Yahoo! News Message Boards Politics News: "THE CHIMPS ACHIEVEMENTS!!!!
by: slutbushtwins (46/M/South Pasadena, CA) 07/31/04 05:57 pm
Msg: 591824 of 591856
5 recommendations

He took the Clinton economy, which had the longest sustained growth in American history, the lowest unemployment in American history, the most powerful economy in world history, the largest surplus in American history, and in the space of his first 6 months in office, gave us the highest unemployment since the depression, the worst economy since the dismal reagan years, the longest negative growth since the depression, the largest deficits in American history, the most stock market crashes since the depression(42), and all of this by August of 2001.
Then in April of 2001 he went on the longest vacation in American presidential history , and got got caught asleep at the wheel on 9/11( when his vacation eneded)....and in between colluded with Enron, El Paso Energy, Reliant, etc. to bilk California and the west out of 40 billion during the phoney energy crisis of 2001, lied to get us into a war, then gave his buddies like Halliburton and other contributors full reign in Iraq, whenre his henchmen have ripped off taxpayers to the tune of 3 billion more dollars.
Yup...I dont think Kerry can match those achievements. "

Yahoo! News Message Boards Politics News: "Colin Powell on W's Vietnam 'service'
by: uncommonsense48 (48/M/Ohio) 07/27/04 05:35 pm
Msg: 8297 of 8299
1 recommendation

'I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units...Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.' (Colin Powell�s autobiography, My American Journey, p. 148)

That just about sums up my feelings as well. "

Yahoo! News Message Boards Politics News: "Re: keep pouring billions$ into prisons
by: berkeleyevildoer 07/26/04 05:31 pm
Msg: 2399 of 2407

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room
here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27"

. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing
garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble
of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16.
Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging

Yahoo! News Message Boards Politics News: "Explaining Liberal Anger
by: jbryant_13 (53/M/Ohio) 07/23/04 10:33 pm
Msg: 17 of 21

Society, to the liberal mind, is a massive engineering project. Most of us distinguish misfortune and injustice. Not the liberal. No misfortune goes unaddressed by the social engineers. It is presumed -- conclusively, without evidence or argument -- that disparities in wealth are the result of morally arbitrary factors (accidents of birth or circumstance) rather than individual character, effort, discipline, work, or merit"

The Smirking Chimp Project for the New American Century, published a virtual blueprint of Bush's imperial foreign policy back in September 2000 -- even mentioning the possibility of a "new Pearl Harbor" that could "catalyze" the American public into backing the group's far-reaching ambitions. A linchpin of the plan was the military takeover of Iraq -- even if Hussein was no longer in power, as the PNAC document cheerfully admitted.

Engadget - www.engadget.com: "Why do we have the funny feeling that if this were sold here in the States that someone would end up in prison? Only available in the UK right now, PureDigital�s Bug can tune into digital radio broadcasts, record them, and transfer those copies to a PC (via SD card or a USB cable) where they can be burned to a CD or transferred to an MP3 player. There are even more models on the way."

Ananova - Health workers visited patient without realising she was dead: "A mental health charity is reviewing its home visit procedures after two members of staff visited a patient and left without realising she was dead.
Mind launched the inquiry after an inquest heard how the two visitors left paranoid schizophrenic Patricia Harris in the kitchen of her Coventry bedsit after she made no response to their greetings.
The death of the 43-year-old only came to light the following day when two other Mind staff visited and saw she had passed away.
Kay St Clair, director of Mind's Coventry branch, described the events surrounding Miss Harris' death as 'unprecedented' in the charity's experience.
'We have extended our deepest sympathies to Mr and Mrs Harris,'she said.
'Coventry Mind is immediately conducting a full internal review of procedures and practices in addition to taking external help and advice from independent outside experts.'"The inquest in Coventry has heard Helen Redmond, the assistant head of housing services for the city's branch of Mind, and James Howard, one of the charity's community psychiatric nurses, visited Miss Harris at her bedsit in Binley Road on August 13 after learning that she had not been seen for five days.

Entering the flat, they saw Miss Harris dressed in outdoor clothing and positioned between the two kitchen walls.

Unable to see her face or any movement, and hearing no response to their efforts to engage her in conversation, the pair left when the telephone rang, to allow her to answer it.

The Gadflyer: Fly Trap: "Coleman seemed unfamiliar with the American mode of interviewing this president, in which he throws a pile of crap at you � the laughable assertion that he doesn�t pay attention to polls, for instance, or the time-tested ploy of meaningless tautology ('My job is to do my job') � and you reply, 'Thank you sir, may I have another?'
(In case you think I overstate, at his press conference just before launching the Iraq war, one hard-nosed reporter asked, 'As the nation is at odds over war, with many organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus pushing for continued diplomacy through the U.N., how is your faith guiding you? And what should you tell America or what should America do collectively as you instructed before 9/11? Should it pray?' Naturally, Bush replied, 'I appreciate that question a lot.')
But the really interesting thing is what happened next. A less-than-fawning interview must, of course, be punished. So the White House cancelled a previously scheduled RTE interview with Laura Bush, then lodged a complaint with the Irish embassy. And who says they�re thin-skinned!"

