Fatima, Habitat, head lice, 30k speed limit, THC, Toumai, St Gerards, Queimados, Rafah, Condi, Charles

Fatima was being repeatedly raped by the beasts that guarded Abu Ghraib prison. Here is an excerpt from her heart-rending letter to Iraqi resistance fighters:
"...I say to you: our wombs have been filled with the children of fornication by those sons of apes and pigs who raped us. Or I could tell you that they have defaced our bodies, spit in our faces, and tore up the little copies of the Qur'an that hung around our necks? ....By God, we have not passed one night since we have been in prison without one of the apes and pigs jumping down upon us to rip our bodies apart with his overweening lust. Kill us along with them! Destroy us along with them! Don't leave us here to let them get pleasure from raping us....Leave their tanks and aircraft outside. Come at us here in the prison of Abu Ghurayb.
"They raped me on one day more than nine times. Can you comprehend? Imagine one of your sisters being raped. Why can't you all imagine it, as I am your sister. With me are 13 girls, all unmarried. All have been raped before the eyes and ears of everyone. They took our clothes and won't let us get dressed. As I write this letter one of the girls has committed suicide. She was savagely raped. A soldier hit her on her chest and thigh after raping her. He subjected her to unbelievable torture. She beat her head against the wall of the cell until she died, for she couldn't take any more.
"Brothers, I tell you again, fear God! Kill us with them so that we might be at peace. Help! Help! Help!"
One hundred resistance fighters launched a fierce attack on the prison, led by Fatima's elder brother. People died, Fatima among them.
good-morning-america
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New Lessons from the Old World
The European Model for Falling in Love with Your Hometown

"..speeding traffic sets in motion a vicious cycle in which people who might prefer to walk or bike end up driving out of fear for their safety.
..pedestrians were killed 85% of the time when they were hit by cars traveling 40 miles an hour compared to only 5% when vehicles were traveling at 20 mph.
Lowering speed limits is one logical response. Most German cities have posted 30-kilometer-per-hour limits on all residential streets..."

Now for the 30kW limit and we have the 30:30 solution
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"Speaking at Habitat's headquarters in Nairobi - itself home to the sprawling Kibera ghetto, one of Africa's largest slums with at least 500,000 residents - Tibaijuka called urban poverty "a slow-motion tsunami" deadlier than the giant waves that devastated the Indian Ocean in December.
Such poverty is "much more destructive of lives and livelihoods than all the world's disasters and wars combined", she said.
Slum dwellers constitute 30% of the world's urban population"

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I have spent some of time in slums, particularly "Newtown" (Bagong Silang) 40 minutes out of Manila (in low traffic, ie 4am) I experienced friendly, warm, loyal people, some of the best times. There is danger, handguns, knives fashioned from hacksaw blades, extreme poverty. But it was amazing how healthy the children appeared. Perhaps rather small, but few evident diseases or skin problems, apart from head lice, which are in the best of suburbs. I loved being surrounded by people from old to young. Cheap and quality beer. I enjoyed cockfights, which my western friends disdain. I didnt much like the habit of constant burning trash in smoky fires, particularly with plastic bags smouldering. I was never threatened, except once by our landlord after my hipag brothers hotwired the electricity, leaving him liable to the $1000 fine. I understood when he threatened to shoot me, but I arranged a meet with four of my brothers friends, all tough thin silent characters you wouldn't want to meet as strangers. No more death threats after I'd demonstrated I had family connections. My family are extremely poor, but they have an Uncle Major in the NBI, which is like the FBI only more so, so we feel protected while we carry cell phones with the Majors number.
The big worry from an ecological view, is that the townships have no gardens to grow food, no water collection from the roofs (guttering is expensive), no composting, no solar cells. Water is an expense. Pampers are an expense. Infant milk formula is expensive. Income is patchy. Ice is debilitating. Wonderful days withal. For a birthday party we would cook a huge pot of spaghetti. Not expensive so no-one was shamed, but great times.
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THC combats atherosclerosis in mice... ..the immune cells can linger..recruiting others..an inflamed blockage that snares fatty molecules. THC seems to tone down this immune response .. binds to a protein CB2 .. on .. immune cells. ..reduced the progression of blood-vessel blockage formation by more than one-third..the process involves..CB2 .. rather than .. CB1, which is found ..in the brain ..
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07 April 2005

Toumai..earliest-known ancestor of humans.. "Chad Man".. ..7 mybp..
..further fossils of Sahelanthropus tchadensis which confirms it as the earliest known ancestor.. suggest that it walked upright.


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flickr Photo faves:
St Gerards picture #2
St Gerards
peter in Japan
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RIO DE JANEIRO -- The massacre of 30 people in a shooting spree Thursday night, allegedly by a band of rogue police officers,
..Five adolescents, including a 14-year-old pinball player, were among those killed when the group of up to eight assailants, some wearing masks, fired handguns on foot and from passing vehicles in the working-class communities of Nova Iguaçu and Queimados.
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robgalbraith
photographer in Iraq

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world press photos
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palestine pics
by rafah
rafah rafah
rafah rafah rafah
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1/04/2005 9:54AM
80 M1 tanks trashed in the IraqInvasion
Yesterday 3 US soldiers killed, one shot. 2nd Predator downed in 3 days
In Fallujah the ING hate the people and checkpoint delays are common.
A teev puff piece showed some peppers in a market, claiming a success story.
Then you hear the claim that 20-30,000 have returned... the original population was 500,000
Robot planes have increased to 700. Odd how the resistance is acting in large groups of 50+ even with the sky crammed.
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Whiskey Bar is open:

"This got by me when it happened, but I see from a story in the Washington Post today that Dick Cheney's daughter -- no, not the lesbian, another one -- is now the State Department's official "democracy czar." And it seems the job was created just for her:"

Dicks son-in-law has been given a job to do with Security.
Isnt it good that Outrage died under the pervious administration?


... still looking for a picture with the black boots

And what did Bush snr say to Condi that caused her to crack up laughing right in the middle of the communion, a supposedly solumn moment?

Charles is attacked for saying "peace be with you" to Mugabe. How small. Give me one instance when Charles has said anything I wouldnt agree with. The fellow is a genius, makes $2 mill per year from organic farming. Would make an excellent king.