1. Anyone under the age of 18. (Too young. Go register to vote or join the Army.)
2. Anyone over the age of 65. (Too damn old. Go gum your oatmeal and give up your driver's license...please!)
3. Anyone who is a fanatical member of the Southern Baptist religion. (i.e. "Bible-thumping whackos" or "Jesus Crispies")
4. Any female over age 25 who is still a virgin. (You really need to get out and meet someone. Guys are easy, we just require that you're breathing...some don't even need that much!)
5. Anyone who supported the Communications Decency Act, for ANY reason. (It's called the First Amendment, you shitheads! Look into it.)
6. Anyone who thinks that television and/or the internet is an acceptable substitute for good parenting. (Your children should be taken away from you and you should be locked up.)
Come see Alvin Jett & The Hired Help live at Vintage Vinyl
on Delmar on Saturday, August 16th, beginning at 1:00PM. Promoting two new releases,
the "Alone & Drinking" CD and the "East Side Live" DVD,
Alvin Jett & The Hired Help are taking a break from their hectic live schedule
to perform their special blend of red hot, high energy blues at Vintage Vinyl.
Regulars at BBs Jazz, Blues & Soups and Broaway Oyster Bar, Alvin Jett &
The Hired help are one of the leaders of the current St. Louis blues scene and
are endorsed by Vintage Vinyl owner and blues authority Tom 'Papa' Ray.
JOHN MELLENCAMP Performing on Sessions @ AOL
Nearly 26 years after Elvis Presley's untimely death, America Online announced
that John Mellencamp's landmark Sessions@AOL Full Set at Elvis' home, Graceland,
launched exclusively on AOL for Broadband on Monday, August 11. This special
AOL event marks the first time Sessions@AOL has been taped at such a historic
location and the first time that an artist has performed at Graceland exclusively
for an online audience. Mellencamp performed tracks from his new album of traditional
works, Trouble No More, as well as covers of "House of the Rising Sun,"
and Bob Dylan's "Highway 61." Mellencamp also performed an inspired
rendition of the Arthur Crudup-penned Elvis classic "That's All Right (Mama)."
PLOVER PROTECTION PROPOSAL WITHDRAWN: The USFWS has withdrawn a 1999
proposal to list the mountain plover under the ESA, provoking
consternation among conservationists who maintain the service is
"erring on the side of extinction" says the Denver Post 9/9. While
the
Colorado Farm Bureau commented that, "Our members will breathe a sigh
of relief," the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance contends that
"threats to the plover are increasing dramatically, especially from oil
and gas drilling and the Bush administration's rollback of
environmental protection measures." The service admits that there are
"conflicting data on plover numbers and disagreement among agency
biologists about the bird's future."
EMERGENCY EFFORT TO SAVE PRONGHORN: After dropping from about
138
animals two years ago, a desperate effort is underway to save the less
than two dozen of Arizona's remaining pronghorn antelope says the
Tucson Citizen, AP 9/8. The recovery effort is focusing on trying to
increase fawn survival by irrigating small patches of desert vegetation
and establishing a semi-captive breeding program, perhaps using a few
of the 300 pronghorn left in northern Mexico. While Defenders of
Wildlife has given the emergency program "qualified support," they
say
"the real issue with the pronghorns is severe habitat fragmentation and
habitat loss because of all the barriers, a lot of fencing and roads
that isolate pronghorn populations" and make it more difficult if not
impossible to adjust to the severe drought.
OTTER STATUS UPGRADE EXPECTED: With recent surveys showing signs
of
river otters along 230 miles of state waterways, the Colorado Wildlife
Commission is expected to upgrade it from endangered to threatened,
some 25 years after the "sleek fish eater" was reintroduced to the
state says the Denver Post 9/9. River otters never received federal
protection, and the upgrade is the first in the state for an endangered
species since the greater prairie chicken in 1993. The bird was later
removed from the state threatened list in 1998.
FEWER GRIZZLY CUBS SEEN: Biologists are seeing "significantly
fewer
female bear with cubs this year compared with the record number spotted
last summer" in the Yellowstone region says the Billings Gazette 9/9.
While numbers are lower than last year when a "record 52 females with
cubs were spotted," overall there are between 35 and 40 cubs, "slightly
higher than the annual average of 34 counted between 1996 and 2000."
With talk about delisting focused on numbers, scientists caution that
"the future of bear recovery doesn't just rely on how many grizzlies
there are, but how much land they have, whether there are connections
between populations to ensure genetic diversity and whether food
supplies are adequate."
The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office is gravely
concerned
for a new wave of terror that the Sudan Government
has been recently escalating with different acts of intimidation to
curb
the public striving for democracy, restrict the peace
progression, and reinstate the NIF (i.e., the National Congress ruling
group's) notorious reign of terror vis-à-vis the increasing
influence of the Sudanese Civil Society in the ongoing process of
democracy and peace that is consistently gaining momentum
in the national and international arenas.
