I love pay day! And I love the brilliance of simplicity.

Simple ideas have inspired me, and with a decent paycheck behind me I have found a way to start fundraising for Iraq!

Tommorow, or maybe on monday I am going to go to FAL (wholesalerofeverything) and buy tons of Freddo Frogs & Caramello Koala's, for 79c ea,
then re-sell them to high-school kids at $2ea, with the proceeds going to the Jarrar Family Project

hopefully if I buy $79 worth, I will then have $200 returned by the next pay day (next friday)....
so with that $200, and some more money of my own, I should be able to buy about 350 more choccies... The cycle goes on.
After 350 choccies, I will have $700.... another $90 and i can buy 1000....

I think we will have money for you guys in Iraq soon, so hold tight and try to dodge the bullets for a bit longer :)


But life's not all good. I feel myself sinking into a depression everynow and then.
The situation in the world has been cause for discontent my whole life.

As a kid I was pissed off that Tigers were being hunted, ANGRY about animal cruelty and always the bully-buster. That is I made sure my friends weren't beaten up on by bullies, even if it meant I was(though I never got physically bashed). It pissed me off that people thought they had the right to dominate others, I mean, they weren't even adults! how dare they tell me what to do!

Now I realise that even adults can't tell me what to do, they can help or ask for help,
but never can they TELL me what to do. If we had to be told what to do all the time we would all be dead, coz I sure as hell don't tell people to breathe every few seconds.

When will Rich Men & Women[see Condoleeza Rice] learn?

anyway enough on that. Found some rather disturbing peices of news today- 'enjoy' *sarcasm*

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From an article:


Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have reported a significant increase in deformities among newborn babies.

Health officials and scientists said this could be due to radiation passed through mothers following years of conflict in the country.

The most affected regions are in the south of the country, particularly Basra and Najaf, according to experts. Weaponry used during the Gulf war in 1991 contained depleted uranium, which could be a primary source for the increase, scientists in Baghdad said.

[snip]
*plenty of documentation that plenty of depleted uranium is on the ground from the current war aswell, don't forget about that* -[olivebranch]
[/snip]

"In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother or father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country," Dr Ibraheem al-Jabouri, a scientist at Baghdad University, told IRIN.

According to Dr Nawar Ali, at the University of Baghdad, who works in the newborn babies research department, a significant number of cases of deformed babies had been reported since 2003.

"There have been 650 cases in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals - that is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher," Ali warned.

Is this the better Iraq that we promised to create?
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here's the full article courtesy of Alternet Alternative News :)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/bad5cdd6e59942ed1a0bb28fa28163fa.htm


here's some of my fav quotes from the article for those lazy buggers who wont read it.

The type of deformities found in newborn babies are characterised by multiple fingers, unusually large heads, unilateral lips or no arms or legs.

The IRCS hospital registers at least four cases of deformities every week. During April this year, 15 cases were reported, according to the hospital spokesman, a number considered high for a short period of time.

Amran added that 60 percent of the cases were not related to blood factors, but due to other causes. She explained that after studying family history of couples with deformed babies, they concluded that radiation and pollution were the main causes of the deformity.

"My two children were born with deformities and today I had my third one with the same problem. The doctors say pollution is the cause and now my husband wants to divorce me claiming that I am not capable of bringing healthy children into the world," Fatima Hussein, a 34-year-old patient at the hospital, told IRIN

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There's other stuff on the agenda today too though- this from another bloggers site -

The Draft: Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Date: April 27, 2005 | 18 Rabi al-Awwal 1426 Hijriah

Blog: The Clipboard

From an article:


After two years of intensive fighting in Iraq, the Pentagon is feeling the strain in every military muscle and has been looking for relief in just about every direction but one -- the draft. All across the United States today, young people are wondering whether, sooner or later, in its increasingly airless military universe, the Bush administration will open the window a crack and let the draft in.

A key reason for the ever-more-evident strain on military resources is that more than 40% of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq are Army Reserves and National Guards. As Army Historian Renee Hylton told Salon reporter Jeff Horowitz, use of these forces creates pressure to "win and get out...there's a definite limit to people's service." When they are called to active duty, these troops risk their jobs as well as their lives; so, when their mandatory two-year terms expire, a significant proportion of them, under the best of circumstances, are likely to refuse further service. And service in Iraq has already proved something less than the best of circumstances. Little wonder then that, just past the two year anniversary of our invasion, the military is under increasing pressure to replenish this crucial element in the recruitment mix -- without much of an idea of how to do so.

In addition, in order to maintain troop strength in Iraq at anything like present levels, large numbers of active-duty soldiers must return there for more than one nine-month tour of duty, and this redeployment too generates distrust and distaste. Sooner or later, sizeable numbers of these angry soldiers must nevertheless be convinced to re-enlist, or else the pressure for new enlistees will escalate out of control and beyond the bounds of the present system to satisfy.

Add to this a constantly increasing casualty toll, now well beyond 30,000, which, in a variety of ways, places yet more pressure on recruitment. Finally, as embittered double-deployment veterans and angry Reserves, along with wounded and mentally stressed dischargees, return home, they only stiffen the resistance to enlistment among the young in their neighborhoods

This is a good article, with lots of links in the original, setting out the state of things. Will there be a draft soon? At some point, the choice will be that or withdrawal from Iraq.

[snip]
I agree, the site is excellent - heres a working link for you all [olivebranch]
[/snip]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7747