Happy Birthday Jamie!

But seriously folks

After all the serious thoughts about the Saddam Hussein underpants pictures, am I the only person who felt surprised that he's a briefs guy? I totally saw him as boxers.

Queenie's Coming...

and so are the Badgers, Mushrooms and snaaakes..
But not, thank god, those awful BUNNIES

Spring Verse

91-year-old Great Aunt Posy wrote this spring poem for QD:

Bumble Bee
Gorgeous golden bumble bee
you take your work so casually
you go bumbling, bumbling
hour after hour
Is it within your power to
dust only the little garden flowers?

QD Responded:
Auntie, Auntie Aunt of Mine
You take the time to write so fine
I flutter, flit, flibberty gibbet
I should so like to sit a minute
But sit I cannot, yet I know why
I am not a bumble bee. I am a BUTTERFLY!

Save the Whales

So you think it is trite.
So you say to yourself,"Self - I told you that QD was a screaming liberal."
And you know what: you are absafreakinlutely right.
No need to thank me ... your children will.

QD Thanks those like Hardy Jones who are out there working to save us all:

Hardy Jones is a former journalist with CBS News and UPI. He has been making television documentaries about the oceans and marine mammals in particular for more than 20 years. "The experience of forcing Japanese fishermen to release hundreds of dolphins simply by pointing a camera at them led to the original concept of BlueVoice.org," says Jones. "The advent of the internet has given us a tool of unprecedented power to end some of the brutalities committed against marine mammals and the oceans."
More at BLUEVOICE.ORG

Here's why you need to protect your kids

Military Recruiters Lie About Dangers In Iraq

Recruiter: "We guarantee you a job."
Wagner: "Signing bonuses."
Recruiter: "Up to $20,000."
Wagner: "And cash for college."
Recruiter: "Up to $70,000 for college."
Wagner: "But when the questions turn to safety, some Tri-state recruiters make Iraq sound more like a trip to Tahiti than a journey to war."
Recruiter: "You have more chance of dying here in the United States at, what is it, 36-percent die, kill rate here in the United States, people here just dying left and right, you have more chance of dying over here than you do over there."
Read More ...

WARNING: Men may cause cancer?

Sperm may hold key to cancer, chimp study suggests

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The evolutionary path that separated humans from chimps 5 million years ago may have made human sperm survive better but paradoxically may have made humans prone to cancer.

A comparison of chimpanzee genes to human genes shows a concentration of genes unique to people in areas associated with sperm production and cancer, and suggests the changes that make humans unique also make us uniquely prone to cancer.

Here's the story...

Of course, it's not ALL about empire destroying...

Top 99 Actual Star Wars Lines You Might Hear In A Porno

Random sampling:
19. "Hey! Point that thing someplace else!"
27. oh shit it fell off
53. President Screw!!!!

check out the rest...

May The Force Be With US

Lautenberg to invoke Star Wars: Let's not let liberty die:

"Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is set to invoke Star Wars in a speech to the United States Senate on the GOP-led effort to eliminate the judicial filibuster...In this film, the leader of the Senate breaks the rules to give himself and his supporters more power."

RAW STORY has details:

If he'll just put some real pressure on -

One Sunday of no communion for pro-war politicians would be a good start!

"...Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia said Tuesday that the new pope told the cardinals he was selecting Benedict because "he is desirous to continue the efforts of Benedict XV on behalf of peace ... throughout the world."

As a Cardinal, the new pope was a staunch critic of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. On one occasion before the war, he was asked whether it would be just. "Certainly not," he said, and explained that the situation led him to conclude that "the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save."


Get the inside scoop on the new Pope at the Houston Catholic Worker

Oh What a Feeling!

HAPPY news for a change ...
Toyota to build Camry hybrids at U.S. plant.
Toyota announced plans yesterday to begin production of a new hybrid Camry model at a Kentucky plant, marking the Japanese automaker's first foray into hybrid production in North America. With Camry sales tops in the U.S. last year and the company's hybrid Prius selling used for higher than sticker price, Toyota sales exec Jim Press thinks combining the Camry with hybrid technology will be "like magic."

The cars should start rolling off assembly lines late in 2006, with initial output expected to be about 48,000 vehicles a year. Toyota will be investing some $10 million in the Kentucky plant, mostly for equipment modifications and employee training, but the state's recently passed hybrid-friendly tax legislation will help recover some of the costs. Says Press, "Hopefully this will plant a seed, because the industry needs to go to [the hybrid] solution throughout all the products." Word.
(from www.Grist.org newsletter)

Leave the Kids Alone!

