*The information
that follows is from PETA's website.*
The following product is made from animal:------*
"Arachidyl
Proprionate.
A wax that can be from animal fat. Alternatives: peanut or vegetable
oil."
According to PETA, this is an animal-friendly company. "Those marked with a dot (·) meet the Corporate Standard of Compassion for Animals (CSCA). Those marked with an asterisk (*) manufacture strictly vegan products:
"Almay (Revlon), 625 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022; 212-572-5000"
Information is
taken directly from the Idealist website, which you should visit,
if possible (http://www.idealist.org/).
This Month's:
Building a Better
World: A WebHome for Independent Activists
Email: brakha@earth22.com
http://www.earth22.com
"Mission: A one-stop WebSite for Urgent Action postings on a variety of social, political and environmental issues, including, women's issues, gay rights, trade unions, disability issues, fighting abuse of power, native American rights, racism, ending the death penalty, working to end nuclear power and nuclear war, promoting international peace, and links to interesting discussion groups.
Area of Focus:
Community Building and Renewal, Community Net or Freenet, Disability
Issues, Environment, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues, Government
Oversight and Reform, Housing and Homelessness, Human Rights
and Civil Liberties, Library or Resource Center, Peace and Conflict
Resolution, Personal Finance, Poverty and Hunger, Prison Reform,
Race and Ethnicity, Recovery, Addiction and Abuse, Rural Issues,
Seniors and Retirement Issues, Voting and Democracy, Wildlife
and Animal Welfare, Women's Issues
Location: Ohio, United States"
I remind you that the point of this article is not to persuade but to inform and provoke thought. Information is taken directly from http://www.excite.com.
"Arafat Faction
Calls for Uprising
Updated 11:03 AM ET December 30, 2000By IBRAHIM HAZBOUN, Associated
Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) - As Israel and the Palestinians hardened their negotiating positions on an American peace plan, Yasser Arafat's political faction called Saturday for a two-week intensification of the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
"Let the intefadeh continue, and let the resistance escalate," Arafat's Fatah faction said in a statement that also spoke of Palestinians' "total rejection" of a U.S. peace plan.
The 3-month-old outbreak of unrest has killed nearly 350 people, almost all of them Palestinians.
Along Israel's tense northern frontier, Israeli troops shot a Lebanese man the army said was trying to get across the border fence. Lebanese security officials said the man, part of a crowd of stone-throwing demonstrators, died from his wounds.
Elsewhere, Israel closed the border between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, the army said. That step came a day after Israeli authorities sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forbidding Palestinians to enter Israel, as part of a security crackdown after a deadly bomb attack.
Raising the specter of a regional outbreak of fighting, Iran threatened to hit hard at Israel if it strikes at Syria or Lebanon. Iran's defense minister, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, was quoted by the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan as promising "astounding" retaliation in the event of an Israeli attack.
Israel, for its part, has threatened action against Syria if the violence along its northern frontier continues. Syria is the main power broker in Lebanon, where it has some 30,000 troops stationed, and Iran is the principal backer of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank town of Nablus, about 2,000 Palestinians turned out for a rally organized by the militant Islamic group Hamas to pay tribute to a suicide bomber who blew himself up in an Israeli cafe last week. More than a dozen organizers, their faces wrapped in black masks, called the rally a celebration of martyrdom, and handed out sweets to symbolize joy.
The 24-year-old bomber, Hisham Najar, killed only himself in the Dec. 22 bombing of a roadside cafe in the remote northern tip of the West Bank. Three Israeli soldiers were injured.
The rally came hours after both sides late Friday signaled unwillingness to compromise on crucial provisions of a U.S.-authored peace plan.
Palestinians insisted after a Cabinet meeting in the Gaza Strip that they would never give up the "right of return" - the demand that millions of displaced Palestinians be allowed to return to their former homes in what is now Israel - while Israel balked at ceding sovereignty of a disputed holy site to the Palestinians.
"I don't plan on signing a document that would transfer sovereignty of the Temple Mount - the anchor of our identity - to the Palestinians," Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on Israeli television, referring to the hilltop revered by Jews as the site of their biblical temples and known to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary.
However, Barak has not explicitly ruled out international sovereignty over the site. Currently, the Palestinians have day-to-day control over the compound.
Even so, both sides left open the door to restarting negotiations. Earlier this week, Barak's government said it was willing to renew talks with the Palestinians based on the U.S. peace proposals. The Palestinian Cabinet expressed willingness to take part in "serious final negotiations during a short period."
President Clinton's proposals call for a Palestinian state in 95 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip. They also envision Palestinian control over Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the disputed shrine.
In exchange, Palestinians would have to scale back dramatically their demands regarding refugees.
In Gaza, thousands of people attended a funeral Saturday for Mahmoud Nasser, a 20-year-old Palestinian policeman slain a day earlier. A Palestinian police source said he was killed when Israeli soldiers fired a tank shell after their position came under repeated fire."