Yahoo! News - Bush Liked Less Than Saddam, Bin Laden: "BUDAPEST (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) is disliked by more Hungarian secondary school children than former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday.

Reuters Photo


Reuters
Slideshow: President Bush





Latest headlines:
�Philippines blocks workers going to Iraq after kidnapping
AFP - 11 minutes ago
�U.N. Didn't OK Uranium Transfer to U.S.
AP - 18 minutes ago
�Iraq Unveils New Laws to Fight Insurgency
AP - 19 minutes ago
Special Coverage




Bush also topped the list of most-liked foreigners with eight percent of the vote, ahead of Pope John Paul (news - web sites) with six percent.
The survey of 34,000 students, aged 16-18, from 655 high schools showed Adolf Hitler was the most disliked foreign personality with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Bush with 23 percent and Bin Laden with 16 percent. "

The Rootless Cosmopolitan: "But attention, of course, is now being paid. An overwhelming majority of world opinion outside the United States sees the Palestinian tragedy today much as the Palestinians themselves see it. They are the natives of Israel, an indigenous community excluded from nationhood in its own homeland: dispossessed and expelled, illegally expropriated, confined to 'bantustans,' denied many fundamental rights and exposed on a daily basis to injustice and violence. Today there is no longer the slightest pretense by well-informed Israelis that the Arabs left in 1948 of their own free will or at the behest of foreign despots, as we were once taught. Benny Morris, one of the leading Israeli scholars on the subject, recently reminded readers of the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz that Israeli soldiers did not merely expel Palestinians in 1948-49, in an early, incomplete attempt at ethnic cleansing; they committed war crimes along the way, including the rape and murder of women and children"

Today it presents a ghastly image: a place where sneering 18-year-olds with M-16s taunt helpless old men ("security measures"); where bulldozers regularly flatten whole apartment blocks ("rooting out terrorists"); where helicopters fire rockets into residential streets ("targeted killings"); where subsidized settlers frolic in grass-fringed swimming pools, oblivious of Arab children a few meters away who fester and rot in the worst slums on the planet; and where retired generals and Cabinet ministers speak openly of bottling up the Palestinians "like drugged roaches in a bottle" (former Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan) and cleansing the land of its Arab cancer (former Housing Minister Effi Eitam).

Israel is utterly dependent on the United States for money, arms and diplomatic support. One or two states share common enemies with Israel; a handful of countries buy its weapons; a few others are its de facto accomplices in ignoring international treaties and secretly manufacturing nuclear weapons. But outside Washington, Israel has no friends--at the United Nations it cannot even count on the support of America's staunchest allies. Despite the political and diplomatic incompetence of the PLO (well documented in Said's writings); despite the manifest shortcomings of the Arab world at large ("lingering outside the main march of humanity"); despite Israel's own sophisticated efforts to publicize its case, the Jewish state today is widely regarded as a--the--leading threat to world peace. After thirty-seven years of military occupation, Israel has gained nothing in security. It has lost everything in domestic civility and international respectability, and it has forfeited the moral high ground forever.

Artificial Sweetener May Disrupt Body's Ability To Count Calories, According To New Study: "Choosing a diet soft drink over a regular, sugar-packed beverage may not be the best way to fight obesity, according to new research from Purdue University. But the researchers said this doesn't mean you should grab a regularly sweetened soft drink instead."

Yahoo! News Message Boards Top Stories: "AMERICAN REVOLUTION = CIVIL WAR
by: radioactive_cyborg_crack_monkey (19/M/Great Britain, England) 07/04/04 01:54 pm
Msg: 1260 of 1529
2 recommendations

The Hollywood version of the War of Independence is a straightforward fight between heroic Patriots and wicked, Nazi-like British Redcoats. But the reality is very different, it was in fact a Civil War which divided social classes and even families. Benjamin Franklin�s own son, William, governor of New Jersey, remained loyal to Britain during the war. The two never spoke again. And the worst violence did not involve regular British troops, but was perpetrated by rebel colonials against their countrymen who remained loyal to Great Britain.

