Stonewall,

You may have covered this in October, but I missed posts for a while.

Did you see the near police state that operated in response to the sniper? Stopping everyone, all the people glad they were being stopped. It was an ordinary person who spotted the car and called the police.

This is just like the Amber alert system. Turn everybody into the eyes and ears of the police.

I think we will see more of this. I suspect that this type of public mobilization is what has occurred in Israel. This is the nature of your police state, and it will be popular. I'm not sure that it is a bad thing because in this stage, it is very communitarian.

I direct this to you because your concerns about Ashcroft have been misplaced. This is not the police state of your fears.

Also your post, somewhere, about how Bush is really a Democrat spender in disguise, really makes the point that he has coopted the Dems. He's operate from the center, make the public happy and demonstrate that he is not one of those demon Republicans that the Democrats and Pat Buchanans have been scaring us about for years. The public will see that and be comfortable with the Republicans as the governing party. sure there will be a drift to the right, just as there was 40 years of drifting to the left under the Dems.

Relax. Read up on those New Deal era Republicans. Just don't be as bitter.

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

By JOHN MARKOFF
NY Times

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe ? including the United States.

Does this mean I have to scrub my hard drive or maybe use the computer at the public library to subvert the enemy within?

Orwell missed it by 19 years. A generation so to speak.

Think again! The perverts whose salaries we are forced to pay at gunpoint have the library covered too. Of course this is probably just an interim measure until all Americans must submit to mandatory physical implantation of chips. Here is a little more:


November 8, 2002

Snoops at the Library

by KURT NIMMO

Attention, Mr. FBI Snoop. Here's a short list of the authors I have checked out of the public library recently: Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, William Blum, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, and John Pilger. Now you don't have to go and bother my librarian. She has better things to do than answer your intrusive questions.

This evening I read an article by Bill Olds of the Hartford Courant. "I have uncovered information that persuades me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has bugged the computers at the Hartford Public Library," writes Olds. "And it's probable that other libraries around the state have also been bugged. It's an effort by the FBI to obtain leads that it believes may lead them to terrorists."

No doubt the FBI has the capacity to bug the computers at the Hartford Public Library. On the other hand, I don't believe FBI seriously thinks it will apprehend terrorists at the library -- that is unless they consider average citizens who happen to read what the government may consider "subversive" literature as terrorists. How many al-Qaeda terrorists do you think are using the computers at the Hartford Public Library? How many of them are checking out books? Are there dirty bomb how-to books are available at the library? Or cookbooks on how best to mix up a batch of anthrax at home in the kitchen sink?

It's just not books. It's email, too. A lot of people use the public library to cruise the internet. You never know... the guy on the computer next to you at the library may be an al-Qaeda operative communicating with somebody in Pakistan. He may be planning the death and destruction of infidels in an AOL chatroom. Osama bin Laden might be on the other end of the wire.

Back in October of last year the FBI checked computer terminals in Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs, Florida. According to the government, 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were in Florida at one time or another. Since snooping at public libraries is secret under the Patriot Act, we will probably never know if they found anything. Even so, I bet the FBI knows they're not likely to catch terrorists at the public library -- or will they scrape up enough evidence to thwart an attack. It's not al-Qaeda specifically the FBI is interested in snooping on.

The FBI wants to keep tabs on Americans who may read the wrong books and harbor the wrong ideas about their government. Snooping is all about domestic politics.

Do you think I'm paranoid? Read on.

Back in the 1970s -- before Democrats went completely spineless -- there were committees convened to investigate numerous abuses committed not only by the FBI, but also the CIA and the NSA. "On the theory that the executive's responsibility in the area of 'national security' and 'foreign intelligence' justified [the use of informants, infiltration, wire taps, warrantless surreptitious entries, mail opening programs, even blackmail and violence] without the need of judicial supervision, the intelligence community believed it was free to direct these techniques against individuals and organizations whom it believed threatened the country's security," concluded the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, 1976 -- otherwise known as the Church Committee....

(continued at link)

http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo1108.html

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

On a different subject, here is a Millie's outline for his future, to see if it means anything generation-wise:

2003: Get Drivers' Licence
2005: Graduate High School
2006: Vote in first election
2009: Graduate College with B.S. Degree
Before March 2010, probably in college: Meet future wife, also graduated HS in 2005.
September 2010: Get engaged
June 2011: Get married
June 2011: Honeymoon in Hawaii
June 2011: Buy NEW suburban house
March 2012: Have first kid
November 2014: Have second kid
April 2054: Retire
2061 or later: Die
2068 or later: Wife Dies
(Last two based on life expectancies; its not like I'll kill myself if I don't die that year or anything)

These are only preferences, if it unfolds a bit differently, I'm not going to consider my life ruined or anything.

