Hi you guys and girls!

My first post here!

I'm for the Netherlands (I already apolgize for any grammar mistakes ;) ) and I made a lot of gifts.

This year was a bit difficult to find something to make. Both my grandmothers moved into a home for the elderly and they have little storage room for christmasdecoration. Just a small Christmastree en some guirlandes.

So I came with a nice solution! My son and I love to work with clay, fondant and marzepin.
But those things don't dry that well or break easily.
When I was younger my mother made saltdough en dried it in the oven after modelling!

The recipe:

1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

Stire it together and let it set for about 20 min.

If the dough is a little bit wet add extra flour.

Then the fun can begin!!!

We created this year little stars, angels, hearts etc.

Dry it in the oven at about 125 degrees Celcius (260 degreed Fahrenheit) for about 2 hours with the oven slightly open.

Let them cool and paint. After the paint is dry, finish with a clear coat of varnish.

Oww.. And make a hole so you can put a wire or ribbon in it to hang!!!

Lots of crafts and best wishes for the holidays!

Chantal

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.

He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd.

He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet.

Bernanke is the 56-year-old chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the U.S., the most important and least understood force shaping the American — and global — economy. Those green bills featuring dead Presidents are labeled federal reserve note for a reason: the Fed controls the money supply. It is an independent government agency that conducts monetary policy, which means it sets short-term interest rates — which means it has immense influence over inflation, unemployment, the strength of the dollar and the strength of your wallet. And ever since global credit markets began imploding, its mild-mannered chairman has dramatically expanded those powers and reinvented the Fed.

( Read more... )

I CALLED IT
this is gonna cause so much butthurt, I love it.

and for anyone who actually reads, Bernanke's childhood = Friday Night Lights y/y

Some actual good news, for once!

D.C. Council approves same-sex marriage bill

by John Aravosis (DC) on 12/15/2009 11:17:00 AM

I've heard people say that it's not fair to criticize the Democrats for botching health care reform because the Democrats never truly had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Sure, they have 60 votes in principle, the argument goes, but with Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu, and Bayh counted as four of those votes, it's not really a solid 60.

Perhaps. But then how was George Bush so effective in passing legislation during his presidency when he never had more than 55 Republicans in the Senate? In fact, during Bush's most effective years, from 2001 to 2005, the GOP had a grand total of 50, and then 51, Senators. The slimmest margin possible.

And look at what George Bush was able to accomplish in the Congress with fewer Senators than the Democrats have today:

- John Ashcroft nomination
- Iraq war resolution
- Repeated Iraq funding resolutions
- 2001 & 2003 tax cuts
- Patriot Act
- Alito
- John Roberts
- Medicare Part D

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/gop-had-at-most-55-senators-during.html

The Liberals say a spoof image of Stephen Harper on their party’s website that superimposed the face of the prime minister on Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being shot was "off-limits and offensive.”

The picture was part of a Liberal.ca "Stephen Harper Anywhere But Copenhagen Photo Challenge" to highlight the Liberals' claim that Harper was reluctant to go to Denmark for the climate change summit.

The contest asked people to send in altered pictures of the prime minister showing him anywhere other than Copenhagen. People sent in images of Harper superimposed onto famous pictures or historical scenes.

One of those images that appeared on the website was the famous picture of Oswald, who assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy, being gunned down by club owner Jack Ruby as Oswald is being escorted by police. But the image had Harper’s face in place of Oswald’s.

A senior Liberal official told CBC News the photo contest was a "humorous way of pointing out Harper's reluctance to attend the climate change meeting in Copenhagen."

“It's important to keep in mind that the pictures are created by visitors to our website, and do not reflect the views of the LPC [Liberal Party of Canada] or of the OLO [Office of the Leader of the Opposition].

“Though the pictures are screened before posting, this one slipped through the cracks and was removed quickly. It should never have been posted as it is clearly off-limits and offensive.”

The fake picture began making the rounds through the blogosphere, with even some Liberal supporters condemning the image.

While not referring specifically to that image, members of the web team at Liberal.ca said they “apologize for any offence these images may have caused, and continue to strive to present a progressive and dynamic web experience for our site visitors.”

CBC

NGL, I'm more offended by the shitty editing job.

A nursery worker who sexually abused children in her care and swapped indecent images over the internet has been jailed indeterminately.

Vanessa George, 39, from Plymouth, took photographs on her phone of her abusing toddlers at Little Ted's Nursery.

The judge said she would serve at least seven years for her crimes which "plumbed new depths of depravity".

Angela Allen, 39, from Nottingham, who was sent the images, was told she would serve at least five years.

Allen also received an indeterminate sentence.

Colin Blanchard, 39, from Rochdale, who forwarded the pictures to Allen after George sent them to him, will be sentenced at a later date.