But it is the great irony of the American Revolution, and it strikes you forcefully when you see today�s prosperous Lexingtonians trying to relive their forefathers self-sacrifice � that the ones who revolted against British rule were best of all Britain�s colonial subjects. There is good reason to think that, by the 1770�s, New Englanders were about the wealthiest people in the world. Per person income was at least equal to that in the United Kingdom and was more evenly distributed. The New Englanders had bigger farms, bigger families and better education than the Old Englanders back home. And, crucially, they paid far less tax. In 1763 the average Briton paid 26 shillings a year in taxes. The equivalent figure for a Massachusetts taxpayer was just one shilling. To say that being British subjects had been good for these people would be an understatement.
Just twenty years before the ‘battle’ of Lexington, the American settlers had proved their loyalty to the British Empire by turning out in tens of thousands to fight against the French and the Indian allies in the Seven Years War. The first shot of that war had been fired by a young colonial named George Washington.

Everyone has heard of the ‘Boston Tea Party’ of 16 December 1773, in which 342 boxes of tea worth £10,000 were tipped into the waters of Boston harbour. But most people assume it was a protest against a hike in the tax on tea. In fact the price of the tea in question was exceptionally low, since the British government had just given the East India Company a rebate of the much higher duty the tea had incurred on entering Britain. In effect, the tea left Britain duty free and had to only pay the much lower American duty on arriving in Boston. Tea had never been cheaper in New England. The ‘Boston Tea Party’ was organized not by furious consumers but by Boston’s wealthy smugglers, who stood to lose out.

On close inspection, the taxes that caused so much fuss were not just unimportant; by 1773 they had all but gone. In any case, these disputes about taxation were trivial compared with the basic economic reality that membership to the British Empire was good – very good – for the American colonial economy. The Navigation Acts may have given British ships a monopoly over trade with the colonies, but they also guaranteed a market for North American exports of agricultural staples, cattle, pig iron and ships.

Overall, something like one in five of the White population of British North America remained loyal to the crown during the war. The loyalist companies often fought just as hard as the British troops. But with the colonial rebels, French & Dutch working together, the odds were stacked against the British who had a limited military presence due to involvement in wars elsewhere in the world, mainly against the jealous French back home in Europe.

Many loyal colonials responded to defeat by immigrating northwards to the British colonies in Canada, which had all remained loyal. The loss of America had the unforeseen effect of securing Canada for the Empire, thanks to the flood of English-speaking Loyalist immigrants who would soon reduce the French Quebecois to a struggling minority.


Message Thread [ View ]


Just twenty years before the �battle� of Lexington, the American settlers had proved their loyalty to the British Empire by turning out "

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Not Feeling Groovy: "The old cold warriors thought they could improve the national character by invading Iraq � in that way banishing post-Vietnam ambivalence about using force and toughening up what they saw as the Clintonesque 60's mentality � a weak, pinprick-bombing, if-it-feels-good-do-it attitude. Their new motto was: If it makes someone else feel bad, do it."

Once they returned to power, the Bush II team, dripping with contempt for Bill Clinton and oozing with "we know best" cockiness, thought they could use the sacking of Saddam to change the way Americans saw themselves and the way America was seen in the world

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Digital Domain: From a High-Tech System, Low-Fi Music: "Customers are led to believe that they are getting a CD in all respects except the trouble of going to the mall. The iTunes store does not warn about the permanence of its method of compression; once freeze-dried, there is no way to reconstitute the music into CD quality for playing through a good stereo"Ah, for simpler times, when we never had reason to look up the bit rate at which music is digitally sampled for CD's: 1,378 kilobits per second. The bit rate for iTunes, 128, is so low that when played side by side against the original, the difference is audible not only to audio enthusiasts, but also to mortals with ordinary hearing. Wes Phillips, contributing editor at Stereophile, says "128 is like an eight-track," and he describes the combination of iPod and iTunes as "buying a 21st-century device to live in the 1970's."

Defending the company's decision to encode its music at the low end of the bit rate range, an Apple spokesman, Derick Mains, says 128 provides good sound quality, "especially when used in iPods."
Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, has long held that inferior quality will eventually manifest itself. A number of years ago, he recalled that when he was growing up, a neighbor across the street had tried to make a Volkswagen Bug into a Porsche through unstinting investments in accessories. When the neighbor was done, however, Mr. Jobs said, "he did not have a Porsche; he had a loud, ugly VW."

New Molecule May Be Basis For Drugs That Battle Overeating And Drug Dependency: "Anandamide is a natural marijuana-like compound that responds to hormones and external stimuli and activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain. This endocannabinoid system helps regulate pain, mood and appetite, along with dependence on drugs such as alcohol and marijuana. Because of this, anandamide is sometimes referred to as the 'bliss' molecule"

The New York Times > Books > Engineering More Sons Than Daughters: "In China, the researchers estimate that 120 boys are born for every 100 girls. The official birth sex ratio in India is about 113 boys for every 100 girls, the authors write, but they claim that spot checks in some places show ratios up to 156 boys for every 100 girls.
The birth sex ratio worldwide is about 105 boys for every 100 girls"