This was posted prior to the 2002 election. Now that the Repugs are in charge it may be time to adjust the Millies life.

2004- Join GOP brownshirts, Report on subversives at T4T. Recieve merit award.

2006-Vote GOP is there any other party

2007- Start my two year manditory military service fighting "terrorist" In 2 years I was in Boswana and North Korea. Hey I saw the world, or I came home in a bag what the hay.

2009- My service record was excellent and being a very bright person recieved a job with Govt. propoganda now I analyze the endless fight on Govt. TV. Attend night school though I have been given the best education for my class from the govt.

2011- Marry the woman of my and the govt. dreams. She is so repug.[/quote]

Excuse me, don't post something I say, the part "posted prior to the 2002 election", without quoting me. And then, don't ever put words in my mouth, which you did with the "adjustment", again, okay? Shame on you, and I hope you never do something like this again.

Justmom posted an argument that the founding fathers intended to found this nation as a Christian nation.

Whatever some of the founders may have thought and however others may have interpreted that later, it is pretty clear that in adopting the Constitution of the United States in 1789 the nation rejected the right of the Federal government to establish a state religion. The states then followed accordingly as they were admitted to the Union.

Some of our founders were religious Christians and others were church members who had private views that deviated from the orthodoxies of the day. Thomas Jefferson, for example, privately held a Deistic worldview. Some founders were Christians who had been hounded out of certain colonies because their particular brand of Christianity was not acceptable to the rulers of that colony. This was common for Quakers and Anabaptists to name a few. Some of our founders were not Christian at all. The man who was the main finacier of the Revolutionary War was a Jew.

The antiestablishment clause protects the right of every citizen to pursue his or her own religious belief free of state coersion and also does not allow the state to tax citizens in order to support a particular church or religion. That means that by signing onto the constitution, the states agreed that we are not a Christian nation nor are we a nation of any particular religion. We are a nation of religious people freely pursuing a life of goodness and service through the auspices of a variety of religious bodies.

The founders of this nation were concerned that establishment of religion would recreate the religious wars of Europe in which many people were slaughtered simple because, in the immortal words of Jonathan Swift, "they chose to crack their eggs on one end than on the other." As a result of the antiestablishment clause, our nation has become one in which religion flourishes because people are not forced to profess a particular creed in order to serve in government and they are not taxed to support a church with which they do not agree.

The ACLU has generally protected this right for the religious minorities among us who otherwise would be at the mercy of the more numerous and vocal Christians. I have personally been grateful for their concern for my right to teach my children our faith and not have them instructed in another faith by the public schools.

The ACLU does not want to prohibit the singing of Silent Night in public places. They do want to prohibit school children who are not Christian from being coerced into singing it. If you look carefully at the cases that were mentioned in that article you will see that what is in question is the coercion of citizens to practice or pay for a religion that is not their own. The writer did not give all the information truthfully--the piece was intended to inflame through what was not said.

I am not eager to return to the European model of state-supported Christianity. I do not want to witness massacres, pograms, auto-da-fe's and holocausts. Nor am I eager for such dominance by any other religion.

I agree that the majority of US citizens are members of a Christian sect. I would argue vociferously with the idea that this is a "Christian" nation.

The founders' intentions are clearly spelled out in the constitution and they did not intend to found a state with an established religion.

Originally Posted by elilevin

Thomas Jefferson, for example, privately held a Deistic worldview.

Jefferson was a member of the local Methodist church I believe, though held closer to the Unitarian worldview. It is important to remember that the "Unitarians" of the time had NOT yet joined with the Universalists, and were indeed, a Christian Church. (Though the beliefs they held about Jesus and the nature and extent of his divinity would have had the Catholics up in arms :lol: )

It's a minor point, but it supports your argument. The Founding Fathers
did not intend for us to be a godless nation, simply that we had the right
to seek and perceive God however we chose.

