Question:

Friday, August 4, 2006

Question:

 I wonder what WWII would have been like if MSNBC and CNN followed US forces  through D-Day to VE day: "The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name. That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp. The soldiers said officers in their chain of command gave them the order and explained that special forces had tried before to target the island and had come under fire from insurgents. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060721/D8J0K0F03.html

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I wonder what WWII would have been like if MSNBC and CNN followed US > forces >  through D-Day to VE day: > "The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on > Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, > referring to the target by its code name. > That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, > was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp. The soldiers said > officers in their chain of command gave them the order and explained > that special forces had tried before to target the island and had come > under fire from insurgents. > http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060721/D8J0K0F03.html

well god did that too.  When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it.  They completely destroyed everything in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys – everything.   (Joshua 6:20-21 NLT)      Bible Quote for March 30 Destruction of Ai     Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the entire army and attack Ai, for I have given to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.  You will destroy them as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may keep the captured goods and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city." So Joshua and the army of Israel set out to attack Ai.  Joshua chose thirty thousand fighting men and sent them out at night with these orders: "Hide in ambush close behind the city and be ready for action. When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away from them.  We will let them chase us until they have all left the city. For they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’  Then you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will give it to you.  Set the city on fire, as the LORD has commanded.  You have your orders."  So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai.  But Joshua remained among the people in the camp that night.     Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the leaders of Israel.  They camped on the north side of Ai, with a valley between them and the city.  That night Joshua sent five thousand men to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.  So they stationed the main army north of the city and the ambush west of the city.  Joshua himself spent that night in the valley.  When the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his army hurriedly went out early the next morning and attacked the Israelites at a place overlooking the Jordan Valley.  But he didn’t realize there was an ambush behind the city.  Joshua and the Israelite army fled toward the wilderness as though they were badly beaten,  and all the men in the city were called out to chase after them.  In this way, they were lured away from the city.  There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not chase after the Israelites, and the city was left wide open.     Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Point your spear toward Ai, for I will give you the city."  Joshua did as he was commanded.  As soon as Joshua gave the signal, the men in ambush jumped up and poured into the city.  They quickly captured it and set it on fire.  When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the city was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. For the Israelites who had fled in the direction of the wilderness now turned on their pursuers.  When Joshua and the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the city, they turned and attacked the men of Ai.  Then the Israelites who were inside the city came out and started killing the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in a trap, and all of them died. Not a single person survived or escaped.  Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.     When the Israelite army finished killing all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone inside.  So the entire population of Ai was wiped out that day – twelve thousand in all. For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.  Only the cattle and the treasures of the city were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these for themselves, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.  So Ai became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.  Joshua hung the king of Ai on a tree and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body and threw it in front of the city gate.  They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.   (Joshua 8:1-29 NLT)

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>  I wonder what WWII would have been like if MSNBC and CNN followed US > forces through D-Day to VE day

I wonder what you’d be like with a brain.

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: >  I wonder what WWII would have been like if MSNBC and CNN followed US : > forces through D-Day to VE day : I wonder what you’d be like with a brain.  a delivery boy for the HBTRC ?

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>  a delivery boy for the HBTRC ?

   Better an employee than a volunteer !    I guess I’ll be transporting what is left of you around town some    day in a cooler with dry ice ? —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-

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: > : >  a delivery boy for the HBTRC ? : > :    Better an employee than a volunteer ! :    I guess I’ll be transporting what is left of you around town some :    day in a cooler with dry ice ?  By the time I die, there won’t be anything left of my brain, at least not if I have my way : : —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- : http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups : —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-

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Question:

One War Lost, Another to Go By Frank Rich The New York Times, November 20, 2005          If anyone needs further proof that we are racing for the exits in Iraq, just follow the bouncing ball that is Rick Santorum. A Republican leader in the Senate and a true-blue (or red) Iraq hawk, he has long slobbered over President Bush, much as Ed McMahon did over Johnny Carson. But when Mr. Bush went to Mr. Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania to give his Veterans Day speech smearing the war’s critics as unpatriotic, the senator was M.I.A.          Mr. Santorum preferred to honor a previous engagement more than 100 miles away. There he told reporters for the first time that "maybe some blame" for the war’s "less than optimal" progress belonged to the White House. This change of heart had nothing to do with looming revelations of how the new Iraqi "democracy" had instituted Saddam-style torture chambers. Or with the spiraling investigations into the whereabouts of nearly $9 billion in unaccounted-for taxpayers’ money from the American occupation authority. Or with the latest spike in casualties.        Mr. Santorum was instead contemplating his own incipient political obituary written the day before: a poll showing him 16 points down in his re-election race. No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it. ______ See cartoon: ‘Elephants on strike’ <http://www.buzzflash.com/bradenton/05/11/images/18bradenton.jpg> ______      They know the voters have decided the war is over, no matter what symbolic resolutions are passed or defeated in Congress nor how many Republicans try to Swift-boat Representative John Murtha, the marine hero who wants the troops out.       A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war’s casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970.       The Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, writing in Foreign Affairs , found that "if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline." He observed that Mr. Bush was trying to channel L. B. J. by making "countless speeches explaining what the effort in Iraq is about, urging patience and asserting that progress is being made. But as was also evident during Woodrow Wilson’s campaign to sell the League of Nations to the American public, the efficacy of the bully pulpit is much overrated."      Mr. Bush may disdain timetables for our pullout, but, hello, there already is one, set by the Santorums of his own party: the expiration date for a sizable American presence in Iraq is Election Day 2006.       As Mr. Mueller says, the decline in support for the war won’t reverse itself. The public knows progress is not being made, no matter how many times it is told that Iraqis will soon stand up so we can stand down.      On the same day the Senate passed the resolution rebuking Mr. Bush on the war, Martha Raddatz of ABC News reported that "only about 700 Iraqi troops" could operate independently of the U.S. military, 27,000 more could take a lead role in combat "only with strong support" from our forces and the rest of the 200,000-odd trainees suffered from a variety of problems, from equipment shortages to an inability "to wake up when told" or follow orders.      But while the war is lost both as a political matter at home and a practical matter in Iraq, the exit strategy being haggled over in Washington will hardly mark the end of our woes. Few Americans will cry over the collapse of the administration’s vainglorious mission to make Iraq a model of neocon nation-building.       But, as some may dimly recall, there is another war going on as well – against Osama bin Laden and company.      One hideous consequence of the White House’s Big Lie – fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 – is that the public, having rejected one, automatically rejects the other. That’s already happening. The percentage of Americans who now regard fighting terrorism as a top national priority is either in the single or low double digits in every poll.       Thus the tragic bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration has at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America’s will and resources to confront that expanded threat.      We have arrived at "the worst of all possible worlds," in the words of Daniel Benjamin, Richard Clarke’s former counterterrorism colleague, with whom I talked last week. No one speaks more eloquently to this point than Mr. Benjamin and Steven Simon, his fellow National Security Council alum. They saw the Qaeda threat coming before most others did in the 1990’s, and their riveting new book, "The Next Attack," is the best argued and most thoroughly reported account of why, in their opening words, "we are losing" the war against the bin Laden progeny now.      "The Next Attack" is prescient to a scary degree. "If bin Laden is the Robin Hood of jihad," the authors write, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "has been its Horatio Alger, and Iraq his field of dreams." The proof arrived spectacularly this month with the Zarqawi-engineered suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman. That attack, Mr. Benjamin wrote in Slate "could soon be remembered as the day that the spillover of violence from Iraq became a major affliction for the Middle East." But not remembered in America. Thanks to the confusion sown by the Bush administration, the implications for us in this attack, like those in London and Madrid, are quickly forgotten, if they were noticed in the first place. What happened in Amman is just another numbing bit of bad news that we mentally delete along with all the other disasters we now label "Iraq."      Only since his speech about "Islamo-fascism" in early October has Mr. Bush started trying to make distinctions between the "evildoers" of Saddam’s regime and the Islamic radicals who did and do directly threaten us. But even if anyone was still listening to this president, it would be too little and too late. The only hope for getting Americans to focus on the war we can’t escape is to clear the decks by telling the truth about the war of choice in Iraq: that it is making us less safe, not more, and that we have to learn from its mistakes and calculate the damage it has caused as we reboot and move on.      Mr. Bush is incapable of such candor. In the speech Mr. Santorum skipped on Veterans Day, the president lashed out at his critics for trying "to rewrite the history" of how the war began. Then he rewrote the history of the war, both then and now. He boasted of America’s "broad and coordinated homeland defense" even as the members of the bipartisan 9/11 commission were preparing to chastise the administration’s inadequate efforts to prevent actual nuclear W.M.D.’s, as opposed to Saddam’s fictional ones, from finding their way to terrorists. Mr. Bush preened about how "we’re standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes" even as we were hearing new reports of how we outsource detainees to such regimes to be tortured.      And once again he bragged about the growing readiness of Iraqi troops, citing "nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces." But as James Fallows confirms in his exhaustive report on "Why Iraq Has No Army" in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, America would have to commit to remaining in Iraq for many years to "bring an Iraqi army to maturity." If we’re not going to do that, Mr. Fallows concludes, America’s only alternative is to "face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly."      That’s the alternative that has already been chosen, brought on not just by the public’s irreversible rejection of the war, but also by the depleted state of our own broken military forces; they are falling short of recruitment goals across the board by as much as two-thirds, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. We must prepare accordingly for what’s to come. To do so we need leaders, whatever the political party, who can look beyond our nonorderly withdrawal from Iraq next year to the mess that will remain once we’re on our way out. Whether it’s countering the havoc inflicted on American interests internationally by Abu Ghraib and Guant

