Pledge

It’s about to be a new year … and as I sit and reflect, I find I want to write a lilst of things to see in this new year…
Sort of a “bucket list” for 2009… both personal and otherwise.
Some are goals… some are attitude changes… some are wishes for the country or the world.
And some are just…. Thoughts.

In no particular order~

I want to be more level-headed, more responsible.
I want to be more thoughtful and understanding of others.
I want to train my mind to see the good in people before I see the bad.
I want to calmly speak what I feel and be more self-assertive when it’s proper.
I want to be more self confident.
I want to LAUGH more, and relax about life more.
I want to spend more time enjoying my friends ~ and doing things for them.
I want to fall in love with someone who will love me back.
I want to stop complaining about things and to condition myself to see the positive side of things.
I want to work hard and feel good about what I do.
I want people in my state to realize that we are all in a tough position now and to be willing to make sacrifices.
I want the politicians that represent us to do the right thing because it’s their job – and because it’s proper.
I want the next president to facilitate the healing that this country needs.
I want greed to stop being the overwhelming motivator in everything.
I want people to take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
I want to enjoy every single day I have…

I’m not demanding these things.
I’m not asking for them.
Most are things in MY control.

Like affirmations, I want to think them so much that I am able to make them happen…
I want to appreciate what I have….

I know these things won't happen unless I try...it's up to me.
I also know I will fail at many of these…but I promise that every time I do, I will think hard … and start again.

I took that picture above one October a few years ago ... and whenever I look at it, I feel the calm warmth of that day and the wonder I felt at such beautiful things I've gotten to see.

Happy New Year...

C'mon 2009 !!!!

courtesy FLMNetwork.com

May this coming year be happier, more fulfilling and mind-numbingly better than last year for you and everyone on this planetoid !!!

Kyng

Merry Christmas!!!!

Welcome Christmas! Bring your cheer.
Cheer to all Who's ~ far and near.

Christmas Day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.

Christmas Day will always be,
Just as long as we have we.

Welcome Christmas, while we stand,
Heart to heart And Hand in hand
T. Geisel 

Neo? Or Neo-Con>?

Love this!
Coutesy of: b3ta.com
The New Matrix...

History

The Nixon story dominated my junior & senior years of high school. I couldn't BELIEVE that a president and an administration could or would do such things as they did. I watched as President Nixon went from a dominating, controlled political figure and leader to a broken man - all live on TV. It was a severe lesson in politics, humanity, patriotism and the machinations of this county. It affected the way I thought about America. It made me look at history differently. It made us question what our leaders were doing in our names or behind our backs.

Mark Felt played a big part in that. And he himself had his issues, as you can read near the end of this article. the most fascinating thing, though, is the fact that after EVERYTHING went down, and Felt was on trial himself 8 years later, Mr. Nixon himself TESTIFIED on his behalf!!!

Incredible.





W. Mark Felt, 'Deep Throat' of Watergate, dead at 95
(CNN) -- W. Mark Felt, who leaked information to reporters under the moniker, "Deep Throat," about the Watergate break-in, died Thursday at the age of 95, sources told CNN.
Rob Jones, Felt's grandson, said his grandfather died at his home in Santa Rosa, California. According to published reports, Felt died of congestive heart failure.
Felt admitted in a 2005 Vanity Fair article he was the Washington Post's source for many of its 400 stories on the Watergate affair during the early 1970s. The Watergate break-in eventually led to the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon.
"I'm proud of everything that Deep Throat did," Felt, 92, told CNN's "Larry King Live" in 2006, his first public interview on the subject.
Felt's entanglement with history occurred in 1972 after the bungled break-in at the Democratic National Party offices in the Watergate hotel. Felt, an associate director at the FBI, said he was unhappy with the way the administration meddled with the investigation into the break-in, which led him to divulge information to the newspaper. Watch how Felt played a pivotal role in presidential history »
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, then-rookie reporters with the Washington Post, did stories about the break-in and subsequent cover-up. Both men credited Felt for helping them, but Bernstein said Felt was a tough interview.
"He didn't leak. He had to really be squeezed," Bernstein said in a 2006 interview. "He confirmed mostly what we had gotten elsewhere. He didn't want to volunteer a lot of information, yet his role was essential in giving us a solidity and a knowledge that what we were reporting was right."
When King asked Felt whether he felt he had done anything wrong in going outside approved channels to get information out, Felt was unequivocal.
"I thought I was doing the right thing," he said.
Felt, who retired from the FBI in 1973, had his own legal problems. He was convicted in 1980 on conspiracy charges for authorizing government agents to break into homes without search warrants in a hunt for bombing suspects in 1972 and 1973.
When the case went to trial, former President Nixon testified on Felt's behalf. Felt was eventually pardoned in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan.
When asked how he would like to be remembered, Felt said, "I'd like to be remembered as a government employee who did his best to help everybody."

Sock and Awe

Completely irreverent .... but funny.

Play here: http://www.sockandawe.com/

Enlightening...

LED Streetlights

Kinda cool.
And... FINALLY.
This kind of thing should already be in progress EVERYWHERE.

Of course, I have NO idea what kids will do now - we used ot be able to take out one streetlight with a well-thrown rock.
DAMN THEM!



Big City, Brighter Lights: New York City’s New LED Streetlamp Plan
By Emily Stone 11.24.08 Wired Mag
After half a century of walking their dogs under the same old streetlamps, New Yorkers are ready for a new age of enlightenment. Gotham's own Office for Visual Interaction won an international competition to design a replacement. Its inspiration: LED headlights. "We took the same idea and made it vertical," OVI's Enrique Peiniger says. The new lamppost's 4-to 6-foot head boasts up to 100 LEDs with multiple lenses that can be configured to dial in specific lighting "footprints" of uniform brightness. For New York, the coverage patterns will be tailored for three distinct situations—park, street corner, and mid-block.