AlexMnWi- Sorry about deleting the quote. I noticed it after posting. I apologize for my misdeed. :oops:

Quoting GWB. " There's an old... saying in Tennessee that says Fool me once... Shame on... Shame on you Fool me... Can't get fooled again." Nashville Tenn. 9-17-02

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

Quoting GWB. " There's an old... saying in Tennessee that says Fool me once... Shame on... Shame on you Fool me... Can't get fooled again." Nashville Tenn. 9-17-02

I know. That speaking error would probably be something I'd do. I too lack good public speaking skills. I've actually gotten worse over the past year...

AlexMnWi, True most people have problems speaking in public, if not properly trained.It is best to think before speaking. As an elected official you should be most cautious.

"I believe what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe... I believe what I believe is right." GWB 7-23-01

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

AlexMnWi, True most people have problems speaking in public, if not properly trained.It is best to think before speaking. As an elected official you should be most cautious.

"I believe what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe... I believe what I believe is right." GWB 7-23-01

Or an elected official need not be more cautious. In fact, it may well pay not to worry about turning one's phrases so carefully. This appeared in this morning?s Washington Post; hardly a bastion of conservative thought. Reprinted for educational purposes.

Welcome to the Democrats' Misreading
How the Liberal Elite Keep Losing Big Elections to the 'Regular' Guys Like Bush and Reagan.

By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 10, 2002; Page A04

"They misunderestimated me."

So said then-candidate George W. Bush of his opponents on the eve of the 2000 presidential election. At the time, the remark was added to a long list of Bush gaffes and malapropisms. But maybe he coined precisely the right word.

Given the president's very successful week -- in which he won a resounding victory in Tuesday's elections, then secured a unanimous resolution on Iraq from the U.N. Security Council -- his supporters and many of his opponents found themselves agreeing that he has often been misunderstood and underestimated. For more than two years, at the mere mention of George W. Bush, critics on the left started hooting over his fractured syntax, counting his IQ and tsk-tsking over his simplistic foreign policy. Sample Web site: toostupidtobepresident.com. Even some Republicans joined in behind closed doors.

Then Bush ran the table on Nov. 5 -- the first president in almost 70 years to pick up seats in both houses of Congress in a midterm election -- and steered the French and Russians into cracking down on Saddam Hussein.

Misunderestimated?

Absolutely, said Bruce Reed, one of the longest-serving advisers in the Clinton administration, and no great fan of the president. "Democrats routinely sell Bush short," he said. "It's a mistake for a number of reasons."

But not a new mistake. Many Democrats and Republicans in Washington felt a tremor of d?j? vu last week, scary for some, gleeful for others. This is not the first time a less-than-flashy president has irritated, then thrashed, America's liberal, educated elite. Something about Bush's situation last week made people remember former president Ronald Reagan.

Like Bush, Reagan was considered by the left to be less than the sharpest knife in the drawer. Sometimes, this amused his opponents and sometimes it seemed to frighten them. A 1987 protest by Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow against Reagan's proposal for a nuclear missile shield -- which Bush has renewed in a revised form -- captured both aspects of this reaction. It was "dumb, destabilizing and damned dangerous," Glashow said.

People with even longer memories went all the way back to the 1950s, when liberals swooned over the witty and urbane Illinois governor Adlai E. Stevenson, only to see him trounced twice by homespun Dwight D. Eisenhower. For people who enjoy their bon mots enfran?ais, the Republican Party has been serving up frustrating presidents for much of the past half century.

"It brings up the old saying: 'Republicans are the stupid party,' " a GOP Senate aide said last week. As if to refute the idea, he indulged in a bit of casual French himself: "Liberal elites associate conservatism with things d?class?," the staffer said. "The folksiness, the simpleness, simply repels them."

And that may be precisely where liberals get into trouble. So says Reed, loyal Democrat and a Rhodes scholar and thus a card-carrying member of the intellectual elite. When Reed says it is a "mistake" for Democrats to misunderestimate Bush, he has at least three reasons in mind.

The first: "Book smarts have not necessarily been a perfect indicator of presidential success." Another: "It's always a mistake to personalize the argument." A third: "It plays directly into Bush's strength, which is that he comes across as a regular guy."

Take them one at a time.

It seems fair to say that history establishes no direct correlation between being "smart" -- in the tweed-wearing, Kennan-quoting, anagram-solving, faculty-club sense -- and being an effective leader or winning politician. America has built memorials to genius leaders, such as Thomas Jefferson, and to last-in-their-class types, such as Ulysses S. Grant. The country has been guided fairly well by Woodrow Wilson, a Princeton president, and by Harry S. Truman, a shirt salesman.

