Nelson Mandela lived in this cell for 18 out of his 27 years in prison.  He was down with the ANC, and was sentenced to life in prison for "sabotage" because he was organizing people to fight against apartheid.  The prison had violent criminals housed along with political prisoners.  Everyone was seperated into groups...Coloured and Black...no white people were imprisoned on the island during this time.  Black prisoners were only given shorts, short sleeved shirts and sandals even in winter, and Coloured prisoners were given proper shoes, pants, and long sleeved shirts.  They were also provided with more food. 

The atrocities at the prison were unbelievable.  They were made to do hard labor every day.  They were forced to eat in a cave where they also relieved themselves.  They were systematically beaten, tortured, and sodomized on a regular basis.  They were allowed 1 visitor every six months, and for many years, the only book they were allowed to read was the bible. 

I met a man on the ferry over to the island that is a former political prisoner that is now a tour guide there.  He said that he was brought to the island with a group of young men that were ages 13-19 (essentially children), and that he was there from 1978-1983, which was before the maltreatment became public and conditions were slightly improved.  He said that the island was "hell" and that he was tortured for the entire 5 years that he was there.   He said that he has thought of leaving the country but feels as though he has a lot to do to help his people here, and so he stays. 

I can't describe how I felt on that island...seeing the cells and hearing what happened there.  It's hard to believe that people could be so cruel..but then again, what has happened in our country is not that much different.

Clearly, despite all of the hype about "unity" and "ending divisiveness" within the Democratic and also across the United States, there is a very large rift among Democrats regarding the Clintons and the Obamas...with Barack and Michelle Obama doing all that they can to put their new "twist" and face on the Democratic Party but also doing all that they can to minimize the roles and impact of the Clintons at the Convention.

To say otherwise would be very disingenuous...

It will be great political theater to see how all of the characters and their roles play out at the Convention...especially with so many in the Democratic party feeling betrayed and hurt with Hillary Clinton's loss in the primaries and the Obama treatment of Hillary after he won...which many believed to have been condescending and dismissive at best.

Sounds like Michelle Obama, while relatively silent, has her husband's ear (pun intended)and is doing all that she can to "right the wrongs" or her perceived "wrongs" that made the United States of America such an ugly nation in her eyes...

So will Bill Clinton sabotage the newly anointed Obama and just go off on a tangent like he is so often able to do without batting an eye?  Will he shirk his responsibility to speak on national security and foreign policy and instead speak about the Clinton two-term reign and how great the American economy was back in the 1990's?

Let the battle for the Democratic Party begin...

Reden 1. Zoals zo vaak heb ik gisteravond met Ingrid gechat. Alleen hebben we dit keer enkele heel intieme en pikante geheimpjes gedeeld. Het beeld van haar dat zowat de hele tijd in mijn hoofd zit is nu dus wat pikanter geworden...

Reden 2.Net toen ik de eerste 2 regels getypt had, viel de elektriciteit uit...

Reden 3.Omdat ik toch niet veel kon doen, ben ik aan het poetsen geslagen... maar toen ik op de gang bezig was sloeg mijn voordeur toe... terwijl mijn sleutels binnen lagen. Ik ben er natuurlijk niet goed met mijn hoofd bij vandaag (zie reden 1). Gelukkig was Ingrid mijn reddende engel. Ze googlede een telefoonnummer van een slotenmaker en een klein halfuur later kon ik terug binnen.

Reden 4.Wegens zieke collega's ben ik ondertussen ook al 3 keer lastig gevallen met telefoons van het werk...

Gevolg hiervan is dat ik dus langs geen kanten meer weet waar ik over ging schrijven. Bij deze trek ik mij dus terug om mijn fantasie zijn werk te laten doen, schrijven lukt toch niet meer :-)

by Boo

I remember Grandmother when she was happy! Really, I do! That was before she met the Jackass. We were teenagers at the time. Grandmother was a new widow. She'd gone off to the caribbean to do some humanitarian stuff. She never talked about it much then. If you asked, she'd only burst into tears and hide in her room, so I stopped asking. Anyway, our laws are weird here in the good ole US of A. Grandmother now had a college degree, and they were making her go back to high school. She was bummed out, but tried to make the best of it.

Her Mother fell off the wagon and went back into her addiction full throttle. I hated to see Grandmother feeling guilty about it. She always had to be the one that picked up the pieces of her mother's rampant idiocy. Many times, I came by to help do what I could, but it was always hard and her mother hated me and accused me of stealing her daughter away. I was only trying to be a friend. So, Grandmother went to school everyday, and worked every night except Saturday.

On Saturday nights, she never lacked for a date, and fancy dates at that... nothing that I could have ever afforded to give her. I saw her leaving the house several times in a formal gown complete with the family tiara and another uniformed man on her arm. She smiled to them, but I could always see the hurt in her eyes. Her eyes were brown, a rich, deep brown that turned black when she was pissed and seemed to lose life completely after her husband died. I hated seeing the pain there, but what was I do. Ah, but I digress.It was one of those young civil air patrol boys that she hooked up with. She still went to the base every weekend dressed to nines, but Friday nights were reserved for him. I didn't like him from the getgo, I tell ya, something about him rankled me inside. Dad said it was just jealousy, so I let it slide. Now, I know, that my instincts were right.

One night, he brought her home late. Yeah, I know, because I was watching out my window for her to come home. Don't know why, just felt protective for some reason. Anyway, she got out of the car in tears and ran into the house. I smiled and thought maybe they'd broken up. After that, he started picking her up at school everyday, and I would see him sitting in the alley behind the house watching her. I went over to ask him what he was doing and he sped off.

The next friday night, I watched her get in the car with him again. It angered me to see how she looked so fearful, like she was more afraid of not going with him than she was of death. I watched, when I should have gone out and pulled her away. But, I didn't, and I will never forgive myself for that.

She came back late. The Jackass could never bring her home on time, so her mother was always punishing her. The poor girl couldn't get a break. I watched as she got out of the car in the rain, her white satin turning transparent as she ran for the house. He got out too, shouting and screaming like a raving lunatic before he fell on the muddy ground and beat at it and screamed until her mom came out to see what he was doing. She babied the jackass, hugging him and inviting him inside. It was evident that Grandmother had broken up with the Jackass. Her mother should have left it well enough alone. She didn't, and Grandmother paid the price, and paid it dearly.

The next night, and then every afternoon and night for six weeks, they went out. I slowly watched as the life drained from Grandmother. I tried to talk to her at school, but she would push me away verbally, even physically. Her eyes, her beautiful eyes, lost their glimmer. Her lips lost their smile, replaced by a sullen frown. No one seemed to notice or care, but I did. I noticed the difference in her poetry, too. We were in young authors together, so we met and shared our work every week at noon break. Her words became dark, filled with pain. I wanted to help, but she kept pushing me away.

Now, it was two weeks before prom and she was crying outside the gym. I asked why, and between blubbers she told me she'd broken up again with him and this time no one was going to convince her otherwise. I asked why, and she told me that he wanted her to do things with him that only a wife and husband ought to do. She didn't want to do it, and he did, and so she called it quits. I respected Grandmother for that. She'd had a moral standard, and on this she was firm.

I took advantage of the situation and asked her to the prom myself. She agreed. She didn't want to miss her Junior prom. She'd already been to two, but this one was hers! It was a once in a lifetime thing! So, she agreed and I went home to race around renting a tux, ordering a corsage and all that stuff. My mom was thrilled. I'd finally agreed to do something "normal" as she called it. I'd never dated anyone, really had never even thought about it. The girl of my dreams was Grandmother, and no one else could compare.

Prom night rolled around and I drove my transam across the street to pick her up. I wanted to do it all nice and proper. I wanted her to see what a gentleman that I could be, and selfishly, I wanted her to like me as more than just a friend. When she came out the door, I nearly fainted! Really, I did! She was dressed in a hot red dress that clung to her petite little curves in a way that gave me hard on instantly. Damn, she's beautiful, I thought as I fumbled to open the box with the white rose corsage that I'd ordered just for her. Her hair, oh, I nearly died to reach out and touch it! I'd never seen it down and loose before. She always wore it braided or up in a tight bun. I'd never seen hair so richly black and soft. She smiled, and I thought maybe I saw a hint of joy there. She was probably just laughing at my obvious discomfort.