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Posted on Wed, Oct. 12, 2005 Sectarian resentment extends to Iraq’s army By TOM LASSETER Knight Ridder Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq

Question:

Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last Years By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL (Associated Press) WASHINGTON – Insurgencies can go on for years, but the violence ravaging Iraq will eventually be quelled by homegrown forces rather than U.S. and other foreign troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says. The violence could even worsen as Iraqi officials draft a constitution and Iraqi citizens prepare to install a new government by the end of the year, Rumsfeld said in television interviews Sunday. Deadly attacks are a daily reality in Iraq, where an Associated Press count through Sunday showed 1,736 U.S. troops killed. “That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years,” Rumsfeld said.

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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last Years > By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL > (Associated Press) > WASHINGTON – Insurgencies can go on for years, but the violence ravaging > Iraq will eventually be quelled by homegrown forces rather than U.S. and > other foreign troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says. > The violence could even worsen as Iraqi officials draft a constitution > and Iraqi citizens prepare to install a new government by the end of the > year, Rumsfeld said in television interviews Sunday. > Deadly attacks are a daily reality in Iraq, where an Associated Press > count through Sunday showed 1,736 U.S. troops killed. > “That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend > to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years,” Rumsfeld said.

Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we should train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and "garbage trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years pull out leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next Saddam and there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The instability in Iraq will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be rushed by US troops. When our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come to this country invoke "Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death and beheaded young boys will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will have died for what? Bush and Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil producing country for ten or fifteen years……

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> Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we should > train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and "garbage > trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years pull out > leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next Saddam and > there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The instability in Iraq > will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be rushed by US troops. When > our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come to this country invoke > "Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death and beheaded young boys > will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will have died for what? Bush and > Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil producing country for ten or > fifteen years……

If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think that we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western Europe, which has been much more stable since WWII. See ya, John

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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we > should train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and > "garbage trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years > pull out leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next > Saddam and there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The > instability in Iraq will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be > rushed by US troops. When our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come > to this country invoke "Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death > and beheaded young boys will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will > have died for what? Bush and Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil > producing country for ten or fifteen years…… > If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your > assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think > that we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western > Europe, which has been much more stable since WWII. > See ya, > John

Nope, The USA once "installed" a stable Democracy in Iran and we are currently attempting the same in Afghanistan. every time we "stabilize" an area and leave the "insurgents" move back in. The same thing happened in Nam, look what happened after we pulled out….

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we should >train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and "garbage >trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years pull out >leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next Saddam and >there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The instability in Iraq >will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be rushed by US troops. When >our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come to this country invoke >"Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death and beheaded young boys >will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will have died for what? Bush and >Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil producing country for ten or >fifteen years…… >If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your >assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think that >we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western Europe, which >has been much more stable since WWII. >See ya, >John

 Exactly why I said at the very beginning, that if we went  into Iraq we would be there for years. The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a matter of months once they saw the benefits of the American way. Looks like they were wrong… The real question is, how are we going to deal with China while we’re all tied up in the middle east? Looking like free markets weren’t such a good idea, eh? But don’t worry, things will balance out, just not the way you all thought… Tubeguru

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> Nope, > The USA once "installed" a stable Democracy in Iran

I’m NOT aware of a true Democracy ever existing in Iran. It was the Shah that ran that country. > and we are currently attempting the same in Afghanistan.

The jury is still out there, however there are area’s of Afghanistan that have NEVER been tamed. In the short term, it’s tamer now than it was after the Soviet invasion, and time will tell on the rest. > The same thing happened in Nam, look what happened after we pulled out….

There was NEVER a stable Democracy there, especially after Kennedy had Diem assassinated. See ya, John

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> Exactly why I said at the very beginning, that if we went  into Iraq we > would be there for years.

That is EXACTLY what teh administration said. They said YEARS about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror in general. > The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a matter of months once they > saw the benefits of the American way.

I don’t know of anyone that ever said such a thing. If you can find those quotes, please post them. > Looks like they were wrong… The real question is, how are we going to > deal with China while we’re all tied up in the middle east?

That may trun into the Tar Baby… > Looking like free markets weren’t such a good idea, eh?

How so? We ahve gone through periods when the Europeans were buying LARGE in the US, and then we went through a period when everyone was freaked that the Japanese were buying BIG into the US, and it all did pass. See ya, John

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Exactly why I said at the very beginning, that if we went  into Iraq we >would be there for years. >That is EXACTLY what teh administration said. They said YEARS about >Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror in general. >The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a matter of months once they >saw the benefits of the American way. >I don’t know of anyone that ever said such a thing. If you can find those >quotes, please post them.

LV, for one, he also maintained that WMD would be found in Iraq. I doubt that any quotes will be found as it was three years ago. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Looks like they were wrong… The real question is, how are we going to >deal with China while we’re all tied up in the middle east? >That may trun into the Tar Baby… >Looking like free markets weren’t such a good idea, eh? >How so? We ahve gone through periods when the Europeans were buying LARGE in >the US, and then we went through a period when everyone was freaked that the >Japanese were buying BIG into the US, and it all did pass. >See ya, >John

I sincerely doubt China is going away anytime soon. The reason for this, as I see it is the amount of political instability in China right now. This will cause them to do something desperate to maintain power. The Japanese  didn’t stand much of a chance against us economically because our manufacturing was so strong. The manufacturing power of China combined with them tying their currency to the value of the dollar is a dangerous thing.  Manufacturing in the US has taken a huge hit as a result.The Chinese have already financed a big portion of our debt. Not good. The real problem with free markets is that they end up being controlled by people without scruples or loyalty to anything but profit. Regulation  of business helps keep things from getting out of hand. Without it, the race to the bottom begins. I’m talking about the business of large corporations, not small business which is  rapidly vanishing. Soon all will be Wal-Mart made in China if we’re not careful. The deregulation of the insurance (read: extortion)  industry is a classic example. I’ve nothing against making a profit as long as  the little guys have a shot at it too. The problem is that the work that a lot of the smaller manufacturers used to do is now in China and if you don’t have the money to move to China then you are SOL… TG

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REGARDING INSTALLING DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE: "You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink."