That said, there has been for at least 2,500 years a school of thought that says "smart" people make better leaders. In "Republic," Plato argued for a reign of philosopher-kings. There has also been, at least since the days of Andrew Jackson, a strong streak in the American people that prefers a common touch over an advanced degree, and "horse sense" over erudition, any day.

Republican consultant Ed Rogers, a veteran of the Reagan White House, believes this anti-intellectual streak is not just a quirk -- it is an insight. "Being president isn't about taking the SAT test," he said last week. "If you look at companies, it's rarely the most IQ points that's the CEO. You can always hire as many geniuses as you need."

According to Rogers, the qualities that make an effective president -- that is, a vote-getting, victory-winning president -- include: "not being intimidated by information," "finding the right people and asking the right questions," and "not being an anguisher -- before the decision, and especially afterwards."

It is this last quality, he said, that liberal intellectuals don't understand. Americans prefer "sunny, optimistic presidents," Rogers theorized, whereas "intellectuals are tormented people. "Think about it," he said. "Have you ever met a really happy French philosopher?"

When Republicans think of Reagan, they don't think "dumb;" they think "visionary." And the most important of Reagan's optimistic visions, most Reaganites believe, was his faith that standing up to the Soviet empire would eventually lead to its collapse. Geopolitics that had been hugely complicated for decades, occupying thousands of intellectuals for millions of angst-ridden hours, under Reagan could be jotted on a 3-by-5 card: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!"

Many conservatives see Bush in this same light, with the war on terror as a sort of reprise of the Cold War. All violent fundamentalism requires in the Middle East, the theory goes, is someone to stand up to it, and it will collapse as surely as communism did. Because, as Bush put it in a speech last summer: "The people of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes."

This sort of thing strikes conservative Rogers as "sunny, wholesome patriotism." To the intellectuals who have been opposing Bush on Iraq for much of the year, it is simplistic, unsophisticated, even dangerously na?ve. One side sees the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Berlin Wall collapsing; the other sees a sort of Vietnam in the streets of Baghdad.

Reed's second point had to do with the problem of personal attacks. Whenever Democrats complain about Bush's intelligence and judgment, they are making a mistake similar to the one Republicans made by relentlessly attacking former president Bill Clinton's private life in the late 1990s. In both cases, the attacks bleed over to implicate the voters who chose these men. And voters don't like to be hectored about their decisions.

"It's important to understand where the American people are coming from," Reed observed, "and not assume that they are always wrong. You're not going to get votes by assuming that, as a party, you're a lot smarter than the voters."

Bush doesn't mind having intellectuals misunderestimate him, said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine. Kristol has some authority on this because, having supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against Bush in the 2000 primaries, Kristol was guilty of some misunderestimating himself. "He has a certain understanding of what arguments will work with the American people," Kristol said.

Which leads to Reed's third point. Given a choice between having the votes of intellectuals and the votes of everyone else, the Republicans and George W. Bush are happy to take Option B. More voters are turned off by casual talk about IQ and reading habits than are turned on.

"Everybody knows what they need to know about human nature by about the third grade," Rogers theorized. "The smart kid up in the front of the class wasn't necessarily the one you wanted as captain of the football team, or to pal around with. You probably didn't even want him for class president."

Reed concurred. Liberal snobbishness, he said, is music to White House ears. Speaking of Bush's political guru, Reed said, "I'm sure there is nothing Karl Rove likes better than to have a bunch of intellectuals suggesting that George Bush is not one of them. After all, the Republicans are not targeting the Mensa vote in these elections." That would be the society of smart people.

The bottom line may be this: Conventional wisdom before Tuesday would have told most politicians that there was nothing smart about a president going into several dozen extremely close House, Senate and gubernatorial races to campaign with potential losers. A sophisticated politician would know better than to risk it. He could be blamed for bad outcomes.

George W. Bush did a dumb thing, in those terms. Dumb like a fox.



? 2002 The Washington Post Company

To AlexMnWi:

I always read your posts. It bends my mind to know a young man of your age would be conscious enough to even come here, let alone post such good ones. Now, I'm 63, and I have no excuses whatsoever. My brain is still half fried from high school. That was under the old Nelson system of family values: Ozzie, Harriatt, David, and Ricky. But through your eyes some great drama will unfold that I probably won't see. I'm very concerned about you and your cohorts. We're leaving you with a horrible mess! It seems to me you have been terrorized long before any of us saw it coming. Gangs, guns, disease, bad drugs, broken homes, just for starters. Your schools today are fiercely more terrifying than those of my day. Just growing up without a daily father ought to be pretty terrifying to most kids, I would think.

