What I find interesting is that both the House and the Senate has standing committees representing both the majority and minority they are tasked with providing Congressional oversight of the following executive branch departments and agencies:

Office of the Director of National Intelligence , Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security’ Department of Justice, Department of State, Department of Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Office of Naval Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, United States Army Intelligence and Security Command, United States Coast Guard, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity.

In addition, there is dedicted House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism/Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Analysis and Counterintelligence. These Committees are also tasked with conducting periodic investigations, audits, and inspections of intelligence activities and programs. So my question is has Congress been asleep at the wheel since 9/11? But wait, here is article from the the ACLU talking about President Clinton http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html and the use of redition during his time in office.

I think it’s time for the hard core Bush haters to call it a day and listen to their new President and begin looking forward and start spending time reading the Bills they are sending to President to become law.

The word “ringtone” comes from the English words “ring” and “tone”. It means an incoming call sound of a telephone. Nowadays it is almost a synonym of a melody set as a mobile phone ring.

The first ringtone.
It’s curious that ringtone appeared a little later than a telephone itself. The telephone invented by A. Bell in 1876 didn’t have any ringtone and a call was realized with a whistle. A ring was offered 2 years later in 1878 by T. Watson. But for a long time ringtone was an ordinary bell ring though electric.

The first mentions of the first real ringtones appeared in the middle of the 20th century when the Popular Eletronix journal in 1956 published the article “Telephones will call with melodies”. That article said: “Telephone users will be glad to know that The Bell Telephone Laboratories is working on a new device which will do away with the boring present-day rings. This device that uses transistors will produce nice sounds like ones of a clarinet”.

Probably, one of the most famous and recognizable ringtones is a “Nokia Tune” built into the Nokia telephones as the default ringtone. It appeared in 1994 (and still holds its positions).

What ringtones can be?
Ringtones have been developing gradually; therefore the existent types of ringtones represent the steps of their development.
Monophonic ringtones contain a notes set and any moment only one note can play. The first mobile phones had such ringtones. They were peeping really nasty.

Polyphonic ringtones can play several notes simultaneously. One of such ringtone formats is MIDI. This is the next step of the ringtones development. The phones that have high-quality MIDI sequencer utter melodies with a good quality of sound. These ringtones can play the sounds of different instruments, but they are almost unable to reproduce a voice.

Realtone is modern and the most commonly used format nowadays. The modern digital formats of music (AAC, WMA, MP3, Ogg, etc.) are used to store records. Thanks to them top-charts and other popular melodies are used as the ringtones.

How can you get a rington?
It’s a strange question, isn’t it? You can download it from friends, buy it (there are lots of different content-providers) or create it youself. You can create a ringtone online or by using the appropriate program – for example, SoundForge or CoolEdit.

It is important to remember that the usage of ringtones is restricted by the copyright law. So you can create, sale or exchange ringtones only in agreement with its rightholder, otherwise you may become even criminally responsible.

The most popular ringtones.
Nobody performed such a research, but the hit parade of the ringtones would look like this:

1. Perhaps the most popular ringtones are those ones installed on mobile phones by default. For example, the above-mentioned Nokia Tune. The most people are too lazy to change something.
2. Classical melodies, for example the immortal compositions by Beethoven “The 5th symphony” and “To Elisa”. They are very pleasant to hear and almost never annoy. Well, they may annoy some people only because there are too much of them.
3. Rock and pop hits.
4. Different merry, annoying, loud, unusual melodies like Crazy Frog or the voice-talker “Hello, this is your mobile phone speaking. You’ve got a call”

P.S. create ringtone online with ringtonizer.com!.?

The word “ringtone” comes from the English words “ring” and “tone”. It means an incoming call sound of a telephone. Nowadays it is almost a synonym of a melody set as a mobile phone ring.

The first ringtone.
It’s curious that ringtone appeared a little later than a telephone itself. The telephone invented by A. Bell in 1876 didn’t have any ringtone and a call was realized with a whistle. A ring was offered 2 years later in 1878 by T. Watson. But for a long time ringtone was an ordinary bell ring though electric.

The first mentions of the first real ringtones appeared in the middle of the 20th century when the Popular Eletronix journal in 1956 published the article “Telephones will call with melodies”. That article said: “Telephone users will be glad to know that The Bell Telephone Laboratories is working on a new device which will do away with the boring present-day rings. This device that uses transistors will produce nice sounds like ones of a clarinet”.

Probably, one of the most famous and recognizable ringtones is a “Nokia Tune” built into the Nokia telephones as the default ringtone. It appeared in 1994 (and still holds its positions).

What ringtones can be?
Ringtones have been developing gradually; therefore the existent types of ringtones represent the steps of their development.
Monophonic ringtones contain a notes set and any moment only one note can play. The first mobile phones had such ringtones. They were peeping really nasty.

Polyphonic ringtones can play several notes simultaneously. One of such ringtone formats is MIDI. This is the next step of the ringtones development. The phones that have high-quality MIDI sequencer utter melodies with a good quality of sound. These ringtones can play the sounds of different instruments, but they are almost unable to reproduce a voice.

