Blather, rinse, repeat

Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. The more users at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down.

And a few more helpful tips, if you want to help out Iranians.

Well, in other news, I am home tonight because A) I was running superfly late as it was, and then just as I was going to do my last round of bird feeding before I left, my grackle (the one with the cut up face) fell off his perch and started doing the death-huddle in the corner of his cage. He had never feathered well and never wanted to eat on his own, but I still thought he'd be okay. He ended up having worms (even though I wormed him so many times) and he just couldn't shake them. (For worming, I have started using cayenne pepper, because my panacure was way past its date.) I tried force-feeding him, but he only lived for about an hour after that and then he died in my hand. I felt so bad; he was my favorite of the batch this year.

So anyway I had to clean everything, disinfect all his bowls, change the paper towels under the cages (it's pretty clean usually so I don't have to change them every day,) etc. I hate missing Kung Fu. Damn.

Today I was studying for the myo written midterm tomorrow, when I got a call from emergency about another bird.. I put my books down and went to pick him up. It's a pissed off fledgling catbird (i LOVE them,) with an eye infection. I actually think he might be blind in that one eye, or maybe he just doesn't see very well. Hard to say at this point.

Here's something that's a huge bitch. So as I've whined about for weeks, my old hard drive is dead and I lost a bunch of stuff, including the new TBS album and some songs I'd downloaded. They were on my iPod though, but as anyone knows, you can't upload songs FROM your iPod TO your computer. Uhh, yeah. So I had also gotten the iPod touch for free, so last night after school I spent most of the night ripping a ton of CDs, old and new, and I also re-purchased the album and the songs that I had lost. ITunes kept saying, "You already bought this, you know. You sure you wanna buy it again?" and I'm like, "YES, DICK, BECAUSE IT IS GONE." I synced the Touch and then I plugged in the nano to sync and charge it as well.

You could imagine my surprise when iTunes said to me, "Oh hey, you have a bunch of songs on this iPod; do you want to put them into your computer?" I stared at it for about fifteen minutes.

EFF. But at least I did get that one Faye Wong song back that I couldn't find again.

*sigh*, I hate missing Kung Fu.

Well, I guess I could study some more (I never did finish reviewing my facial muscles; although hopefully by now I can tell the difference between levitator labii superior and levitator anguli oris etc.,) and then continue to try to sync Mac Daddy with, you know, my life. It's amazing how much I rely on a hard drive and the things on it. It's amazing how in the, what, thirteen years since I've had a computer, have changed the way I document things.

And I hate Mac's writing program and this VMFusion thing is wack. Do I need to put Windows in here first? I dunno, nobody told me this! It's confusing.

I'll start, I guess, with the politics, although I don't think this goes under "politics" as much as "human rights" or something more along those lines.

I see a lot of people criticizing Obama for not taking a stronger stance on the situation in Iran. (And that whole thing has still been on my mind all day, as I go about my priviledged life with a president that I helped choose.) In a way, I agree and part of me would love to see him stand up and say how wrong this all is, you know, power to the people, really take a stand!

But on the other hand, part of me appreciates the fact that he's not pulling the usual, chest-beating, self-aggrandizing "The USA must take this country in hand and school it on how to do things like the way WE do" nonsense that always annoyed me. I'm really torn on this. What's going on is so wrong, it would be awesome of him to acknowledge it in some really strong words. But on the other hand, what can he do? Or what can any of us do aside from watch?

I dunno.

So that's my mana'o on that. Now back to my priviledged life, where my vote counts and no one shoots me in the chest for standing there.

Kung Fu tonight was great, with Gold Dragon leading the first class in a pad-drill with one of those knock-out ending strikes designed to take the other guys' face off. I'm all bruised and my arms are shaky. I got paired with Otaku-chan, a young 16, and everyone knows that if you're going to get accidentally hurt, it's going to be by someone young, or someone new. But, he did a good job. He's come a long way. In blackbelt, we did a drill that had everyone withering by the end of the class. It was a great drill, led by the Empress. Also, it was about 85 degrees in the kwon, and wet. It's cool outside (hi, summer? Anytime, please!) but hot as hell in there. By the end of the class, Mellow Homeboy (he used to live here, but moved away to FL and comes up for a few weeks every spring,) grabbed the front of his shirt, twisted it, and wrung more sweat out of it than you'd've thought likely.

