My Blog

"Obscene" Comic Book Dealer Cleared

Lone_Bodhissattva — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:13:24 GMT

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund welcomes the outcome of today's pretrial hearing on motions brought in defense of Georgia retailer Gordon Lee. Four out of seven counts against Lee were dismissed before Judge F. Larry Salmon at a pretrial hearing in Rome, Georgia. Prosecutors dismissed both felony counts (1 & 2) of Distribution of Material Containing Nudity or Sexual Conduct (OCGA ??16-12-81), as well as the two misdemeanor counts (6 & 7) of Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material (OCGA ??16-12-103) to alleged John Does. Three misdemeanor counts (3, 4, & 5) of Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material to the alleged victim were the subject of arguments not yet ruled upon. Lead counsel Alan Begner says, "I'm delighted that the felony counts are now thrown out. They should never have been brought and the District Attorney waited until the last minute to dismiss them, but [co-counsel] Paul [Cadle] and I were confident all along that they could not stand. Now they do not stand." The prosecution's decision to dismiss the felony charges mooted two of the four motions brought by the Fund's counsel, while the decision todismiss the John Doe counts mooted, in part, a third motion. Theremaining intact motion that was argued challenged the constitutionality of the State's Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material law on its face and as applied to this case, specifically challenging whether the material in question could be considered Harmful to Minors as a matter of law. While much of Begner's written argument in this motion challenged the constitutionality of the Harmful to Minors law, he explains that with his oral argument, "I didn't really argue the constitutionality of the misdemeanor statutes, but I argued that the comic book as a matter of law did not violate the law and is protected under the First Amendment." Begner's arguments before the court weighed in on the constitutional issues at stake in the remaining counts, while Cadle attacked the remaining portions of the motion challenging the separation of misdemeanor counts 3, 4, and 5, and State's decision to prosecute those counts as separate matters. Begner explains, "Paul argued that the use of three separate counts to charge one offense was improper and was done to make the jury believe there were three crimes committed when it should have all been put into one count. That's been taken under consideration too: we asked [the judge] to require the State to put it in one count, to properly reflect that there should be only one count left." Overall, counsel was positive about the outcome of Lee's first day in court. Paul Cadle says, "We're very pleased with what happened today, and we believe that the prosecution's dismissals are recognition of the strength of our arguments." A decision on today's arguments is expected by the end of the month. To date the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has spent roughly $40,000 on Lee's defense, and is currently fundraising aggressively to shore up money for a trial on the remaining counts. CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein says, "We join our counsel in welcoming today's encouraging developments in Gordon's case. We never held doubt of his innocence, and the dismissal of the majority of the counts against him vindicates our position. We were able to get this far because of the commitment and generosity of the comics community who have recognized Gordon's case as a clear and present danger to our art form and our livelihoods. We still have a long, expensive road to travel before we get to trial, but with the continued generosity of the comics world, we hope to be unbeatable."

Subject: Redheaded Babies

Lone_Bodhissattva — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:14:31 GMT

After their baby was born, the panicked father went to see the obstetrician. "Doctor," the man said, "I don't mind telling you, but I'm a little upset because my daughter has red hair. She can't possibly be mine." "Nonsense," the doctor said. "Even though you and your wife both have black hair, one of your ancestors may have contributed red hair to the gene pool." "It isn't possible," the man insisted. "This can't be, our families on both sides had jet-black hair for generations." "Well," said the doctor, "let me ask you this. How often do you have intimacy?" The man seemed a bit ashamed. "I've been working very hard for the past year. We only made love once or twice every few months." "Well, there you have it!" The doctor said confidently. "It's rust."

The Christmas Parrot

Lone_Bodhissattva — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 01:41:29 GMT

One Christmas Eve, a frenzied young man ran into a pet shop looking for an unusual Christmas gift for his wife. The shop owner suggested a parrot, named Chet, which could sing famous Christmas carols. This seemed like the perfect gift. "How do I get him to sing?," The young man asked excitedly. "Simply hold a lighted match directly under his feet," was the shop owner's reply. The shop owner held a lighted match under the parrot's left foot. Chet began to sing: "Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! ..." The shop owner then held another match under the parrot's right foot. Then Chet's tune changed, and the air was filled with: " Silent Night, Holy Night..." The young man was so impressed that he paid the shop-keeper and ran home as quickly as he could with Chet under his arm. When the wife saw her gift she was overwhelmed, exclaiming, "How beautiful! Can he talk?" "No," the young man replied, "But he can sing. Let me show you." So the young man whipped out his lighter and placed it under Chet's left foot, as the shop-keeper had shown him, and Chet crooned: "Jingle Bells! Jingle bells!..." The man then moved the lighter to Chet's right foot, and out came: "Silent Night, Holy night..." The wife, her face filled with curiosity, then asked, "What if we hold the lighter between his legs?" Her husband admitted that did not know, but eager to please his wife, added, "Let's try it." So they held the lighter between Chet's legs. Chet twisted his face, cleared his throat, and the little parrot sang out loudly like it was the performance of his life: "Chet's nuts roasting on an open fire...."

The War of The Sexes: Communication Problems

Lone_Bodhissattva — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 15:19:30 GMT

TO BE 6 AGAIN!: A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, observing his wife as she turned back and forth, looking at herself in the mirror with a critical eye. Since her birthday was not far off, he asked her what she'd like to have for that day. Still looking in the mirror, she replied absently, "I'd like to be six again." On the morning of her Birthday, he rose early, made her a nice big bowl of Lucky Charms with sliced banana, then took her to Six Flags theme park. What a day! He put her on every ride in the park; the Death Slide, the Wall of Fear, the Screaming Monster Roller Coaster, everything there was. Five hours later they staggered out of the theme park. Her head was reeling and her stomach felt upside down. He then took her to a McDonald's where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake. Then it was off to a movie, popcorn & a soda pop, and her favorite candy, M&M's. What a fabulous adventure! Finally she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed exhausted. He leaned over to his wife with a big smile and lovingly asked, "Well Dear, what was it like being six again?" Her eyes slowly opened, her expression changed subtly, then she exclaimed, "I meant my dress size, you dumb ass!!" The moral of the story: Even when a man is listening, he is going to get it wrong!

