ChasingBlueSky

Funny, the last time I was in Florida I was reading how there were still lawsuits about the 2000 election and how they had verfied proof that Gore won that state. Just going off of what was in the paper down there. And btw, fair and square would have meant zero doubt or questions or lawsuits. There is a good chance many unethical things happened in that election...therefore it wasn't fair. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Exactly. The idea of soul mate is just some hopeless romantic fantasy. I've seen people claim it with just about anyone they date. Once upon a time I thought it was true, then I grew up. And if I am wrong? Well, my guess would be my soul mate is already dead. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Oh god, thanks for the laugh. That was a good joke. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

As is yours. Or Mine. But I didn't realize all 6 billion get to vote in our election this fall. Must be how Florida plans to give Bush the election _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I'm for Kerry but not against Bush By SCOTT LEWIS For the Monitor I am not against the war in Iraq, in which I proudly served, but I do believe we need a new approach. J Brandon Giuda is correct in much of what he wrote in his Sept. 16 letter to the Monitor. I was displeased with the headline in the Sept. 14 paper "Local Iraq veteran speaks out against Bush." It was misleading and not representative of my intent. And when the Monitor stated that I had spent my afternoon explaining how Bush botched the war, that was more sensationalism than fact. I am not an expert on foreign policy or war strategy. However, for almost 16 months, I participated in a war whose enemy has changed tactics so frequently that it was difficult to defend ourselves. I am not against the war in Iraq, and my heart is with the troops who are fighting there now. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for President Bush. His tenacity and decisiveness are to be praised. Conversely, his tenacity and decisiveness have caused the situation in Iraq to grow to an unbelievable magnitude. General Shinseki advised before the war began that it would take 200,000 to 250,000 troops to do it correctly. He was replaced. Almost a year and a half later, Donald Rumsfeld stated that no one anticipated the uprising violence that is occurring in Iraq now. And it will increase through the new year. President Bush's grounds for the war with Iraq were weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's link to the 9/11 attacks. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in two years. To date, there is no evidence that Saddam had any responsibility for 9/11. Yet bin Laden is still a free man, and Iran and North Korea are further ahead in the nuclear arena than Saddam ever thought of being. In response to my own questions regarding soldiers dying in "tents" or while transporting supplies: The point of my statement is the 1,000-plus American deaths are not necessarily the result of actively hunting terrorists, as Rumsfeld's acknowledgement of those deaths would suggest. Rumsfeld painted a picture that the deaths we have experienced occurred in direct combat. Until recently, that is not how the anti-coalition forces have fought. They have chosen soft targets who are unsuspecting or poorly equipped to defend themselves. A Chinook helicopter carrying troops to Baghdad to go home on R&R leave was shot down over Falluja. Sixteen soldiers perished. Medivac trucks clearly displaying the red cross have been ambushed in Ramadi. Supply trucks have been attacked because they are difficult to maneuver and have little or no armor and insufficient weapons. Mortar tubes are mounted in the beds of pickup trucks to make for a faster getaway after firing at bases. RPGs were fired from holy mosques because the enemy knew we had orders not to engage mosques. I could go on. All these events can be expected in war from an enemy who knows no boundaries. That does not change the fact that because we could not wait to build more evidence against Saddam, as our allied countries asked, we went in virtually alone, undermanned and poorly equipped. And the troop rotations to Iraq have strained our military to the point that defending ourselves on another front would be difficult at best. These are just facts that have contributed to the opinion of an Army Reserve sergeant. I mean no disrespect for President Bush. I believe his actions were partially the result of the information he had at the time. My intent has only been to show my support for John Kerry because I believe we need a new approach toward Iraq and a definitive mission so we can get our troops home and Iraq back to her people. I have spoken with many soldiers in Iraq who do support the president. And that is great. We each form opinions based on our perception and experience. And a veteran's choice to speak is a difficult one with possible consequences. But I do strongly believe we need a new direction, and John Kerry is our best choice. ------ End of article By SCOTT LEWIS _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

