August 02, 2005
Who are all AOL subscribers.
I somewhat feel like I need a shower.
I'm also fighting the urge to update that post with a little addendum instructing them to get a real ISP. That there's a whole world out there, just waiting for them if only they'd stop being so dependent upon other people, who want to tell them where and how to surf. AOL isn't protecting anyone from spammers or viruses: they're protecting people from finding other alternatives; from exploring the world that is beyond AOL's walls. Which is really sad.
I have willfully restrained myself, however. But damn, it's hard. If I could only get one person off of AOHELL, I might have not only done that person a favor, but have also struck a blow against AOL by denying them that person's monthly protection payment. If only...
Sigh.
Posted by: Kathy at
01:26 PM
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KHARTOUM, Sudan - Violent mobs surged again into the streets of Sudan's capital Tuesday, a day after 36 people died in riots sparked by the death of Sudanese vice president and former southern rebel leader John Garang.The initial violence Monday was blamed on Garang supporters from the Christian and animist south who blamed his death in a helicopter crash on Sudan's Muslim-dominated government, but both northerners and southerners reportedly staged attacks Tuesday after a quiet morning.
Arab gangs invaded some neighborhoods heavily populated by southerners on the outskirts of Khartoum and attacked people in the streets and raided homes, said William Ezekiel, managing editor of the Khartoum Monitor. He said some people had been shot to death.
"The Arabs are attacking them, entering their houses and looking for southerners," said Ezekiel, whose newspaper focuses largely on southern issues.
"It's a reaction to the reaction from yesterday: `Where is the government? Where are the police?'" he said.
A senior U.N. official in Khartoum said angry southerners from camps outside the capital for people displaced by the long war in southern Sudan attacked the Omdurman area. He said a Muslim imam had been slain.
"The situation is turning religious and that will be even more dangerous," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.
The reports of deaths Tuesday could not be independently confirmed. Officials said Monday's riots resulted in 36 people being killed and about 300 injured.
The government renewed the 6 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew first imposed Monday night, and by midafternoon downtown streets were nearly empty. An occasional siren could be heard.{...}
Oh man.
Sudan's twenty-three-year long civil war between the Northern---Muslim---government and Southern---Christian and Animist---opposition has finally been put to bed with a power sharing deal and it's threatened by this. And make no mistake about it, the peace deal is very much at risk of dissolving with Garang's death. His appointment as Vice President was a very big deal. While I still claim that this decades long civil war was fought more in the name of resources, which are scarce in the North but abundant in the South, religion does play some part in it. And it seems as if that's to be the dividing line once again with this recent violence. The new government has to quash the violence and they have to be equal about it. Any hint of favoritism will blow the peace accord right out of the water: these people are used to fighting; they may want peace, but they know initmately how that peace was obtained and if Bashir, the Northern President, doesn't follow the terms of the deal in relation to quashing the violence, it will be seen by the Southerners as proof that a. they actually did kill Garang and b. they never meant to follow through with the terms of the peace deal in the first place. Even though the SPLM is Garang's organization, and they have denied that the accident was anything other than an accident, it's been reported that they did as much killing of southerners as did the Northern army. If I were a Southern Sudanese, I'd be just as wary of them and anything they had to say as I would be of the Northerners.
Whether or not Bashir will actually do what is needed to salvage the deal is anyone's best guess. It will be interesting to see who rises to take Garang's VP slot. If Bashir appoints a northerner, someone loyal to him, it's a sure sign that's he's going to renege and that the Civil War will flare back up again.
Posted by: Kathy at
01:06 PM
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August 01, 2005
You won't be sorry.
{Hat Tip: Jonathan}
Posted by: Kathy at
02:18 PM
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Heh.
Considering I was actually---genuinely and sincerely---thanked by a teacher last week at Walgreens when I was buying smokes (she was in buying---ahem---SCHOOL SUPPLIES FOR THE KIDS IN HER CLASSROOM WHO CAN'T AFFORD THEM! Out of her own pocket, mind you. She wasn't going to be reimbursed.), these actually go over rather well. Unfortunately, I had to let the teacher down. I told her not to hold her breath (ha ha, aren't I funny?) as I would be buying smoky treats online soon because it would be too expensive when the "Health Impact Fee" kicked in. Not to mention, I did mention, that I had issues with being taxed to make up for laziness and lies of our state politicians. If it was a "fee," I reasoned aloud, wasn't I allowed to ignore said "fee" and exhibit my rights as a consumer to go elsewhere? If the Governor says it's not a "tax" well, then, am I not covered if I don't want to pay it by going someplace I could avoid paying that "fee"? Her face fell and you could see the gears grinding; the thought of future budget shortfalls running like mad through her head. I told her, quite bluntly, to lobby her fellow union members to fire some of their good-for-nothing union administrators and to clean up the local school administration's money sucking bureaucracy to make up the impending shortfall.
She wasn't quite so "thankful" then, I must admit.
{Hat Tip: Bogus Doug}
Posted by: Kathy at
12:42 PM
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NEW YORK -Lauren Bacall has a few unkind words to say about
Tom Cruise. In an interview in the Aug. 8 issue of Time magazine, now on newsstands, the 80-year-old actress says, "When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.""His whole behavior is so shocking," she says. "It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a sickness."{...}
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!
