Is Flooding in Midwest God's Punishment?

Is God punishing the people of the Midwest with floods and heavy rains for going to church too often and constantly bothering him with their prayers?
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Gays wed; God yawns

By Rex W. Huppke
June 22, 2008

On the West Coast, men embraced men as husband and husband, and bouquet-clutching women swapped bands of gold and vows of marriage. In the Midwest, floodwaters rose to epic levels, the dreaded, tree-gobbling ash borer crept into Chicago and the fish in Lake Michigan began dying by the thousands, hemorrhaging from an Ebola-like virus.

The contrast was striking—joy vs. pain. It raised one simple, inescapable question: What happened to God hating gay people?

If there's one thing the country's higher-profile evangelical Christian preachers have preached to us, it's that the Almighty doesn't much care for those of the non-heterosexual persuasion. He has punished America for its acceptance of gay people by, among other things, walloping sin-ravaged New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina, allowing the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and letting Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and his wide stance inject anxiety into the whole bathroom stall experience.

But last week was enough to make us question the infallibility of unbiased holy men such as Pat Robertson, John Hagee and the one-time-meth-using, male-prostitute-visiting-but-now-TOTALLY-non-gay pastor Ted Haggard.

So after California committed the abomination of allowing people who love each other to get married, why would God lash out at the honest, hardworking, morally upright, down-home, God-fearing folks in middle America? Why wouldn't he just shove California into the ocean and let it rot, like a big, gay Alcatraz?

Perhaps, fellow Midwesterners, there's something we've been keeping from ourselves. Perhaps the rains and floods and tornadoes, the tree-eating bugs and the diseased fish and Mayor Daley's decision to relocate the Children's Museum to Grant Park are all punishment.

Perhaps we're all gay, a closeted bunch of flaming farmers and factory workers, lesbian lawyers and landscapers and man-loving butchers and bondsmen. Maybe we're gay, and the people that were already gay are even gayer!

Maybe this weekend's Crosstown Classic is just an elaborate ruse, a supposed baseball game that will turn into a stadium-size gay wedding extravaganza at Wrigley Field.

This madness must be stopped.

Quick, does anyone have the number for Robertson's 700 Club hot line? If so, let yourself be heard.

Just shout out: "I do."

Rex W. Huppke is a Tribune reporter.

rhuppke@tribune.com

There are some big fish in Missouri! I happened onto this guy by a lake, he was kind of stuck. I was disappointed though, there was only $12 in his wallet.

Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation

Group Wants Pot Allowed in Airport Smoking Lounges
Denver-based organization says pot is safer than alcohol
Last Edited: Tuesday, 24 Jun 2008, 6:06 AM MDT
Created: Tuesday, 24 Jun 2008, 5:58 AM MDT
Denver International Airport

DENVER (MyFOXColorado.com) - One pro-marijuana group is calling on the government to allow marijuana in smoking lounges at airports across the country.

Cigarette smoking at Denver International Airport and other airports across the country is restricted to smoking lounges.

Members of the Denver-based organization Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) will ask the government Tuesday to allow pot in airport smoking lounges.

The group says in a press release that the idea will address the growing number of in-flight problems involving drunk and disorderly passengers. Members claim marijuana is a better alternative to alcohol to help more fliers relax and deal with the anxiety of air travel.


Denver voters approved a measure that made possession of one ounce or less of marijuana in the city legal. That happened almost three years ago. It was the first city in the nation to pass such a law.

Possession of marijuana remains illegal under Colorado state law as well as federal law. Denver city attorneys can still use state and federal law to prosecute marijuana possession cases in the city.

I was forced, once again to return to the dry flatness of Oklahoma from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas. I love it there, I should live there but life isn't that simple. Oh well, maybe someday when I'm older and grayer.

Branson BBQ

If you ever find yourself in Branson, Mo be sure to eat here if you like BBQ.

Famous Dave's

My pet rock

This is a picture of my pet rock and his son, he's a chip off the old block!
Believe it or not we found him on the side of the road, I guess someone thought that he'd gotten too big to take care of and just dumped him out there.