The First of Four Examples of Evangelical Intolerance During the Current Holiday Season

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 21:18:45 GMT

The First of Four Examples of Evangelical Intolerance During the Current Holiday Season Example #1: (from an anonymous e-mail being floated about on the internet these days) Wasn't it last Christmas that Target refused to let the Salvation Army ring their bells in front of their stores? Dick Forrey of the Vietnam Veterans Association wrote: "Recently we asked the local TARGET store to be a proud sponsor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during our spring recognition event. "We received the following reply from the local TARGET management: "'Veterans do not meet our area of giving. We only donate to the arts, social action groups, gay & lesbian causes, and education.' "So I'm thinking, if the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and veterans in general, do not meet their donation criteria, then something is really wrong at this TARGET store. We were not asking for thousands of dollars, not even hundreds, just a small sponsorship for a memorial remembrance. "As a follow-up, I E-mailed the TARGET U.S. Corporate Headquarters and their response was the same. "That's their national policy. "Then I looked into the company further. "They will not allow the Marines to collect for 'Toys for Tots' at any of their stores. And during the recent Iraq deployment, they would not allow families of employees who were called up for active duty to continue their insurance coverage while they were on military service. Then as I dig further, TARGET is a French-owned corporation. "Now, I'm thinking again. If TARGET cannot support American Veterans, then why should my family and I support their stores by spending our hard earned American dollars! "And,have their profits sent to France. Without the American Vets, where would France be today? "Sincerely, "Dick Forrey Veterans Helping Veterans" Please send this on to everyone you know to let Target know we don't need them either! This year Target is refusing to celebrate Christmas and instead only celebrates the "holidays." COMMENT: Mr. Forrey's insults against people of French culture &/or ancestry and anyone who works for Target during the year-end sales period are bad enough in his transparent bid to emotionally blackmail a Multinational corp into supporting his group's pet cause. The writer of this message compounds the problem when they use it to further attack non-Christian Veterans, and non-Christians who might simply want to celebrate the holidays without bothering to "religitize" them. I wonder who's the bigger hypocrite here. And, just FYI, I googled Dick Forrey and Veterans Helping Veterans; while VHV is certainly a real org working toward accomplishing its avowed mission (http://www.deed.state.mn.us/veterans/contact.htm), I could find no reference to a Dick (or Richard) Forrey in association with same.

Ol'Butch, the Clever Rooster

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 11:06:15 GMT

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. On his farm, he had several hundred young layers (hens), called pullets, and eight or ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the hens' eggs. The farmer kept records, and any rooster that didn't perform well went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a series of tiny bells and attached one each to a string dangling from his roosters' necks. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells. The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on one particular morning. John noticed that old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! Concerned that he might soon have to put poor Butch in the soup pot, John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, upon hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the county fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result... the judges not only awarded Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize" but they also awarded him the "Pullet Surprise" as well. Clearly Butch was a politician in the making. After all, who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Score One More for SOF's Anti-Death Penalty Campaign; 122nd Inmate Freed via DNA

Lone_Bodhissattva — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:08:51 GMT

Nun's `Pen Pal' Exonerated In Killings After 16 Years on Death Row From the Hartford Courant, December 9, 2005 By FRANCES GRANDY TAYLOR, Courant Staff Writer For the past 11 years, Sister Marjorie Fish has been corresponding with Harold C. Wilson, a Pennsylvania inmate who last month became the 122nd person to be freed from death row because of DNA evidence since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Fish, an ardent opponent of capital punishment, said Thursday she was shocked when she heard that Wilson had been exonerated. "When I got the news, I had to read it over several times," she said. "I couldn't believe it. All I could think was, `This is a miracle."' Wilson, 47, spent 16 years on death row after a jury convicted him in 1989 of the tomahawk murders of three people in a Philadelphiadrug house. By chance, Fish picked Wilson's name from a hat duringan anti-death penalty conference sponsored by the Alternatives to Violence Project, part of the Societ of Friends (aka "the Quakers"). Wilson, an African-American Muslim, was looking for a spiritual adviser to correspond with. Advisers were supposed to be of the same religious background as inmates. "So I wrote to Harold and I underlined it - I am a Roman Catholic nun," said Fish, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph. "And he said it made no difference. And we went on from there." Wilson's first trial was overturned in 1999 because of errors by his defense attorney, and on further appeal he received a new hearing because of the district attorney's involvement in racially discriminatory practices in jury selection. DNA testing revealed blood from the crime scene that did not come from Wilson or the victims, which suggested the presence of another assailant. In his latest trial, he was acquitted Nov. 15 of all charges. Fish, 67, said she never discussed Wilson's alleged crime with him in their letters and emails, and "and all he ever said about it was that he was innocent," she said. Fish took up a collection among the sisters and helped Wilson get a computer in his cell. "I encouraged him to read books and to work toward his GED, which hedid. He was a really poor fellow from Philadelphia. He wrote some very beautiful poems that he sent me." Fish also corresponds with a Connecticut prisoner, Alex Sostre, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 killing of East Hartford police Officer Brian Aselton. Fish said she did not reach out to Wilson based on the possibility he might be innocent. She said she assumed that "to be on death row, you have to kill someone." "And in my years of working with people in the criminal justice system, I know you have to work with people where they are." But Fish, who later testified for Wilson as a character witness during his retrial in 2003, learned some details about the case from his attorney, and she came to believe in Wilson's innocence. She also has spoken to his family in South Philadelphia, including his 88-year-old mother. But she gives another nun a lot of credit for the turnaround in Wilson's case. Sister Ernestine Maillot, 101, began writing to Wilson, and praying the rosary twice a day for him about six years ago. "It's Ernie's prayers that did it," Fish said. Fish is the director of Tabor House in Hartford, a residence for homeless adults with HIV. She is a veteran of the Connecticut criminal justice system, having worked with both juveniles and adults, and is a staunch opponent of the death penalty. "I think it's an issue of life - you don't have the right to take a life of another, even though that person may have taken one," she said. "There is also an issue of fairness - most of the people on death row are poor, African American or Hispanic. There is no fairness in our judicial system." Fish and Wilson have yet to meet in person, or even talk on the telephone, though she made two attempts over the years to visit him at the super-max facility in Waynesburg, Pa. But that doesn't seem to matter to her. "I worked with him on a spiritual level," Fish said. "He is very sincere in his faith. ... He has a deep spirituality that comes through in his letters and his writing." On Wilson's website, which is linked through the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, he writes that "you the people, need to take a good hard look at the present day criminal justice system. You need to see the suffering and injustice that abounds in prison. You need to recognize the role of money and racism in capital punishment, and the public indifference that sends innocent people to their deaths." At the end of a poem he sent to Fish titled, "Accepting God's Truth," Wilson wrote, "Thank you again Sr. Fish and Sr. Ernestine for your support." Ed Meares c/o landingstripnyc@yahoo.com , landstirpnyc.yahoogroups.com

