Invader's-rant
Public Service Announcement: DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER!!!! Definition: MySpace [Mai' thpathe] (pronounced with a lithp), N. - 1. A shrine to Terrible teener web programming, the worst M$ driven Web2.sl0 has to offer.

2006-03-19

food of the day

mmm radishes. I L<3VE radishes! especially cold radishes. I got a $.99 for a bunch with leaves and feeder root still attached - I had to 'clean' them - and they were mucho bueno and stuff. i slew like 5 of the 25 while i was cleaning them(oh this one has a blemish - ill have to cut it off and eat it now.. it fell on the plate too hard and will bruise - down the hatch yumyumyum.. and other justifications LOL), and a few more while my supper was nuking (make an even number for the original purpose). I will have 5-7 chopped up on a Massive Salad of ])()()]V[(tm) tomorrow as well! OhYeah!

K O T O K O

Wow! I just watched her 2004 Winter concert in Tokyo and it was teh awesome! She is capable of doing tunes from classic 80s JPop to modern cross-genre electronica to screaming guitar stuff ala Judy and Mary! W00t

2006-03-15

according to some people..

....Whose opinions i respect immensely.

Hi from the land of idiotic server reloads!

I think I figured out something about myself...

Re: Why I build watches to state the time..

When I was young, like 12 or less (since then they save themselves the headache and give me the whole answer) , I was always given "because I said so" or "just because" or whatever, when told to do something.. I always violently hated that with a passion, like being told "You're too little or not smart enough.. you wouldnt understand", or the like.

I always despised being told I was incurably incapable of doing something or understanding something just because of age or experience, or the dreaded "just because". I hate that to this day.

So as a compensation for that; In defiant rebellion of that; I refuse to do these things to others because I hated being treated that way myself. Doing so would go against the core programming that defines Who Charles Thomas Houghtby IV Is.

This is why I always say things like "I dont care how old/young you are you're still capable of X Y or Z, I mean, c'mon.. My grandpa Creager is eightyX and he can do it, and I was doing these things at four, so anyone is capable of doing it" when someone says "I cant learn this because I am too old/young for that". In fact I get upset For the person when they say it.

This is also why I get irate when people denigrate their own intelligence or position importance at work.

I don't mean to ramble but check my pulse if ever I don't.

tick. tick. tick. tick. tick. tick. tick. ...
There. Wrap THAT watch around your wrist and time an egg with it! :)

2006-03-09

Bono's Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

Bono's best sermon yet: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast,
well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that
cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which
leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic
complex.

Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.
Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something
unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit
and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in
the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough
when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird,
isn't it?


You know, one of the things I love about this country is its
separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me
here, both church and state have been separated from something else
completely: their mind.

Mr. President, are you sure about this?
It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be
warned - I'm Irish.
I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where
those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would
be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man
serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I
presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here -
Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to
better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led
me here, too.
Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me
than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe
it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a
mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was,
quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state
was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and
my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from
my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the
way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people,
in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing
God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering
indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-
righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the
religious establishment...

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.
Even though I was a believer.
Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. (There
you are, Jim.)
Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British
Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it
by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an
opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people.
They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope
John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have
had a more direct line to the Almighty.
'Jubilee' - why 'Jubilee'?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?

I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it
was in Leviticus (25:35)...

'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot
maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him
your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his
ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis,
impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever
guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in
public before...

When he does, His first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good
news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour,
the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).

What he was really talking about was an era of grace - and we're
still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made
incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me
club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to
get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow
their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like
me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like
these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest
W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious
community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could
only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on
children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections
were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the
church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move. Mercy was on the move.
God was on the move.


Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met,
never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out
with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn
sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country
stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!

Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.

It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened
- and acted. When churches starting organizing, petitioning, and even -
that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and
global health, governments listened - and acted.

I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you
changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He
exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place
for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I
hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff.
Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and
ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.


God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play
house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with
a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under
the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives,
and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from
your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if
you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like
midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire
in scorched places."


It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is
mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of
air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental
is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of
these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say,
good news to the poor.


Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told
America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken
up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous
times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.


In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding
for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief
and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000
people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed
nets to protect children from malaria.


Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be
very, very proud.


But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is
yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between
the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.


And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about
justice.


Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice.


And that's too bad.


Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are
good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't
afford it.


But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea
of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our
pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.


Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a
preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug
store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa
and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that
Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept
it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000
lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In
Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And
it's a completely avoidable catastrophe.


It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they?
Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the
Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A
preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah,
'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the
image of God."


And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can
accept the Jews - but not the blacks."


"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."


So on we go with our journey of equality.


On we go in the pursuit of justice.


We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more
than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the
belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.



We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss
of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that
changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as
alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.


Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products
while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue.
Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's
a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to
the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.


And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the
subject.


That's why I say there's the law of the land¿. And then there is a
higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to
write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our
agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn
a living?


As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.


God will not accept that.


Mine won't, at least. Will yours?


[ pause]


I close this morning on...very...thin...ice.


This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your
God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these
times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.


And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division.


But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to
Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come
together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.


This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is
not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to
any one faith.


'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus
says that.


'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of
love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the
wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The
Koran says that (2.177).



Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house,
when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like
the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord
will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.


That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.'
Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.


A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In
countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's
blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it¿. I
have a family, please look after them¿. I have this crazy idea...


And this wise man said: stop.


He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.


Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.


Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what
God is doing.


And that is what he's calling us to do.


I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how
much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how
does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire
American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the
world? Less than 1%.


Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:



I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective
foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will
mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.


What is 1%?


1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.


1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you.
1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the
African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to
you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a
rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.




1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward
Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and
initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and
white elephants of every description.


America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to
change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and
I say this to the military men now - to transform the way that they see us.


1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a
better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of
deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.


These goals - clean water for all; school for every child;
medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty -
these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals,
which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the
Beatitudes for a globalised world.


Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees.
And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't
have to make the tough choices.


But I can tell you this:


To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.


There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.


I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age
will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital
revolution, and what we did - or did not to - to put the fire out in Africa.


History, like God, is watching what we do.


Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

2006-03-07

I'm probably not a Republican


The Republicans Are All Queer Test
More Left than Right
Your faggotry levels are at 0%
You're probably not a Republican, but who knows, you still could be pretty gay. In fact, you probably are. Homo.



My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 0% on Faggotry
Link: The Republicans Are All Queer Test written by leelander on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I'm pretty fucked for the next four years

Pretty fucked
11 is your Fuckedness Number! Crazy!
You're pretty fucked for the next four years. Why? I don't know, maybe it's because you're actually smart and have real actual morals, and not just the fake Christian kind. Maybe you're a minority. Whatever the reason, you've got fairly high levels of fuckedness. Prepare yourself. It's gonna be a rough 4 years.

Take my Republicans Are All Queers Test! Guarenteed to offend someone!
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=10429819748314967241



This test tracked 1 variable. How the score compared to the other people's:
Higher than 26% on Fuckedness
Link: The How Fucked by Bush You Are Test written by leelander on Ok Cupid

2006-03-02

///News Flash///

----News Flash----
Dubya has plummeted to 34%
it is now official that Katrina was a world class screwup

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/03/02/publiceye/entry1364188.shtml

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-katrina2mar02,0,2406896,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030101731.html



and iraq will likely end with our troops being sniped at while on the run to leave :)
and no fault of the troops either.. as i have previously stated, i cite vietnam.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article348925.ece

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/03/why-bush-is-in-trouble.html


ROFLMAO! and AHHHHHNold is currently at 40%.
Our Presidential Stand-in is currently at a lower rating than the joke of the left coast

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/13997507.htm

/me guffawing like a mad fiend....