Information is taken directly from the ICT website, which you should visit, if possible (http://www.savetibet.org).
"China Closes, Destroys More than 3,000 Religious Sites (AP)
BEIJING, 27 Dec (AP) _ Authorities have closed or destroyed more than 3,000 unauthorized temples and churches in a quickening campaign to curb religion in an eastern China enclave known for its religious tolerance, a rights group reported Wednesday.
Under orders from Beijing, authorities in the coastal city of Wenzhou found in a two-month inspection that only 3,200 of the area's 8,000 religious sites were properly registered, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.
So far, of the nearly 4,800 illegal sites, 3,011 have been closed or torn down, the group said, citing sources it did not identify.
Among the illegal sites, more than 400 were Protestant and Catholic churches, while the rest were Buddhist, Taoist and local religious temples and shrines, the group said. It added that the legal places of worship included 1,200 Protestant and 120 Catholic churches.
The report was released after business hours and could not be immediately confirmed. Wenzhou government offices were closed and duty officers declined comment. But earlier this month, when the clampdown was first reported, local officials confirmed 450 buildings were destroyed to suppress what they called rampant superstition.
The Information Center said that the increased numbers of shutdowns showed the campaign was accelerating.
The numbers of religious sites underscored Wenzhou's reputation as a flourishing center for religion in a country whose communist government espouses atheism. The area, comprising two cities and six counties, has 7.2 million people _ 1.3 million of whom profess religious belief, the center said.
China recognizes only five religions and has tried to control the numbers of believers through strict controls on worship and bans on proselytizing. Belief in religion and health sects has soared in recent decades as social controls loosened and market reforms discredited communist ideology."
The following episode of a t.v. show is worth taping:
That was a pretty good episode of Will & Grace when Will comes back from the Caribbean or wherever only to find that Jack and Grace have become really close. "Kiss it. Kiss it. Spank it...Peace out."
Last month's quote was from "Pete" Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place. First one to guess the source of this month's line wins a prize!
"You ripped the shirt of freedom and virility!"
Untitled
Within the decayed
palace
Lies the electric bill
They march their
purple mission
Flags made of tattered skin
Onion juice pussing
Weeps on my wounds
Within the conscience
laugh
Lies a hell
Trenches of chaos for a heart
They wilt on me
Poisoned seeds they plant
Imprisoned brilliance they grow
--Queen Baby 225
When John Lennon met Bob Dylan, Dylan told him that Lennon's music said nothing to him. From then on, Lennon wrote deeper lyrics.
*This article was taken from http://www.excite.com*
"Drinking
Champagne at New Year's Can Be Painful
Updated 11:12 AM ET December 30, 2000
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Just call it cham-PAIN instead of champagne this New Year's Eve.
Two party-pooping California researchers have found that the familiar tingle on the tongue caused by the fizzy drink revelers love to guzzle as they toast the New Year is no pleasure at all. In fact, it is downright painful.
"The tingle you get from a chili pepper is working on the pain system," Michael O'Mahony, a food scientist at the University of California, Davis, who co-led the study, said on Friday. "But it also turns out that the fizz or the carbonation you get from a fizzy drink works on the same system."
The research helps to show that these sensations may be an important part of food flavor, alongside taste and smell, even though they deliver messages of pain to the brain, O'Mahony said.
He added that most cultures had their own foods that hurt, with examples ranging from strong malt vinegar on fish and chips and pretzels crusted with salt to spicy curries.
"The pain is giving you the message, watch out for this stuff, be careful," Mahony said. "We are interested in the mechanisms of how pain and irritation work in the mouth."
The two researchers compared the effects of capsaicin, which gives chilies their burn, with nicotine on nerve activity in rats. When dripped onto the tongue, both the capsaicin and nicotine caused a firing of trigeminal nerves, the first pain relay on the way to the brain.
But if the capsaicin was stopped for a few minutes, the nerves became desensitized and the response decreased --- which is like eating a spicy meal and finding the food less hot the more you eat.
"If you walk into a smoky room, you immediately have an irritating sensation in the eyes, but you quickly become desensitized," added Earl Carstens, who co-led the study.
But for carbonated drinks, like soda, sparkling wine and, of course, champagne, blame the bubbles. The fizz in those drinks are made of carbon dioxide, which produces the carbonic acid that hurts the tongue, the researchers said.
The researchers say the same principal applies to any drink that gets its fizz from carbon dioxide. "If you stick your tongue in carbonated water for a few seconds, that gets painful," Carstens said.
One way to avoid the pain, however, was to drink Guinness beer instead. That liquid gets its frothy fizz from nitrogen which produces a different, smoother feel in the mouth, the researchers said."