We went through the picture ritual and the mom's crying and cooing and all that, then got in my car to go! Have fun, they told us, see you in the morning! The morning, indeed, I thought as we drove around the corner. Damn, I muttered as I looked up in the mirror and saw him there. The Jackass was following us...his damned old rust bucket of a pickup was right on our tail. Don't look now, I said, as I pointed to the mirror, but he's behind us. You want me to lose him? She agreed, shaking and gritting her teeth.

I turned down the old ridge road that we all called the devil's backbone and nearly lost the car as I sped around that first, really sharp-ass curve. Grandmother had a look on her face that was terror, mixed with terror! You know the look, that one you get just before your car careens into something really hard. Well, that was the look she had! I digress...

As we sped across the country side, he almost kept up with us. At one point, he was just beyond where he could see us when I pulled a righty inbetween the old oak trees down by the old cemetery. It was a narrow, paved road that literally led to nowhere save an old gravel field access lane that led back out onto the old pike road. We bumped along the ruts in the gravel as I tried to go as fast as my low-slung car would go.

Then, we were spraying gravel out onto the road as I jumped gears and sped down the pike and down into the old gorge road. Down at the bottom was an old covered bridge. I knew how to drive around and underneath it, too. Being night, I knew that my black trans would be hidden by the casual driver, so I sped as fast as I dared.

At the edge of the bridge, I pulled another tight righty and then spun in the mud until we were safely under the overhang of the bridge. I flipped off the lights, put the car in neutral, and cut the engine. Then, I turned to Grandmother and saw the tears instantly flood down her cheeks.

I did my best to console her, but she shied away from me in a way she'd never done before. She curled in a fetal like position against the passenger and folded her arms around her shaking knees. I didn't know quite what to do, so I just sat there with her. I asked her if she wanted to talk, and she shook her head.

We sat there in silence for a long time. Finally, I watched her uncurl and try to flatten out the hopelessly wrinkled gown. She thanked me, then, as she looked up to meet my eyes. The look of respect and something akin to love threw me off my pedestal and straight into hell as the fires of passion burned through me. I reached out, and I -- it's embarassing now to admit, but I kissed her. She didn't pull back either... she leaned closer to me. I didn't know what to do, so I kissed and kissed until I just couldn't stand the confinement of the car. If I didn't get away from her, and soon, I was going to do something that was way not cool!

So, I suggested a swim.

"In this?" She sniffled as she looked up to me as if I'd flipped my beanie.

"Nah, You can borrow my gym clothes if you can handle the smell." I smiled at her and reached into the back for my gymbag.

"The water will kill the smell, I think." She laughed then... a laugh like I hadn't heard her laugh for months! It was a good sound!

Oh, I was so pissed off! I was ready to kill him. The only thing that held me back was the look of pain and shame in her eyes. Grandmother had removed the formal gown, and was changing into my gym shorts. There wasn't any reason to hide. We'd grown up together and had seen each other's naked bodies for years. Only now, my eyes widened and I felt the fire of anger in my blood.

Her back, her chest, her beautifully smooth stomach were all black and blue with bruises. Some of them were so dark that I thought for sure ribs must be broken underneath them. All I could do was stand in the middle of the river and watch with abject horror and realization of what he had been doing to her.

"Don't say a word." She insisted as she reached under my t'shirt and unfastened her bra. Then she dove in beside me and surfaced not a foot in front of me. "He didn't really mean it. He was just angry, ya' know. He said I was just a squaw and it was time I learned that."

"You are no one's squaw, Grandmother!" I insisted, reaching out for her shoulders to hug her, but she cringed away. "Look, see what he's done to you! You're afraid of me-- ME. I've never raised a hand to you, never even in play. I love you."

Grandmother looked up into my eyes, and I'll be honest, it felt like a white hot flame coursing through my body, it did. I wanted her so many ways beyond Sunday thinking that it wasn't even pitiful! She was so beautiful, especially here, in the river under the moonlight. The cold water had tightened the skin on both our bodies, and had rendered our shirts nearly invisible to boot. I turned and dove, swimming upstream, hoping to calm my own emotions.

Finally, I rejoined her, and we splashed an played like children for most of the night. As the sky above began to lighten, a precursor to the dawn, it was time to head back home. I drove her in silence, and dropped her around back where she could slip into the house without any of the neighbors seeing her unkempt hair and wrinkled gown. The last thing we needed was the old biddy across the street to start spreading rumors!

"Grandmother, I -- I just want you to know, that if you need anything-- anything at all, I'm here! I mean that! Just say the word and I'll sleep outside your door if you need me to." I told her before I let her slip out the door.

"Thank you." She'd said in a cold monotone before running across the backyard and into the back door.

I sat there for a few minutes until I saw her peeking out the edge of the curtain just to see if I was there. Then, I faked a smile, waved, and drove on down the alley to circle back to my house.

I didn't see the jackass again for a whole week. I'd heard that his truck was out of commission. Gee, I wonder why it would suddenly be sporting four non-functional sparkplugs, a half-dead battery that wouldn't hold a charge and a loose alternator belt. Hmmmm....

Here are the playlist that are currently in testing and where IW stands. source 402

Hardcore Headquarters - No Patch Required

Testing is completed for Hardcore HQ. This playlist has standard HQ rules w/ Hardcore Settings. Limited HUD, Increased Bullet Damage, and Friendly Fire Enabled.

Hardcore Ricochet Playlist - Currently Testing

We’re currently testing this playlist now to see if a patch will be required for it or not. We should know soon. This is the No Teamkilling playlist. Any damage a teamkiller attempts to do to their team mates is reflected onto themselves only. Therefore, if they attempt to shoot an RPG into the ground at the beginning of the match; the only person who will die, is the Teamkiller. This eliminates the fear of being shot in the back by some asshole, but still encourages players to play tactically and not throw random nades, because if you accidentally hit a teammate, you’re only going to end up killing yourself and they’ll go unharmed. No Teamkilling, No Random Nades. This playlist will include the variant for Hardcore Teamdeathmatch, Hardcore Search and Destroy, and Hardcore HQ.

Sudden Death Sabotage - Currently Testing

Sabotage with no respawns. Fast-paced and intense Sabotage. No more hiding with the bomb until time runs out for sudden death. Increased XP per kills to encourage Team Deathmatch mentality. Defend your objective, while attempting to secure the bomb and plant on theirs. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. No second chances. We’re currently testing to see if this can be implemented without a patch.

Second Chance Search and Destroy - Currently Testing

Search and Destroy with 1 respawn each. This completely revamps your Search and Destroy tactics. No longer will lucky frag or well-placed claymore end your chance of victory. Each player has 1 respawn, creating longer more thoughout attack / defend strategies. Eliminate enemy players, and cut off their reinforcements while you defuse.

——–

If all these get past Quality Assurance (Test) with zero bugs, then we’ll be able to implement these four new playlists rather quickly (once QA and Localization is finished). In addition, we plan on adding Killhouse to more playlists and adjusting the amount of XP you get in certain playlists. (i.e. double XP in hardcore and new playlists).

Hit the jump for the playlists we’d like to do, but would require some code work to implement.

The following gametypes would require code support in order to implement. Which means we’d have to patch. Now anytime you require a patch that’s a much lengthier process than just doing a playlist update because it requires code work, very extensive QA both internally, at Activision, and at Microsoft / Sony. Which is why we want to attempt to get the playlist updates ABOVE out first, and then see what our options are with the ones BELOW. The ones which require additional support include:

Bare-Bones Team Deathmatch - Patch Required

Team Deathmatch with no perks and no air support. Problem: Slot 1 Perks Glitch

Hardcore Free for All - Patch Required

Free For All with Hardcore Settings. Problem: UAV glitch

Team Elimination (Last Man Standing) - Patch Required

3 round Team Deathmatch w/ no respawns. Switch sides each round. Problem: Round Switch Glitch

Multi-Bomb Search and Destroy - Patch Required

Search and Destroy but all attackers spawn with a bomb. Problem: Planting Glitch

MTV-ul englezesc are iniţiativa lăudabilă de a face un sondaj privind cel mai bun videoclip din toate timpurile. După ce posturile sale au prezentat liste proprii cu cele mai bune 100 din diverse genuri (VH1 pentru videoclipuri mai vechi, MTV Base pentru RnB, hip-hop etc. şi MTV TWO pentru diverse genuri de rock şi muzică electronică), acum a rămas o listă pe care oricine poate vota. O găsiţi aici. În plus, dacă prindeţi canalele astea (yay Dolce!), puteţi urmări de-a lungul zilei emisiuni în care sunt analizate meritele individuale ale clipurilor. Hai la vot!

