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589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Hey y'all are forgetting Diagnosis Murder. You know the one with Dick Van Dyke....... |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Pink's already done, not sure about Phoenix, tho'. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | PS - Matlock kicks Murder She Wrote's ass any day of the week. It's gota be a toss up between Matlock and In The Heat of The Night. After all, they're both on TV 24-7. Some station, somewhere is always showing those things. That's how my college roomate flunked out of VCU - too much Andy Griffith. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | How about Pink or the Phoenix in Carytown or Chop Suey Books? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I prefer to be whipped only by quadriplegic midgets who can play the Star Spangled Banner on a $5 Casio keyboard with their tongue. Okay, opening the floor for comments: I need suggestions. I recently got a gig with AOL, writing reviews of stores and boutiques for their urlLink Digital City site . Think Citysearch, but I'm not supposed to say that. I need suggestions of places to write up and am open to all possibilities. FYI: I just did One Eyed Jacques, so RPG geeks have been addressed already (this means you, Jimi!!) I don't think I know my editor quite well enough yet to Priscilla's and Taboo yet (damn!) Help! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | kinky. Thank you, Neal. :) I'm going to attempt to rejoin the world of the living tomorrow...I'll let you know how it turns out. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | allen plummer likes to whip himself with strawberry flavored twizzlers candy. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | LOOK OUT WORLD!!! ANGIE ON DRUGS!!!!!!! RUN FOR YOU LIFE!!!! HIDE THE CHILDREN!!! Love ya Angie ;-) Hope you feel better! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Oh, I know you were joking about my joke, Mir... That was just a preemptive comment on my part, should I start to say REALLY weird shit. I'm a loose cannon. Look out. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Okay, I guess from now on, my humorous remarks will come after the serious ones. My comments about the ACLU is because I don't really like most of the causes they persue, not because of the case they are taking for Dr. Rajcoomar. Now... On the lighter side of things, I watched Monsters Inc. for the first time last night. Hilarious! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | okay, maybe i'm not getting something angie but you see my comment was a joke in response to your joke. see - hee hee!! and you are really high if you think murder, she wrote is the best show ever. it's obviously the second cosby show, 'the cosbys' |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Pardon my bizarre humor. I'm high on pain killers. I must be gone, because right now 'Murder, She Wrote' is like the best show, EVER. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I would have put a hyperlink for the article but that site requires a password to read their articles. Considering that the majority of people on this site do not have a pass code for the Washington Post, I decided to post the article instead. and johnathan, no matter how badly he wants it, will never work for KMFD. accept it and move on angie. it's not worth ruining your life over this. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | You're right..Johnathan never worked at Kings MF Dominion. He has insecurities about it. He feels as though he missed something. It keeps him awake at nights, crying himself to sleep, wishing for the day when he could have feasibly worked at KMFD. He yearns for the smelly polo shirts and the khakis and the white shoes. He aches for the smell of garbage behind Inferno Funnelcake. Please, God, just don't talk about it anymore! It's tearing us both apart!! *sob* |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | thanks for posting the article, mir - if possible, please post a hyperlink to the story. gadzooks! it would seem we have more KD alumni than i originally remembered. my apologies, jennifer and neal (i forgot to take into account jason and john as well)! you are all definitely veterans. and it would seem mir and angie have pulled some time in the Dominion as well, so... ...is JLS the only one in the circle who *hasn't* worked at Kings MF Dominion? small town, dude. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i'm sorry that i didn't let the group know, but the washington post article was an editorial. and i believe that the aclu is getting involved in the case of Dr. Rajcoomar not Mr. Feuer. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | 'He was held for three frightening hours and then released without being charged.' 'This was airline security gone berserk.' You know it used to be considered sensationalism for journalists to give opinions or slants of their own on the experiences of others. But then I guess just reporting the facts doesn't sell newspapers, enthrall television viewers, or attract Internet users to your website anymore. I am not excusing the actions of the air marshals in regard to Dr. Rajcoomar. I really don't understand from reading the article how they believed him to be a threat. But as for their reaction to the actions toward Mr. Feuer, what would you expect? If they had asked him to calm down, pretty-please with sugar on top, would be stupid. They can't take chances in situations like that. They would have aslo HAD to warn the rest of the passengers to remain seated and not to move to be sure their would be no accomplices taking action against them or others. But wouldn't you know the ACLU would step in--even though no one was openly worshiping God or trying to keep pornography out of the lives of children. But then peoples' feelings were hurt weren't they?... |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Actually, Johnathan, it was me. You called me late last night sounding groggy thanking me for something. I could barely make out the innane babble, but I was wondering why you were saying that you hoped I'd guess your name... |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | had a dream last night i thanked mick jagger for sympathy for the devil he seemed appreciative |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Hey Ben! You forgot that I too am a KD vet. Well granted you did not know me then but I remember the clown band coming through CAG to entertain all and just make a general nuisance of yourselves. ;-) Now I will just go back to lurking. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen Go to urlLink their website for the address, directions, etc. *eep* So excited that you guys are coming! :) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | the reason this man was arrested and held in a filthy cell for 3 hours - The Transportation Security Administration has declined to discuss the incident in detail. A spokesman offered the absurd explanation that Dr. Rajcoomar was detained because he had watched the unfolding incident 'too closely.' please read the rest of the article to get the full story on how airport security has gone bezerk - Dr. Bob Rajcoomar, a U.S. citizen and former military physician from Lake Worth, Fla., found himself handcuffed and taken into custody last month in one of the many episodes of hysteria to erupt on board airliners in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks. Dr. Rajcoomar was seated in first class on a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia on Aug. 31 when a passenger in the coach section began behaving erratically. The passenger, Steven Feuer, had nothing to do with Dr. Rajcoomar. Two U.S. air marshals got up from their seats in first class and moved back to coach to confront Mr. Feuer, who was described by witnesses as a slight man who seemed disoriented. What ensued was terrifying. When Mr. Feuer refused to remain in his seat, the marshals reacted as if they were trying out for the lead roles in Hollywood's latest action extravaganza. They handcuffed Mr. Feuer, hustled him into first class and restrained him in a seat next to Dr. Rajcoomar. The 180 or so passengers were now quite jittery. Dr. Rajcoomar asked to have his seat changed and a flight attendant obliged, finding him another seat in first class. The incident, already scary, could and should have ended there. But the marshals were not ready to let things quiet down. One of the marshals pulled a gun and brandished it at the passengers. The marshals loudly demanded that all passengers remain in their seats, and remain still. They barked a series of orders. No one should stand for any reason. Arms and legs should not extend into the aisles. No one should try to visit the restroom. The message could not have been clearer: anyone who disobeyed the marshals was in danger of being shot. The passengers were petrified, with most believing that there were terrorists on the plane. 