God Bless America...and Canada for that matter

John McCain, if elected, may not live long enough to fill out a second term, leaving Sarah Palin as president (!). Yet, Palin suggests that Joe Biden might be too old for the job...
McCain stresses the importance of "ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances."
Hope Chavez knows Venezuela is in the Middle East...

What about the prudent Canadian PM Stephen Harper?
Trying to paint himself a moderate is hard case to make when you get caught plagiarizing an Iraq speech from war-driven Australian PM John Howard.

Divisionist

Giovanni Segantini "The Bad Mothers"

Cultural Diversity

About 250,000 women in the Southern India states of Karnataka and Maharashtra are self-described "elite" sex workers whose impoverished, or devoutly pious, parents "dedicated" them as children to the Hindu goddess Yellamma. Despite the state's outlawing the practice in 1982, the women's fate as "devadasis" remains an attractive alternative to ordinary marriage (which would usually be to poor and abusive men) and provides a degree of status, in that they dress nicely and can inherit family property, while street prostitutes cannot.

Christopher Sullivan, 43, was arrested in Oshkosh, Wisconsine, as the person who allegedly sent his upstairs neighbors threatening packages, including a Polaroid photo of three naked Barbie dolls with their heads cut off. He told police he was angry that the couple were too loud when they had sex.

Edgar Winter Band

Democracy at its best

The two states whose electoral votes decided the presidential races in 2000 (Florida) and 2004 (Ohio) are provoking anxiety this time around as well. In Palm Beach County, Fla. (home of the "butterfly ballot" in 2000), 3,478 optical-scan votes disappeared between primary-night counting on Aug. 26 and the official recount a few days later (flipping the outcome of at least one race).
Ohio officials claimed that they had fixed a software-logic tabulating error in Premier Election Systems machines used in some counties (but, according to a spokesman for Premier, a company formerly known as Diebold, that error had been present for the last 10 years).
The Ohio secretary of state ordered election officials to end the practice of taking voting machines home at night during election season "for safekeeping," even though such "sleepovers" had been encouraged in order to protect the machines from tampering.)

Oh, my...

The Rape of Europa

In a journey through seven countries, The Rape of Europa documentary takes the audience into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe . For twelve long years, failed Austrian artist Adolf Hitler and the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in history. But young art professionals as well as ordinary heroes, from truck drivers to department store clerks, fought back with an extraordinary effort to safeguard, rescue and return the millions of lost, hidden and stolen treasures.
The Nazis stole one-fifth of all the known artworks in Europe. Many of the displaced art in the decade following the war was recovered, but much of the loot is still missing. Tragically, unique masterpieces were destroyed and lost to posterity forever. Other works of art—the last, forgotten victims of the war—survived but remain unidentified, traceable only with costly and difficult investigation.

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Richard Wright R.I.P.

This is turning into posthumous page... What's going on?

EX-YU: Amila

Gift from Above

Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, a Muslim preacher in the western Nigerian state of Niger, told a BBC reporter in August that, although he personally has 86 wives (and 170 children), other men could not handle that many. "(M)y own power is given by Allah," he said. "That is why I have been able to control 86 of them." The usual maximum for Muslims is four, but Bello Abubakar said the Quran does not specify punishment for violation. Besides, he said, "I don't go looking for (women). They come to me" because of his reputation as a healer. (Two weeks later, Reuters reported that local clerics were pressuring Bello Abubakar to divorce 82 wives of his choice, but a spokesman for the preacher said he was resisting.)

EX-YU: Dino Dvornik R.I.P.

Olympic Quotes

Some comments made by NBC sports commentators during the Summer Olympics they probably like to take back:

1. Weight-lifting commentator: "This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing."

2. Dressage commentator: "This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother."

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father."

4. Boxing Analyst: "Sure there have been injuries and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious."

5. Softball announcer: "If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again. In fact you can see it all over their faces."

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: "Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew."

8. Soccer commentator: "Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field."

9. Tennis commentator: "One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh, my God, what have I just said?"

Believers

Rocky Twyman of Washington, D.C., started Pray at the Pump, a brief, scattered national campaign in June to urge prayer to bring down gas prices. A colleague in St. Louis claimed his prayer sessions caused the price drop in July, pointing to his use of the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" (and his new verse, "We'll have lower gas prices")!!!!!

Salinas, Calif., Mayor Dennis Donohue, frustrated at this year's dramatic surge in gang violence, kicked off a campaign to urge a citywide fast, which he said was a proven technique in achieving social justice!!!!!

Spanish Art

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University presents the exhibition, El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III, made for this Spanish court four centuries ago. The show will also introduce great unknown masters of painting and sculpture. The exhibition includes 52 master paintings, including seven late works by El Greco and three early works by Velázquez, monumental altar pieces, life-sized portraits, some of the earliest still-life paintings in Europe, full-length carved and painted wooden sculptures of Spanish saints and more than 50 pieces of period glass and ceramics.

Here's Juan Sánchez Cotán, "Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber"



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Can't touch this

Because of his search for evidence on the existence of UFOs, 40-year-old Briton hacker Gary McKinnon is in trouble, awaiting extradition to the USA from his London home. He had raided official NASA site and is facing a 70-year prison sentence.
Gary claims he saw photos of alien space crafts on NASA`s site. He says he was inspired for his action by Hugh Cornwall`s Guide for Hackers and his main interest are secrets of the American government on alien space crafts and high technology. He claims he has found documents recording 400 testimonies of unidentified flying objects.
Flight controllers and persons in charge of controlling nuclear missiles wrote down their unusual encounters with UFOs. Witnesses spoke of up to date technology which they took over from UFOs or destroyed it. NASA is in possession of a large amount of photos and processed and unprocessed documents. When asked if this was just another strategic game of the American Army or a reconstruction of a hypothetic situation, Gary responded that anything was possible because it is widely known that the army wants complete sky domination.

Who? The Jam! It's raining all over...

George Benson

Kids In Church

3-year-old Reese :
Our Father, Who does art in heaven, Harold is His name. Amen.

A little boy was overheard praying:
Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am.'

After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied:
That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.

One particular four-year-old prayed:
And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.

A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service: And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?
One bright little girl replied:
Because people are sleeping.

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson: If Jesus were sitting here, He would say,'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said:
Ryan, you be Jesus!

A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand:
Daddy, what happened to him? the son asked.
He died and went to Heaven, the Dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said:
Did God throw him back down?

A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said: Would you like to say the blessing?
I wouldn't know what to say, the girl replied.
Just say what you hear Mommy say, the wife answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said:
Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?


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Sass Jordan

People or Animals

*Evolution scientists at Switzerland's University of Lausanne just reported that over the course of 30 to 40 generations, ordinary flies tend to live longer if they're stupid. The researchers guessed that heightened neural activity overtaxed their systems.
*A farmer in Jilin province of China had been found with a tortoise that is addicted to nicotine. The farmer, a smoker himself, said he was surprised when the pet puffed on a cigarette he had playfully stuck in its mouth, and since then, he occasionally shares smokes with it.