Realtone is modern and the most commonly used format nowadays. The modern digital formats of music (AAC, WMA, MP3, Ogg, etc.) are used to store records. Thanks to them top-charts and other popular melodies are used as the ringtones.

How can you get a rington?
It’s a strange question, isn’t it? You can download it from friends, buy it (there are lots of different content-providers) or create it youself. You can make a ringtone online or by using the appropriate program – for example, SoundForge or CoolEdit.

It is important to remember that the usage of ringtones is restricted by the copyright law. So you can create, sale or exchange ringtones only in agreement with its rightholder, otherwise you may become even criminally responsible.

The most popular ringtones.
Nobody performed such a research, but the hit parade of the ringtones would look like this:

1. Perhaps the most popular ringtones are those ones installed on mobile phones by default. For example, the above-mentioned Nokia Tune. The most people are too lazy to change something.
2. Classical melodies, for example the immortal compositions by Beethoven “The 5th symphony” and “To Elisa”. They are very pleasant to hear and almost never annoy. Well, they may annoy some people only because there are too much of them.
3. Rock and pop hits.
4. Different merry, annoying, loud, unusual melodies like Crazy Frog or the voice-talker “Hello, this is your mobile phone speaking. You’ve got a call”

P.S. make ringtone online with ringtonizer.com!.?

Fall marks harvest time, cooler weather, and the close of summer, but for many it is also the beginning. This is a great time to take advantage of this new beginning as a teacher when you actually have time to plant some seeds and let them grow, unlike the traditional springtime plantings that we leave to wilt come summer.
It is easy to do, and easy for kids to get excited about. All you need is a sunny window (or a plant light) and a little room for a big pot, One teacher I knew used a kiddie pool to grow sunflowers in. (she had a large room)

• Start off with a brown paper bag with some sunflower seeds in it. Bring it to class and see if the kids can guess what is in it. Shake it a little, give a clue, let them feel inside, lastly you can show them, but keep it suspenseful!
• Then, talk about what they could be. Some children may be familiar, perhaps they had their own garden this past summer.
• Follow this up with a story I like to read. What’s This? A Seed’s Story, by Caroline Mockford. In this book a girl and a cat, find a seed and decide to find out what it is. They plant it and wait, and of course it becomes a Sunflower. The story is a great length for young children, pre-K, K, and even first graders will enjoy this one in September when attention has not developed yet. (What’s This is a Barefoot Book )
• Let children plant seeds in cups at first if you like or just plant them anonymously into the large container.
o Try planting some extras to experiment witholding light and water. Let the children predict what they see, record their ideas on a chart and post it in the Science area. Spend time noticing with the children which ones grow best, what do plants need to grow? (water, light, soil)
o While the plants grow you can introduce measuring, which is taller, shorter? How many inches?
o If the children are really interested, there are many great titles about soil and worms. The class could start a compost aquarium, and then use the composted material to feed the sunflowers as they grow.

• Once the sunflowers have grown, there are many posiblities for learning as well.
o Show the children some paintings by artists who used sunflowers for their subject matter. Encourage the children to notice how the artists created their sunflowers, colors? Lines? Shades?shapes? Then provide children with paints (watercolor tablets, or liquid are great, but another idea is to use craypas, to outline big shapes then wash over them with water colors. Use BIG Paper (18×24 is a good size) or have children create a class mural on large mural paper.
o Encourage students to Study a sunflower head in the science area. Patti Grosse, a teacher I once knew, used a large framed mirror in her science area to place items on for study with magnifying glasses
o Use the sunflower seeds as a counting exercise. Group seeds into cups of ten, let children each have a chance to fill cups with ten seeds.
o Make roasted sunflower seeds for a snack choice.

There are a few other Barefoot Books I like to group with this one.
The Gigantic Turnip, by Aleksei Tolstoy, is an invigorating version of this traditional favorite! Very fun, one of my favorites!
Jack and the Beanstalk, Richard Walker, is a great one we all know with NOT Scary illustrations by Niamh Sharkey.
Herb the Vegetarian Dragon, Jules Bass, wonderful story about conflict If only Herb and the others could solve the real worlds problems!, ( may be a bit long for the youngest listeners).
Whole World, Christopher Corr and Fred Penner, great remake (with singalong CD of an old favorite, endnotes informative on ways to conserve our natural resources.
The Sun in Me, contains poems about the planet.

“Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks.” These are some of the most relative, albeit a bit simple, words of Tom Petty in one of his best, but rather unknown songs, Walls. The meaning may be simple but there is a certain soothing to the poetic nature in which the lines are constructed. I catch myself saying these lines over and over when I’m having a rough day. Sometimes I’ll say them when I’m having a good day or even a mediocre day. There is just something soothing about them. I have been saying these lines to myself for afewyears now. Maybe it’s the attachment I feel with the song to my life experiences. Maybe it’s the meaning of the lines. Maybe it’s just that Tom Petty is one of the greatest musicians ever. Regardless chanting those two lines in sync with Mr. Petty over and over has helped me progress through the rough times of my life, knowing that someday will be a diamond. Consequently it’ll also keep me grounded knowing that someday will be a rock as well. But that’s just the way life works, some days are diamonds and some days are rocks.