John Lee Hooker & Santana - The Healer

Personal Choice

Congressman Barney Frank: “Whether Or Not To Smoke Marijuana Should Be A Personal Choice”

Green UFO in Oklahoma

Bluebeerriver exclusive report-by Tex Lahoma

Two teenage girls went for a drive in the country South East of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma on Monday night June 9th, 2008. They noticed a small green light in the road ahead of them, there were no other cars in the area. As their car got closer, the light moved out of the road, across a barbed wire fence and into a field. The light kept pace with the car, approximately 40 MPH, then started to spin in circles. The girls being a little freaked out by the light decided to speed up in an effort to outrun it. The green light then crossed the fence again and flew along with the car on the passenger side for several minutes at about 60-70 MPH. As the car got closer to a populated area near Wynnewood, Oklahoma the light disappeared. The girls were reluctant to tell of their experience, and would only agree to talk about it if they could remain anonymous.

Kucinich Says He's Not Giving Up on Impeachment

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
By Meg White

"This isn't just about impeachment. It's about reorienting our politics to a position which respects morality. Our moral compass needs to be reset here."
-Rep. Dennis Kucinich

In an exclusive interview with BuzzFlash Friday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) discussed the 35 articles of impeachment he introduced against President George W. Bush earlier this week. Though the word on the Hill is that the call for impeachment will not go anywhere, the Ohio representative is undeterred.

"This is a very grave matter that cannot be and will not be swept under the rug by some kind of a legislative trap," he said.

Representatives Robert Wexler (D-FL), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) have signed on to the resolution, and Kucinich expects more co-sponsors in the coming days and weeks.

"There will be more. I'm quite confident of that, and as members start to read the document it'll keep growing," he said.

The proposal is now in the Judiciary Committee, where many expect it to stay at least until after the November elections.

"Some bills are sent to committee to be acted upon," Kucinich said. "But in this case it's widely assumed, based on statements by House leaders, that it'll be sent to committee and nothing's going to happen."

Kucinich entered the articles of impeachment as a privileged resolution, which means it can be reintroduced. He said that if the committee does not act on the resolution within 30 days, he will bring the subject up again in more detail.

"I think it's reasonable to give the committee 30 days," he said. "There are other areas of law that I have not, in the interest of time, put in the resolution that was introduced. But they will be put in the next one if no action is taken."

When taking over as Speaker of the House in 2006, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said impeachment was "off the table." She has stuck to that statement thus far. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the man in charge of calling Kucinich's resolution up for debate, said at the Take Back America Conference earlier this spring that he would consider waiting until after the presidential elections to pursue impeachment.

Kucinich does not see this as an option.

"If we wait, we're licensing further abuses of power. There's been broad concern that this administration could attack Iran. Why should we give them the opening to do so by failing to challenge the lies that they told that took us into war with Iraq?" he asked. "We cannot wait for after the election. We don't know what could happen in the next six months with respect to a further erosion of our democratic process. And what the impeachment process would do would be to have a chilling effect on further abuses of the Constitution and on creating another war."

He's also concerned after the election there could be a drop-off in interest.

Historically, such conditions led to President Gerald Ford's controversial pardon of his predecessor President Richard Nixon. In addition, Bill Clinton did not pursue the Reagan/Bush I violations of the law, particularly the Iran-Contra and BCCI illegal activity.

"If they refuse to act, you know what'll happen. The election's over and it's like, 'Well, let's not go back. That was yesterday. Let's move forward.' That's what'll happen," he predicted. "The House leadership, which is above Congressman Conyers, and even the leadership of the Democratic Party now are joining in and saying, 'Well, we just can't do this.' Well, you know what? This isn't about politics anymore. This is about whether or not there's such a thing as the rule of law, and you can't have a political agreement to violate the law."

Kucinich differs with those who have suggested that the hearings could be divisive. He sees impeachment as an opportunity for healing both the partisan divisions between people and the mistrust Americans have for their government.

"This war has been a wedge, which has driven Americans apart," he said. As for Congress, he said that "there is no logical explanation for their position. We cannot abdicate our responsibilities. If we abdicate our responsibilities, we end up being in collusion. Why are we not acting? There's a reason why the Congress is so low in polls and I think it's because the American people feel we won't stand up."

Kucinich said Congress is not living up to its responsibilities to the American people. But he has personal feelings about the resolution that drove him to move forward on impeachment.

"Where's our heart here? What is going on that we can't connect with the suffering of other people?" he asked. "We can't say, 'Oh, yeah, we went into a war, they didn't tell the truth and all these people died. Sorry about that. Pass the Grey Poupon.' We can't do that. We cannot become so callous that we don't care that innocent people are killed. This is what's driving me."

