Come out here and work daylight to dark.

“I don’t want that.”

The father says he would have to hire an old hand from down the road to help him work his 3,000 acres. He’ll have to do that and, if that doesn’t work, then start selling off the farm in pieces to the big farmer down the way.

This is how a town like Lebanon dies. The old Lebanon bank has caved in. Main Street is a peeling veneer. It’s a common scene across the Great Plains. People are losing their optimism.

Everything about Mr. Warner speaks of work. At 52, he stands erect, with skin as weathered as cattle hide. He is frugal, does not smoke or drink coffee or liquor. His home is average, a stolid two-story ranch at the edge of a wheat field with a barn outside the door. He is hardly ever home, mostly to eat and sleep, taking a half-day off for church. His wife, Linda, complains about the isolation. Is it too much to stop home while supper’s warm? Or go to town occasionally to see a motion picture? His wife talks of throwing it in sometimes too.

“My whole life is wrapped up in this,” Mr. Warner says while baling hay. “To tell you the truth, it can get a little monotonous. I’ve had four vacations my whole life.”

Still, it is a good life, he says. “The best kind of life there is.”

No political party seems to care much about the working man’s life, Mr. Warner feels. Stick a Republican and a Democrat in a sack, shake it up, pour it out, and the same rapacious thing crawls out. Creatures from a smoke-filled room.

Mr. Warner, a Pentecostal Christian, believes in miracles. He believes in speaking in tongues. He believes that abortion is taking a life and that gay marriage is an abomination. So he voted Republican.

What crumbs do the Democrats offer him? Two men in tuxedos on the steps of City Hall with a marriage license in hand? Handouts for those who won’t work? Mr. Warner says he could be peeled away from the conservatives if the liberals would talk to him about his values:

“God. Family. Work,” he counts them on his fingertips and adds them up. “Heritage.”

Do something to stop the corporate takeover of farm country. Give his son a reason to stay and you could have his vote. “F.D.R. was the greatest president this country ever had,” Mr. Warner says. “He provided security for the farmer.”

Father and son have moved on to spraying fly repellent on the cattle. The sun is going low, the sky is growing golden. The father’s gotten to thinking. The boy will soon go away to college.

His voice shows no trace of his natural confidence.

“Do you think you’ll come back to rural America? And farm? Raise cattle? Raise pigs?”

He talks obliquely, toward his son.

The son mumbles. “Depends if I find something better in the next couple years.”

“What could be better?” the father asks. “What could be better than life on the Great Plains where the wind blows and you catch fresh air every day?”

“That’s what I’m going to look for,” the boy says.

The boy turns his back. He returns to his work. The father watches after him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/us/02album.html?ex=1159934400&en=3beb027b1b200273&ei=5070

<sigh>

({) (}) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:27 PM

:) :)

"Questions your thoughts, filter suspicions; they don't have volume control, but may contain a grain of truth. Investigate rather than assume."

- Heather Roan Robbins

(y) (y)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:28 PM

:| :| :|

Is the web tightening its grip on our lives?

MICHELLE MCGINTY Scotsman.com

WHEN one of the early pioneers of the internet warns that an entire generation could opt out of the real world within the next 15 years, it is perhaps time to start worrying about the effects our online habits can have.

In a major report produced in the US on what the internet might be like in 2020, Glenn Ricart of the Internet Society warns that many people could have lost touch with reality because of the amount of time they spend socialising or working online.

Is it not inevitable that, as social networks, e-learning opportunities and internet shopping choices increase we will become less like the social animals of the last generation?

Why trail down the high street when you can ask unknown people their opinion on what you should wear and then buy it instantly? Why go to evening classes when you can learn online at your convenience? And why bother with spending money at the pub when you can gossip about your favourite music video online with people from all corners of the globe?

There has been a massive increase, particularly amongst young people, in the use of websites such as MySpace and YouTube, which are not only influencing the way the music business is developing but creating massive social networks too. People can test out their views on all sorts of things without the worry of what their friends might think.

Sites such as Wikipedia, Lulu and Flickr also allow people to become overnight celebrities. Contributors become instant encyclopaedia editors, writers, musicians and photographers - and they all want to show off their work to a responsive audience. Ultimately, these web users can develop a personality online which they feel more comfortable with than their everyday one.

Recent research suggests that social networking sites are not going away and the behaviour that drives them is among the strongest of current social trends. Monthly figures from industry watchers M:Metrics suggest that 10 per cent of online users in the UK have used social networking sites and that 15 per cent thought they were likely to post photos or videos on the web in the coming 12 months.

The irony that these social websites may cause the erosion of our interpersonal social skills is not lost by observers. Dr Cynthia McVey, lecturer in psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University, says: "There are going to be some things missing from electronic interaction such as the use of body language and expression. You can say something in words and it can be funny, ironic, sad or malicious depending on your facial expression or your hand movements.

"You could, in future generations, have people who are limited in their use and understanding of expression, as well as being limited in their proper use of written English and all its riches."

She adds: "It is also easier for people who are shy to communicate electronically and so, if that becomes their main method of communicating with friends, then they may not develop the skills needed to get over their shyness.

"You could actually live in your house with your door shut and communicate with other people but never actually meet anyone. However we do have to remember that by nature we are social beings and most of us like to get together with other people and see what they are like."

On the rise of sharing opinions about the latest fashions - as can be done on the new American shop-casting site thisnext.com - McVey says the need for approval is always there, whether it be in person from friends or on a website.

"The advantage online is that you can get more opinions," she says. "And they may be more honest because people won't be worried about hurting your feelings. But this is all communication to do with how you look and that isn't a particularly healthy road to go down."

Mark Vernon, author of The Philosophy of Friends, warns of the social pitfalls of having so many "friends". "On some friendship websites people list literally hundreds of friends," he says. "But when it comes to friendships, the wisdom of philosophers, psychologists and novelists is that close relationships can only be formed with a handful of people.

"It is an illusion to think that friendships can multiply ad infinitum. Quantity erodes quality. Some people probably do think the internet can deliver more, or they are drawn to thinking so. They are in a vulnerable position for whilst the web might put them in touch, it also exposes their loneliness," Vernon says.

There is no doubt that the internet is becoming more and more integral to our social lives as well as the workplace, and in many cases replacing old-fashioned ways of meeting new and like-minded people. If the experts are to be believed, this is only the beginning of a long social discourse on a cultural phenomenon worth watching.

http://living.scotsman.com/digital.cfm?id=1432142006

(y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h) (i) (i) (i)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:31 PM

:| :| :| :|

;) ;)

IAIN HEGGIE

Ladette to Lady, STV

The Law of the Playground, E4

ONE glass of punch, maximum; not putting out on the first date; avoiding well-known cads at balls (not having heard of them is no excuse); and if you must have pierced genitalia, never say so over dinner.

Fail to stick to these rules at Eggleston Hall as a contestant on Ladette to Lady, young women, and you will face the wrath of Jill Hubbard, who resembles Stanley Baxter dragged up as a flower-arranging teacher. She is that finishing school's principal and is a fully paid-up member of the Anne Robinson college of wholly unscary camp severity. She says of her charges: "They're loud, rowdy and their sexual behaviour is simply ghastly!"

To illustrate how ghastly these girls are, we are shown footage of them staggering about pubs and clubs with sweaty faces and matted hair. What we don't get to see is, presumably, the producers plying these girls with as much drink as they can down their throats and egging them on to camera-friendly misbehaviour.

When asked about her motive for doing the show, one girl said she flashed her surgically enhanced breasts all the time and wanted to go to finishing school to find out why she shouldn't. Another participant was over the moon when she got a job as an air hostess but went into a sharp decline when she lost the job, for offences not dissimilar to pouring hot coffee in the laps of pregnant women and nutting Japanese tourists. She wanted to stop losing jobs, you see.

Hubbard spoke in a remarkably old-fashioned accent: "The vell-yew of flahr-rranging ectchelly is remahkable. It makes a very dull dining table look wondahful. Elso, uv cawss, in some cases the gels can make it a carea." Because the gels were not invited to aspire to a more contemporary ideal of womanhood, it's hard to believe any of them cared about winning. Indeed, all of them seemed able to get rowdy on cue for the camera. It's was if they thought the teachers wouldn't get to see the footage. Perhaps ITV are privately rewarding such misbehaviour to the same level they will publicly reward the one left standing after the rest have been eliminated. If *Ladette to Lady was only meant to be a camp curiosity with nothing truly at stake, they should have made sure its campery was more expertly calculated to be funny.

If we stretch credibility to breaking point by assuming the teachers of Ladette to Lady stick to their disapproving stereotypes off duty, it's not hard to work out what they must have thought about **The Law Of The Playground, had they seen it: sim-ply hurr-en-duss.

Using the same format as Grumpy Old Men (and Women) this show about the reality of school life, gave us Lucy Montgomery reminiscing about the cruelty of childhood: "If you had a shit shoe you were a shit person." Whatever that means. Vic Reeves managed to go further when he recounted how he once tried to give a girl he really liked a kiss. He held his breath and stuck his lips out. Later he was dumped and he assumed it was his lack of technique. How right he was: a mutual friend later told him he got the boot because he didn't try to go several bases further south with her as well. Goodness!

Most such dirt-cheap reminiscence shows seem to end up a bit smug, but The Law Of The Playground was smugger than most. The participants were mostly in the first half of their lives and there was a streak of triumphalism in their anecdotes. Perhaps it takes bitter experience to learn the wisdom of self-deprecation.

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1439342006

:o :o Apparently, reality TV is as bad in Scotland! ;)

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:32 PM

:) :) :)

LIAM RUDDEN ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

THERE have been many highs in Judy Collins' life. The popular US singer/songwriter holds the record for the longest time spent in the UK Top 40 by a female artist. In 1966 she discovered and championed the gravel-toned poet and singer Leonard Cohen. Later, she became a UNICEF ambassador, campaigning in Vietnam, Bosnia and Croatia.

However, there have also been lows - the worst, her son's suicide, an experience that set the folk icon on what she describes as a second career, working with suicide prevention groups and survivors.

At 67, Collins, who in 45 years has released more than 40 albums, is in reflective mood ahead of her appearance at the Queen's Hall tomorrow evening.

She recalls: "My father was in the radio business. He had a radio show for 30 years and so I grew up in a performer's routine - going to the station, hearing my dad on the radio every day, going to see shows. Pretty quickly I started singing and performing myself."

In fact, Collins was a child protégé, studying classical piano with Antonia Brico and making her public debut performing Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos at the age of 13.

But Mozart soon gave way to the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger as Collins found herself entranced by the folk revival of the early 60s. Turning her attention to the guitar, she made her way to New York's Greenwich Village, where she busked and played in clubs until being signed to Elektra Records - the start of a 35 year association.

"My tastes probably started to change around the age of 14," she says. "But I had always done other things. We had the American Songbook in my family and I knew all the Rogers and Hart show tunes, and all the Irish folk songs too, because my dad was very fond of those.

"Then I started to hear folk songs on the radio, so I got a guitar and started performing. That happened pretty quickly, between the ages of 14 and 16, by which time, although I still played the piano, I didn't continue to study it."

Collins returned to her studies in her mid-20s - "When I started writing songs I had to pick that up again," she says - and at 22 released her first album A Maid of Constant Sorrow.

She also recorded her own versions of Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man and Seeger's Turn, Turn, Turn, and championed the work of a then unknown Canadian poet called Leonard Cohen, recording his songs and bringing them to the attention of the public.