Other Reasons to Oppose Alito, part two: "Double Jeopardy" meaningless to him.

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:03:21 GMT

Nominee Alito backed Fla. in murder case A Miami Beach attorney recalled how a client was never retried in a 1974 murder. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote a brief that sided with the state of Florida, arguing that the case should be retried. By CAROL ROSENBERG crosenberg@herald.com As a Reagan administration attorney in 1982, Samuel Alito worked on a U.S. Supreme Court brief defending the state of Florida's right to retry former Death Row inmate Delbert Tibbs. Alito's side won, as he points out in his Supreme Court confirmation questionnaire released Wednesday by the Justice Department. But here's the rest of the story, according to Miami Beach attorney Louis Beller, 77, who argued Tibbs' side at the Supreme Court and lost: Florida never retried Tibbs for murder and rape, despite the high court's 5-4 ruling in June 1982 that a new trial did not constitute double jeopardy -- and he has lived since then in Chicago as a free man. Tibbs, a black man, was a self-styled Chicago poet and former theological student who always argued he was wrongly accused of the February 1974 rape of a 16-year-old white girl, who survived, and murder of her 19-year-old companion, Terry Milroy, in a field near Fort Myers. Tibbs had been arrested four days later, near Ocala, and subsequently convicted by an all-white jury -- despite trial evidence that he was at Salvation Army missions 225 miles away a day before and a day after the crime. His case became a cause celebre, recalls Beller, who took the case for no fee but had some expenses paid by a defense fund, including money raised at a benefit concert by folksinger Pete Seeger in Miami Beach. ''I got the case because nobody else would take it unless there was money,'' said Beller, who has never met Alito -- and only recently learned that the appelate judge worked on the brief on behalf of the U.S. government. After Tibbs spent two years on Death Row, the Florida Supreme Court in 1976 reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial, saying his all-white jury had convicted him -- despite the weight of the evidence. Called Tibbs vs. Florida, the 1982 case asked the high court to rule that Tibbs would be subject to double jeopardy if he were retried. Alito said he worked on the United States' amicus curiae brief, which sided with Florida in favor of a retrial, in his capacity as an assistant to the solicitor general. In her opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, the justice Alito is slated to replace, wrote that Tibbs could be tried again in Fort Myers because ``a reversal on weight of evidence, unlike a reversal based on insufficient evidence, does not mean that acquittal was the only proper verdict.'' Still, the state soon decided to drop all charges against Tibbs because then Lee County State Attorney Joseph D'Alessandro said the prosecution's only eyewitness lacked credibility. Reached by The Herald at his home in Chicago on Wednesday, Tibbs, now 66, said he was surprised to hear that President Bush's nominee had a hand in his case. ''It has to do with your political ideology. It has to do with how you view the law and society,'' he said, noting that at the time liberal justices like Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan said that he should be spared a new trial. Since his release, Tibbs' case has beens widely cited by opponents of the death penalty, and Tibbs has campaigned against capital punishment. Even though Alito worked on the brief in his capacity as a Reagan administration lawyer, Tibbs said, he wasn't inclined to support his nomination. ''I certainly wouldn't,'' he said. ``I don't have any animosity against Mr. Alito. But it's politics, that's what it is.''

Other Reasons to Oppose Alito. part one: Killing fleeing people "reasonable" to him

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 20:54:26 GMT

Alito backed vast police powers Reagan-era memo finds killing a fleeing unarmed teen "reasonable" under Constitution By David G. Savage Originally published December 3, 2005 WASHINGTON // Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s views on abortion caused a stir this week, but another memo that surfaced from his years as a Reagan administration lawyer was notable for its strong support of the police. Alito wrote that he saw no constitutional problem with a police officer fatally shooting an unarmed teenager who was fleeing after a $10 home burglary. "I think the shooting [in this case] can be justified as reasonable," Alito wrote in a 1984 memo to Justice Department officials. Because the officer could not know for sure why a suspect was fleeing, the courts should not set a rule forbidding the use of deadly force, he said. "I do not think the Constitution provides an answer to the officer's dilemma," Alito advised. A year later, however, the Supreme Court used the same case to set a firm national rule against the routine use of "deadly force" against fleeing suspects who pose no danger. "It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape," wrote Justice Byron White for a 6-3 majority in Tennessee v. Garner. "Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so." The Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government, and the high court said that killing an unarmed suspect who was subject to arrest amounted to an "unreasonable seizure." Alito's 15-page memo was among several hundred pages of Justice Department files that were released this week by the National Archives. Another was a legal analysis in which he laid out a strategy for overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. That memo prompted the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is an abortion rights supporter, to meet again privately with Alito yesterday. Specter said afterward that Alito assured him that he would not allow any personal opposition to abortion to affect his judgment as a justice. Specter said Alito drew a "sharp distinction" between views he expressed 20 years ago as a lawyer in the Reagan administration and the way he has made decisions in his 15 years as a federal judge. The same year he wrote the abortion memo, Alito drafted a legal analysis of the police shooting case. Alito's conservative view in the case of the fleeing teenager matched that of the justice he would replace. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke for the dissenters, saying that shooting a fleeing person is necessary as a "last resort" to prevent an escape. In the 20 years since then, the rule against shooting fleeing suspects who pose no danger has stood largely unchallenged. The Tennessee case began when two Memphis police officers were called at 10:45 p.m. by a woman who said she heard someone breaking into a house next door. When one officer entered the house, he heard a door slam. In the backyard, the officer shined his flashlight on a youth who appeared to be unarmed and who was trying to climb a 6-foot chain link fence to escape. "Police! Halt!" the officer called out. When the youth continued to climb, the officer shot him in the head. Edward Garner, the 15-year old who had tried to flee, died a few hours later. Ten dollars and a purse were found on his body. Tennessee law allowed the police to use "all necessary means" to stop a fleeing suspect. Garner's father sued the city and its police department for violating his son's constitutional rights. A federal judge threw out the complaint. But the U.S. Court of Appeals revived it, ruling it is unconstitutional for officers to use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect unless they believe he "poses a threat to the safety of the officers or a danger to the community." When Tennessee appealed to the Supreme Court, the justices agreed to hear the case. Alito, then a 34-year-old assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, reviewed the case to decide whether the Reagan administration should file a friend-of-the-court brief on Tennessee's side. "In my judgment, the court of appeals' decision is wrong and should be reversed," Alito wrote. Nonetheless, he recommended against U.S. participation in the case because he had learned, to his surprise, that the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies already had firm rules forbidding agents from shooting escaping persons who were not dangerous. David G. Savage writes for the Los Angeles Times.

Reminder: If You Can't Keep It In Your Pants, then WRAP THAT WEASEL!

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 18:49:55 GMT

The Obelisk of Buenos Aires is covered with a giant condom to commemorate World AIDS Day December 1, 2005. According to a report issued by ONUSIDA (UN AIDS), the number of people infected with the HIV virus in Latin America had risen over the last year from 1.6 to 1.8 million. REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian

11 Year Old Conviction Still Hampers Ex-offender

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 17:00:07 GMT

In 1994, amid an American competition for a spot on the figure skating team for the Winter Olympics of that year, Shane Stant was the guy with a makeshift club who whacked Nancy Kerrigan across the knee, ending her bid for that slot. This was part of a plot by Tonya Harding's then-husband to promote his wife to the Olympics in Kerrigan's place. Mr. Stant served 14 months in prison for conspiracy. Released, he has committed no further crimes that the media has felt the need to document in the years since. In fact, Mr. Stant --now a seaman with the United States Navy-- recently applied to the Navy's special forces unit, the SEALs, but was informed that they could not accept anyone with a felony assault conviction on their record. Thus Mr. Stant was in a Portland, Org. courtroom last Thursday (1st, Dec) appealing to have his conviction expunged, and thereby be considered moral enough to engage in US government-sanctioned covert operations in foreign countries. The Multnomah County Circuit Judge Julie Franz, presiding, however, opined that her state's laws do not allow felony-assault level convictions to be taken off the permanent records of ex-cons, and so denied Mr. Stant his request. A letter from Ms. Kerrigan, the original victim of the attack, was read in court that said in part that granting it "would send a message to others that such a crime can be swept under the rug." It's one thing to consider that the State of Oregon's criminal procedure laws clearly bear the mark of pettiness in it's inability to set a limit for when a person stops paying for a less-than capital offense crime. After all, Mr. Stant in this case not only appears to have led a law-abiding life since his release, but the US Navy found him trustworthy enough to where he is entrusted with the full responsibilities of an active-duty seaman. When does he no longer have to expect oppressive reprecussions from his offense? Worse than this is the even more small-minded "Victim Cult" mentality of Ms. Kerrigan's letter. Its irrational premise (that giving Mr. Stant relief from his conviction's burden would constitute a "sweeping under the rug" of the crime in general) is venal to the point of silly. Is Ms. Kerrigan afraid that granting Mr. Stant's request would be the equivalent of transmitting a clarion call to pipe-weilding knee-cappers across the country? Are tall, skinny, brunette Barbies-on-Ice all to fear for the safety of their knees whenever they enter a skating rink? I am firmly convinced that this "Victim Cult" mentality is the most important aspect of the American public's perception of crime, criminals, and restorative justice. If we're ever going to see some reasonable amount of relief for the men and women leaving our prison systems, so that they can successfully re-enter society with the chance to again be contribuing members. the un-spoken "tenet" of this Cult's followers that the perpetrators MUST keep paying for their offense long after they have satisfied the State's sentence needs to be challenged, brought into the light of day. Shown for what it is, and analyzed with the unflinching eye of rational logic, such thinking patterns will wilt away, much like a weed that's been pulled from the soil and left aside to dry up and blow away.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM NEW YORK WHEN...

Lone_Bodhissattva — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:23:04 GMT

