Could this be the beginning of the end?

[Sled Puller]

Re: Right out front

Originally posted by Champane Flight



The infrastruture of this nation is decaying while our president is going for Iraq. Every state out there is going bankrupt, the highway system is rotting. The trucking industry is losing independant truckers, because of high fuel cost and insurance rates (thanks to our BHS). The school systems throughout the nation are going downhill fast. Our nations borders are for the most part undefended. Yet our administration continued into a war! I feel like I am trapped on a roller coaster with Elmer Fudd at the controls. "Gonna get that Wabbit"... ... .

I wonder why Clinton didn't fix that stuff? He had years of peace, Reagon/Bush tamed the world for a little bit, he could have spent all his time fixing what was broken in this country, but he chose not to.



Yet the Clinton administration continued chasing Monoca!!



! I feel like I was trapped on a roller coaster with Chester the Molester at the controls. "Gonna get that skirt, and that one, and that one"... ... .

 

[merryman]

Come on CF and illflem;

Bush DID win the White House. Get over it.

The positions you guys take is so flagrantly obvious!

With you guys, if Bush is for it, its got to be evil, dangerous and BAD.

It ought to be clear to all that your only controling position is anti-bush.

How you find evil and threat in a group trying to avoid us getting sucker punched again (9-11, mogodishu sp, etc) is mind bogling. On only real defense in the kind of world we live in now is awareness and preperation----not sticking our heads in the sand.

Come on, try not to be so transparently anti Bush on EVERYTHING



Face up to it, he really might come out of this looking good-----inspite of the best efforts of the alphabet networks, and yea he really might win a second term------but that does not mean everything he is involved in needs your opposition. Vaughn

 

[Champane Flight]

Not so!

Not so, I thought he might be a good president right after 9/11, he made the right moves to wards taking out the Tali ban and the Al queda members in Afghanistan. He got a coalition together to do this, and had world support. This was no easy feat and he deserved credit. I was uneasy about going into Afghanistan, but everyone was. I really didn't care for his economic ideas though.



It was shortly after this that I began to be suspicious of his actions and motives. The big difference between taking out the Tali ban and Saddam. One was the lack of evidence of threat to the USA from Saddam. The Tali ban said out front, "We have Al Queda and to heck with you!"



I think the biggest thing that bothers me about invading Iraq, is that the US has never launched a war against a sovereign nation before without some attack or imminent threat from that country or that country attacking another in the region. I know all the so called evidence toward Iraq's regime, but all of it is full of mights, coulds, and maybes. We as Americans should hold a higher moral ground than they do. Yet without any backing from the rest of the world except one and a few well wishers who owe us money, we go into Iraq.



It is too late now and we have to win. We are going to be in deep do do if we don't get into Baghdad soon, the crazies are starting to come out of the woodwork and the plain poor folks (that I suspect Saddam is dropping bombs on and blaming us) are up in arms. This is going to get ugly if we don't take out Saddam and his boys soon. This is what you get when people don't know what liberation means, let alone want it. Am I scared? No, not sitting here in my safe little home thousands of miles away from the fighting. But you can bet your sweet bippy (haven't heard that in awhile) that our boys in the desert are! Good luck guys and keep your heads down.

 

[merryman]

on things going to pot----money well spent

On schools going to pot for want of funding;



Back in the Carter years, a do gooder group in Kansas City concluded that their "inner city" schools which were largely minority children, were going to pot and the kids were falling behind because of inadequate funding as compared to the suburban schools where all the rich lived.

So, taking advantage of the fact that they had a liberal federal judge in that district, they sued the school dist, and the various political intities whose assets funded the school.

The fed. judge went along and took a heavy handed control of the district, for 12 years --long enough for a new crop of kids to go all the way through.

During this time the court complelled the city, county, state etc, to fund this school dist. at very high levels; these kids had the best of everything in very small studend/teacher ratios.

What the "educators" said they neede to do a top notch job, they got!

This was going to be the demo. project to show the world that if we just properly funded these schools, we would see wonderful results. The last, underfunded graduating class took a battery of test; the new incoming first graders were tested.