"I started singing in clubs all over the country when I was 19, the same year that I married," she says. "The village was the centre of the folk scene, everybody was there, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Dylan, all the Baez kids, Peter, Paul and Mary, and me.

"At the time Leonard was known as a poet in Canada, mostly in Montreal. His manager, who was a friend of mine, arranged for him to come to see me in 1966 because he didn't know what to do with his poems and songs."

SHE adds:"First of all I put his songs on my album and assured him that he was a songwriter. Then I also put him on stage for the first time as a singer.

"He was extremely nervous. Halfway through one song he stopped and I had to push him back out. Of course, he has since become a great performer. He's also a very great friend and I've now recorded a couple of dozen of his songs."

In 1967 Collins released Wildflowers, the album on which she first began to record her own material including Since You've Asked and the Grammy Award-winning Both Sides Now, which reached No eight in the US Billboard Hot 100.

The following year she teamed up with Stephen Stills to record Who Knows Where The Time Goes.

By the 70s, chart success in the UK with the gospel favourite Amazing Grace and Stephen Sondheim's Broadway ballad Send In The Clowns had established Collins' mainstream popularity here.

"I actually started coming to the UK in 1966 and worked in the Albert Hall in 67, 68, 69 and 70. So by the time I released Amazing Grace in 71 I knew the UK," she says. "But Amazing Grace surprised everybody. Nobody imagined it would ever sweep around the world in the way that it did.

"I didn't realise, until Steve Turner's book about the history of the song came out, that when I recorded Amazing Grace it had sort of fallen out of favour - it wasn't in the hymn books anymore. It was like the poor relation. Once I recorded it, the song went around the world straight away and everybody else started recording it."

To this day, Collins' Amazing Grace holds the record for the longest time spent in the Top 40 by a female artist at 42 weeks.

In 1975 she returned to the charts with Send In The Clowns. "My tastes have always been very eclectic, but there are things about both those songs that are very similar," says the singer. "The memorable, simple melodic line is the signature of what I do. The memorable simple line which one can remember for decades is what has kept me going. I'm always trying to write songs like that or find them, because they are the songs that can be easily remembered."

More recently the singer has turned her hand to writing, penning a novel called Shameless in 1995 and her autobiography Trust Your Heart two years later.

"I had always poked around with journals, which I still do," she reveals. "The first thing I did was write some memory chapters of my family for my Songbook in 69, and then it was nearly 20 years later that I wrote a full biography in 1987. But between those years there was a lot of writing that I did. It just wasn't published.

"For me, writing is a release. It's hard work, but I love it. Right now I'm waiting for my ninth book to come back to me in edit form and, except for the thriller, I've pretty much written about my life and the things that have happened to me, including some pretty important and devastating things like the suicide of my son."

Her 2003 book Sanity & Grace chronicled her recovery from that tragedy - her son Clark Taylor committed suicide in 1992, at the age of 33, after a long battle with depression and substance abuse - while attempting to provide some comfort and guidance to other families dealing with the loss of a loved one.

"I wish I could get Sanity and Grace published here. I tried plugging around and seeing who I could see in London a couple of years ago, but have never been successful," she says.

"It was Sanity and Grace that really led me to some of the more intense work in terms of suicide prevention and working with survivors that I do - it's sort of become my second career."

Her latest book, The Seven Ts, which will be published in the UK next year, also deals with the topic, detailing Collins' process for recovery: Truth, Therapy, Trust, Try, Treat, Treasure, and Thrive.

The Truth is that there should be no guilt; Therapy helps express emotions; Trust is the belief that one can make it through the loss; Try means to stay away from any excess as a means to deal with the loss and pain; Treat means to take care of the mind, body and spirit with exercise and meditation; Treasure means to keep the memory of the moments to be treasured; and Thrive means to be positive, hopeful, open to love and others, and continuing to know that you can rebuild your life on a basis of hope.

For Collins, writing these books has become a coping mechanism for dealing with her son's death. "It has been something that has very much a healing technique," she agrees.

Following the Seven Ts has also allowed the singer to remain positive. "I'm not a despairing person, I'm an optimist," she says. "I do despair at some of the things our politicians do, and I'm kind of sick over some of that, but I was sick over the war in Vietnam. I've been sick about many things that have happened in the world.

"The world is a difficult place to live and I have to find my solace in other less provocative areas, in the deeper areas of the writing and conscience and meditation, to try to be positive.

"That's the work, to be positive in this world is difficult. And although we like to think that things are bad now, it's not just now. It's always been enormously difficult because the world is a very unpleasant place at times. So the job is really to make it pleasant for yourself and your family. That's the real politics - look at what's going on and change your world."

It seems that if everybody adopted Collins attitude to life, the world might well be a better place to live.

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1438672006

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:34 PM

:| :| :| :| :|

;) ;) ;)

Hooked on the simple pleasures of seafood

RESTAURANT REVIEW

JIM DUNN

Two Fat Ladies
118a Blythswood Street,
Glasgow
0141-847 0088

I KNOW that the image business, whether advertising or public relations, is one of the biggest money-spinners in the world, but I don't know if there's a post mortem department which investigates what went wrong when the investment and the hype fails to produce the right results.

If I walk into a car showroom and am totally ignored for more than about a minute then me, and my money, are out of there for good, a reaction which has cost Mercedes-Benz at least one new car sale down the years.

But there are other, less obvious things which can put off potential customers - small print and vibrant colours, for instance, which look great in a presentation but are of little use if the target customers are getting on a bit and needing spectacles.

I was reminded of this most basic mistake when trying to study the menu for Catch 22, a newish seafood restaurant at the top end of Glasgow's Bath Street on a drizzly Saturday afternoon. It could be that the target audience is young six foot plussers, but for Mr Five Foot Nine and his missus, the menu outside was too high, the print too small and it was set on a slope. It may even have been written in Sanskrit, for all I know.

That's a pity for the restaurant because when I'm in the mood for a nice bit of fish, as I was that Saturday, then money, and distance, is no object.

Fortunately we didn't have far to walk to Two Fat ladies, a new seafood place just round the corner, en route to the parking places of Blytheswood Square. Strangely, there seems to be no connection to the surviving Fat Lady chef Clarissa Dickson Wright, when I would have thought it would have been a registered brand name. It is, in fact, named after the original Two Fat Ladies at 88 Dumbarton Road.

Though there's steak and chicken on the relatively short à la carte menu, the vast majority of dishes at the new Two Fat Ladies in town continue the original's recipe for success by concentrating on classic Scottish seafood standards with a touch of the more exotic when in season or available.

It was the lunch/pre-theatre menu (two courses for £11.50, three courses for £13.50) that drew our attention, not just because these lists tend to offer the best value for money, but also because they allow a restaurant the best chance to sell itself to new customers.

With a choice of three starters we dismissed the soup of the day on account of it still being summer, so no need of inner warmth, and went for the other two.

My wife's starter was salad of Shetland black pudding, pancetta and Dunsyre cheese, and though it may not have been the most healthy option, it certainly hit all the right notes as far as her taste buds were concerned.

My caramelised onion and Cheddar cheese tart probably had the same number of calories and it was worth ordering for the shock value alone as the waitress watched my expression when she laid it in front of me.

Remember when Armani deconstructed the traditional gentleman's suit and put it together again as a much less formal ensemble? That's exactly what Two Fat Ladies have done with the classic savoury tart which, in this instance, consisted of an irregularly shaped base of filo pastry, plenty of fat, well-sweated onions and just the right amount of mature Cheddar melted on top.

We'd given so much attention to our starters that we'd rather neglected our glasses of the house Cabernet Sauvignon, a French Vin De Pay d'Oc which, at £10.95 a bottle, offers probably the best value wine on the short but imaginative list.

My choice of fillet of sea bass on a spring onion and potato mash was tasty enough, though a little short on sea bass and mash. It did, however, have an abundance of roasted summer vegetables available to bulk it out.

While it's difficult to get sea bass wrong, cod is so much of a cliché in the modern seafood kitchen that it takes some ingenuity to give it a new twist. My wife said her cod with a herb crust was cooked to just that level of perfection where the first few forkfuls taste as though they are almost underdone when they reach the tongue yet, on inspection, turn out not to be.

But the real star was the tomato coulis on which it was served. This was as near as makes no difference to the tomato sauce I've been serving at home in recent weeks as a result of an all-time record crop of homegrown fruit.

Our tomatoes came from a set of plants supplied by a friend in England and had been carefully reared by hand before disappearing into my own recipe for tomato sauce.

Yet here was some upstart Glasgow restaurant doing it almost as well and, I fear, with commercially supplied tomatoes.

As we tend towards savoury rather than sweet, we weren't tempted by the third course choice of Bailey's chocolate pot or sticky toffee pudding, and as we'd both tasted cheese in previous courses, we opted to forego the cheese plate. Perhaps we'll try one of them on our next visit, which I suspect won't be too far away.

http://living.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1256&id=1391592006

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:35 PM

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Girls allowed

ALICE WYLLIE

AT ONE moment in the iconic film, Thelma & Louise, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are listening to The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, by Marianne Faithfull. The lyrics echo the two women's situation perfectly: "At the age of 37 she realised she'd never ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair...". "I always wanted to travel," says Thelma, "Just never got the opportunity." For many women, however, the idea that life or family might prevent them from experiencing their Paris moment, is not one they are willing to entertain.

Christine Davies and Grace Frankel are two of those women. Friends for 20 years, they are sharing their professional experiences to run the Thelma & Louise club, a women-only travel club that helps solo travellers find a buddy through an online network, so that they can fulfil their aspirations with the security of like-minded companionship. The duo's credentials certainly check out. Frankel has run her own travel company since 1980. Davies, meanwhile, spent three years as film director on the BBC Holiday programme.

The site allows members to swap tips as well as helping them find a travelling companion. In addition, Davies and Frankel arrange group trips that any member can sign up to, ranging from a break in Rome to tea at Fortnum & Mason in London. It costs £9.99 per year to join, but if you book a trip through the site you receive a £25 discount.

So what inspired the pair to go on their online adventure? "I wanted to climb Ayers Rock in Australia but my husband wasn't so keen," says Davies.

"I'd spent my whole life making decisions as a family about where to go on holiday and ending up in Disneyland, so I finally wanted to do something for myself. My sister e-mailed me about her friend who was in the middle of a divorce and, like me, had always dreamed of sunset at Ayers Rock. Although we'd never met, we made a plan via the internet and booked a five-day bus trip through the red centre of Australia. The trip was incredible, one of the most amazing experiences of our lives, and we were there to support each other through the whole thing. As well as our experience, we have also found a new friend in one another."

Davies had caught the Thelma & Louise bug and it wasn't long before she knew that she wanted to go on another adventure. "On the plane back, I felt so excited and liberated that I decided I wanted to visit Peru. My husband was ill so I knew he wouldn't be able to come with me, but I was sure that someone else out there would, it was just a case of finding them. When I spoke to Grace about my dilemma, she told me that as a travel agent, lots of her clients express the desire to go somewhere adventurous with a female travelling companion, but just can't find someone to go with them. In response to this, we decided to set up the Thelma & Louise club, which was initially just a little project for a small group of friends, but then of course, friends e-mailed friends, and they e-mailed their friends, and now we have members in 35 countries, from Russia to the US. Our members range in age from 18 to 80, but most of them are between 30 and 60. They tend to be independent, self-sufficient women, who have worked all of their lives and have decided it's now time to put themselves first."