Personal, am votat Sabotage - o satiră absolut superbă. Ador însă cam jumătate din lista aia.

I miss music videos. They used to be the best part of enjoying music. So while I was flipping channels last night at 3am, I started getting a little nostalgic and started thinking about all of the music videos that made me want to watch MTV when I was growing up.

I could go on and on about all of the videos that I loved, but I decided to make it a little more personal. So here is my top 10.

Van Halen – Jump

“Ah ha!”

“Hey You!”

“Who said that?”

While Van Halen may have not started the hair band trend of the 80’s, they were a big part of it. The video for “Jump” was like watching the party that your older cousin was always talking about. David Lee Roth was on fire in his neon spandex glory and it was hard not to find yourself smiling after the video was over.

Cake – the Distance

This is one of those videos that on the surface, it doesn’t really make sense. You have a guy that is running an endless race. There are large animal costumes, awesome guitar riffs, and that weird keyboard flute thing. Put it all together, it’s just fun. Hidden in the visuals is the metaphor of the song. It’s a testament to tenacity and endurance. It also happens to be my motto when I feel like giving up.

Duran Duran – Hungry Like the Wolf

This was the first video that I could remember that felt like a movie to me. It was an adventure that played out over the course of 4 minutes. Honestly, when I watched it as a kid of 5 years old, I thought it was a movie trailer. I was incredibly upset when I found out that there wasn’t a feature length movie to see. So I had to settle for Romancing the Stone, what a turd.

Fatboy Slim – Weapon of Choice

I’ve got three words for this one: Christopher Walken dancing. Nuff Sed!

Jamiroquai – Virtual Insanity

Up until OK GO released the video for “Here it Goes Again”, this video was the king of treadmill videos. This video was so cool, that nobody seemed to noticed that lead singer Jay Kay was wearing a top hat made out of a black poodle. On top of releasing a great video for a good song, they followed it up with the best video to feature super exotic sports cars, “Cosmic Girl”.

Radiohead – Just

Radiohead has always been just a little more cool that I will ever be. Maybe that’s why I don’t “get” about 99% of what they put out. “Just” may have not been the biggest single off of their 1995 album, The Bends, but the video was amazingly powerful. It is so simple that it borders on being pure genius. I just wish I knew what the guy told everybody.

Michael Jackson – Billy Jean

This may have not been the biggest video off the Thriller album, but it was one of the most dynamic. The way that the ground and other things would light up as MJ stepped on them was brilliant. Then when you couple that with music video breakthroughs, it makes it legendary. Sure the video for “Thriller” will arguably be considered the best video ever, but this one was the one that I would run home from school to see.

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

I don’t really care for Peter Gabriel’s music. It has always seemed a little too preachy for my taste. It’s probably the same reason I don’t really care for Genesis either. However, the videos from the 1986 album, So, really helped define what a music video could be. They at least reminded me to eat my fruit and veggies.

Spike Jonze' Body of Work

This is where it gets tough for me. I know I already put one of director Spike Jonze’ videos in my list, but what can I say? The guy makes amazing videos. They are always cutting edge. Just like the way that U2 and Madonna have a way of changing music every time they put out a new album, Jonze changed the face of MTV with each video he directed in the 90’s and 00’s. The following are my all-time favorite videos ever.

Beastie Boys – Sabotage

This is another video that made me wish that there was a movie that I could go see. It was the first single off of my least favorite Beastie Boys album, but it was a new era of cool for the B-Boys. The previous statement about U2 and Madonna also applies to the Beastie Boys.

Weezer – Buddy Holly

It’s the video that let a whole generation know just how cool Happy Days is. I can fondly remember twisting my ankle trying to do the dance that Fonzie performs in the video.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaye”

 Is Hillary DRUNK for power?  Why is she such a disgruntled, discontented, displeased politician? 

Maybe the solution is to get 18 million tickets for a production of Shakespeare in the Park. After all, at a gathering of her supporters in California earlier this month, Senator Hillary Clinton, who probably knows her way to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, said:  "Look, what we want to have happen is for Senator Obama to be nominated by a unified convention of Democrats, and as I have said, the best way I think - and I could be wrong - but the best way I think to do that is to have a strategy so that my delegates feel like they've had a role and that their legitimacy has been validated and that kind of - you know, it's as old as, you know, as Greek drama - you know, there is a catharsis. I mean everybody comes and, you know, they wanna yell and scream and have their opportunity, and I think that's all to the good, because then, you know, everybody can go, 'OK great. Now let’s go out and win!'"

I say that because there is no clear indication that Americans at large, or Democrats for that matter, are yearning for that catharsis. Obama is up by six points nationally in the latest Gallup tracking poll. Realclearpolitics.com, one of the best aggregators of polling data around, shows the Democrat favored in states accounting for 238 electoral votes, versus McCain's 163. If all the toss-ups are assigned as they are currently leaning, Obama has a clean Electoral College win of 304 to 234.

The story is similar when you examine the pivotal swing states. Obama is comfortably ahead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and holds leads as well in Michigan and Colorado (long a Republican shoo-in), and is about even in Ohio, which went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Even in Virginia, the Democrat is within a point and a half, about McCain's margin of advantage in Florida as well. Among leading swing states, only in Missouri, another Red State in 2000 and 2004, is Obama trailing by more than two points - 2.3 to be precise.

 The long-running Clinton narrative was that Obama is weak among women and among independents, but polling is not bearing out either of those suppositions. Among women voters generally, the presumptive Democratic nominee holds a 52-36 percent edge over his GOP rival. That 16-point margin is up from nine points the second week of June, immediately following Clinton's exit from the race.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry lost white women voters as a group 51-42. Obama is dead even with McCain among that demographic.

And he holds a two-point edge over McCain among independents.

Clearly, Hillary Clinton's warning, voiced repeatedly to superdelegates this past spring - "He can't be elected!" - is not supported by any current readings of the electorate's leanings.

Yet, there remains a troubling but unmistakable pattern of sabotage going on among leading figures in Camp Clinton.

Bill Clinton, asked by ABC News while on a trip to Rwanda, whether Obama was prepared to be president, replied, in that too clever by half tone he adopts at his most disingenuous, "You can argue that nobody is ready to be president."

You can argue that. But would you if you were committed to electing your party's candidate president?

The former president's unhelpful answer came during the same interview in which he felt compelled to insist, "I am not a racist," apparently having learned nothing from Richard Nixon's tirade, "I'm not a crook."

Now let's to turn to Mark Penn, the most unpleasant Democratic consultant since Dick Morris abandoned the Clintons to belly up to the troughs of right-wing publishers and broadcasters willing to pay him handsomely to write and say nasty things about the former first couple. The Atlantic Monthly's new back-story account of the Clinton campaign offers this gem culled from a memo written by Penn, who served Hillary as chief strategist: "[Obama's] roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

Of course the statement is shocking, but it's also telling - in offering a window into just how far gone at least some of the New York senator's team was in their vitriol aimed at Obama.

Howard Wolfson used to be among the Clintonites who hadn't jumped the shark, who urged a high-road, positive, issues-oriented approach on his boss. In fact, everything about his career in New York politics up until this year suggested that Wolfson was a smart, thoughtful guy who kept his eye on the prize - putting progressive Democrats into office.

Now, mind you, since the end of the Clinton campaign, Wolfson has signed on as a Fox News contributor, never a good sign for a Democrat who's still up to the job (see Alan Colmes).

And then, along came the John Edwards scandal. In a weekend full of idiotic observations about the matter, Wolfson trumped them all. Complaining that Edwards should have come clean before his 2008 presidential run and that the Clinton campaign had the dirt on him but held back from using it, Wolfson said that had Edwards been taken out before the New Year, "I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee."

Now that's truly tragic - on the scale of, say, Greek drama.

And that takes us back to Senator Clinton herself. Even as she goes on the road for Obama, she and her team dangle the prospect of disrupting the Denver proceedings. Having reported from President Clinton's reelection convention in Chicago in 1996, I learned what a tight ship a convention can be. Bill would have never brooked the sort of nonsense - having a roll-call vote with the nomination fight already over - that he and his wife are still hinting at.

But don't take it from me. Let's hear from the chairman of the New York State delegation to the Denver convention, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Asked this week by Gay City News whether there ought to be a roll-call vote in Denver, Silver replied, "I don't think so. I don't think it will happen ultimately. I don't think it serves any purpose."

This excellent piece was written by PAUL SCHINDLER/Gay City News

08/14/2008

http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20017606&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=569328&rfi=6

If all our life is but a dream
Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelery to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me

From "Northern Downpour"
by Panic at the Disco

Sabotage. When it comes to food. Do you ever do it? I've known quite a few anorexics who do. They'll purposely prepare their food with too much salt, too much or too little of some spice, add ingredients they don't like, etc. Why? So when they go to eat it, it's harder to eat, thus they are more likely to not finish it.

I can honestly say I've never done this. I've thought of it. But I grew up in a situation where food was valued because we often didn't have money for it. So to intentionally sabotage it seems so very wrong and wasteful. And I still haven't. But I thought of it this afternoon.

My mommy, despite me telling her not to, bought me food. She knows I tend to eat those packets of flavored oatmeal. So she bought a box for me. I went to eat a packet for lunch today and I looked to see what flavors she'd bought. I saw "Bananas and Cream", which I've never seen before. Oh, and did I mention I don't like banana flavor?

So I thought, in my disordered little brain, if I make the banana one, maybe I won't like it and will have a legitimate reason to not eat it! Brilliant! So I made it. And man did it smell atrocious! It was the most nauseating smelling oatmeal....ever.

But I did eat it. It wasn't the best tasting stuff. But my responsible, recovering side took over. I told myself, "It's only 130 calories. You have to work tonight. I know you feel bad about binging and purging last night, but you still need to eat if you're going to make it through work. Just buck up and do it."

It'd be nice if I could just listen to myself and be like, "OK! That makes sense! Let's eat!" But sadly it doesn't work that way. Despite all the food-logic in the world, my head still pouts and screams and throws a tantrum. It's like I have a naughty, little child in my head that loves to freak out at the mildest things.

Maybe recovering from an eating disorder is like child rearing? If I could teach that child to behave, maybe I could eat in peace? Oh, and speaking of that child, I also have someone in my head who loves to whisper nasty things to me.

For instance, I get to go clothes shopping next week. I'm going on a trip to California next week and I need clothes. I haven't bought any (other than a couple shirts and a pair of pants that no longer fit) since losing so much weight. So my mom says I look like a specter when I'm at home because I wear all these really lose clothes and tend to be very pale.

Uh, anyway, I'm buying clothes so I don't look like a bag lady when I'm on my trip and I'm really excited because I love buying clothes. However, I know I'll get there and I'll hear that lady who likes to sneak up behind me and say, "Ew! That looks terrible on you. If you'd lost 10 more pounds, it'd almost be ok. But you're still fat, so don't even think of it."

Plus there's the fact that I have no idea what size I wear. I can tell you what size I don't wear. The sizes I have here at my house. But below that, not a clue. I'm actually, surprisingly, not looking forward to find out. I know whatever that number is will not be good enough and I'll be disappointed.

But! I get new clothes! And I really, truly am happy about that. And I get to go to Disneyland, which I've never been, with my good friend! Oh, and "She Had the World" just came on, and I love this song. So all is good with the world. Right?

Also, (now my post is just getting random and it had started with such purpose) I realized, once again, how much I need to work. Not for the money, though I do need that too. If you go back a few months, I made a post about how work is therapeutic. I was talking about that specific job. But I realized on Sunday how work in general really is a good thing for my mental stability.

Sunday I has having a really hard time. I spent most of the late morning and early afternoon in near-tears. The last thing I wanted to do was go to work. But when I got there, I was able to get involved in what I needed to do and be positive and interact with my coworkers and have a good time.

Monday was a stressful day at work, but I still had a good time. I really like people, so I was able to find energy and good spirits in the customers and the people I worked with. If you can just keep smiling, it's amazing how much you can find to be positive about. I really think smiling leads to more smiling. It's a mental contagion.

(Who could love me? I am out of my mind.) Good timing, I think.

Apartheid Preservers reports:

Lebanese security officials say that a bomb has exploded on a busy street in the northern city of Tripoli, killing at least three people and wounding many others.

The officials say the bomb appear to have targeted a military bus in central Nour Square. They say Wednesday's explosion took place as the streets were full of people heading to work.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Tripoli has witnessed sectarian clashes in the past weeks that killed and wounded dozens of people.

The city is also close to the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared, which witnessed deadly clashes last year between Lebanese troops and members of the al-Qaida-inspired group Fatah Islam. [Source: AP via WireDispatch.com]

Of course to AP, all Lebanese conflicts are simply "sectarian clashes."

Update - 3:16amEST: At least 10 dead, mostly Lebanese military.

Update - 3:42: Turkish source reports 16 dead, seven of them soldiers. Irish source reports same.

Update - 4:20: AP and a few others are saying at least 18 dead and 40 wounded.

Update - 5:20: Still 18 dead, 10 of them soldiers, and 40 wounded.

AP, meanwhile, elaborately infers Syrian guilt with no evidence:

[Tripoli] has witnessed sectarian clashes between Sunni fighters and followers of the Alawite sect, an offshoot Shiite sect, in the past weeks that killed and wounded dozens of people. . . .

The explosion also comes as President Michel Suleiman holds a landmark visit to neighboring Syria Wednesday — the first visit by a Lebanese president in about three years.

Ties have deteriorated since Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon under international pressure in the wake of the Hariri assassination. Hariri's supporters blame Syria for the killing, while Damascus denies involvement.

Gee, I wonder why AP didn't think it was necessary to also ask opposition supporters whom they might want to blame.

-Not Official! - Extracted from 5.1 Dolby Album Version or Video Game Mogg-

Download Link:

Part 1:

Part 2:

External Links

• Official Website
• MySpace Page
  ]]> http://detainthis.wordpress.com/?p=754 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:23:56 +0000 detainthis http://detainthis.wordpress.com/?p=754 By Philip Giraldi ∙ AntiWar.com ∙ August 12, 2008

  There should be little doubt that the Israeli government is making every effort to jump-start a war against Iran sooner rather than later. Many Israelis not surprisingly believe it is in their interest to convince the United States to attack Iran so that Israel will not have to do it, and they are hell-bent on bringing that about. Unfortunately, their efforts are being aided and abetted by a U.S. mainstream media that is unwilling to ask any hard questions or challenge the assumptions of the Israeli government.

  Israeli intellectuals such as Benny Morris have been provided a platform to argue implausibly that a little war is necessary right now to prevent a larger nuclear conflict. The repeated visits to Washington by Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi to pressure Washington to commit to a military option are generally unreported in the U.S. media, and no one is asking why the United States should be involved in what is clearly a "wag the dog" scenario.

  For once, however, some officials in Washington appear to have developed a backbone and are pushing back. A flurry of visits to Israel by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, and intelligence chiefs Mike McConnell and Michael Hayden have made clear that there is considerable opposition at the Pentagon and in intelligence circles to starting a third war at this time. Israel says that Iran is about to obtain a nuclear weapon while the Pentagon and American intelligence services are providing a more cautious assessment, putting forward the U.S. view that Iran is still far removed from having nuclear capability. Mullen went so far as to tell the Israelis flatly that Washington does not want another war. He even brought up the subject of the USS Liberty, a not-so subtle hint that Washington knows that Israel might try to engineer a Gulf of Tonkin-type surprise to force American involvement. Mullen may have been implying that any incident in the Persian Gulf that might lead to armed conflict will be scrutinized carefully to determine if it is a false flag operation initiated by Tel Aviv.

  On the home front there is also some additional good news for those who prefer diplomacy to warfare: Congress is in recess and won't be able to do anything truly stupid, at least not until next month. House Resolution 362 has 261 co-sponsors, but it is still in committee and the word is that it will be rewritten because of concerns about some of its language. Though not binding, it would have recommended a blockade of Iranian ports to stop the import of petroleum products, which many have rightly seen as an act of war. Senate Resolution 580, which has 49 senators as co-sponsors, is also reportedly being redrafted. The antiwar movement has claimed some credit for stopping the two resolutions in their original versions because of a mobilization that produced thousands of calls to congressmen, but AIPAC has been lobbying heavily for the approval of both resolutions. I expect that the Israel lobby will prevail. Both resolutions should pass with overwhelming majorities when Congress reconvenes after Labor Day.

  The principal problem in attempting to derail the rush to war has been the mainstream media, which provides a bully pulpit for those who want war. The media also accepts the framework of the Iran "problem" as defined by Washington and Tel Aviv, refusing to enter into any kind of serious, adult discussion of how the outstanding issues between the U.S. and Iran might be resolved. A good example of how it all works was provided on Aug. 3, when Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was interviewed on CNN's Late Edition by Wolf Blitzer, who himself once worked for AIPAC.

  Livni has an interesting resume. Her father was one of the Irgun terrorists who blew up the King David hotel in 1946 and later massacred Arab villagers in Deir Yassin. As a teenager, Livni participated in demonstrations on behalf of the nationalist extremist group Greater Israel, which advocated expelling all Arabs and extending Israeli domination over all of historic Palestine to include the West Bank, parts of Jordan, up to the Litani River in Lebanon to the north, and down to include Sinai and the Suez Canal in the south and west. She is reported to have mellowed somewhat since that time. She was close to Ariel Sharon, became justice minister, switched over to Kadima with Sharon, and was elected to the Knesset. She was rewarded with the Foreign Ministry by Sharon and now serves Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. She is a former intelligence officer, a lawyer by training, bright and articulate, and generally regarded as a "realist" vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the Muslim world, meaning that she supported the Sharon policy of "disengagement" and seeks a negotiated solution and normalization rather than continuing armed conflict. She appears to be the leading candidate to replace Ehud Olmert when he steps down later this year due to his acceptance of gifts from an American businessman.

  Livni has been reported as having said privately in October 2007 that Iran poses no existential threat to Israel and was highly critical of attempts to hype the danger, but her private views have not in any way influenced her public pronouncements. In her interview with CNN she made a number of statements that are inaccurate or at best speculative, but predictably, she was not challenged in any way by Blitzer. Most viewers probably came away from the interview convinced that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, is unwilling to negotiate over its nuclear enrichment program, and is a danger to the entire world.

  Following a lead-in by Blitzer affirming that Iran is "showing absolutely no indication they're going to stop enriching uranium," Livni – representing a country that has ignored more UN resolutions than any other, engaged in ethnic cleansing, and attacked all of its neighbors without warning – asserted that "It is clear that Iran doesn't pay attention to talks … Iran is a threat, not only to Israel, but this is a global threat."

  Blitzer then obligingly provided another softball, referring to Ehud Barak's assessment that there is only a window of 15 to 36 months before Iran crosses the "line of no return." While it is not clear what the expression "line of no return" means, Livni jumped on it, saying that "any kind of hesitation … is being perceived by the Iranians as weakness. … Iran is a threat to its neighbors, as well. … We shouldn't wait for what we call 'point of no return.'" Blitzer then asked, "You don't even give them 15 months necessarily. You think it's a more urgent matter?" "Yes," Livni answered.

  Blitzer then suggested that the U.S. might not ready for a "third front" in the Middle East at the present time, to which Livni replied, "[T]he world cannot afford a nuclear Iran and weapons of mass destruction everywhere in this region, in the hands not only of states, but also of terrorist organizations." Livni clearly believes that it is all right for Israel to have a secret nuclear arsenal but unacceptable for any of Israel's neighbors, because they cannot be trusted to behave responsibly. The allegation that Tehran would give nuclear weapons to terrorists surfaces frequently from Israeli and neocon sources. It is speculative and in all likelihood a complete fantasy, given the apocalyptic consequences of such an action for Iran, but Blitzer failed to contest the point. The terrorist argument is an essential line in the script for those who want the U.S. to engage in a war with Iran.

  Tzipi Livni should not be blamed for reciting her lines in spite of her personal misgivings, because she is, after all, the government official responsible for explaining Tel Aviv's foreign policy. It is the American media that continues to play the patsy. If interviewers like Wolf Blitzer are the best that the U.S. mainstream media can come up with, then we are in serious trouble. The interview format itself is a travesty, particularly as it suggests that some rational process is being applied to either critique or validate what the interviewee is saying. As the Livni interview demonstrates, if the subject is the Middle East and the interviewer is Wolf Blitzer, that is not likely to be the case.

  ]]> http://ungas888.wordpress.com/?p=15 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:30:42 +0000 ungas888 http://ungas888.wordpress.com/?p=15 24 hours? hmmmm... Tom will be worrying much if he won't see me that long but somehow, it would be a good escape if ever we'll have an argument. I would love to have my invisibility be taken forever if that's the case. And of course, I could use this sorta power to check on him if he's cheating on me; flirting around with other girls and the like.
   
  I have a lot of things to do if ever I'll be vested the power of invisibility:
  1.  I'm gonna sabotage special events like concerts, weddings (hehehe), political events like state of the nation address, inaugural address and President's press conferences (bwahahaha)
  2. I'll try to know big stars' dirty secrets...be like a paparazzi...then publish it!
  3. I will sleep inside Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's bedroom and lie next to Brad w/o Angelina knowing...
  4. I'll sneak into planes and travel around the world. In this scenario, I want a 1-year invisibility so I could go to different places.
  5. I'll try to discover who are the corrupt public officials in the country...(Phils.)
  6. ...discover Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts...
  7. ...rob a bank and distribute the money to the poor...
   
  It would be a celebration. I hope it would come true...
  ]]> http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1209 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:29:51 +0000 highboldtage http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1209 from world socialist:State within a state 

  The 50-metre wide corridor, through which the pipeline runs, is a virtual state within a state. It is governed by the Inter-Governmental Agreement signed by the participating countries. The agreement largely exempts BP and its partners from any laws in the three countries by allowing the consortium to demand compensation should any legislation (including environmental, social and human rights laws) make the pipeline less profitable. The pipeline passes through a national park in Georgia and several other environmentally sensitive sites. Critics claim that land has been taken from local farmers without proper compensation.

  BP has invested at least $15 billion in Azerbaijan. An article on the Asia Times website last week commented: “According to Baku’s street wisdom, the man who really rules Azerbaijan is David Woodward, BP’s chairman, known as ‘the viceroy’, a walking oil atlas with more than three decades working for the company from Scotland to Abu Dhabi and from Alaska to Siberia. Woodward and BP mercilessly spin that BTC is the cleanest and safest pipeline ever built. Georgian peasants and English non-governmental organisations beg to differ.”

  The Bush administration has not hesitated in supporting the corrupt Azerbaijan dictatorship. Heydar Aliyev, a long-time Stalinist party boss, ruled the republic as his personal fiefdom from 1969 as part of the Soviet Union, then in the 1990s as a separate country. After his death in 2003, his son Ilham, notorious as a playboy, casino owner and vice-president of the state oil company SOCAR, took over the reins. According to Transparency International’s global corruption index, Azerbaijan ranks 140 out of 146 countries.

  On May 21, Azeri riot police waded into an opposition protest of some 500 people with batons, arresting at least 45 people. The demonstration was called to demand amendments to the country’s electoral laws, the creation of an independent public broadcaster and the prosecution of the killer of journalist Elmar Guseinov, a critic of the regime shot dead in early March outside his apartment. The government banned the protest, declaring that the timing was “inappropriate” just days before the pipeline’s opening.

  A report by Human Rights Watch last month criticised neighbouring Georgia, hailed this month by Bush as “a beacon of liberty”, for failing to guarantee the end of torture and duress to extract confessions from prisoners. “The new government... has taken some steps to address abusive practices, but these efforts have proven inadequate to stem them. Moreover, some of the government’s new law enforcement policies appeared to trigger new allegations of due process violations, torture and ill-treatment,” it stated.

  All three participating countries are desperate for income. The pipeline will take six months to fill and is projected to reach a flow of one million barrels a day by 2008. Once fully operational Azerbaijan is expected to accrue $29 billion a year in oil revenues and Georgia and Turkey $600 million and $1.5 billion in annual transit fees respectively.

  Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the standard of living in both Georgia and Azerbaijan has plummetted, with the annual average per capita income currently at just $730 and $710 respectively. Little or none of the projected pipeline income will be used to end the social crisis in these countries. One measure of the indifference to the plight of ordinary people is the consortium’s token spending on “community and environmental investment”—estimated to be just $30 million compared to construction costs of $4 billion.

  As far as Washington is concerned, the pipeline’s projected economic benefits are just one element of a more far-reaching plan. The BTC is a convenient lever for the US to extend its political influence and to buttress its military presence in Central Asia to the detriment of its rivals—particularly Russia and China. The Bush administration has already used its “war on terrorism” to establish military bases for the first time in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Now the US is using “pipeline security” as the pretext for forging closer military ties with Georgia and Azerbaijan.

  Speculation that the US is seeking to base troops in Azerbaijan was heightened by last month’s visit to Baku by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In congressional testimony earlier this year, US commander in Europe General James Jones declared that the US was interested in creating a special “Caspian guard” to protect the BTC. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the US plans to spend $100 million on such a force, including the establishment of a command centre in Baku. Concerned over Russian opposition, Azerbaijan has to date been reluctant to commit itself.

  Russian hostility to Washington’s growing intrusion into Central Asia was spelled out by Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee of the country’s parliamentary upper house. “Russia’s attitude to proposals made by some politicians that this task [pipeline security] should actually be delegated to the United States, is firmly negative. Russia will always oppose the presence of any foreign military contingents within the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States],” he commented.

  more http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/oil-m31.shtml

  ]]> http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1206 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:16:24 +0000 highboldtage http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1206 Russian jets targeted major oil pipeline: Georgia
   
  TBILISI (Reuters) - Russian fighter jets targeted the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline which carries oil to the West from Asia but missed, Georgia's Economic Development Minister Ekaterina Sharashidze said on Saturday.

  http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Russia/idUSL961816420080809

  ]]> http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1198 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:33:22 +0000 highboldtage http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/?p=1198

  Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) still ablaze

  Fire-hit Azeri-Turkish oil pipeline to remain closed for 1-2 weeks

  The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC), which is still ablaze, will remain shut for about 15 days after an explosion sparked a fire in a section in eastern Turkey, news agencies reported on Thursday. The supply concerns pushed oil prices back to over $119. (UPDATED)

   

  The blast occurred late Tuesday in a pump at a section near the eastern town of Refahiye, in Erzincan province. The fire was likely to continue burning for another two days until the oil remaining in the pipe runs out, an official from Turkey's state-run oil and gas company BOTAS told the state-run Anatolian Agency. 

   

  Stocks at the Ceyhan depot, which had been used to keep the one million barrels per day (bpd) pipeline flowing have run dry, the official added.

   

  "No trace suggesting sabotage has been found so far, but the cause will become clear after the fire is over," the official said.

   

  http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/finance/9604410.asp?scr=1

  ]]> http://pentagonbrief.wordpress.com/?p=284 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:29:21 +0000 worldmilitaryhistory http://pentagonbrief.wordpress.com/?p=284

  

  Aviation Calendar 2009

  Aviation Calendar 2009: Find 13 thrilling images of military planes, from fighter jets to aerobatic teams, from attack helicopters to battlefield UAVs. US Air Force, Navy, and RAF planes included. Find the TEAMultimedia Aviation Calendar 2009 at our very own PatriArt Gallery.

  Cyber attacks originating within China have exposed vulnerabilities in U.S. military computer systems that ``increase the urgency'' for improvements, according to a top Pentagon official.

  Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, in a 70-page request sent to Congress July 11, asked to shift $1.8 billion in approved spending to other programs, including computer security, reports Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg.com.

  ``Recent attacks from China on Department of Defense networks and systems increase the urgency to construct cyber systems'' that can't be penetrated, England said.

  England said the Pentagon must develop its own technology. Building effective, secure systems for military command-and- control and sharing sensitive information between the military services and allies are requirements that ``cannot be met with current commercial products,'' he said.

  Analysts said England's statement is the Pentagon's clearest public admission that its computers have been penetrated by China.

  Read the entire article at Bloomberg.com

  ]]> http://gossipgirlonly.wordpress.com/?p=39 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:38:53 +0000 gossipgirlonly http://gossipgirlonly.wordpress.com/?p=39 ... or I could just settle for the hottest new gossip. Good morning all, the lastest this minute from Gossip Girl!

  SEEN! Sign on the common room door. Looks like some girls arn't happy for Christine to sit exams. The sign just let those girls know Christine is not contagious. But you always know some girls can never be happy without revenge sabotaging someone else's life.

  xoxo Gossip Girl.

  ]]> http://izanbardprince.wordpress.com/?p=502 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:57:42 +0000 Ryan http://izanbardprince.wordpress.com/?p=502 There was a storm last night that knocked out my cable service:

  When the television came back on 6 hours later, my router would not connect to the modem, I tried everything, including the infamous reset button that clears everything, all your painstaking setup options, the works.

  Nothing I did would let it connect, I tried with the modem to a PC, and it connected great, modem to router, nuh uh.

  So I've been working out what happened.

  Theory:

  Comcast has new firmware, but it requires the modem to be rebooted before it takes effect, my modem hasn't been rebooted since June.

  The storm knocking out my cable/power forced the modem to reset, along with activating the new firmware.

  Comcast likes to charge extra for their router modems, and in their terms of use, it says "One PC only".

  Comcast has a firmware that detects your router's MAC address and won't let matching MAC addresses connect.

  How I arrived at this theory:

  DD-WRT firmware has a "Clone MAC address" option whereby it can grab the Mac address of one of the devices you have connected to it, I cloned my desktop's MAC address and brought the modem back up.

  No good, still no internet, until....

  I opened a terminal and pinged the modem's set up address a number of times (sudo ping 192.168.100.1), and tried to load a web page, and it works this time.

  In Windows this would be "ping 192.168.100.1", but if you know how to flash custom firmware on a Linksys router, I doubt you're reading this on Windows.

  If you wonder why Linux requires administrator access to tracert, ping, etc., it's because....

  When is the last time you saw a Linux worm successfully propagate?

  I think that this is Comcast's latest "Fuck the customer" gimmick

  The average customer doesn't understand MAC addresses and custom firmware, the average customer also doesn't disassemble chunks of their BIOS either.

  But I'm not the average customer, and I'm not one that will settle for this shit, in fact, sometimes I like it when these things happen, because it means they assume I'm too stupid to guess what is going on, and I will gladly prove them wrong.

  I still say, Comcast's next profit mongering will be stealing pennies off the eyes of the dead. ;)

  ]]> http://anyscribbles.wordpress.com/?p=411 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:52:07 +0000 scribbles08 http://anyscribbles.wordpress.com/?p=411 I've spent the last year out of work.  I had a horrid experience at my last job which took me a while to get over.  I had answered an advertisement for a job which turned out to be for a man who wanted to set up a new company and needed an admin/secretary/PA/type person to help.  At the time, I wasn't really looking for a job with any real responsibility and was happy to take a position that did not require much from me.  A strict nine to five, no extra's sort.

  I went along to the interview which was in a small barn alongside the main house where the man had his office.  He explained that he had a new idea for a business and showed me a leaflet he had had made up.  When I read it through, I realised straight away that he needed someone with skills in writing and design as the leaflet was not well written, despite him using a  professional marketing company.  We discussed the business and leaflet and I was quite interested in the job.  I told him I wasn't really looking for major responsibility but that I could see I could be of use to him and we discussed terms which were pretty bad but since I didn't have any other work on, something seemed better than nothing.

  Over the next two years I did everything from rewriting the marketing leaflet, setting up the office procedures for the company, endless phone sales and getting clients.  I helped with finding contractors, interviewed and selected a sales girl, liased with a legal expert to make sure we were covered in everyway, helped define the client contracts, came up with marketing strategy, went over endless figures and projections and so on.  I could see clearly where my boss lacked talent and skills and where I lacked them and we complimented one another very well.

  After a while, my boss offered me a directorship along with a twenty percent share of the business on the basis that as we couldn't pay me much money, it would provide an extra incentive for me.  I accepted the offer and became the admin director.  While the company was getting up and running, I also worked for one of his other businesses and was paid from that until our own could take over wages.  I had always said, that I did not want to get involved with the financial side of the business as figures are not my strong point and other than a cursory look over the monthly analysis, cheque book and bank statements I left that side of things to him.