How does that old saying go? You thought you had it bad? After reading this, you have to wonder why people stick it out thru a hurricane. http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040918%2F1553690645.htm&sc=1110 (link has her picture) Ivan Claims 6-Year-Old Girl's Life in Ga. By RUSS BYNUM CLEVELAND, Ga. (AP) - With water around his waist, one hand anchored to a tree branch and the other keeping his teenage daughter's head above the swelling drainage ditch, Rhys Terrill knew a precious link was missing from their tenuous human chain. Terrill's youngest girl - 6-year-old Cheyene - was somewhere beneath the surging floodwaters brought to the foothills of Appalachia by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. A day after the storm passed, a grieving Terrill agonized over his choice: Saving one daughter, 17-year-old Laura, left him helpless to search for the other. Bouquets of daisies and pink carnations now lay by the large drain pipe where rescue workers found the body of Cheyene, among the youngest of Ivan's 43 U.S. victims. ``As I was holding on to my oldest, I felt my youngest slipping away from me. But I couldn't let go of Laura. I thought she would die,'' Terrill said, swollen-faced and sobbing. ``All I could think was, 'Why can't I dive in there and get my baby?''' Shown in a photograph peeking impishly from beneath blonde bangs, a kitten in her lap, Cheyene was a plucky bundle of playful energy, said neighbors who would see Cheyene and her four older sisters on weekends spent with their father. The girls lived mostly with their grandmother outside the county, said Jimmy Perdue, Terrill's neighbor and best friend. Neighbors would hear Cheyene sing songs she'd made up, see her tumbling in the back yard and practicing dance steps with her sisters to the beat of hip-hop music. When Ivan, by then a tropical storm, swept over northern Georgia late Thursday, little Cheyene treated the first rains as another game. She and her sisters made a boat from a paper plate and launched it down the stream rising in a drainage ditch running downhill from their mobile home. As the downpour intensified, the four girls headed inside. But the flash flood struck too quickly. Ivan dumped more than 4 inches of rain on surrounding White County in less than three hours, said county Emergency Management director William Wright. The ground, still saturated from the remains of Hurricane Frances, failed to soak up Ivan's rain. The grassy hills of the Buckeye Homes trailer park turned into a river. Water seemed to burst from underneath the neighbors' trailers, rapidly rising above the tires of cars and vans. Floodwaters converged on the drainage ditch, rushing through the 3-foot-wide pipe installed beneath an uphill road. ``The water was coming into my cowboy boots. It happened so fast,'' said 17-year-old neighbor Andy Meaders. ``Water from the rain came down the hill and filled the ditch within two minutes.'' The flood ripped the bumper off a car. It picked up hefty railroad ties lying in Crystal Parker's back yard. And it sucked Cheyene into the ditch and toward the drain pipe where she had sent her paper boat. Laura, the oldest of Terrill's five daughters, lunged to grab her youngest sister and found herself also swept away by the torrent racing for the drain - where water in the ditch reached 4 to 5 feet deep. Hearing a cry for help, Terrill rushed outside to find Laura at the flooded storm drain, fighting for breath as her face peeked above the crest and water seeped into her mouth. Perdue, who lives in the trailer nearest the drain pipe, ran outside to find father and daughter both nearly submerged. With Terrill, Laura and Perdue formed a fragile chain - Terrill holding a branch of a small cypress and clutching Perdue by the shirt, while Laura wrapped her arm around Perdue's neck. Laura was screaming: ``My sister! My sister!'' ``I was trying to reach down the pipe to try to get Cheyene, but I just couldn't find her,'' Perdue said. ``She was a little angel - happy-go-lucky, smiling all the time.'' Terrill and Perdue dragged Laura from the ditch just before emergency responders arrived at 8:35 p.m. - 7 minutes after Perdue's wife called 911, Wright said. But Cheyene was still missing. More than 15 rescue workers, mostly volunteer firefighters, searched the murky waters. They found her body an hour later, after the flooding receded. She wasn't Ivan's only young victim. An 8-year-old girl was crushed by a tree north of Pensacola, Fla., and a toddler died in North Carolina when a wall of water smashed a community of 30 homes to bits. A woman who was seven months pregnant lost her unborn child. At Buckeye Homes, friends gathered Friday outside Terrill's mobile home, their eyes puffy and red. The muddy paper plate and one of Laura's soggy shoes, pulled from her foot in the surge, laid beside the flowers left for Cheyene. All agreed Terrill did all he could just to save one of his daughters - all except Terrill himself. ``It was so strong, I can't get over how helpless and scared I felt,'' he said. ``I can't get over how scared I was.'' _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That is so sad that the best you can do is to vote for someone because of who they are not. Really sad. Why? I did my part. I never voted for Bush, and I didn't vote for Kerry in the primary. I did my part as a responsible citizen. What is sad is the current President and how much damage he has done to the world overall. The lesser of two evils. The Dems do not have the candidate selected that I voted for - and there is no way in hell I would ever let Bush think he could get a vote from me. What is really sad is the state of politics in this country and the horrible men we select to run this country. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Reread my prior posts...You are either ignoring them on purpose, or just to argue. Come on, you think there are people on here that don't listen to others or argue gratuitously???? Nah, after reading all the thousands of posts on here? How could one come to that conclusion. In the end, it doesn't matter, you will vote Bush and I will vote Kerry simply because he isn't Bush and a vote for any other party is a vote for Bush. We see the country through different eyes. The funny thing - the people that argue the most are the ones that will never sway, its those on the fence that never say anything that are the ones that will choose the course our country takes over the next four years. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Wow! Turned down by google huh?? Guess that Boobies thread didn't help Well, shouldn't matter too much - if you type skydiving into Google, Dropzone.com is listed first, even before USPA! Other than having to deal with that stupid 800Skyride scam ad above it, I say you are doing pretty good. (Well, unless someone searches "skydive" and you are not even on the first page). _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Classic bit! Ok...off to go watch that video tape again! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Tenuous? IIRC we are going off of what the GW admin has claimed - that there was a connection, without any real proof. It is easier to connect GW to SBVFT than it is to connect Iraq to Osama...or to connect Sadam to either of the WTC attacks. As we have found out with the Kevin Bacon 6-degree game, you can almost connect anyone to anyone else. The Admin has made promises of proof for many things in this war on terrorism and we continue to get nothing but rhetoric and a serious lack of proof. Bush is learning international politics at the cost of many lives. He has run this country into the ground and now we expect him to be able to run another country as well? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

