The anti-gay obsession

Great way to lead off from Thanksgiving, Richard!
Gratitude for all forms and expressions of love. :-)

Now that the turkey is dead and gone...

Here is a page that will make you remember what it is you really truly ARE thankful for.

http://www.texasequusearch.org/missingpersonsbulletins.htm

It is so hard to look at all those faces and not cry for them.

Dear God, Thank you for allowing democrats to once again control the Senate Judiciary Committee!!!

AMEN!

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data

By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.

“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who will head the committee beginning in January, said in an interview this week. “We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no excuse.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/washington/24documents.html?ei=5090&en=8035f95103315d35&ex=1322024400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

thanks Dick

Heard this on This American Life and it made me cry. It's the story of a heretic. Courageous.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/05/304.html

A little more - Carlton Pearson was a student of Oral Roberts. He decided the church should be inclusive and that hell didn't exist. Two steps in the right direction but he was punished.

http://www.ondoctrine.com/10pearso.htm

A Free-For-All for Science and Religion

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/science/21belief.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=d4a1d9aca35ac55b&ex=1164517200&pagewanted=print

Sicience is fighting back against religious extremism - a call for an evangelism based on reason, logic and prroof

RSVP to join us on Monday, November 27, 5:30 (PACIFIC)
Conference call particulars at http://www.progressivegovernment.org

Dal La Magna who returned from his second Listening Trip to Amman Jordan. His first trip was with Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Tom Hayden others who met with Iraqi parliament, tribal leaders. On this second trip, as he accompanied Congressman Jim McDermott on video. The info provided the basis for HuffPost article by Tom Hayden,

Dal translated info gleaned from listening to provide the foundation of the Iraq Reconciliation Plan (IRP), the first proposal for ending the war that is built exclusively from the desires of Iraqis. You can listen to the interviews, read the transcripts and download a pdf. The six points Bush security adviser Stephen Hadley carried to Iraqi officials on his Nov. 16 trip to Baghdad seem to be pulled Monday. Still on this website though.

--Note also at TruthOut that 16,000 single moms are in Iraq.
& from news reading, Bush to meet with Al-Maliki in Jordan - Bagdad is too unsafe. But if he does, the Sunni parts of govt may walk. Heard this morning of people lighting live bodies on fire, in Bagdad. Hell on earth.

Radiation found after spy's death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180682.stm

Police probing the death of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko have found above-normal levels of radiation at three locations in London.

Mr Litvinenko's death has been linked to the presence of a "major dose" of radioactive polonium-210 in his body.

Scotland Yard confirmed traces were also found at his home, a sushi bar and a hotel, but the risk to others was said by health experts to be very low...

Bush & Putin do have a lot in common-- denial, ignoring evidence... same playbook:
[snip]

Professor Pat Troop from the HPA told a news conference that... [snip]... Mr Litvinenko would have had to either eaten, inhaled or been given the dose of polonium-210 through a wound.

She said the nature of death as an "unprecedented event in the UK".

[snip]