'I was afraid there was going to be a gun battle in that pressurized cabin,' said Senior Judge James A. Lineberger of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, a veteran of 20 years in the military, who was sitting in an aisle seat in coach. 'I was afraid that I was going to die from the gunfire in a shootout.' Dr. Rajcoomar's wife, Dorothy, who was seated quite a distance from her husband, said, 'It was really like Rambo in the air.' She worried that there might be people on the plane who did not speak English, and therefore did not understand the marshals' orders. If someone got up to go to the bathroom, he or she might be shot. There were no terrorists on board. There was no threat of any kind. When the plane landed about half an hour later, Mr. Feuer was taken into custody. And then, shockingly, so was Dr. Rajcoomar. The air marshals grabbed the doctor from behind, handcuffed him and, for no good reason that anyone has been able to give, hauled him to an airport police station where he was thrown into a filthy cell. This was airline security gone berserk. No one ever suggested that Dr. Rajcoomar, a straight-arrow retired Army major, had done anything wrong. Dr. Rajcoomar, who is of Indian descent, said he believes he was taken into custody solely because of his brown skin. He was held for three frightening hours and then released without being charged. Mr. Feuer was also released. Officials tried to conceal the names of the marshals, but they were eventually identified by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter as Shawn B. McCullers and Samuel Mumma of the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the U.S. Transportation Department. The Transportation Security Administration has declined to discuss the incident in detail. A spokesman offered the absurd explanation that Dr. Rajcoomar was detained because he had watched the unfolding incident 'too closely.' If that becomes a criterion for arrest in the U.S., a lot of us reporters are headed for jail. Dr. Rajcoomar told me yesterday that he remains shaken by the episode. 'I had never been treated like that in my life,' he said. 'I was afraid that I was about to be beaten up or killed.' Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union have taken up his case and he has filed notice that he may sue the federal government for unlawful detention. 'We have to take a look at what we're doing in the name of security,' said Dr. Rajcoomar. 'So many men and women have fought and died for freedom in this great country, and now we are in danger of ruining that in the name of security.' |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | In opening to the abundance of the Universe, anything is possible! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | hey angie - where exactly is your play taking place? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Angie, you wrote this to Allen: 'How did you manage to stumble into this delightful gathering of the slightly maladjusted?' Some of us happen to be hopelessly maladjusted! Thank you for your time... and patience... Please don't kick me again, mother! I'll be good... Aaaaack! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i also worked at kings dominion. for one day. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | By the way, thanks to all my fellow bloggers for keeping me entertained while I am bedridden. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Yeah, I'm the rock star. I'm also Johnathan's hot piece of college ass. It's a good life. I, too, once worked for Kings MuthaFuckin' Dominion. It was like a high school field trip with ashtrays. An experience I would never repeat. But the pizza wasn't bad. Good to have you here. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I do make my own Kahlua, actually. I'm still pre-op, tho'. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | allen is a transgendered sex columnist for richmond magazine. he also enjoys canning his own pickles. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | When I was poor illegal immigrant of only 15, wearing nothing but a mullet, ruffled denim skirt, and fishnet top, Ben picked me up in a lime green 1975 Honda hatchback on the corner of Broad and Belvedere, and I became his bitch. Fast forward 15 years, and I still owe him money. Truthfully? Ben and I went to high school together, then worked together at King's MuthaFuckin Dominion ( always use 'MuthaFuckin,' people). Way back shiznit. Ben used to DJ at parties at my old apartment when I was at VCU, and we made a pilgrimage to Memphis and Graceland in the mid 90's. Jonathan (I think) contacted me a few months ago after finding a reference to Ben and an old school photo on urlLink my website . Wasn't long before I'd check in on this page every so often. Not exactly glamorous, huh? As for me, I won't take up space here, but my site should explain quite a bit. urlLink The video of me humping a rocking chair to the Beastie Boys probably best represents my lack of touch with reality. That was not a joke. It's on there. Seriously. What's your story? Are you the rock star? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Allen...pardon my ignorance. I'm delighted by your posts, but I have NO idea who you are. :) How did you manage to stumble into this delightful gathering of the slightly maladjusted? :) Thanks for the encouraging words. I do occasionally feel guilty about my illnesses. Not so much toward the insurance company, but for those around me who have to deal with it...since, well...I get sick a lot. I'm just one of those lucky people. I guess I couldn't be this beautiful and talented and charming without having SOMETHING wrong with me. But yeah...Cigna can bite my ass. I'm milking them for every penny I can. :) Tree - I have a friend about to enter design school...she'd like to do what you do for a living. If you don't want to take up blogger space with it, could you email me and give me some info/advice about it to pass along to her? It'd mean a lot...thanks! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | that would be a favorite phrase, not a favorite word |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i feel fine. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | my favorite words: here, take this bag of money. i don't need it. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | some of my favorite words: snatch yip! pancakes |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | some of my favorite words: spooky whoopsie silence! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | hey angie, we know you got it baby - flaunt it! : ) and yes allen, i did look at the link and it was very spooky. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I couldn't get it to work, actually. It just kept loading and never did anything... |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Did you guys even look at the link??? Jeez... |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Unlike such women who need Halloween to find and exploit what sexuality they feel they lack, I use it as an excuse to flaunt publicly what I normally (for the sake of societal propriety) downplay. I know I'm loved. :) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i think ted rall has lost his goddamn mind. and if what he is writing is true, then why does he feel safe even publishing it? urlLink http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/site/viewru.htm |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | yeah, i noticed that one year when ben and i were at a halloween party at shockoe arts center. almost all of the women there were dressed up like prostitutes or some type of slut she-devils. i like to dress up as a bar of soap. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Speaking of Catholic School Girls, there was a recent website that talked about how women now use Halloween as an excuse to dress sluty instead of scary. Something about needing attention and affection. urlLink See for yourself. Happy Halloween, guys. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I wanted to, but my honey and myself are SWAMPED with school work. I'm so behind...because of the play, I basically lost the month of September, so now I'm going all Nutty McNuts to catch up. Oh, well. There are many halloweens in my future during which I will get down and boogie oogie oogie. Love the costume, Allen. :) J and I were going to go as either Hef and a bunny or as a priest and a Catholic school girl (complete with cleavage and enormous lollipop)...next year, perhaps, when the world's spinning slows down a bit. :) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i want a halloween bear. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | CHICKEN FINGERS!!!!!!!! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | 'One more day 'til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. One more day 'til Halloween Silver Shamrock.' Name that movie. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Is anyone doing the costume thing to celebrate? Here's my costume: SpongeBob DolePants |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | can't read it without a password so here's the article Hady Hassan Omar's Detention By MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI Hady Hassan Omar had made up his mind. He was going to kill himself if he wasn't released by New Year's Eve. It wouldn't be easy. Three cameras recorded his every move. The lights in his cell weren't turned off for weeks at a time. And the guards watching him through the plate-glass wall were rotated round the clock. He would lie under his prison-issue blanket for as many as 20 hours a day. It was the only privacy he could get. Since his arrest on Sept. 12, 2001, Omar had been fighting a losing battle. No one would believe that he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He passed polygraph tests, but the F.B.I. still seemed convinced that he was linked to Al Qaeda. The guards in the isolation wing of Pollock maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana kept telling him that under new antiterror measures, he could sit in jail forever. He wrote the attorney general. He even went on several hunger strikes. But the corrections officers just threatened to strap him to a gurney and force-feed him through a tube up his nose. Omar was running out of the little hope he had left. His only solace now was prayer. He became convinced that he would never leave this place. His baby daughter, Jasmine, would take her first steps, utter her first words and grow up without him. If he could not be with her on her first birthday in December, he decided, life was not worth living. There are many ways to break a man, to make sure he is not holding anything back. Causing physical pain may be the quickest method, but it is not necessarily the most effective. To be absolutely certain that someone is telling the truth, you have to crush his spirit. That is what Hady Hassan Omar says the United States government tried to do to him in the days and weeks that followed Sept. 11. He was one of hundreds of Muslim immigrants held in solitary confinement for months without charges while the F.B.I. investigated their backgrounds. His 73 days of captivity, he claims in a lawsuit recently filed in the Western District of Louisiana, rose ''to the level of torture.'' Hoping that publicity about his ordeal might help his case, Omar and his family agreed to give details of it in a series of interviews arranged by their attorney, Robert Rubin of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco. Though his suit is the first of its kind, Omar is not alone in making such serious allegations. ''We have documented many instances in which immigrants from the Middle East and South Asian countries like Pakistan have faced cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of U.S. authorities,'' says William F. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. ''Those are the sort of practices we usually see in the most repressive regimes in the world.'' No one knows exactly how many young Muslim men were rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11. As of November of last year, when federal authorities stopped issuing information on the subject, the tally was 1,147. What is known is that thus far, of those initial 1,147 arrests, only 3 have resulted in terrorism-related indictments, and more than 400 people have been deported following lengthy internment periods and closed hearings. At issue is the key question lawmakers have been grappling with since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: just how far can America go to protect itself, both at home and abroad? For the attorney general's office, it is a delicate balancing act. The interests of national security must be weighed against constitutional guarantees, the safety of 280 million citizens squared against the rights of a few, or a few thousand, individuals -- mostly foreign nationals. The United States has not faced such a quandary since the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it was deemed necessary to intern 110,000 Japanese and people of Japanese descent, 70,000 of whom were United States citizens, to stop possible sabotage or espionage. Since 9/11, the Bush administration has been wrestling with the difficult task of arming the justice system with the legal weapons needed to fight the new threat. Much of the work has had to be veiled in secrecy for fear of tipping off the terrorists, and the emergency measures have sought to curtail some of the freedoms that extremists could employ to avoid detection, arrest and prosecution. But as time passes since the trauma of Sept. 11, the cost to individual rights is beginning to come into focus. David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, argues that ''the policy of keeping people in jail until the F.B.I. clears them is essentially 'guilty until proven innocent.''' Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, agrees. ''It's fundamentally un-American,'' he says. ''What's most troubling is that the American public is being kept in the dark about what is being done in the name of the war on terror.'' The A.C.L.U. has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the names of some of the detainees. In New York, a class-action suit filed in April on behalf of at least 87 detainees, separate from the A.C.L.U. suit, accuses the Justice Department of wholesale violations of the constitutional rights to which both American citizens and noncitizens in the United States are entitled. Several rulings by federal judges over the past few months indicate that the detainees could get a sympathetic hearing. There are many who believe that the necessity of preventing future terrorist attacks supersedes the rights of any individual, that standards of due process must be amended to suit extreme circumstances. ''Human rights norms recognize that in times of grave emergency, governments can take steps that are different from peacetime so long as they are strictly necessary and proportional,'' says Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international law at Yale and a former federal prosecutor. ''On Sept. 11 no one knew the extent of the threat, whether Al Qaeda succeeded in finding fissile materials, so there was great concern that the other shoe might drop.'' Ultimately, the issue will be for the Supreme Court and historians to decide. With Al Qaeda sleeper cells still possibly in the United States and Osama bin Laden still possibly at large, officials in Washington are reluctant to reveal tactics or discuss specifics or even to answer the charges leveled against them in particular cases. For now, what little is known about the methods used on the domestic front of the war on terror comes largely from the personal accounts of former detainees like Omar. is trouble began on Sept. 12 with a knock at the door of the house in Fort Smith, Ark., that Omar was staying in with his second wife, Candy (his first marriage, also to an American, ended in divorce), and Jasmine. The visitor was a man wearing jeans and a white polo shirt. A service revolver hung from his belt, and he carried a gold shield identifying him as a deputy from the nearby sheriff's office. Two other men were waiting outside, next to an unmarked S.U.V. parked in the driveway. ''They just want to ask me a few questions,'' Omar told Candy. She remembers that Omar didn't look especially worried, just a little tired. The day before, he had spent 14 hours at the Houston airport after his Sept. 11 flight from Florida was grounded, along with all air traffic in the country. ''I'll be home soon,'' he promised, with only a hint of the Egyptian accent that Candy had found exotic when he first asked for her phone number at the Electric Cowboy club some 16 months back. Candy might have been more concerned had she seen the F.B.I. agent handcuff her husband. But even when she went to the small F.B.I. office in Fort Smith to answer questions later that afternoon, the gravity of the situation had not yet dawned on her. ''I wasn't scared or anything,'' she recalled. The F.B.I. agents, after all, were relaxed and friendly, she remembers, and assured her that they simply needed to ask routine questions about a concealed-weapons permit Omar had applied for after joining a local gun club. Still, the line of questioning seemed somewhat incongruous. ''One kept asking if Hady was a good Muslim,'' she says. ''I said not really.'' It was true that Omar would not eat pork. But he didn't pray five times a day, go to mosque or deny himself the occasional vodka or Marlboro Ultra Light. An affable federal agent named Ed sat next to Candy in the waiting room, passing the time watching the television news. He would periodically point at the photos of the 19 hijackers that the networks showed and ask Candy if she'd ever seen any of them before. Candy didn't have a clue how the F.B.I. could possibly have linked her husband to the lead hijacker. 