"Faded," by Soul Decision. So Shadow sends me this CD with these love songs about this boy on it and in the middle of it is this song. I've always hated it, dismissing it as yet another boy band loser song, but then I read her liner notes and listened to the song and realized that I love it! Cracked me the fuck up yo! My favorite part is when they're all like, "Wonderin' why you and I haven't HIT IT CAN WE GET IT ON?!" Pure gold.
Visit Blocking the Wall Online: http://www.dhak.net/btwonline
200 CIGARETTES ***1/2
Directed by Risa Bramon Garcia
Starring....everyone. Let's just leave it at that. Maybe YOU'RE
in it!
Deep? Nah. Inspiring? Kinda. Worth two hours of your time? Debatable. 200 Cigarettes intermittently offers laughs, and stumbles through a mish-mash of relationship dramas, but there is a low-budget, gung-ho community theater feeling to the performances which makes up for all the awkwardness. This is a group of talented actors (including Paul Rudd, Courtney Love, Janeane Garafalo, Christina Ricci, Ben Affleck, and Kate Hudson) saddled with roles that suit them just short of perfectly. The movie's quirkiness is a result of these gleefully caricature performances mixed with fleeting, almost subliminal moments of hilarity.
Clerks it ain't. But it's a delightful little piece of fluff laced with just enough raunchiness to keep me breathing easily, unconvinced that I have tipped my hat to a romantic comedy. I mean, come on. Paul Rudd is in this movie. He's in Plot Number One, and not only does he have these hypnotic Stonewall Jackson porkchop sideburns, but he gets to spend New Year's Eve with Courtney Love! The chemistry between these two alone should keep you watching, and-hey guess what?-Courtney Love plays a slut. But she's a devoted, intuitive slut who steals Paul Rudd from Janeane Garafolo. Then in Plot Number Two, some guy with the last name 'Diaz' who is probably not related to Cameron speaks with a frenetic Scottish accent until you start to hate him. Two bar whores scheme to get laid before midnight. Ben Affleck appears as an inept bartender wearing a lumberjack shirt. Paul Rudd, crossing over from Plot Number One, proclaims "you're a fox," and our obligatory-Ben-Affleck-gay-joke-quota has been filled. I think it's in his contract now. One MUST wonder...
So anyway, Plot Number Three. Christina Ricci is annoyingly awesome as an audacious New Jersey girl hell-bent on getting to her cousin's "pawhhhty" with her much-less-enthusiastic best friend. They meet a guy with orange hair and Ben Affleck's brother. Casey keeps glancing off camera for reassurance from big brother, but other than that his scenes work fine. He's wearing leopard-print. And there's Plots Four-Ten, but who cares except that one of them involves Elvis Costello.
By the end of the night, everyone has screwed everyone else, or at least that's what I surmise. Ready for one of those photo-album-lookbacks-at-the-party sequences? Well you've got it. In fact, the funniest part of the movie is probably its last two minutes.
Love triumphs, lust prevails, Janeane gets lucky with Elvis Costello, and everyone seems to be happy except Jay Mohr, who gets some royal bad luck. But that's 200 Cigarettes for you, in a nutshell. Zany, fast-paced, sometimes predictable but never unenjoyable.
For the record, on New Year's Eve 1981 I got a diaper change, a bottle, and cried until 2 a.m. Or at least that's what the 'rents say. -Shadow Omega
Mix tapes/Mix CDs. That is why I have decided to make an IPS Mix Tape containing this years Songs of the Months. Email me to let me know if you want a copy and I'll consider making one for you.
Dude: Bruce Willis. Okay, I give in. I like Bruce Willis. I liked him during his Moonlighting years then this whole Demi Moore fiasco happened and I didn't like him but then by the time Armageddon came out I was kinda getting a taste for him again and then after The Sixth Sense I decided that I like Bruce Willis. Queen Baby 225 agrees with me and so does Shadow, which makes Bruce Willis Dude of December.
Chick: Michelle Pfeiffer. Queen Baby 225 and I were watching The Story of Us which launched us into this whole spiel about how cool she is so when we were trying to figure out who to put in this spot this month of course we were both like, "You wanna put down Michelle Pfeiffer?" and then of course we were both like, "Yeah that's what I was thinking too."
I'm sorry but again, no whoriscopes this month.
email:
We're still trying to get new members so if there's anyone that you've been meaning to invite to join the IPS, then by all means invite them to join now!
Song stuck in your head that deserves the Song of the Month title? Send it in. Avid about a worthy cause? Tell us about it. Your suggestions may not appear immediately because I write these so far in advance, but I promise I'll use it sooner or later. This is your newsletter so let me know what you wanna see in it and I shall do my best to please you. So it is written; so shall it be.
I know this month's is late again and I apologize but it's cool right? You're not all going to revolt and start your own non-gelatin societahs are you? Whew. Thank Jebus. That was close. Happy Holidays yo!
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