Mr Putin himself has said Mr Litvinenko's death was a tragedy, but he saw no "definitive proof" it was a "violent death".
~~~~~~~~~~~
Radiation found after spy's death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180682.stm

Aimzz
My husband and I were talking how Putin and Bush have alot in common - both head of countries with alot of corrupt rich - regardless of whether the system has a history of being fundamentally communist or capitalist.

New Savage Twist to Violence in Iraq

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/24/international/i141715S86.DTL

Can it get worse than burning people alive because they attend a different place of worship?!

Imagine if the military and police force was infiltrated by gangsters, thugs and extremists, seeking free training and weapons, paid for by foreign tax dollars mostly

Consider that Bush will meet with Al-Maliki in Jordan because Bagdad is too dangerous. Then if they do meet, Sunnis threaten to quit the government.

There just seems to be no way out.

I know of a case where someone who moved here from Iraq literally went insane from watching tv reports about Iraq.

Years ago we knew someone who slipped out permanently too, after moving here, but following reports about the Iran/Iraq war.

My mom is having dinner tonight with the family or a guy who has just come home from his thired term in Iraq. Imagine it's been hard on he and his family too.

Feel just horrible for the citizens of Iraq and places like it, and those who came to the US, maybe thinking things would be better, making being glad Saddam was gone. But they still have relatives there and did not expect this.

Srtanding in for NonnyO

Bush Visit Threatens to Fracture Iraqi Government
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406A.shtml
As the death toll from a series of devastating car bombs in a Shiite district here rose today to more than 200, a powerful legislative bloc loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to withdraw from the government if Iraq’s prime minister attends a scheduled meeting with President Bush in Jordan next week.

After 15 Months, Katrina Victims Spend Thanksgiving in Trailers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406B.shtml
Nearly 15 months after the hurricane struck, the number of Katrina victims who will be spending Thanksgiving in FEMA trailers this year will paradoxically be far higher - roughly three times greater - than it was last year. The reason: Many people who were living with family members or staying in hotels at government expense last year have since moved out or been
evicted. But they have been unable to return to their homes because they are still waiting for their houses to be repaired, their insurance to come through, or the water and electricity to be turned back on.

(sounds like Bagdad)

Paul Krugman | When Votes Disappear
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406C.shtml
"There were many problems with voting in this election — and in at least one Congressional race, the evidence strongly suggests that paperless voting machines failed to count thousands of votes, and that the disappearance of these votes delivered the race to the wrong candidate," writes Paul Krugman. "As far
as I can tell, the reason Florida-13 hasn’t become a major national story is that neither control of Congress nor control of the White House is on the line. But do we have to wait for a constitutional crisis to realize that we’re in danger of becoming a digital-age banana republic?"

(Paul Krugman validated me! I have been calling the US a large Banana Republic for awhile)

Joseph L. Galloway | Three Options for Iraq, None Perfect
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406D.shtml
Joseph L. Galloway writes: "Even as former Secretary of State James Baker and his bipartisan commission on Iraq labor to construct some sort of smokescreen for President George W. Bush (at the behest of Bush's daddy), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Peter Pace, has his own E-Ring committee looking for answers to the problem."

Dems Want Oversight on Pentagon Anti-War Protest Database
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406E.shtml
A year ago, an NBC News investigation revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon database that included information on antiwar protests and American peace activists. Now, newly disclosed documents reveal new details on who was targeted and which other government agencies may have helped monitor Americans. because many of them go way beyond any legitimate needs for our security," says Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Jeff Stein | A Senate Mystery Keeps Torture Alive - and Its Practitioners Free
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112406F.shtml
Jeff Stein writes: "With all the lawsuits over kidnapping and torture marching toward the Bush administration, you might think the top officials running the global war on terror would be worried ... Alas, no. Thanks to the legerdemain of Bush administration lawyers, a provision quietly tucked into the Military Commissions Act just before it was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on October 17, would ease any worries they might’ve had. It not only redefines torture upward, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, it also exempts the perpetrators - interrogators and their bosses - from punishment all the way back to November. 1997."

BOY they sure tried to turn back the hands of time -they have to realized they're doing something wrong in order to go to so much trouble for subterfuge.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney
Cheney arrives in Saudi Arabia for talks
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived Saturday in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, apparently seeking the Sunni royal family's influence and tribal connections to calm Iraq after an especially violent week.
{More on link.}

I wonder if Dickie is going to hold hands with the king...? {Snark!}

Posted by: aimzzz at November 24, 2006 04:28 PM
Posted by: DiAnne at November 24, 2006 05:52 PM

