Today is the national day of Libya , the 1st of September .It will be celebrated much as the 4th of July is in America by Libyans in Libya .There will be speeches ,parades , fireworks , celebrations in all the towns , cities , and villages alike .This day is also called El Fatah in homage to Gaddafi's military coup in 1969 , September 1st .
Wishing you......
Well , I guess the race for president of the USA is truly on now that McCain has picked his running mate , Sarah Palin . Obama chose Joe Biden as his vise presidential running mate . It gets interesting now that both presidential candidates are stirring the pot with these two added ingredients . There was only one poll so far today after McCain made his announcement . The state of Idaho says McCain is a head , but in general , Obama is ahead .... so far . The burning question is what will Obama and McCain do in the days ahead to try to turn the tide of voters their way before Nov. 8 , 2008 ? As Alice said , "Curiouser and curiouser " ! These are very clever men with great advisers . Keep your eyes glued to all their actions and ears open for the real words spoken by them .
You've heard about people who have been abducted and had their kidneys removed by black-market organ thieves.
My thighs were stolen from me during the night a few years ago.
I went to sleep and woke up with someone else's thighs.
It was just that quick.
The replacements had the texture of cooked oatmeal.
Whose thighs were these and what happened to mine?
I spent the entire summer looking for my thighs.
Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans.
And then the thieves struck again.
My butt was next.
I knew it was the same gang, because they took pains to match my new rear-end to the thighs they had stuck me with earlier.
But my new butt was attached at least three inches lower than my original!
I realized I'd have to give up my jeans in favor of long skirts.
Two years ago, I realized my arms had been switched.
One morning I was fixing my hair and was horrified to see the flesh of my upper arm swing to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush.
This was really getting scary - my body was being replaced one section at a time.
What could they do to me next?
When my poor neck suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a turkey neck, I decided to tell my story.
Women of the world wake up and smell the coffee!
Those 'plastic' surgeons are using REALreplacement body parts - stolen from you and me!
The next time someone you know has something lifted, look again - was it lifted from you?
THIS IS NOT A HOAX.
This is happening to women everywhere every night.
WARN YOUR FRIENDS!
P.S. Last year I thought someone had stolen my Boobs.
I was lying in bed and they were gone!
But when I jumped out of bed, I was relieved to see that they had just been hiding in my armpits as I slept.
Now I keep them hidden in my waistband.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya, now in the mainstream of international politics after decades of isolation, needs reforms to revamp its political system into one that stands out against the region's "forest of dictatorships", Muammar Gaddafi's most prominent son said on Wednesday.
Saif al-Islam said his North African country has to strive to build a better future based on independent institutions and a thriving civic society since it had reconciled with the West.
Ties between OPEC member Libya and the United States have improved dramatically since 2003, when Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie airliner bombing and said it would stop pursuing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Since then, the United States has dropped many sanctions, removed Libya from a terrorism blacklist and restored diplomatic ties.
Saif has long called not only for a free market economy but also for deeper democracy in Libya, saying the country of six million lacks a free press and its democracy is imperfect.
"The countdown to build the state of institutions begins," he told a youth rally at Sebha town, 800 km (500 miles) south of Tripoli.
Saif, whose speech was broadcast live on Libyan state television, said the country needed reforms of its Jamahiriyah system of town hall meetings inspired by his father's political philosophy.
Saif sees a revamped Jamahiriyah to be different from the current system.
Gaddafi's admirers say the system of communal gatherings, in which political parties are banned, guarantees ordinary people a direct say in ruling themselves and ensures political stability.
Critics say the Jamahiriyah system, the only government most Libyans have known, is a fig leaf for authoritarian rule and has kept the country poor.
"Reforms will start by a new administration structure and end with a popular contract which will keep the Jamahiriyah system in place but with a new form that is different from the bad initial one," said Saif.
Gaddafi seized power in a coup in 1969 and in 1977 he proclaimed Jamahiriyah popular rule to try to create the perfect society in line with the teachings of his Green Book, which combines aspects of socialism, Islam and pan-Arabism.
"FOREST OF DICTATORSHIPS"
"Now we want to agree on laws that rule us in the future. The era now is different. We want a new administrative system, law and a constitution for once and all that do not change each time," said Saif.
Saif named an independent media and judiciary as the pillars of the future reformed political system and a free civic society bent on defending human rights.
"We are living in a forest ruled by dictatorships and hereditary regimes that trample human rights. All are dictatorships with fictitious parliaments and constitutions," said Saif, giving his view of the Middle East and North Africa's Arab political landscape.
He said Libya's reformed political system must be different from those in the Arab world now. "It should be an example and a model in the Middle East," he added.
"We Arabs have become a mockery, with pervasive torture and sites of secret prisons," he added.
Saif said reforms in Libya were on track to succeed. "The train of reforms is on track. It has not reached its final stop but it is on a good track to arrive," he added, claiming a leading role for himself.
"I had played a role in diplomacy, in government, in development policy and other things because Libya has no institutions to do that," he said.
(Writing by Lamine Ghanmi)
The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has announced his retirement from political life.
Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi has been a leading proponent of reform through his charity, The Gaddafi Foundation.
He said he had been obliged to intervene politically, but this was no longer necessary, as Libya now had institutions and systems it had lacked.
