Happy Birthday to my Beautiful daughter Keeley
7 years old today!

May the sun
bring you new energy by day,
may the moon
softly restore you by night,
may the rain
wash away your worries,
may the breeze
blow new strength into your being,
may you walk
gently through the world and know
its beauty all the days of your life.

Native American Blessing
Attributed to the Apache Tribe

Thanks to BGW for sharing this with us...

We’re all familiar with the scene. Run-down shanty towns where the world’s poor try to get by amid violence, unsanitary conditions, political impotence, and bleak prospects for the future.

We assume it’s a festering mess. Precarious living at its worst.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In hundreds of barrios around Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, qualified doctors are staffing freshly minted clinics, grocery store shelves are stocked with cheap, locally produced food, small-scale cooperative businesses are thriving, and educational opportunities are being expanded. These advances are not simply the by-product of a public treasury awash in oil revenues. More than that, they are tied explicitly to President Hugo Chavez’s revolutionary Bolivarian process – or simply el proceso – that is fundamentally altering Venezuela’s social fabric, forcing the nation’s institutions to respond to the people, rather than vice versa. And while the flamboyant Chavez deserves credit for this sea change, his supporters – known as Chavistas – are driving much of the revolution themselves. For though it was Chavez who initiated discussions to draft a new constitution in 1999, the document’s tenets of justice and equity were hammered out by ordinary citizens through nation-wide forums and meetings. The final document is wildly popular among Venezuela’s poor, and many of them always carry a small blue booklet version of it in their pocket.

www.adbusters.org/the_magazine/62/23_de_Enero.html

Walmart’s bad publicity is piling up and it’s on the defensive like never before. So this year’s Buy Nothing Day is the perfect opportunity to target the corporate bully specifically and add to its woes.

Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head

· Scientist says device disproves quantum theory
· Opponents claim idea is result of wrong maths

It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.

Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation.

www.guardian.co.uk/renewable/Story/0,2763,1627425,00.html

If I have to Imprison 200,000 bloggers...

www.studentssketchpad.blogspot.com

Another reason Hillary Clinton will be a Great President...

Bill Clinton says wife would be better president...

JERUSALEM - Former President Bill Clinton said in an interview Friday that he thinks his wife would do a better job than he did in the nation's highest office.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has not said whether she plans to run in 2008. Nonetheless, her husband told Israel's Channel Two television that her experience as first lady would help make her a strong president.

''In some ways, she would be [better] because of what we did together,'' he said from New York. ''First, she has the Senate experience I didn't have. Second, she would have had the eight years in the White House.

''I think she wouldn't make as many mistakes because, you know, we're older and more mature, and she is far more experienced now in all the relevant ways than I was when I took office. So I think in a way she has the best of both worlds.''

Bill Clinton was interviewed on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He is expected in Israel later this week for the Rabin memorials.

Hillary Clinton, who is running for re-election to the Senate next year, has refused to rule out a 2008 run for the presidency, saying she is concentrating on her current office. Polls show that if she runs for president, she would be the favorite for the Democratic nomination.