the job update

the job is going great so far, they like my work, and everyone is so nice! it's a bit weird being the new girl - i have to learn to whom to go for what i need. i try to think of who was responsible at my old job for stuff, and start there. they have been quite patient with me, and somewhat helpful.
unfortunately we have two buildings - one in gaithersburg and one in germantown, so it is going to take me a while to get used to that. the hardest part is keeping track of the two bosses.. they are always hopping back and forth between buildings.
the nice thing is that there is a dearth of leftover food, so maybe i will lose weight!

Best idea I have heard………and so very simple

Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? A really neat solution heh?

Here's a solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners at airports.

Have a booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you.

It would be a win-win situation for everyone and would eliminate this crap about racial profiling. This method would also obviate the need for a long and expensive trial. Justice would be quick and swift.

Case Closed!

This is so simple that it's brilliant.

I can just see it now: You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter, an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention standby passengers, we now have a seat available on flight number.........."

rip to a classy lady

dixie carter

she definitely had that special southern charm

Blazing Cat Fur: Great Caeser's Ghost I'm Cheerin for the Muslim Extremists! Islamofascists Attack George Galloway!

Blazing Cat Fur: Great Caeser's Ghost I'm Cheerin for the Muslim Extremists! Islamofascists Attack George Galloway!

but does "jihad george" really understand that they hate him as well as every other westerner?

the cardinal

this creature has been knocking on my window for the past two days, so naturally i looked up his totem to tell me what message he has



The cardinal is a power-packed bird that transforms and awakens us. Its color and voice are its two strongest characteristics. It is a member of the finch family and is often recognized by its brilliant red color.

The eggs laid by the female hatch in about twelve days. This, along with the cardinal's year-round residency, reflects the rhythm of the number twelve. The number twelve often has important significance for those with this totem. It can indicate a turn of events or a life changing situation. When the cardinal flies into your life expect a change to occur within 12 days, 12 weeks, 12 months or at the hour of 12. Because this bird is a year-round resident, its medicine is available at all times and should be used by those with this totem whenever a need arises.

Cardinals have a loud whistle, a whistle that penetrates the air with sharp distinct tones. They demand our attention, urging us to hear what is carried through the air. Both male and female cardinals join in the whistling. This reflects the need to integrate our male and female characteristics into our day to day life. Feminine energy is linked to intuition; Male energy to perseverance. If both are operating within our life, our intuitive knowledge has the perseverance and strength necessary to manifest our goals and dreams.

Cardinals eat many decaying weeds and injurious insects. When a cardinal appears in your life it is telling you to pay attention to your eating habits. Are you eating things that might be injurious to your health? Is your diet nutritionally balanced? Extra care should be given to the blood and circulatory system. Past life ties to overindulgence or the consumption of poisonous substances is often linked to cardinal medicine people.

The bright red color of the cardinal is very symbolic. Red represents the blood or life force of the Mystic Christ. In yoga circles this vital force is known as the kundalini. The kundalini lies dormant within us until activated by a disciplined spiritual practice. Once activated spiritual power can be attained. The cardinal offers safe passage into the world of personal power for those who ask for its help.

When a person with cardinal medicine steps onto a spiritual path there will be no turning back. Everything else in their life will seem insignificant. Extra care must be taken here to insure personal happiness, particularly in the area of one-to-one relationships. Balancing spiritual ideals and physical pleasure will need to be instated in ones life so harmony on all levels is known.

Cardinals are named for the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church with their bright red robes. A great love or a strong dislike for religion and churches is common amongst cardinal medicine people and can indicate a past life connection with one or both.

The cardinals voice is strong and clear and reflects an air of importance. This power-packed bird can teach you how to express your truth, develop confidence, and walk your talk. If you respect its teachings it will lead you home.

stop the presses!

photo: arne reinhardt/fanfare ciocarlia
art: david wenzel

i have a job!
the unemployment rate just went down by one

on this day..

On this day in 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up by the monks of Arbroath Abbey. The declaration was a letter, in Latin, from the Scottish nobles to Pope John XXII, affirming their determination to maintain Scotland's independence. The document is also seen as the first example of a contractual monarchy, with the nobility asserting the right to dethrone King Robert I should he submit to England. The Declaration of Arbroath is widely regarded as being the inspiration behind the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.
Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.

But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, csating our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.

May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

how to woo a lady

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topless women

Some people's jaws hit the ground,

Organizer Ty MacDowell said the point of the march was that a topless woman out in public shouldn't attract any more attention than a man who walks around without a shirt.
"We should be able to walk down the street and not have this many men taking pictures of us," a participant shouted according to CBS affiliate WGME.

Good luck with that.

*shaking my head at their sheer stupidity*

a glorious and happy easter to all

i will be gone for a few days