( Judge Mr Justice Royce warned George that she could face ''the rest of your days'' in prison unless she proved she was safe to society. )

Source

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that authorities violated the constitutional and privacy rights of suspected illegal immigrants when they used tax returns to try and build hundreds of identity theft cases against them.

The ruling affirmed a decision by a Weld County district judge who suppressed evidence against one of the defendants. In that case, investigators raided a tax business that catered to Latinos in Greeley, an agricultural city on the northern plains of Colorado with a heavily Hispanic population.

The investigation, dubbed "Operation Numbers Game," marked the first and only time in the U.S. that authorities used tax returns, which are confidential under federal law, to prosecute suspected illegal immigrants.

( Read more... )


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ipNICPEKvpkoWRGTZ98KeNtyXXKgD9CJB1MG0

A naive preteen girl, one who still sings along with Radio Disney and worships Hello Kitty is not so innocent once she gets to school. There, she follows a male classmate into the restroom, or hides at recess or lunch and engages in oral sex. This is what Dr. Phil, television’s ultimate family expert, wants parents to think.

Erica, a 19-year-old student, says he’s got it all wrong.

“My first experience wasn’t like that at all. It didn’t happen at school. I was 17 and it was at the house of the guy I was dating. We were just making out and then he asked me if I would do that, but he wasn’t forcing it on me,” she says.

She doesn’t believe what Dr. Phil is saying is entirely true.

“On his show, he says a girl is ‘on her knees in a bathroom,’ going down on a guy. While I think that has probably happened, in all of the stories I have heard from friends, there’s never been one where a middle school kid was doing that,” she says. “I feel like most of us didn’t even know what that was back then.”

Girls who engage in oral sex are bad girls, Dr. Phil implies. But surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and first person accounts reveal that most young women who are going down are doing it for their own reasons, not to get attention. And most of them are not doing it in school bathroom stalls, either. Check any online teen health message board, like Oprah’s community message board — it seems that most teens are engaging in oral in their bedroom, or in the bedroom of their partner, not on the streets. “It’s not so difficult to do that you have to resort to doing it at school.” Erica says. “There are lots of opportunities outside of that.”

But it seems in nearly every case, the girl still gets the blame for the activity.

Dr. Phil hopes to “protect our daughters from giving blow jobs,” yet he says nothing about concern or responsibility regarding teenage boys. Little does he realize that boys are giving (and obviously getting) as well.

In an article from the Washington Post, Jennifer Manlove, who directs fertility research for the organization Child Trends, says that guys give as often as girls.

“You assume that females are more likely to give, males more likely to receive,” she says. “We were surprised that the percentages were similar.”

Whatever the cause for rate increases in oral sex – whether it’s because teens openly express their sexual behavior more often now, or because it’s perceived as “safer sex,” the jury is out. But the next time Dr. Phil wants to blame the girls, he should address the fact that guys are equal participants.

Source

Bail hearing for Pa. police accused of cover-up

SHENANDOAH, Pa. – After taking part in a fight that left a Mexican immigrant mortally wounded on the street, teenagers Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak fled. They didn't get very far before running into two police officers responding to a 911 call about the assault.

These were no ordinary officers. Patrolman Jason Hayes dated Piekarsky's mother, and Lt. William Moyer's son played with Piekarsky on the high school football team. Their commanding officer, Chief Matthew Nestor, was a friend of Piekarsky's mother and even vacationed with her.

Rather than place the popular white football players under arrest, the officers let them go — beginning a cover-up in their racially tense coal town, federal prosecutors allege.

( The arrests left the borough with only three active-duty police officers. Borough officials have asked the state police to help out 'until we work through this dilemma,' said Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky, who declined to comment on the indictment. )

--

Less then two years for beating someone to death. Jesus.

And also, WTF with the cops, good lord. Guess they wanted to protect those "good kids," eh?

Ugh.

http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/resourcecenter/1048.html

On December 16, 2009, the lower house of the Rwandan Parliament will hold its final debate on a draft revision of the penal code that will, for the first time, make homosexuality a crime in Rwanda. A vote on this draft code will occur before the end of the week. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that the proposed Article 217 of the draft Penal Code Act will criminalize "[a]ny person who practices, encourages or sensitizes people of the same sex, to sexual relation or any sexual practice." If the Chamber of Deputies approves, the draft code will go before the Rwandan Senate most likely in early 2010.

Article 217 violates Rwandans' basic human rights and is contradictory to the Rwandan Constitution as well as various regional and international conventions. IGLHRC, the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), and Rwanda's Horizon Community Association (HOCA) will shortly issue a call to action to demand that the Rwandan Parliament withdraw this article. We urge the international community to act against this proposed law and support the equality, dignity, and privacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Rwanda.