Hey, Putin is not merely "in denial" or just "ignoring evidence." He and his KGB (new name now, but same folks) buddies had to be behind this radiation poisioning (and the earlier Politovskaya murder) 100%. The best evidence of W. 's stupidity was his early remark , sometime in his first term, that he "could see into Putin's heart" and that he was a "good man". Yeah, right. Putin was born and raised in the KGB, and judging by recent events (both the Politovskaya tragedy and this latest spinoff) he's still operating very much in his element. Have you ever noticed the chilling, cold intelligence in this man's eyes? Any "denial" by Putin is not of the psychobabble variety, but instead conscious and deliberate.

Another mark of the intelligence differential between the two heads of state was Putin's putdown of W.(deserved, by the way) in W.'s embarrassing tour of Russia and western Europe a few months ago. At time like these, it's not only mortifying and infuriating, but also, in the end, terrifying, to have a president of such breathtaking ignorance and incompetence.

Posted by: mbk at November 25, 2006 08:29 AM
apology for typo: it's Politkovskaya.

Something tells me Putin is about to become a very haunted man.

I do not even think he realizes yet that he's gone too far this time.

He is not a toxic personality like georgie, but he is still an arrogant punk for sure. It will be his undoing.

I only wonder whom Putin will throw in front of himself to break the fall....?

Now that is an interesting scenario.

MBK,

You are right, Putin has the coldest eyes I have ever seen.

Ever.

I lived in South Africa for several months while apartheid was the law of the land. I visited some of the most neglected regions and was shocked to see the economic disparity between whites and blacks. Today's America reminds me of those four months I spent in South Africa in 1984.

When I think of how the South Africans dealt with their former government (the reconcilliation hearings) and how they have decided to make same sex marriage a legal right, I can only wonder what it will take in this country for our citizens to be so dedicated to the ideals of humanity and freedom.

The majority in this country have not suffered the way the majority of South Africans suffered. The Africans truly know hardship and discrimination. Some of us think we know, but we don't. For a people to have come through their oppression and denial with such understanding and forgiveness while being able to learn from the indignities they suffered is a testimony to their beauty.

Yet, I am not surprised by their actions as most of the black South Africans I met were not bent on retribution, nor revenge. Though they had every right to harshly punish those who abused them, they saw a different path. A path of forgiveness and understandig as a way to keep their country from deteriorating into a disaster. Many of the whites I met however were worried if the blacks gained control, they (blacks) would deliver a western justice that some whites did not deserve. I know that most of the whites I knew from that time were truly surprised that the blacks were pragmantic and patriotic during their country's evolution. Doubtless, there were whites who were filled with ugly racism that prevented them from understanding the need for change. The ugliest was an American who had moved to South Africa. I hope he got what he deserved - a black boss.

Posted by: Christy at November 25, 2006 09:22 AM

Actually, two other people do have colder reptilian snake eyes: King Georgie and Prince Dickie.

Next to them, everyone else's eyes are positively aglow with warmth....

mbk
Axes of Evil:

Cheney and King Abdullah
Putin and the KGB
Bush I and II and the CIA

That's just today's.

honorable mention
Mitt Romney and Jerry Falwell

OnCall
I met a woman from South Africa at a peace march last year and she said US is starting to remind her alot of South Africa under apartheid - the mentality

OnCall
I also met a South African on a flight from AZ who had moved to America because he was all paranoid about blacks, something about his property and so on. He was a big Cheney-looking guy and seemed to adapt well to AZ.

mbk
Good article on the poisoning.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2248571,00.html

This should be a big deal. Not the first time a state official or reporter has been taken out deviously. Remember the Ukrainian candidate with all the blotches on his face? The suspicions by Arafat's family? Many many more. BBC even had recent story on evidence CIA may have been involved in RFK's death.

The dollar has hit a low, with alot of implications.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2004/nf20041112_3507_db039.htm
The U.S. dollar is the benchmark world currency, the standard by which all others are measured. And usually, it's the others that race to keep up with the symbol of U.S. economic might. But of late, the relationship has been reversed. (snip) The dollar has lost 21% of its value against the euro since President Bush took office in January, 2001.

The drop reflects the concerns of international investors, who hold 43% of the U.S. national debt (snip) .. getting nervous that too much of their assets are in dollars..

The inclination to begin parking their money elsewhere became apparent after the Nov. 2 reelection of George W. Bush. Since then, investors in the Mideast and Asia have gone on a euro buying binge, says Tom Rogers, a currency analyst with Informa Global Markets. They're concerned that the policies Bush has promised to enact during his second term will worsen an already record federal budget deficit. Left unchecked, investors fear a soaring deficit will lead to higher interests rates, lowering the value of U.S. stocks and bonds.

The vicious cycle works like this: As the currency deteriorates, it becomes more expensive to import goods and services from other countries, fueling inflation. In an effort to pull investors back, central banks often raise interest rates when their national currencies lose value. (snip)

For now, inflation is under control. (snip) The Federal Reserve can continue to raise short-term interest rates at a slow, orderly pace to make sure the growing economy doesn't overheat.

PRICIER IMPORTS. Meantime, the weaker dollar has some benefits in the short term. It could lower the trade deficit, which is dangerously high. And it stands to boost job growth, especially in critical areas such as manufacturing. (snip)