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we should >>train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and "garbage >>trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years pull out >>leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next Saddam and >>there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The instability in Iraq >>will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be rushed by US troops. When >>our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come to this country invoke >>"Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death and beheaded young boys >>will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will have died for what? Bush and >>Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil producing country for ten or >>fifteen years…… >If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your >assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think that >we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western Europe, which >has been much more stable since WWII. >See ya, >John >  Exactly why I said at the very beginning, that if we went  into Iraq we > would be there for years. > The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a matter of months once they > saw the benefits of the American way. Looks like they were wrong… > The real question is, how are we going to deal with China while we’re > all tied up in the middle east? Looking like free markets weren’t such a > good idea, eh? But don’t worry, things will balance out, just not the > way you all thought… > Tubeguru

yeah the balance of trade is tipping in which direction? a. Tipton, Missouri b. China c. WalMart d. United States e. IBM f. Maytag But are there not frequent instances, you will say, of states and kingdoms, which were formerly rich and opulent, and are now poor and beggarly? Has not the money left them, with which they formerly abounded? I answer, If they lose their trade, industry, and people, they cannot expect to keep their gold and silver: For these precious metals will hold proportion to the former advantages. When LISBON and AMSTERDAM got the EAST-INDIA trade from VENICE and GENOA, they also got the profits and money which arose from it. Where the seat of government is transferred, where expensive armies are maintained at a distance, where great funds are possessed by foreigners; there naturally follows from these causes a diminution of the specie. But these, we may observe, are violent and forcible methods of carrying away money, and are in time commonly attended with the transport of people and industry. But where these remain, and the drain is not continued, the money always finds its way back again, by a hundred canals, of which we have no notion or suspicion. What immense treasures have been spent, by so many nations, in FLANDERS, since the revolution, in the course of three long wars? More money perhaps than the half of what is at present in EUROPE. But what has now become of it? Is it in the narrow compass of the AUSTRIAN provinces? No, surely: It has most of it returned to the several countries whence it came, and has followed that art and industry, by which at first it was acquired. For above a thousand years, the money of EUROPE has been flowing to ROME, by an open and sensible current; but it has been emptied by many secret and insensible canals: And the want of industry and commerce renders at present the papal dominions the poorest territory in all ITALY.     In short, a government has great reason to preserve with care its people and its manufactures. Its money, it may safely trust to the course of human affairs, without fear or jealousy. Or if it ever give attention to this latter circumstance, it ought only to be so far as it affects the former. David Hume

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->> Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we >> should train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and >> "garbage trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years >> pull out leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next >> Saddam and there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The >> instability in Iraq will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be >> rushed by US troops. When our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come >> to this country invoke "Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death >> and beheaded young boys will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will >> have died for what? Bush and Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil >> producing country for ten or fifteen years…… > If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your > assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think > that we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western > Europe, which has been much more stable since WWII. > See ya, > John > Nope, > The USA once "installed" a stable Democracy in Iran and we are currently > attempting the same in Afghanistan. every time we "stabilize" an area and > leave the "insurgents" move back in. The same thing happened in Nam, look > what happened after we pulled out….

is that Vietnam is our friend??? We import many pretty things from Vietnam. Everybody happy, happy.

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 From a strategic standpoint, the Chinese war effort will require massive quantities of oil, as will the U.S. and UK. The presence of American armor, airpower and boots on the ground in the mideast will assist in enabling tactical preservation of Western supplies while hampering access of those supplies to enemy combatents. I suspect that Russia and several of the "stans" will join with China against the West. The Iraqi and Kuwait land mass has numerous locations for U.S. Military bases. Accordingly, it can become the new Western Germany / S. Korea where stationing rotations are concerned. I would like to see the U.S. pull out of all Iraq towns and cities. Then any shut down domestic military bases can be moved there. The U.S. is perfectly capable of maintaining base security and terminating the inevitable harassments which would be ongoing. In fact, they would keep U.S. troops battle hardened and combat sharp. When if the Chinese/Russians etc. come, they’ll come in withering waves to "liberate" Iraq. If we weren’t there, that oil and Saudi oil would fall into enemy hands, killing America. The occupation of Iraq VIA BASES ON THEIR LAND ONLY has to be viewed in the larger context of a new world order, with the U.S. positioned to defend national security [ = OIL] against China and her allies. mvm – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Exactly why I said at the very beginning, that if we went  into Iraq we > would be there for years. The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a > matter of months once they saw the benefits of the American way. Looks > like they were wrong… > The real question is, how are we going to deal with China while we’re > all tied up in the middle east? Looking like free markets weren’t such a > good idea, eh? But don’t worry, things will balance out, just not the > way you all thought… > Tubeguru

Response:

> REGARDING INSTALLING DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE: > "You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink."

True, What’s going to happen in Iraq is the same thing that happened to Iran. We supported a puppet dictator in Iran and when the people had enough, the Shah was "disposed" and died in exile. The Islamic fundamentalists took over that country. Fast forward, we now find that Iran allowed the 911 hi jackers entry and exit without stamping their passports because they knew it would be a red flag to customs agents. Funny isn’t it that in none of the Bush and Co post 911 statements did anyone say the hi jackers had their passports stamped in Iraq and that proves Saddam was helping them…..But yet they "knew" Osama was the leader and went after Saddam. "It depends on what the definition of stupid is" Insert picture of Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Response:

I agree with you. Those who attempt to compare Japan’s economic rise in the 1970’s with China’s aren’t thinking it through with depth. Japan was merely a warning to the U.S. …a forshadowing. China is SO much larger, more dense and resourceful, comparisons are ludicrous. All one need do is re-visit what Communist China –[THEN A NATION LESS THAN 2 YEARS OLD!!!!] did to U.S. Troops in Korea, driving the entire might of the U.S. Military back down and South of the 38th parallel, fearless of our potential use of nuclear weapons. U.S. Casualties were horrid. The Chinese kept coming. They have had 50 years to build their entire war machine into thousands of mountains and tens of thousands of caves. Vietcong tactics taught all potential enemies of the U.S., well. This entire urban warfare scene now in Iraq is a mere training camp –it’s not even a war by historical standards. When China is strong enough, they’ll make their move on Taiwan. My personal feeling is that assurances and promises which began with Eisenhower and culminated with Nixon should be ABANDONED quickly. The U.S. is setting itself up for WWIII. We should withdraw the thousands of tons of weapons that we can from Taiwan. What we’ve sold them is gone. They will get us pulled into a horror show of unimaginable proportions if we don’t move immediately with the next shift in D.C., 2008. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I sincerely doubt China is going away anytime soon. The reason for this, > as I see it is the amount of political instability in China right now. > This will cause them to do something desperate to maintain power. The > Japanese  didn’t stand much of a chance against us economically because > our manufacturing was so strong. The manufacturing power of China > combined with them tying their currency to the value of the dollar is a > dangerous thing.  Manufacturing in the US has taken a huge hit as a > result.The Chinese have already financed a big portion of our debt. Not > good. > The real problem with free markets is that they end up being controlled > by people without scruples or loyalty to anything but profit. > Regulation  of business helps keep things from getting out of hand. > Without it, the race to the bottom begins. I’m talking about the > business of large corporations, not small business which is  rapidly > vanishing. Soon all will be Wal-Mart made in China if we’re not careful. > The deregulation of the insurance (read: extortion)  industry is a > classic example. I’ve nothing against making a profit as long as  the > little guys have a shot at it too. The problem is that the work that a > lot of the smaller manufacturers used to do is now in China and if you > don’t have the money to move to China then you are SOL… > TG

Response:

>>>The righties seemed to think we’d be out in a matter of months once they >>saw the benefits of the American way. >I don’t know of anyone that ever said such a thing. If you can find those >quotes, please post them. > LV, for one, he also maintained that WMD would be found in Iraq.

I did NOT ask about WMD’s, you wrote that righties thought that we would be out of Iraq in months, and I remember that the Administration was saying years for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror. Please prove a source for the "months" since I do NOT ever remember anyone saying that. See ya, John

Response:

I wonder if anyone typing here realizes what just happened in Iran, politically. I was talking to a group of Iranians (they usually refer to themselves as Persian) yesterday at our Condo pool. They were speaking rapid Farsi and here and there, I could here "Boosh". I introduced myself and made inquiries about various opinions. They are horrified as new Americans (one woman arrived only a moth ago) watching their nation fall back into the hands of "the Revolution". The reformists lost. So there we are– Iran, across whose land the Chinese could flow into Iraq, have JUST gone militantly Anti-US. The mideast will be a tremendous turf battleground for control of oil supplies if/and/or when the U.S. and China kick off WWIII. Again, the flashpoint is Taiwan. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->REGARDING INSTALLING DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE: >"You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink." > True, > What’s going to happen in Iraq is the same thing that happened to Iran. We > supported a puppet dictator in Iran and when the people had enough, the Shah > was "disposed" and died in exile. The Islamic fundamentalists took over that > country. Fast forward, we now find that Iran allowed the 911 hi jackers > entry and exit without stamping their passports because they knew it would > be a red flag to customs agents. Funny isn’t it that in none of the Bush and > Co post 911 statements did anyone say the hi jackers had their passports > stamped in Iraq and that proves Saddam was helping them…..But yet they > "knew" Osama was the leader and went after Saddam. > "It depends on what the definition of stupid is" Insert picture of Bush and > Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->> Yes this is rich isn’t it, Bush and Co. wants us to believe that we >> should >> train and arm and equip a standing Iraqi army with US weapons and >> "garbage >> trucks" paid for by US taxpayers. And in ten or fifteen years pull out >> leaving those weapons and equipment behind so that the next Saddam and >> there will be a next, will be readily equipped. The instability in Iraq >> will only resolve itself on it own and cannot be rushed by US troops. >> When >> our men leave "Osama Be Next" is going to come to this country invoke >> "Islamic law" women will be again stoned to death and beheaded young >> boys >> will be martyrs for Allah and our troops will have died for what? Bush >> and >> Co. to have control over a non OPEC oil producing country for ten or >> fifteen years…… >If we left before a stable Democracy was in place, I think that your >assessment would be quite accurate. With a stable Democracy, I do think >that >we have the possibility of doing there, what we did in Western Europe, >which >has been much more stable since WWII. > There is about as much chance of a stable, independant democracy in > Iraq as there is of the Pope becoming a Zen Buddhist.

Agreed. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> your name here!

Response:

> I’m NOT aware of a true Democracy ever existing in Iran. It was the Shah > that ran that country.

Don’t know much then, do ya? Iran had a democratically elected government led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh that, in 1953, was overthrown by a CIA sponsored coup that gave Shah Reza Pahlevi absolute power. > there are area’s of Afghanistan that have NEVER been tamed

"When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier." – Rudyard Kipling > There was NEVER a stable Democracy there [Vietnam]

Only because the United States didn’t go along with the agreed upon nationwide election in Vietnam…

Response:

> you wrote that righties thought that we would be > out of Iraq in months, and I remember that the Administration was saying > years for Afghanistan, Iraq

Question:

Americans are not buying Dan Rather’s bullshit forged document story. GALLUP SHOWS BUSH BLOWOUT: *13 POINT LEAD OVER KERRY* http://makeashorterlink.com/?X4BB51D49

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> What’s new about these memos is that they state that Bush’s superior > officers were aware that Bush was performing unsatisfactorily, that > they were being pressured to let Bush slide through and that they were > expected to falsify Bush’s records. > Those who worked with the memos’ author, Killian, are saying that > while the memos may not be authentic, what they say is accurate. > Killian’s secretary is saying that she did type memos for Killian that > said the same things that these memos are saying.  Killian’s immediate > superior officer has said that Killian expressed the same thoughts to > him that are in the memos. > I think that’s the story.   Why were they being pressured?  Who was > pressuring them?  We know from the memos that Lt. Colonel Staudt was > pressuring them.  Was anybody pressuring Staudt?  What do we know, > what isn’t being disputed, of Bush’s stint in the TANG?: > Staudt, as Bush’s unit commander in 1968 staged a special ceremony for > the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath > (after the official oath had been given by a Guard captain earlier.) > Staudt was excited about his VIP recruit, this direct appointment, > because at his staged ceremony, Bush’s father, the congressman, was > standing prominently in the background. > The 147th, Col. Staudt’s Texas unit, was infamous as a way out of > Vietnam combat for the politically well connected and celebrity draft > avoiders: Both of Sid Adger’s sons, Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s > son, Republican Senator John Tower’s son, and at least seven players > for the Dallas Cowboys had been signed into the unit. > What made Bush’s unfair, favored Guard appointment doubly > reprehensible was his total lack of qualifications. Rapid selection > into the Guard was reserved for applicants with exceptional experience > or skills such as prior Air Force ROTC training, or special > engineering, medical, or aviation skills. > Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, had reviewed > the Guard’s records on Bush for a special exhibit on his service after > Bush became governor. Asked about Bush’s direct appointment without > special skills, Hail said, "I’ve never heard of that. Generally they > did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight > surgeons." > Charles Shoemaker, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air > National Guard and retired as a full colonel, said that direct > appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive > credentials. Asked about Bush, he said, "His name didn’t hurt, > obviously. But it was a commander’s decision in those days." > When Bush completed basic training, his commander approved him for a > "direct appointment." That made him a 2nd Lieutenant without having to > go through the usual (very difficult) Officer Candidate School. This > special procedure also got Bush into flight school, despite his very > low scores on aptitude tests: 25% on a pilot aptitude test (the > absolute lowest acceptable grade) and 50% for navigator aptitude. Bush > did score 95% on the easier and subjectively graded officer quality > test, but the class average is generally 88%.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&f… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> In 1968, Bush’s father was a newly minted Congressman with a highly > coveted seat on the House Ways & Means Committee.  Very unusual for > such an inexperienced congressman to get on that committee.  Very > powerful. > Just as a reference point, at the time of those memos (1973), Bush had > left Congress and was named by Nixon to the Chairmanship of the RNC. > This was during the trial for the Watergate plumbers – Deep Throat had > just told Woodward that "lives were in danger." > Staudt retired around 1972 with the rank of Brigadier General.  That’s > a hefty promotion (2 grades) in such a short time.  It’s not unheard > of, but it is unusual.  It’s more likely to happen during wartime, on > the battlefield.  Google Staudt – what he was doing right after he > left the Guard raises an eyebrow: > "NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM > Walter B. Staudt is Executive Director of the Neighborhood Development > Program, which is In the process of completing a huge drainage project > for the western part of Beeville during the latter part of May this > year (1973). Forty-two city blocks of property are being drained with > storm sewers during heavy rains under this project, and the streets > will be paved after the sewer pipes have been laid. > The NDP also has started building and repairing houses in a plan to > eliminate shacks from the area. One new residence has been completed > and six others have been started at the time of this writing. > This is a Federal Agency, and the total expenditure on the drainage, > paving, and housing program for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1973, > is $1.250,000." > This, and a whole lot more.  Read all about it at: > http://www.beeville.net/TheHistoricalStoryofBeeCountyTexas/Chapter16.htm > So, immediately after leaving the National Guard, Buck Staudt was > running a company that was receiving federal funds to develop an oil > and gas town in Texas. > Was Bucky Staudt laying a retirement nest egg by saving politicians’ > sons from having to go to Viet Nam, letting them hide out in his > "Champagne Unit," in exchange for federal funding contracts? > Why else would he be so excited to have Congressman Bush’s son in his > unit?  This wasn’t a rock star.  Did he stage redundant swearing in > ceremonies for all of his VIPs’ sons?  Staudt didn’t take in these > VIPs sons, save their asses from having to go to Viet Nam, for > nothing. > There’s more to this story than memos.

No, nothing more since the memos are fraudulent.