You know you're from New York when .... You take the train home and you know exactly where on the platform the doors will open that will leave you right in front of the correct exit stairway. You know what a "regular" coffee is. It’s not Manhattan; it's the "City". You get upset that your cabbie is obeying all the rules of the road. You know that the difference between a "tourist" and an "out-of-towner" is that the tourist at least has come here to spend money, an out-ot-towner is the whole rest of the planet. You’re willing to take in strange people as roommates simply to help pay the rent. There is no north and south, it's either "uptown" or "downtown." You’re SO really from New York that you have absolutely no concept of where north and south are.... and east or west is "crosstown." You cross the street anywhere but on the corners, and you yell at cars for not respecting this fact. You move 8,000 miles away, spend ten years learning the local language, yet people still know you're from Brooklyn the minute you open your mouth. You return to New York after ten years and the first foods you want are a "real" pizza, a "real" bagel, and –gosh-- how you’ve looked forward to ordering a dog off the first hot dog cart you see on the sidewalk. A 500 square foot apartment is large. Your co-worker commutes forty-five minutes by train to a 3,000 square foot house in the suburbs that was the same price as that same 500 square foot apartment of yours that takes only thirty-five minutes to get to, and you think HE's the sucker. You know that off-the-shelf insecticides are just laughing gas to the super roaches’ cohabitating with you in the 500 square foot apartment. You have at least fifty menus in your apartment, and you keep them all handy by your phone, yet two thirds of them you have neither ordered from nor even heard of the restaurant. You get ready to order dinner every night and must choose from the four major food groups which are: Chinese, Italian, Mexican or Indian. You know the differences between all the different Ray's pizza parlors. You are not under the mistaken impression that any human being would be able to actually understand a PA announcement on the subway. Visiting the tree at Rockefella Plaza has nothing to do with any religious holiday, it's a potential pick-up spot for out-of-town hotties! You know who Mr. G. is. You’re not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Your internal clock is permanently set to know when alternate sides of the street parking regulations are in effect. You wouldn't bother ordering pizza in any other city. You know what a ‘bodega’ is, and chortle mercilessly whenever an out-of-towner thinks you’re referring to a ‘bordello.’ You know how to fold the New York Times in half, vertically, so that you can read it on the subway or bus without knocking off other passenger's hats. You turn your nose up at anyone else you catch reading the New York Daily News, but explain that you like their comics when someone catches you with your nose in a copy. You know that the only persons who "read' the New York Post are the movie actors who've had the thing shoved in their hands just before the camera starts rolling --- otherwise, even their comics aren't a good excuse for opening it. Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet. You don't even notice the nice lady walking down the road having a perfectly normal conversation with herself. You pay "only" $230 a month to park your car. You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St., like the city in Texas. A presidential visit is not an honor, just a major traffic jam. Film crews shooting on your block do not excite you (they take up all the parking spaces on the street!) You can nap on the subway and still never miss your stop. The deli guy gives you a straw with any beverage you buy, even if it’s beer. That’s New York, baby! Ya gotta love it.

Tiger In Ireland

Lone_Bodhissattva — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:25:32 GMT

On a golf tour in Ireland, Tiger Woods drives his BMW into a petrol station in a remote part of the Irish countryside. The pump attendant, who obviously knows nothing about golf and is completely unaware of who the golf pro is, greets him in a typical Irish manner with a cheery,"Top o'the mornin to yer, sor." Tiger nods a quick 'hello' and bends forward to pick up the nozzle. As he does so, two tees fall out of his shirt pocket and onto the ground. "What're dose?", asks the attendant. "They're called tees," replies Tiger. "Well, what on God's earth are dey for?" "They're for resting my balls on when I'm driving", says Tiger. "Fookin' Jaysus," exclaims the Irishman with quite awe, "BMW thinks of just about ev'rything, now don'dey?"

Old Prostitutes Find Work in Rural Australia

Lone_Bodhissattva — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:08:32 GMT

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Prostitutes as old as 70 continue to work in rural Australia, pushed out of the cities due to strong competition from younger and more attractive sex workers, the author of a study said on Tuesday. Brothels are legal across most of Australia, but states have strict laws against soliciting and running brothels in residential areas, and near churches or schools. The research, by John Scott of the University of New England, examined prostitution in rural areas of New South Wales state. He found the sex industry has flourished in rural towns, with many prostitutes making regular visits. "I've likened some of them to traveling musicians, in that some of them might be based in metropolitan centers and they go out and travel -- they tour the bush," Scott told Reuters. He said a sex worker might pass through a country town every couple of months, but would advertise in advance and book up appointments. He said sex workers in rural areas tended to be older, and provide more companionship than city sex workers. "In a business that is based on looks and age a lot of the time, it became increasingly hard for workers as they progressed in age," Scott said. "If they had been in the business for 20 or 30 years, as a couple were, they found themselves increasingly working further away from the metropolitan centers." Scott examined ads in rural newspapers and talked to sex workers for his study. He said the oldest sex worker he spoke to was 58 years old, but those interviewed reported working with older women in their 60s and one as old as 70. Scott said rural clients tended to be more polite, and be interested in company as well as sex. "A lot of the time these blokes just want a bit of a cuddle, or to talk," he said.

GW Bush, 21st century Nero, fiddling in Crawford while Washington Burns

Lone_Bodhissattva — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 02:28:23 GMT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee urged President George W. Bush on Sunday to go before the American public to explain his plan for the war in Iraq. Virginia Sen. John Warner told NBC's "Meet the Press," said such a public address would be helpful to hold on to public support during the next six months while Iraq sets up its own government and gains the ability to maintain its security. Bush, who has been out of public sight since he arrived on November 22 at his Crawford, Texas ranch for a Thanksgiving break, has been facing waning support for the war and the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency. "I think it would be to Bush's advantage. It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of the concern that, understandably, our people have about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public," Warner said. "We have got to stay firm for the next six months. It is a critical period ... in this Iraqi situation, to restore full sovereignty in that country. And that enables them to have their own armed forces to maintain that sovereignty," he said. Bush is to speak on immigration in Arizona on Monday and then will return to Washington on Tuesday and give a speech about the war on terror at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis on Wednesday. Anti-war protesters, including Cindy Sheehan whose son died in Iraq last year and who became an icon for the peace movement after her 26-day vigil near Bush's ranch in the summer, gathered in the tiny central Texas town again, although in much smaller numbers. They vowed to come to Crawford every time Bush visits his ranch. Warner was one of the authors of a Senate-passed resolution that called for Iraqis to start taking the lead in their own security next year to allow a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. CRITICAL SIX MONTHS While the Senate rejected a Democrats' demand that Bush submit a plan and an estimated timetable to withdraw, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware said on NBC it would be "virtually impossible" to sustain 150,000 American troops in Iraq for the next two years. Although Biden said he did not believe the Iraq war was lost, he added: "I think we have a six-month window here to get it right. But I have to admit that I think the chances are not a lot better than 50-50." Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar, said on "Fox News Sunday" that more pressure needs to be put on the Iraqis to take responsibility for their security. "But the fact is that we are going to try to train them to perform, and the question is how well they do so, whether they mop up on each other or whether they have a unified country," the Indiana Republican said. Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said the goal was to enable multinational forces to be drawn down to under 100,000 by 2007. "Basically, we want to create the right conditions in the urban areas for the Iraqi security forces to assume the responsibility of security in these cities and towns," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." U.S. defense officials said last week that the Pentagon plans to shrink the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, now at 155,000, to about 138,000 after the December 15 Iraqi elections and is considering dropping the number to 100,000 next summer if conditions allow. However, a variety of scenarios are being reviewed, including no troop cuts, based on political and security conditions in Iraq.