Source: CSMonitor.com

SEATTLE – While most Parent Teacher Student Association meetings might center on finding funding for better math books or the best way to chaperon a school dance, a recent meeting here at Garfield High School grappled with something much larger - the war in Iraq.
The school is perhaps one of the first in the nation to debate and vote against military recruiting on high school campuses - a topic already simmering at the college level. In fact, the Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether the federal government can withhold funds from colleges that bar military recruiters.

Wanna protect your kid from having to go kill their kids?

Underneath all the noise...

AUSTIN, Texas -- As Riley used to say on an ancient television sitcom, "This is a revoltin' development." There seems to be a bit of a campaign on the right to blame Newsweek for the anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Islamic countries.
Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.

Read the article at Working For Change

Rico del Nav

This essay descibes Queenie's Daughter's life perfectly...

Stars in the Night Sky
by Richard Naviasky

When I lived in Harlem, I shit in a bag. But I loved living in Harlem. The toilet broke and the landlord took a week to fix it, so what else could I do? My neighbors were tight on 125th. Real people, not fake. Good people. Big Andre always on the street with dime bags and bits of advice. “Stand on your toes everyday, a hundred times in a row. Make your calves like iron. You need strong legs in life.” Duke, next door, a Harvard drop out and brilliant novelist, observing the neighborhood for forty years, and his beautiful wife, Aiki, painting and doing Tai Chi and baking cakes with her granddaughters Cherlonda and Blossom, always an open home for their wide and wonderful family. Andre the super, ex-boxer, ex-convict, weed lover, great man. Big Mike down the street at the fruit and vegetable shop, with a kind word everytime I walked by. “Alright then. How you feeling? Doing good today? Alright.” So what if the heat broke in the building during one of the three coldest winters I can remember in my life, and was left unfixed for two months. And so what if the sweltering summers seemed hotter inside our apartment than out. I was living in Harlem, guys bench pressing barbells on the sidewalk across the street, steamed crabs on paper plates, lemonade sold out of buckets, it felt like real New York, it felt like history happening. I was three stops from Yankee Stadium, putting on my Orioles cap and facing the crowds for three game stretches, back when Mike Mussina still belonged to me, and Cal Ripken was creating his immortality, and Brady Anderson was our leadoff homerun-hitting man. Once someone said when I told them I was living with my girlfriend in Harlem, “You must be a couple of stars in the night sky.” It was true. We and one other girl (who later died on 9/11) were the only white folks in a building of about thirty apartments. The ceiling leaked, the noise from the street was often unbearable, the rats kept the stray cats off the sidewalk, the plumbing broke regularly, the landlord was lousy, the breakers in the cellar would flip off the electricity half the time we made toast, but the rent was good and the neighbors had a thousand great stories to tell. When you live in a city, people make the place.

god, if I could only write like that - QD

...for more Nav check out willisbros.net

Nothing to say ... so much to do...

Links of interest...
Mad Max Perkins
Fred On Everything
Wendy McElroy
Foster Children being used as Guinea Pigs for AIDS drugs ...

This swell little ditty was penned by the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" - Julia Ward Howe

"Her mother was a Shaw,
And her father was a Tompkins;
Her sister was a bore,
And her brother was a bumpkin;
Oh! Soci–oh! Soci–
Oh! Soci–e–ty!
"Her flounces were of gold,
And her slippers were of ermine;
And she looked a little bold
When she rose to lead the Germin;
Oh! Soci–oh! Soci–
Oh! Soci–e–ty!
"For my part I never saw
Where she kept her fascination;
But I thought she had an aw-
Ful conceit and affectation;
Oh! Soci–oh! Soci–
Oh! Soci–e–ty!"

Happy Mothers Day

The true purpose of Mothers Day is expressed in this Peace Proclamation issued in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. Mothers Day was originally conceived as a solemn day of political significance. It was meant to be a day where mothers from all over the world would meet to discuss means by which to achieve world peace.
QD is reminded of the words of a modern day poet:
"More Huggin's Less Muggin's."
Enjoy - Peace

Mother's Day Peace Proclamation
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.

- Julia Ward Howe

Anne Coulter heckler seems like a heck of a good guy.

"I'm writing this in response to the spectacle that occurred in the LBJ Library on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005, when Ann Coulter, a diabolical, ignorant, but nevertheless charismatic right-wing pundit, came to speak at the University of Texas at Austin." continued...

NYC Bomb Scare

Makeshift Grenades Explode Outside British Consulate

Election Day UK

Guardian UK Election Blog
Voters were today going to polling stations across the country as a Guardian/ICM poll predicted that Labour would win a historic third term in the UK general election, possibly with a majority of more than 100.
The poll, taken last night, found no evidence that Tony Blair might be denied a majority by a late swing. It gave Labour 38%, the Conservatives 32%, and the Liberal Democrats 22%.