Response:

What’s new about these memos is that they state that Bush’s superior officers were aware that Bush was performing unsatisfactorily, that they were being pressured to let Bush slide through and that they were expected to falsify Bush’s records. Those who worked with the memos’ author, Killian, are saying that while the memos may not be authentic, what they say is accurate. Killian’s secretary is saying that she did type memos for Killian that said the same things that these memos are saying.  Killian’s immediate superior officer has said that Killian expressed the same thoughts to him that are in the memos. I think that’s the story.   Why were they being pressured?  Who was pressuring them?  We know from the memos that Lt. Colonel Staudt was pressuring them.  Was anybody pressuring Staudt?  What do we know, what isn’t being disputed, of Bush’s stint in the TANG?: Staudt, as Bush’s unit commander in 1968 staged a special ceremony for the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath (after the official oath had been given by a Guard captain earlier.) Staudt was excited about his VIP recruit, this direct appointment, because at his staged ceremony, Bush’s father, the congressman, was standing prominently in the background. The 147th, Col. Staudt’s Texas unit, was infamous as a way out of Vietnam combat for the politically well connected and celebrity draft avoiders: Both of Sid Adger’s sons, Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s son, Republican Senator John Tower’s son, and at least seven players for the Dallas Cowboys had been signed into the unit. What made Bush’s unfair, favored Guard appointment doubly reprehensible was his total lack of qualifications. Rapid selection into the Guard was reserved for applicants with exceptional experience or skills such as prior Air Force ROTC training, or special engineering, medical, or aviation skills. Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, had reviewed the Guard’s records on Bush for a special exhibit on his service after Bush became governor. Asked about Bush’s direct appointment without special skills, Hail said, "I’ve never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons." Charles Shoemaker, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard and retired as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. Asked about Bush, he said, "His name didn’t hurt, obviously. But it was a commander’s decision in those days." When Bush completed basic training, his commander approved him for a "direct appointment." That made him a 2nd Lieutenant without having to go through the usual (very difficult) Officer Candidate School. This special procedure also got Bush into flight school, despite his very low scores on aptitude tests: 25% on a pilot aptitude test (the absolute lowest acceptable grade) and 50% for navigator aptitude. Bush did score 95% on the easier and subjectively graded officer quality test, but the class average is generally 88%. http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&f… In 1968, Bush’s father was a newly minted Congressman with a highly coveted seat on the House Ways & Means Committee.  Very unusual for such an inexperienced congressman to get on that committee.  Very powerful. Just as a reference point, at the time of those memos (1973), Bush had left Congress and was named by Nixon to the Chairmanship of the RNC. This was during the trial for the Watergate plumbers

Question:

        <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< SNIP  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > There’s more to this story than memos.

 So you are admiting that documents are a fraud yet you are expecting people to believe tham anyway? That is soooo Lame! If Bush wins in November you can send a large thank u note to Dan Rather

Response:

Americans are not buying Dan Rather’s bullshit forged document story. GALLUP SHOWS BUSH BLOWOUT: *13 POINT LEAD OVER KERRY* http://makeashorterlink.com/?X4BB51D49

Response:

> What’s new about these memos is that they state that Bush’s superior > officers were aware that Bush was performing unsatisfactorily, that > they were being pressured to let Bush slide through and that they were > expected to falsify Bush’s records. > Those who worked with the memos’ author, Killian, are saying that > while the memos ed(are frauds), what they say is accurate.

Just like the old lawyer line "Of course I’m lying, but hear me out!" Harry (fair and balanced)

Response:

What’s new about these memos is that they state that Bush’s superior officers were aware that Bush was performing unsatisfactorily, that they were being pressured to let Bush slide through and that they were expected to falsify Bush’s records. Those who worked with the memos’ author, Killian, are saying that while the memos may not be authentic, what they say is accurate. Killian’s secretary is saying that she did type memos for Killian that said the same things that these memos are saying.  Killian’s immediate superior officer has said that Killian expressed the same thoughts to him that are in the memos. I think that’s the story.   Why were they being pressured?  Who was pressuring them?  We know from the memos that Lt. Colonel Staudt was pressuring them.  Was anybody pressuring Staudt?  What do we know, what isn’t being disputed, of Bush’s stint in the TANG?: Staudt, as Bush’s unit commander in 1968 staged a special ceremony for the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath (after the official oath had been given by a Guard captain earlier.) Staudt was excited about his VIP recruit, this direct appointment, because at his staged ceremony, Bush’s father, the congressman, was standing prominently in the background. The 147th, Col. Staudt’s Texas unit, was infamous as a way out of Vietnam combat for the politically well connected and celebrity draft avoiders: Both of Sid Adger’s sons, Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s son, Republican Senator John Tower’s son, and at least seven players for the Dallas Cowboys had been signed into the unit. What made Bush’s unfair, favored Guard appointment doubly reprehensible was his total lack of qualifications. Rapid selection into the Guard was reserved for applicants with exceptional experience or skills such as prior Air Force ROTC training, or special engineering, medical, or aviation skills. Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, had reviewed the Guard’s records on Bush for a special exhibit on his service after Bush became governor. Asked about Bush’s direct appointment without special skills, Hail said, "I’ve never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons." Charles Shoemaker, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard and retired as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. Asked about Bush, he said, "His name didn’t hurt, obviously. But it was a commander’s decision in those days." When Bush completed basic training, his commander approved him for a "direct appointment." That made him a 2nd Lieutenant without having to go through the usual (very difficult) Officer Candidate School. This special procedure also got Bush into flight school, despite his very low scores on aptitude tests: 25% on a pilot aptitude test (the absolute lowest acceptable grade) and 50% for navigator aptitude. Bush did score 95% on the easier and subjectively graded officer quality test, but the class average is generally 88%. http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&f… In 1968, Bush’s father was a newly minted Congressman with a highly coveted seat on the House Ways & Means Committee.  Very unusual for such an inexperienced congressman to get on that committee.  Very powerful. Just as a reference point, at the time of those memos (1973), Bush had left Congress and was named by Nixon to the Chairmanship of the RNC. This was during the trial for the Watergate plumbers

Question:

A Mythic Reality By PAUL KRUGMAN The best book I’ve read about America after 9/11 isn’t about either America or 9/11. It’s "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," an essay on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent. Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it explains why President Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is ahead in the polls. War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours," he says, "is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn’t our ally is our enemy. This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power. One striking part of the book describes Argentina’s reaction to the 1982 Falklands war. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the country’s military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the public from the failure of his economic policies. It worked: "The junta, which had been on the verge of collapse" just before the war, "instantly became the saviors of the country." The point is that once war psychology takes hold, the public desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes heroic qualities to even the least deserving ruler. National adulation for the junta ended only after a humiliating military defeat. George W. Bush isn’t General Galtieri: America really was attacked on 9/11, and any president would have followed up with a counterstrike against the Taliban. Yet the Bush administration, like the Argentine junta, derived enormous political benefit from the impulse of a nation at war to rally around its leader. Another president might have refrained from exploiting that surge of support for partisan gain; Mr. Bush didn’t. And his administration has sought to perpetuate the war psychology that makes such exploitation possible. Step by step, the fight against Al Qaeda became a universal "war on terror," then a confrontation with the "axis of evil," then a war against all evil everywhere. Nobody knows where it all ends. What is clear is that whenever political debate turns to Mr. Bush’s actual record in office, his popularity sinks. Only by doing whatever it takes to change the subject to the war on terror – not to what he’s actually doing about terrorist threats, but to his "leadership," whatever that means – can he get a bump in the polls. Last week’s convention made it clear that Mr. Bush intends to use what’s left of his heroic image to win the election, and early polls suggest that the strategy may be working. What can John Kerry do? Campaigning exclusively on domestic issues won’t work. Mr. Bush must be held to account for his dismal record on jobs, health care and the environment. But as Mr. Hedges writes, when war psychology makes a public yearn to believe in its leaders, "there is little that logic or fact or truth can do to alter the experience." To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn’t an effective war leader – he only plays one on TV. This charge has the virtue of being true. It’s hard to find a nonpartisan national security analyst with a good word for the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Iraq, in particular, is a slow-motion disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism and epic incompetence. If I were running the Kerry campaign, I’d remind people frequently about Mr. Bush’s flight-suit photo-op, when he declared the end of major combat. In fact, the war goes on unabated. News coverage of Iraq dropped off sharply after the supposed transfer of sovereignty on June 28, but as many American soldiers have died since the transfer as in the original invasion. And I’d point out that while Mr. Bush spared no effort preparing for his carrier landing – he even received underwater survival training in the White House pool – he didn’t prepare for things that actually mattered, like securing and rebuilding Iraq after Baghdad fell. Will it work? I don’t know. But to win, Mr. Kerry must try to puncture the myth that Mr. Bush’s handlers have so assiduously created.