Two Opposing Letters on the Capital Punishment Debate.

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 14:46:38 GMT

Excerpts from the Hartford Courant, Sunday, 27, November, 2005, Editorials Page: "The Courant was squarely on target when it stated that our “General Assembly should abolish the death penalty in Connecticut” and that “public safety would be protected if those on death row were kept behind bars for life without parole” [editorial, Nov. 22. “The 1,000th Execution”]. "I might add that the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release is being carried out in this state’s prison system. There are a number of criminals, convicted of capital felony crimes, who are serving this sentence. The Connecticut Department of Correction protects the public by safely and securely managing the incarceration of human beings committed to its custody, including those convicted of capital felonies. "I believe there is something wrong with any society when an execution of one of its citizens is, by law, planned, timed, witnessed, and carried out with precision. "We should not continue to endorse a law that allows the killing of another human being as a solution. We should not allow the criminal to define our moral fiber and influence our ethical and legal choices. "We citizens and all elected officials of Connecticut should support a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release as a moral, just, and civilized solution and punishment for capital felony crimes." Mary Morgan Wolff Wallingford, Ct (The writer spent 27 years with the state Department of Correction as a volunteer, counselor, deputy warden and warden) ******************* "On Nov. 14 and Nov.25, The Courant ran news stories concerning the impending execution of the 1,000th person to be put to death since reinstatement of the practice in 1977 [“ ’Execution Is Not A Solution’ “; “Nation Nears Grim Landmark: 1,000 Executions Since 1977”]. This infamous date with history is scheduled to occur on Tuesday, Nov. 29. "The Courant and the liberal press never miss an opportunity to exploit this count down clock. They also had a constant drumbeat toward recording the 2,000th soldier to be killed in the fighting in Iraq in the war on terror. "Although it may be helpful to be reminded of the cost of protecting our society from dangerous people from both within and without, The Courant should also run frequent stories about the whole-sale killing of innocent children within our society. I’m referring to the more than 45 million innocent children killed by abortion since the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade. "Liberals continue to get things backward. They’ll protest the execution of convicted murderer, but proclaim that women have the right to kill innocent children by asserting a woman’s right of 'choice.' "At least in the case of convicted murderers, those found guilty of crimes are the ones who are put to death. Even in the case of our military personnel, those whose lives are sacrificed in the war on terror have died protecting freedom and liberty for all of us. "Abortion is the American holocaust. It is time to start a countdown clock to mark the 50 millionth innocent life sacrificed for – I don’t know what. No one has ever given me a satisfactory answer." George Washington (sic) Barkhamsted, Ct (Note from Ed M: first, Mr. Washington is quoted as referring to two “news stories,” more correctly, the first one is an Op/Ed piece, the second one is an actual news story; as for the gentleman’s figure of 45 million children –assuming he means 45 million completed abortions in the US since 1973—I googled it and neither the AMA, Planned Parenthood, CDC, nor any other professional, medical-records keeping organization supports any such fantastical number .... which, fyi, averages out to almost 10,274 abortions each and every day non-stop for twelve years)

Subject: America nears One Thousand Mark in Executions Since 1977, When does Sanity and Humanity Return?

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:57:01 GMT

By this time next week, the US should see an un-pleasant mile marker in its history, for that will be when it executes its 1.000th convicted criminal. This “achievement” should become recorded fact with the death of one of three men. Most probably, it will be on Wednesday, when Robert Lovitt, a 41 year old Virginian convicted of felony murder from a botched 1998 pool hall robbery walks that last mile. The victim in that case died from being stabbed with a pair of scissors. If the very unlikely occurs and Mr. Lovitt‘s appeal earns him some kind of stay, then either Eric Nance, slated to be injected with poison in Arkansas on Monday, or John Hicks, on the docket for death in Ohio Tuesday, be given this grisly “honor.” Currently, 3,400 people are threatened with “death by lethal government” in the 36 US States that still have the death penalty on their books. Since the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision to re-allow capital punishment, 996 people have been had this irrevocable punishment visited upon them. That averages out to one human being snuffed out by official decree once every ten days since Gary Mark Gilmore faced a firing squad in Utah in 1977. Of that overall total, thirty-four percent were black, even though blacks only make up about 12% of the entire population. Today is even more lopsided, with forty-six percent of those sitting on death row now being non-latino black. Latinos also experience this three-to-one disparity in ratio. 118 of today’s number are foreign nationals, whereas in the first three years of the re-application, there were none. It should come as no surprise that the percentage of foreigners has spiked upwards rapidly since 2001 and 9/11 …'.. And, just, fyi, none of the present batch of foreigner-born death house occupants are “white,” either. When looking at a State-by-State breakdown, we can see that 1.450 --or roughly 42%-- of that number are held by only three States: California, Texas, and Florida. If there’s any good news to be gleaned from this twenty-eight year orgy of moral ugliness, there’s the fact that 120 people have been released from death houses over the same period, with thirty-five of these occurring just since 2000 alone. Then, too, both New York and Kansas saw their death penalty laws struck down as unconstitutional in 2004, and the momentum to re-instate these laws seems to have drained away from the general public in each State. As well, there’s been a significant drop in the number executed in just the past five years: from a high of 96 in 1999, to 59 in 2004. However, the statistical trend still predicts that within the next two years, ending in the thirtieth anniversary of the death penalty in America, some 200 more people will be killed in the name of THE STATE. I’d like to read of how other members of tribe take action to protest this, any suggestions and/or ideas you might have that I and the rest of us could use in our attempts to get our local authorities and public see the errors and uselessness of State-sanctioned bloodletting. Simply post them here, if you would.

