Do you believe in karma? Or any such concept, that is-- in the idea that there is some cosmic balance kept whereby the color or intent of one's deeds always come back on oneself?

Presuming you know that little rhyme, quick! Of what did it remind you?

The first time I heard that little ditty, I was knee-high to a grasshopper, playing hide-and-seek with my cousins. At the time I thought it was a really clever way to pick who goes first.

Nowadays I'm surprised some desperate pop star hasn't tried to record it, blatantly using the background beat to some older Madonna song.

Str tiy snkr yi svyyskkt trsf ygud? Fi tiy drr ygr osyyrtb?

What's your favorite happy childhood memory or ritual? Was it around a place (the ice-cream truck), a certain time, a season?

Mine was Saturday morning cartoons...remember those? Man, I remember getting up early, decked out in my underoos, with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, and not a care in the world. ::nostalgic sigh::

What was your most unequivocally most embarrassing moment or screw up, ever?

Did it teach you anything useful? Anything unexpectedly related to the incident in question?

For some silly reason, I can't remember of mine, and I fear they must've been especially bad lately if I'm suppressing them...and now I'm curious!

So let's say your motivated, chomping along at a fierce clip, ball of fire, or are at least a goodly boulder rolling downhill.

What saps you (or can most sap you, if it catches you unawares) when you're at your most juiced? What do you most regularly battle against to keep your momentum?

Some people say they run on coffee. Some people say that they do their best work under pressure. Others say that thy do everything (that they do well) for love and never for money. Still others are driven by a need to excel beyond their peers, or even their own expectations.

What do you run on? What is your chief motivator?

What is the strangest dream you've ever had?

Do you believe dreams "mean something"? And if so, did your strangest dream have a meaning or interpretation?

Have you ever had a dream that clearly told you something important and/or brought about a change of some kind for having had it?

It's...as of a little later this evening...officially summer, officially the longest day of the year (we're talking max sun and all that).

WHOOHOOOOOO!!!

What was the longest day you've ever had? How about the shortest? Looking at both, do you find that there's truth to the fact that time flies when you're having fun and drags when you're not?

What is your most unexpected truth? That is, what fact about you most defies the expectations people would have of you?

What is the most important or valuable thing to you that you would be willing to sacrifice?

What is the most important or valuable thing to you that you would not be willing to sacrifice?

What is the most important or valuable thing to you for which you would be willing to sacrifice almost everything else?

What was the last important thing you sacrificed?

Is there anything you do on a daily or near-daily basis for your own good or take great personal pride in? Is there any such habit or practice that you do that is the opposite-- say one you'd call a bad habit or that you are embarrassed or sheepish about?

We get one lifetime, and it's plenty of time for everything that's important. Best not pass up any opportunities when they come one's way, because every one of them is a precious gift.

When in doubt, dance like nobody's looking. They usually aren't.

Experts agree that experts hardly ever agree on anything, so all counsel should be taken with a grain of salt.

Every particle in your body is from the very earth you walk upon, and every particle on this earth came from somewhere in deep space. This makes you as significant as the very stars and as insignificant as space dust. But it also means you were, are, and always will be.

One should never be afraid of making mistakes; in fact, we should all strive to not only embrace them, but to look forward to the wisdom and freedom each one brings. Sometimes one can't truly appreciate life until looking at a rainbow that results from the torrent of water springing up from that fire hydrant they just drove through.

Sample everything, especially the things you don't want to.

Be outspoken. Be discreet. Be quiet and yell your head off. The tree that falls in the forest might well scream all the way down when no one is listening.

Assume nothing and be open to everything.

Strive to be here now.

Don't take yourself or anything too seriously. Someday you too may be walking around with your fly wide open or your skirt tucked into your hose; better then that you laugh at yourself than find yourself mortified.

I don't think there's a sane person in this country who doesn't see a LOT of problems in the world today, specifically things that could be fixed in our country-- things that are shot up and outta wack.

However, it doesn't matter _how_ you feel about the proposed constitutional amendment on marriage, right now, more than at any time in recent history, I strongly believe that across the party lines and liberals-versus-conservatives extremes, there's a common ground-- a LOT more important stuff going on that needs to be addressed, like the out-of-control government spending, the costly wars on multiple fronts with no end in sight, the tragedy of education in America, the current energy crisis, the number of companies (namely pharmeceutical and big oil) raising prices and reaping huge, specially-tax-sheltered profits (thanks Congress!) while most of America (namely middle America and elderly folks on meds) is feeling the pinch, and too many other gaffes to name.

And why, will someone tell me, in this time of crisis, *WAR*, and serious issues beyond listing, are our elected representatives spending valuable time debating a constitutional amendment that has _nothing_ to do with our current and most pressing problems? Why is Congress (and the sitting president) spending less time on the job than at any previous session (including many in peacetime!), and racking up more vacation days than any of their predecessors, and easily more than several of them combined? Forget political gain, forget political strategy-- these people are all AMERICANS, for Pete's sake! Don't they care about our country's safety and well-being?

And last but not least-- the question I REALLY want answered...why is this blatant smokescreen working so well? Why isn't all of (or at least the majority of) America enraged? Where's the backlash?

Congress should be shaking in their collective boots, fearing the wrath of voters everywhere, and at least _looking_ busy, but instead, Democrats and Republicans alike are posturing and strategizing off an artificial "crisis", spewing the same tired rhetoric while saying nothing of consequence at a time of many serious consequences.

Why?

[taken off the popsci website at http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/2c21c0f98d07b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html]

Is It Raining Aliens?
Nearly 50 tons of mysterious red particles showered India in 2001. Now the race is on to figure out what the heck they are

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples--water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001--contain microbes from outer space.
Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year.

Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.

Louis and his colleagues dismiss all these theories, pointing to the fact that both algae and fungus possess DNA and that blood cells have thin walls and die quickly when exposed to water and air. More important, they argue, blood cells don't replicate. "We've already got some stunning pictures--transmission electron micrographs--of these cells sliced in the middle," Wickramasinghe says. "We see them budding, with little daughter cells inside the big cells."

Louis's theory holds special appeal for Wickramasinghe. A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth. "If it's true that life was introduced by comets four billion years ago," the astronomer says, "one would expect that microorganisms are still injected into our environment from time to time. This could be one of those events."

The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis's samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive."Life as we know it must contain DNA, or it's not life," he says. "But even if this organism proves to be an anomaly, the absence of DNA wouldn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial."

Louis and Wickramasinghe are planning further experiments to test the cells for specific carbon isotopes. If the results fall outside the norms for life on Earth, it would be powerful new evidence for Louis's idea, of which even Louis himself remains skeptical. "I would be most happy to accept a simpler explanation," he says, "but I cannot find any."

My personal theory includes the possibility of a new form of terrestrial life released into the atmosphere during volcanic activity around the same time, from around the same region. I have a hard time believing any material could survive falling into our atmosphere-- no matter how small-- without burning up on entry. BUT, it is possible.

Wanna see? On a clear day after about three days of no rain (nor heavy winds), go outside with a strong magnet and just drag it in a straight line just over the ground for about a yard or so. See the stuff that sticks to it? That stuff falls to the earth every day, and is supposedly the remnants of things that burn up in the upper atmosphere.