Response:

I’ve been hearing a lot about that book – I’ll just have to pick it up. As I understand it, the challenge posed by the book is, "how do we find a moral equivalent of war?" That is, how can we tap into the same sense of unity and purpose for a less destructive cause?  How can we arrive at a place where people who are willing to die for peace or justice (such as Rachel Corrie in Gaza) are given as much consideration as those who are willing to die for victory in the military – instead of being treated as a joke by cynical war-hawks.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> A Mythic Reality > By PAUL KRUGMAN > The best book I’ve read about America after 9/11 isn’t about either > America or 9/11. It’s "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," an essay > on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent. > Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it explains why > President Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is ahead > in the polls. > War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking > beneath the surface of every society, including ours," he says, "is > the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the > kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes > hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which > our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who > isn’t our ally is our enemy. > This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power. > One striking part of the book describes Argentina’s reaction to the > 1982 Falklands war. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the > country’s military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the > public from the failure of his economic policies. It worked: "The > junta, which had been on the verge of collapse" just before the war, > "instantly became the saviors of the country." > The point is that once war psychology takes hold, the public > desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes heroic > qualities to even the least deserving ruler. National adulation for > the junta ended only after a humiliating military defeat. > George W. Bush isn’t General Galtieri: America really was attacked on > 9/11, and any president would have followed up with a counterstrike > against the Taliban. Yet the Bush administration, like the Argentine > junta, derived enormous political benefit from the impulse of a nation > at war to rally around its leader. > Another president might have refrained from exploiting that surge of > support for partisan gain; Mr. Bush didn’t. > And his administration has sought to perpetuate the war psychology > that makes such exploitation possible. > Step by step, the fight against Al Qaeda became a universal "war on > terror," then a confrontation with the "axis of evil," then a war > against all evil everywhere. Nobody knows where it all ends. > What is clear is that whenever political debate turns to Mr. Bush’s > actual record in office, his popularity sinks. Only by doing whatever > it takes to change the subject to the war on terror – not to what he’s > actually doing about terrorist threats, but to his "leadership," > whatever that means – can he get a bump in the polls. > Last week’s convention made it clear that Mr. Bush intends to use > what’s left of his heroic image to win the election, and early polls > suggest that the strategy may be working. What can John Kerry do? > Campaigning exclusively on domestic issues won’t work. Mr. Bush must > be held to account for his dismal record on jobs, health care and the > environment. But as Mr. Hedges writes, when war psychology makes a > public yearn to believe in its leaders, "there is little that logic or > fact or truth can do to alter the experience." > To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of > voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn’t an effective war > leader – he only plays one on TV. > This charge has the virtue of being true. It’s hard to find a > nonpartisan national security analyst with a good word for the Bush > administration’s foreign policy. Iraq, in particular, is a slow-motion > disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism and epic > incompetence. > If I were running the Kerry campaign, I’d remind people frequently > about Mr. Bush’s flight-suit photo-op, when he declared the end of > major combat. In fact, the war goes on unabated. News coverage of Iraq > dropped off sharply after the supposed transfer of sovereignty on June > 28, but as many American soldiers have died since the transfer as in > the original invasion. > And I’d point out that while Mr. Bush spared no effort preparing for > his carrier landing – he even received underwater survival training in > the White House pool – he didn’t prepare for things that actually > mattered, like securing and rebuilding Iraq after Baghdad fell. > Will it work? I don’t know. But to win, Mr. Kerry must try to puncture > the myth that Mr. Bush’s handlers have so assiduously created.

Response:

Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->When James Hatfield wrote a book, titled "Fortunate Son",  4 years ago, >detailing evidence of Bush’s cocaine use, Hatfield was roundly condemned >by the entire media, he was accused of slandering and lying about Bush, >and Republicans pressured book stores everywhere to withdraw that book. >He was accused of lying, but his evidence was not refuted.     >In 1972, George W. Bush was arrested for possession of cocaine and, with >the help of his father, got the charges erased in exchange for >performing community service.  Most of the information in the book had >already been covered in newspapers and magazines; however, it does tie >it all together and put it under one cover, how Bush relies on his >extraordinary rich friends to save his bacon and silence his critics. >The book talks about the AWOL mystery & how Bush wriggled out of the >mandatory annual medical exams, and how he simply stopped flying even >after the taxpayers had forked over a million dollars for his flight >training.  There are 50 pages of references in this book.   >I can’t help but notice a familiar pattern, investigations that come too >close to Republicans are amazingly, quickly & quietly squashed.   >Because he exposed the truth, James Hatfield received a lot of death >threats.  On July 18, 2001, James Hatfield was murdered, and it was made >to look like a suicide.  On that day, he was supposedly found to have >died from an overdose of prescription drugs, at the age of 43.   >Sounds to me like anyone who dedicates their life to exposing >Republicans for the criminals that they are is subject to being snuffed >out.   >Talk Show Host Alan Berg, the main rival to Talk Show Host Rush >Limbaugh, he was found machine gunned to death at his own home’s drive >way, on June 18 of 1984, this assasination happened just days before he >was scheduled to cover the Democratic Convention of 1984.     >And then what about plane crashes?  The National Transportation Safety >Board says that over 100 Americans die each year in plane crashes.  But >there are surprisingly few Republicans who die in these plane crashes >somehow.  This is curious.  Why do such a disproportionately high number >of Democrats die in plane crashes?  Let’s examine some of the most >prominent ones.   >On October 17 of 2000, Democrat Melvin Eugene Carnahan, who ran against >Ashcroft for the Senate seat in Missouri, died in a mysterious plane >crash.  He was a vocal critic of Ashcroft’s anti-consumer & >anti-environment policies.   Despite the fact that Ashcroft had the >advantage of running unopposed, because of Carnahan’s death, the people >of Missouri decided to vote for Carnahan anyways, over Ashcroft. >Ashcroft lost the Missouri Senate election in 2000 to a dead man!   The >clear message from the people of Missouri was that they would rather >have a dead man become their Senator than to have Ashcroft.  That’s how >bad John Ashcroft is.   >On July 7th of 1999, John F. Kennedy jr. was killed in a plane crash. >His wife died in that plane crash also.  It was expected that he would >soon run for Senater in New York, and the opinion polls showed that no >matter who he would ran against, that he would win if he ran.   >On October 25th of 2002, Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane >crash also.  At the time, Paul Wellstone was the single most vocal >critic of the Shrub’s constant policy of shredding and defecating upon >the U.S. Constitution.  Paul Wellstone was also the most telegenic and >articulate Democrat we had back then, and if he could have easily run >against Bush in the 2004 election.   >Here are just some of the many other prominent Democrats who have died >in mysterious plane crashes: >Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, his plane crashed over Croatia on May 5th >of 1996.   >Congressman George Thomas Leland, from the Texas 18th District, died in >a mysterious plane crash on August 8th of 1989. >Congressman Cecil Franklin Weeding, from Montana, died in a mysterious >plane crash on May 6th of 1998.     >Grover C. Robinson, who represented the people of Florida, died in a >mysterious plane crash on March 28th of 2000.   >Democrat Charles B. Yates, who represented the people of New Jersey, >died in a mysterious plane crash on October 6th of 2000.   >And also notice how terrorist attacks seem to only target Democratic >strongholds, such as New York city and Democratic Senate Offices.  On >October 10th of 2001, there was an attempted murder of Democratic >Senator Tom Daschle who received Anthrax letters.  These letters were >traced to a very high grade military anthrax that is produced by >Republicans working in Pentagon labs.   On October 16th of 2001, >Democrat Pat Leahy recieved more Anthrax letters that were even more >high grade than the ones Daschle received. >Republicans want us to think that it was Arab terrorists who killed so >many Americans off with those Anthrax letters.  But think about this for >a minute.  How can Arab terrorists get ahold of weapons grade anthrax >that is only available from the Pentagon?   They would have used another >source.  And why would they target only Bush’s enemies?     >And of course, the most prominent Democrat of all to have been >assasinated was President John F. Kennedy, he was assasinated on >November 22nd of 1963, when he made the mistake of visiting the >Republican stronghold of Texas.   >Abel Malcolm >"Yee-Ha" is not a Foreign Policy ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >Educate yourself & go to these links:   >www.moveon.org & www.ndol.org & www.alternet.org & www.democrats.com & >www.americanprogress.org & www.buzzflash.com & www.democracynow.org & >http://www.bushlies.no-ip.org/ & >http://ww11.e-tractions.com/truemajority/run/oreo