But the dangers of a weak dollar aren't evenly distributed, especially this time around. It's mostly a concern for countries in Europe and Asia. A higher dollar makes it more difficult for U.S. consumers to afford products imported from those regions, which rely heavily on exports as engines of economic growth. A weak currency typically leads to inflation, because it prompts companies that export to the U.S. to raise prices.

(snip)
The unemployment rate in France is 9.9%, vs. 5.5% in the U.S. As the cheap dollar puts pressure on its export industries, Europe will have to find ways to spur domestic demand for goods and services. (snip)

Making matters worse for the Europeans, China has pegged the value of its currency to the dollar. Under it's agreement with the World Trade Organization, Beijing doesn't have to let its currency float until 2008.

None of this is reason for the U.S. to celebrate its battered buck. In a global economy, the U.S. needs a strong European market that can afford to buy U.S. goods, such as airplanes, to keep its economy going. A weaker dollar may be in U.S. interests for the next few years, but not at the expense of its trading partners over the long haul.

And it stands to boost job growth, especially in critical areas such as manufacturing. (snip)

Posted by: DiAnne at November 25, 2006 12:27 PM

Considering that our manufacturing infrastructure has been neglected and left to decay, I wonder how we are going to ramp up our manufacturing? I suspect there will be much suffering when China decides that it doesn't want to use the dollar as its benchmark. When the loans get called in, watch out for the bread lines.

That was then, and this is now:

"We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."

"The mistakes of the past, no matter who made them, are no justification for marching ahead into a future of miscalculations and misjudgments and the loss of American lives with no end in sight. We each have a responsibility, to our country and our conscience, to be honest about where we should go from here. It is time for those of us who believe in a better course to say so plainly and unequivocally."

The less things change, the more they stay insane.

Thank the goddess there are people out there still speaking out and saying plainly and unequivocally that the insanity has got to be stopped -- and be stopped *now*, before our nation falls like Rome under the weight of its current default leaders' high crimes and misdemeanors.

And thank the goddess that there are people in here still standing up and speaking up and reminding everyone around us that those like our current default leaders, who cannot remember the past, are condemned to be defeated by it.

The past is prologue. The future is now. And what it is, as always, is up to us.

we can change the world rearrange the world,
Otter

This article doesn't clarify which abuses were OK'd in the memo, but it's something to keep an eye on...

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former US general
Reuters link: http://tinyurl.com/yxrmh5

~snip~
Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais...
~snip~

David Crosby agrees with you, aimzzz (even though he was at Woodstock at the time so must have been something of a clairvoyant about these things):

There's something, something, something
Goin' on around here
That surely, surely, surely
Won't stand
The light of day

drag 'em all out from under their slimy little rocks now,
Otter

And if Henry Waxman has anything to say about it, that'll happen sooner rather than later... though he hopes we'll get by with a little help from our friends:

-----------------

Waxman Has Bush Administration in Sights
http://tinyurl.com/ym9nd4

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The lawmaker poised to cause the Bush administration's biggest headaches when Democrats take control of Congress may just be a grocer's son from Watts who's hardly a household name off Capitol Hill.

Rep. Henry Waxman has spent the last six years waging a guerrilla campaign against the White House and its corporate allies, launching searing investigations into everything from military contracts to Medicare prices from his perch on the Government Reform Committee.

In January, Waxman becomes committee chairman - and thus the lead congressional hound of an administration many Democrats feel has blundered badly as it expanded the power of the executive branch.

Waxman's biggest challenge as he mulls what to probe?

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose," he said.

The choices he makes could help define Bush's legacy.

"There is just no question that life is going to be different for the administration," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the current committee chairman. "Henry is going to be tough. ... And he's been waiting a long time to be able to do this."

[snip]

The minority party in the House has few rights, and Democrats have complained that GOP leaders completely shut them out from writing legislation.

So, Waxman said, "I recreated myself as an investigator."

The makeover was a success.

When he became top Democrat of the Government Reform Committee in 1997, Waxman realized that he didn't have to settle for playing defense like most in the House minority. He took advantage of the committee's large staff to hire talented investigators to pursue projects large and small.

His targets have ranged from why the Taekwondo Union was allowing 12- and 13-year-olds to kick opponents in the head, to Medicare drug costs and baseball steroid use, to abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and government contracts given to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.

After agitating by Waxman, the State Department had to revise a report claiming terrorism had decreased in 2003, to reflect that it actually had increased.

Waxman found overbilling on Katrina contracts and overbilling by Halliburton in Iraq. He revealed that seniors wouldn't really save on premiums by switching to the government's Medicare drug plan. With Davis, he issued a report documenting extensive contacts between the White House and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Taekwondo Union agreed to prohibit head kicks by anyone under 14.