  I noticed over time, that my boss seemed to have his fingers in several pies.  He had another mail order business with a couple who shared our office but it wasn't long before he fell out with them.  I watched, as over time, he did nothing to help them, never pointed out their mistakes or made any useful suggestions and sat back and waited for this business to collapse which it eventually did.  I felt sorry for the woman involved.  She really didn't have what it took to be a succesful business woman though she had high expectations.  She had a cut out picture pinned up in the office, from a magazine of a fancy BMW which was top of her wish list when the company became sucessful.  Sad really.  She had been a secretary for a man who she ended up  marrying and I noticed that he still treated her like a secretary and less like a wife.  What with him being overbearing and my boss being negligent, the whole thing was doomed.  As far as I could tell, my boss had lost interest in this venture and had moved on and wanted to put all his efforts into the one we were doing. It was a bit embarassing and awkward between them and me as it was plain that I was the new interest and they were being sidelined.  I should have seen warning signs at that point.

  Once we had our business up and running we realised we needed to take on someone to deal with the contractors and so we added another director, 'director of operations'.  There was a fourth director who my boss had originally intended for this position but he had not come up with any money.  He kept him on but he had no real involvement in the company but he was to prove my downfall.  This man, was an agricultural worker.  He had at one time, got a good business going and employed a few men to do various tractor work around the many local farms but he came unstuck and nearly lost his house.  He was unabe to take on any more financial liabilities as he was still paying off the bank but he remained a director in our company and attended director's meetings.  He was by no means a business man but very kindly and decent and occasionally came up with useful ideas.

  After two years of hard work, I was getting fed up with the very low pay and as we had given ourselves five years to make the business up to a standard where it could either be franchised or sold off, I was looking at a fairly long time before I saw any financial reward.  The business was primarily a winter service which meant in the summer there was less to do and we couldn't afford to pay me all year round.  I still worked for the other business but it was part time and I was struggling to manage on such limited hours.  I didn't have a salary for either company and was paid by the hour.  In our second summer, I was really feeling fed up.  I felt I had worked very hard with great comitment, often going out to sites with the boss at all hours of the night to check on work, all without extra pay.  It seemed to me, that the directorship was really a way of making me put in a lot of work while paying me very little.  I wanted to expand the company's business so that it covered the whole year and not just the winter and we had ideas as to how to achieve this.  But every time I started to work on this, the boss would dither and change his mind.

  We came to blows one day, in an embarassing meeting between the directors and our sales girl.  I had done some research into the expansion idea but every time I tried to answer questions, my boss belittled me or was dismisive.  All this was in front of the other director and my sales girl and it was very awkward.  Feeling annoyed with his changed attitude to me, I brought up the subject of money and more or less said that since I was being paid peanuts, he couldn't expect me to be at his beck and call.  He had let me down a few times over the summer, when I expected him to have work for me, only to find on arriving at the office that ihe hadn't organised it for me.  He was furious with me when I raised the issue and said he wasn't going to raise any wages until the following winter and that we would put it on the agenda for discussion in our Autumn meeting.

  My sales girl was very anxious after the meeting.  She was appalled by the way I had been spoken to and wondered whether if I could be treated like that, how secure was her own job.  I assured her she would be OK  and that I would look after her as she had left her husband on the basis of a reliable job and had two small children to look after. 

  I didn't realise it at the time, but my fate was sealed at that meeting.  It seemed that my boss had now decided he didn't like me anymore and was treating me like he had the other couple who disappeared out of his life.  Since I was a director though, I wasn't especially worried.  A couple of months later, things had settled down but I noticed he no longer consulted me on things and it was awkward when we were in the office at the same time.  He borrowed more money from the bank without telling me, though since the money side was his responsibility I let it go.

  And then I had a conversation with the director of operations who I got on well with.  I had noticed a large amount of money had been paid to him when I went through the cheque book.  I queried it with him but he said he had not received it which seemed distinctly odd.  We discussed the financial side of the business as by now there was quite a hefty overdraft and we needed a cold winter to get plenty of business to pay it off.  He made some remark about my share of the overdraft which I immediately told him was nothing to do with me.  I told him that the arrangement between myself and the boss did not include any liability for the company's financial affairs.  It turned out, that my boss, being utterley useless had forgotten that I did not sign any papers for the bank loan as per our agreement, at the beginning, that I would not get involved in the financing as I couldn't afford to do so.  Amazingly he had forgotten this vital point.  The other director must have mentioned this to my boss as soon after this conversation, I arrived at the office to find him in a pensive and worried mood.  He started to talk about the growing bank loan and I reminded him that he had not consulted me when he chose to increase it.  He didn't acknowledge that he had forgotten about our arrangements but clearly he had.  He informed me that he had called in the 'sleeping' director for a meeting that morning and again he had not arranged this with me first which was unusual. 

  And suddenly it was all over.  The sleeping director on hearing of the financial implications had immediately decided that the company had to be shut down and that the first thing to go had to be staff of which there was only myself and the sales girl. As a nod to keeping things professional, we took a vote on the issue and this was where the 'sleeping' director came in handy, as my boss knew he would.  I was outvoted, the operations director felt we should shut down too, so all were against me and I had to comply. My boss didn't even try to salvage the situation and after the meeting ended and I went home and had a chance to digest the whole situation, I realised that he had orchestrated the entire thing.  My boss knew that if he told the sleeping director about the increased financial burden, he would panic.  Having been so close to bancruptcy and nearly losing his home, he was highly likely to advise my boss to cut his losses fearing that he too could end up bancrupt.  The third director had his own sucessful business and was only working part time for our company, so although he was sorry, it didn't mean that much of a loss to him.

  I called the boss the following day and said I would like to discuss things further, that everything had happened far too quickly without much thought, or so I thought, and he agreed to meet me.  When I arrived, the first thing I noticed was that my desk was blocked by some boxes and I couldn't get to it.  The second thing I noticed was that the sleeping director was present when I had not asked for a directors meeting.  It was clear then, where we stood.  He had brought in the other director for back up, was too cowardly to meet me on his own and had blocked my desk, presumably, in case I should have a fit of temper and wreck all the work I had done, or perhaps copy some documents.  Who knows but it was the most insultig thing he could possibly have done to me. 

  So instead of trying to persuade him to try harder at the company, we ended up talking terms.  It was near to Christmas and an awful time to be out of a job with no money.  I persuaded him to keep on the sales girl as I felt a duty towards her and we were friends.  The boss agreed to give her a job in his house, cleaning and painting or something while she found another one.  I was not so lucky.  I got a couple of months pay based on far fewer hours than I would have worked.  As I am lousy at figures I hadn't realised this at first and signed away any rights to ask for more money or anything else from him.  I was told that the company would fold after the following winter, when they hoped to recoup some of the money.  Since I was leaving that day, it was obvious that he wanted rid of me and I later learned that he had given my job, unofficially to my sales girl having made me redundant.  Personally I wasn't too sure that he could do that, either the job was redundant or it wasn't and if it wasn't, it should not be given to anyone else.  I felt stabbed in the back by the sales girl too, since I had insisted that the boss keep her on in some way, but didn't expect him to give her my own job.

  What hurts is that it seems to me, the entire thing was an elaborate ruse in order to get rid of me.  Why you may ask?  Why indeed?  We had a good relationship right up to the point when I started to compain about the lack of money I was earning.  Considering the amount of responsibility I had taken on over the two years and my significant input into the company, I felt I had been thoroughly let down.  Worse, it is hard to explain to people that the real truth is that, like that other couple, he had grown bored with me.  Whilst I was the bees knees for the first couple of years, it seems that the boss has a habbit of getting bored with people.  I know of four other people who have been involved in business ventures with him that have all ended badly.  I conclude that it is his fault.  He lets people down.  He takes an irrational dislike to them and then sets about sabotaging his relationships.  He always said, that he particularly wanted this business to be a sucess so he could put the fingers up to his father in law, who clearly viewed him as a loser.  It gives me some satisfaction to know that he will have to have admitted yet another failure.  That must hurt.

