All supported and voted for by House and Senate many times since 9-11! US government uses subpoena to gain wide swath of Associated Press telephone records

Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP’s source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.”

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.

via US government uses subpoena to gain wide swath of Associated Press telephone records.

a 2007 Opinion: IRS sends mixed messages to nonprofits – Christopher S. Rizek – POLITICO.com

Will the role of the Internal Revenue Service in policing the political activities of nonprofit organizations be an issue in next year’s election? History suggests it should be. The IRS’s actions in the past election cycle leave nonprofits, especially church organizations, concerned and uncertain about the future.

Last month, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., announced that the IRS had sent it a letter closing the IRS’s examination into alleged political activities of the church in 2004.

The examination had been triggered by a sermon delivered by a guest speaker at the church on the Sunday before the presidential election, on the topic, “If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush.”

After praising both candidates for being “devout Christians,” the guest pastor assured the congregation that “good people of profound faith will be for either George Bush or John Kerry for reasons deeply rooted in their faith” and expressly stated, “I don’t intend to tell you how to vote.”

The IRS nevertheless asserted that the sermon constituted campaign intervention, which is prohibited for churches and other tax-exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Yet curiously, and somewhat confusingly, it still closed the examination.

via Opinion: IRS sends mixed messages to nonprofits – Christopher S. Rizek – POLITICO.com.

LBC’s New TV Show: Splash!

Better celebrity cook offs or “oh my gosh” – Lebanese mothers cook offs for university student judges!

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

I get competition shows that are centered around singing or dancing. I may not be a fan or watch them but at least I can fathom their premise.

Then comes Splash! also known as LBC is really desperate for a hit TV show à la Dancing With The Stars.

The TV show will start this coming Sunday. It has been adopted from the UK version which ranked only #16 weekly among British TV shows. Not impressive at all. And yet Splash! is here.

A few Lebanese celebrities will be competing against each other in diving. That’s what the show is all about. Lame? You bet. Silly? An even surer guess. What’s the point? I guess it’s still better than airing AUD’s graduation ceremony on Sunday, Roula Saad – Star Academy’s person – has been without a TV show for a while now and there will be public voting, obviously. Money…

View original post 158 more words

The Mirage

I’ll be following

Egyptian Streets

By Myrna Abbas

Blue. That’s all I saw as my eyes fluttered open. I felt a soft prickling against my back, and I realized it was the sand beneath me. The soft grains were sticking to my arms as I lay there, the scorching sun stinging my cheeks. I felt the crustiness of my dried lips as I ran my tongue across them. So thirsty. I curled my fingers against the sand and grabbed a fistful of the powder. Where am I? Letting the grains fall between my fingers, I planted my palms down onto the surface and pushed myself up into a sitting position. A bird flew past, and my eyes followed it across the sky.

“Hey!”

My head flinched to the left.

“Hey, you!”

With all the force I could muster, I tried to push myself up off the ground, but my elbows quickly gave in. I felt…

View original post 549 more words

Japanese mayor: Wartime sex slaves were necessary | News , International | THE DAILY STAR – Intolerable and shameful!

Fool

An outspoken nationalist mayor said the Japanese military’s forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle.

The comments made Monday are already raising ire in neighboring countries that bore the brunt of Japan’s wartime aggression and that have long complained that Japan has failed to fully atone for wartime atrocities.

Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is also co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, also told reporters that there wasn’t clear evidence that the Japanese military coerced women to become what are euphemistically called “comfort women.”

via Japanese mayor: Wartime sex slaves were necessary | News , International | THE DAILY STAR.

Navdanya: Saving Seeds to Save a Culture | Food Tank

“Seed is the first link in the food chain. Saving seeds is our duty, sharing seeds is our culture,” says Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, an organization whose mission is to conserve and save seeds, promote sustainability, teach healthy eating and cooking, and foster the success of women farmers in Indian.

Navdanya, which translates to “Nine Seeds,” represents the nine crops that are essential to India’s food security. It sees women as an essential party of agriculture because, in Shiva’s words, “when women do farming, they do it for life…they do it for their children, they do it for nutrition, they do it for taste.” Currently, the seed savers have collected approximately 5,000 crop varieties of indigenous seeds, which are then made available to Indian farmers, free of charge.

Shiva has also partnered with Schumacher College in the United Kingdom to form Bija Vidyapeeth, (which translates to Earth University in Sanskrit), a learning center based on the principals of sustainability, non-violence and holistic practices.  Students learn about seed saving, organic farming, cooking and composting, and how to apply these to the present day.

via Navdanya: Saving Seeds to Save a Culture | Food Tank.

The Arsenic in Your Chicken | Civil Eats

Today, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future published a study in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives that provided further evidence of the risks associated with the use of arsenicals in animal agriculture. Just in case anyone still needed convincing (Ahem! FDA, Pfizer and industrial chicken magnates). The study, which involved analysis of chicken breast samples purchased at grocery stores in 10 cities across the US, revealed that chickens likely raised with arsenic-based drugs yield meat that has higher levels of inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen that has also been associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cognitive deficits and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Why would anyone feed arsenic to chickens?

While you and I might associate arsenic only with the plotlines of old who-done-it novels in which affluent elderly gentlemen are slowly poisoned by long-suffering caretakers or disgruntled relatives, its use by industrial chicken producers is anything but fiction. Back in the 1940s, producers started using arsenicals to promote growth, treat disease and improve meat pigmentation. The practice eventually became standard; according to industry estimates, by 2010, 88% of all chickens raised for human consumption in the US were given the arsenic-based drug roxarsone. (And – fun fact – we raise about 9 billion chickens for meat every year.)

via The Arsenic in Your Chicken | Civil Eats.

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Missing My Mom

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Missing My Mom.

City of dreams
ocean of weep
a dusty heart
becoming crazy
and can’t breathe

missing my mother
she lit my day
and charmed my night
she tapped my cradle all the night
she is the best
Now i am alone
i can’t rest

missing you mom
you’re so in my heart
to stay for ever this way
near, far, wherever you are
i feel you, i need you
your memory

love lasts forever
never does it die
i remember when you told me
“Adversity often leads to prosperity”
i will remember and it will lead me
I am not near you
but i will break up the distance
and we will be together

this distance I’ll remove
my wings will improve
and i will fly
and come near to you, mom

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