drinking? pat you crack me up _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

bwahahah!!! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

It seems much more plausible that Bush was content to take the quick "100 hours" victory with minimal troop losses, while we weren't very confident would hold up if we marched to the capitol. The American public would not have been very accepting of great losses. Move forward 12 years and the attacks have changed our risk tolerance, and the Iraqi forces have weakened. You can tolerate 1000 dead American soldiers? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Maybe your boss wants you because he thought your panties in the closest was your way of flirting? Plus he could offer you wine to get you drunk and write it off as a business expense! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Someone is trying to get a promotion! CEO Bo _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The Every Flavor Condom? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Nope - haven't forgotten that at all. But, what does that have to do with Iraq? Last I checked that threat is still sitting in a mountain in Afghanastan or Pakastan. So you are saying flip flops are a good thing then. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Or pull higher _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Stop with the bad puns, before you break my heart _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

And a PO box with al real street addy or you will get a ton of junk there as well. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Ever realize how many talented people we have on here? We should combine our skills and make a company (nationwide) and make lots of money. Of course we would have to think of something to sell/make as well. Any ideas? List what you can do for the company: ChasingBlueSky: Management and Sales _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Which is where a lot of sites pull their info from. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Wha? There was no real threat to our soil in 91, and there wasn't one this time either. However, we do have a madman that can reach Alaska with bombs and we are doing nothing with that. A lot of the world says that about us. If we are going to start waging wars on idle threats and public speeches that get people to ignore their current econmy in favor of nationalistic pride....we better institute the draft because we will have a lot of wars to wage. Technically with that logic Iran and N. Korea could take the "Axis of Evil" speech and use that as a reason to be agressive and attack us. Well, who looks like the bigger idiots now? Maybe the US should take a moment and think out MidEast policy next time before we just start supporting whoever is giving us oil. So, we made a huge mistake giving him those weapons and that was a choice that was made, so according to your logic we should still be giving him those weapons because that shows real leadership by not flip flopping. So its better to wage a war without a real reason supported by real proof so you can sleep better at night about a "what if" situation that may never have happened? And yet that is the excuse you give for Bush Sr for not moving in. This is circular. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Not to the US. But to US interests there were. Did SH tell you that? And with what WMDs? Well then, Bush Sr should have followed his gut and gone against popular opinion and moved into Bahgdad. Leadership requires an open mind because you are representing the people of this country, and they all have different opinions. As a leader, you must listen to your people. IF that means you make a strategic decision to change policy, so be it. If I am not mistaken Time Magazine nominated Bush Sr as "Men of the Year" because of how much he flip flopped. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....