Couple of dawgs just chilling. 

Sunset on Saturday the 14th. 

Ciuapilli walking on water. 

From Morro bay to the Pacific Ocean. 

Supergirl and parents. 

La familia lopez on the pier with a beautiful sky background. 

Dazzling Ciuapilli candid taken by my best bro Antony Lopez. 

Clear day at Morro Rock 

Ciuapilli Lopez and Francisco Lopez eating by the bay. 

The valley around Avenal 

The kisses goodbye 

Pilli's trip to california

A hair raising experiance. 

MLK belated

just read this ... http://www.bustedhalo.com/features/TheProphetWithin.htm

Pilli saying by to Phoenix for a while... I'm going going back back to Cali cali.... 

Parents and lopez boyz. 

nothing was stirring not even a mouse named dora. 

My parents with dimissing vision but ever growing style. 

New years pics 

Pilli on one of last days of Pre-school 

New Years picture and update.

Here's the story of New Years. Had a crazy day before and at midnight. I enjoyed it very much. My uncle Cruz came to help show some cattle at the Arizona National Livestock Show for his ranch he works with the Spanish Ranch in the Mountains north of Santa Barbara. Since some jerk stole my cellphone I was phoneless for about a week and didn't know if my uncle had finally gotten to phoenix. So I didn't know he was here till his last day here the last day of the year. It was fun and I did take tons of pictures unfortunately I deleted them along with a ton of picture from Walter Jr.'s going away party and our Christmas pictures... Very bummed. But as a whole we had a very good christmas season and a good going way party even is mari wanted to fight or kick out most of the party goers. We ended the year seeing our good friend Amy and decided that we needed to make big changes this year or forever hold our peace. I gave mari an engagement ring with additional promises for each of us. (The bling bling will soon be on the blog.)
Plus the biggest news is that pilli is going to be on vacation for the first half of this year. Yes we decided to send her to my parents for the semester so that we could go to school and hopefully save some money. And now for the pictures. (Pictures not working ... will be up later might go to cali this weekend)

Good news

Eminem, ex-wife apply for marriage license
.... good for him... although I don't always agree with his raps or lyrics I do appreciate his real attempt to deal with issues and be a good father. Hopefully they can find happiness with one another again.

Sick

I've been sick since new years day... but it developed to full blown strep throat which hurts a lot. Got tons of pictures and stories to tell... hope to get better soon and drop them off on the blog.

Happy New Year 2006

Party hardy...

Beyond the Imperial Presidency

Chapman:

President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.

He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.

...

But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.

...

The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.

He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?

What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it.

-Atrios

Christmas with the Silvas

Living with Family is an intresting experieance to say the least but for holidays is nice to be around a family. I wonder how this is going to fit under the Christmas tree.

27 anos casados

Alittle pilli to showcase the similarities.

Photoshopping...

my first photoshopping...

Chappelle theory?

don't know how truth this is.. but have Oprah in my room would mess with me too.
http://www.chappelletheory.com/

this is good too.... http://users.panola.com/AAGHS/ARTICLES/SURNAMES.html

Lety Lopez Birthday

Birthday posts

Pictures of Pilli on her weekend long birthday celebrate... which now she wakes up everyday and says I wanna party for me. Candy really spoils her.

Yes it matters... Liberal Oasis

December 20, 2005 PERMALINK
Why Checks and Balances Help Fight Terror
(posted Dec. 20 2 AM ET)

If ABC’s The Note weren’t on holiday break, they’d probably say something like: “When will stupid Democrats learn that smart Republicans love it when they focus on terrorism, because it reinforces the Strong GOP/Weak Dem narrative.”

And they would have half a point.

The Strong GOP/Weak Dem narrative, regarding national security, most certainly exists.

It’s not a new problem, and there is no quick fix for it.

But the solution is not to mimic Republican foreign policy principles, if for no other reason that Republican foreign policy is bad policy.

Nor is it to duck the issues and keep quiet when Republicans break the law when conducting foreign policy.

The solution, and it’s a long-term one, is to clearly and consistently articulate what Democratic foreign policy principles are, painting a positive vision of where the party would take the country and the world, and contrasting it with the GOP vision.

(LiberalOasis discussed this in terms of Iraq policy earlier this month.)

If you don’t do that, and you only raise your voice when civil liberties are violated, then you risk looking like you don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to protect the nation.

And you give the GOP the opening to say, Dems won’t go to the mat to stop terror.

It’s not enough to note that the laws were broken, or the Constitution was subverted. It can be shrugged off as mere technicality.

It’s not enough to raise the prospect of people’s rights being violated. It’s too easy to think that will only happen to the “bad guys” and not to yourself.

Both of those criticisms should be made, vigorously so.

But they should be put into the context of a larger, consistently articulated, anti-terror strategy.

And that is, if America is going to be a force for credible democracy, and if it's going to rally the world to isolate and suffocate Al Qaeda, we cannot allow America to lose its moral standing.

The torture, the secret prisons, the warrantless invasions of privacy, that gives our enemies ammunition.

That helps them make a case that we are not on the side of average Arabs and Muslims.

Terror suspects must be investigated, interrogated and imprisoned.

But we don’t wantonly invade privacy and secretly imprison people, because you can get it wrong and you can destroy the lives of innocents.

Not only does that hurt individuals, it hurts the larger cause.

We have checks and balances to prevent such errors and allow for mistakes to be fixed.

So sensitive decisions are not made recklessly and politically. So the fight against terror is as effective as possible.

And we are savvy enough to have created systems that allow for checks and balances without sacrificing speed and efficiency.

Bush in particular has shown how power can be abused, and why checks and balances are so important, by claiming legal authority he simply does not have.

It was that same attitude about unbalanced executive power that led to the blown cover of a CIA agent and the rendition of suspects to countries that torture.

Bush and the GOP are fighting terror and conducting foreign policy the wrong way, which is why the Al Qaeda ideology has dramatically spread since 9/11.

Once it’s clear that our way is the best way to fight terror, then not only will the GOP lose its ability to claim that Dems aren’t willing to do what it takes to protect the nation, it will become clear that the opposite is true.