The Thelma & Louise club now has a network of women who are fulfilling their dreams together and making friendships along the way, on holidays ranging from relaxing spa breaks to gruelling adventure challenges.

So did the film itself offer any inspiration? "Both Grace and I adore the film and I think its message carries a lot of importance for women," says Davies. "It symbolises independence and liberation, and throughout the film Thelma and Louise both make mistakes, but never blame each other. They never let each other down, but always support each other, something that is very much in a woman's nature. 'Doing a Thelma & Louise' has become a generic term and we feel that every woman is entitled to her Thelma & Louise moment."

• For more information visit www.thelmandlouise.com

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=1243162006

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(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:38 PM

:) :)

Has the diamond lost its sparkle?

ALASTAIR JAMIESON

'WHAT else could make three months' salary last a lifetime?" implored the cinema adverts, adding to the cachet of a gem which has fascinated humankind since its discovery in India 6,000 years ago.

In the 21st century, diamonds are a symbol of glamour, success and luxury. "Call me old-fashioned, but nothing says 'I love you' more than a big rock," declared Catherine Zeta-Jones after her engagement to Michael Douglas, their mutual devotion symbolised by a dazzling £2 million ring. Film star and singer Jennifer Lopez - the recipient of no fewer than three diamond engagement rings - and Lindsay Lohan, who flashed a £500,000 rock on her third finger, left hand, for the world to see, are among other celebrities who have fallen under the stone's spell.

And they are not just for the famous to enjoy, of course. Diamond sales topped £1.3 billion in Britain last year, and four out of five UK women own a piece of diamond jewellery other than their engagement ring.

But, with the advent of ethical consumerism, our love affair with the sparkling rock is starting to turn cold, thanks partly to a new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which shows how diamonds can also be a warlord's best friend.

The Blood Diamond, released in the US next month and showing in British cinemas from January, tells how, in the past decade, "conflict diamonds" mined in Africa by outlaws were sold on the Western market to finance the purchase of arms by machete-wielding rebel groups who slaughtered innocent people, including children.

It sheds light on how the gem trade has financed some of the world's deadliest civil battles. Members of al-Qaeda's inner circle bought gems in Liberia, and from rebels in Sierra Leone, in order to launder cash prior to the 11 September attacks, say US intelligence reports.

As with the anti-fur movement, which gained momentum in the 1980s after being endorsed by supermodels such as Naomi Campbell - who campaigned against its use, forcing a drop in fur-coat sales - celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon of the anti-diamond campaigns and threatening to damage the £50 billion industry.

Lily Cole, teenage supermodel and once the face of the world's most famous diamond producer, De Beers, publicly declined to model their jewellery after learning its diamond mines in Botswana were once implicated in the eviction of indigenous bushmen from their land. Last year, Cole was persuaded by charities such as Survival not to do any more work for the company.

David Bowie's wife, Iman, also previously a face of the company, followed suit, while glamorous celebrities such as Erin O'Connor and Julie Christie have also spoken out against the buying of conflict diamonds. Where celebrities lead, shoppers follow: their concern has coincided with a rise in responsible consumerism and awareness of the value of knowing the provenance of the things we buy. Ethical Consumer magazine reports the launch of a web- site, boycottdebeers.com which sells T-shirts declaiming against the firm's activities.

Now the worldwide diamond industry has been forced into a major charm offensive, with the World Diamond Council (WDC) launching its own website, www.diamondfacts.org to counter this burgeoning bad publicity in the crucial pre-Christmas trading period.

The website, and De Beers, say 99 per cent of diamonds on sale in Britain are certified through the Kimberley Process - an industry-agreed system of authentication introduced in 2003 - and jewellers should be able to produce a certificate proving their diamonds have been produced legitimately.

Set against the backdrop of civil war in 1990s Sierra Leone, The Blood Diamond is the story of Danny Archer (DiCaprio), a South African mercenary, and a fisherman who finds an extraordinary rough stone after being taken from his family and forced to work in the diamond fields. While in prison for smuggling, Archer enlists the help of Jennifer Connelly's American journalist to track down the fisherman in order to free the man from his labours and give himself a second chance in the process.

"There's a lot of nervousness in the industry about this film," says Edinburgh jeweller Joseph Bonnar - a fact which may explain De Beers' decision to spend £8m on publicity this autumn.

"Buying diamonds is not limited to one particular level of society, and neither is ethical buying," says another Edinburgh jeweller, Alistir Wood Tait. "We find more customers are asking about the provenance of the pieces they are interested in, and it isn't the case that those who have money to spend are unconcerned about where their jewellery has come from."

Eli Izhakoff, the president of the WDC, says the new website is the culmination of a long campaign to increase public awareness of reforms in the diamond trade. "We've intensified our efforts because of this upcoming movie," Izhakoff says. "We wanted to make sure retailers and consumers get the facts about the good things diamonds do."

World leaders such as South African President Thabo Mbeki have hailed the value of diamonds for African nations, particularly countries such as Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania. The WDC says the diamond industry around the world directly employs more than ten million people, and that an estimated five million have access to healthcare in southern Africa, while every child in Botswana gets free education up to the age of 13, all thanks to revenues from diamonds.

"The biggest producers of diamonds, in order, are Botswana, Canada, Russia and South Africa," says Michael Laing, of Laing the Jeweller in Edinburgh's Frederick Street. "None of those countries has a rebel problem, still less a problem with conflict diamonds. The film refers to what happened years ago, and is by its nature an exaggeration of the truth."

Since 1998, the proportion of conflict diamonds on sale in the world's jewellery shops has shrunk from 4 per cent to less than 1 per cent.

So why should anyone still worry about the sparklers on display in their local jeweller's? Susie Sanders, a campaigner with Global Witness, which has worked with Amnesty International to raise awareness of conflict diamonds, says: "There remains a lot of cross-border smuggling, and the control systems just aren't strong enough.

"We wouldn't dispute that the proportion of conflict diamonds has gone down, but when you consider that two of the most serious conflicts involved - Angola and Sierra Leone - have ended in that time, you have to wonder whether the Kimberley Process has made enough of an impact."

Diamonds still play a role in the conflict in the Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Global Witness has found evidence that diamonds mined in West Africa are regularly smuggled and given Kimberley Process certificates by countries other than their country of origin.

"Members of the industry continue to trade in conflict and illicit diamonds," says Sanders.

There also remains concern over the actions of even the legitimate parts of the industry. The evicted Botswana bushmen have taken out an advert in the Hollywood trade magazine Variety, attacking the diamond business and appealing for DiCaprio's support in their campaign against De Beers.

And there is tension within the industry itself. Last week, African diamond producers sought to bolster their influence by forging their own grouping.

A new Association of African Diamond Producing Countries will be launched next month in Angola - the world's fifth biggest diamond producer by value, and itself recovering from decades of civil war, which ended in 2002.

"The people deciding on the price of diamonds and making policies on diamonds at the moment are non-producers in Antwerp and Israel," says Sebastiao Panzo, a spokesman for Angolan state diamond company Endiama. "We believe that we, in Africa, need our own platform to discuss these issues."

Sanders says: "Given the track record of Angola, we think this could become problematic."

De Beers remains ebullient. "It sounds strange, but we welcome this film," says a spokeswoman. "We think this gives the whole industry a chance to show the actions that have been taken over the past few years."

Given the uncertainty over the provenance of diamonds, the super-ethical among the super-rich are following in the steps of celebrities including Liz Hurley and Madonna, by opting for semi-precious stones such as sodalite and agate.

And the ubiquity of diamonds in popular culture may also change the way they are used in high fashion. Richard Gray, of fashion and style magazine 10, says: "Russians are keeping the demand for diamonds up, particularly in couture jewellery, and there remains a bling trend on the high street towards the boldest sparkle - particularly for ear studs - but in high fashion things are moving away from that towards the more minimal and the understated.

"Designers such as Jil Sander are pioneering the pared-down look. There will always be diamonds, but ostentatiousness is not the keyword at the moment. You won't find excessive bling on the catwalks."

Bonnar, who specialises in antique jewellery, says ethical consumerism will make little difference when buying gems more than a few years old. "A lot of the diamonds I see were cut in the 19th century. Well, when you think about how India was run [then], it doesn't really seem logical to apply modern values and principles to purchasing jewellery made [in that era].

"With the best will in the world, there is no way of knowing where antique gems have come from, unless you have some kind of documentation."

So will the film change attitudes to diamonds? "In the longer term I don't think it will make the slightest difference," says Laing. "We do have more customers asking whether we have Kimberley Process certificates - which we do - but it won't take away from the association of diamonds with special occasions. I can't wait to see the film, though." Bonnar is less convinced: "I can't be bothered with it, to be honest. Hollywood is using the conflict issue to sell a film - good luck to them. Besides, I'm not a big fan of DiCaprio."

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1432682006

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SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:40 PM

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Enter the dragon

JUDY DIAMOND

THE scooter shoots out of the scrum waiting patiently for the lights to change. Its rider, a daredevil in flipflops, has a watermelon wedged under his arm. Behind him, nonchalantly side-saddle, his wife hugs their grandchild to her bony chest, a bulging bag of vegetables slung over one shoulder.

They are swiftly followed by a bicycle-wheelbarrow combo piled high with baskets of oranges. It slaloms through the throng, a tiny woman pumping the pedals. Tuk-tuks, rickshaws and buggies surge forward in her wake, laden with crates of beer, the morning's harvest of leeks, paniers brimming with pak choi, impossible stacks of fruit.

This is Xi'an, ancient capital of the emperors and one of the oldest cities in China. And these riders, returning from market, are doing what people here have always done: buying and selling. Over 2,000 years ago, Xi'an, in east-central China, was the start of the Silk Road. Its adventurers set out for the unknown west armed with tea and pearls and precious silks to barter for the long-legged Arabian stallions that would give an unassailable advantage over an enemy mounted on stocky Mongolian ponies.

Those intrepid merchants brought back more than horses. The town got a taste for pomegranates, persimmons, chilli and peppers. Persian gold flowed into its coffers, and new ideas set the place abuzz with ambition. To this day, Xi'an has the biggest cultural mix and the largest Islamic population in China. Wandering the shady paths of its Great Mosque complex, in the heart of the Muslim quarter, is like finding a green oasis in the dusty desert. Palms and fruit trees alive with birdsong surround the ancient pagoda that sits in its centre in place of a minaret.

The alleys that encircle the mosque are crammed with tiny shops selling dried fruit and plump dates, heaps of yellow and ochre spices, tourist souvenirs and pots and pans. This is the place to come to hone your bargaining skills, pick up a Chairman Mao wristwatch or a scarlet paper lantern.

These days the area enclosed by the city's high stone walls is just a fifth of the size it was at its peak, back in 200BC, when only Rome could rival it in strength and scope. You can climb up on to the ramparts and walk or cycle round the 12km perimeter, but there's no protection from the fierce sun up there, and the locals prefer to stroll the leafy banks of the old moat below.

Outside the ramparts is a free-for-all of flyovers, factories and towerblocks, so it's all the more astonishing that just beyond this ragged urban sprawl is the site of so much ancient buried treasure. The most famous find was the aircraft hangar-filling army of life-size terracotta warriors, commissioned in 248BC by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang to guard him in death. Ever since a farmer digging a well unearthed the first find back in 1974, this area has drawn massive crowds to what China justifiably calls the eighth wonder of the world. The statistics take the breath away (700,000 craftsmen took 38 years to make the 8,000 clay figures), but it's the sheer scale and detail that impresses most, each and every warrior having his own unique facial features.