This draft provision targeting LGBT people closely follows the introduction of a similar measure in neighboring Uganda, where the nation's parliament is currently debating an Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The proposed Ugandan law would prohibit all LGBT activism and organizing, would further criminalize consensual same-sex conduct between adults, which is already illegal in Uganda, and in some cases apply the death penalty.

Canadian Omar Khadr is expected to be one of up to 100 terrorism suspects transferred to a state prison in Illinois from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, CBC News has confirmed.

A source told CBC News that 23-year-old Khadr, accused of killing a U.S. army medic in Afghanistan, is slated to be among those transferred to Thomson Correctional Center, but it is unclear how soon this will happen.

The White House said Tuesday the near-empty state prison will house both federal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo. No date for the transfer was provided.

U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the government to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a town near the Mississippi River about 240 kilometres from Chicago.

Military tribunals for potential detainees are expected to be held at the facility. Detainees the president determines must be held indefinitely but can't be tried may also be moved to the prison.

Toronto-born Khadr was captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15, and has been held at Guantanamo for seven years. The U.S. accuses him of throwing the grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer.

( More behind the cut )

CBC

В Перемышле находятся руины Успенского собора 16 века. Это самое древнее сооружение на Калужской земле. Однако Успенский собор Перемышля находится в руинах с 1972 г. И, хотя существует проект реставрации собора, но на него у Калужской области нет денег.


Вид на Успенский собор с Нового городища.

Остальные фото у меня в журнале: http://nedovolnay.livejournal.com/18208.html

Пермь - это город доктора Живаго. Это прототип города Юрятина. А «дом с фигурами» - это «дом Грибушина» - особняк в стиле модерн, построенный в 1907 году. Название получил по имени бывшего владельца здания, «чай-сахарного короля», купца Сергея Михайловича Грибушина



( далее... )

As internet users, I figured brisneyland would be just as upset as I am at this proposed "Clean Feed". I have found this site that has an online petition and a letter template to send to Senator Conroy, making it very very easy to get your important opinions heard.

Please take five minutes out of your day and send some feedback to the government on this issue. Every little bit counts.

Is the Senate health-care reform bill still worth passing?

Ezra Klein , Washington Post
December 15, 2009; 10:15 AM ET

"Insurance companies win," Markos Moulitsas tweeted last night. "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate."

This was, for progressives, a frustrating vote. But the flip side of it being morally unconscionable for Joe Lieberman to put the bill at risk over something as small as Medicare buy-in for 3-or-so million people is that the absence of Medicare buy-in -- and of the weak public plan -- is not reason enough to oppose the bill, either.

The core of this legislation is as it always was: $900 billion, give or take, so people who can't afford health-care insurance suddenly can. Insurance regulations paired with the individual mandate, so insurers can't discriminate against the sick and the healthy can't make insurance unaffordable by hanging back until the moment they need medical care. The construction of health insurance exchanges so the people currently left out of the employer-based market are better served, and the many who will join them as the employer system continues to erode will have somewhere to go.

That's all policy. And as I spent yesterday arguing, it has a tendency to overshadow the lives in the balance. You can choose your estimate. The Institute of Medicine's methodology says 22,000 people died in 2006 because they didn't have health-care coverage. A recent Harvard study found the number nearer to 45,000. Since we talk about the costs of health-care reform over a 10-year period, may as well talk about the lives saved that way, too. And we're looking, easily, at more than a hundred thousand lives, to say nothing of the people who will be spared bankruptcy, chronic pain, unnecessary impairment, unnecessary caretaking, bereavement, loss of wages, painful surgeries, and so on.

A lot of progressives woke up this morning feeling like they lost. They didn't. The public option and its compromised iterations were a battle that came to seem like a war. But they weren't the war. The bill itself was. When liberals talked about the dream of universal health-care insurance 10, 20 and 30 years ago, they talked about the plight of the uninsured, not the necessity of a limited public option in competition with private insurers.

"This is a good bill," Sen. Sherrod Brown said on Countdown last night. "Not a great bill, but a good bill." That's about right. But the other piece to remember is that more than it's a good bill, it's a good start. With $900 billion in subsidies already in place, it's easier to add another hundred billion later, if we need it, than it would be to pass $1 trillion in subsidies in 2011. With the exchanges built and private insurers unable to hold down costs, it's easier to argue for adding a strong public option to the market than it was before we'd tried regulation and a new competitive structure. With 95 percent of the country covered, it's easier to go the final 5 percent. And with a health-care reform bill actually passed, it's easier to convince legislators that passing such bills is possible.

On its own terms, the bill is the most important social policy achievement since the Great Society. It will save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of suffering. But moving forward, it also makes future improvements and expansions easier. A lot of the hard work of health-care reform -- in particular, the money for subsidies -- will finish this year. If reformers want to come back for the public option or more subsidies in a future year, they won't be doing it atop a $900 billion price tag that's being battered by tea parties and industry and everyone else. This bill doesn't have all the good stuff it should have, but reformers can stand atop what good stuff it does have and focus their energies on what good stuff is left to achieve.

SOURCE

PERSONAL NOTE: If the Senate bill were to pass as is, and no changes were made to it in the conference committee, it would still guarantee that my best friend's family, who have already seen hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills over the course of their lifetime, not be cut from their health insurance plan once their bills exceed $1 million, a point that is quickly approaching.

MoveOn Launches Fundraising Drive For Anti-Lieberman Ad Campaign

The progressive community is moving swiftly against Sen. Joseph Lieberman for killing the public option for insurance coverage and the provision to expand Medicare.

On Tuesday, MoveOn.org put out a fundraising plea asking its five million members to donate to a huge ad campaign that they plan to launch against the Connecticut independent. The group says it will also use the funds to oppose him in the next election.

Sen. Lieberman has been one of the biggest obstacles to real health care reform with a public option all year. But over the past two weeks, he's taken it to a dangerous new level.

First, he demanded that the public option be removed from the bill. Then, last night, he killed an expansion of Medicare--an idea that he himself championed just three months ago and that was added to the bill specifically to satisfy him.

He's shown that he can't be reasoned with. Most of all, Joe Lieberman can't be allowed to stay in the U.S. Senate.

The group's goal is to raise $400,000 in the next 24 hours, which would be a tremendous showing of financial and political support against Lieberman's continued presence, both in Congress and in the Democratic caucus. As the fundraising appeal reads:

First, Joe Lieberman helped President Bush invade Iraq, and the Democrats in Washington forgave him. Then, he endorsed John McCain, and they forgave him again. Then, he personally attacked Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention, and still the Democrats forgave him.

Now, Joe Lieberman is single-handedly gutting health care reform. The time for forgiveness is over. It's time to hold Senator Lieberman accountable.

Not a happy story from Australia. TRIGGER WARNING.

----
A WOMAN in emergency accommodation at a hotel was allegedly raped and indecently assaulted by two interstate police officers investigating Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires, a court has heard.

( read more )

Source

 

Following is Pope Benedict XVI's Message for the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2010:

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE BENEDICT XVI
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE
WORLD DAY OF PEACE

1 JANUARY 2010

 
 

 
 

IF YOU WANT TO CULTIVATE PEACE, PROTECT CREATION

1. At the beginning of this New Year, I wish to offer heartfelt greetings of peace to all Christian communities, international leaders, and people of good will throughout the world. For this XLIII World Day of Peace I have chosen the theme: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because "creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God's works",[1] and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind. Man's inhumanity to man has given rise to numerous threats to peace and to authentic and integral human development – wars, international and regional conflicts, acts of terrorism, and violations of human rights. Yet no less troubling are the threats arising from the neglect – if not downright misuse – of the earth and the natural goods that God has given us. For this reason, it is imperative that mankind renew and strengthen "that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying".[2]

( Continue reading... )

Tags: environment, peace, pope benedict xvi, world day of peace

The cash-strapped agency that runs New York City subways and buses is considering a proposal to end the more than 60-year-old practice of giving free rides for schoolchildren, a move that could cost half a million students nearly $1,000 per year in transportation fees.

The proposal before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board to end free rides for schoolchildren has parents wondering how to get their children to school.

"This is a crisis," said Kevin McCall, a neighborhood activist who led a protest against the proposal in front of a Brooklyn high school on Tuesday. "This is totally insane. It would make parents have to choose between food and any other necessity or a Metrocard for their child."

Adam Ufret, a concierge at a Manhattan apartment building whose three daughters use student passes, said, "I would cut my home phone and just use my cell phone, or instead of steak we'd have corned beef."

The MTA board, facing a $383 million budget shortfall, will vote Wednesday on a proposed 2010 budget that would eliminate several bus and subway lines and scale back services for the disabled, as well as phasing out student Metrocards.
( Read more... )

Would this affect any of you?

America's Most Wanted Teenage Bandit

Visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the bald eagles on Camano Island in Washington State's Puget Sound are more likely to see a different bird in the sky: a police chopper skimming the cedar forests in search of an outlaw. Colton Harris-Moore, a gangly 18-year-old with furtive eyes and a dimpled chin, has been on police blotters since he was accused of stealing a bike at the age of 8. Since then, he is suspected of having committed nearly 100 burglaries in Washington, Idaho and Canada. Police allege that he graduated from bikes to cars, then to speedboats. Lately, he is suspected of stealing three small aircraft — all the more impressive given that he has never taken a single flying lesson.
( cut )