 |
| 2011 Women Fashion Styles |
 |
| 2011 Women Fashion Styles |
 |
| 2011 Women Fashion Styles |
 |
| 2011 Women Fashion Styles |
I just got off the phone with a source on Capitol Hill who has spent the past few days trying to convince Republicans to vote for a debt ceiling hike.More here via @Drudge_Report.
He told me that the biggest obstacle he faces has been "market complacency."
"Frankly, a bit of panic would be very helpful right now," he said.
As he explained it, lots of people in Washington, D.C. expected that this would be a week marked by panic in the markets. Stocks would tank. Bonds would get clobbered. The dollar would do something dramatic. And all of this would help convince reluctant lawmakers that they had to reach a compromise on the debt ceiling.
As backers of several high-profile ballot measures hit the streets looking for signatures, a new radio ad has surfaced warning listeners that signing initiative petitions puts voters "at risk for identity theft."
The 60-second spot, which is airing on at least one Southern California radio station, features a man telling his spouse she should not have signed a petition at the grocery store.
"The Legislature called it an identity theft starter kit. Now we really need to watch our bank statements and credit information," he says.
"That's it, I'm not singing any more petitions," the woman responds. "I guess the lesson here is not to give our name and address to anyone we don't know."
The identity of the group behind the ad remains a mystery, but the timing of the launch suggests its aim is to derail one of several high-profile measures currently trying to qualify for the 2012 ballot.
The spot claims to be paid for by a group called "Californians Against Identity Theft." The coalition has no website and has not filed a campaign committee with the Secretary of State, though the content of the ad likely would not trigger disclosure requirements because it does not mention a specific measure or candidate.
Update 11:36 a.m.: A website for the group has been launched at this link
The group does not appear to have any ties to legitimate organizations dedicated to protecting consumers from identity theft. A spokeswoman for the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center disputed the premise of the ad.
Under state law, it is illegal to use initiative signatures for anything other than the initiative petition. Election code also prohibits felons ineligible to register to vote from serving as signature gatherers, as claimed in the ad.
Derek Cressman of government watchdog group Common Cause said he was "hard pressed" think of a situation where signing an initiative petition led to identity theft. He said the ad sounded like an attempt to "provoke a fear" to discourage people from signing petitions.
"If they really wanted people to take their warning seriously, they'd have more credibility by revealing their own identities," he said.
 |
| Ali Larter-wallpapers- |
 |
| Ali Larter-wallpapers- |
 |
| Ali Larter-wallpapers- |
 |
| Ali Larter-wallpapers- |
SB48 forces children to study materials that tell them their families’ values are wrong.Please join me in printing out petitions and standing in front of your local grocery store to get signatures. Our kids' and our society's future depends on YOU!
It forces schools to use a social science curriculum that promotes the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles that undermine traditional family relationships.
It does not allow parents to protect their kids by opting out of classes that promote homosexuality.
It forces schools to review and replace their curriculum at a time when this money should be used for other purposes.
As the LA Times wrote, it injects “controversial politics into the classroom” and puts politicians rather than academic experts in charge of curriculum at a time when classrooms need to focus on improving academic performance.
It requires a selective treatment of history by requiring that only events that reflect positively on people in the LGBT community may be discussed.
It creates conflict between schools and families over the values children learn.
It creates conflict between teachers and schools by forcing teachers with traditional values to teach as true what they do not believe.
It threatens charter schools that are renewing their communities, taking away their freedom to offer instruction focused on academics instead of politics.
 |
| Spider man 4 gwen stacy |
 |
| gwen stacy Spider man 4 |
 |
| Spiderman |
 |
| Funny Wallpapers- Funny Animals |
 |
| Funny Wallpapers- Funny Animals |
 |
| Funny Wallpapers- Funny Animals |
via TMZ.Russell says he finally conquered his addiction at the age of 27, the same age Amy was when she passed away. He says he'd known Amy for a long time before he had ever heard her sing ... calling her voice "entirely human yet laced with the divine."
Here's his blog, in its entirety:
For Amy
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that "Winehouse" (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric" I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his "speedboat" there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was "a character" but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work and this not being the 1950's I wondered how a "jazz singer" had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a f**king genius.
Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.
Hollywood Actress Copyright © 2010 LKart Theme is Designed by Lasantha