There's enough here to keep archaeologists going for decades, but this is just a fraction of the secrets the land around Xi'an holds. Several miles away, beneath a vast earthen pyramid, for example, is the newly opened Mausoleum of the Emperor Jingdi, dating from 125BC and crammed with precious relics and pottery figurines.

We should be eternally grateful that these finds came when the destructive fervour of the Cultural Revolution had died down, but you can make your own Great Leap Forward by taking a two-hour flight to Shanghai, on the country's eastern seaboard. A megalopolis of soaring skyscrapers and a dizzying 20 million people, this is the New York of the new millennium.

The Bund, a historic street whose elegant façades symbolised British banking solidity in the 19th century, is now utterly dwarfed by the towering megaliths across the Huangpu river in Pudong, the new financial district. Fifty years ago Pudong was paddy fields, its only inhabitants poor farmers. You need to be a millionaire to live there now. The unmistakable silhouette of the Oriental Pearl TV tower is here, soon to be surpassed by the tallest building on the planet: the World Financial Centre, a vertiginous 492m, is due for completion next year.

Take the lift to the 46th floor of the nearby JJ Oriental hotel and see, over a cocktail or two in its revolving bar, the whole of Shanghai laid out below you. Sometimes, though, especially in the rainy season of June and July, the full height of these buildings is lost in the murk as twilight descends. It's hard to catch a breath in the 80% humidity and even at night the city steams in the high 20s. The river of people flowing down Nanjing Road on a Friday night, washed aquamarine, cerise and lime in the neon, are hellbent on a good time, and even the cloudbursting rain battering out of the filthy sky can't dampen their spirits.

Those who can afford it head to the Whampoa Club at Three on the Bund for an exquisite, inventive take on Shanghaianese favourite dishes. Others cool off round the corner, in the Peace Hotel's glorious art deco lobby and 'authentic' English bar - a great hangout with a legendary resident jazz band. The hotel has scarcely changed in the 70 years since it was built, something that makes it pretty much unique: in the headlong rush to modernity, much of the old city has been obliterated - locals admit even they get lost if they leave more than six months between visits to certain districts.

One place that has resisted change is the old centre - Chinatown. Its warren of noodle bars, fashion stores and jade jewellery shops rewards a wander. There is a silk factory here, where you can watch the whole miraculous process from cocoon to kimono (and bedspread, shirt and pyjamas). Silk is on sale all over town, but the stuff here is authentic and of good quality.

When you need a break, stop for a lunch of pork-and-crab dumplings at the busy, raucous Green Wave, or seek respite from the heat in the nearby haven of Yu Gardens. It's not easy to slow down in this adrenaline-rush of a city, though, and sometimes there's only one solution: get out of town.

A three-hour drive away are the lush gardens and magnificent West Lake of Hangzhou. In heaven there is paradise, on earth there is Hangzhou, runs a well-known local saying, and it's easy to see why. The lake and gardens are spacious enough that, even in one of the most popular tourist spots in China (Mao visited 43 times), there is still plenty of room for everyone.

Spring, when peach blossom perfumes the air, is possibly the best time to visit, though summer's blooming lotus flowers run it a close second. Lose yourself down one of the wandering paths, shaded by cherry trees and weeping willows, where the deafening crescendo of crickets is all that breaks the silence - that, and the cawing of West Lake's astonishing all-white peacocks.

No reservations are ever taken at Lou Wai Lou, the best restaurant on the lake shore, but time spent charming the waitresses into giving you a table will be rewarded with specialities such as beggar's chicken (a whole bird baked inside a parcel of mud and aromatic lotus leaves) and hot-and-sour West Lake carp. Set off on an after-dinner stroll as the golden dusk turns the mountains a hazy blue, and you know you'd have to go very far to find a more glorious spot.

Take it from one traveller who knew. "This," said Marco Polo, "is the most beautiful, magnificent city in the world."

Fact file: China

Air France (0870 142 4343, www.airfrance.com) flies from Edinburgh to Shanghai (via Paris) from £427 return. China Southern Airlines (www.cs-air.com) flies from Shanghai to Xi'an for about £150 return.

Accommodation at the centrally located Sofitel Hyland in Shanghai, the five-star Sofitel on Renmin Square in Xi'an and the luxurious Sofitel Xanadu West Lake in Hangzhou starts at £50 per room per night (0870 609 0964, www.sofitel.com).

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=1323912006

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(k) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:43 PM

:o :o :o

Down your way

GERRI PEEV

WHO needs the Pacific Coast Highway, the ten-hour flight to LA and ensuing jet lag, I wonder, as I just about career off the road after being overwhelmed by yet another eye-popping vista on the Antrim coast.

The Causeway Coastal Route is under an hour's drive from Belfast and offers the kind of jaw-dropping scenery that fulfils the desires of even the fussiest road tripper.

And for the easily distracted, there is the added bonus of being able to gape in open-mouthed wonder without forgetting which side of the road you are meant to be driving on.

Apart from the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Giant's Causeway, the area boasts nine glens, each with their own legends, award-winning golf courses, family parks, castles and the world's first legal whiskey distillery.

First, a health warning: my June trip to the Causeway Coastal Route in Northern Ireland coincided with the kind of freakishly hot weather that one would only expect, in, well, California.

But even more typically Ulster weather would not have detracted from the waterfalls, the rugged coastline and soaring views that unfold at every bend of the 120-mile trail.

The first stop on our long weekend was Carrickfergus, a charming town which is home to Northern Ireland's best-preserved Norman castle, built in the 12th century to beat off marauders.

As the weather is so glorious and we are yearning for some vitamin D, I confess that we barely stop before heading for a detour of Islandmagee, the misleadingly named peninsula. To the east, its beaches face Scotland's coast. I am also thrilled to find my own New Zealand hometown's namesake, Brown's Bay.

One of the organisers of our trip had tried to play down my expectations, hinting that after the splendours of a recent holiday in New Zealand I would be underwhelmed by the beauty of Northern Ireland. She was wrong.

We carry on up the coast past Larne, the gateway to the Causeway Coast and Glens, to Glenarm, the seat of the ancient, feudal landowners, the Earls of Antrim. We follow the signs through a pretty village for the glen and forest walk. But not before I slam on the brakes when I spot The Steensons, a contemporary jewellers which has in its window the kind of necklace I have been hunting for fruitlessly for months.

After a gentle walk along the river, past the trees next to Glenarm Castle, we head for the fishing village of Carnlough, where we stay in the charming Londonderry Arms Hotel. This seafront hotel was once owned by Winston Churchill (he inherited it). The Georgian rooms are stuffed with antiques but its grandeur belies a decidedly relaxed atmosphere.

Dinner is succulent scampi in the adjoining pub, although the more sophisticated evening menu with lobster is on offer at its award-winning restaurant.

Surprisingly, the sun is still shining the next morning and we vow to make the most of it with a hike around the Glenariff Forest Park with its majestic waterfalls, bluebell-studded woods and almost conquerable mountains.

Glenariff is known as the Queen of the Glens and it encompasses one of Ireland's forest parks, with its network of waterfalls and panoramic viewpoints.

We ask for a slightly shorter version of the nine-mile walk but must have taken a wrong turn as we puff our way back to the car hours later. It was worth every expended calorie.

The views on the north eastern section of the road are perhaps the most spectacular. We look out over Torr Head where, legend has it, the children of Lir were turned into swans by their evil stepmother Aoife. I could think of worse fates than flying around this beauty spot for the rest of my life, especially as thunderclouds gather and cast an eerie glow across the water.

Then we drive across to Slemish Mountain, where St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was said to have tended his livestock as a slave boy in the fifth century. We make a dash for the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. The walk down the gravel path is so spectacular that I take a characteristic tumble and graze my knee, which takes me back to being eight years old.

The rope bridge spans an 80ft chasm linking a tiny island with the mainland. Surefooted fisherman would traverse it with their salmon - in those days there was just a single handrail. Suddenly, it is blowing a gale and I am thankful for the double-sided rope. Since the demise of salmon fishing along the coast, the bridge has become a National Trust-run tourist attraction.

Despite my slight clammy-handedness, I am wowed by the scenery on either side of the bridge - smugglers' caves are dotted underneath cliffs sprouting white and purple wild flowers. The land is bordered by the teal-tinged water that I usually associate with islands such as Sardinia.

We head back up the coastal path just as it begins to pelt with rain, but I don't pick up my speed, I would rather get wet than miss out on a minute of drinking in this scenery.

The night is spent in the perfectly pleasant town of Portballintrae on the northern coast. The Bayview Hotel - our stop for the night - overlooks the Atlantic and boasts spacious, modern rooms. Grabbing a spot on the terrace and watching the sun setting is the perfect way to end a knackering day for sensible travellers.

That's not us, so we decide to drive to neighbouring Portrush, where nightlife options are livelier. We stumble across 55 Degrees North, an impressive, modern restaurant with prices to rival London.

Equally lively is Portstewart, which along with Portrush boasts blue-flag swimming beaches, amusements and a steady stream of teenagers driving down the main street on a Sunday after church.

Fourteenth-century Dunluce Castle is on the way, clinging to the edge of a dramatic clifftop. Its reputation as the most romantic castle in Ireland is deserved.

It is our final full day and we have saved what is the reputed highlight until last; the Giant's Causeway. The 40,000 mainly hexagonal basalt columns poke spookily from the sea, the geometric polygons too eerily perfect to be moulded by the volcanic eruption 60 million years ago.

Legend has it that the Fionn mac Cumhail or Finn MacCool (to give him his Anglicised name) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish equivalent Benandonner.

All that walking makes a woman thirsty, so we head to Bushmills, home to the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery. Established in 1608, it was recently taken over by drinks giant Diageo, which aims to catapult the Bushmills brand into the world's top ten.

We take the half-hour tour through the factory and bottling plant, during which we learn the main differences between Irish and Scotch whisky is the spelling and the fact that the Irish do not use peat smoke in creating their malt.

The absence of smokiness gives Irish whiskey a "cleaner" flavour. "Isn't that what gives Scotch its superior taste?" my husband pipes up. We quickly move to the bar, before we are evicted for his contentious remark.

We are soon placated with our complimentary drink, where the manager tells us: "Nothing pleases me more than plying a Scotsman or woman with Irish whiskey." Nor me - luckily I am not driving.

Our final destination is the spectacular Downhill Estate and Mussenden Temple near Castlerock.

The eccentric Frederick Hervey, an Earl and the Bishop of Derry, built the Roman-style Mussenden Temple on the edge of a cliff as his library in the 18th century.

Scandalously, the married bishop built it in honour of Frideswide Mussenden, the married sister of his cousin Hervey Bruce. Beneath the temple, the bishop built a room for Catholic priests to say Mass, an example of his liberalism. Cows mingle with tourists on the estate, which includes romantic ruins from his palace, which once boasted works by Van Dyke, Raffaello and Tintoretto.

We spend our final night in County Antrim at the Dunadry Hotel and Country Club, which is just ten minutes from Belfast International Airport and 20 minutes from Belfast City Airport. It boasts a fabulous, copper-panelled bar, splendid grounds and its own stream, as well as luxurious rooms.

What more could a weary driver want at the end of a long weekend, I wonder, except perhaps a few more days in this surprisingly tranquil part of the world?