So as we are leaving tonight, it's me and Empress in my car leaving first, and Gold Dragon and Mellow Homeboy in Gold Dragon's car right behind us. I'm getting ready to pull out of the parking lot and I see Otaku-chan sitting on one of these posts by the highway (where the nearby Chinese restaurant has these big lion statues out there.) And crossing the street in front of me, and going over to where Otaku-chan is sitting (waiting for his Mom to pick up up,) there's this homeless man with a shopping cart. Old guy, stooped over, with an unlit cigarette in his hand. Epmress and I look at each other with similar looks of "I feel sympathy but what are we gonna do, jump out of the car and offer him money?" What if he wasn't really homeless, or he would have been offended or something?

Anyway, the guy goes directly up to Otaku-chan and I say to the Empress, "Okay, this is getting weird; I'm going to stick the car in park, roll down the window and keep an eye out. Of Gold Dragon wants to go around me or leave by the other exit, he can." And I see Gold Dragon back up his car and pull away like he's going to use the other exit. Meanwhile I'm watching Otaku-chan talk to this guy, who shook his hand, and Otaku-chan looked a little bit out of his element.

Then Gold Dragon yells, "Otaku-chan!" (Only he uses his real name.) "Come over here and get in the car." Which he does.

The old guy turns around and finally sees me and I beckon him over. He comes over and I ask him, "What's up, what did you want with that kid?"

He goes, "Can you spare a dollar or two?"

So I tell him, "Yeah, sure," and I give him two bucks from my change purse, figuring, well, okay so that was harmless. (A lot of people say you shouldn't give money to homeless people, because they might spend it on an addiction [which assumes that all or most homeless people are addicts--not true,] but instead you should give them food or drink. Well, A) I don't happen to have that stuff on me, and B) gosh, what if he wants to pick out his own food? What if it was me, walking around with a shopping cart feeling hungry, and all I wanted was a 99 cent burger and a soda or something?)

Then he leans around me and looks at the Empress and goes, "And what about you?"

OMG, the kid doesn't even carry a purse. I'm like, "She doesn't have anything; I'm just driving her home."

And the guy goes. "Well... Okay. But do you two want to come and drink with me? Or maybe smoke with me?"

Umm, yeah, lemme just park my car, and then take the sixteen year old kid with me to a bar somewhere with a stranger so that we can drink and smoke together. WTH? Obviously I told him, "No thanks," and I really begin to think that I want the kids to wait for their parents indoors with the other people, (there's a class after ours,) like they used to in the winter time. Which is kind of a shame, because they do like to sit outside by the lion statues and act all cool in their black Kung Fu clothes. And I don't blame them either. ^_^

Oh, just as I was typing this, my good friend in Seattle called up to ask some questions about an injured baby crow. We got to talking, and evidentally she is coming back to the east coast! WOW! She said, "You know, I've been here for nine years...." and I spent about five minutes gibbering about, "No, stop lying, it is NOT nine years; I remember the day you moved, seriously that was only about five years ago, shut up, there's no way it was nine years..."

IN A BLINK.

To quote Beavis: "Time sucks."

Anyway I have to get up at ass o'clock tomorrow for A&P2 (the douchepocalypse,) and then the eastern nutrition midterm tomorrow afternoon. Laki maika'i!

Woman Gives Birth Under Torture: Homeland Security Hell

Read all about how this woman was chained to a bed during labor because she didn't have her paperwork.

The "surveillance" bill passed. This means that now, anyone can be wiretapped without warrant.

Just thought you guys should know. And bear in mind that the "terror amendment" that made it so that anyone who interferes with or supports the interference of any animal business--meaning even so much as speaking out against fur, cosmetics labs, slaughterhouses etc.--is a terrorist.

Do you see where this country is headed without brakes?

I totally owe this journal a huge update about birthdays, birds, the awesome hot weather, and getting sucked back into my most beloved fandom but, well, I've been sucked back into my most beloved fandom so the update is gonna have to wait. ;)

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

That really brightens an already bright day!

This does NOT: Bush's irretrievably stupid, chest-beating, unilateral fear-mongering. Check out the smackdown though, it's awesome.

What Bush has to say: "Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States. The biggest issue we face is, it's bigger than Iraq, it's this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives."

I know that the whole "pot meet kettle" thins is overused and all but other than that, I'm speechless. He's such a goddamn pot. And let's not forget that he no longer plays golf because of the Iraq war! Wow, which is monumental when compared to the thousands upon thousands of people who no longer play anything because of the war.


I'll tell you what else is fantastic: knowing that the people who made a truly, epically scumtastic move recently are scrambling around like mad ants trying (and wretchedly failing,) to replace what they lost. Heehee, you just keep on covering, now. I think it's awesome. But perhaps that's mean of me and I should reserve my joy for less vindictive things.

The odd thing is that everyone I've told about what happened, their reactions have been, across the board: "Congratulations. I always thought you were too good for that anyway." It's been very eye opening.

The other thing I've been hearing from everyone and their ancestor is, "stop trying to save the world." Everyone has told me that, from friends, to my lawyer (he said that the only thing I had done wrong was to take too much responsibility for others' welfare and assume that people would have my back; he said, "You try to lead people to the top of the hill, and when you look behind you you find that you're fighting alone,") to my parents. My Dad said something to me in the car on the way back from the lawyer's that damn near made me cry. He said he was thinking of The Man of La Mancha and had been changing the lyrics in his head to "she" instead of "he" and then he said that he wanted to send me an email saying "You're a hero." It was seriously all I could do to keep from crying. 'Cause my Dad is the same way, very quixotic and always opening his big mouth when he thinks that something is wrong. He has always been very charismatic and I try to borrow that trait from him, especially in situations like these.

Today I went to pick up a grackle who is an old friend of mine; her name is Car. She's in the aviary now getting used to things. After that I thought about going out shopping for a video game, but upon seeing that it's going to rain for the next four days decided to plant all of my plants instead. It was really warm out for once and I didn't have to wear a sweater. I was out for a good two hours just gardening and working in the yard under the sun. It looks breathtaking out there. I got this azalea that I've never seen before. I'm not wild about azaleas but this one is orange and looks like a hibiscus. Its leaves look tropical, too, it's just scrumptious.

My mock oranges are blossoming for the first time ever. ^_^

Then I talked for a long time on the phone to one of my (true) friends and that felt great. I also ordered two scents from BPAL, which I haven't done in years: Hi'iaka and Schrodinger's Cat. Come on, how could I not? :D

Other than that I can't honestly explain the joy that I'm feeling today other than to say it's like something that has been rotting for a long time is gone. I wake up in the mornings and I feel such relief. Then I hear the things that are going on where I no longer have to be, and then I feel ridiculously vindicated and evilly happy. I must be a very wicked person. Am I? :)

Hey, have you guys seen that video of my faaaaavorite right wing psycho Bill O'Reilly totally losing his crap from about twenty years ago? Check it out: ( it's here under the cut. )

I think that says it all, don't you? What a goddamn nut! It's usually these god-fearing "charitable" people who end up getting caught, you know? Doing phone sex or in some other cases, touching people inappropriately. AMIRITE?

Anyways, for dinner I ate some stir fry veggies that I made and wishing I had some rice to put in with it. I made them much better than last time when I let them get all soggy. A little salty but NOM NOM, still good.

Okay, so of course I have some pics to share from Mother's Day and the week before.