"When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise." Oh, tee hee. He has been so vulgar. Great word choice, Lauren. You can just hear her saying it, can't you? I heart Lauren!
I cannot freakin' wait to hear what poor excuse Tommy Boy comes up with to blow Lauren off. That should be good. Do you think he'll just brush it off by claiming she was on anti-depressants?
Posted by: Kathy at
12:05 PM
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Anyway, as mentioned on Friday, the husband celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday that day. This momentous date, of course, demanded a party. The husband decided he wanted to cook for his birthday, which can only be considered odd until you take in the fact that I do most of the cooking around here. He likes to cook, so he looked in the freezer, decided to work mostly with what we had (He does like to clear things out on occasion, even if it leaves us with an empty freezer.) and came up with a fabulous, if not overly meaty, meal of roast pork tenderloin, itty-bitty hamburgers, and lightly breaded and spiced chicken breasts that had been pounded into submission, stuffed with crab stuffing and tied up into little chicken packages with leek strings. We had salad and steamed artichokes, too, just in case you were wondering if we were all going to come down with scurvy for lack of greens. Of course, the Doctor and M.L. came over for supper, and then my sister and her husband and three children, fresh from the lake, arrived, just in time to quaff adult beverages and eat the food. Since this was an "adult" dinner party, we threw the kids into the office, toute suite, which conveniently also happens to have a tee vee and a door that closes, to watch The Incredibles. Not a peep was heard from them until it was time to blow out the birthday candles on the tiramisu. Then they all ran back into the office and waited patiently for someone to start the tape back up. (Whoops! My bad.)
Since we had decided to go here on Saturday afternoon, Christi dragged me out for the obligatory "I need to see if the fabric stores up here have something I can't find in Omaha" shopping trip. Fortunately, Christi is well aware of my general loathing of all things fabric store-y and kept the trip short. Phew. My leg only twitched once during the trip, and I swear, it was completely unintentional on my part. Then we came back for lunch and headed off to the pool for the afternoon.
I must highly recommend the Edina Aquatic Center if you're looking for a kiddie friendly afternoon in the Twin Cities on a hot summer afternoon. It's got everything you could ask for: a kiddie playland for the wee ones in the middle of a zero-depth pool; two waterslides; an olympic pool for swimming; two diving boards; and a zip line that drops the hanger-on into the deep end of the pool after sliding them across part of the width, six feet up. It was loads of fun, and not only for the kids. The husband and I had a great time as well. The intertube waterslide is a blast, and if you have more than one adult in your party, well, know that if you squish two adults onto a tube you can fly like the wind down the slide due to the Laws of Physics. Good fun, no?
Later on we came back to the house, rested for a while, and then shot off for dinner and then went back to the Aquatic Center for a bit of evening swimming. When we got back to the house, the kids were completely wiped out (which was the plan, in case you were wondering) but not so wiped out that they didn't want to give Uncle Mike his birthday treat: fireworks. They know Uncle Mike adores blowing stuff up, so they came well prepared with roman candles, spinners, a parachute thingy, fountains and poppers (those little bits of paper with a bit of gunpowder in them that "pop" when you throw them on the ground). The kids had a great time and the quote for the evening came from James, who after closely examining a little paper tank loaded with fireworks that had become somewhat squished in their travels, scoffed at the husband's concern that something might go wrong, and said, "Just light the thing, old man!" After he finished laughing, the husband was so proud of his little protege he was about to burst. Future Pyros of America, indeed.
Once everyone was settled, and we were all about ready to drop, everyone else received the privilege of dropping, but I had to go over to el aeroporto to pick up Mr. H., who spent last week in L.A. on vacation. Oh, my. Needless to say, I was not pleased with Northworst Airlines. They'd printed on his ticket that his flight arrived at 11:10 pm. And I was there, ready and waiting for him a few minutes early in case they caught a tailwind, which does happen quite often with flights coming in from the west coast. I thought I'd be back home and in bed by 11:45. Turns out, however, Northworst had changed the arrival time from 11:10 to 11:37. OY! By the time he got down to baggage claim (they unloaded the plane at the very last gate on the Gold Concourse, which as anyone who's ever flown through MSP International could tell you is about a mile long and takes forever to traverse.) we claimed his bag, and got back to the Cake Eater Pad it was well past midnight and Kathy was a sleepy girl. Mr. H. however had a great time in La La Land and highly recommends a trip to see King Tut at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art if you happen to visit the greater Lou-Lou-Land metropolitan area.
Yesterday, sadly, everyone headed home and the husband and I decided to decamp to the living room to recover from the whirlwind. We watched loads of crap tee vee and napped. Amazingly enough, the kids did not leave one single thing behind! I'm shocked, but fully expect to find a Hot Wheels under the sofa the next time I vacuum under there. I do have a load of food and a half a case of diet Mountain Dew in the fridge. Christi always leaves me loads of food and drink whenever she comes to visit. After a week in a cabin, she always arrives with enough food leftover to feed an army for a day (or two people for a week). She claims she doesn't want to take it home, but really I think she thinks we're starving or something like that, because our fridge just isn't as full as she thinks it should be. I think she completely forgets we're a family of two instead of five, so it's just never going to have as much stuff in it as her fridge does. So, if anyone wants half a case of Diet Mountain Dew let me know and it's yours.
Regular blogging will resume shortly. Like later in the day.
Posted by: Kathy at
11:41 AM
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