Don't read too much into this discussion. It just happens...sm

• SP wardrobe fails to make silk purse from sow's ear. - Takes the resonance out of JT Plumber populist plo
  • $13,000 was spent on a makeup artist - sm
    • Petty, petty, petty.... - .
      • Exactly...this is what they do when they have nothing - else............... NM
        • Who is they and exactly what are they doing? - sm
          • Wasn't responding to your post.... but the sow's ear - post.......take a pill...geeze
      • this whole board is petty - sm
  • what in the heck - sm
    • The reason it has become a big deal . . . - lom
      • I agree with this post 100%. - HaHaHa
      • Uh, hate to burst your bubble but - Backwards typist
      • But you no doubt thought Hillary was wonderful - what a joke...............NM
        • Sara Palin - HaHaHa
      • You sure do hand her credit for ... - Kendra
        • Sue does. The power to become more of a liability to McC - that the shrub. nm
          • Liability? now that's interesting..... - hmmmmmmm sm
            • Just a guess, but I think that Biden because of ...sm - oldtimer
              • I'm not necessarily focusing on that ..... - sm
        • I think that's what O lovers are afraid of.... - sm
          • Yeah. We're all quaking in our boots - over here. nm
            • You seem to be overly concerned about someone - sm
          • Don't read too much into this discussion. It just happens...sm - oldtimer
    • I think it is a very big deal - - Amanda
      • Donating Palin's expensive clothing to charity. - Palintology
      • I'm sure if she was - sbMT
        • Can you imagine all these folks - Nanaw
        • I am not so superficial that I give a rat's - lom
          • It's not about what she wears. It's about who paid - and the blatent hypocrisy...sm
        • I don't dress in tshirts and worn out jeans, but... - Amanda
          • and I'm sure Obama's suits - sbMT
            • You didn't hear Ms O talk about his clothes on the View? - Missed the web pic of bottom....sm
            • Good point - what about HC's suits. - Kaydie
              • HC's campaign debt would suggest that - she pays for her own clothes.
                • Well sure, look at the source of her income or - questionable sources herself......nm
                  • That would be the US Senate....same place as McC - before he started living on public funds. nm
            • I don't care where they came from, as long as he paid for them - nm - Amanda
              • And you really think HE paid for them? - sbMT
                • Check out his income tax returns. Bulk of his income - is not out of our pockets, but rather....sm
                  • I have a feeling that his plane is leased and when...sm - oldtimer
                • That's like saying eTransPlus buys my clothes! - Amanda
                  • So what? - sbMT
                    • LIke Palin supports said about Michelle last summer? - The use of the money is the issue, not image of cl
                    • looked at her financial records lately? - Amanda
                      • Hey you know what? - sbMT
                        • I do not swear allegiance to Obama - - Amanda

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

PLEASE.

This is the liberal board, or at least that what it says.  I don't understand why you guys have taken it over.

McCain's cross in the dirt story he tells now -- history of:

how similar the McCain story is to that offered by Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsen and then later popularized by Christian leaders Chuck Colson and Billy Graham. Sullivan also points out other suspicious changes:

The story changed from the guard using a sandal to the guard using a stick.

At Saddleback, McCain talked about a single guard being the protagonist. The same guard loosened his ropes and then later sketchd the cross in the dirt. In McCain's 1999 book, these were two different guards at two different prison camps.

McCain's first writings about his time in captivity didn't mention the story at all, so he's asked his readers for evidence of McCain offering that story prior to his 1999 book (when he was gearing up for a presidential run).

Several contributors to the comment thread on my first post have pointed to this rather stunning New York Times piece from 2000 in which McCain tells the story but about someone else!

Many years ago a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam was tied in torture ropes by his tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening a guard he had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve his suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to the grateful prisoner, but some months later, on a Christmas morning, as the prisoner stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same good Samaritan walked up to him and stood next to him for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. Both prisoner and guard both stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.

seeing black men run through the house, black arms coming out from under the bed, and several people talking to Jesus in the flesh?  Okay then.  I will bow out.

Leaving criminal penalties out of the equation:  Is it immoral to break the law? 

