.:Out of Chaos:.

Found a cool place where you can make an instant store front.... and put designs on products ....

http://www.cafepress.com/availablet

Set up a new online group to organize some consultant types here in Colorado.... we had been using the Meetup.com site tools... now they want money... silly people....

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/colorardoconsultants/

As part of the T - Shirt thing... i put up a website.... www.available-t.com

The idea is based on the Claddagh ring of Celtic Ireland... something that shows you are available to 'flirt' and therefore, if you wear these shirts out while doing what you like to do.. you will be helped to find people who like to do what you like to do.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE> FRIENDSHIPS WILL FOLLOW

Tell your friends!

Namaste.

The numbers Condi doesn't want you to seeAs we noted earlier this month, this year's version of the State Department's annual report on "Patterns in Global Terrorism" won't include statistics on . . . . global terrorism.
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Officials at Condoleezza Rice's State Department says it's just too complicated, that questions about the methodology in counting terrorist attacks make the statistics the report has always included before suddenly meaningless now. But Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst and State Department terrorist expert who first broke the story with a post on Counterterrorism Blog, has said from the beginning that the real reason is that the statistics would show that the administration's war on terrorism isn't working.
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It appears that he's right. As the Washington Post reports this morning, the statistics that would be in the report -- but aren't -- show that the number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year. Overall, the Post says, there were 655 "significant" attacks last year compared to about 175 the year before. (gee folks... um 374% like way more then 3 times) In Iraq alone -- the place George W. Bush likes to call the "central front in the war on terror" -- the number of terrorist attacks shot up from 22 in 2003 to 198 in 2004.
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Although the State Department says publicly that year-to-year comparisons can't be drawn, department aides who participated in private briefings for congressional aides Tuesday said the statistics revealed a "dramatic uptick" in terrorist attacks, the Post says.
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One Republican aide who attended the meeting called the State Department's claim that the statistics weren't relevant to the "Patterns in Global Terrorism" report "absurd." Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman called on Rice to release the data publicly. "The large increases in terrorist attacks reported in 2004 may undermine administration claims of success in the war on terror," Waxman wrote in a letter to Rice, "but political inconvenience has never been a legitimate basis for withholding facts from the American people."

One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law

According to Cardinal Alfonso Lopes Trujill, head of the Pontifical Council on the Family at the Vatican according to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20709-1580888,00.html this article refered to in http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/22/pope/index.html this article.

So... if we BELIEVE you then Cardinal.....
.... I CAN'T DRIVE 55! ... I don't want to pay taxes.... I think I will just take THAT....

If we can not say that a law is right ... simply becuase it is the law... then what?

OMG... are you an idiot!

Here I am sitting on the group W bench..... (arlo guthrie)
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Some of the spin hype news and coverage on TV media about the process of electing a new Pope kind of ired me... My own internal family is spread on the religous spectrum from one family member who makes rosary beads for charity to another who went into the Peace Corps and came back attached to that ideal of life to the extent she married a fellow from Peru and of whom both adhere to a world religion of the Baha'i Faith and then here I am ... "on the group W bench which is where they put you if you are not moral enough to join the army" and I realize that the word Pagan in the early (Roman) time was used as a term for 'civilian' or not of the army of Christ, or 'of the country' and that suites me just fine. I am not a sheep, never was will be etc etc. Now for some, they need the Faith, they need the Pope, they need to feel the moral clarity of the Heaven Hell polarity. I get a sense that this imago that people today in general terms adhere to is a creation of Dante.
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So I looked into Dante and found stuff of note. You see the idea of the Pope ... as most news where reporting it... raised the hair on my neck... reading the MSNBC piece about it's history, the election history... kind of settled me down a little. I feel strongly that I was hearing much too much about a bunch of men who where behind closed doors and were being politcal about who was next. These guys were talking about changes to the Church that the next Pope could enact and I got a sense of 'this is like how the Bible was written, decades after the death of Jesus, written by men who like these pious cardnals are bantering over the next Pope.' And people of the masses have been in limbo over who is next. Ummmmm did I miss something? Maybe it was the day in Sunday School when Dick on Donnie where spit wadding each other that maybe something important was said then that I missed?
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So now, a Teutonic dude is being all 'humble' and but you know the image of his face to me reminded me of the 'go Dilbert go Dilbert' dance from Disney's Treasure Planet ... as in 'Dude, look at my new duds! And I get to pick a new name KEWL' and I was disapointed. For me I was really hoping the Latino guy who knows 8 languages would be elected.... but a German? I will have to look around to see what the Jewish reaction is to that. Does it not seem feasible that this fellow has his world paradigm shaped by people who bought into Hitler?
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So as I dug around about this I found a host of neat websites:
http://allfreeessays.com/student/Dante_Inferno.html
http://www.dpjs.co.uk/hell.html
http://www.dpjs.co.uk/disliked_words.html#Faith
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/dante/overview.html
http://archives.nd.edu/latgramm.htm
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And I came up with this: pratensis pagus scitor cognitio
pratensis [of a meadow] (mead)
pagus [from the countryside] (pagan)
scitor -ari dep. [to seek to know , inquire, ask].
cognitio -onis f. [getting to know , study, knowledge, acquaintance; recognition; legal inquiry, investigation]; in plur., [ideas].
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pratensis pagus scitor cognitio
or ... The Mead from the country who seeks to know the truth.
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And I found myself doing the go Dilbert dance en route to the coffee pot to get more cafiene.