'Am I here because I'm Egyptian?'' Omar asked once as he was being taken into the F.B.I. interrogation room, where he was joined by another agent who introduced himself as Mike. The F.B.I., he says, had taken his weapons permit, his driver's license, Social Security card, work permit and the 13 credit cards he accumulated during his two years in America. ''I'll need those back,'' Omar said. He had an interview with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to get a green card in a few days, and he was going off on holiday with Candy to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Don't worry, he was assured, just tell us about your friends. The F.B.I. wanted names and numbers, and whenever Omar gave them one, an agent would scribble it down on a piece of paper and leave the room. (The Fort Smith F.B.I. branch office declined to comment on this account, as did Brian Marshall, a spokesman for the Bureau's Arkansas headquarters in Little Rock.) Candy, meanwhile, had signed a consent form allowing the search of their apartment; agents removed their home computer, documents, credit-card statements and correspondence, his collection of Arabic-language videos and a copy of ''Scarface,'' the Al Pacino gangster movie. At that point, Omar says, he was still most worried that all this would somehow affect his credit rating. He had signed up for all those credit cards and even taken a few small bank loans because he was told that was how one built a credit history in America, and he dreamed of owning his own business someday. On Sept. 11, he had been in Florida, working out the details, he says, of an Egyptian antiques store he was hoping to open with a friend who worked for Lucent Technologies in Cairo. Candy stayed at the F.B.I.'s Fort Smith office answering questions until just after 11 p.m. Then she was told she could leave. Her husband, though, would not be coming with her. The next morning, Candy Omar woke to find the banner headline ''Terror Strikes Home'' blazing across the front page of the Fort Smith newspaper, The Times Record, over a four-column photograph of her handcuffed husband being led away to the county jail. His arrest was on all the local stations as well, as were neighbors and former co-workers expressing varying degrees of shock, disbelief and outrage. Omar had not, in fact, been charged with any crime, but the media accounts glossed over that. On his papers, the line reserved for charges read vaguely: ''Hold for I.N.S.'' The F.B.I., it turned out, did have some potentially damning evidence: Omar bought his Sept. 11 plane tickets from the very same computer terminal in the same Boca Raton, Fla., Kinko's outlet that Mohamed Atta had used, around the same time too. And he fit the hijackers' profile perfectly: young, from a well-to-do background -- his father was an engineer working in Qatar - computer-literate, with a taste for vodka and nightclubs, just like Atta. It made sense that the F.B.I. would want to talk to him. But was his ticket purchase merely a coincidence? Or was Hady Hassan Omar part of the plot? At Candy's apartment, the phone rang incessantly. Omar's friend Gary called to say she should forget about her husband and move on with her life. Omar called, too, from jail. ''He sounded hysterical,'' Candy says. ''He begged me to believe that he wasn't a murderer or involved in any way.'' Around noon, the F.B.I. agents returned to Omar's holding cell in the county jail, this time in suits and ties. They had with them another agent flown up from Little Rock who asked Omar if he knew what a lie-detector test was. ''Yeah,'' Omar said. ''Like in 'Meet the Parents''' -- the comedy where Robert DeNiro plays a retired C.I.A. officer who subjects prospective sons-in-law to polygraphs. After the electrodes were strapped to his chest and index and ring fingers and a blood-pressure gauge was wrapped around his bicep, a series of seven questions began -- repeated three times in different order. Some were innocuous: Is your date of birth Jan. 19, 1979? Others less so: Were you planning on hitting U.S. targets or hurting Americans? The test lasted 90 minutes, then Omar waited. Good news, said the agent from Little Rock when he finally returned, all smiles now and patting Omar on the back. Omar was told he had passed. ''I was so relieved,'' he recalled. He would make his green-card hearing after all, and in a few days he'd be celebrating his wedding anniversary with Candy at a spa in Hot Springs, all this a bad memory. ''I can go now, right?'' he asked eagerly. What Omar did not know was that in Washington, officials were working round the clock to come up with emergency legal guidelines to fight the war on terror. No one knew where or when Al Qaeda would strike next, and the F.B.I., Immigration and Naturalization Service and other government agencies were under fire for what was seen as their failure to detect the Sept. 11 attacks. It would take six weeks for the final package of antiterror measures, known as the U.S.A. Patriot Act, to get through Congress and be signed into law by President Bush. But in the meantime the dangers facing America were very real, and the I.N.S. was enlisted to buy time for the F.B.I. Leads had to be followed up, stories checked out, bank records and phone logs verified. All this was painstakingly slow work, and by law suspects could not be detained for more than 24 hours without being charged with a crime. Though married to an American, Omar did not yet have permanent-resident status, which made him vulnerable. The I.N.S. can hold immigrants for overstaying tourist or student visas, taking too few college credits or any number of other violations. They could begin deportation proceedings against illegal aliens and keep them locked up if they were deemed a risk to flee or a danger to the community. It was all perfectly legal, as long as the detainees were charged under immigration statutes within 24 hours. After 9/11, that time frame was extended to 48 hours by the Justice Department, then seven days. In special ''emergency'' cases, says Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the I.N.S. in Washington, detainees can now be held without charges for a ''reasonable'' period. On Sept. 21, 2001, the Justice Department issued a memorandum reversing the detainee's right to open immigration hearings. In ''special-interest cases,'' according to the memorandum, hearings would be held behind closed doors. The immigration courts would not be required to confirm whether such cases were on the docket, and not even the relatives of detainees would be allowed to attend the secret hearings. ''Opening sensitive immigration hearings could compromise the security of our nation and our ongoing investigations,'' Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department spokeswoman, later elaborated in a statement. ''We are at war, facing a terrorist threat from unidentified foes who operate in covert ways and unknown places. This makes it essential that the United States take every legal step possible to protect the American people from acts of terrorism.'' Attorney General John Ashcroft himself recently defended the Bush administration's decision to beef up security measures at the expense of individuals' rights. ''History instructs us,'' he said, during a September 2002 address to United States attorneys in New York, ''that caution and complacency are not defenses of freedom: caution and complacency are a capitulation before freedom's enemies -- the terrorists.'' In several conversations and in the details of his suit, Omar has laid out his version of what happened next. While the case remains to be tried, this is the picture that emerges from his allegations. Though Omar was told that he had passed his lie-detector test, he was hardly in the clear. Late in the afternoon of Sept. 13, 2001, he says, an armed I.N.S. agent in a cowboy hat served him with a document known as ''a notice to appear.'' Omar had no idea what that meant. It was not a criminal charge, he assumed, yet he was being taken for mug shots and fingerprinting. You overstayed your tourist visa, the I.N.S. agent declared. ''But I'm legal,'' Omar stammered, perplexed, since his marriage to an