At the end of the twelve years of premium education, the new and highly educated graduating class took the same battery of test the class took 12 years earlier.

By God, they were going to show the would what the liberal education could do given adequate funding;

OOOPPPSSS;

the new graduating class did only a little POORER than did the group that graduated without all the advantages money could provide.

Its not the funding; its the "educators" that need changing.



AND you sure as heck never read about that in any mainstream press!!!!!!!



Vaughn

 

[illflem]

Re: on things going to pot----money well spent

Originally posted by merryman



Its not the funding; its the "educators" that need changing.

How the heck are you going to get many good educators when the starting pay is $22k, almost proverty level nowdays? It all comes back down to funding.



I also voted for Bush and thought he was going to be good for a little while, when he got on his one track attack Iraq mind I realized the poor guy had gone off the deep end. Now when I look at him he reminds me of a duck - Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.



"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiently or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about or from the president or anyone else. "

Theodore Roosevelt

 

[Pit Bull]

Re: Not so!

Originally posted by Champane Flight





It was shortly after this that I began to be suspicious of his actions and motives. The big difference between taking out the Tali ban and Saddam. One was the lack of evidence of threat to the USA from Saddam.

Just for :-{} sake lets say the President knows somethings that we don't



See everyone has a circle of concern and a circle of influence. The President was able to place Iraq in both his circle of concern and his circle of influence. We on the other hand can only put it within our circle of concern. By the way I think the sky is falling :-laf

 

[Pit Bull]

Re: on things going to pot----money well spent

Originally posted by merryman



the new graduating class did only a little POORER than did the group that graduated without all the advantages money could provide.

Its not the funding; its the "educators" that need changing.



AND you sure as heck never read about that in any mainstream press!!!!!!!



Vaughn

It's not PC to report this type of thing



They did have one heck of a Basketball team



By the way it has been studied and reported that teacher pay is in line with industry pay based on education and hours worked. People don't want to be teachers because the job sucks. You have to pass everyone and 75% of the students are honor students :-laf I've talked to several young teachers and they get disillusioned real fast.

 

[Champane Flight]

Don't doubt it

I don't doubt at all that there are terrorists in Iraq. Now the real question, does Saddam support and harbor terrorists? According to all evidence I have seen and heard the answer is no. I believe there are terrorists in Iraq and I believe they are being supported by the same people supporting them in every middle eastern country, Islamic fundamentalists. Is this the reason for invading a country and so far 65 American deaths? We have also found weapons from Jordan stockpiled in Iraq, is Jordan next? Put it this way, If I hit you in the nose, then disappeared, but put another guy in front of you, would you hit him?



Why Iraq? Because Iraq is an old foe? Because he has a secret agenda? Probably. If he has a real reason he is not telling us? Again I ask why? Because the American people are not worthy? Hey, we are the one sacrificing our children and grandchildren! Is it because it is top secret, hush, hush, protect us or the troops in the field kind of thing? Sure thats the reason we have reporters "embedded" with the troops reporting their every move! "He knows more than we do, you got it Dr. Bush!"



On education, the school system is very top heavy. We have administrators making 6 digit salary's and school teachers making 22k a year struggling to make ends meet. Yes, I think getting back to the basics is the answer, yes I think that we must hold teachers accountable. But in the same light, we must cut the overhead down. Example: new grading system for Colo has letters instead of old abcdf, we now have pp for proficient, Vp for very proficient and so on. This took some overpaid idiot a longtime to figure this out and he charged the taxpayers a couple of mill for the study into it no doubt! We have several empty schoolhouses in our area and kids getting bussed all over the county! Nothing wrong with the old schoolhouses except the school district wanting more funding by sticking all the kids in one place!



But Bush being the education president he professed to be and then cutting funding for his war and tax cuts is just a little out of line.

 

[DHayden]

One more time

QUOTE: "the real question , does Saddam support and harbor terrorists? According to all evidence I have seen and heard the answer is no. "



The fact that Saddam pays and praises the families of suicide bombers(especially Palestinians) doesn't qualify as supporting terrorists?