He has previously denied reports he was being groomed to take power and said there was no rift with his father.
He has no official role in government but in the past four years he has come into the limelight internationally because of his interventions.
| | The situation has changed and if I continue there will be a problem Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi |
The BBC's Rana Jawad in the capital, Tripoli, says in an hour-long televised speech, Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi took some credit for the rehabilitation of Libya's reputation.
"I intervened extensively in everything: our foreign policy, in a lot of problems, in development, in housing. Because there were no institutions or an administrative system that were able to do so," he told a crowd in the desert town of Sebha.
"But now the situation has changed and if I continue there will be a problem."
He said the decision-making process should not be held in the hands of a few people and again urged the creation of more civil societies, an independent media and a judiciary enshrined in a new constitution.
These goals were the responsibility of all Libyans, he said, to a standing ovation in Sebha, where he was addressing a crowd of thousands of young supporters.
Sayf al-Islam is one of seven of Col Gaddafi's sons.
The Libyan leader's youngest son, Hannibal, has caused a diplomatic row with Switzerland after being charged with assaulting two of his servants last month.
Libya's state shipping company halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain's divorce was amicable enough that he and his ex-wife jointly brought a lawsuit 10 years later to recover damages for lost mementos, but it wasn't amicable enough to prevent McCain's mother from suing his ex-wife to get back some personal property.
Both lawsuits were settled out of court decades ago and before they went to trial, but records of them are kept in the archives of the city courthouse in Alexandria.
Curiously, although the records clearly list the plaintiffs, McCain's campaign says that the Arizona senator didn't know about or authorize the 1990 lawsuit with his ex-wife, Carol, and that his mother's 1980 lawsuit was filed "unintentionally." And McCain's 96-year-old mother, Roberta, says she never sued Carol.
But others involved dispute those assertions.
In the 1980 lawsuit, filed shortly after John and Carol McCain divorced, Roberta sued Carol to reclaim some personal property, including paintings, a needlepoint screen and a pair of earrings. A settlement was reached in 1981.
But in a brief telephone interview, Roberta denied filing the lawsuit.
"I have never heard of what you're talking about. ... I will put my hand on a Bible," she said, to attest that she had never sued Carol.
Roberta's denial prompted laughter from the ex-daughter-in-law.
"Yes, she sued me," Carol said in a brief phone interview.
Roberta's lawsuit sought personal property she claimed Carol was refusing to return. The disputed items included an "18th century Burmise Buddist Preist (Burmese Buddhist priest)" valued by Roberta at $2,000, and a "Butlers Tray for Liquor" she valued at $225.
McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in an e-mail, "Of course, by all accounts the divorce was completely amicable. After John and Carol McCain's divorce, there was apparently some confusion about belongings that were Roberta McCain's but we understand the court papers were unintentionally filed, and the matter never went further in the legal system. It went nowhere, and was of no consequence."
In the 1990 lawsuit, John and Carol McCain jointly sought $1 million in punitive damages after a property management firm mistakenly threw out some McCain family treasures from a garage the McCains shared with an adjacent townhouse. The lost items included letters McCain wrote to his wife as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
In his e-mail, Bounds said McCain "had no knowledge of the suit: He did not authorize the suit or participate in its filing."
But the lawyer who represented the McCains said she did indeed speak to McCain and get his permission to sue on his behalf.
"You can be sure that I talked to and got the permission of any client who is listed as a plaintiff," said attorney Barbara P. Beach.
It would be a serious violation to file an unauthorized lawsuit, and "I haven't been disbarred yet," Beach said with a laugh.
Beach said she's not surprised, though, that McCain doesn't remember the case. She recalled that Carol was much more deeply involved.
"I don't think it took more than 15 minutes of his time," Beach said. "The fact that they don't remember it doesn't bother me."
The 1990 lawsuit lists five pages of lost property, including autographed pictures of U.S. presidents, Super Bowl programs from every year the game was played and a Chinese Foo dog sculpture.
Some were surely items the family considered priceless: photos of McCain's grandfather alongside Gen. Douglas MacArthur when the Japanese surrendered in World War II, the letters McCain wrote as a POW and the press clippings documenting his release.
Much of the property appears to be memorabilia of Carol's days running the White House Visitors Office under President Reagan, including several dozen wooden Easter eggs from the annual white House Easter Egg Roll, signed by such celebrities as Burt Reynolds and Brooke Shields.
The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.
According to court papers, when the townhouse next door to the McCains' townhouse changed hands, a property management firm mistakenly threw everything out of the garage, unaware that half the garage belonged to the McCains.
By 1990, only Carol lived in Alexandria, but she and her ex-husband continued to jointly own the property.
The defendants argued the McCains were out of line in seeking punitive damages because there was no evidence anybody acted maliciously.
Darren McKinney, a spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association, said, "Plaintiffs' lawyers will routinely ask for significant damages to try and prompt a settlement."
Carol said she had no interest in discussing details of the two lawsuits.
"What possible difference could it make? It was all 25 years ago," she said. "I wish him well, but I don't talk to reporters."
In his autobiography, McCain has taken responsibility for the breakup of his marriage. Carol was friendly with prominent Republicans and civic leaders, including the Reagans and billionaire H. Ross Perot, who at times treated John McCain coolly after the divorce.
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