Any casual reader of the articles of impeachment can tell the Iraq war figures heavily in the resolution. Of the 35 articles, Kucinich said around half are at least tangentially related to Iraq. While some articles deal with election fraud and offenses against Medicare, Kucinich is clearly bothered by the lead-up to the war.

"I can't think of any more grave offense than that the people of this country, at a moment of peril in post 9/11, would be lied to in order to get their support for a war," he said. "There's a difference between just being wrong and lying. And there's a pattern of lies here."

However, Kucinich said that the effort is not only about Constitutional law and his personal feelings. He wants to demonstrate to future U.S. presidents and the international community that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated by Congress.

These are not just symbolic concerns; Kucinich raised the specter of international involvement:

"How awful it would be if the Congress looks the other way and within the next few years some nation decides to prosecute a member of the Bush Administration for war crimes at a time when we clearly knew that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with hearings?"

Obama-Clinton

If I were an Obama adviser, my advice would be to get Hilary Clinton as his running mate. So would a whole bunch of people, I know she's a rather obvious choice. Since Obama won, my anti-Clinton feelings are already fading away with every McCain appearance that I see. The Democrats need to win, this country can't take anymore war monger, tax break to the richest, pro big oil Bush-Cheyney policies.

Obama-Clinton, that's the ticket!

The Retarded Policeman

Funeral Home Slogans

"We must be good, people are dying to get in!"

"Drive carefully, we'll wait."

"We put the fun back into funerals."

"We'll be the last to let you down!"

"We deliver to a higher authority."

"For the lucky stiff."

"We love the dead."

Pope to host Bush

Reuters
Monday, June 9, 2008

Pope Benedict will unusually host talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in a restored medieval tower on Friday, to repay him for a warm reception at the White House, the Vatican said.

The pope usually receives heads of state in his private study in the Apostolic Palace, overlooking St Peter's Square.

But Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the change was to repay Bush for "the cordiality of the meeting at the White House" when the pope visited the United States in April.

St. John's Tower is a round structure on a hilltop inside the Vatican gardens that is sometimes used as a residence for important guests.

After their private talks, Bush and the pope will stroll in the gardens to see a statue of Madonna.




The late Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963, restored the tower as a place where he could work in peace.

Bush will be in Rome from Wednesday to Friday as part of a trip to Slovenia, Germany, Italy, France and Britain.

The Retarded Policeman

Republicans consider new symbol

Possible replacements for the elephant as symbol of the GOP.

Can we still have spoons?

Researchers noted that the rate of violent crime in Britain rose nearly 18 percent from 2003 to 2004, and that in the first two weeks of 2005, 15 killings and 16 nonfatal attacks involved stabbings. Cities that imposed strict knife control laws saw a decrease in knife stabbings of 18 percent however fork stabbings were up by 50 percent, attacks using blunt objects such as bats and rocks were up by 25 percent. Cities imposing strict fork, blunt object and rock control saw an 18 percent fall in attacks using them however they also saw a 50 percent rise in attacks using ropes, extention cords and chains. Cities imposing strict chain, rope and wire control saw a drop in violent crimes using them but also noted a 70 percent rise in attacks using...

News with a twist

TOKYO - News reports said a man crashed a rented, two-ton truck into pedestrians, then jumped out of the truck and began stabbing the people he'd knocked down before turning on horrified onlookers.

The attacker grunted and roared as he slashed and stabbed at his victims on a street crowded with Sunday shoppers, reports said.

"He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random," said one bystander.

One onlooker reportedly said "For a second there I wished we were in America, where citizens are allowed to carry guns, so that someone could stop this madman."

A witness stated that the suspect dropped the knife after police threatened to shoot him.

This incident is expected to draw national attention to the issue of Knife Control.

