muff528

I'm pretty sure there were no skydivers on that plane.

That was prevalent in the US until the post-WWII era. Philosophically, I prefer a closed primary system ("closed" = you must be a registered member of a party to vote in its nominating primary), rather than the convention system, because primaries allow more direct participation by ordinary folk, and not just a series of backrooms filled with hacks and power-brokers. Here's my longer explanation of this: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4234510;search_string=primaries;#4234510 (I don't like open primaries, where you can vote in any party's primary, because that gives too much ability for non-party members to sabotage a party's nominating process by deliberately voting to nominate a weak candidate.) Agree with this. These days it seems that the nominee is determined before the convention which just ends up being a pep rally of sorts. Use to be that candidates and various factions of a party brought their ideas and "planks" to the convention and then hammered out a consensus platform during those meetings. Then, ideally, a candidate that best represented those ideas was nominated.

When I started jumping my dad said that when they issued him a parachute as a bomber crewman he thought to himself with a chuckle, "they don't really think I'm going to use this!". He said they used the rigs and anything else they could find as extra protection from flak, etc. by placing them next to their positions in the plane. During one mission all 4 bombers in their element were jumped and hit by Me262 jets. After watching 2 of the planes go down, the one next to them going down in flames, and then realizing that they, too were on fire he said he quickly changed his mind about jumping. (Fortunately, the radio operator was able to get the fire under control by tossing a burning oxygen bottle out the newly made hole in the side of their plane ...good for a silver star. They were able to limp back to England and land at a place called "High Halden") He told me he couldn't believe that folks actually made a sport of parachuting.

Probably from someone who doesn't know anything about airplanes.

Eve Young & The Homesteaders - "Silver Dollar (Roll, Roll, Roll)" In the US - The Weavers "Goodnight Irene" (not a bad cover but I like the original by Lead Belly

Even with all it's faults I think the 2-party system is way better than the 1-party system.

Only in Kentucky would they bury the homeless in septic tanks! (maybe West VA, too)

He wasn't a "spy" in the definition of theater, but he was Military Intelligence. His job description involves using collected information to put together intel packages or collecting intel himself. This requirement demands some serious clearance levels and puts a wide reaching spread for "need to know" among many facets. It was easy for him because of this. Other MOS, NEC, ect. . . may not require as much need to know, but same level of clearance. For his accomplices, if they are civillian, I believe they have to show espionage to get any charges. I'm sure there are specific, accepted legal definitions of "spy", "espionage", etc. But I would think that a spy is someone who works for say, "A", and whose job it is to gather intelligence from "B". He can do this by directly stealing documents, files, etc. himself, or by intercepting communications, etc. This guy might be considered an honorable patriot by "A". Sometimes he can convince someone who has been placed in a position of trust by "B" to commit a treasonous act and steal the info for him. This second guy is considered a traitor by "B" and might be considered an untrustworthy POS by "A", too. They already know that his sworn allegiance is for sale.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-penny-finally-drops-pay-people-properly-and-you-will-get-better-results-6283794.html These wage "top-ups" have likely played a significant role in the current vibrant economic recovery the UK is experiencing.

Because if it really was the intent of the "news" organization to imbed "journalists" with the insurgents "...so that the attack on American or Iraqi forces could be photographed, for use in propaganda videos...", and if their "war crimes" claims based on their manipulation of that video were debunked, then they obviously would want to suppress the video. Otherwise, the rest of the common sense part of the world would doubt their credibility and no one would believe any of their future criminal attempts to manipulate facts ...or even any legitimate news they might accidentally stumble across. That might hurt advertising revenue for them.

or "...there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all" ...especially if you jump out of airplanes.