What if you consider the law immoral (such as, for example, segregation)?  What if you consider integration immoral?  How much does individual conscience have to do with this?  Easy to say someone else's conscience is in error, but they are saying the same about yours.

Some people try to short their taxes because the money goes to fund a war they do not believe in (there's usually one going on) or to fund abortions, or medical research they abhor, and now to bail out failed businesses and individual mortgages.  I think everyone could find something that's funded by our tax money objectionable.  How much are we morally required to render unto Caesar?

It's illegal to overstay a parking meter.  Is it also immoral if you did it intentionally, simply because you've violated a law?  How about sliding through a red light at 3 a.m. on a deserted country road when you could not possibly injure anyone? 

If it's legal to raise rent past a tenant's ability to pay, is it also moral?  What if this makes them homeless?

for employees to have their health benefits taxed as income. 

I don't care what his views are or what he is.  What I do care about his what he teaches kids.  Sending them to his conservative website for homework in my opinion is way out of line.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the language used by the poster above, which is what I was talking about before you tried to change the subject, as usual.

"First... I don't claim him. I think he's a tyrant to put it nicely and I think he is a warmonging hillbilly (and that's sad for the hillbillies because they are decent folk he gives a bad name). I told everyone not to vote for him last time... I tried to warn them. I didn't want him and he hasn't done anything to help me our my friends and family in the slightest, except make us look ridiculous on the international stage (which I can say because I live in Europe at the moment and I know how foolish they think us right now). Second, good for you. Maybe you should vote for McCain so that the pain (errr I mean pleasure) never ends. I bet the people that he's been against and not fought for (i.e., Katrina victims, Iowa flood victims, homosexuals, people with diseases that stem cell reasearch could help, innocent people in far off lands that lost family members and friends who were innocent victims) I bet they all share your same sentiments.. right? You can have him.. I bet right about now he's half price on the discount rack anyways! Third... you should be grateful she put "creatrue." Its probably how Bush spells and says it, so its a true representation. Fourth... I think the last time I checked it was a free country with free speech and allowed for people to have their own opinions. I have better names to call him than childish ones... but I won't use them since your so easily offended... are you his personal emotional filter? I doubt he cares what the American people call him... he's certainly proven he doesn't care what they think or how they feel... so why should we care about him? Thanks back atcha. I can have whatever opinion I want of the president and I can tell you, I am more the majority than you are."

Moving over here per Mod request.......

Of course you can have your opinion about President Bush.  I was just saying that the names are uncalled for.  Are you staying in Europe forever or are you planning on coming back to the U.S.?  Just curious. 

President Bush isn't perfect and there have been many mistakes, I do agree.  I did vote for him and agree with the vast majority of his conservative views.  I do plan on voting for John McCain in November.  But, if Obama is our next president, as much as I disagree with his views, I wouldn't call him names; but that's just me I guess. 

I do not envy anyone who is willing to take on the gigantic role of running the country.  I would not want the job in a million years.  I have respect for ANYONE, republican or democrat, who is ready and willing to take on this great responsibility. 

I still would like to know what a creatrue is and President Bush is NOT retarded.

brought to you by the True Believers.  distract, distract. blame the clintons.

This argument validates the lawsuit, so it would seem to not be so frivolous.  Can't argue about the facts.

************************************

It seems that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president after all for the following reason:

Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between " December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986? . Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents, which of course is what exempts John McCain though he was born in the Panama Canal. US Law very clearly stipulates: ".If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen and Obama's mother was only 18 when Obama was born, which mea ns though she had been a U.S. citizen for 10 years, (or citizen perhaps because of Hawai'i being a territory) the mother fails the test for being so for at least 5 years **prior to** Barack Obama's birth, but *after* age 16 It doesn't matter *after*. In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, there were only 2 years elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama's birth when she was 18 in Hawai'i. His mother would have needed to have been 16+5= 21 years old, at the time of Barack Obama's birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As aforementioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at that time his mother would have needed to have waited to have him as the only U.S. Citizen parent.

 Obama instead should have been naturalized, but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.

*** Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President *** Though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. citizen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with 5 of those years being after age 16. Further, Obama may have had to have remained in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia. Now you can see why Obama's aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear cut and a blaring violation of U.S. election law. I think the Gov. of California would be very interested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born U.S. citizen, and it would set precedence.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html

Very good discussion of the political ramifications of the current governmental failure in this emergency - includes New York Times columnist David Brooks, a Republican with some rather surprisingly accurate statements.

2: affected with rabies

---

That is true....so everyone want to move the discussion to Faith board? nm
x

---

This is for a serious discussion... Do you think Obama will help the black community to "change&#
I am watching a story on Nightly News maybe that's what this is... It is about what he will do for the "black community" I guess they call it. They then pointed out the murder rate between in that community, that African-Americans make up 13% of the population but 40% of the incarcerated, etc. etc.

My discussion would be this, do you think it will be a main focus for him to guide or change those young men and women into better things and do you also think that him simply becoming president gives the ones on a bad road reason to make more of their life?

---

Doesn't your refusing to comment on my question then end the discussion?
It seems there is no topic upon which to stay. 

---

This looks interesting. A long read, so will read it when I get home from work. nm
nm

---

Obviously u didnt read, I said NONE of them are moral. Read the post before spouting off.

---

I read on CNN (yes, I do read liberal stuff too..hehe)...sm
...that Karl Rove was actually very disappointed in the McCain campaign for airing negative type ads against Obama.

So I would say that Rove is definitely not in the hip pocket of the McCain campaign.

---

Good research sam - but a lot to read right now so gotta read it later
I've been goofing off too much from work. I appreciate what you wrote and will read when I'm done with work here.

---

I think BB has a point here in that the main point on the board is political discussion, and let'
face it, there is SO MUCH going on right now, changes, problems, disasters, and so much debate on what should/could be done, but so many tims the political discussion disintegrates in a finger-pointing, name-calling exercise, spouting religion all over the place. Yeah, our spiritual beliefs are dearly held and we would all strive to be the best we can be, and do whatever we can whatever the ideology is, but sometimes I wonder, since we have a board EXPRESSLY for Faith isuues, where relgious debates/discussions/forums, etc are welcome, why does THIS board have to be turned into RELIGION BOARD PART II, especially if one ideology wants to dominate or ridicule/condemn those who come on here for lively inteligent discussion, debate of issues in Congress and in our lives, and just want their beliefs held separately? CNN is not EWTN or any other Christian network, and there are constant informative, bright, lively, balanced discussions from all over the political spectrum on the credentialed news stations, as well as C-Span, but they are not constantly hiding behind a cross, rosary, bible, star of David, or whatever....can we not strive to do the same and put religious debate on the Faith board?? Just a thought to ponder, MHO, it might work beter, who knows?

---

sorry, should read I did not read post that way.
,

---

All you have to do is read up on Marxism, read up on...
black liberation theology, and look at what Obama is proposing. All of it a matter of public record, most of it from his own mouth. Your denial of it does not change the facts. If you support socialism, vote for him. Certainly your right. You are already wanting to squelch any kind of dissent...what's up with that? If you seriously consider calling someone a socialist a smear, you really need to read up on your candidate. I did not post a smear, I posted a fact. Redistribution of wealth is socialist and he already said he was going to do it...I heard him say it and it is now a campaign commercial. Sigh.

---

Some on this board can only read what they want to read (nm)
x

---

READ THE ARTICLE-READ OTHER
READERS COMMENTS!!!

---

Nan please read what I have to say

I've read your latest posts.  You fit the decription of a troll at times, but I don't really care about that.  DOesn't matter. What I do notice is that you incite other posters with calculated insults, condescension and twisted and sometimes cruel logic.  Then when the object of your insults becomes angry and lashes back you pretend to be an unfairly accused innocent and the object of someone else's crazy, uncalled-for rage.

This is compatible with borderline personality disorder. My mother had it, a brother-in-law battles it and I am all too familiar with it.

---

I did read it.
Not posting the whole article puts the quote out of context. It's not really a way to do things on a chat forum, but then maybe you don't post in a lot of other forums.  Those I frequent always post the whole article or at least a link. It would give you a lot more credibility.  Take it for what it's worth.

