I love your dark eyes,
And your curly hair,
I love your smile,
And the way that you care.
I love your deep kisses,
I love your soft touch,
I love you, I love you,
I love you so much.
By : Christin C.
Jose A. Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://avicast.blogspot.com
http://jose-aviles.blogspot.com
Here is my Precious taking a nap. She is the cutest Puppy in the whole world. She drive us nuts but she is a good Puppy. MY PUPPY.
Jose A. Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://avicast.blogspot.com
http://jose-aviles.blogspot.com
In a landmark for gay rights, the Senate on Saturday voted to let gays serve openly in the military, giving President Barack Obama the chance to fulfill a campaign promise and repeal the 17-year policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."
Obama was expected to sign it next week, although the change wouldn't take immediate effect. The legislation says the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' fighting ability. After that, there's a 60-day waiting period for the military.
"It is time to close this chapter in our history," Obama said in a statement after a test vote cleared the way for final action. "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed."
The Senate vote was 65-31. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, on Wednesday.
Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the military and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.
More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law.
Rounding up a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate was a historic victory for Obama, who made repeal a campaign promise in 2008. It also was a political triumph for congressional Democrats who struggled in the final hours of the postelection session to overcome GOP objections on several legislative priorities before Republicans regain control of the House in January.
"As Barry Goldwater said, 'You don't have to be straight to shoot straight,'" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to the late GOP senator from Arizona.
Sen. John McCain, Obama's GOP rival in 2008, led the opposition. The Arizona Republican acknowledged he didn't have the votes to stop the bill and he blamed elite liberals with no military experience for pushing their social agenda on troops during wartime.
"They will do what is asked of them," McCain said of service members. "But don't think there won't be a great cost."
In the end, six GOP senators broke with their party on the procedural vote to let the bill move ahead and swung behind repeal after a recent Pentagon study concluded the ban could be lifted without hurting the ability of troops to fight. On the final vote for passage, eight Republicans joined the majority Democrats.
Advocacy groups who lobbied hard for repeal hailed the vote as a significant step forward in gay rights. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network called the issue the "defining civil rights initiative of this decade."
Supporters of repeal filled the visitor seats overlooking the Senate floor, ready to protest had the bill failed.
"This has been a long fought battle, but this failed and discriminatory law will now be history," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
The Pentagon study found that two-thirds of service members didn't think changing the law would have much of an effect. But of those who did predict negative consequences, a majority were assigned to combat arms units. Nearly 60 percent of the Marine Corps and Army combat units, such as infantry and special operations, said in the survey they thought repealing the law would hurt their units' ability to fight.
The Pentagon's uniformed chiefs are divided on whether this resistance might pose serious problems.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos has said he thinks lifting the ban during wartime could cost lives.
"I don't want to lose any Marines to the distraction," he told reporters this week. "I don't want to have any Marines that I'm visiting at Bethesda (Naval Medical Center) with no legs be the result of any type of distraction."
Adm. Mike Mullen and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, respectively, have said the fear of disruption is overblown. They note the Pentagon's finding that 92 percent of troops who believe they have served with a gay person saw no effect on their units' morale or effectiveness. Among Marines in combat roles who said they have served alongside a gay person, 84 percent said there was no impact.
___
Online:
Pentagon study: http://tinyurl.com/23lxc49
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network: http://www.sldn.org/
Information on the bill, H.R. 2965, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov
"I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." - Abraham Lincoln
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them." - Bill Russell
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed a fresh "megaleak" will target a major US bank "early next year," according to an interview published Monday.
Speaking to Forbes magazine, Assange said that he was ready to unleash tens of thousands of documents that could "take down a bank or two."
Comparing the documents to the emails that exposed Enron's dealings amid its collapse, the controversial Australian said an existing "big US bank" was the subject of a pending data dump.
Asked about any future leaks, he said: "Yes. We have one related to a bank coming up, that?s a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it?s either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it."
The interview was conducted in early November, before Sunday's publication of around a quarter of a million leaked United States embassy cables from WikiLeaks that have caused consternation in Washington and capitals around the world.
Assange said the bank leak would "give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume.
