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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (442625)	12/25/2008 9:25:51 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575290

How to Celebrate Kwanzaa Kwanzaa is a holiday through which African-Americans can connect with their heritage and culture. It's celebrated from December 26 through January 1, with each of the seven days focusing on one of seven core values (Nguzo Saba). A candle is lit on each day, and on the last day, gifts are exchanged. Since Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, rather than a religious one, it can be celebrated alongside Christmas or Hanukkah, or on its own. wikihow.com

To: i-node who wrote (442625)	12/25/2008 9:44:34 PM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1575290

It's great here, says the mother of eight living in a £2.6m townhouse paid for by you By Vanessa Allen ( Coming to the Obamanation soon! ) Last updated at 10:06 PM on 25th December 2008 A mother of eight has told of her ‘great’ life in a £2.6million home funded by taxpayers. Francesca Walker receives more than £90,000 a year in benefits to pay the rent on the five-bed villa, plus other payouts. She insisted she would rather live in a normal council house, but added: ‘I’m not going to pretend this isn’t great.’ Miss Walker, 33, has Tory leader David Cameron, actor Hugh Grant and Four Weddings writer Richard Curtis as neighbours in fashionable Notting Hill, West London. Her four-storey home boasts five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a double living room, study and roof terrace. Miss Walker said: ‘All my life I’ve lived in overcrowded flats on estates with gangs that kicked our door in and harassed my children. ‘We lived in some hellholes. One stank so badly we couldn’t use two rooms. Another had a gas leak that made my children ill.’ Miss Walker, whose children range from five to 16, was given the house because a new rule introduced by the Government in April forces Kensington and Chelsea council to fund suitable homes for large families. None of the available council houses was big enough, so the local authority pays for her to rent from a private landlord. Miss Walker admitted the move, in September, had caused ‘a lot of jealousy’. She said: ‘My best friend accused me of swallowing up everything the world has to offer and becoming materialistic. ‘I didn’t ask to be here. I’d rather have a job and an ordinary house than be trapped in a Catch-22 situation where going to work will actually make me worse off because I can never make enough to pay the rent. ‘Now that I am here, I’m not going to pretend it isn’t great. It’s amazing to have so much space and not to have nine of us queuing to use one bathroom in the morning.’ Miss Walker is not the only one benefitting from the new rule. In October, it emerged that an Afghan family of eight were being housed in a £1.2million private home in Ealing, West London, at a cost of £150,000. Miss Walker, a Muslim convert, was brought up by her Jamaican-born mother after her musician father abandoned them. She was taken into care at 14 when her mother had a nervous breakdown. She said: ‘I lived in three foster homes and moved school five times. By 17, I was living in a children’s home with some disreputable characters. I was afraid of being abused and becoming a junkie. I began to explore Islam.’ She converted to the religion and married a fellow convert. They had five children before divorcing five years later and she had three children from a second marriage, which also lasted five years. Miss Walker insisted: ‘I’m the product of a failed society. My family failed me, the council failed me and I failed myself. I should not have married and got pregnant at 17. ‘On the other hand, I’ve never been in trouble with the law, my kids are healthy and well looked-after, we’re moderate Muslims, not extremists, and I’m taking a degree with the Open University so I can be a support worker for families who are socially excluded.’ The council said: ‘We could not give Miss Walker a property outside the borough because her children go to local schools.’ Miss Walker gets £15,000 a year in benefits in addition to the £91,260 rent paid by the Government via the council to the landlord's agency, Foxtons. To her affluent neighbours, Miss Walker, in her embroidered espadrilles and hijab, is something of an enigma. Many have never rubbed shoulders with a council tenant and some took her to be the wife of a Middle Eastern businessman. 'She looks rather well-heeled,' says one. 'Her children always appear smartly dressed and she seems like a well-spoken, house-proud mother.' Indeed, guests can't fail to notice she has furnished the villa in style. She has two 42in flat-screen TVs, a computer and a clutch of expensive-looking sofas and Ottoman beds. The house does not feel sparsely appointed, as some might expect, given that she's meant to be living on the poverty line and it was rented 'unfurnished'. So how does she manage to afford all this on benefits? 'I'm a self-taught seamstress,' she says, showing me her sewing machine. 'I buy second-hand sofas off eBay for £95 that would sell for £3,000 new then re-upholster them. I also got the TVs off eBay for £110. And I make my own clothes. As a single mother with no family to support me, I've learned to be resourceful and sponge off society.' dailymail.co.uk

To: i-node who wrote (442625)	12/25/2008 11:17:41 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575290

>> Like I said to inode, this wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for the record breaking weather. Yep. If the streets weren't frozen it would definitely be a non-issue. But it is just one more example of liberal lunatics gone nuts. By doing this, they have caused more accidents and injuries, and for what? Why does it bother you? You are not the one inconvienced. You act like a child......not wanting any kind of restrictions placed on your behavior. Well no one died and made you king. Same old crap. Low-flush toilets that cause MORE water usage. How so? My low flush toilet works fine. Global Warming, to get everyone excited about a nonexistent threat to the world. It appears that's a mistake. Nonetheless, why do you want to pollute the air and use up our fossil fuels? It really wouldn't be a problem if we didn't let extremists make decisions. Then why did you vote for Bush/Cheney twice?

To: i-node who wrote (442625)	12/27/2008 5:29:10 AM
From: Taro	Respond to of 1575290

i-node, seems like Al Guru and his believers got something to think about, here the latest in from Russia, enjoy! Taro January 03, 2008 Top Russian scientist: global cooling coming Randall Hoven Ironically, the current spell of global warming, such as it is, can be expected to end just as the Kyoto treaty ends in 2012, but having nothing to do with reduced emissions from fossil fuels. For the remainder of this century, it will be global cooling we'll have to worry about, according to highly credentialed Russian scientist, Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin. Dr. Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute. He explains the recent warming as a natural trend. "Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases." So what will happen in the future? "Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer. "Physical and mathematical calculations predict a new Ice Age. It will come in 100,000 years, at the earliest, and will be much worse than the previous. Europe will be ice-bound, with glaciers reaching south of Moscow." The high standing of Dr. Sorkhtin and the inherent plausibility of his argument that climate will continue to follow the same basic causal factor, solar activity, make this another heavy blow to the heavy breathing of the global warming alarmists, who insist there is no argument at all.