  Since leaving a year ago, I have not had the courage to see if the website is still up.  If it is, he lied and kept the business going and the whole sorry story was simply a way to get rid of me.  All he had to do, was communicate with me, tell me what was wrong so we could then have either put it right or gone our separate ways without all the subterfuge.  I was tempted to write to companies house and complain about this man, to warn them about his underhand business dealings and show him up for the serial company wrecker that he surely was.  But I didn't.  People have told me I should have sued him but I am not that way inclined.  It seems better to move on and forget people like that.  They aren't worth my time and effort.

  I seem to be one of these people who if I didn't have bad luck, would have no luck at all!

  ]]> http://bitsnbytes4biz.wordpress.com/?p=34 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:21:34 +0000 Ed Becker http://bitsnbytes4biz.wordpress.com/?p=34 It is often said that the only things we must do is to pay taxes and die.  This is not true!! 
  [caption id="attachment_42" align="alignright" width="171" caption="Bullet Proof Your Data"][/caption]
   

   

   

  YOUR BACKUP IS YOUR BUSINESS

   A recent study discovered that, of companies experiencing a “major loss” of computer records, 43 percent never reopened, 51 percent closed within two years of the loss, and a mere 6 percent survived over the long-term. For businesses with 1 to 500 employees, in particular, these statistics suggest the necessity of crafting a Business Continuity Planning (BCP) strategy grounded in a robust data backup and recovery solution.

   

   

  Unlike large enterprise organizations, many companies cannot afford optimal in-house strategies and business continuity and data backup solutions.  These companies are consequently at an elevated risk of being put out of business due to any major loss of data. Loss of data could mean emails lost, accounting data lost, patient or client files lost, company records lost, client legal records or orders lost and so on.

   There are Five Commandments for data backup that we will discuss in the coming posts. 

  1. know your recovery point objective supports your needs
  2. know your recovery time objective allows you to maintain continuity
  3. know your data is stored on a local device that is reliable
  4. store your data in at least one additional location more than 500 miles from your operations center
  5. know your data is recoverable by performing selective data restoration at least monthly

  Your feedback is welcome, but above, do not do another thing unless you know your data is safe, recoverable, and your business can resume operations rapidly, no matter what may happen.

   More on the next post.  For now, mark an appointment for Tuesday, September 9, 2008, at 11:00 AM EASTERN USA time for a webinar on Business Continuity Preparedness.  More details on later blogs.

   

  ]]> http://aidaxxx.wordpress.com/?p=34 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:24:27 +0000 aidaxxx http://aidaxxx.wordpress.com/?p=34 Mi concentrerò sullo scorso week-end:
  sono andato a ballare.

  Questa frase farà pensare ad uno scherzo a tutti quelli che mi conoscono, invece no, sono proprio andato a ballare, o meglio, come si usa dire, "I went clubbing", perchè ormai "to club" è un verbo, intraducibile in italiano, e molto più esaustivo di "andare a ballare"

  Dunque, ho 2 ospiti più che graditi: Emanuele e Alessandra, sono stati miei coinquilini a Firenze per qualche mese, devo ammettere che erano i migliori coinquilini che avessi trovato in Italia (sorvoliamo sugli altri...), sono stati qua 2 settimane, e se ne andranno domani.
  Avevano un programma piuttosto vago per la loro visita di Berlino, che comprendeva essenzialmente 2 punti:
  - visitare più gallerie d'arte e musei possibile (parzialmente soddisfatta)
  - andare a ballare come fa la gente di qui (ampiamente soddisfatta)

  Sabato sera, quindi, usciamo di casa verso le 23.30, diretti verso Revaler Strasse, al MIKZ: un'area un tempo occupata da una grossa fabbrica delle ferrovie, ora è una serie di capannoni in semidisfacimento, alcuni dei quali vengono recuperati per feste o progetti culturali. Il posto è bello, la musica insomma: a me piace la sala piccola, dei bravi djs mettevano della buona drum&bass velocissima, faceva un caldo terrificante e mancava l'aria, ma si ballava. In basso, nella sala grande, condita da proiezioni e orsi bianchi (?) suonavano minimal techno, vabbè, ormai lo sapete che quel genere mi schifa. Restiamo là dentro incredibilmente tantissimo, ne usciamo alle 9.00, questo significa 9 ore di fila!! pazzi. Pazzo soprattutto io, che non bevo e non mi drogo. Davvero! Neanche una goccia d'alcool, neanche un milligrammo di nessuna droga.

  Non contenti, usciti dal MIKZ ci dirigiamo verso il luogo di perdizione più tamarro di Berlino: il BERGHAIN, o Panorama Bar che dir si voglia. Un posto bellissimo ma al tempo stesso orribile e spaventoso, ve lo riassumo:
  - una ex centrale elettrica trasformata in discoteca: dentro, è proprio una centrale elettrica, con soffitti altissimi, robe strane alle pareti, antri assurdi che un tempo contenevano generatori o so una sega io cosa.
  - nessuno specchio, nessuna superficie riflettente, nessuna decorazione, solo luci e fumo
  - personale antipaticissmo, ti tratta come una merda, ti controllano abbestia prima di entrare, si dice anche ci sia una pesante selezione all'entrata, ma noi siamo andati di mattina, quindi c'era poca gente (in realtà era pieno) e quindi niente selezione
  - musica di merda! techno tamarrissima sotto, house tamarrissima sopra. Ogni tanto mettevano dei pezzi beli, ma in versione tamarra.
  - la gente! ommioddio! un concentrato dei peggio cugi, come non vedevo da tempo! molto frequentata da gay, rigorosamente maschi, rasati, a petto nudo, una bulimia di ciccia umana da fare schifo, tutti uguali, e tantissimi. Gente fatta con lo stampino, ballavano con la ghigna nervosa di chi è pieno di anfetamina, e se non lo erano erano incazzosi di loro perchè pensavo faccia figo ballare con la ghigna a tagliola.
  - la trasgressione: al piano terra, un labirinto di dark-rooms dove, si dice, la gente vada per farsi coinvolgere nei peggio giochi sessuali, beh, non mi sono sentito pronto francamente, rimarrò nel dubbio...

  In fondo, sono contento di esserci andato, vedere quel posto valeva la pena, anche solo per togliersi la curiosità. Ma ve lo sconsiglio, a meno che non siate proprio dei tamarroni.

  Bene, come potete immaginare non resistiamo lì dentro più di tanto, alle 13.00 siamo fuori. Incomincio a sentire la stanchezza, meglio passare il resto della domenica a riposare a casa...

  ]]> http://morethananelectrician.wordpress.com/?p=501 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:53:30 +0000 morethananelectrician http://morethananelectrician.wordpress.com/?p=501 The an odd turn of events, the same woman who has scolded me for years about my excessive Mt. Dew habit and one bag of jellybeans a month, has changed her tune.

  When I arrived home from work this evening, there were two bags of jelly beans and two 12 packs of Mt. Dew on my desk.

  She is either decided that jelly beans and Mt. Dew aren't so bad for me any longer or that she is feeling the pressure of my 20 lbs of disappearing weight.

  I did hit 155 lbs, which is a little lighter than I ought to be, but she is just fine too.  She is 5'4" and 135 pounds.  This is damned good for someone who has popped out three kids.  I am actually pretty sure it is good even for someone who hasn't popped out three of them.

  I thanked her for the treats, but it may be a while before I rid myself of them.   I have been cutting back (not stopping) on this kind of stuff. 

  I couldn't help but laugh inside.  Not outside...or that is where I'd be sleeping!

  ]]> http://freeanwar.wordpress.com/?p=438 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:56:39 +0000 Rafik http://freeanwar.wordpress.com/?p=438 By Niluksi Koswanage

  KLANG, Malaysia (Reuters) - Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said on Sunday that he feared the government may resort to "massive funding and bribery" to sabotage his chances of winning a parliamentary election.

  Anwar, who is battling allegations that he raped a former male aide, plans to stand for election from a constituency in northern Penang state which his wife has vacated.

  "If... Barisan Nasional decide(s) to give rough with massive funding and bribery then we will have to be really prepared," Anwar told reporters referring to the ruling coalition.

  "We will have to see how many 100 million (ringgit) will be brought there (to the constituency). We are not taking it for granted," he said. [more]

  Please click here to read the article.

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