An Important Health Alert Warning

Lone_Bodhissattva — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 03:29:39 GMT

From Dr. A Physician: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, recently issued a warning about a new virulent strain of sexually transmitted disease. This disease, which is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior, is called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "gonna re-elect him"). Many victims, after having been exposed to it for the past 4 years, contracted it again in 2004 in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease. Cognitive sequelae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include, but are not limited to: > Anti-social personality disorder traits; > Delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor; > Chronic mangling of the English language; > Exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado; > Uncontrolled facial smirking; > Ignorance of geography and history; > Tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; > And a strong propensity for categorical, all-or-nothing behavior. The only good news so far is that this disease is apparently localized to certain geographic Zones in the continental US and its territories (designated on maps as "red States), and Washington,DC. Naturalists and epidemiologists are still amazed and more than a little baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago from a lowly, obscure species of bush located in central Texas.

Subject: Seven Dwarfs Meet the New Pope

Lone_Bodhissattva — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 21:38:32 GMT

The seven dwarfs go to the Vatican, and because they are THE seven dwarfs, they are ushered in to see the Pope. Dopey leads the pack. "Dopey, my son," says the Pope, "what can I do for you?" Dopey asks, "Excuse me your Excellency, but are there any dwarf nuns in Rome?" The Pope wrinkles his brow at the odd question, thinks for a moment and answers, "No Dopey, there are no dwarf nuns in Rome." In the background a few of the dwarfs start giggling. Dopey turns around and gives them a glare, silencing them. Dopey turns back, "Your Worship, are there any dwarf nuns in all of Europe?" The Pope, puzzled now, again thinks for a moment and then answers, "No, Dopey, there are no dwarf nuns in Europe." This time, all of the other dwarfs burst into laughter. Once again, Dopey turns around and silences them, with an angry glare. Dopey turns back and says, "Mr. Pope! Are there ANY dwarf nuns anywhere in the world?" "I'm sorry, my son, but there are no dwarf nuns anywhere in the world." The other dwarfs collapse into a heap, rolling and laughing, pounding the floor, tears rolling down their cheeks, as they begin chanting, "Dopey screwed a penguin, Dopey screwed a penguin!"......

She was SO blonde..., part one

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 15:59:07 GMT

Here are all of my favorite dumb blonde jokes. Make sure to tell them to all of your coworkers. Don't worry, the blondes won't take offense. We don't get them anyway (yeah, that's right, I was blonde once; fortunately for me, I grew out of it). How do you spell blonde, anyway? How are a turtle and a blonde alike? They both have a very hard time getting up off their backs. What happened to the dumb blonde who bought a vibrator? She knocked all her teeth out. What do you call blondes in a swimming pool? Air Bubbles. How do you kill a blonde? You place a mirror face-up in the deep end of a pool. How can you tell when a blonde has been using the computer? There's white-out all over the screen. A blonde and a brunette were walking through the forest. The brunette sighs, "Oh look at the poor little dead bird." The blonde looks to the sky and asks, "Where, where?" Why couldn't the blonde terrorist blow up the car? Her lips wouldn't fit around the exhaust pipe. Why did the blonde have a sore belly button? She had a blonde boyfriend. Two blondes were walking through a forest. They stopped to look at a pair of tracks. The first blonde thought they were deer tracks, but the other one was positive they were moose tracks. They were still arguing when the train hit them. A dumb blonde, a smart blonde, and the Easter Bunny are in a bar. The bartender drops a dollar. Who picks it up? The dumb blonde, because the Easter Bunny and the smart blonde don't exist. Three blondes were driving down to Disney World they passed a sign that said "DISNEY WORLD LEFT" .... so they turned around and went home. How do you make a dumb blonde laugh on Monday? Tell her a joke on the previous Friday. How do you define "eternity" with a dumb blonde? The time between when you arrive and she finally leaves. What is a dumb blonde's favorite sexual position? Facing the mirror. What do you call five blondes standing side by side? A wind tunnel. What do you get when you put dumb blondes in the freezer? Frosted Flakes. What do you call a blonde who dyes her hair brown? Artificial Intelligence. What do you call a blonde with dark roots? Gifted. What do peroxide blondes and black men have in common? They both have dark roots. Why does NASA hire peroxide blondes? They're doing research on Black Holes. What do you call a blonde with a dollar bill on her head? "All you can eat for a buck." Why is a blonde like a hardware store? They are both ten cents a screw. What is a blonde's favorite nursery rhyme? "Hump-em, Dump-me." What did the blonde's right leg say to the left leg? Nothing, they've never met. What's the mating call of the blonde? "I'm SOOOOO drunk!" Why do blondes wear hoop earrings? They have to have SOME place to rest their ankles. What do you say to a blonde who won't give in? "Have another beer." What's the difference between a blonde and a Porsche? You don't lead the Porsche out to your friends. What's the difference between a blonde and the Titanic? They know how many men went down on the Titanic. What do you call two nuns and a blonde? Two tight ends and a wide receiver. Why did the blonde wear a condom over each ear? So she wouldn't catch hearing aids. What do blondes do after they comb their hair? They pull up their pants. Why is it good to have a blonde passenger? You can park in the handicap zone. Why was the blonde upset when she got her driver's license? Because she saw that they gave her an "F" in the category of "Sex." Why did the blonde die in a helicopter crash? She got cold and turned off the fan. Why did the blonde have square tits? Because she forgot to take the tissues out of the boxes. What does a blonde and a beer bottle have in common? They're both empty from the neck up. What's the difference between a blonde and a mosquito? The mosquito stops sucking after you smack it. Why did the dumb blonde tiptoe past the medicine cabinet? She didn't want to wake the sleeping pills. She was SO blonde that .... ...she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice box because it said "concentrate". ...at the bottom of the application where it says "sign here" ... she wrote "Sagittarius". ...she put lipstick on her forehead because she wanted to make up her mind. ...under "education" on her job application, she put "Hooked On Phonics". ...she told me to meet her at the corner of "WALK" and "DON'T WALK". ...she tried to put her pack of M&M's in alphabetical order. ...she got locked in a grocery store and starved to death. ...if she spoke her mind, she'd probably be speechless. ...she took a ruler to bed to see how long she slept. ...she thought TuPac Shakur was a Jewish holiday. ...she thought Boyz II Men was a daycare center. ...she sat on the TV and watched the couch. ...she studied for a blood test ...and failed. ...she thought a quarterback was a refund. ...she sent me a fax with a stamp on it. ...she tripped over a cordless phone. ...she sold the car for gas money. ...she tried to drown a fish. ...and when she heard that 90% of all crimes occur around the home, she promptly sold the house and moved.