( Boychild under my tree. )

( Me with the Ninja Wizards - Warning, cruelty to animals! )

( Two random ones of me, one in my living room at night and the other showing bruises from Kung Fu: )

( Two really cute ones of my Dad and Boychild from Mother's Day: )

( Three Moms - my Mom, Gran, and cousin Chrissie by my apple tree: )

Hope you are all having equally fantastic times. ^_^

I'm blog-spamming today; sorry about that. But I just got a link to this site from a forum I frequent and I wanted to share it. I wish everyone would take a look at it.

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007.

I'll just quote the headers to each of them; I know that some of them will mean something to pretty much everyone on my f-list. Some of these I knew about and tried to follow, but many of them were a huge shock to me.


#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran (Halliburton is DIck Cheney's company, for those who might not know. This is one of the ones I actually knew about and tried to keep up with.)

#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger (We're really feeling this everywhere, whether we know it or not. Call me a tree-hugger hippie or whatever, but this is all holistic. You have to know that.)

#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo (This is a new one on me. Holy crap. A short summary: The world’s most neglected emergency, according to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, is the ongoing tragedy of the Congo, where six to seven million have died since 1996 as a consequence of invasions and wars sponsored by western powers trying to gain control of the region’s mineral wealth. At stake is control of natural resources that are sought by U.S. corporations—diamonds, tin, copper, gold, and more significantly, coltan and niobium, two minerals necessary for production of cell phones and other high-tech electronics; and cobalt, an element essential to nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries.)

#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy (pecial Counsel Scott Bloch, appointed by President Bush in 2004, is overseeing the virtual elimination of federal whistleblower rights in the U.S. government. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency that is supposed to protect federal employees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse is dismissing hundreds of cases while advancing almost none.)

# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq (Not a huge shock though, is it?)

#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act (Also not a huge surprise, though it doesn't make me any less angry.)

#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall (I'd heard references to this but didn't know what it was about. Well, now I do.)

#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians (You don't say?)

#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed (Good to know. I try to keep to small, organic companies for produce anyway, but now I know to be more aware.)

#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines (The Bush administration plans to resume production of antipersonnel landmine systems in a move that is at odds with both the international community and previous U.S. policy, according to the leading human rights organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW).)

#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup (Roundup the weed killer, that is. A HUGE problem for me: people with perfect lawns and gardens. Plant a garden, weed by hand, fertilize organically. It's not rocket science.)

#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US (Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced on January 24, 2006 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps in the United States.)

#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) research program is increasingly relying on corporate joint ventures, according to agency documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The American Chemical Council (ACC) is now EPA’s leading research partner and the EPA is diverting funds from basic health and environmental research towards research that addresses regulatory concerns of corporate funders. Since the beginning of Bush’s first term in office, there has been a significant increase in cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) with individual corporations or industry associations. During Bush’s first four years EPA entered into fifty-seven corporate CRADAs, compared to thirty-four such agreements during Clinton’s second term.

#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court

#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda (Ya think?)

#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story (In debunking the official explanation of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, Jones cites the complete, rapid, and symmetrical collapse of the buildings; the horizontal explosions (squibs) evidenced in films of the collapses; the fact that the antenna dropped first in the North Tower, suggesting the use of explosives in the core columns; and the large pools of molten metal observed in the basement areas of both towers. I'd like to quote this whole thing, but I won't. Just read if for yourselves. Get whatever you get out of it. I'm going to find it harder to sleep, though.)

#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever

#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem (This is news to me, as I live on bottled water. “There is no question that clean, affordable drinking water is essential to the health of our global community,” Arnold asserts, “But bottled water is not the answer in the developed world, nor does it solve problems for the 1.1 billion people who lack a secure water supply. Improving and expanding existing water treatment and sanitation systems is more likely to provide safe and sustainable sources of water over the long term.” But until then?)

#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers (Shoots, and I wear a gold necklace. O_o )

#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed (Huh, I guess a lot of it goes towards fingerprinting prospective adoptive parents who have already been fingerprinted, to the tune of almost a thousand dollars. Ne'mind, don't ask.)