[snip]

As Government Reform chairman, Waxman will aim to reassert congressional checks on the executive branch. A priority are government contracts: for Hurricane Katrina cleanup, homeland security and the Iraq war.

Contrary to Republican portrayals, Waxman said he doesn't plan to issue scattershot subpoenas. He said he has little interest in revisiting Bush administration failures that are already well known, such as Iraq war intelligence.

He wants to do it all with the help of Republicans.

"We want to return to civility and bipartisanship," Waxman said. "Legislation ought to be based on evidence, not ideology."

-----------------

give 'em hell henry,
Otter

Nonny, I must disagree.

georgie and dick are cold men true, but their eyes are telling.

In their eyes you can see madness, and fear. Their eyes light up at the mention of how badly their enemies fared.

Like wolves, quivering and yelping around a corpse as they pull it to pieces. Their insane lust is reflected in their eyes.

Putin though, he is different. He does not have any fear, no shame, no remorse.

On some levels I wonder if he even understands the need for those emotions. He reminds me in every way of a serial killer.

He has the eyes of a shark. His eyes remind me of how a shark rolls its eyes in a blank ecstasy when it tastes blood. Even as its body starts jerking in excitement the eyes simply remain blank. A forever blankness.

Putin would only be less scary if he were less smart. That is one very clever and dangerous shark.

November 26, 2006
New Rules
Here Come the Economic Populists
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

FOR years, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, exercising a lock on the party’s economic policies, argued that the economy could achieve sustained growth only if markets were allowed to operate unfettered and globally.

Overcoming protests from labor unions, a traditional constituency, the Clinton administration vigorously supported free trade agreements like Nafta and agreed to China’s admission into the World Trade Organization. If there was damage to workers, then the Clinton camp proposed dealing with it after it occurred — through wage insurance, for example, or worker retraining and other safety-net measures.

This approach coincided with a period of economic prosperity, low unemployment and falling deficits. Over time, this combination — called Rubinomics after the Clinton administration’s Treasury secretary, Robert E. Rubin — became the Democratic establishment’s accepted model for the future.

Not anymore. With the Democrats now a majority in Congress, and disquiet over globalization growing, a party faction that has been powerless — the economic populists — is emerging and strongly promoting an alternative to Rubinomics.

The populists argue that the national income has flowed disproportionately into corporate coffers and the nation’s wealthiest households, and that the imbalance has grown worse in recent years. They want to rethink America’s role in the global economy. They would intervene in markets and regulate them much more than the Rubinites would. For a start, they would declare a moratorium on new trade agreements until clauses were included that would, for example, restrict layoffs and protect incomes.

“We are at a point where the Reagan era might finally be over, including the eight years of Bill Clinton,” said Jeff Faux, a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group partly financed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “The historic juncture here is whether the Democrats can come up with policies that get to the level of the problem.”

The split is not over the damage from globalization. Mr. Rubin and his followers increasingly say that globalization has not brought job security or rising incomes to millions of Americans. The “share of the pie may even be shrinking” for vast segments of the middle class, Mr. Rubin’s successor as Treasury secretary under President Clinton, Lawrence H. Summers, recently wrote in an op-ed in The Financial Times. And the populists certainly agree.

But the Rubin camp argues that regulating trade, or imposing other market restrictions, would be self-defeating.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/weekinreview/26uchitelle.html

Hi all, and a belated happy thanksgiving to you all! Among many other things, I'm so thanksful to be part of this community, and to be working for a better world with all of you!

Moderators, there's a problem with the new thread - no way to post a comment.

US Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself
NYT link: http://tinyurl.com/y9e6cu

The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.
~snip~
...the seven-page report was made available to The Times by American officials who said the findings could improve understanding of the challenges the United States faces in Iraq.

The report offers little hope that much can be done, at least soon, to choke off insurgent revenues. For one thing, it acknowledges how little the American authorities in Iraq know [snip] about crucial aspects of insurgent operations. For another, it paints an almost despairing picture of the Iraqi government’s ability, or willingness, to take steps to tamp down the insurgency’s financing...

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at November 26, 2006 07:57 AM

Rubinomics will be Hillary's achilles heel. All the people that support her have yet to hear her position on this important issue. If she is in lockstep with her husband and the DLC (which, I will venture to say she is) then her candidacy will flounder like a fish out of water. Her opponents will make her take a clear position on this matter. She wont be held to the same standard when it comes to Iraq as many of the candidates voted the same way she did.

High court to weigh climate change case
Yahoo/AP link: http://tinyurl.com/u26hh

The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.

A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles...

Posted by: Carol at November 26, 2006 08:59 AM

Looks like the new thread is open for business now.