American citizen made him eligible for permanent residency. ''I've got a work permit and everything.'' Sometime after midnight, he says, several I.N.S. agents slapped leg irons on him and cuffed him to a thick chain that was wrapped around his waist. Omar was put in the back of a tan Chevy sedan. ''Where are we going?'' he asked as they sped off. ''What's happening?'' No one said anything. They drove through the night, listening to country music. ''I kept asking for an attorney,'' Omar recalls. ''Finally one of the agents in the car lost his temper and yelled: 'Listen, let me explain this to you. We're not going to baby-sit you like the F.B.I.''' Omar still had no idea where they were taking him, though he could tell by the road signs that they had crossed over to Louisiana. The sun was already up when they pulled into a gas station, where an unmarked Ford Explorer and a police cruiser were waiting for them. Their destination was an I.N.S. office in Oakdale, La. Omar, still in shackles, was taken into a room with a large glass partition. ''Everyone in the office was staring at me as if I was something nasty or dirty,'' he says. He had been handcuffed for 12 hours and was dizzy with hunger. ''I asked them to take off the cuffs. But the guard just said hell no.'' Several hours later, Omar was moved again, this time to the New Orleans Parish Prison. He says he was ordered to strip and spread his legs before being searched, issued a jumpsuit and allowed to call Candy. She had been frantic and afraid to leave her apartment. The call from her husband, however, galvanized her into action. She arranged to drop Jasmine off with her mother, emptied their $700 bank account and drove south to Louisiana. The trip took more than 12 hours, and by the time she arrived at the New Orleans Parish Prison, Omar was already gone. He had been transferred in the middle of the night to a maximum-security prison, and when Candy called, no one would tell her if he was even there. ''I begged the administrator,'' Candy recalls. ''I said, 'He is my husband -- I need to find him!' But the woman just said, 'I think national security is more important right now.''' All across America, Muslim men were literally disappearing into the prison system. On Sept. 20, 2001, Shakir Baloch, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, was arrested in New York by the I.N.S. and F.B.I., and despite official inquiries from Ottawa, his detention was not disclosed for more than three months. He was held for half a year before being sent back to Canada. In California, an Egyptian-born dentist was taken into custody at a Los Angeles-area gas station, and while his friends searched for him in local jails, he was flown to a detention center in Brooklyn. In New Jersey, Anser Mehmood's wife spent six weeks searching for her husband, who was arrested in late September, not formally charged with a visa violation until March 2002 and held in an isolation cell with 24-hour lighting for seven months. The wife of an Egyptian national arrested in early September did not see her husband until Dec. 19, 2001. She passed on a letter he wrote to Amnesty International. ''I have now been in solitary confinement for three and a half months. . . . Why am I imprisoned? What are they accusing me of?'' It was only when he got to the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Pollock, La., sometime after 2 the next morning, that Omar realized the severity of his situation, as he charges in his lawsuit against the government. No one even knew he was there, and he was not permitted to make any calls. Strip, he was told, once again. A dozen officials, including two women, he recalls, looked on. Someone produced a camcorder and began taping as Omar undressed. Omar stood naked while his body cavities were searched for the third time in less than four days. He still has trouble speaking in front of his wife about what happened next. ''They told me to lift my testicles,'' Omar remembers, blushing slightly. ''One of the guards pointed at my backside and said, 'You sure you're not hiding anything in there?' I said no. 'I think he's got something in there,' he told the others.'' One of the corrections officers, he says, placed a call, and a man in white medical scrubs entered the room. He wore a latex glove. Bend over, he said. Squinting from the pain, Omar looked up at one of the I.N.S. guards who had escorted him from the New Orleans prison. She was laughing, he says. (A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington, Traci Billingsley, said that intrusive searches are performed ''extremely rarely'' in the penal system.) Isolation Cell No. 1 measured 10 feet by 10 feet. At its center was a concrete bunk. The only other furnishings were a plastic chair and a metal toilet. Now dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Omar desperately needed to use the bathroom but was still shackled. ''Can you take these off?'' he asked. The answer was no. ''But how am I going to --?'' The question was cut off by a corrections officer who motioned for another guard to join him. Each grabbed one of Omar's elbows and steered him to the bowl. But with the handcuffs still on, he could barely manage his zipper, much less aim. Urine began running down his pant leg as, he maintains, the guards laughed. Warden Carl Casterline came to visit him the next morning. ''He said he had orders from Washington to keep me there until further notice,'' Omar says. Omar again asked to telephone an attorney but says his request was denied. The warden was polite but firm on the matter; he had instructions from D.C., he said. The warden asked if he any special dietary needs. ''I don't eat pork,'' Omar said. Lunch was brought to him soon after. It consisted, he says, of bologna and ham. The lawsuit contends that the warden deprived Omar of his right to a religious diet. Casterline's office declined to comment on any aspect of this account, referring queries to the Bureau of Prisons in Washington. Billingsley, the B.O.P. spokeswoman, said she could not speak to Omar's case specifically but explained that federal policy allows inmates access to telephones for up to 300 minutes a month, provides alternative religious diets and mandates that prisoners be given exercise periods outside their cells. Omar decided to go on a hunger strike until he was allowed to call counsel. The guards were unmoved. ''One of them said, 'The attorney general just signed a new law today,''' Omar remembers. ''We can keep you here as long as we like.''' For the next 10 days, Omar was not allowed out of his cell. ''I thought I had died and this was hell.'' He kept having recurring dreams that his mother and little brother in Egypt were dead and that he was holding his daughter, Jasmine. He would wake crying and hide under his blanket so that the guards did not see. The F.B.I. returned a few days later with a consent form they wanted him to sign allowing the search of a crate of sample antiques he had received from Cairo. He signed the papers, he says, and again asked for a lawyer. By the time the attorney Candy had hired to find her husband, Lawrence Fabacher, finally reached his client, it was too late to prepare for Omar's immigration hearing, which had been scheduled for Oct. 2. The hearing was pushed back two weeks. ''I tried to sleep as much as possible to make the time go faster,'' Omar recalls. He did push-ups and sit-ups to keep fit, but his cell was so cold that he got the chills whenever he broke a sweat. They had turned off the hot water to his shower, so he stopped bathing. Pork was served at least twice a day. He had a newfound desire to practice his religion and tried to guess the correct hours for prayers by following the changing of the guards. They would congregate outside his cell and make faces whenever he tried to pray. On Oct. 16, two days before his I.N.S. hearing, two F.B.I. agents appeared. Omar recognized one as the polygraph technician from Little Rock. They wanted to know about his financial affairs; around that time, the hunt for Al Qaeda had shifted to tracing the money trail. For more than four hours, they pored over his banking and credit-card statements. Omar was questioned about every deposit, withdrawal and major purchase he had made since coming to America and asked about the nature of the antiques business he wanted to start. Again, he was shown photographs of the hijackers and of Osama bin Laden and asked if he recognized any of them. ''Sure,'' Omar said, pointing to bin Laden. The agents pounced: Where do you know him from? Television, Omar answered. He submitted to another lie-detector test, similar to the one he'd taken in Fort Smith, except that it now included questions about whether he had ever lied on I.N.S. application forms and if he was currently married to Candy. The results