CF, sometimes I feel like you don't read my posts :{ , I work hard trying to show you the light :-laf :-laf

 

[Pit Bull]

Saw on the news last night that the terrorist camp they blew-up in Iraq had documents showing how to produce WMD. They also sent samples to Washington for analysis. I think that proves he supported terrorists. In a dictatorship with limited freedom the dictator is responsible for what happens within his borders. Enough proof for me

 

[klenger]

What do you call a regiem that kills, tortures, and executes their own civilians if not a terrorist.

 

[Sled Puller]

Originally posted by klenger

What do you call a regiem that kills, tortures, and executes their own civilians if not a terrorist.

The Clinton Administration?

 

[Rams-n-Hogs]

The only good thing Clinton did while in office was sign my AF retirement papers. As far as him being a terrorist, I wouldn't classify him as one. A lot of females might, though. I still can't believe the American public, (or the electoral college), was stupid enough to elect him to a second term.



Jim

 

[merryman]

beginning of the end

When I was a little kid (we lived on So. 1st in Phoenix Az, so it was before I was in the 5th grade, so right at 58 years ago) my folks once took us to church service where the preacher talked about all the signs indicating it was the "beginning of the end"; scared the be-jesus out of me!!!!



Vaughn

 

[jmtandem]

hidden agendas

CF and all,



My gut feeling is that GWB is protecting the Jewish nation and folks from Iraq as an enemy. Lots of Jewish people are business people. I tend to discount the oil theory and to some extent some of the other reasons often given. How long can somebody hang on to a stale theory about WMD when lots of inspectors whose only job is to find weapons could not find them? There has to be a better reason than weapons even if the US might have sold them to Iraq years ago. We all know of the constant tensions between Israel and their Arab neighbors and the US getting into Iraq protects Israel some. Israel is a relatively new nation , only since about 1946 or so. How many anti war protests are coming from Israel? They know what we are doing for them! What is interesting about the geography of Iraq is that it was the setting for the original Babylon, Tower of Babel in the Bible, Abraham, and even the Garden of Eden. Lots of ancient history.

 

[merryman]

That anyone can look at the totality of the evidence (omiting the twisted slant comming out of much of the major media----any others here see the flap about the LA Times doctoring a front page photo, to make it appear that a GI was pointing his weapon a a group of women and kids? they fired a low level flunky as if that was the cause-----

and not conclude that saddam is the heart of terrorism, and the most urgent aspect of terrorism that needs immediate attention, staggers me.

Vaughn

 

[JohnMcIntyre]

Rules of Etiquette and the War

With all of this talk of war, many of us will encounter "Peace Activists" who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001.



These activists may be alone or in a gathering..... most of us don't know how to react to them. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:



1. Listen politely while this person explains their views.

Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.



2. In the middle of their remarks, and without any warning, punch them on the nose.



3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.



4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.



5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.



6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square on the nose.



7. Repeat steps 2-6 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid an argument he/she is making.



8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost. We owe our military a huge debt for what they do and are are about to do for us and our children. We must support them and our leaders at times like these. We have no choice.



We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep getting hit

on the nose.



JMc

 

[Champane Flight]

Those rules

Those rules are the same as we are using for Iraq?

 

[JohnMcIntyre]

Reality bypass

Originally posted by Pit Bull

Just for :-{} sake lets say the President knows somethings that we don't See everyone has a circle of concern and a circle of influence. The President was able to place Iraq in both his circle of concern and his circle of influence. We on the other hand can only put it within our circle of concern. By the way I think the sky is falling :-laf

CF, I thought Pit Bull's comment was on the whole, rather astute. Regarding the potential for a hidden agenda on the "real" reasons for a war with Iraq, you/he/others might find this recent thread (still current) in the TDR Other Forum US Congressman needs a reality bypass - sufficiently thought provoking... . !



JMc

 

[Champane Flight]

In every

In every circle %$&#, there has to be a pivot man.