MARTHA AND HERMAN

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:59:11 GMT

Martha recently lost her husband after a long illness. She had him cremated and brought his ashes home with her. Picking up the urn a day or two later, she poured him out on the patio table one idle afternoon when the wind was up. Then, while tracing her fingers in the ashes, she started talking to him. "Herman, you remember that fur coat you promised to buy for me? Well, I bought it with part of the insurance money I got from your policy." She paused for a moment, still tracing her fingers through the ashes, then said, "Herman, do you recall that new car you also promised me? Well, I bought it with the insurance money, too." Again, she grew quiet for a few moments more while still playing her fingers through his remains, then quietly said, "And, Hermie, that emerald necklace you swore you'd give me? Bought that with the insurance money, as well." Finally, with one more trailing of her fingers along the glass surface, she murmured, "And Herman, remember that blow job I promised you? Here it comes now!"

LET ME EXPRESS THANKS TO ALL MY E-MAILERS

Lone_Bodhissattva — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:38:17 GMT

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat crap in the glue on envelopes because I now have to get a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl(Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital (for the 1,387,258th time). I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program. I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish. I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers. I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains. I no longer can buy gasoline without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas. I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans. I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer. And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face ... disfiguring me for life. I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS. I want to thank you who have taken the time and trouble to send me your chain letters over the past 12 months. Thank you for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy. I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise. I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army. I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan. I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike. I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe. Yes, I want to thank you so much for looking out for me that I will now return the favor! Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt. Thank you too for all the endless advice Andy Rooney has given us. I can live a better life now because he's told us how to fix everything. And thanks for always correcting me with "gotchas" from "Snopes" who knows it all. Thanks to you, I am totally in the know. And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 I dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician... Have a wonderful day....IF YOU CAN!

Brian and His Mother

Lone_Bodhissattva — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 04:09:37 GMT

Brian Hester invited his mother over for dinner. During the course of the meal, Brian's mother couldn't help but keep noticing how beautiful was Brian's roommate, Stephanie. Mrs. Hester had long been suspicious of a sexual relationship between Brian and Stephanie, and this had only made her more curious than she had been before. Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, Mrs. Hester started to wonder if there was more between Brian and Stephanie than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Brian volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, mother, but I assure you Stephanie and I are just roommates, nothing more." Mrs. Hester just said "Hmmm," to that, then excused herself to go to the bathroom. About a week later, Stephanie came to Brian saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you?" Brian said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll send her an e-mail just to be sure." So he sat down and wrote: Dear Mother: I'm not saying that you "did" take the gravy ladle from the house, I'm not saying that you "did not" take the gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love, Brian Several days later, Brian received a letter from his mother that read: Dear Son: I'm not saying that you "do" sleep with Stephanie, and I'm not saying that you "do not" sleep with Stephanie. But the fact re- mains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now . Love, Mom LESSON OF THE DAY... NEVER LIE TO YOUR MOTHER!

Would You Remarry?

Lone_Bodhissattva — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:06:16 GMT

A husband and wife are sitting quietly in bed one evening reading when the wife sets her magazine face down on her lap, looks over at him, and asks the question: "What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?" HUSBAND: "Definitely not!" WIFE: "Why not? Don't you like being married?" HUSBAND: "Of course I do." WIFE: "Then why wouldn't you remarry?" HUSBAND: "Okay, okay, I'd get married again." WIFE (with a hurt look): "You would?" HUSBAND: (makes audible groan) WIFE: "Would you live in our house?" HUSBAND: "Sure, it's a great house." WIFE: "Would you sleep with her in our bed?" HUSBAND: "Where else would we sleep?" WIFE: "Would you let her drive my car?" HUSBAND: "Probably, it is almost new, after all." WIFE: "Would you replace my pictures with hers?" HUSBAND: "That would seem like the proper thing to do after a time." WIFE: "Would you give her my jewellery?" HUSBAND: "No, I'm sure she'd want her own." WIFE: "Would she use my golf clubs?" HUSBAND: "No, she's left-handed." WIFE: -- (longsilence) -- HUSBAND: "Oh, ...., shit."

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, a modern parable

Lone_Bodhissattva — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 14:39:41 GMT

A man was walking down the street one day when he was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless man who then asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner. The man took out his wallet, extracted ten dollars, held up between two fingers, and asked, "If I give you this money, will you buy some beer with it instead of dinner?" "No, I had to stop drinking years ago 'cause of how bad it affected my health," the homeless man replied. "Will you use it to go fishing instead of buying food?," the man asked. "No, I don't waste time fishing," the homeless man said, "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive." "Will you spend this on greens fees at a golf course instead of food?," the man asked. "Are you NUTS?!," exclaimed the homeless man, "I haven't played golf in 20 years!" "Will you spend the money on a woman in the red light district instead of food?," the man asked. "What disease would I get for ten lousy bucks?," exclaimed the homeless man. "Well, then," said the man decisively, "I'm going to give you the money, but only after you have done something for me. I'm going to take you home for a terrific dinner cooked by my wife." The homeless man was astounded, stating, "Won't your wife be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting." The man replied serenely, "That's okay. It's important for her to see what a man looks like after he has given up beer, fishing, golf,and sex."