#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe (Lobbyists funded by the U.S. oil industry have launched a campaign in Europe aimed at derailing efforts to tackle greenhouse gas pollution and climate change.)

#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year (Tired of hearing about Halliburton yet?)

#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region (Gosh, isn't it, like, bad to say things about the military that don't contain the words "support" and "troops"?)

And in the same vein, lookie here: a handy-dandy COMPANIES TO BOYCOTT list. USE AT YOUR OWN DESCRETION. (Shoots, man, MICROSOFT? I guess my next computer will be Apple, then.)

EDIT: This is now a meme. ^_^

Actually, faire_damsel has inspired me. See? She's good for something once in a while.

Instead of people throwing their spare cash at someone who drinks Starbucks all the time and fills her life with frilly pink things, how about we all give to, or promote some true charities.

Rose "Chief Grand Cherokee" has made a mockery of Native America and the horror of rape. (How ROMANTIC that her ancestors were INJUNS who stole a White Woman and raped her till she fell in love with them!) With Winter Rose and all of the other privileged wannabes who think that buying a dreamcather makes you "spiritual" in mind, how about the Adopt an Elder program. This is one that I'll be doing.

Winter Rose has also said that she thinks it would be romantic for her to get tuberculosis. Yeah? Ask the people who have it, you dumb bint. Instead of giving spare cash to this moron who thinks that suffering is pretty and cute, why not use it instead for the people who truly do suffer from it: donate to TB alert.

Winter Rose goes on at length about her hair color and the makeup she uses and the "prettiful" cosmetics that--yes, I actually had this "conversation" with her once--are most often tested on animals. So instead of giving that money to this whiney bint so she can go and be a fool in Ireland, why not shell out to the Humane Society. I give to this one when I can, too. (Incidentally, there is an alert on there that Ben and Jerry's uses eggs from caged hens for their ice cream. DRAT! You all know how I love my Ben and Jerry's! But now, no more Karmel Sutra or Phish Food for me until this practice ends. >_> )

Not that this has necessarily anything to do with Rose--other than she probably doesn't care about stuff like this--but the Multiple Myeloma charity is one that is dear to me.

Duh, how could I forget LIFEbeat. This is the charity that 30STM is sponsering in that concert I'm going to next week. I might not have heard of this one if not for them. A bunch of us who are going to the show are each going to make an extra donation (all ticket sales go to this charity also) in the name of the band. Keep in mind, though, LIFEbeat is controversial.

Those are just my personal favorites. Here is a Charity Navigator so that, no matter which cuase you choose to support or further--and I'm sure you've all got a ton of your own outside of the ones I linked--you can see where your money is going. There are countless others: food for the homeless, people who lost their livelihoods in the Katrina Flood, the war, all of these other things that people like Winter Rose, whose shameless begging is just "But I want to go to IIIIIIIIreland!!!!!" need never think about. Guess what? I want to go to Ireland, too. I want to bring my Gran there, because she's always wanted to visit the county where her father was born. Maybe someday we will both get to go, if I put some money away instead of, you know, buying Ben and Jerry's every few weeks. But until then, damned if I will beg, or even ask anyone to make that dream come true for me.

Rose has got me angry this time. But instead of dwelling on it, I want to turn it into something good. Rose will never allow a comment like this in her LJ, but please, if anyone out there knows anyone on her f-list that is thinking about sending her their money, please tell them these things. Try to tell them that, even though they can do whatever they want with their spare change, how much better it would be to give it to someone who needs it. Rose will never understand this, and comments like this would never be allowed. But I'm sure soemone out there knows someone who knows her. Spread the word.

So this is now a Charity Meme. (Rose would call it a "MeMe", how typical of her. But hey, guess what? These charites have nothing to do with HerHer! ;D ) If you like the idea, then on your own LJ, respond with some links to your favorite charites. Maybe we could get a chain going and we could all learn about charities and causes of which we were previously unaware.