SHRO-Cairo notes with regret the continuous atrocities of the
central
government's unabated State violence in the South and
DarFur, besides the arrogant abuse of authority by the State Security
Department (Amn al-Dawla) which particularly
intimidates women and men activists, as well as a large number of
democratic professionals, journalists, political opponents,
trade unionists, students and the other groups with arbitrary arrest,
torturous detention, rude intrusion in the people's privacy,
and unprecedented violations of the freedom of expression and the press
under direct supervision of the non-intellectual
National Press Council.
The most recent parade of 5,000 heavily armed members of the
government-controlled militias, namely the Popular Defense
Forces, in the National Capitol Khartoum extends far beyond all of the
Emergency Law extra-judicial provisions or repressive
practices to pose a real threat to the important activity and well-
being
of the democratic society of Sudan.
The PDF chaotic institution has never ceased committing the
most
heinous
crimes against the innocent citizens of the South and
Western Sudan. Closely led by the government's ruling party, the PDF
parade of terror coincides with the irresponsible threats
by the Sudan Government's senior officials, specifically the head of
state Omer al-Bashir, his presidential adviser for peace
al-'Attabni, and his ruling party's secretary general who all vowed to
"defend to death the application of the government's
Shari'a, including the government's medieval administration of the
National Capitol Khartoum" to comply with the regime's
ideologue, namely the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist party that openly
called for a holy war of Jihad to defend the
non-democratic anti-peace orientations of the ruling party.
At this point, the Organization asks the Sudan Government's
state
managers to act in accordance with the responsibilities
conferred upon them as taxpayers' officials of the State, rather than
obedient servants of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist
organization.
Seen in the light of the government's murderous zeal to kill
students
in
peaceful demonstration, escalating the civil war in
DarFur and the Upper Nile with armed conflict, disrupting the
tranquility and regularity of the civil society activity, humiliating
the human rights organizations and the other democratic groups, and
disturbing the process of peace, the Sudan Human Rights
Organization Cairo Office expresses deep concerns about the
government's
inability to control the mode of terrorism it
originally instigated in society (from June 1989 up to the present
time), which has recklessly developed clandestine terrorist
groups (in addition to the government's formal machinery of terror) to
intimidate civil society groups and community leaders.
Here, it suffices to mention the most recent arrests of Journalists
Nhial Bol Aken and Nuraddin Medani, the arbitrary
interrogation of Lawyer Ghazi Suliman and the other political opponents
by Amn al-Dawla, and the clandestine threats by
terrorist sources to assassinate Professor Farouk Kadoda of the
Omdurman
Ahliya University, Jurist Abu Grown, Judge
Gharabwi, among many others, "to defend religion from their views or
stands," as the terrorist sources claimed in public
statements that were shamelessly received by the complete silence of
the
"top defenders of the Sudan Government's Shari'a,"
the above-mentioned state managers and their security departments.
The Sudan Government is fully accountable before the People
of Sudan
(in
the first place) for all of the human rights violations
committed by the government agencies or officials. The government must
honor its obligation towards the IGAD Peace Group,
the International Community, and the United Nations Human Rights
Commission. The Sudan Government's commitment to the
process of peace should be practically translated to actual State
measures for the principled insurance of human rights and
public freedoms, without any discrimination or partisan preferences.
SHRO-Cairo insistently asks the Sudan Government - security
officials
or
ruling party - to:
Act as responsible state managers with accountability and
transparency: the Sudan Government must
immediately stop any overt or covert act of terrorism or terror
parade that instigates or encourages
terrorism in full compliance with international human rights
norms,
the Machakos Peace Protocol, and the
State regular obligations.
Demobilize the notorious, chaotic, and outlawed
government-controlled PDF militias that primitively terrorize
the Sudanese people all over the country with heavy armament,
sedition, and serious intimidation.
Stop the Sudan Government's dangerous collaboration with the
government indoctrinator the Muslim
Brotherhood's terrorist organization, which continues to work with
full support of the state machinery to
incite jihad wars all over the country, as well as the neighboring
States, to foil peace progression in and
outside Sudan.
Protect the Sudanese Civil Society from the State Security
Department's and the National Press Council's
rude intrusions that unlawfully disrupt the regular activities of
society.
Insure the safety of human rights activists, especially the
women
and students, political opponents, trade
unionists, and the other civil society individuals or groups from
the government-incited repression.
Take serious measures to prepare the country for the
next-democratic transition towards the Comprehensive
Political Settlement of the Sudan's Crisis by developing the
climate conducive to peace, the abrogation of
Emergency Law and the other public order acts, the active
insurance
of the freedom of expression and the
press, the right to peaceful assembly, and the full enjoyment of
the civil society groups and political parties to
the exercise of cultural, social, and political activities without
intimidation by state managers, ruling party
leaders, PDF, or security departments.
MY FAVOURITE ADULT SITES:
India and Bangladesh are undertaking
"the world's larges tiger census" in the Sunderbans jungle to study
"the breeding and feeding behavior of Bengal tigers to find out why
some become man-eaters" says ENN, AP 7/29. While not the tigers'
natural prey, Bangladeshi officials "blame the attacks on poaching and
illegal logging, which has halved the number of royal Bengal tigers and
destroyed their habitat in the mangrove forest in the past few years,
prompting them to attack humans and forage for food in villages.