Little did I know though, that I have been practicing a form of Mindful-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Perry Garfinkel outlines the different forms in his book, Buddha or Bust. The form that I was ignorantly practicing was similar to what Easterners practice, chanting a line or sutra repeatedly, clearing your mind and letting your stress go while bowing to some Buddhist significant – dumbly put. Though it is traditionally done a bit more formally than the way I have been going about it, with bows to a Buddha statue and other ‘religious formalities.’ Westerners tend to do a more scientific based meditation, but that is getting sidetracked…

When Garfinkel was in Hong Kong he noticed that the city had gone through a boom across the board in particularly the last 50 or so years; the city was quite modern, having the highest cell phone ownership per capita, the longest covered escalator system, the worlds tallest soft drink plant and not to mention, it is a multinational corporation hub for Asia as well as the world. He also noted though, that there appeared to be a lot of stress associated with this busy city. Everyone seemed to smoke, which I can relate to because, sadly, I smoke from time to time to deal with my stress and I hate it (another nasty side affect from a failed relationship). I admit it is kind of a Catch-22. When Garfinkel talked to Dr. Helen Ma who is an expert of MBSR, particularly Eastern MBSR, she said, “People are getting richer but not happier” and that “Hong Kong is becoming hungry for something spiritual.” This may have something to do with the largest Buddha statue being erected there and completed in 1993. These people are clearly vying for something, or at least the way that Garfinkel has described them. Dr. Ma states that Minduflness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a variation of MBSR reduced the risk or recurrence of major depression from 78% to 36%.

This brings up the question, is MBSR a scam? People are paying a lot of money to learn how to chant formally through a ten week program, yet I chant lines to a Tom Petty song at my leisure and obtain similar benefits. The businessman would undoubtedly argue that if there’s a benefit and you can make money doing it, then why not? An ethicist might have a different opinion however. While Garfinkel may have had an open mind to this, and why the hell not, he is getting paid to do a story on it (note: in a businessman fashion), he didn’t seem sold on this style of MBSR. He had a conversation with an Indian man who was using MBSR to help him get through his rough career. The Indian was working for a multinational corporation, in a high stress environment. He learned this man’s pain and suffering and was able to relate to him through the MBSR. Garfinkel seemingly leaned to the statistics after this experience, but his attitude however, was not selling, and being an engineer I can tell you that 62% of all statistics are bogus – ha! Maybe it had something to do with the awkward experiences he had in these group type sessions.

One could argue that the entire ritual is just that, a ritual. You have to go through the motions to obtain the full effectiveness of MBSR. I have not experienced that, but it seems to me that I do essence of what MBSR is all about. I’d never pay to be able to sing or chant lines from my favorite Tom Petty song or any other song or sutra for that matter.

Some days are diamonds

Some days are rocks

You can create an avatar online by taking advantage of a magnificent online service picator.com.

Avatar on the Internet is a way of self-expression, a way to personalize yourself on boundless resources. Avatar is a way to make you recognizable. A memorable avatar marks out the owner from the crowd, attracts attention to the comments of the avatar’s owner.

Certainly, you can download an avatar, but a downloaded avatar can be downloaded by other people, so there may be many users with the same avatar. The best way is to create your own, personal, attractive and nice avatar.

What kind of avatar should be created?
The avatar should attract attention, but shouldn’t annoy the site visitors. For example, eyes annoying high-contrast bright red square won’t be good to attract attention. The avatar should stick in memory – you can make several photos of your face with unusual mimicry and create an animated avatar on which you will wink once in several seconds. It may turn out more attractive than endless catlings and doggies. The avatar should be nice and good-looking. A negligent avatar just will alienate other users. A close-up face is good for avatar, and a many times scaled-down photo of you against the background of a large building is bad for avatar.

What you need to create an avatar
Actually, to create an avatar you need only a little time and desire. You can create an avatar online and without spending money on the Photoshop (or stealing it), without troubling over the poor Paint, offered by Windows for image editing. Also you need one or several photos.If you have no photos or you want to use images, you should look for images on the Internet. Popular search systems such as google.com or other offer searching for images service. You can search there and then create an avatar out of the images you’ve found (but remember that you can’t use every found image for avatar because usage of some of them is restricted by the copyright law).

You can save the found images on your computer or immediately upload them to the site and create an avatar out of them just by pointing at the image link (usually, you can get the image link by pressing the right button over the image in a browser and select an item with the text like “save link” from the pop-up menu).

What can I do with the selected images
Having uploaded images to picator.com you can edit them in various ways. You can move them to create a composition. You can rotate them by selecting the correct position (for example, to create a collage by placing friends’ faces in a circle). You can resize and scale them. You can cut out a part of the image to replace the cut part with another image. You can cut off unnecessary parts of the picture (for example, to cut out someone’s face and to stick it to another person).

To create an avatar
In general, you can create an avatar quickly, easily and above all free of charge. Use your imagination and creative thinking – and a nice and attractive avatar or collage will be your award. And if other people like your avatar, it means they like you too, so you attract their attention.

p.s. We wish you to create a cool and interesting avatar!.