Do you have anything to say about growing up with exceptional terror? Does it even apply that far up there with Jesse and the mosquitoes? Does it frighten you to imagine what a 4T will be like?

Your friend, Croaker

Here is another example of the surprisingly critical thinking found among officers attending the Naval Postgraduate School. It certainly defies the impression we get from the corporate media. If you will recall, an earlier article detailed the officers' concern for the Constitution and the Bush administration's reckless disregard for same. It was not a crowd of hardcore Bush enthusiasts. In the article below, they are protrayed as critical of the Bush administration's current Iraq distraction. Critical thinking is in at the Naval Postgraduate School and blind obedience to presumptuous "authority" is out.

It certainly is good to know that these guys are around but I do not know what difference it makes. These guys are of course Xers. The flag officers serving as the Bush administration's lapdogs (blindly obeying presumptuous "authority"), implementing the actual plans to carry out the Bush crowd's will, are naturally Boomers. If we could only delay the Crisis until critical thinking Xers displace the "collaborating" Boomers, we might be in a lot better shape. But it does not appear that this is in the cards. This country is screwed all the way around.



http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...2FMN190150.DTL

(For educ. and discussion)



At Navy school in Monterey, voices of skepticism about Iraq war

Robert Collier
Sunday, November 10, 2002

?2002 San Francisco Chronicle.


When former Secretary of the Navy James Webb gave a speech last Thursday at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey slamming the Bush administration's threatened war with Iraq, an outsider might have expected the officers assembled there to give him a frosty reception.

In fact, the opposite occurred. The respectful, admiring welcome he received gave an unusual, somewhat counterintuitive glimpse into the often- closed world of the U.S. military. Among the Naval Postgraduate School's students and faculty, at least, it seems that independent, critical thinking is alive and well.

Granted, Webb is no outsider. A much-decorated former Marines officer, he became assistant defense secretary and secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration -- quitting the latter job in 1988 to protest budget cutbacks in the Navy's fleet expansion program.

In recent months, Webb has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, calling it, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, a distraction from the fight against al Qaeda.

But in his introduction before a packed auditorium, the school's superintendent, Rear Adm. David Ellison, called Webb a "military hero" and a "dedicated public servant."

Webb took the baton and ran with it, warning that a war in Iraq -- and a possible long-term occupation of the country -- would be a critical mistake.

"We should not occupy territory in Iraq," he said. "Do you really want the United States on the ground in that region for a generation?

"I don't think Iraq is that much of a threat," said Webb, an opinion rarely heard among current or former Republican administration officials.

But Webb recalled proudly that as Navy secretary in 1987, "I was the only one in the Reagan administration who opposed the tilt toward Iraq in the war with Iran," referring to the U.S. sharing of intelligence and arms with Saddam Hussein's forces.

The reaction at Monterey to Webb's speech might have surprised Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has led the administration's charge on Iraq.

"His reputation may be controversial, but a lot of things he said we tend to agree with," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Paul Tanks, a graduate student in space systems operations.

The Naval Postgraduate School, at least in civilian circles, does not have the name recognition of military institutions like West Point. But it is a premier school for the U.S. armed services, giving master's and Ph.D. degrees to mid-level officers of the Navy and other branches. About one-quarter of its student body is foreign, from the armed forces of 45 nations.

Some departments, such as meteorology and computer science, rank with the best of U.S. civilian universities.

"The military is not monolithic," said John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis who was in the audience Thursday. "These are all military officers, they're very sensible people, and Webb is a very, very thoughtful guy."

Arquilla, like Webb, is one of the military's critical thinkers, an oft- quoted expert on what he calls "network theory" -- studying decentralized organizations like al Qaeda.

"Iraq is a terrible detour from what we ought to be doing," Arquilla said. "The real threat is from the al Qaeda network. Saddam is a minimal threat to us. He knows that if he uses any of his weapons of mass destruction against us or our allies, we're going to nuke him into glass, but if al Qaeda uses them, what are we going to retaliate against? Whom do we target?"

Arquilla explained that many students agree with Webb. Military officers, he said, are far from the hard-line, uncritical followers that most civilians think they are.

"Most of my students are in special operations, they want to be challenged, they are off-design thinkers by nature," Arquilla said.