Fact file: Northern Ireland

How to get there

• British Airways flies from Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow to Belfast. Prices from £95 return. Tel: 0870 850 9830, www.ba.com

• Stena (www.stenaline.co.uk) operate a Stranraer to Belfast ferry service and P&O (www.poirishsea.com) operate Cairnryan to Belfast and Troon to Larne services.

Where to stay

• The Londonderry Arms Hotel, 20 Harbour Road, Carnlough, has rooms from £59. Tel: 028 2888 5255, www.glensofantrim.com

• The Bayview Hotel, 2 Bayhead Road, Portballintrae, has rooms from £120. Tel: 028 2073 4100, www.bayviewhotelni.com

• The Dunadry Hotel and Country Club, 2 Islandreagh Drive, Dunadry, has rooms from £135. Tel: 028 9443 4343, www.dunadry.com

• Old Bushmills Distillery, Antrim. Tel: 028 2073 1521, www.bushmills.com

• For more about the area visit www.causewaycoastandglens.com

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=1193382006

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:) :) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:45 PM

:) :) :)

Aim for new heights in a city reaching for the sky

CITY GUIDE: HONG KONG

CAROL WRIGHT AND CHRISTINE TANG

A CITY of seven million people spread over 200 islands, Hong Kong is where East meets West in a vibrant cosmopolitan mix. Kowloon, the New Territories and Hong Kong Island are densely populated and bristling with high-rises, but visitors will be impressed by how much open green space there is too. The city is famous for its shopping, but it deserves to be just as well known for its top-class museums, ancient shrines and stunning architecture.

Before you go Read The Rough Guide to Hong Kong (£11.99) and Lonely Planet Hong Kong: City Guide (£13.99), get yourself a stack of Hong Kong dollars (HK1 when to go This is a year-round destination, but it gets hot and very humid during the typhoon season, in July and August.

Planes, trains and automobiles Oasis Airlines (www.oasis-air.com) begins flying from Gatwick to Hong Kong five times a week from October, starting at £75 one way. British Airways (www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow, with connections from Scotland, for £649 return.

Getting around It's easy - there are lots of cheap taxis and the underground system is safe, even at night. A top tip on arrival is to pick up an Octopus travelcard at the tourist information desk (HK50 refundable deposit). It gives access to all trams, tubes, trains, ferries and buses, and can be topped up as required at 7Elevens across town.

The trams that rattle east to Chai Wan or Happy Valley and west to Kennedy Town from Central are fun - get a left-hand seat upstairs for the best view. The snub-nosed Star Ferries, which have shuttled across the harbour between Hong Kong Island,and Kowloon for more than a century, are the best way to see the breathtaking skyline. Several museums are linked by a shuttle bus, so getting between them is a breeze.

Tourist trail Skip Disneyland and head instead for Ocean Park, with its goldfish pagoda, butterfly kingdom, shark aquarium, fairground rides and panda. Kowloon waterfront's Art Museum has big, cool galleries of Chinese paintings and calligraphy (all the main museums are free on Wednesdays), while parks and nature reserves provide much-needed respite from the hustle of city life. Visit Tai Mo Shana country park for the city's highest mountain, and Plover Cove country park for bird sanctuaries. Stroll through bamboo groves on the Dragon's Back walk, or, for those with more stamina, try tackling a stretch of the 100km-long MacLehose Trail. Stunning views of the city can be had by taking the seven-minute tram ride to the top of Victoria Peak.

Go native The locals head for Stanley Market, a magnet for shoppers, or chill out on Lamma Island's laid-back beaches. At night, try the Feathered Boa, on Staunton Street - it looks like a bordello, but serves a mean strawberry daiquiri.

Nightlife For a skyline view with your cocktail, Felix bar, on top of the famous Peninsula hotel, is the place. The gents' toilet, designed by Philippe Starck, has glass walls and the best harbour view. The new Aqua Spirits bar, 30 floors up in the 1 Peking Building, serves martinis flecked with gold. If you can find them, Hong Kong's secret restaurants, in old shops or apartments, are a speciality - enlist the help of your hotel concierge to reserve a table.

What to buy Star House, near the Kowloon Star Ferry station, sells exquisite embroidered Chinese jackets as well as cashmere, jewellery and antiques. Temple Street night market (from 6pm) is the best of the city's many markets - haggle for a bargain among the huge range of designer knock-offs (Rolex watches, Gucci bags etc). The flower and jade markets nearby are also worth a rummage.

In Central, Li Yuen Street is packed with stalls selling inexpensive catwalk takeoffs, luggage (you'll need extra suitcases), shoes and silk pyjamas. For suits made in a day or two, see Sam in Burlington Arcade (92 Nathan Road), tailor to Prince Charles, Clinton, Thatcher, Blair and Michael Jackson.

Where to stay Most hotels are in the heart of the city, in Admiralty, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, on Hong Kong Island, and in Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon. There are also a growing number of resort-style hotels in the New Territories.

Where to eat This is a city with 9,000 restaurants - people here love food. T'ang Court at the Langham does upmarket Chinese specialities, while the bustling Maxim's overlooks the harbour and offers fine dim sum. Former governor Chris Patten got his favourite doughnuts at the Tai Cheong bakery, but for proper cakes and a dose of colonial splendour, try the Peninsula for afternoon tea. The Jumbo floating restaurant in Aberdeen is a treat for dinner - decorated like an imperial Palace, it numbers the Queen among its 30 million diners.

Can you drink the water? It's safe in hotels, otherwise ask for bottled. Strict laws govern environmental hygiene, including fines for littering or spitting.

:| :|

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=1132442006

(y) (y) (y) (h) (h)

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:46 PM

(h) (h) (h)

London for beginners

BY DAVID LEE

Toddlers, as their name suggests, are not good at sitting still. They like to, well, toddle. On long car journeys, this is a problem. If they are in a toddling kind of mood, you just have to hope the car-seat straps - and a combination of food, drink, toys, siblings and a dummy - will do the trick, occupying them until they fall asleep.

London is quite a way from Scotland and you need a lot of stops en route, especially with four kids in the car. So, even if the aforesaid combo works once, or even twice, it might not work a third or fourth time. At some point of the journey, your toddler will probably emit that high-pitched wail youngsters love so much.

So, if you want to take your family to London, why not let the train take the strain? As we sprinted towards London with GNER, Olivia (two, and as mischievous as a box of monkeys) sprinted towards the front of the train. And then back again. And then forward again.

Trains, in general, are (thankfully) rather more stable than they used to be and Olivia seems relatively well-balanced for a small child. This, along with her naturally low centre of gravity, meant she was able to toddle successfully back and forth without too many mishaps. She was also in a charming baby mood which meant that most of the cheery GNER passengers greeted her warmly - apart from that minority who stare malignantly into a laptop and fire off an e-mail calling for children to be banned from trains.

So far, so good. Olivia is occupied, speed-toddling back and forth (followed by me, upping my daily step count dramatically) and the other three kids are busy at the table with drawing, reading, playing games and asking awkward questions about some landmark that has just whooshed by.

As we all know, petrol isn't cheap and although rail fares to London couldn't be described as inexpensive, the train isn't prohibitively costly to take your family south. Off-peak returns booked in advance start from as little as £25 from Edinburgh, £27 from Glasgow and £29 for Aberdeen.

And although the kids may ask tricky questions of the world outside the train window, it's a damn sight easier than in the car. You have toilets, space and comfort, and you can give their bizarre requests your full attention, rather than having to look over your shoulder while travelling down a packed A1 past the MetroCentre in the rain.

You can feed them, too - the Go Eat restaurant car offers quality food (using recipes by highly-respected chefs and restaurateurs) without being exorbitantly priced. There is usually something to please the kids, providing you can get them to sit still for more than three minutes.

A meal on board serves as a useful break on the journey south. At just a touch over four hours from Edinburgh, the train also has the benefit of being considerably quicker than private transport. Arriving at King's Cross with kids necessitates an inevitable delay - to visit platform 93/4, the magical embarkation point for the Hogwarts Express in JK Rowling's Harry Potter books. The station has put up a plaque to mark the place where Harry and his chums run through the wall to start the journey back to wizard school. So humour the kids, take the picture - and move on.

There are endless places to stay in London of course, from relatively cheap dives to the swankiest of hotels. But if you fancy just a little luxury at an affordable price, the Hilton Metropole on Edgware Road is a great family hotel with welcome packs for the kids, a well-equipped playroom, a children's menu (which admittedly could do with more healthy eating options), and very family-friendly staff. They all smile beatifically at screeching kids and bat not an eyelid when a jar of baby food is sent crashing to the ground by a bothersome Olivia.

The Hilton Metropole is also handily central, just a short stroll from Hyde Park, a terrific place to spend a day with the kids, who were interested in the Diana Memorial Fountain (surprisingly understated and gently impressive) loved the Peter Pan statue and marvelled at the Serpentine pedalos and rowing boats. Take a picnic and you can have a fabulous family day, enjoying the wide open spaces, for a pittance. Relax while the children enjoy the play park and make sure you take out five minutes to let them witness the weirdness that is Speakers' Corner.

All the main museums, including the ever-evolving Science Museum, are close to Hyde Park if the sun is too hot or the rain too hard for outdoor pursuits. Then again, you can turn in any direction and be surprised by the fact that despite the vastness of this metropolis, many of its landmark attractions are very close together.

There is always too much to do, but one thing you cannot miss is the London Eye. From a distance, it appears to be frozen and unmoving and it is only as you draw near that the gigantic structure is seen to be turning very, very slowly. At peak times, the queues to get on also move very, very slowly but you must stick it out (unless you feel like paying £25 a head to "fast-track" the cosmopolitan hordes). Even if you don't have a head for heights, you must do the Eye. The power of the whole structure is amazingly reassuring and there is barely a sense that you are moving until you realise that you are high above Big Ben (the Eye is 135 metres tall) and can see to the boundaries of this great city and beyond, the arches of the new Wembley Stadium rising to the north.

This slowest of revolutions takes around 30 minutes and leaves the children both impressed and gob-smacked. They will all draw pictures of it later.

The Eye will give you endless ideas of where to go next in London - we looked in on the latest waxes at Madame Tussauds (including an incredibly lifelike Graham Norton) although six-year-old Imogen and eight-year-old Seth balked at the Chamber of Horrors, disappointing Maya (nearly ten, going on 14).

For a special food treat, the Rainforest Café near Piccadilly is a terrific experience. As the name suggests, you eat in a mock-rainforest, complete with thick vegetation, creepers, waterfalls and wild animals. Monkeys howl and jaguars roar as the rainforest comes alive around you. Maya is delighted to find that the café's jaguar shares her name and that she can eat Maya's Meatballs, washed down with a smoothie called Maya's Malty Secret.

A family of four can enjoy a real experience of a meal for not much more than £50 - and as the food is pretty good, it's worth saving for the treat by scrimping for the rest of the day on bread, cheese and water.

And that's about it - apart from a wander though the centre of town and a touch of shopping (Seth wanted a Chelsea shirt), that was all we could squeeze into our weekend. But it was fabulous - the kids loved the London Eye but perhaps enjoyed the experience of taking the Underground even more.