Blonde chicks, tits, and legal pot. Seriously, you would argue with that? Now who's being delusional? Atheist countries look more like Albania... Try again - they're Muslim. According to the song they're a communist republic. It doesn't mention religion.

and @ Marinus, too. You are right! Just because these mass killings were not committed in the name of a religion doesn't mean they were committed in the name of "non-religion" or atheism. I didn't really mean to suggest that. Just wanted to point out that likewise you can't say that a given "religion" is the cause of violence when there are vast majorities of religious (as opposed to atheist) people who do not condone or support the violence committed in the name of that religion. Murderers do not necessarily need religion to justify the killings to themselves. But the numbers of folks killed by these non-religious purges and executions and genocides far exceeds any killings done in the name of the various religions (maybe all combined). Neither do I think that violence committed by one religious group against another religious group is necessarily committed in the name of their religion (although I agree that religion is sometimes used to gain support from their populace for that violence in an "it's-them-or-us" sort of way.) For example, the crusades were a direct response to Muslim expansionism. No expansionism : no crusades ...that simple. But religion was used as a motivator to oppose that expansionism and to push the "invaders" back, and to keep pushing once they were repelled. Who were the "good guys"? Depends on whose side you were on. Otherwise, why fight it? Just assimilate into the aggressors' society and adopt their religion and customs and call it a day. Peace on earth once everyone who doesn't agree is kilt and all that are left are those who do assimilate. Some folks didn't want to do that whether it was for religions reasons or simply because they just did not want to live under Muslim rule ...even though the Muslims did invade in the name of their religion. There will always be these kinds of conflicts and there will always be despots, religious or otherwise, who will commit atrocities to gain and keep power and there will always need to be those who oppose them, whether or not they do so under a religious banner. There will always be those who are living under despotism and tyranny, religious or otherwise, who need free people, religious or otherwise, to come to their aid.

Personally I think that's an easy cop out. The ratio of violent nut jobs and extremists varies wildly between the different religions. Let's not forget the grandaddy of all mass killer groups ....the atheists. From the 20th c. Soviets to the commie Chinese, Cambodia and Pol Pot, North Korea. Can't leave out the the banana republic murderers like Che, Castro, and Chavez. Plenty of African despots could be included. Even Saddam and his spent WMDs might fit into this group. I include the African murderers and Hussein because I don't think their motivations were necessarily religious.

That's the difference that some of these folks don't "get".

Agreed. Much like John Edwards carrying-on with a girlfriend while under the microscope of a national campaign. What on Earth could he have been thinking?? The answer, of course, is that he wasn't thinking. And we know the cause, don't we? What Eve did to Adam; what Delilah did to Sampson; what Wallis Simpson did to Edward VIII. Women are evil and dangerous. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." - J. Robert Oppenheimer "Women! ...You can't live with 'em ...pass the beer nuts." ~ Norm

And still be way, *WAY* behind the Dem smear campaign against the Rep candidates. Very droll. The GOP candidates are smearing each other so well there's no need for the Dems to waste their energy. Yes ...and in the general election campaign Obama and the Dems will not even have to spend money directly engaging in the smear wars. They will only point out what Repub primary candidates have dredged up about his GOP opponent.

Extremists are extremists. I say we kill them all and ask questions later. That's very extremist of you! In that case, all except me.

Extremists are extremists. I say we kill them all and ask questions later.

Well, drunk-posting I understand. I was referring to that strange creole that is usually seen only in courtrooms and cable tv & software user agreements. I never drunk-post but I reserve the right to occasionally use it as an excuse

This from a lawyer!

Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. "Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?" Ahem... The Duty Officer asked General Ripper to confirm the fact that he *had* issued the go code, and he said, uh, "Yes gentlemen, they are on their way in, and no one can bring them back. For the sake of our country, and our way of life, I suggest you get the rest of SAC in after them. Otherwise, we will be totally destroyed by Red retaliation. Uh, my boys will give you the best kind of start, 1400 megatons worth, and you sure as hell won't stop them now, uhuh! Uh, so let's get going, there's no other choice. God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural... fluids. God bless you all" and he hung up.... Uh, we're, still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase, sir. "There's nothing to figure out, General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic." Man, I love that movie! "I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Now MOVE!"

Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. "Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?"

Trip to a boat race at Lk. Havasu, AZ in 1979. One leg of the trip was Baton Rouge, LA to El Paso, TX. I intended to spend the night in San Antonio but it was still early when I got there so I decided to go on to the next stop. There wasn't a whole lot of stopping places between San Antonio and El Paso. Before that I made a non-stop trip from central Illinois to Tampa. Since then I haven't made any one day driving trips longer than 400-500 miles.

01001000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01101111 01101110 00101110 01100011 01101100 01101001 01100011 01101011 01111001