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->When James Hatfield wrote a book, titled "Fortunate Son",  4 years ago, >detailing evidence of Bush’s cocaine use, Hatfield was roundly condemned >by the entire media, he was accused of slandering and lying about Bush, >and Republicans pressured book stores everywhere to withdraw that book. >He was accused of lying, but his evidence was not refuted.     >In 1972, George W. Bush was arrested for possession of cocaine and, with >the help of his father, got the charges erased in exchange for >performing community service.  Most of the information in the book had >already been covered in newspapers and magazines; however, it does tie >it all together and put it under one cover, how Bush relies on his >extraordinary rich friends to save his bacon and silence his critics. >The book talks about the AWOL mystery & how Bush wriggled out of the >mandatory annual medical exams, and how he simply stopped flying even >after the taxpayers had forked over a million dollars for his flight >training.  There are 50 pages of references in this book.   >I can’t help but notice a familiar pattern, investigations that come too >close to Republicans are amazingly, quickly & quietly squashed.   >Because he exposed the truth, James Hatfield received a lot of death >threats.  On July 18, 2001, James Hatfield was murdered, and it was made >to look like a suicide.  On that day, he was supposedly found to have >died from an overdose of prescription drugs, at the age of 43.   >Sounds to me like anyone who dedicates their life to exposing >Republicans for the criminals that they are is subject to being snuffed >out.   >Talk Show Host Alan Berg, the main rival to Talk Show Host Rush >Limbaugh, he was found machine gunned to death at his own home’s drive >way, on June 18 of 1984, this assasination happened just days before he >was scheduled to cover the Democratic Convention of 1984.     >And then what about plane crashes?  The National Transportation Safety >Board says that over 100 Americans die each year in plane crashes.  But >there are surprisingly few Republicans who die in these plane crashes >somehow.  This is curious.  Why do such a disproportionately high number >of Democrats die in plane crashes?  Let’s examine some of the most >prominent ones.   >On October 17 of 2000, Democrat Melvin Eugene Carnahan, who ran against >Ashcroft for the Senate seat in Missouri, died in a mysterious plane >crash.  He was a vocal critic of Ashcroft’s anti-consumer & >anti-environment policies.   Despite the fact that Ashcroft had the >advantage of running unopposed, because of Carnahan’s death, the people >of Missouri decided to vote for Carnahan anyways, over Ashcroft. >Ashcroft lost the Missouri Senate election in 2000 to a dead man!   The >clear message from the people of Missouri was that they would rather >have a dead man become their Senator than to have Ashcroft.  That’s how >bad John Ashcroft is.   >On July 7th of 1999, John F. Kennedy jr. was killed in a plane crash. >His wife died in that plane crash also.  It was expected that he would >soon run for Senater in New York, and the opinion polls showed that no >matter who he would ran against, that he would win if he ran.   >On October 25th of 2002, Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane >crash also.  At the time, Paul Wellstone was the single most vocal >critic of the Shrub’s constant policy of shredding and defecating upon >the U.S. Constitution.  Paul Wellstone was also the most telegenic and >articulate Democrat we had back then, and if he could have easily run >against Bush in the 2004 election.   >Here are just some of the many other prominent Democrats who have died >in mysterious plane crashes: >Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, his plane crashed over Croatia on May 5th >of 1996.   >Congressman George Thomas Leland, from the Texas 18th District, died in >a mysterious plane crash on August 8th of 1989. >Congressman Cecil Franklin Weeding, from Montana, died in a mysterious >plane crash on May 6th of 1998.     >Grover C. Robinson, who represented the people of Florida, died in a >mysterious plane crash on March 28th of 2000.   >Democrat Charles B. Yates, who represented the people of New Jersey, >died in a mysterious plane crash on October 6th of 2000.   >And also notice how terrorist attacks seem to only target Democratic >strongholds, such as New York city and Democratic Senate Offices.  On >October 10th of 2001, there was an attempted murder of Democratic >Senator Tom Daschle who received Anthrax letters.  These letters were >traced to a very high grade military anthrax that is produced by >Republicans working in Pentagon labs.   On October 16th of 2001, >Democrat Pat Leahy recieved more Anthrax letters that were even more >high grade than the ones Daschle received. >Republicans want us to think that it was Arab terrorists who killed so >many Americans off with those Anthrax letters.  But think about this for >a minute.  How can Arab terrorists get ahold of weapons grade anthrax >that is only available from the Pentagon?   They would have used another >source.  And why would they target only Bush’s enemies?     >And of course, the most prominent Democrat of all to have been >assasinated was President John F. Kennedy, he was assasinated on >November 22nd of 1963, when he made the mistake of visiting the >Republican stronghold of Texas.   >Abel Malcolm >"Yee-Ha" is not a Foreign Policy ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >Educate yourself & go to these links:   >www.moveon.org & www.ndol.org & www.alternet.org & www.democrats.com & >www.americanprogress.org & www.buzzflash.com & www.democracynow.org & >http://www.bushlies.no-ip.org/ & >http://ww11.e-tractions.com/truemajority/run/oreo

Response:

Question:

So…what’s her name? Is she nice? Does she like bass?  Boats?  Furniture refinishing projects? Joe. — The problem is, the farther down the road you go, the longer you can see it is. – Steve, eh? http://www.trainwreckblues.com http://www.garageband.com/artist/bigstevetrainwreck

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Guess what I get to perform in 9 hours! > And an ECG! > All due to a bad EKG x 2. > Wee! > For fun, I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol and nicotine, so as to make sure > I look and feel m best in the mornin’. > If that don’t finish me off.  I asked a senior co-worker out for a date > in the near future.  (she accepted) > Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! > Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be posting from the morgue in > Levanworth, KS.  Ya’ just never know )) > — >    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder > /() >    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> So…what’s her name? > Is she nice? > Does she like bass?  Boats?  Furniture refinishing projects? > Joe. > — > The problem is, the farther down the road you go, > the longer you can see it is. – Steve, eh? > http://www.trainwreckblues.com > http://www.garageband.com/artist/bigstevetrainwreck > Guess what I get to perform in 9 hours! > And an ECG! > All due to a bad EKG x 2. > Wee! > For fun, I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol and nicotine, so as to make sure > I look and feel m best in the mornin’. > If that don’t finish me off.  I asked a senior co-worker out for a date > in the near future.  (she accepted) > Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! > Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be posting from the morgue in > Levanworth, KS.  Ya’ just never know )) > — >    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder > /() >    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

I’ve been through the stress test and it is no big deal these days. Just don’t let them put you on the treadmill. Tell them you want to do it the other way. Chances are, they will do it the other way anyway. Good luck. Ed Cregger

Response:

> I’ve been through the stress test and it is no big deal these days. Just > don’t let them put you on the treadmill. Tell them you want to do it the > other way. Chances are, they will do it the other way anyway. > Good luck. > Ed Cregger

You shouldn’t have told him about the treadmill – that’s the best part  ;-) Mark

Response:

> I’ve been through the stress test and it is no big deal these days. Just > don’t let them put you on the treadmill. Tell them you want to do it the > other way. Chances are, they will do it the other way anyway. > Good luck. > Ed Cregger

Does the other way involve the Dr. wearing a rubber glove? To me, that’s more of a stress test than getting on a treadmill. Jay S

Response:

>>I’ve been through the stress test and it is no big deal these days. Just >don’t let them put you on the treadmill. Tell them you want to do it the >other way. Chances are, they will do it the other way anyway. >Good luck. >Ed Cregger > You shouldn’t have told him about the treadmill – that’s the best part  ;-) > Mark

Too late, I survived. —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

> All due to a bad EKG x 2. > Wee!