"Overall, military officers have a great openness of mind. There's a great capacity for innovative thinking. They've seen a lot, they've done a lot, they come here at mid-career. Now, we're getting many who are rotating out of Afghanistan. This isn't like four-star generals who are just thinking how to protect their conventional force structures."



E-mail Robert Collier at rcollier@sfchronicle.com.

?2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page A - 3

Perhaps the answer is we just want an average Joe to lead us. What does it really take? I understand foreign policy, I have the best toys and most muscles let's go kick some butt. I need your oil I know what toys you have, I gave them to you, I am going to kick your butt. We ask why are americans so disliked in the world. The answer is obvious. We are the worlds bully. We have either improved ourselves by giving GWB the power or have signed away our freedom. We are in the fourth turn and there is no going back.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

To AlexMnWi:

I always read your posts. It bends my mind to know a young man of your age would be conscious enough to even come here, let alone post such good ones. Now, I'm 63, and I have no excuses whatsoever. My brain is still half fried from high school. That was under the old Nelson system of family values: Ozzie, Harriatt, David, and Ricky. But through your eyes some great drama will unfold that I probably won't see. I'm very concerned about you and your cohorts. We're leaving you with a horrible mess! It seems to me you have been terrorized long before any of us saw it coming. Gangs, guns, disease, bad drugs, broken homes, just for starters. Your schools today are fiercely more terrifying than those of my day. Just growing up without a daily father ought to be pretty terrifying to most kids, I would think.

Do you have anything to say about growing up with exceptional terror? Does it even apply that far up there with Jesse and the mosquitoes? Does it frighten you to imagine what a 4T will be like?

Your friend, Croaker

Friend Froggie - Don't worry about Alex, he and his cohort will get through what they need to, just as the GIs did. For one, they still have the wisdom from your group to get them started, IF they listen. Beyond that, they have us hardscabble X-types to look out for them. Now if we can just keep the Boomers from getting them to go "Once more into the breech my friends" without good reason... :lol:

Mike - Thanks for posting that GWB article. It rocked.

Alex - Your public speaking is no different than your posting here. You have an idea, you put it out there, it is the same thing. Your a fine poster, so when you are speaking in public, try and use your success here to remind yourself that you are someone who CAN communicate, and very well too.

OK - I remember one of the two of them (S&H) in one of their articles, stating that we would have to wait till after the election in order to see if we are in still in the 3rd or 4th turning.

I haven't seen any posts by them in a while.

Do they write regular articles somewhere?

Anyways - I'm waiting for their learned analysis.

Taka

Originally Posted by justmom

from article posted by mom ... "When it comes to the Christian faith, the spokesmen, policy-makers, and attorneys for the ACLU have made their position painfully clear: they're against it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."

The problem is not that the ACLU is biased against evangelicals - Evangelicals seem to be biased against EVERYBODY ELSE!

One of those busy-body ACLU cases involves a nasty situation in an Oklahoma school where Gideon Bibles were handed out during class time, and children who didn't attend preclass "Son Shine Club" meetings were harrassed.

The two families represented by the ACLU were members of the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of Christ!!!! Their supposedly fellow-Christian, Evangelical neighbors made threatening phone calls, physically assaulted one mother and harrassed their their children in clas. Then one their houses mysteriously burned down. No wonder one Catholic mother had refused to join the suit.

So you see, the ACLU is not out denying Christians parade permits or shutting down Christian newspapers. They are generally trying to prevent the dominant group from bullying members of minority (often Christian) beliefs. It just so happens that some Evangelicals are so ruthless, hateful and - yes, Evil, that they draw this attention on themselves. Maybe there is a "silent majority" of nice Evangelicals that could rise up and overthrow their louder and uglier co-worshippers. We will be waiting ...

Originally Posted by scott '63

Originally Posted by justmom

from article posted by mom ... "When it comes to the Christian faith, the spokesmen, policy-makers, and attorneys for the ACLU have made their position painfully clear: they're against it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."

The problem is not that the ACLU is biased against evangelicals - Evangelicals seem to be biased against EVERYBODY ELSE!

One of those busy-body ACLU cases involves a nasty situation in an Oklahoma school where Gideon Bibles were handed out during class time, and children who didn't attend preclass "Son Shine Club" meetings were harrassed.

The two families represented by the ACLU were members of the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of Christ!!!! Their supposedly fellow-Christian, Evangelical neighbors made threatening phone calls, physically assaulted one mother and harrassed their their children in clas. Then one their houses mysteriously burned down. No wonder one Catholic mother had refused to join the suit.