---

Read this...
Pandora's Box
September 22, 2005
By Ken Sanders

You have to hand it to the Bush administration. No matter how bad things might be in Iraq, and no matter how dim the prospects are for Iraq's future, Bush & Co. still manage to look the public straight in the eye, smirk, and insist that the decision to invade Iraq was a good one. Call them determined, even stubborn. Call them dishonest, perhaps delusional. Regardless, the fact is that by invading Iraq, the Bush administration opened a Pandora's Box with global consequences.

Bush and his apologists have frequently promised that the invasion of Iraq will spread democracy and stability throughout the entire Middle East. That naive declaration could not be farther from the truth. Not only is Iraq itself in the clutches of a civil war, the U.S.-led invasion threatens to destabilize the whole of the Middle East, if not the world. It may have irrevocably done so already.

By most definitions and standards, Iraq is already in the throes of civil war. Whether defined as an internal conflict resulting in at least 1,000 combat-related fatalities, five percent of which are sustained by government and rebel forces; or as organized violence designed to change the governance of a country; or as a systematic and coordinated sectarian-based conflict; the requirements of civil war have long since been satisfied.

While our television screens are saturated by images of chaos and death in Iraq, the stories beneath the images are even more disturbing. Purely sectarian attacks, largely between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite populations, have been rising dramatically for months. According to Iraqi government statistics, such targeted attacks have doubled over the past twelve months. Police in Iraq are finding scores of bodies littering the streets, bodies of people who were blindfolded or handcuffed, shot or beheaded. The Baghdad morgue is constantly overwhelmed by bodies showing tell-tale signs of torture and gradual, drawn-out, agonizing death.

In Baghdad, Sunni neighborhoods live in fear of Shiite death squads like the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Iraq's leading Shiite governing coalition. Such death squads operate openly, in full uniform, and with the deliberate ignorance, if not outright sanction, of the Iraqi government. On a single day in August, the bodies of 36 Sunni Arabs were found blindfolded, handcuffed, tortured and executed in a dry riverbed in the Shiite-dominated Wasit province.

At the other end, Shiites face each day burdened by the terror and trauma of being the targets of constant suicide bombings. The army and police recruits killed by suicide bombs are predominantly Shia. In Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold, Shiites are fleeing their homes, driven out by murder and intimidation. On August 17, 43 Shiites were killed by bombings at a bus stop and then at the hospital where the casualties were to be treated.

There are less-violent examples of the deepening rifts between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites since the U.S.-led invasion. By some estimates, nearly half of the weddings performed in Baghdad before the invasion were of mixed Sunni/Shiite couples. Since the invasion and its resulting instability and strife, such mixed weddings are all but extinct. This new-found reluctance of Sunnis and Shiites to marry each other is just another indication of the increasing isolation and animosity between the two populations.

The recently finalized Iraqi constitution does little to bridge Iraq's growing sectarian divides. The culmination of sectarian feuds passing for political debates, Iraq's constitution only ratifies the sectarian divisions of the nation. In the north are the Kurds who long ago abandoned their Iraqi identity, refusing to even fly the Iraqi flag. In the south is a burgeoning Shiite Islamic state, patterned after and influenced by Iran. Both groups have divvied up Iraq's oil reserves amongst themselves. Left in the nation's oil-free center are the Sunni Arabs, dismissed as obstructionist by the Kurds and Shiites. So unconcerned are the Kurds and Shiites with a unified Iraq that they both maintain their own large and heavily-armed militias.

Of course, the constitution still has to be ratified. If it is ratified, it will likely be by a Shiite/Kurdish minority, effectively maintaining the status quo that motivates, in part, the Sunni-led insurgency. If, on the other hand, the constitution is defeated, there's little reason not to believe that the three major factions in Iraq won't resort to forcibly taking what they want. Either way, in the words of one Iraqi civilian, God help us.

The discord in Iraq is not limited to fighting between Shiites and Sunnis. In Basra, for instance, rival Shiite militia groups constantly fight each other. The notorious Badr Brigade, backed by SCIRI, have repeatedly clashed with dissident cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi militia. The Badr Brigade frequently works in conjunction with Basra police and are suspected of recently kidnapping and killing two journalists. Suspecting that the Basra police have been infiltrated by both the Badr and Mehdi militias, the British military sent in two undercover operatives to make arrests. The British operatives were themselves arrested by the Basra police. When the British went to liberate their men, they found themselves exchanging fire with the Basra police, their heretofore allies, and smashing through the prison walls with armored vehicles.