"Usually when you get leaks at this level, it's about one particular case or one particular violation."
Amid the economic crisis a handful of "too big to fail" US banks have come under scrutiny for their dealings, particularly with mortgaged-backed securities that helped fuel the meltdown.
Executives from Goldman Sachs and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have been hauled before Congress to explain their bank's actions.
Assange mentioned Goldman Sachs by name in the interview, but did not confirm the Wall Street giant will be the target of the leak.
Goldman has recently agreed a 550 million dollar settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle fraud charges.
Facing allegations of defrauding investors, the storied investment bank admitted it had made a "mistake" and given "incomplete" information to clients.
Assange said that "about 50 percent" of the documents that the nonprofit organization holds relate to the corporate world.
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Paul the Octopus, the tentacled tipster who fascinated football fans by correctly predicting results at this year’s World Cup, died Tuesday.
Paul had reached octopus old age of 2 1/2 years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning in an aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.
Paul seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night. He died of natural causes, Vieregge added.
“We had all naturally grown very fond of him and he will be sorely missed,” Sea Life manager Stefan Porwoll said in a statement.
The aquarium has not yet decided how best to commemorate their most famous resident, he said.
“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds, and erect a modest permanent shrine,” Porwoll said.
After rising to global prominence during the World Cup in South Africa in June and July, Paul retired from the predictions business after the final between Spain and the Netherlands—the result of which he also forecast correctly—and returned to his prime role of making children happy.
The blogosphere erupted in sympathy for Paul, although some saw him more as a tasty morsel than a departed friend. “Will they cook him Galician-style? I wonder how much a plate of Paul with a beer must cost,” wrote Jordi, alluding to the popularity of octopus as a dish in the northwest Galicia region and much of Spain.
Others were more philosophical on hearing of Paul’s death.
“For the next month I will go to class dressed in mourning, wrapped in a black suit and with my gaze lost in the horizon, as this calamitous event deserves no less,” wrote ‘relojero’ which means watchmaker. Another blogger, Pedro, saw a sinister hand at work. “An autopsy should be carried out, it’s certain some betting office killed him.”
In July, the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen said Paul was stepping “back from the official oracle business.
“He won’t give any more oracle predictions—neither in football, nor in politics, lifestyle or economy,” said spokeswoman Tanja Munzig. “Paul will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh.”
Paul correctly tipped the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games. He made his predictions by opening the lid of one of two clear plastic boxes, each containing a mussel and bearing a team flag.
After his World Cup soothsaying skills were revealed, the English-born Paul was appointed as an ambassador to England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. He had English roots, having been hatched at Weymouth Sea Life Center on England’s south coast in 2008.
Imitators sprang up all over the world, including Mani the Parakeet in Singapore and Lorenzo the Parrot in Hannover, Germany.
The latest was a saltwater crocodile named Dirty Harry, who predicted Spain’s World Cup final win and called the result of Australia’s general election by snatching a chicken carcass dangling beneath a caricature of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“El Pulpo Paul” became so popular in Spain that the northwestern Spanish town of O Carballino tried to borrow him and made him an “honorary friend.”
In response to hundreds of requests to bring Paul to Spain, the Madrid Zoo asked Sea Life if it would be willing to make a deal to bring him in as a tribute to the Spanish football team’s victory, either temporarily or for good. But the German aquarium turned down that offer, too.
Paul also had an agent and Paul’s name will live on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where a permanent sea turtle rescue center funded in part by donations generated by the famous octopus is being established.
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." - Albert Einstein
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." - Albert Einstein
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Friends will keep you sane, Love could fill your heart, A lover can warm your bed, But lonely is the soul without a mate." - David Pratt
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs" - Francois Truffaut
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead." - James Joyce
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." - Benjamin Spock
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." - Abraham Lincoln
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Most people fail in life because they major in minor things." - Anthony Robbins
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Life, is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming." - Myrna Loy
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life" - Harvey MacKay
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly" - Sam Keen
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world." - Brandi Snyder
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
"To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness." - Robert Muller
Jose Aviles
http://www.avigifts.com
http://www.avicast.blogspot.com
http://www.jose-aviles.blogspot.com