So you see, the ACLU is not out denying Christians parade permits or shutting down Christian newspapers. They are generally trying to prevent the dominant group from bullying members of minority (often Christian) beliefs. It just so happens that some Evangelicals are so ruthless, hateful and - yes, Evil, that they draw this attention on themselves. Maybe there is a "silent majority" of nice Evangelicals that could rise up and overthrow their louder and uglier co-worshippers. We will be waiting ...

Great scott'63, I'll croak to that! You're a welcome species to this motley gene pool.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

To AlexMnWi:

I always read your posts. It bends my mind to know a young man of your age would be conscious enough to even come here, let alone post such good ones. Now, I'm 63, and I have no excuses whatsoever. My brain is still half fried from high school. That was under the old Nelson system of family values: Ozzie, Harriatt, David, and Ricky. But through your eyes some great drama will unfold that I probably won't see. I'm very concerned about you and your cohorts. We're leaving you with a horrible mess! It seems to me you have been terrorized long before any of us saw it coming. Gangs, guns, disease, bad drugs, broken homes, just for starters. Your schools today are fiercely more terrifying than those of my day. Just growing up without a daily father ought to be pretty terrifying to most kids, I would think.

Do you have anything to say about growing up with exceptional terror? Does it even apply that far up there with Jesse and the mosquitoes? Does it frighten you to imagine what a 4T will be like?

Your friend, Croaker

Gangs: Crime is actually way down from its peak in around 1990 or so. It is lower than it was in the early 1970s (which is as early as the data I saw went). For example, Minneapolis is no longer known as "Murderapolis". There are some gangs in the Twin Cities but they don't seem to go on mass shooting sprees anymore.
Guns: Eh, that doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. People aren't carrying around handguns where I live. People have hunting rifles but that's about it.
Disease: What? What disease?
Bad Drugs: Drug use isn't falling like it should, but it isn't skyrocketing either. Drinking is a big problem, but people don't really smoke around here. One girl brought marijuana to school but she got expelled. That was it.
Broken Homes: Um... what exactly is a broken home again?
Exceptional Terror: What?
Jesse: I live in Wisconsin, although I do get MN TV. He's lame duck and will be out of office this January.
Mosquitos: Where I live we don't have lakes (they are over in MN) so Mosquitos aren't bad. If you go into town by the river they are just awful though. Flies on the other hand are horrible. They get all over school in September when it cools down.
4T: Eh, it won't be that bad. At least not domestically, I don't think. I think 4Ts are actually a rebirth of America (post-regeneracy), when crime plummets and things start to get better, and the old 3T is lost forever.

In summary: We're fine.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

To AlexMnWi:

I always read your posts. It bends my mind to know a young man of your age would be conscious enough to even come here, let alone post such good ones. Now, I'm 63, and I have no excuses whatsoever. My brain is still half fried from high school. That was under the old Nelson system of family values: Ozzie, Harriatt, David, and Ricky. But through your eyes some great drama will unfold that I probably won't see. I'm very concerned about you and your cohorts. We're leaving you with a horrible mess! It seems to me you have been terrorized long before any of us saw it coming. Gangs, guns, disease, bad drugs, broken homes, just for starters. Your schools today are fiercely more terrifying than those of my day. Just growing up without a daily father ought to be pretty terrifying to most kids, I would think.

Do you have anything to say about growing up with exceptional terror? Does it even apply that far up there with Jesse and the mosquitoes? Does it frighten you to imagine what a 4T will be like?

Your friend, Croaker

Gangs: Crime is actually way down from its peak in around 1990 or so. It is lower than it was in the early 1970s (which is as early as the data I saw went). For example, Minneapolis is no longer known as "Murderapolis". There are some gangs in the Twin Cities but they don't seem to go on mass shooting sprees anymore.
Guns: Eh, that doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. People aren't carrying around handguns where I live. People have hunting rifles but that's about it.
Disease: What? What disease?
Bad Drugs: Drug use isn't falling like it should, but it isn't skyrocketing either. Drinking is a big problem, but people don't really smoke around here. One girl brought marijuana to school but she got expelled. That was it.
Broken Homes: Um... what exactly is a broken home again?
Exceptional Terror: What?
Jesse: I live in Wisconsin, although I do get MN TV. He's lame duck and will be out of office this January.
Mosquitos: Where I live we don't have lakes (they are over in MN) so Mosquitos aren't bad. If you go into town by the river they are just awful though. Flies on the other hand are horrible. They get all over school in September when it cools down.
4T: Eh, it won't be that bad. At least not domestically, I don't think. I think 4Ts are actually a rebirth of America (post-regeneracy), when crime plummets and things start to get better, and the old 3T is lost forever.

In summary: We're fine.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

To AlexMnWi:

I always read your posts. It bends my mind to know a young man of your age would be conscious enough to even come here, let alone post such good ones. Now, I'm 63, and I have no excuses whatsoever. My brain is still half fried from high school. That was under the old Nelson system of family values: Ozzie, Harriatt, David, and Ricky. But through your eyes some great drama will unfold that I probably won't see. I'm very concerned about you and your cohorts. We're leaving you with a horrible mess! It seems to me you have been terrorized long before any of us saw it coming. Gangs, guns, disease, bad drugs, broken homes, just for starters. Your schools today are fiercely more terrifying than those of my day. Just growing up without a daily father ought to be pretty terrifying to most kids, I would think.

Do you have anything to say about growing up with exceptional terror? Does it even apply that far up there with Jesse and the mosquitoes? Does it frighten you to imagine what a 4T will be like?

Your friend, Croaker

God, I love that last post. A fifteen year old grownup talkng down to a sixty-three year old walking nightmare of a kid who never grew up.

Hats off to ya, Alex, but the old frog would much rather whine, bitch and moan than croak even a few bars of I've Got Rythmn!

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

By JOHN MARKOFF
NY Times

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United States.

Does this mean I have to scrub my hard drive or maybe use the computer at the public library to subvert the enemy within?

Orwell missed it by 19 years. A generation so to speak.

Think again! The perverts whose salaries we are forced to pay at gunpoint have the library covered too. Of course this is probably just an interim measure until all Americans must submit to mandatory physical implantation of chips. Here is a little more:


November 8, 2002

Snoops at the Library

by KURT NIMMO

Attention, Mr. FBI Snoop. Here's a short list of the authors I have checked out of the public library recently: Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, William Blum, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, and John Pilger. Now you don't have to go and bother my librarian. She has better things to do than answer your intrusive questions.

Heh. No doubt. :-)

In all seriousness, though, this topic is all over my professional listservs. And I thought I had read something about the ACLU (God bless them) filing some kind of complaint against the PATRIOT act under FOIA. We just cannot let this thing go unchallenged.

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

God, I love that last post. A fifteen year old grownup talkng down to a sixty-three year old walking nightmare of a kid who never grew up.

Hats off to ya, Alex, but the old frog would much rather whine, bitch and moan than croak even a few bars of I've Got Rythmn!

The slime begat the fish,
The fish begat the amphibians,
The amphibians begat the reptiles,
The reptiles begat the birds and mammals...

But only God can make a Lamb chirp like a cricket. Mmmmm-good!

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

God, I love that last post. A fifteen year old grownup talkng down to a sixty-three year old walking nightmare of a kid who never grew up.

Hats off to ya, Alex, but the old frog would much rather whine, bitch and moan than croak even a few bars of I've Got Rythmn!

Uh, what happened to my post, anyway? When I loaded this page only the signature and the quote came up.

Oh, I found them on the last page. I'm sorry that it got posted 2.5 times, but I think my connection was just shorting out just as I was trying to post it. I never got the confirmation page that it got posted.

AlexMnWi?

How could I be so wrong? It?s never happened before. I?m glad to hear you?re OK, though. I actually thought all young people today were about scared fudgeless.

My own youth had a few tacky problems: ferocious poverty, polio and iron lungs (not for me, though), war rationing, MacArthurism, McCarthyism, mushroom clouds, duck-and-cover drills, fallout shelters, ?getting a girl in trouble,? and perfunctory religious oppression from Garner Ted Armstrong to Bishop Sheen. (I was raised an Amphibeist, myself.)

Think about, Alex: When MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel in Korea, he blundered badly into the maw of an Asian culture he knew nothing about. He would have had God-Bless-America fight a nuclear war with China for a few more bowling trophies on his mantle, until Truman shut him down. So who?s playing Truman to Bush?s MacArthur? Condo-Liza Ricebowl? Oh well, the Mumbler needs at least one bowling trophy on his mantle, doesn?t he?

Don?t join the military just yet, Alex, unless you have all the vaccinations and a fresh supply of atrophine.

--your friend, Croaker