:: Is NEVER ok ::

A while ago I got this email... from a person who turns out to have the same last name, and turns out to be 16 and lives in Idaho... the more she has been telling me the more I worry for her safety even as I know that there are many people in similar conditions and worse ... this has a bit of a personal note... she has the same last name and it sounds like her dad, the 'Mead', has archaic ideas about what male female relationships... to the point the he condones the idea of this 16 year old living with a 28 year old. The sad thing is there are all the signs of domestic violence and batterment... so

I want to put some links up... just in case some one stumbles into here, and these links could help....
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http://www.familyresource.comwww.safeyouth.orgwww.safeyouth.org
www.BigBrothersBigSisters.org

... http://www.seeitandstopit.org/ (good one for teens)

No one, NO ONE, deserves 'reminders' like that. do some reading: http://www.ncadv.org/protectyourself/GettingHelp_128.html

Domestic violence is a pervasive problem in virtually all countries, cultures, classes and income groups. It is a complex and multifaceted problem with individual solutions that are appropriate for different women in different socio-cultural contexts.
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Both short and long-term measures must be considered. Short-term measures consist of assistance programs that protect the individual woman who has been or is being abused. They often focus on the critical period after a woman leaves her home, providing her with food, shelter, and guidance. This is the period when a woman is most at-risk from the perpetrator seeking retribution, or when she might return to the home out of a sense of hopelessness. Long-term measures seek to educate the public and empower the woman to re-establish her life without violence.
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Any response should involve an interrelationship between the health, legal and social sectors, so that the woman is not continually referred to another agency. One innovative approach is the use of "family crisis centers," or "victim advocates" to act as the woman's link to the various sectors.
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Support can come in various forms:
.Crisis Intervention:
crisis intervention services crisis hot lines shelters or other emergency residential facilities medical services transportation networks laws that allow either victims or perpetrators to be removed from the home.
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.Emotional Support:
self-help support groups assertiveness training self-esteem and confidence-building sessions parenting skills courses.
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. Advocacy and Legal Assistance:
access to and custody of children property matters financial support restraining orders public assistance benefits help with immigration status.
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.Other Supportive Services:
housing and safe accommodations child care access to community services
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:: NO ONE DESERVES NOT TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT ::

http://www.feministing.com/violence
http://www.ncadv.org/ even Micheal Bolton supports these guys....


stop behaviour that is not appropriate but being aware of the signs and being aware of what to do.... dont let your friends be victims, speak out.

:: They are starting to charge now so ::
I sent this out...

Hi..
look you all that lurk and do not show up... i understand life is a whirl wind of things to do and all... however, because Meetup is going to charge the 'organizer' $19 a month to have a group up... and because no one shows here....
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I will be leaving.
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I welcome folks to go to my BLOG at http://houseofmead.blogspot.com/ and we can have a running commentary on stuff about being buddhist and practice etc. I will put up topics and you all can add talkback and comments, you all can email me and I can post stuff like 'ok let us get tea at "x" place at "y" time and talk live!'
Sorry to you folks out there looking for a soft way to start in a buddhist thought and mindset... that this venue is most likely going to go the route of slow death...
join me at my BLOG http://houseofmead.blogspot.com/ and we can talk about it... or email me at justinthered-earthlink.net and put the word 'buddhist' in the subject line. I have my spam filters on high alert so... make sure you put that subject line in!
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Namaste
Luck
Blessings to all true seekers
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Justin Mead :: Loveland Colorado ::