Special Place in Hell Filling Quickly

Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids
"Our position is that advocates weren't needed," said Marilyn Castaldi, spokeswoman for Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

update: extinct and imperiled mollusks

Three Snails Thought Extinct Discovered
or as they say in France ... le yum, le yum, le yum

Old Sins Cast Long Shadows

Now, Queenie's Daughter does not want to get arrested for asking nasty questions so she is very pleased to report that someone is asking the nasty questions for her...

Halliburton, will you please explain the discrepancies between testimony and indictment?

Anne Coulter you say you believe in the sanctity of marriage, but what about free speech?

George Bush what was your relationship with Enron?

Laura Bush were you ever involved in a fatal car crash?

and finally...

Lawrence Summers aka President of Harvard, "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?"

Damn, I may have to get cable!

Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert gets his own show.

A rose is but a rose is but revenge?

America's Mortal Secret
"The holiest acreage in America was consecrated in an act of revenge. Beating a retreat back to Washington from their defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, Union soldiers crossed into the property of ''Arlington House," Robert E. Lee's home on the Potomac River. They buried the remains of their dead comrades in Mrs. Lee's rose garden. From then on, the Confederate leader's estate was used as a Union graveyard -- a vindictive payback. The place is now known as Arlington National Cemetery..." more by James Carroll

Speaking of Coke Habits

I wonder if laughing Laura held the spoon...

Julie McCoy - your snooze director

This is a pretty scary "where are they now".
QD is also an interesting guest at parties but she does not list it on her resume as a possible job title. And let's face it - Ms. Tewes is fooling no one. Devout Christians are not so famous for being super fun at parties. Now had she kept the coke habit ... maybe then we would have something to work with.

I was never a fan ...

Rosie O'Donnell in the Hallmark Hall of Shame.

Simple Life Star Strikes Again????

10-Year-Old Boy Burned After Cell Phone Explodes

First Lady Makes A Funny

In a scripted interruption of the President's speech at the White House Correspondence Dinner on Saturday night, the President’s better half raised some eyebrows with the following remarks…

"I am married to the President of the United States and here is our typical evening. Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I am watching Desperate Housewives. With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentleman, I am a desperate housewife. I mean if those women on that show think they're desperate, they ought to be with George."

"One night after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendales. I wouldn't even mention it except Ruth Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor saw us there. I won't tell you what happened, but Lynne's Secret Service codename is now Dollar Bill."

"George always says that he's delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He's usually in bed by now. I'm not kidding. I said to him the other day, George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

"George and I are complete opposites — I'm quiet, he's talkative, I'm introverted, he's extroverted, I can pronounce 'nuclear.'"

"The amazing thing is that George and I were just meant to be. I was a librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George."

"People often wonder what my mother-in-law is really like. People think she's a sweet, grandmotherly Aunt Bee type. She's actually more like Don Corleone."

"I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."

"George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. Which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well."

"Kennebunkport ... is like Crawford, but without the nightlife… People ask me what it's like to be up there with the whole Bush clan. Let me put it this way: First prize -- three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize -- 10 days."

"It's always very interesting to see how the ranch air invigorates people when they come down from Washington. Recently, when Vice President Cheney was down, he got up early one morning, he put on his hiking boots, and he went on a brisk 20- to 30-foot walk."

Pouting Paris Explodes Toads

*****EXCLUSIVE******
In a shocking turn of events, scientist have discovered what has caused over a thousand toads to explode in Germany. It was first believed that aggressive crows were cleverly picking out the toads livers, causing the toads to then to puff up protectively. But with their livers removed and holes in their chest, the toads exploded, spewing their entrails and dying in slow agony.

QD has recently received startling information that debunks the "Crow" theory. It has been reported that Paris Hilton was seen meandering along the "Pond of Death" capturing and kissing toads in hope of finding her Prince Charming. After releasing the poor creatures, the toads then exploded.

Eyewitnesses report that Ms. Hilton seemed unaware of the devastation she was causing. One source reported being "stunned" by Paris' behavior, "Like, Paris is totally bummed out that Nicole [Richie] is engaged and she like freaked at the thought of being beat out to the altar. She did some research at Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica, and like this bookseller told her that in old times princesses like totally kissed frogs who turned into super hot guys who were like rich and freaky and Paris was like, 'That's Hot.'"

Insiders tell QD that Ms. Hilton immediately flew to Germany, to find her future husband. Unfortunately, Ms. Hilton has received so many Botox and collagen injections that the cosmetic poisons seeped out of her lips and onto the possible paramours. Paris' poisonous kisses mix with the natural secretions on the toad's skin causing a deadly and explosive chemical reaction.

Attempts at identifying the Santa Monica bookseller who inspired the poisonous pouts of Paris were unsuccessful. Repeated calls to Ms. Hilton’s office have not been returned. Developing...

Words to Remember

"When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes