TLC is an iconic, four time grammy award winning American girl group whose repertoire spanned R&B, Rock, Hip-Hop, Pop, Soul, Funk, and New Jack Swing.
Originally consisting of band front woman, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, and singer Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, they found unprecedented success in the 90’s not only as a musical supergroup but also for an extensive series of high profiled spats with the law, each other, and with their record label—all of which, helped to solidify them as one of the definitive recording acts to emerge during the afromentioned time span. Initally, the group achieved commercial success following the release of their debut album Ooooooohhh… On the TLC Tip, but it was the release of their second studio album, CrazySexyCool that elevated them to superstar status. They released four studio albums before going on hiatus due to the death of Left Eye in Honduras in 2002.
I just got back from a birthday celebration for a friend. He’ll be 81 on Monday. He and hubby share the same birthdate. What a blast!
Any hoooo… We sang songs from the 1930-2011. LOL He didn”t know any songs past 1950, but we regaled him with his favorites, including some popular hymns in a private room in the resturant.
The last song we sang was “God Bless America.” As we were leaving, I turned and guess who was sitting in the outer room chatting with another fellow. Rep Keith Ellison. He and former MN candidate for governor Matt Entenza(sorry Matt, but Mark Dayton took the prize), were chatting it up, and I politely walked over and said hello, and shook hands and gave him a big hug. Rep Ellison had remembered me from 2009 when we first met up at a Black History event in the Twin Cities.
Me and My girlfriend asked him how’s PBO, and he said we got to get him elected in 2012 with the biggest smile. Then he asked if we’d seen and heard PBO at the WHCD. LMBAO! We told him yes, and he said PBO was GREAT!!!! Laughing the whole time! Another friend asked Rep Ellison and Entenza about Trump. Rep Entenza said, ” Trump’s nobody!” BWA HA HA TEE HEE…
It was a wonderful day of celebration and connecting again with Rep Ellison.
I went to a birthday party today too. The lady is 101 years old.
Wow! 101! That’s so wonderful, SG2, did you ask her the secret to her longevity?
She has always said ..put God first in your life and then live it for him. Her husband died 15 years ago and he was 99.
Now those are words of true wisdom to LIVE by! :-) thanks for sharing them.
Keith Ellison? Wow!
I’m happy you got a hug and a chance to chat with him. Sounds like you had a most enjoyable day.
Bobby Jindal Birth Certificate Released (PHOTO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/07/bobby-jindal-birth-certificate-_n_858975.html#comments
Hoping to avoid a struggle similar to that between President Obama and the so-called “birther movement,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal released his own birth certificate on Friday.
Jindal, who is of Indian heritage, publicly issued the document “knowing that his own status will certainly be examined in the event he ends up on a presidential ticket,” The Times-Picayune reports.
Born Piyush Jindal on June 10, 1971, the former congressman arrived in the U.S. in utero, his mother, Raj Jindal, three months pregnant and moving to Baton Rouge with a scholarship offer to study nuclear physics at Louisiana State University.
According to a Jindal spokesperson, the governor’s parents entered the U.S. in 1971 on green cards secured through Bobby’s father, Amar Jindal and his participation in “a program by the federal government to increase the number of engineers.”
Bobby Jindal Birth Certificate Released
*************************************
BWA HA HA HA HA ….So? Who cares?
Really? BOBBY, bobby, bobby! LMBAO
Booby must think somebody gives a ish?
A DAY IN THE LIFE
U.S. To Release Bin Laden Home Videos
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/07/bin-laden-home-videos_n_858929.html
WASHINGTON — The world is expected to get its first glimpse at Osama bin Laden’s daily life as the world’s most wanted terrorist Saturday with the disclosure of home videos showing him strolling the grounds of the fortified compound that kept him safe for years.
The footage shot at the terror leader’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and propaganda tapes made there, are expected to be released to the news media Saturday, U.S. officials said.
They are among the wealth of information collected during the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden and four others. The information suggests bin Laden played a strong role in planning and directing attacks by al-Qaida and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, two senior officials said.
And it further demonstrates to the U.S. that top al-Qaida commanders and other key insurgents are scattered throughout Pakistan, not just in the rugged border areas, and are being supported and given sanctuary by Pakistanis.
Despite protests from Pakistan, defeating al-Qaida and taking out its senior leaders in Pakistan remains a top U.S. priority. That campaign will not be swayed by Islamabad’s complaints that the raid violated the country’s sovereignty, a senior defense official said Friday.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive material.
I’m LOVING, TLC this morning, SG2. Thank you!!!!
Thank you! I will always love them!
RIP Left Eye!
The Death of Osama bin Laden
Probing Link to Bin Laden, U.S. Tells Pakistan to Name Agents
As the U.S. asked questions, Osama bin Laden’s killing was protested in Abbottabad.
By HELENE COOPER and ISMAIL KHAN
Published: May 6, 2011
WASHINGTON — Pakistani officials say the Obama administration has demanded the identities of some of their top intelligence operatives as the United States tries to determine whether any of them had contact with Osama bin Laden or his agents in the years before the raid that led to his death early Monday morning in Pakistan.
The officials provided new details of a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and an American envoy who traveled to Pakistan on Monday, as well as the growing suspicion among United States intelligence and diplomatic officials that someone in Pakistan’s secret intelligence agency knew of Bin Laden’s location, and helped shield him.
Obama administration officials have stopped short of accusing the Pakistani government — either privately or publicly — of complicity in the hiding of Bin Laden in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One senior administration official privately acknowledged that the administration sees its relationship with Pakistan as too crucial to risk a wholesale break, even if it turned out that past or present Pakistani intelligence officials did know about Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/asia/07policy.html?_r=2&hp&om_rid=DRaeQf&om_mid=_BNxUUKB8a4fzSS
Will Smith Emerges as Frontrunner to Star in Quentin Tarantino’s Next Film
(Exclusive)Project is a spaghetti Western about a slave in the Old South who teams with a German bounty hunter to search for his wife.
May 6
6:24 PM 5/6/2011 by Borys Kit
Will Smith has emerged as the frontrunner to star in Quentin Tarantino’s next film, Django Unchained, a spaghetti Western about a slave in the Old South who teams with a German bounty hunter to search for his wife.
Tarantino stalwarts Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz also are circling key parts.
The film, Tarantino’s follow-up to his worldwide blockbuster Inglourious Basterds, will be distributed domestically by the Weinstein Co., but Tarantino is in the process of selecting a studio partner to release the film internationally. Sources say he was meeting with Universal executives Friday, and similar meetings with Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. and possibly others have been scheduled.
Sources prepped for those meetings say Tarantino would like Smith to star in the film, the script for which has been making the rounds in recent days to wide acclaim. No official offer has been made to Smith, and any deal would of course be subject to working out financials, which might be difficult given Smith’s status as one of Hollywood’s few sure-thing stars.
Indeed, though Smith has been out of multiplexes since 2008’s Seven Pounds, he is still considered among the top two or three box-office draws worldwide.
Smith is being teed up for the title role of Django, a freed slave who seeks to reunite with his slave wife, a journey that will see him team with a German bounty hunter to take down an evil plantation owner.
Tarantino wrote the bounty hunter part with Waltz in mind, according to insiders. The German ends up training Django and helping him seek his wife.
Jackson would play the house slave to the bad guy, Monsieur Calvin Candie. The slave is an expert manipulator and will face off with Django.
Smith and his reps have received the screenplay, which could be a hot potato due to the themes of racism and the liberal use of the N-word. It’s unclear whether Smith has read the script yet. The actor manages his image very carefully, but the part is heroic and could be iconic. And let’s not forget that Denzel Washington won his two Oscars playing characters who used the N-word.
Tarantino is aiming for a fall shoot in the South, possibly in Louisiana, but the exact locale has not been determined.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/will-smith-emerges-as-frontrunner-186250
Princeton’s Melissa Harris-Perry, PhD – frequent MSNBC Guest/Writer for The Nation on Obama, the African-American Community, Race, Politics, Media, the Future of America and More
By Chris Yandek · May 4, 2011
Listen to the entire interview with Melissa Harris-Perry:
http://www.cyinterview.com/2011/05/princeton%E2%80%99s-melissa-harris-perry-phd-%E2%80%93-frequent-msnbc-guestwriter-for-the-nation-on-obama-the-african-american-community-race-politics-media-the-future-of-america-and-more/
Now I’d love to see Chris Rock or Paul Mooney, or Frederick the Entertainer give their commentary on the Black Ninja Gansta President.
Bill Maher gets to bash & trash POTUS with that fat fucker Michael Moore, and then after President Obama pulls out his dick and pisses on these white men, Maher gets to call him a fucking “gangsta”
Activists want N-word gone from Calif. gravestones
Associated Press – May 5, 2011 8:14 PM ET
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Time has weathered the 36 concrete gravestones in a dusty, half-century-old cemetery tucked away in a corner of California’s former gold fields. Time has not erased, however, the bigotry of a bygone era carved into the markers.
The dead, both black and white, had been moved from a Gold Rush-era hamlet known as Negro Hill in the 1950s to make way for a reservoir.
The problem is the way the markers continue to identify them almost 60 years later:
“Unknown. Moved from Nigger Hill Cemetery by U.S. Government – 1954.”
Now a handful of activists are trying to get the markers replaced with ones bearing what they say was the original name, Negro Hill.
“Telling the accurate story of what happened and putting the positive correction is something that this region has a responsibility to do,” activist Michael Harris said.
The trouble is getting someone to take responsibility for fixing an error committed during an era when the N-word was commonly used. The Army Corps of Engineers, which had the graves relocated, says it handed over control of the gravesite to El Dorado County. The county says it welcomes a solution from the Corps.
On Thursday, a group that oversees work projects for state prison inmates stepped in with an offer to update the gravestones. Chuck Pattillo, general manager of the California Prison Industry Authority, said the inmates can finish the work in two days, free of charge. He just needs approval from El Dorado County.
He also called the Corps, which referred him to El Dorado. The county did not immediately return a call requesting comment.
At a meeting last week, the county’s board invited Harris to propose a fix, but made no promises.
“If the United States government is portraying something inaccurately, I’m very upset about it,” board chairman Ray Nutting told Harris.
The origin of the name “Negro Hill” can be traced back to California’s colorful and hectic founding as a state.
People from all over the world poured in during the Gold Rush with dreams of striking it rich. Where they discovered gold, the site typically was named after the race, religion or other social group of those who found it first and settled there. That’s why the Sierra Nevada foothills are filled with names like China Camp, Dutch Flat or Chili Bar (after Chilean miners).
Two black men – one a Methodist preacher – struck gold in 1849 and the area was called Negro Hill.
The town site quickly developed into a full-service community of 1,200 people, complete with schools and shops serving the region’s growing number of farms.
As it developed, there were moments of racial unrest. In 1852, a black man accused of stealing a gold nugget was lynched. Three years later, a group of drunken whites attacked the black part of town, leaving one person dead. They were acquitted.
In the early 1950s, the Corps was planning a dam that would create Folsom Lake, part of California’s extensive waterworks of reservoirs, canals and aqueducts.
To make way for the reservoir, the agency hired a contractor to relocate 13 cemeteries and burial sites in 1954. In 1961, it transferred rights over Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery to the county.
Today, the five-acre plot sits among barns and small horse ranches, nearly 30 miles northeast of Sacramento.
The Corps said it does not know how the N-word ended up on the grave markers.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Associated Press, the agency released contracts and maps that referred to the town site exclusively with the N-word.
“Regardless of the context, we are deeply ashamed and regretful to find this word in our records, and for having perpetuated a racist, hateful word that has no place in public discourse,” Lt. Col. Andrew B. Kiger, the commander of the Corps’ Sacramento District, wrote in a response to the AP’s records request.
According to the documents, none of the 36 graves had markers when they were buried between 1850 and 1870. The practice at the time, and what the Corps likely did, was to poke through the ground for possible corpses. One was a baby, another a child. Most graves contained little more than a few bones and, occasionally, pieces of wood and clothing.
Many, including the Corps, have assumed all the graves belonged to black pioneers. In fact, searches of newspaper archives and obituaries showed that most of the relocated graves belonged to whites who had moved to Negro Hill as it developed, said Susan Mickus, a district representative for the county’s Cemetery Advisory Committee.
But Ralph White doesn’t care about the settlers’ race. The president of the Stockton Black Leadership Council joined Harris in making a presentation to the county board and said no one would want that slur on his or her grave.
“It might be an act of God or an act of Satan,” White said after the meeting, “but it will be removed.”
On the Web:
Army Corps of Engineers documents on Negro Hill: http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/NegroHillCemetery.html
CNN
May 6, 2011
Plan would replace controversial grave markers
Updated 6:52 a.m. ET]
After more than a half-century, gravestones etched with racial epithets in a California cemetery may be replaced, thanks to a plan by the California Prison Industry Authority.
The graves, in Mormon Island Cemetery in El Dorado Hills, were transferred from a cemetery in a town called Negro Hill to make way for the construction of Folsom Dam.
On the gravestones, the word “Negro” has been replaced with a racial epithet.
On Thursday, the California Prison Industry Authority offered to replace the gravestones free of charge.
“That graveyard is right around the corner from our offices, and it’s pretty easy to know that that’s the right thing to do,” Charles Pattillo, general manager of the authority, said Friday.
“If we can help the Army Corps of Engineers and the county and restore some honor and dignity to the people that are buried there, then that’s what we’ll do,” Pattillo said.
The El Dorado County Administrator’s Office supports the plan, but the process, like many things in government, may be slowed by bureaucratic red tape.
“The prison authority’s offer was a great offer and unexpected,” said Mike Applegarth, a spokesman for El Dorado County. “We all want to see this project make it through, but it may take some time, a few weeks or so,” he said.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/06/plan-would-replace-controversial-grave-markers/
Slurs on grave markers? Goes to show how evil hearts are to slur the dead. It’s despicable. No conscience!
And the dead in those graves were white folks!
Fresh after bin Laden success, House GOP set to cut intel funding
BECAUSE, LORD KNOWS INTEL HELPED KILL BIN LADEN, AND THE GOP CAN’T HAVE PBO’S ADMINISTRATION CATCHING ANY MORE DIRTY TERRORISTS USING INTEL!
By Pete Kasperowicz – 05/06/11 12:02 PM ET
While many are still hailing the intelligence successes that led to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, the Republican-controlled House is expected to pass a bill cutting the budgets of various intelligence agencies.
The House is expected next week to debate and vote on a bill authorizing spending for the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and several other federal intelligence agencies for fiscal year 2011.
The GOP bill would reduce the budget authority of the various intelligence agencies by $47 billion, lowering it from $708 billion under current law to $661 billion. Most of that authority would be used in FY 2011, but some is reserved for fiscal years 2012 through 2015.
In bringing up the bill, H.R. 754, the GOP hopes to bring more clarity to intelligence spending for the rest of the fiscal year, even though Democrats have said there is little need, given that the fiscal year is half over.
In report language accompanying the bill, House Republicans note that a complete intelligence authorization bill, including a classified annex that offers more detailed instructions on spending levels, has not been approved in six years. Instead, language in various appropriations bills has “deemed” as approved for intelligence funding.
In a sign that the bill may face some objections from Democrats, the report language says Republicans think it is “disappointing” that many Democrats think the bill was sprung on them in an early March hearing in the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The report also blames Democrats for failing to act earlier on a bill for the current year.
“The current minority failed to draft or even consider an intelligence authorization bill for FY 2011 prior to the start of FY 2011, presumably because it could not enact its FY 2010 bill until after the end of FY 2010,” the report said. “The minority thus complains about a situation that is the result of their own inaction.”
The report also dismisses Democratic complaints that passing the FY 2011 bill will have “little impact” given that the fiscal year is more than half over, especially since Democrats last year “committed countless hours of the Committee’s time and resources” to the FY 2010 bill even after FY 2010 ended.
“The minority’s criticisms thus smack of political gamesmanship and mere rhetoric, especially since their complaints are most appropriately directed at themselves,” the report said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/159691-fresh-after-bin-laden-success-house-gop-looks-to-cut-intel-funding
BIG FAIL=GOP
Yooo hoo, 3 Chics, Dannie, check this out:
May 5, 2011 9:54 PM
John Boehner declines to watch first GOP debate
By Brian Montopoli, Christine Delargy
House Speaker John Boehner, the highest-ranking Republican in the country, decided not to watch Thursday night’s debate among Republican presidential contenders, the first debate of the 2012 presidential cycle.
Hotsheet spotted Boehner at Morton’s The Steakhouse on Connecticut Avenue in Washington enjoying a bottle of Cabernet – and a couple of cigarettes.
Speaking of the debate, Boehner told Hotsheet that he will “read about it tomorrow.”
“There’s more time for people to get in,” he added.
Read more
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20060266-503544.html
Muslim leaders say they were taken off Tenn flight
By RANDALL DICKERSON
Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Two Muslim religious leaders say they were asked to leave a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard.
Masudur Rahman, who is also an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis, said by phone from the terminal at Memphis International Airport that he and another imam had already been allowed to board their Delta Connection flight to Charlotte, N.C., before they were asked to get off the plane.
Transportation Security Administration spokesman Jon Allen in Atlanta confirmed the incident and said it was not initiated by that agency.
A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman said the flight was operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which is also based in Atlanta.
We take security and safety very seriously and the event is currently under investigation,” Atlantic Southeast spokesman Jarek Beem said Friday evening.
Both passengers are Memphis-area residents. Rahman said he was dressed in traditional Indian clothing and his traveling companion was dressed in Arab garb, including traditional headgear.
Rahman said he and Mohamed Zaghloul, of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, were cleared by security agents and boarded the plane for an 8:40 a.m. departure.
The aircraft pulled away from the gate, but the pilot then announced the plane must return, Rahman said. When it did, the imams were asked to go back to the boarding gate where Rahman said they were told the pilot was refusing to accept them because some other passengers could be uncomfortable.
Rahman said Delta officials talked with the pilot for more than a half-hour, but he still refused.
The men were taken to a lounge and booked on a later flight. Beem said they flew on to Charlotte later Friday.
“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused,” Beem said.
The men contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
“It’s racism and bias because of our religion and appearance and because of misinformation about our religion.” Rahman said. “If they understood Islam, they wouldn’t do this.”
He said a Delta manager apologized for the pilot’s actions, but that he and Zaghloul never spoke directly with the pilot.
Ibrahim Hooper, of the American-Islamic organization, said the group will follow up with the airline and with the TSA to help ensure such incidents do not continue to occur.
Hooper said airline officials at Memphis tried to resolve the situation, but the pilot refused.
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/14589372/muslim-leaders-say-they-were-taken-off-tenn-flight
Good Morning, Everyone. Happy Saturday! :-)
Inspiration for today….
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalms 119:105
Good Morning, SG2! Enjoy :-)
Coffee: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__j-Yh5rKmeY/Sh2rGgOB69I/AAAAAAAAAjQ/o5mFlyVP8pk/s400/cup-of-coffee.jpg
Just what I need. Thank you! SG2 is tired this morning. I’ve been burning the midnight oil.