Iraqis aren't merely growing increasingly alienated from each other, as well as progressively opposed to coalition forces. Iraq's estrangement from the rest of the Middle East and the Arab world is widening as well. Seen more and more as a proxy of the Iranian government, the Shiite/Kurd dominated Iraq finds itself at odds with the Sunni-dominated Middle East. For instance, since the U.S.-led invasion, not a single Middle East nation has sent an ambassador to Baghdad. And, despite promises to do so, the Arab League (of which Iraq was a founder) has yet to open a Baghdad office.

There are, clearly, many reasons other than sectarianism for Iraq's estrangement from the Middle East and Arab nations, security being the foremost. However, Iraqi diplomacy, or lack thereof, is also to blame. From chiding Qatar for sending aid to Katrina victims but not to Iraq, to arguing with Kuwait over border issues, to blaming Syria for the insurgency, Iraq's fledgling government seems to have taken diplomacy lessons from the Bush administration. In fact, with the exception of Iran, Iraq has butted heads recently with nearly every Middle East nation.

Iraq's constitution hasn't won it any friends in the Arab world, either. For instance, Iraq drew strong condemnation from the Arab world when a draft of its constitution read that just its Arab people are part of the Arab nation. Only after the outcry from the Arab League and numerous Arab nations, did Iraq change its constitution's offending language. (The argument by Bush's apologists that the Iraqi constitution's alleged enshrinement of democratic principles threatens neighboring countries is unconvincing. Syria and Egypt both have constitutions that guarantee political and individual freedoms. In practice, however, such guarantees have proven meaningless. Why, then, should they feel threatened?)

Iraq's varied relationships with Middle Eastern nations will be immeasurably significant should Iraq descend further into civil war. For example, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan would most likely come to the support of Iraq's Sunnis. (There are already signs that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has impacted Saudi Arabia's Sunni population. According to a recent study, the invasion of Iraq has radicalized previously non-militant Saudis, sickened by the occupation of an Arab nation by non-Arabs.) Iran would only increase its already staunch support for Iraq's Shiites. Turkey would also likely be drawn in, hoping to prevent any Kurdish success in Iraq from spilling across its border. Moreover, Iraq's violent Sunni-Shiite discord could easily spark similar strife in Middle East countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

In such a worst-case scenario, Iraq's instability would spread and infect an already unstable region. If the Gulf region were to further destabilize, so too would the global economy as oil prices would skyrocket, plunging the U.S. and so many others into recession.

Put another way, Bush's illegal, ill-conceived, short-sighted, and naive venture in Iraq could reasonably result in total chaos in not just Iraq and the Middle East, but the world over.

A Pandora's Box, if there ever was one.

---

Sorry, but can you read?
pizza. Don't you think they've thought of moving? It isn't always practical to simply uproot. In this case, there is an elderly family member and children. Again, from the throne passing judgement.

This makes no sense: I'm talking about a certain segment of our society who refuse to learn, refuse to work, and who YOU wish to bring up to an equal place as the rest of society who works hard and earns what they have. Huh? You still missed the point...good grief.

---

I read that. And then MT goes on

to criticize you for suggesting that posters visit eXtremely Political and is aghast at the post that calls for shooting someone who doesn't agree...... she just FAILS to mention that it's a NEOCON who wants to shoot LIBERALS!!!

This is what she wrote:

Sorry, had to answer this one.  There have a Whine to Management option.  That is PERFECT for gt.  Talking about shooting other posters, atheism and porno.  Yeah, that's a great place alright.  And now they have THE gt as a member.  Does it get any better than that.  Although, my thoughts are they won't suffer her long.  Those people are pirrhanas.

Well, if that ain't the pirrhana calling the shark hungry!

---

Perhaps you need to read
No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry. --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:545

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church. --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another. --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle. --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine. --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198

and many more: http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

---