of the test apparently were not conclusive. The exam was re-administered, with the same result. We have to send for a specialist, the technician said. The specialist arrived from Houston the following day, lugging a digital polygraph machine that was hooked up to a laptop computer. Omar, by this time, could recite the questions by rote. But the F.B.I. was still not satisfied. One answer in particular kept coming up as inconclusive. And it happened to be the most important one: shown a picture of the hijackers, he was asked if he knew any of them. ''The specialist from Houston freaked out,'' Omar recalls. ''He leaned in so close that his nose was almost touching mine. You know somebody, he shouted. No, I yelled back. Yes, he screamed. I can see your mind on my computer screen.'' Eventually everyone simmered down. ''We can help you,'' Omar remembers the specialist saying, ''if you help us. We can get you a new identity. We can get you money. You know there's a $25 million reward for Osama's capture. We can move you anyplace and protect Jasmine and Candy.'' The next morning, Omar's immigration hearing went surprisingly well. The judge seemed sympathetic and ordered him released on the relatively low bond of $5,000. ''I was so excited,'' Omar recalls. He says he ate his first complete meal in days and cleaned his cell. He could barely sleep that night and woke early. Candy would be coming to collect him at the opening of business hours. He sat expectantly on his bunk, his few belongings in a neat pile. The hours passed: 9, noon, 3 in the afternoon, then 4 and, finally, 5. At 6, he called a prison administrator. The I.N.S. prosecutor had appealed his bond. Under the new antiterror measures, the government could overturn judges' decisions in ''special-interest cases.'' Even today, Omar gets emotional when describing how he felt when he heard the news. He stopped eating. For 68 hours, he didn't touch food or drink, until, he says, they threatened to put tubes up his nose. ''It was like part of me just died,'' he remembers. Omar was in a near-catatonic state. He couldn't tell the difference between day and night, weekdays and weekends any longer. As the weeks passed, his depression grew deeper. He lost 20 pounds. A second closed immigration hearing in mid-November did not go well. The judge was apologetic but said there was nothing he could do; the government had made the call. Omar now hardly moved from his concrete bunk. His feet grew swollen from inactivity. ''I thought I would have to stay in that room forever,'' he recalls. He couldn't take it any longer. He decided to kill himself -- and to make this intention known. Suddenly, everyone seemed very concerned. The warden visited and sent a psychiatrist. The F.B.I. man came and kept asking if he was serious about suicide. They could probably tell he had reached the end of his rope. And maybe, in the end, that was what saved him. t's impossible to say precisely why the authorities finally decided that Omar must be telling the truth. One senior law enforcement official in Washington did, however, agree to share a theory, on the condition that neither his name nor the agency he works for be revealed. ''If your subject has a complete breakdown,'' he said, ''the barriers to resistance are lessened. Once a person is at that point, he has lost the will to deceive, and you can be pretty certain that he's not lying.'' Omar had apparently passed his final test. Is he innocent? It is, of course, impossible to know, just as it is impossible to frame the question. Innocent of what? Charges were never presented. Perhaps the most important indication of his innocence is that for 73 days the government could find nothing beyond its original suspicions to hold him on. On Nov. 20, he was told to get his things together. ''Do you want to go home?'' a cheerful I.N.S. official asked. Three days later he was with Candy, on the freeway driving to Arkansas to see Jasmine. The ordeal, however, is not entirely over. The couple is broke; they have been forced to sell their car and furniture and move in with Candy's father, a postal worker. Many of their friends have deserted them. Employment prospects for Omar are bleak: he was fired by his pre-9/11 employer, and the only work he can find now is volunteering for a charity for disadvantaged children. And the government, citing Omar's first marriage, which it says was a sham (a charge Omar denies), has continued deportation proceedings against him. They just want him out of here, for reasons they still will not explain. Matthew Brzezinski is a contributing writer for the magazine. His last article was about the heroin trade. = |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | indeed. if only we could read it. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | an incredibly important article to read urlLink http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/27/magazine/27DETAIN.html |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | the dinner was good thanks miriam |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | *LMGDAO* That website is too damn funny... The pictures...man...I'm in tears...and the QUOTES from their black friends... *whew* Thank you. :) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | urlLink http://blackpeopleloveus.com/ |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when his telephone rang. 'Hallo, Mr. Hussein!', a heavily accented voice said. 'This is Paddy, down at the Harp Pub in County Sligo, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!' 'Well, Paddy,' Saddam replied, 'this is indeed important news! How big is your army?' 'Right now,' said Paddy, after a moment's calculation, 'there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire dart team from the pub. That makes eight!' Saddam paused. 'I must tell you, Paddy, that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.' 'Begorra!', said Paddy. 'I'll have to ring you back!' Sure enough, the next day, Paddy called again. 'Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!' 'And what equipment would that be, Paddy?' Saddam asked. 'Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's farm tractor.' Saddam sighed. 'I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to 1 and a half million since we last spoke.' 'Saints preserve us!' said Paddy. 'I'll have to get back to you.' Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. 'Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Harrigan's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Pub have joined us as well!' Saddam was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. 'I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!' 'Holy Mary, and Joseph!', said Paddy, 'I'll have to ring you back.' Paddy called again the next day. 'Top o' the mornin,' Mr. Hussein! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war.' 'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Saddam. 'Why the sudden change of heart?' 'Well,' said Paddy, 'we've all had a long chat over a bunch of pints, and decided there's no way we can feed two million prisoners.' |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | 'insluting others'? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | heh, my results center> urlLink What lesser-known Simpsons character are you? Brought to you by the good folks at urlLink sacwriters.com . |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I hate these 'What kind of...?' blah-blah-bullshit tests. Yet I'm stunned by the simple accuracy of this one: urlLink What lesser-known Simpsons character are you? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | 'If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?' Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, exiled Russian novelist quoted in Yes! (Winter 2002) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | That would be a mock version of the infamous 'I am God' sniper letter. And no, I did not do the photoshop of it. The original letter in it's entirety is urlLink here . |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | what the heck is that allen? did you make that up? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Good morning, all. Yes, yes. Dinner was quite the festive evening. Again, I apologize for begin late, and as a peace offering, provide the following humor straight from my ongoing trip to hell: |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Yes, thanks to Ben and Mir... Pleasure seeing those of you whom I already know... Pleasure meeting those of you whom I was meeting for the first time... It was a lovely meal with lovely people. :) Once again, I want to thank all of you for welcoming me so warmly into your circle of friends...I am honored that those of whom Johnathan speaks so highly should be so gracious to me... And no, I'm not just kissing ass. :) Seriously, you guys rule. And now I have stupid ol' poopid homework to do. Chow. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | and, less he thinks he is forgotten, thank you ben for starting this great blog site! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | and you knew i would be the first post :) thank you, all of you who showed up, to the big blogger dinner! it was a grand success and i, for one, had a smashing time. and once again, happy birthday jennifer! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | tonight is the big blogger party! pasta luna, 6:30 - if you have any questions, etc. call ben on his cell. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | My nose itches. I had a dream last night that I belonged to a high school preppy motorcycle gang, only the motorcycles were hoverbikes. I'm about to go eat breakfast with my future husband. What a beautiful day. :) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i think we should change the template on this page to the robot template. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | the only senator to vote against the usa patriot act is dead. paul wellstone,democratic senator from minnesota, died today in a plane crash. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | urlLink bob is so awful urlLink http://www.angryflower.com/forthe.gif |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | these crisp, cold morning certainly do wake me up ... but not as much as tongues of flame. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | urlLink Courtney's Lost Love 'Courtney Love's telling pals she's devastated by the tragic death of her dog! When Courtney had a doc remove her breast implants, she brought them home as 'souvenirs' . . . and the poor pooch ate one and died!' |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | oops one too many hee hees |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | hee hee neal. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | No I do not. That is why my roommate sleeps on air. ;-) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i have just made reservations for 9 at pasta luna 6:30, sunday. i was unable to get us into the upstairs because that is reserved for parties of 30 of more. head count so far: me,ben,neal,johnathan,angie,jennifer,allen - 7 |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | you have a roommate? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | My roommate sleeps on air. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | my roommate still keeps her air conditioner on at night. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I haven't slept in seventeen days yet I'm still behind on laundry |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | you are right, jennifer, i did state that dates were very unwelcome but what the hell, i thought since you were coming all this way to eat at pasta luna that i shouldn't put the same restrictions on you. i understand about being tired. i could get everything in my life done if i just didnt have to sleep. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | No bring no boy. ( No woman no cry.) He's teaching a kids' cooking class in the Bronx for a charity, and I didn't invite him to come anyway. Besides, I thought dates weren't welcome to the Blog Eating Contest (how many blogs did the winner eat last year?). I can't believe I'm a) renting a minivan (for driving my furniture back from RVA to my new apartment) for fuggin' $350 (because the $39.95/day special isn't offered in NYC), b) so tired from working so goddamned much, c) freaked out about the sniper madness, and/or d) all of the above. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | and jennifer, will you be bringing your friend de boy (isn't his name johnathan or andrew or ducky or something?) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | I'm there like white on rice... or more accurately, carbs on pasta. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | we will be meeting at pasta luna on sunday at 6:30 - if anyone needs directions or just advice please incessantly email ben at work. he loves it. all i need to know now is how many people will be there - so far i think it is: ben, mir, jennifer, angie, johnathan,neal, and (you?) |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | there's an upstairs at pasta luna? |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Did someone mention pasta......ME like pasta.....where pasta...........oh no pasta here..... I guess I will have to go to Pasta Luna. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | perhaps we could request a table upstairs (at pasta luna) more quiet perhaps o yes |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | good morning all ye fellow bears! |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | pasta luna is very loud difficult to hear what everyone is saying but perhaps it will be different this time .... angie and i are seeing laurie anderson tonight at u of r coooool |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | you know, ang, the service there is awfully crummy. and i don't even like indian food. but ben does love indian food and if he asked me to whip myself with an extension cord i would which thank god he has only requested twice but you know, i think it's time for me to break free from his tyrannical rule and establish myself as the queen of my own palace, rather than allowing him to wear the flowing robes and tiara all the time. with all that in mind, i decree that unless anyone disagrees with me, in which case i will immeadiately back down and mumble incoherently to myself, we will be dining at pasta luna! god save the queen. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | As for the Blogger dinner...I vote for Pasta Luna, for the following reasons: a) I love Italian food b) The portions there are huge c) They have creme brulee, which is the food of the gods as far as I'm concerned d) While I loved the food at India K'raja, the service was awful and I suffered from a sad tummy afterward e) Did I mention I love Italian food? f) You know what I REALLY love? Octopussy. What a great flick. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i know jimi will appreciate this article: For Bush, Facts Are Malleable Presidential Tradition Of Embroidering Key Assertions Continues By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 22, 2002; Page A01 President Bush, speaking to the nation this month about the need to challenge Saddam Hussein, warned that Iraq has a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used 'for missions targeting the United States.' Last month, asked if there were new and conclusive evidence of Hussein's nuclear weapons capabilities, Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Iraqis were 'six months away from developing a weapon.' And last week, the president said objections by a labor union to having customs officials wear radiation detectors has the potential to delay the policy 'for a long period of time.' All three assertions were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought. And all three statements were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States; there was no such report by the IAEA; and the customs dispute over the detectors was resolved long ago. As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy in recent weeks. Statements on subjects ranging from the economy to Iraq suggest that a president who won election underscoring Al Gore's knack for distortions and exaggerations has been guilty of a few himself. Presidential embroidery is, of course, a hoary tradition. Ronald Reagan was known for his apocryphal story about liberating a concentration camp. Bill Clinton fibbed famously and under oath about his personal indiscretions to keep a step ahead of Whitewater prosecutors. Richard M. Nixon had his Watergate denials, and Lyndon B. Johnson was often accused of stretching the truth to put the best face on the Vietnam War. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, too, played with the truth during the Gary Powers and Bay of Pigs episodes. 'Everybody makes mistakes when they open their mouths and we forgive them,' Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess said. Some of Bush's overstatements appear to be off-the-cuff mistakes. But, Hess said, 'what worries me about some of these is they appear to be with foresight. This is about public policy in its grandest sense, about potential wars and who is our enemy, and a president has a special obligation to getting it right.' The White House, while acknowledging that on one occasion the president was 'imprecise,' said it stands by his words. 'The president's statements are well documented and supported by the facts,' Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said. 