Castro, The fascination with Geisha lifestyle is like wearing that Old pajama in your wardrobe.You love this Pajama .It keeps you snugly soft but you will never be caught dead wearing it in the presence of your friends since it has a hole between the edges. So Castro, you have to enjoy the Pajama in your private time to understand the fascination with Geisha's lifestyle! .

Miskin, all the brouhaha will come to an end once the credit card bills start rolling in on January.The only time of the year that i do my shopping is the friday after thanksgiving (ok girls,am not that penurious;i do buy some stuff occasionally!).

Warya Flipmode, do you sometimes weight your words before you write them down?Am curious,this has nothing to do with me riding on your back! I POOP ON THIS THREAD!

I am so sorry for any inconvenience that my little review caused. I had no intention to deprive you the ability to configure the movie for yourselves. I had initially written the synopsis for my blog. At first i thought the movie was one of those movies that may require a box of klenex next to me but no it wasn’t one of those movies(Indian movie fans knows this, god I hate Indian movies!).Since Pacifist had read the book; I hope she will tell us more. Tukale, Rule of thumb number one ; do not ever take a lady to the movies and then force her to watch what you like.If it was my choice i would have watched Syriana or any action packed movie.The night wasn't spoiled infact we thought it was a very happy and delighted moment

Last night I went to the movies. It’s been a while since I been to the movies. There were many movies to choose; from King Kong to Syrianna. Since I was a companied by a lovely lady, I had to be careful not to choose a boring movie that may spoil the spirit of the night. We decided to settle for Memoirs of Geisha. It’s a story based on a fictional novel that was written by Arthur Golden. I have never read the novel. The movie is a story about hurdles in life, betrayal, success and secret lovers. This is a story about women who will never be able to achieve their happiness. It is a story set in early Japanese society of Geisha’s life. Young girls are sold to the sprawling Geisha lifestyle in Japanese city. A young girl will be sold to a Geisha household that was investing in woman’s looks. The young girl whom the story revolves around is confused about what Geisha lifestyle is all about not knowing that it is the Geisha lifestyle that will save her life! The young girl will attempt to run away to join her sister who also was working as a Geisha in one of the neighboring Geisha houses. When the escape plan fails the young girl will be demoted to a slave. All her hopes of becoming a Geisha will collapse. One day while she was sank into a deep thoughts about her life she happens to meet a man who will treat her to a sweat. This man will become her secret lover and above all her encouragement to be a Geisha! The young girl will be taken by another Geisha who promised to transform her and make her one of the most celebrated Geisha of the city. Under the direction of this new Geisha, she is being trained and taught the rules of the Geisha game. She happens to catch the attention of a rich industrialist who happens to have a great dislike for Geisha! Her name will be changed to Sayuri. She will now become the object of competition between the men of the city. Every man wants to be the highest bidder. The war comes and ends her lifestyle of being a Geisha. Americans will arrive with their naïve conception of foreign culture. Sayuri and her friend Pumpkin (another Geisha) will try one more time if they can become a Geisha once again. This will lead to reunion of the secret lovers and revenge from Pumpkin loses of Geisha to Sayuri during the pre-war era. PS Good movie.......

Junk Science exist nowdays everywhere.I think it is in the best interest of the scientific community for Dr Hwang to step down.He is not the first one to be embroiled in scientific blunder.Many scientist manipulate the data to get a favorable prestige in a ground breaking research.Only this year we have witnessed the food and drug adminstration approval of prescription drugs that never made through the phase 2 of the clinical study!How many times a year do you happen to be bombarded with an epidemiological datas in the news? I guess it will be more than once a week.My point here is that junk science will always be pushed down through our throat;we just have to be careful.

Duh!!!!You kiss your mother with this mouth.... ...

All of my catholic school days fantasies have come true Yeah! Edit: I guess i didn't read the rules;the judges are the only ones supposed to put up a picture

Trust Him With Our Rights? No. By Richard Cohen Thursday, December 22, 2005; Page A29 George Bush's problem is that Washington is not a courtroom. If it were, he or his lawyer (Dick Cheney?) could rise and object to the mention of his "previous convictions." That way, every offense against custom, law, international agreements and common sense could be treated in isolation. Too bad for Bush, he has a rap sheet. It is his record of nonstop belligerence toward anything that would limit his powers that works against him as he tries to make a case for what in shorthand is called domestic spying. Any other president would have earned the solicitous attention and understanding of the country, including his critics. After Sept. 11, 2001, we were all willing to make some accommodations. If the president wanted to tap some phones, let him tap. Better that than another terrorist attack. The trouble with Bush is that it is hard to separate the reasonable from the unreasonable. It seems reasonable to me to listen in on phone calls from overseas to people here -- Americans or not -- if there is any link at all to suspected terrorists. If, say, a cell phone is found with certain numbers on it, I would monitor them all. That might not meet a strict legal standard, but it does seem to be common sense. With all due regard to law, the highest law of all is "better safe than sorry." But a reasonable stretching of the law in this respect becomes mighty suspect and somewhat scary when everything else is brought to mind. After all, the very same people who assure us that they are merely being prudent -- trust us -- are the same guys who held out until the last minute to retain torture as an option in questioning terrorist suspects and others. They are the same people -- Cheney in particular -- who are so tone-deaf to appearances, not to mention the opinions of the military, that they would publicly fight a restriction on torture. They do have a point -- not a persuasive one, mind you, but a point nonetheless -- but they see it as more important than anything else, even America's post-Abu Ghraib image. Right after Sept. 11 the Bush administration announced that it had no use for the Geneva Conventions. It would apply them as it saw fit -- and it did not see fit when it came to terrorists. These terrorists, after all, made war by no rules. Why should we abide by any? The answer, as many military officers said, is that we still could hold our enemies to a standard of conduct toward prisoners. If we did not adhere to it ourselves, there was no chance they would. The Bush administration brushed aside these objections. It established a vast Siberia that could be anywhere and where a suspect could be held forever on charges that were never brought. So an administration that makes something of a reasonable case when it comes to tapping the international phone calls of American citizens has its standing and veracity considerably weakened by what went before. The White House cannot explain why it did not ask Congress for this authority because, it is now clear, it does not want to ask Congress for anything. It will not explain why it could not seek warrants from a judge because, really, it does not want to seek warrants from a judge. This is the Louis XIV school of government: In matters of national security, Bush must say to himself, he is the state. Such a president cannot be trusted. In Bush's case, the extra inch that would be given another president in wartime has to be measured out in increments of tenths. He is so suffused with his own sense of righteousness that he cannot imagine his laws being abused -- not by him, certainly, and not by his chummy group of nicknamed nincompoops, either. He listens to Cheney, who still smarts from post-Watergate reforms that made the Gerald Ford presidency less imperial than Richard Nixon's -- and on purpose. Cheney was Ford's chief of staff. In courtroom trials, it does not matter what went before. The fact that the defendant had robbed does not necessarily mean that he has robbed again. But life is about rap sheets -- reputations and permanent records and personnel files. Read George Bush's and then ask yourself if it was exigency or ideology that prompted him to tap the international calls of American citizens without showing a court why. In his case, the record speaks for itself. cohenr@washpost.com Sources

Xiin, its only that things are little slow in my cubicle today. It is a simple math saaxiib, careful planning is all that is required. When we cut down all the trees and our arable land becomes infertile; will we then ask for a handout from the developed nations? We need to understand that the upsurge of our population will put a stress on our environment if we don’t make environmental policies a realistic long term nationalistic plan.

Castro, I know things have already fallen apart before this incident.Time and again i happen to weight my words before i size people up.Saaxiib, i grew up in the political correctness era .

It is indeed unfortunate that people died in this tragedy. Man has bent nature to serve his purpose. We as Somalis need to recognize and strengthen our society’s concern for the environment. It seems there is conflict of interest in this tragedy. This philosophy of not worrying about the state of the environment will sure lead to the ruin of the country. The people fighting for the economic gain from this charcoal burning needs to establish income generating activities like bee hives, or even tree planting whenever they cut down any trees. Agriculture needs to be modernized and food capacity production increased. This environmental degradation will only make people more desperate. Education of the environment in its broadest sense should be the necessary foundation of the Somali government.It is even clear to a man from Allah that he(men) should desist from wrong action and corruption against the norms Allah has set in nature for the benefit of men.

Xiin, What scares me is the notion that the fourth amendment’s pillar of “probable cause†can be used in criminal cases and terorist cases (You can always use the "probable cause" in any legal matter with the right authority). This decision is allowing the federal government to eavesdrop on our phone conversation without notifying us. The fourth amendment was our safe guard against the intrusion of Neo-cons like Bush. The Texas boy with the bed wetting Liberals have watered down the Americans right of liberty. It seems the cowboy did not consult his legal advisers before he mistook that “probable cause†is something you can bypass by just signing off a paper. In the Law “probable cause†is believed to have happen when there is evidence that the person has committed the crime or is about to commit the crime . Senator Feingold and other Liberals are now vociferous; we will see if this will bring any impeachment to our Texas boy! PS do you happen to watch "the news hour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS? They usually have a good one hour analysis of the news.