Going Radioactive! Let’s hope you already have plenty of Life Insurance, because they won’t give it to you now! Welcome to the world of High Risk pre-existing medical conditions. Employers love that.

Response:

I have a stress test every year now, being a Class A Driver (Large Trucks,Semis) . I have to wear a Monitor on the 21st for 24 hrs too.(that day will be a sick day from work,due to the small spaces I have to squeeze through to get into the cars!!)                                                                 S.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> All due to a bad EKG x 2. > Wee! > Going Radioactive! > Let’s hope you already have plenty of Life Insurance, > because they won’t give it to you now! > Welcome to the world of High Risk pre-existing medical conditions. > Employers love that.

Response:

> Let’s hope you already have plenty of Life Insurance, > because they won’t give it to you now!

Covered in spades.  ;-) —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

> I have a stress test every year now, being a Class A Driver (Large > Trucks,Semis) . I have to wear a Monitor on the 21st for 24 hrs too.(that > day will be a sick day from work,due to the small spaces I have to squeeze > through to get into the cars!!)

So… do I shave the rest of my body, or walk around with 12 bare spots on my chest??  Not shave, but trim it down to minimum length. Like I have a choice… boating season is here.  Gonna be losing the shirt sooner than later. When the girl was shaving me, I was grinning like a dog.  All I could think of (really) was asking her to shave my back too Should have at LEAST asked her to trim my chest into the shape of a penguin or something. bah… /saunters off to find the hedge trimmer. —    O< "Nekkid" /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> I’ve been through the stress test and it is no big deal these days. Just > don’t let them put you on the treadmill. Tell them you want to do it the > other way. Chances are, they will do it the other way anyway. > Good luck. > Ed Cregger > Does the other way involve the Dr. wearing a rubber glove? > To me, that’s more of a stress test than getting on a treadmill. > Jay S

You have your procedures confused. You’re thinking of a mammorectemy. Now that is checking for lumps the hard way. 8>) Ed Cregger

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >Guess what I get to perform in 9 hours! >And an ECG! >All due to a bad EKG x 2. >Wee! >For fun, I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol and nicotine, so as to make sure >I look and feel m best in the mornin’. >If that don’t finish me off.  I asked a senior co-worker out for a date >in the near future.  (she accepted) >Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! >Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be posting from the morgue in >Levanworth, KS.  Ya’ just never know ))

Hope ya studied!  ;-p Know (kinda) what you’re going thru. Got medevaced off the USNS Kawishiwi back in ‘87 due to suspected heart attack. I was 36 and, after my old man died at 40, I figured ‘this is it’. Funny thilng, tho’ – our helo pad was out of cert, so they hauled me up in a horse collar (not recommended treatment for a heart patient), and hauled me in to Oak Knoll. They watched me overnight, then were supposed to put me on the stress test, to be followed by heart cath. Well, they had a cancellation on a heart cath appointment, so they skipped the stress test and put me on the table for the cath. Yuck! Not painful, but VERY uncomfortable! Anyway, after looking at the dye moving thru my system, the doc said my circulatory system was cleaner than HIS, and decided it was an esophageal spasm, not a heart attack. Go figure. Hope it turns out that way for you. Break a leg!  

Response:

> Too late, I survived.

The only thing I could compare it to was my first couple of days in basic training… Glad to see that you’re alright  :-) Mark

Response:

>>Too late, I survived. > The only thing I could compare it to was my first couple of days in basic > training…

You know… I think I agree.  Except I don’t remember anyone in boot injecting me full of isotopes (isn’t it neat how that cold fluid travels up your arm to your heart?) while I was running. Of course, I don’t hardly remember any of it.  I was 80% asleep the whole time… just like the stress test. —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

> tho’ – our helo pad was out of cert, so they hauled me up in a horse > collar (not recommended treatment for a heart patient),

Lol, what a career field eh? > Yuck! Not painful, but VERY > uncomfortable! Anyway,

Ewe, the cath thing does make me squirm.  Roto-rooter… beginning in your privates. <shudders> —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

<schnip> > When the girl was shaving me, I was grinning like a dog.  All I could > think of (really) was asking her to shave my back too

<schnip2> A bit of a dog, are we? Edward G.

Response:

>> tho’ – our helo pad was out of cert, so they hauled me up in a horse > collar (not recommended treatment for a heart patient), >Lol, what a career field eh? > Yuck! Not painful, but VERY > uncomfortable! Anyway, >Ewe, the cath thing does make me squirm.  Roto-rooter… beginning in >your privates. <shudders>

This wasn’t the rooter thingie – just a tube up the femoral artery, into the top of the heart, and back about an inch, to inject the dye, so they could detect any scar tissue, plaque buildup, etc. STILL very uncomfortable, and I had to shave my own crotch for it! LEAST they could have done would be to send over a cute little wave pecker-checker! ;-p

Response:

> This wasn’t the rooter thingie – just a tube up the femoral artery, > into the top of the heart, and back about an inch, to inject the dye, > so they could detect any scar tissue, plaque buildup, etc. STILL very > uncomfortable, and I had to shave my own crotch for it! LEAST they > could have done would be to send over a cute little wave > pecker-checker! ;-p

Right, but the same angle of attack.  I can’t believe they made you shave yourself.  How lame.  I keep a pair of rubber gloves in the freezer for just such things O.k… I keep a third glove filled with water in the freezer, three fingers of it are reduced, specially for the next Marine with a hemorrhoid.  It’s a big hit in the desert. —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> This wasn’t the rooter thingie – just a tube up the femoral artery, > into the top of the heart, and back about an inch, to inject the dye, > so they could detect any scar tissue, plaque buildup, etc. STILL very > uncomfortable, and I had to shave my own crotch for it! LEAST they > could have done would be to send over a cute little wave > pecker-checker! ;-p >Right, but the same angle of attack.  I can’t believe they made you >shave yourself.  How lame.  I keep a pair of rubber gloves in the >freezer for just such things >O.k… I keep a third glove filled with water in the freezer, three >fingers of it are reduced, specially for the next Marine with a >hemorrhoid.  It’s a big hit in the desert.

HA! TMI, Rob!

Response:

Guess what I get to perform in 9 hours! And an ECG! All due to a bad EKG x 2. Wee! For fun, I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol and nicotine, so as to make sure I look and feel m best in the mornin’. If that don’t finish me off.  I asked a senior co-worker out for a date in the near future.  (she accepted) Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be posting from the morgue in Levanworth, KS.  Ya’ just never know )) —    O< "He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." — Billy Wilder /()    ^^                                                      Slidell, LA

Response:

You have thrill issues, dude.   (All the best.) Steve, eh? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >Guess what I get to perform in 9 hours! >And an ECG! >All due to a bad EKG x 2. >Wee! >For fun, I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol and nicotine, so as to make sure >I look and feel m best in the mornin’. >If that don’t finish me off.  I asked a senior co-worker out for a date >in the near future.  (she accepted) >Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! >Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be posting from the morgue in >Levanworth, KS.  Ya’ just never know ))

–          O<  "Groovy baby!"         ((          ))       <(  )        Z |          |_

Response: