"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking." -Saddam Hussein

Time to pay for internet (150), electricity (100), phone (100) etc.; I'm out of deodorant (30), hair stuff (30), shampoo (30), body wash (30), etc., etc.

I'm such a bad personal secretary.

The 10 big stories the major news media refused to cover over the last year
by Sarah Phelan
December 13th 2006

The mainstream media's fascination with unimportant stories isn't anything new. Professor Carl Jensen, a disenchanted journalist who entered advertising only to walk away in greater disgust and become a sociologist, says the media's preoccupation with "junk food news" inspired him to found a media research project at Sonoma State University about 30 years ago to publicize the top 25 big stories the media had censored, ignored, or underreported the previous year.

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If you look up asshat in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Rep. Virgil Goode:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Virginia congressman will not apologize for writing that without immigration reform "there will be many more Muslims elected to office demanding the use of the Quran," his spokesman said.

Republican Rep. Virgil Goode's letter to constituents also warns that without immigration reform "we will have many more Muslims in the United States."

Spokesman Linwood Duncan said Goode's letter was written in response to complaints his office received about Minnesota Rep.-elect Keith Ellison's request to be sworn in using the Quran.

Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress.

Goode's office released the letter to CNN Wednesday.

In it, Goode wrote, "When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Quran in any way.

"The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.

"We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

He added, "The Ten Commandments and 'In God We Trust' are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Quran.

"My response was clear, 'As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, the Quran is not going to be on the wall of my office.' "

The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked Goode to apologize.

"Rep. Goode's Islamophobic remarks send a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office," the council's Corey Saylor said in a statement. "There can be no reasonable defense for such bigotry."

Duncan told CNN that Goode stands by his comments.

This man is one of the guardians of our constitution?

What a hypocrite. :(

What a decent bloke:

SOURCE George Clooney is on his way this morning from Beijing to Cairo on a secret mission. I knew about it several days ago, but Clooney asked to keep it mum until he'd been in and out of China so as not to jeopardize his project.

The plan: to talk to representatives in both China and Egypt about the genocide going on in Darfur, Sudan.

So far, 450,000 people have died in Darfur, and another 2.5 million have been displaced. Four million people are currently in need of aid, according to United Nations reports.

Not sure if this will work for you or anyone else, but it works for me. Not sure if it has a name, or if I just sort of discovered it, but here's what I do when I have something big to write.

MAKE A PLACE IN THE BRAIN
Let's say you're writing a paper on the philosophy of tables. Create a space in your brain (just think it, and it's there) for the project. Tell yourself that that's where all the stuff you know about tables and philosophy should go. From now on, during your life, if you see a table, or something that has to do with the philosophy of tables, it will go there. You might be reading the newspaper, and see something on the philosophy of tables. Boom. You're mind will absorb it. Like a sponge. Like a magnet. Furthermore, your mind will also pull thoughts from within. It will take everything you've learned about tables and philosophy before, and store it there, or at least form a connection to it.

FIRST EXPRESSION
Then put as much as you can into physical form. List all the random thoughts on a piece of paper. Type them out. You can do this all at once if you like. Probably better to keep a running list as you get ideas. Store the ideas on a notebook while you're out and about, and then, when you come home, type them into your computer. Put all the thoughts there and look at them. Let the thoughts spill from your brain, to your fingers, to the screen, then back through your eyes again. Think about it.

GO SKATING
After I've attracted a small fleet of ideas and written them down, I go skating. If you can't skate, you might want to swim, go biking, walk, do yoga or taiji, etc. Do something that you're good at—good enough not to think about it. I don't have to think when I skate. My mind shuts off and thinks of other things. My body is in physical control of itself, and my mind can now process all the information I've gathered in quite a magical way. I suppose it's a form of meditation. You want to be able to shut off and tune out. Let your body do its thing, and let your mind do its thing. While skating, I'm listening to music and thinking about the project. The randomness of the road, my body's reaction to the curb, the sidewalk, etc., mixed with the randomness of the music I listen to (I set my iPod to random), acts as a sort of tiller, to chop up and stir up ideas and form new connections in ways that I probably couldn't have got just sitting down at a desk. It's like taking all these ideas, putting them in a food processor, blending them, boiling them, stewing them, etc. After a while, a cohesive flavor emerges which is the sum of its parts, even though all you had when you started was a bunch of vegetables and spices.

WRITE
Sit down and write and the words flow quite easily.

Went with some friends to the grand opening of a new place in Beijing. It's a HUGE postmodern Greek style plaza, a sea of steps leading up to shops and mansions on both sides. Pillars, columns, etc. Above us was a massive TV screen, at least 20 yards wide and 100 yards long... yes... a football field long. A massive TV screen. We were all gathered together underneath, many people high on wine, gazing upward at a deeply moving and symbolic display of world heritage. Dragons, butterflies, sea creatures, and a ride through space to visit the various astronomical signs. It was a deeply moving, postmodern technological atheistic secular humanist spiritual experience.

I forgave the plaze for its commercial emphasis in return for bringing me this incredible celebration. Well, these companies pay to rent the space that paid for the plaza and the TV screen that brought us all together. The thing that made the experience 1,000 times more enjoyable was that there were 1,000 people there enjoying it right along with me. I think technological advancement and public works and companies aren't inherently wrong, exploitative, etc. With ethics and morality we can use mass force to accomplish good things.

When I was young, I was really influenced by a Star Trek movie where Piccard describes the 24th century. We no longer have war, or poverty. We no longer work for individual wealth. We have moved past the notion of wealth and class, and we all devote our time, energy and resources to improving our lives and our talents. Damn, it was something to look forward to and work toward. I think I caught a taste of it last night. It was better than a sea of people sitting down in front a priest or bishop. And the metaphor that we were all looking "up," was just incredible. Something to aspire to.

I think the 2008 olympics are really going to be a massive display of power and technology. A testosterone-infused postmodern orgasm that China really wants to shower on the rest of the world. (Gross. Sorry.)

I was sitting at a cafe yesterday at the Beijing World Trade Center when I thought I saw Mitt Romney's Chinese identical twin. Then I realized it really was Mitt Romney!

Not that I'm a fan or anything. But isn't it an interesting encounter?