I don't know if this quote is in that list; this is my favorite Rumsfeld quote:"There are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns.That is to say , there are things that we know ....Each year we discove a few more of those unknown unknowns" The heck is all that? :rolleyes:

Good morning CW, my sincere apology to the people of Pakistan earthquake.I personally have few Pakistani freinds. My plan for the year 2006(IA) will be to graduate in May first(IA) and then travel to London(what are the chances that i will find she who must be obeyed there? :cool: ) before i start graduate school . PS:Waves at Ahura/Zeph....Hello cutie Pie... ...

All praise is to Allah, the lord of the universe, for making as all make through the year 2005. Peace and blessing is upon him our beloved prophet Muhammad. The year 2005 will be a year that is going to be remembered for long time. This was the year the Tsunami hit South East Asia and part of Africa. This was also the year the poor folks of Louisiana were hit by hurricane Katrina. The very survival of life on earth is closely governed by the state of our environment in which we live in. Historically there are innumerable accounts of weather changing the course of human lives. An example will be the migration of the Irish folks during the middle of the 19th centuary. This was caused by the weather induced potato famine in Ireland. Today we are witnessing and finding a direct contrast what weather can do in our very own eyes. The Tsunami disaster and hurricane have made millions of people homeless. The health and the welfare of humanity can all be safe guided by our actions in this planet. Sure whatever the Almighty writes will never be swayed by our actions but we sure can make a difference by being good citizens in this planet. We need to understand as human being that physical actions alone can’t make a difference; we need to expand our ethical perspectives of the planet we live in. How about we all say “Happy green 2006â€

Dear sheltered Guy, Clearly you have lived an extremely sheltered life and have never had to lift a finger to help yourself or wipe your own &*$#@. Did the society you grew up in do that for you? do you still live at home, or how are you managing that now? I'm very interested to hear. There are great benefits of women's education. One, for exposure to other people to know that jerks like you exist and to have education to know what to do about it-- I think physiology would be a good example. Women having education will know about body parts and where in particular to kick you for the utmost pain accrued. If you want to have a dumb pregnant wife you can't use the measuring cup to make you dinner (another benefit of education) you'll just have dumb kids who don't know anything either. Education is a social and moral obligation to the world at large and I'm sorry that you've never come out from under your rock to experience it.You don't have to stay home to be a good husband or wife.Dude what are the chances that you live in the medieval era? Your bigotry towards women is highly intolerated. PS am in a bad mood today!

^^^Strike while the iron is hot

Castro, i did forget to mention two people that keeps you or me in check(when we me make an abortive statements );Baashi and Xiin.They sure are ardent symbolism of Somalinimo and otheynimo. PS I am sorry;i can only vote for one person.

I will vote for Ngonge,the dude may come out as a pretensiously boasting person at times but he sure uses the right words as an armory of his mind.He is a sagacious person. PS: Any one knows where Zepherine is?

Castro, there is far too much that is unsatisfactory in that it is crying for energetic and wise advice like your's.We may be acdemically sterile at the moment but time will come when we will be able to claim a piece of the American dreams. Take an example the American Jewry(i know many hate this comparison but heck emulate them for the sake of analogy), they did not climb the ladder from the top.There are strong beleive that whispers to me that one day we will overcome these major impediments.

^^^Words spoken in good season......what a man can not clearly state he sure does not know.Good advice CAAAstro....

