a thousand words

as i do from time to time, i was checking out 10by10 tonight. for those who havent heard about it, its a really interesting way of tracking what is most popular in world news at any given time - its updated hourly.

so here's some photos off it that spoke to me. All these are to do with the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Remember - its updated hourly, so you might get different photos.
note: the links i found for these were on 10by10 but the photos were orignally posted on BBC and NYtimes.

waiters union

richard sent me a link to these guys
its awesome stuff, i'm so impressed
all i can say is that if there were more groups like this, the world would be a better place

some more thoughts on the death penalty

going on in the comments of that original post a few days ago
its here

death penalty!

so here something interesting!
in many asian countries, if you bring drugs in (or out) you get the death penalty.
it seems the US has an interesting alternative... if you dont take your drugs (medication) then you get the death penalty. (see here)

maybe Hitler should have been more creative... it seems the US are exterminating Black people with lethal injections, the mentally ill with air marshals, and putting all the homosexuals in a ghetto (san fransisco) - maybe thats a little bit of a stretch? You go George W!

adventures on the internet: 10 by 10

so i did a bit of blog following tonight, stumbled accross a couple that interested me.
anyways... i found this interesting thing called 10by10, on a blog - by cheryl, thanx whoever you are :)

it basically compiles the 100 top words and images in the news on the net, and it changes every hour... We got a mention - when i looked (it will have changed by now) Dr Pattel (that psycho who was working in Bundy) was at number 88, with the word Australia connected to it...
So, an interesting tool... like me i guess.

anyways... heres the link

prioritise this

TV at the moment sucks. So, i ventured over to SBS - which i have been doing a bit lately. They had a great report on the response to Hurricane Katrina. Its funny how priorities effect things.

Basically they talked about FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and how the director and most of the high up staff there were totally inexperienced when it came to disaster management. The guys that they appointed were just put there as political thankyous. It was a cushy, high paying job for friends of the whitehouse basically. And well... FEMA had been like this, from its conception (1979) till 1993 when something amazing happened.

Clinton decided to put staff in at FEMA that had experience with disaster management. So, he took James Witt from Arkansas, and he did a good job. Lets flash forward about 7 1/2 years, to George W Bush running for president. He says - that Witt had done a good job. And well, he had, so maybe that was the one smart thing George W has ever said...

So, the good dude (Witt) left when President Stupid got control of America. And then, what did Bush do. Appoint the mate of the Chief of Staff... Some guy who had no idea (Joe Albaugh)... Then what happened... Over the next 4 years, the Bush administration cut the funds the FEMA had for prevention programs, and basically turned them back into a toothless tiger, a face to blame when things go bad. ... left, then Mike Brown whod been the number 2 for a couple of years (another politician basically) gets appointed

Katrina hits. This poor director of FEMA (Mike Brown), the Governor of Lousiana and the Mayor of New Orleans all get grilled. Well... the FEMA guy lied like crazy, tried to make the Govenor and Mayor look stupid. And well, the FEMA dude did a poor job, sure... but...
WHY WAS HE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!

I guess what i wanna draw out of this is that in the US government, and ours... we need to seriously give prioritisation to things that matter. Dont just feather our own nests, but make things right, do things properly... now! (unlike Bush, who has finally now appointed someone who has experience in Disaster stuff after having 2 shockers - David Paulison - a fire department guy)

You know whats funny. Maybe at times... the church could learn from this too. Just maybe...

Well, when 93% of American Nazarenes vote Republican, its not hard to see what we have to learn, how and why we have to change.