Snake Mountain Prophecy

In this June 25, 2002 file photo, showing a view from the summit ridge of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump near Mercury, Nev.,looking west towards California. The Bush administration moved a step closer to building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, filing a formal application for a construction license. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta, File)


Snake Mountain "Yucca Mountain" is located within the Western Shoshone Nation and has long been a place of powerful spiritual energy for the Shoshone and the Paiute.
There is a centuries-old story of Snake Mountain that is still taught to the children of the Western Shoshone Nation.
"Someday when we wake that snake up it will get mad and rip open," Shoshone Spiritual Leader Corbin Harney wrote in his 1995 book "The Way it Is - One Water, One Air, One Mother Earth."
"With his tail, that snake will move the mountain, rip it open and the poison will come out on the surface."
Today Snake Mountain is called Yucca Mountain, site of the under-construction high-level nuclear waste repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and about 15 miles east of Death Valley in Inyo County.

Run your car on water?

runyourcarwithwater

151 Congressmen Derive Financial Profit From War

Ralph Forbes
OpEdNews
May 28, 2008

Who profits from the Iraq war? More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.

According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close to a quarter-billion in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMBWatch.

Congressmen gave themselves a loophole so they only have to report their assets in broad ranges. Thus, they can be off as much as 160 percent. (Try giving the IRS an estimate like that.) In 2004, the first full year after the present Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers-both hawks and doves-invested between $74.9 million and $161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. In 2006 Democrats had at least $3.7 million invested in the defense sector alone, compared to the Republicans’ "only" $577,500. As the war raged on, so did the billions of profits-and personal investments by Congress members in war contractors, which increased 5 percent from 2004 to 2006.




Investments in these contractors yielded Congress members between $15.8 million and $62 million in personal income from 2004 through 2006, through dividends, capital gains, royalties and interest. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who are two of Congress’s wealthiest members, were among the lawmakers who garnered the most income from war contractors between 2004 and 2006: Sensenbrenner got at least $3.2 million and Kerry reaped at least $2.6 million.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts.

War hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (IConn.), chairman of the defense-related
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had at least $51,000 invested in these companies in 2006.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies, such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold the stock in May 2007.

Of the 151 members whose investments are tied to the "defense" (war)
industry, as far as we know, not one of them offered to donate their bloodstained profits to the national treasury to offset the terrible debt they have imposed. Has one of them even offered to donate one cent of their war profits to lessen the debt that increases more than $1 million a minute?

When our boys and girls are wounded the government bills them to return their reenlistment bonus. They have to return any pay they received while they were hospitalized. They have to pay for their helmets and uniforms that are destroyed in the hell of war. But they keep on fighting for these politicians’ right to keep their war profits.

• Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) $3,001,006 to $5,015,001
• Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) $250,001 to $500,000
• Rep. Kenny Ewell Marchant (R-Tex.) $162,074 to $162,074
• Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) $115,002 to $300,000
• Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) $115,002 to $300,000
• Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) $100,870 to $100,870
• Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) $65,646 to $65,646
• Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) $50,008 to $227,000
• Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) $50,001 to $100,000
• Rep. Stephen Ira Cohen (D-Tenn.) $45,003 to $150,000

There never was an exit stategy only lies & war profits. While they profit we pay in higher taxes, cut services & higher gas prices.

We now have an exit strategy & it is called: General Strike 9/11/08.

"Sooner or later all freedom loving Americans will realize that the only way to stop those who would bleed our nation dry, dismantle our constitution, and dissolve our national sovereignty is to say I will not work for you, buy from you, fight for you, or die for you, until the criminals are gone from the halls of our government."

In order to get involved, here are the five best steps to take now:

1) Sign up with your email address HERE in order to get updates,

e-alerts@votestrike.com

2) Mark the day on your calendar and plan to be at a protest in your community,

3) Send this URL to all your friends, post it to forums, put it on your personal pages, http://www.votestrike.com

4) Be a volunteer activist, ask us how.

5) Take the lead and help organize a protest on 9/11.

Huge fire burns at Universal Studios lot

CTV.ca News Staff

A back lot at Universal Studios in Universal City, Calif. is the scene of a three-alarm fire.

Los Angeles fire Capt. Frank Reynoso said the blaze was reported just before dawn on Sunday.

Some media reports say the fire started at 4:44 a.m. local time.

Filming could have been going on at the time, and at least one explosion has been reported, he said.

About 100 firefighters are working with the studio's own crew to fight the blaze and ensure it doesn't spread to nearby brush, he said. TV images show helicopters dropping water on the blaze.

Reynoso said no injuries have been reported so far.

The studio is located north of downtown Los Angeles, mostly within Los Angeles County.
Investigators looking into gas leak as possible cause.