Remote and Poked, Anthropology's Dream Tribe By MARC LACEY Published: December 18, 2005 LEWOGOSO LUKUMAI, Kenya - The rugged souls living in this remote desert enclave have been poked, pinched and plucked, all in the name of science. It is not always easy, they say, to be the subject of a human experiment. Francesco Broli for The New York Times In Songa, Koitaton Garawale, left, was amused at delicate questions by Daniel Lemoille, a research assistant. Francesco Broli for The New York Times Johana Mikoro, in cap, studied a Western health magazine in Songa. "I thought I was being bewitched," Koitaton Garawale, a weathered cattleman, said of the time a researcher plucked a few hairs from atop his head. "I was afraid. I'd never seen such a thing before." Another member of the tiny and reclusive Ariaal tribe, Leketon Lenarendile, scanned a handful of pictures laid before him by a researcher whose unstated goal was to gauge whether his body image had been influenced by outside media. "The girls like the ones like this," he said, repeating the exercise later and pointing to a rather slender man much like himself. "I don't know why they were asking me that," he said. Anthropologists and other researchers have long searched the globe for people isolated from the modern world. The Ariaal, a nomadic community of about 10,000 people in northern Kenya, have been seized on by researchers since the 1970's, after one - an anthropologist, Elliot Fratkin - stumbled upon them and began publishing his accounts of their lives in academic journals. Other researchers have done studies on everything from their cultural practices to their testosterone levels. National Geographic focused on the Ariaal in 1999, in an article on vanishing cultures. But over the years, more and more Ariaal - like the Masai and the Turkana in Kenya and the Tuaregs and Bedouins elsewhere in Africa - are settling down. Many have migrated closer to Marsabit, the nearest town, which has cellphone reception and even sporadic Internet access. The scientists continue to arrive in Ariaal country, with their notebooks, tents and bizarre queries, but now they document a semi-isolated people straddling modern life and more traditional ways. "The era of finding isolated tribal groups is probably over," said Dr. Fratkin, a professor at Smith College who has lived with the Ariaal for long stretches and is regarded by some of them as a member of the tribe. For Benjamin C. Campbell, a biological anthropologist at Boston University who was introduced to the Ariaal by Dr. Fratkin, their way of life, diet and cultural practices make them worthy of study. Other academics agree. Local residents say they have been asked over the years how many livestock they own (many), how many times they have had diarrhea in the last month (often) and what they ate the day before yesterday (usually meat, milk or blood). Ariaal women have been asked about the work they do, which seems to exceed that of the men, and about local marriage customs, which compel their prospective husbands to hand over livestock to their parents before the ceremony can take place. The wedding day is one of pain as well as joy since Ariaal women - girls, really - have their genitals cut just before they marry and delay sex until they recuperate. They consider their breasts important body parts, but nothing to be covered up. The researchers may not know this, but the Ariaal have been studying them all these years as well. The Ariaal note that foreigners slather white liquid on their very white skin to protect them from the sun, and that many favor short pants that show off their legs and the clunky boots on their feet. Foreigners often partake of the local food but drink water out of bottles and munch on strange food in wrappers between meals, the Ariaal observe. The scientists leave tracks as well as memories behind. For instance, it is not uncommon to see nomads in T-shirts bearing university logos, gifts from departing academics. In Lewogoso Lukumai, a circle of makeshift huts near the Ndoto Mountains, nomads rushed up to a visitor and asked excitedly in the Samburu language, "Where's Elliot?" They meant Dr. Fratkin, who describes in his book "Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya" how in 1974 he stumbled upon the Ariaal, who had been little known until then. With money from the University of London and the Smithsonian Institution, he was traveling north from Nairobi in search of isolated agro-pastoralist groups in Ethiopia. But a coup toppled Haile Selassie, then the emperor, and the border between the countries was closed. Sources 12Next Page >

^^Let me be the referee and announce your scores.Ladies and genetlemen; may i have your attention!.The one and only Macpharah have reached the thousand post.Its time for him to satiate himself with the greesy oil of double quarter pounder with cheese.Cheers !!! Y'all need to leave alone our sordid shanty Somalian business alone.Is today the bashing of Somalis on every thread? PS Am about to bounce out of work; disregard this post.

Xiin, i live in Atlanta; one of the cities in the south with the most populated Somali community.The religious part of the Somali people up here is so far good.There are madrasahs and Islamic schools and even coffee shops(the worst place to waste time).Despite the Communties being the cornerstone of every immigrant community; it is the responsibilities of the parents to imbue their kids with high ideals and hopes or else it will be a zero sum game we are gambling here.It is a great idea to help the less fortunate among us(isn't that one of our Islamic calling?).My rumbling is about those teenagers that are showing off their drawers.There are some kids who are bold to the point of reckless on how they view life.Watching 106 and park at six pm will not do your school work.You have to wake up at the dawn to finish your school work.No one is going to do it for you.These kids are the same kids who will be hanging outside the coffee shops every evening after the soccer game or before some party.As for the old ladies not speaking english this is something beyond their control; it is our duty as a community to help them.