And by letting the train take the strain, their enjoyment begins when they jump on board in Edinburgh, not when they crawl grumpily from a smelly old car after hours of hell.
FACT FILE

LONDON

How to get there

An off-peak return from Edinburgh to King's Cross costs from £25. Tel: 08457 225 225, www.gner.co.uk

WHERE TO STAY

A room at the Hilton Metropole on Edgware Road starts at £155 for a King Hilton Guest Room. Tel: 0207 402 4141, or visit www.hilton.co.uk/londonmet

AND THERE'S MORE

The London Eye is open 8:30am-6:30pm. Tel: 0870 5000 600 or visit www.londoneye.com

Rainforest Café, 20-24 Shaftesbury Ave. Tel: 020 7434 3111 or visit www.therainforestcafe.co.uk

Madame Tussauds, Marylebone Road. Tel: 0870 999 0046, or visit www.madame-tussauds.co.uk

Scotsman Reader Holidays have regular London theatre breaks by rail. For more information tel: 0131-620 8400 or visit www.holidays.scotsman.com

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=1116812006

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

(k) (k)'s,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:48 PM

:) :)

California dreaming

Wine

WILL LYONS (wine@scotlandonsunday.com)

SIDEWAYS - Have you seen it? For the record, yes. Did I enjoy it? Sort of. But having made my own vinous journey of discovery in the glorious, sun-filled valleys of Southern France 14 years previously, watching the suburban backdrop of California felt distinctly odd.

For every romantically shot vineyard or reference to how fickle pinot noir is, my mind kept racing back to the heart-stopping villages of the Côte D'Or and the sheer majesty of French and Italian culture. I also envied the ease with which the two central characters, Miles and Jack, navigated their way around Santa Barbara. Half the fun of a wine holiday is getting hopelessly lost in rural France, arriving extremely late at one's destination only to find the place shut up for the afternoon with not an English speaker in sight. Nothing beats the surly vigneron who just happens to be selling exquisite wine from his backyard and has no interest in whether you buy or not, just simply whether you enjoy what he is producing.
Click to learn more...

But what do I know? Almost everyone I have spoken to who has seen the film loved it and thought it was a wry, witty take on what can often be a ludicrously pompous and serious subject.

Sadly though, I suspect the film has done nothing for sales of interesting Californian wines. The average spend on a bottle of Californian wine is still depressingly low, hovering around the £3.80 mark, and most of that is made by the big commercial beasts such as Gallo. This is a tragedy because, with its variety of terroirs and microclimates, California produces some of the New World's greatest wines. Its brooding single-vineyard cabernets, ripe and expertly crafted zinfandel and increasingly elegant chardonnays, not to mention its pinot noir, are all re-exciting wine critics everywhere. Producers such as Caine Cellars, Heitz, Chalk Hill, Jim Clendenen's Au Bon Climat and Al Brounstein's Diamond Creek are, in my book, worthy in any company.

Luckily, help is at hand in the name of Gordon Minnis, who runs Scotland's only Californian restaurant, Calistoga, on Edinburgh's St Leonards Street. Minnis, who has for the last two years defied economic reason by placing a paltry £5 mark up on any wine in his restaurant, has now opened Sideways, a wine merchants that sells only Californian wine. It's an inspired concept. And why not? After all we have Italian specialists and Spanish specialists, so why not open up a Californian specialist?

I popped in between shows at the Pleasance and tasted a range of wines that both inspired and excited. The Tin Roof pinot noir rosé had a delicious, gamey, mushroomy nose. The Hanna sauvignon possessed the style, elegance and grace of any of California's beautiful movie stars, while the ripe, attractive Fish Eye merlot made a nonsense of anyone who writes off Californian merlot.

Minnis has drawn up a good list, with plenty of well known trophy wines for the North American collector, as well as a smattering of new finds for the novice. In the coming months he hopes to introduce Californian wine tastings in the shop followed by a meal in his restaurant next door. Who knows, he might even tempt Miles and Jack.

The Wines

Hanna Sauvignon Blanc 2004 13.8% £13

Russian River Valley, Sonoma County

Rich, forward sauvignon dominated by aromas of grapefruit and green apple with a long rounded finish. Delicious.

Tin Roof Pinot Noir Rose 2004 13.5% £8

Russian River Valley, Sonoma County

Glorious gamey nose, reminiscent of a good house Burgundy, with a well balanced deep finish.

Fisheye Merlot 2004 13%

Central Coast

Evocative, sweet and attractive. This is a great Saturday night wine.

• Stockists: Sideways Wine Store, 91 St Leonards Street, Edinburgh EH8 9QY (0131 668 4207) www.sidewayswines.co.uk

http://living.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1237&id=1288002006

:) :) 's

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:55 PM

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h)

The wisdom of crowds may not be all it's cracked up to be, but there's no question there's plenty of wisdom in crowds if you can find the right lure to tease it out. Sometimes the right bait is competition and peer respect; sometimes it's a million dollars. Let's start there.

In a move that must sting just a little for Netflix's engineering team, the online movie rental company is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can come up with a new movie recommendation system that is at least 10 percent more accurate than its current one, to be determined on the basis of some closely kept yardstick. To give contestants something to work with, Netflix will release a data set of 100 million anonymous movie ratings ranging from one to five stars (carefully vetted for potential privacy violations). Given that the 10 percent target may take a while to reach, the company will offer annual prizes of $50,000 to anyone who makes the greatest improvement above 1 percent until the grand prize is claimed. Netflix execs say the idea of outsourcing to the masses came up because in-house innovation had slowed down. "If we knew how to do it, we'd have already done it," said CEO Reed Hastings. "And we're pretty darn good at this now. We've been doing it a long time." John Riedl, a professor of computer science at the University of Minnesota and a pioneer in the field of collaborative filtering, said it's not surprising for progress on a new technology to lose momentum. "Most of the easy stuff has been squeezed out already," he told the New York Times. "Any time you start working on any of these scientific or engineering problems, there's a period of dramatic improvement. It slows down because in a sense you're competing with 15 years of really smart people banging away at the problem." Mike at Techdirt wonders if all these potential contestants are so smart, whether they'd be willing to put in a bunch of work strictly on spec, and with lousy odds considering the likely number of submissions: "This is an interesting trend, and you have to wonder if other companies will start experimenting with this 'winner takes all' form of outsourcing -- or if people realize that all of the losers end up with nothing. Companies have plenty to gain if such programs work out -- but it seems like plenty of people will question whether it's worth building new tools for a company when they might not even get paid for it."

http://www.netflixprize.com/rules

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15658485.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/technology/02netflix.html?ex=1317441600&en=75c76fd0981113ee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061002/014348.shtml

In contrast to Netflix, Yahoo put its money into Hack Day over the weekend, using beer and Beck to loosen up hundreds of hackers from around the world for a competitive exercise in inventing cool new things to do with Yahoo services. Participants, including some corporate teams, had 24 hours to go from idea to prototype and 90 seconds at the end of the day to demo. Lots of prizes were awarded, but the title of overall winner went to a project called Blogging In Motion, which combined a camera, a handbag, a pedometer and the Flickr API to create a device that takes a picture after every few steps and then automatically blogs those pictures (and, for whatever it's worth, the winning team was all women).

http://developer.yahoo.net/hackday/

http://p6.hostingprod.com/@www.ventureblog.com/articles/indiv/2006/001258.html

http://yodel.yahoo.com/2006/09/30/the-hackers-are-here/

http://yodel.yahoo.com/2006/09/28/the-hackers-are-coming/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/01/all-women-team-takes-yahoo-hack-day-top-prize/

(y) (h) (y) (h) (y) (h) (y) (h) (y) (h) About frigging time! With over 3,000 films that I have rated, I expect to get more accurate recommendations. But nooooo!

(y) (y) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-02-2006, 11:58 PM

(y) (y) (y)

The folks from Skype and parent eBay must have done their homework, because whatever they turned in last week to San Jose State University administrators averted a pending campuswide ban on the popular VoIP service (see "You gotta fight (blarng blarng) for your right (blarng blarng) to Skyyyyyy-yyyype"). The school's IT department was concerned because Skype's use of client machines as relays appeared to violate state university policy. After a conference call among the parties (landline, we assume), Dan Baker, interim associate vice president of San Jose State, said Wednesday the university and eBay had found an unspecified "technical solution" that would allow the faculty and more 30,000 students to continue using the service. Smart move.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15627913.htm

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/09/if_you_were_lis.html

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15576648.htm

http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/archives/2006/09/sjsu_campus_oks_skype_for_now.php

(*) (*) Very cool! The power of grass roots wins again!

:) :) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 12:00 AM

:) :)

Sizeasy helps you visualize the relative size of your little gadget vs. other gadgets and common objects:

http://www.sizeasy.com/page/sizeup

(y) (y)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 12:01 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y)

http://www.mouseprint.org/

(h) (h) (h) (h) (i) (i) (i) (i)

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 12:15 AM

:o :o

http://www.lighterside.com/website/store/product_detail.asp?UID=2006092013180606&item%5Fno=64223&keyword=spaghetti&cat%5Fkeyword=&search%5Fpage%5Fno=1

(*) Everyone needs more lighter stuff with all of the "heavy" daily news and grrrrr, those "every-commerical-break" political ads playing back to back. I'm definitely voting next month to help the Dems take back seats in the House and the Senate - and for the incumbent gov in Harrisburg. (Like Lynn Swann, formerly a Steeler's football player - has the chops to actually run the state. No way, gimme a break.)

Bob Casey HAS to win the Senate seat - if only to get rid of the existing gay-basher, anti-abortionist, mysoginstic nimrod, Santorum.

Hmm, I guess I have rather strong opinions about politics. I never did until the past few years. Actually, back in 2000 when I saw an extremist conservative backlash tidal wave coming.

Ah, the winds of change - they are coming. (y) (y) (y)

Have a peaceful rest of your evening and lovely Tuesday,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the sleeping Boxer Pup (S) (&) (S)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 12:20 AM

(8) (8) (8) (8) (8) (8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

(h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) (h) I LOVED this!!

({) (}) ({) (}) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 12:22 AM

:| :| :| :| :|

http://blog.gizoo.co.uk/?p=31

:o :o :o

:) ...Not me. I'll watch. ;)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l) (^) (^) 11 months old October 5th (^) (^)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:34 PM

:s :s

To hear tell from CEO Paul Otellini, Intel's roadmap revisions (see "No, that's the layout of the Halloween corn maze. This is the Itanium roadmap."), its declining profits and market share (see "Earnings shortfall prompts Intel to name next chip line 'Death Valley'" and "And no, the move to AMD was not prompted by any heat issues ... wiseass") and workforce gutting (see "Intel announces employee surplus") are not evidence of the collapse of one of tech's great icons, but of a wonderous "rebuilding." Speaking earlier this week at the opening of the Intel Developers Conference in San Francisco, Otellini said Intel is back on the right track competitively and beginning to reverse its market-share decline based on the success of its new multiple-core chips. "Much has been written in the last year about Intel losing its momentum, losing its leadership in the server market space," he said. "I believe very much that with this new set of dual and quad-core microprocessors we've now regained our leadership."

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/10/itanium_custome.html

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/07/when_it_comes_t.html

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/08/those_toteboard.html

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/09/intel_announces.html

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15620710.htm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15021819/

Not exactly an unassuming guy that Otellini, eh? But then he's not paid to be and Intel does have some interesting stuff in the pipe. November will see the debut of its "quad-core" chips, which use four microprocessors, compared to the one or two typical of most chips. 2008 will bring with it a new chip that combines WiFi with longer-range WiMax wireless broadband technology and more talk of an 80-core chip that can perform a trillion floating-point operations per second.

http://news.com.com/Intel+pledges+80+cores+in+five+years/2100-1006_3-6119618.html?tag=newsmap

But 2008 is a ways off and AMD's own quad-core chips are expected at market in mid-2007. That doesn't really give Intel much of a jump. Will it be enough to allow Intel to reclaim the market share its lost to AMD? Analysts are skeptical. "A lot of damage has already been done," Mike Feibus, an analyst with Tec Knowledge Strategies, told Information Week. "The Dell move [to use AMD processors] was a slap in the face for Intel."

http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193005808&subSection=Personal+Computers

(n) (n) Intel's latest "blah, blah, blah..." (n) AMD and others have a real opportunity and I hope they kick Intel's a**! :o :)

:D

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:36 PM

:) :) :)

SALON.COM

Garrison Keillor

In Search Of Coffee, Tea Or Triacetone Triperoxide

Published September 13, 2006

And now you can't bring your cup of coffee on board the airplane.
It's the latest new rule laid down by the nation's security
wizards. Everyone knows it's ridiculous--the notion that you can
toss together a few liquids and make an explosive is a fiction from
late-night movies. You might as well prohibit bald men on the
grounds that the evil Lex Luthor was bald and so was Blofeld, the
head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

But we ditch our venti latte in the trash barrel (goodbye, four
bucks) and board the flight, and there we read in the paper that
aggressive CIA questioning of an Al Qaeda bigwig, stripping him,
turning the air conditioner to 40 degrees, blasting him with Red
Hot Chili Peppers music, broke him so he ratted on Jose Padilla, a
terrorist who set out to make a dirty bomb and who believed that by
swinging a bucket of uranium in a circle over his head he could
separate plutonium. It's like a cartoon.

The way to stop terrorists on planes is to encourage passengers to
bring loaded firearms aboard: guys in orange vests sitting in exit
rows with deer rifles on their laps, ladies with Mr. Colt in their
purses, kids with peashooters. Somebody wake up the National Rifle
Association. Does the 2nd Amendment say "The right of the people to
keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except on commercial
airliners"? Where is the right wing when you really need them?

This way, if some guy in a burnoose sets up a chemistry lab in row
24 and mixes hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid and acetone in a big
beaker that is packed in 15 pounds of dry ice to keep it cool, and
cooks up some triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, the passengers will
be able, in the several hours it will take him to make the deadly
explosive, to bring him under control, assuming the fumes haven't
knocked Ahmed out. And they could nab the mastermind too, the
monocled guy in first-class petting the white cat.

It all began with the name Homeland Security. Somebody with a tin
ear came up with that, maybe the pest exterminator from Texas, or
Adm. Poinduster, because, friends, Americans don't refer to this as
our homeland. It's an alien term, like Fatherland or Deutschland or
Tomorrowland. Irving Berlin didn't write "God Bless Our Homeland."
You never heard John Wayne say, "Men, we're going over that hill
and we're going to kick those krauts out of there. And we're going
to raise the flag of the homeland."

"Homeland" was a word you heard shrieked by a cruel man flicking
his riding crop against his shiny black boots: "Zie homeland--ve
shall defend it at all costs, achwohl!" Americans live in Our
Country, America, the nation of nations, the good old U.S.A.

But they couldn't call it the Department of National Security
because there was one of those already, so they created this new
Achtung bureau to make us take off our shoes and put the toothpaste
in the checked luggage and dump the coffee. The jihadists we're
afraid of are, so far as we know, young Muslim men from the Middle
East, not old grandmas named Evelyn and Gladys married to soybean
farmers, and not even old white guys like me, but nonetheless they
pat us down for plastic explosives under our Sansabelts and have us
raise our stockinged feet to be wanded for possible toe bombs. It's
all to make us feel we're in a movie and it will have a happy
ending.

God forbid somebody shows up at an airport somewhere in the world
with an explosive tucked in his lower colon. The Achtung people
will come up with some new security procedures that will
effectively kill airline travel, and then this enormous bureaucracy
can turn its attention to the nation's highways. Pull over at the
checkpoint, get out of the car, open the trunk, take off your
shoes, put your hands on the top of the car, turn your head to the
right, and cough.

They can search each laptop for possible terrorist-type writing and
confiscate cell phones, white powder, shoelaces, car keys, pencils,
anything sharp or cylindrical or made of glass, and interrogate
people randomly, putting them naked into cold rooms with ugly music
played at top volume. It's all fine with me. I'm a liberal and we
love ridiculous government programs that intrude on personal
freedom. But where are the conservatives who used to object to this
sort of thing?

(y) (y) (y) (y) (y) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:38 PM

(h) (h)

Time's 100 best fiction reads

If you've daydreamed of being the cultural sophisticate at a Manhattan cocktail party—or at the neighbors' barbeque—Time's "ALL TIME 100 Novels" is your book list for modern literature. Get everything from The Grapes of Wrath to Naked Lunch.

Get your read on.

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/

(h) (h) (h)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:40 PM

(y) (y)

Creative Commons

Get published your way

Tired of waiting to be discovered? Creative Commons lets you safely publish your photos, writing, or video online while retaining the rights you choose. Enjoy the credit while letting others share in your work. Even Pearl Jam is doing it!

Show your stuff!

http://creativecommons.org/

(y) (y) (y) (h) (h) (h)

Sun Thoughts,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:41 PM

:) :) :)

Helpful info on healthy eating

Get the latest scientific information on healthy foods from the non-profit George Mateljan Foundation, dedicated to helping people "make eating The World's Healthiest Foods enjoyable, easy, quick, and affordable." Site includes a Q&A section, recipes, healthy menus and lots more.

Feed me!

http://www.whfoods.com/

(y) (y) (y)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:42 PM

(i) (i) (i)

Backpackit.com

Get organized & get things done

What's way cheaper than a PDA and as easy to use as a notepad? Backpack—an online organizer that lets you create personal to-do lists and calendars, share travel itineraries with friends and family, and so much more.

Go backpacking:

http://www.backpackit.com/

(y) (y) :D :D

Carpe Diem,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:46 PM

(8) (8) (8) (8) (8)

Power Tab Editor—Windows

Write songs on your PC

Musicians and songwriters take note (sorry for that pun): Power Tab Editor tablature-authoring tool will help you create musical scores that can be printed and played back via midi. You also can use it to write standard musical notation—and more!

http://www.download.com/Power-Tab-Editor/3000-2133_4-10502035.html?tag=pop

(y) (h) (y) (h)

:)

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-03-2006, 01:57 PM

:D :D :D :D :D

http://www.businessbibs.com/

(y) (y) Hilarious! Great for those working from home and need "just enough" on top (to look professional, that is) for a desktop video teleconference.......priceless!

Back to the Advanced Research Methodologies' text book which would stay dry in a hurricane. I can't decide what to choose as a topic to go through the research steps which are the process through this LAST required course. I want to "keep my kimono closed" on that one and use a slightly different subject area since there are many competitive PhD learners also searching for a dissertation topic in this online class.

And grrrr, once again there are twice the number of online learners that are supposed to be in one class. Oh well. Not my worry. I'm delighted that I'm not facilitating it!

(c) (c) Fresh exceptionally hot coffee.That's the ticket! Recently got one of those machines that makes one fresh cup at a time using these small plastic cups with various blends of leaded and unleaded coffee. Fantastic idea and no burnt, "diner-tasting" coffee left in a large pot. Brilliant! (c) (c)

(o) Back to the salt mines.:(

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 12:23 AM

:| :| :|

With $576,000 taken in just for a 78-inch-long (198cm) miniature of the Enterprise-D, it wasn't hard for the Star Trek memorabilia auction at New York Christie's to fetch in more than $7 million. The three-day event has seen more than 1,000 objects sold to trekkies around the world, surpassing almost every time the price estimates. It's sufficient to say the model of the Starship Enterprise, built by Industrial Light and Magic and first used in the 1987 Star Trek episode Encounter at Farpoint, was originally estimated for a sale price of $30,000. That's a 20-fold increase for the model used after the pilot only in the title sequences of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which made its TV debut in 1987.

It was bought by a determined, unidentified private American collector bidding via telephone. The item was one of nine models and miniatures which have proved to be some of the hottest items, selling with more than $100,000 a piece. A model of a Klingon "Bird of Prey" ship first seen in the film, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock also sold to more than 30 times its pre-sale estimate, with $307,200 that is. Of course, there was also the Borg cube model. The 2-foot model with its intricate black latticework was expected to sell for only $1,500, but one fan decided it was worth $96,000. An Enterprise-A model made for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and used in later sequels had the distinction of being the sale's final lot, fetching $284,800.

Other items were set furniture, costumes and other props. A top seller was a replica of Captain James T Kirk's command chair from the bridge of the spaceship on the original Star Trek series. The painted wood item sold for $62,400, despite being used only in a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard's chair was expected to bring in $9,000, less than a fifth of its actual price: $52,000.

The pointy Vulcan ears were another notable item, as it was a costume belonging to the original series' Dr McCoy which was sold for $144,000. The costume is from the episode "The Tholian Web". Other costumes included an uniform worn by Capt. James Kirk in the movie "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" and an officer's uniform worn by Mr. Spock in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

About 1,000 items from CBS Paramount Television Studios, from 40 years of the Star Trek sci-fi franchise, used in five Star Trek TV shows and 10 movies have been put on offer through Christie's and have found buyers. The sale was streamed live on The History Channel's website, and the channel filmed the event in its entirety for a later documentary. The event took place at the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. Bids were accepted from the floor, by telephone and over the Internet.

"Never has a collection of this scope and depth come to the auction market, nor will it ever again," Cathie Elkies, director of special collections for Christie's, said in a written statement.

John Wentworth, executive vice president of communication at CBS Paramount Television, which opened its vaults for the unprecedented sale, thanked fans of the cult franchise for their "ongoing passion and dedication." "We were thrilled to be able to bring them tangible, coveted pieces from our beloved 'Star Trek,' and ... they now own 'Trek' history and have made this auction a huge success," he added.

http://www.playfuls.com/news_0002677_Star_Trek_Auction_Fetches_71M_for_100 0_Items.html

:o :o It certainly takes all kinds.....;)

:) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:16 AM

(h) (h) (h) (h)

October 4, 2006

The Earth Is the Finishing Touch

By MARIAN BURROS

BY going underground, Mary and David Falk have stayed on top of most artisanal cheesemakers in this country.

For 10 years, at their Love Tree Farmstead in Grantsburg, Wis., they have been aging cheeses in caves dug into a hillside, their concrete walls painted with pictographs. The Falks say it’s the only way to produce deeply flavored, nuanced, natural-rind tommes and wheels like those of European cheesemakers.

“We believe in fresh-air aging, pollens, molds, humidity,” Ms. Falk said. “And we’ve positioned our cave so that it is surrounded by a wildlife refuge. It’s really a head trip to see semis pull up in the woods to get the cheese. It’s like from ‘The Twilight Zone.’ We wanted something that worked on the natural rhythm of the area. We took the microflora from what was there; we get humidity from the springs.”

Over the past few years, the Falks have been joined by a number of other cheesemakers, particularly on the East Coast, who want a more natural way of aging to give each cheese its own character. Stepping away from above-ground hermetic aging rooms with artificially controlled temperature and humidity and from ripening cheese wrapped in Cryovac or sealed in wax, these cheesemakers have started a little construction boom in caves and cellars, getting a bit closer to the way cheese was aged for centuries.

Jeff Roberts, a co-founder of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese, who is just finishing the first “Atlas of American Artisan Cheese,” to be published by Chelsea Green next June, said there are at least 35 caves and cellars in the United States, with seven more under construction. As cheesemaking and the appreciation of good cheese have matured in the United States in the past few years, American cheesemakers have begun to better understand the place of microflora — bacteria, yeast, molds — in the process of aging cheese. In these new caves and cellars, cheeses are exposed to an array of the tiny organisms local to the area.

“Caves are not only great in terms of maintaining temperature and humidity but they also reflect the unique microflora communities,” Mr. Roberts said. “The microflora interacts with cheese; the cheese obtains a certain level of quality and so does the microflora. The cheese evolves over time and you can’t regulate it. It has a powerful connection to place.”

Ms. Falk describes the mold that forms on cheese as “a miniature flower garden, with the flowers sucking air into the cheese and pulling out the gas, and every little mold having its own little flavor profile.”

What may be the biggest aging cave in this country is under construction at Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vt. There, Mateo Kehler; his wife, Angela; his brother, Andy; and Andy’s wife, Victoria, are already aging 30,000 pounds of their own cheeses and those of several other Vermont cheesemakers in the cellar beneath their house.

Under construction on the property is an 18,000-square-foot series of seven stone-floored caves that will be able to hold one million pounds of cheese when it is completed in the spring. The Kehlers will mature and distribute their own cheeses, including Constant Bliss, Winnemere and Bayley Hazen blue, and those from other cheesemakers, like a cloth-bound Cheddar from Cabot Creamery.

Mateo Kehler is the affineur, the person responsible for the proper maturation of the cheese. The Falks in Wisconsin are already aging cheese for others in two rooms with conical ceilings, dug eight feet underground.

In caves or in aging rooms, the affineur’s job includes testing for salt, acidity and moisture, but most of the time-consuming, labor-intensive work is more art than science. After the cheeses have been made, salted and molded, they go off to the cave, where they are coddled like newborns.

Within the caves there are drying rooms where some cheeses start, and warm rooms and cold rooms for aging different varieties. Each variety, whether bloomy rinds covered with mold, blue cheese, cloth-bound Cheddar-type cheeses, natural-rind tommes or washed rinds, requires a different level of temperature and humidity.

Figuring out when to move the cheese is one of the decisions the affineur must make. “We touch it, we look at it, we smell it,” Mr. Kehler explained.

Depending on the stage of aging, the cheeses are flipped as often as once a day; as seldom as every four or five days.

Between one and four times a week the rinds of certain cheeses are washed, some with beer, some with brine. Cheeses like Cheddar are brushed as a way to manage the molds. The particular mold in the Jasper Hill cellar imparts a wonderful nutty character.

How long a cheese is aged depends on the variety and the individual cheese.

“If it were just plain hard work we wouldn’t need an affineur,” Mr. Kehler said, “we’d just need a laborer. It’s a lot of repetitive, monotonous work, but it’s purposeful. Being in a cellar is complex and challenging. You have to pay a lot of attention. If you don’t do it you will never have a cheese that reaches its potential.”

There is a certain romantic notion to cave-aged cheese, perhaps because the process taking place deep underground seems so mysterious. But Mr. Kehler has a different perspective: “If you think that slogging it out for 10 to 12 hours a day in a dark, damp, cold environment is romantic, this may the job of your dreams.”

Cave-aging is already paying off. In a tasting of English and Vermont Cheddars last month at Shelburne Farms in Vermont, a cloth-bound Cabot Cheddar, aged in the Jasper Hill cellar, stole the show. It had already been named best in show at the American Cheese Society meeting earlier in the summer.

Interest in sophisticated American cheeses, with their layers of flavor, began in the 1980’s with simple little fresh goat cheeses that require no aging. Little by little the land of Velveeta-ized taste buds has been turning into the home of finely tuned palates, and the fresh cheeses have been joined, and often replaced, by those that have much more character from aging.

It was not always this way. Sitting on an overturned farm sink, just outside the door to the little cheese cave she built on her farm in Westfield, Vt., nine years ago, Laini Fondiller, who is known for making new cheeses every year with new names (this year’s tomme is called Tomme DeLay), reminisced about the early days of trying to sell her aged Lazy Lady goat cheeses.

With their bloomy rinds, which ripen from the outside in, she said, “people would get freaked out when they saw my cheese with the mold on it.”

“They thought cheese should either be white or vacuum-packed,” she added.

Jonathan White, owner of Bobolink Dairy in Vernon, N.J., remembers someone writing in the mid-90’s that a certain cheese was potentially lethal because it was being aged in a cellar. It’s been quite a leap, he said, “from the idea of it being horrifying to ‘look, we’re doing it.’ ”

Whether cheese ages best in an above-ground, climate-controlled aging room or in a cave or cellar, is a matter of some dispute. For me, though, the dispute was settled at a tasting of a Cheddar from Shelburne Farms that Mr. Kehler is cellar-aging against the same cheese being aged in an above-ground cold room at Shelburne.

Though both cheeses were too acid, the cellar-aged version was much less so and had more depth of flavor. (The rinds on both tasted somewhat moldy, but Mr. Kehler is helping Shelburne fix that problem.)

The differences are even greater when comparing cave-aged cheese to cheese that has been sealed in wax or Cryovac before aging. I sampled four Vermont cheeses available waxed and aged, including the Cabot and cheese from Orb Weaver Farm. In three of the four the waxed cheeses were pleasant but without complexity; the flavors of the cave-aged were much more intriguing.

The bitterness and funkiness of the fourth, waxed and cave-aged, brought to mind what Dr. Paul Kindstedt, a professor of food science at the University of Vermont and the co-author of “American Farmstead Cheese” (Chelsea Green, 2005), said about cheesemaking. “Whatever cheese becomes when it grows up will be established in the vat,” he said. “All the affinage cannot change it.”

Some cheese shops, including Murray’s in New York and Cow Girl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, Calif., which also has shops in San Francisco and Washington, have built cellars or aging rooms, although most of the cheeses are mature when they arrive at the store.

“We don’t pretend to be affineurs,” said Sue Conley, the co-owner of Cow Girl Creamery, “but we think we do a pretty good job of keeping cheese in really good condition and presenting it at its peak.”

Cave-aging already has enough cachet that some less-reputable producers of cheeses are taking advantage of it, Ms. Falk said. “I know people who take the Cryovac or wax off, and cave-age them for a couple of months to get a rind,” she said. “Then they market them as cave-aged.”

But, she added, those producers don’t last very long.

Real cave-aging is more demanding, and American artisanal cheesemakers still have a lot to learn about ripening cheese.

“We may not know it all now,” Mateo Kehler said, “but we will.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/dining/04cave.html?8dpc

(y) (y) (y) Sometimes I think I might have been a mouse in some previous lifetime...;)

Pleasant dreams,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:17 AM

:D :D :D :D

Despair: When silent suffering isn't enough:

One of the happiest little success stories on the Web belongs to Despair. It launched in 1998 with Demotivators, a much needed antidote to those motivational workplace posters that feature a large photo, a key word and a line of uplifting blather about teamwork and challenges and such, and since then, it's grown into dyspeptic empire selling lithographs, books, DVDs and calendars, its success a tribute to the rah-rah resistance. Most recently, Despair launched the Parody Motivator Generator, putting the sharp skewer of satire into your hands. Handle it carefully.

http://despair.com/index.html

http://www.despair.com/viewall.html

Hilarious!!! http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php

(y) (y) (y)

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:22 AM

;) ;)

Not yet available in the States, but just what you need to get through those long hours cleaning out your in-box:

http://www.spam-energydrink.com/

:o :o

;) ;)

Adieu,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:23 AM

:| :| :|

Where you can see how many people in the U.S. share your (or any other) name:

http://www.howmanyofme.com/

:) :)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:25 AM

:| :| :| :|

;) ;) ;)

TOOOL

Lock-picking as a sport?

The Open Organization of Lockpickers (TOOOL) promotes, believe it or not, a sport of growing popularity in The Netherlands—lock-picking. Maybe it's the cold weather driving them frantically inside. So, you'd think Monopoly or Parcheesi, but…lock-picking?

Wait for the click:

http://www.toool.nl/index-eng.php

:o :o

;) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:27 AM

:) :)

Sidewalk Chalk Guy

Don't step on the art!

Here's the work of a guy who just couldn't be satisfied with hopscotch, so he graduated up to fine art. Some of these chalk drawings are nothing short of amazing. Just be careful where you tread.

Mona Lisa on Main Street:

http://gprime.net/images/sidewalkchalkguy/

(y) (y) (h) (h) (h)

(k) 's,

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:28 AM

(h) (h)

BuddyTV

Wanna be a TV DJ?

TV lovers can share their passion with fellow idiot box addicts. Become a TVj and comment and gossip about your favorite show with other members—while the show plays live! Includes forum, TV show lists, popularity ratings, and lots more.

Don't change that channel!

http://www.buddytv.com/home.aspx

:) :) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:30 AM

:) :)

MyApartmentMap

Apartment hunting made easy

>From the Why Didn't I Think of That? Department: Apartment listings combined with Google Map to make your apartment search a little easier. (Friends with pickup trucks not included.)

Get moving:

http://www.myapartmentmap.com/

(y) (y) (i) (i) (h) (h)

:) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:31 AM

(y) (y) (y) (y)

Anagram Generator

Automatic word morpher

Crosswords, sudoku, acrossticks—if you're a word lover, chances are that along with these games you've also played with anagrams. You know, finding words and phrases inside other words and phrases. This site does it for you—by the hundreds!

Get a ranger an' roam (?)

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

(y) (y) (i) (i)

Have a lovely Tuesday!

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:33 AM

(h) (h)

Game: Jewel Quest—Windows

Jaunt in the jungle for jewels

Explore the ancient ruins of Mayan civilization and discover hidden treasures and priceless artifacts. Rearrange valuable relics to turn sand tiles into gold in this classic-style matching game. The deeper into the jungle, the tougher the puzzles.

http://www.alivegames.com/jewel_quest/

(y) (y)

(k) 's,

SL & WTBP (l) (&) (l)

sweetlady

10-10-2006, 01:43 AM

:o :o :o

Beedogs

Dogs. Dressed as bees.

The entire world is buzzing with this "premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes." Ok, maybe not the entire world. Some people might even think it's kind of weird. But if pages and pages (and pages!) of adorable pups dressed up as bees is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

What's yellow and black and ruff all over?

http://beedogs.com/index.htm

(p) (p)'s: http://beedogs.com/index_files/page0001.htm

(p) (p)'s: http://beedogs.com/index_files/page0002.htm

The weiner dog is cute. :) Surprised to see a golden retriever! There must be several pages of beedogs at this web site.

:( :( Poor things. I'd never dress Wyatt up. Okay, I did dress myself and a former boxer pet back in 1994 - as angels for Halloween. Halos and wings too. We answered the door and gave out lots of those huge Milky Way Bars. A few teenagers changed costumes and came back for more.;) It was alot of fun.

The last several years? I go out on Halloween night for dinner since nobody comes around. Lots of older folks in this neighborhood (okay, okay - like my parents' age). Maybe one kid next door.

Safe travels, however virtual and/or f2f.

(S) (S) (S) Restful sleep (S) (S) (S)

Sweetlady & Wyatt the Boxer Pup (l) (&) (l)

Ulysses

10-13-2006, 02:31 PM