'We reject any allegation to the contrary.' In stop after stop across the country, Bush has cited an impressive statistic in his bid to get Congress to approve terrorism insurance legislation. 'There's over $15 billion of construction projects which are on hold, which aren't going forward -- which means there's over 300,000 jobs that would be in place, or soon to be in place, that aren't in place,' is how he put it last week in Michigan. But these are not government estimates. The $15 billion figure comes from the Real Estate Roundtable, a trade group that is leading the fight for the legislation and whose members have much to gain. After pleas earlier this year from the White House for 'hard evidence' to make its case for terrorism insurance, the roundtable got the information from an unscientific survey of members, who were asked to provide figures with no documentation. The 300,000 jobs number, the White House said, was supplied by the carpenters' union. But a union official said the White House apparently 'extrapolated' the number from a Transportation Department study of federal highway aid -- not private real estate -- that the union had previously cited. The president has also taken some liberties as he argues for his version of homeland security legislation. He often suggests in stump speeches that the union covering customs workers is blocking the wearing of radiation detectors. 'The leadership of that particular group of people said, 'No way; we need to have a collective bargaining session over whether or not our people should be made to wear these devices,' ' he said in Michigan last week. 'And that could take a long period of time.' The National Treasury Employees Union did indeed argue in January that the radiation devices should be voluntary, and it called for negotiations. But five days later, the Customs Service said it saw no need to negotiate and would begin to implement the policy, which it did. After a subsequent exchange between the union president and Customs Service commissioner, the union wrote in April that it 'does not object' to mandatory wearing of the devices. The Customs Service said the delay had less to do with the dispute than the fact that customs lacks enough devices (about 4,000 are on order). The White House and Customs Service said the dispute was settled in part because Bush had the authority to waive collective bargaining, although he did not exercise it. On Sept. 7, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, Bush told reporters: 'I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA -- that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.' The IAEA did issue a report in 1998, around the time weapons inspectors were denied access to Iraq for the final time, but the report made no such assertion. It declared: 'Based on all credible information to date, the IAEA has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its program goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material.' The report said Iraq had been six to 24 months away from nuclear capability before the 1991 Gulf War. The White House said that Bush 'was imprecise on this' and that the source was U.S. intelligence, not the IAEA. In the president's Oct. 7 speech to the nation from Cincinnati, he introduced several rationales for taking action against Iraq. Describing contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq, Bush cited 'one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year.' He asserted that 'we have discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet' of unmanned aircraft and expressed worry about them 'targeting the United States.' Bush also stated that in 1998, 'information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue.' He added, 'Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,' an alliance that 'could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.' In each of these charges, Bush omitted qualifiers that make the accusations seem less convincing. In the case of the al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment, U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that the terrorist, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was no longer in Iraq and that there was no hard evidence Hussein's government knew he was there or had contact with him. On the matter of the aircraft, a CIA report this month suggested that the fleet was more of an 'experiment' and 'attempt' and labeled it a 'serious threat to Iraq's neighbors and to international military forces in the region' -- but said nothing about it having sufficient range to threaten the United States. Bush's statement about the Iraqi nuclear defector, implying such information was current in 1998, was a reference to Khidhir Hamza. But Hamza, though he spoke publicly about his information in 1998, retired from Iraq's nuclear program in 1991, fled to the Iraqi north in 1994 and left the country in 1995. Finally, Bush's statement that Iraq could attack 'on any given day' with terrorist groups was at odds with congressional testimony by the CIA. The testimony, declassified after Bush's speech, rated the possibility as 'low' that Hussein would initiate a chemical or biological weapons attack against the United States but might take the 'extreme step' of assisting terrorists if provoked by a U.S. attack. White House spokesmen said in response that it was 'unrealistic' to assume Iraqi authorities did not know of Zarqawi's presence and that Iraq's unmanned aircraft could be launched from ships or trucks outside Iraq. Some of the disputed Bush assertions are matters of perspective. Bush often says, as he did Friday in Missouri, that 'because of a quirk in the rules in the United States Senate, after a 10-year period, the tax-relief plan we passed goes away.' There is a Senate rule that required a 60-vote majority for the tax cut, but the decision to let the cuts expire was based on pragmatic considerations. Proponents of the cut from the House and Senate -- both under GOP control at the time -- decided to have the tax cut expire after nine years to keep its price tag within the $1.35 trillion over 10 years that had been agreed between lawmakers and Bush. Other times, the president's assertions simply outpace the facts. In New Hampshire earlier this month, he said his education legislation made 'the biggest increase in education spending in a long, long time.' In fact, the 15.8 percent increase in Department of Education discretionary spending for fiscal year 2002 (the figures the White House supplied when asked about Bush's statement) was below the 18.5 percent increase under Clinton the previous year -- and Bush had wanted a much smaller increase than Congress approved. Earlier this month, Republican moderates complained to Bush's budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., that the administration was not spending the full amount for education that Congress approved. Daniels said it was 'nothing uncommon' and decried the 'explosively larger education bill.' 2002 The Washington Post Company |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | hee hee ben. knee slapper. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i have the song 'stuck' frozen in my head. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | i have the song 'frozen' stuck in my head. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | that was funny angie - (not as in Dr. I Take Care of Cats) chuckle. tee hee. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | Allen...*lmgdao*...you crack me up. I'm half tempted to start killing people for the injustice of the No-Steve Dell commercials as well...although, if I were going to start a killing spree for something arbitrary and stupid, I'd rather it be the 'People Will Continue To Die Until Britney Spears Is Sent Into Outer Space Without A Spacesuit' campaign. So at least it would be something I truly feel... I, too, have an image of the guy being some pissed off white vet (as in Nam, not as in Dr. I Take Care of Cats...although that would be pretty damned funny, too)... *sigh* Stupid ole stupid. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | those guys were just illegal immigrants so the sniper is still at large. i must admit though the image of someone happily crapping their pants is quite amusing. |
589,736 | male | 35 | Technology | Aries | 05,August,2004 | This is Richmond, not Hollywood. Although knowing Henrico cops, they'd certainly get into that scenario. Some of those guys have been waiting their whole lives for something like this. Sheriff Cook must be crapping his pants with joy. I myself thought it was somebody upset that Dell fired that Steven dude from their commercials. I know that's enough to make me pick up a gun. |
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