Jason Mitchell, Seismic Nationals 2007, Hybrid Slalom.  Photo by Greg Fadell Northern California Downhill Skateboarding Association
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On 3/12/2004 Sketchmaster wrote in from (4.22.nnn.nnn)

Shall we ponder the role of skateboarding within the purview of Islam?

 
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On 2/24/2004 george g. wrote in from (159.87.nnn.nnn)

I think the truth is that no one is really looking out for the little guy. It is unfortunate there is no third party. and don't give me the Nader guy. He can't change it. The closest we came to upsetting the system was Jesse Ventura. They all seem to tell their side of things and never the truth. I gave ten plus years of my life to our country and I question things a lot. You/I don't know the truth until we see it. The news media is so over the top. The universities are training grounds for eggheads. Religion has been used for political gain.

Be a good neighbor, vote, be nice to kids and those less fortunate. Destroy your television.

 
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On 2/20/2004 Bush is finished wrote in from (68.211.nnn.nnn)

Countdown to election day!

I'm registered to vote in seven states!

Anybody but Bush!!!!!

 
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On 2/20/2004 Obvious Mann wrote in from (24.9.nnn.nnn)

Adrian...you say that Bush covered all those attacks? How so? Iraq was not behind any of them. Osama is still "missing"...(even though i would bet he's in Karl Rove's office to be dragged out in October to bolster the Fraud's re-election). Seems to me that Bush is spending more time going after the poor tax payers and workers in the USA, and bolstering a negative mindset in America with fear mongering and constitution shredding, then he is going after bin Laden.

 
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On 2/20/2004 everyone's a winner wrote in from (195.194.nnn.nnn)

congratulations Justice Phillip, you've won a billion on an international lottery that curiuosly no-one has never heard of. It just so happens that you were automatically entered for it, and i've got the cash here for you. Simply send me a million (UK£ Stirling) in used notes to cover post & packing and you'll be rich!

Special Bonus Offer: Apply today and get a free metric tonne of Viagra, your women will never be unsatisfied again!!

Extra Special Bonus Offer: Plus a free Parker pen just for replying.

Just email: doyoureallythinkwearesuckers@theresoneborneverymi nute.com

 
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On 2/19/2004 Adrian Pena wrote in from (216.127.nnn.nnn)

You know, it is easy to forget the 'promises' that Bill and Hillary made while in office. It strikes home when it is listed like this:


After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured 1000; President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

BUSH COVERED IT!


After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five U.S. military personnel; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

BUSH COVERED IT!


After the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 U.S. military personnel; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

BUSH COVERED IT!


After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5,000; Clinton promised that those responsible! would be hunted down and punished.

BUSH COVERED IT!


After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 39 U.S. sailors; Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

BUSH COVERED IT!


Maybe if Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 3,000 people in New York and Washington, D.C. that are now dead would be alive today.


BUSH TOLD THOSE FIREMAN -- THEY WOULD HEAR US TOO!

And, now that Bush is taking action to bring these people to justice, we have Democrats charging him with being a war monger.



AN INTERESTING QUESTION: This question was raised on a Philly radio call-in show. Without casting stones, it is a legitimate question. there are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap software and gives billions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism. That being the case, why was it that the Clinton administration spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past eight years than Osama bin Laden?

THINK ABOUT IT!


It is a strange turn of events. Hillary gets $8 Million for her forthcoming memoir. Bill gets about $12 Million for his memoir yet to be written. This from two people who have spent the past 8 years being unable to recall anything about past events while under oath!







 
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On 2/9/2004 the Schwom wrote in from (24.162.nnn.nnn)

Wow, I log on to see the slalom discussion and am transported back to Poly Sci class. Treat people like you want to be treated. It's all you got.

I am an old vert skater that once beat Hollein in the banked slalom in Florida at Sensation Basin ( '79-80 ). Think I may have scarred him for life....

Saw the Bear for the first time last year. Absolutely nuts.

Hope to see him ,Olson and Hackett at Kona this year, you too Arab.

 
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On 2/6/2004 MissouriMatt wrote in from (128.206.nnn.nnn)

Daniel,
Thanks for keeping the Guest Book fair and balanced. After all, balance is what skaters are known for.
Matt

 
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On 2/3/2004 Daniel Levesque wrote in from (216.127.nnn.nnn)

Haliburton

by Steven Kelman
November 6, 2003
Reprinted from Washington Post

There has been a series of allegations and innuendos recently to the effect that government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan are being awarded in an atmosphere redolent with the "stench of political favoritism and cronyism," to use the description in a report put out by the Center for Public Integrity on campaign contributions by companies doing work in those two countries.
One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded -- whether a career civil servant working on procurement or an independent academic expert -- who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd.
The premise of the accusations is completely contrary to the way government contracting works, both in theory and in practice. Most contract award decisions are made by career civil servants, with no involvement by political appointees or elected officials. In some agencies, the "source selection official" (final decision-maker) on large contracts may be a political appointee, but such decisions are preceded by such a torrent of evaluation and other backup material prepared by career civil servants that it would be difficult to change a decision from the one indicated by the career employees' evaluation.

Having served as a senior procurement policymaker in the Clinton administration, I found these charges (for which no direct evidence has been provided) implausible. To assure myself I wasn't being naive, I asked two colleagues, each with 25 years-plus experience as career civil servants in contracting (and both now out of government), whether they ever ran into situations where a political appointee tried to get work awarded to a political supporter or crony. "Never did any senior official put pressure on me to give a contract to a particular firm," answered one. The other said: "This did happen to me once in the early '70s. The net effect, as could be expected, was that this 'friend' lost any chance of winning fair and square. In other words, the system recoiled and prevented this firm from even being considered." Certainly government sometimes makes poor contracting decisions, but they're generally because of sloppiness or other human failings, not political interference.

Many people are also under the impression that contractors take the government to the cleaners. In fact, government keeps a watchful eye on contractor profits -- and government work has low profit margins compared with the commercial work the same companies perform. Look at the annual reports of information technology companies with extensive government and nongovernment business, such as EDS Corp. or Computer Sciences Corp. You will see that margins for their government customers are regularly below those for commercial ones. As for the much-maligned Halliburton, a few days ago the company disclosed, as part of its third-quarter earnings report, operating income from its Iraq contracts of $34 million on revenue of $900 million -- a return on sales of 3.7 percent, hardly the stuff of plunder.
It is legitimate to ask why these contractors gave money to political campaigns if not to influence contract awards. First, of course, companies have interests in numerous political battles whose outcomes are determined by elected officials, battles involving tax, trade and regulatory and economic policy -- and having nothing to do with contract awards. Even if General Electric (the largest contributor on the Center for Public Integrity's list) had no government contracts -- and in fact, government work is only a small fraction of GE's business -- it would have ample reason to influence congressional or presidential decisions.
Second, though campaign contributions have no effect on decisions about who gets a contract, decisions about whether to appropriate money to one project as opposed to another are made by elected officials and influenced by political appointees, and these can affect the prospects of companies that already hold contracts or are well-positioned to win them, in areas that the appropriations fund. So contractors working for the U.S. Education Department's direct-loan program for college students indeed lobby against the program's being eliminated, and contractors working on the Joint Strike Fighter lobby to seek more funds for that plane.

The whiff of scandal manufactured around contracting for Iraq obviously has been part of the political battle against the administration's policies there (by the way, I count myself as rather unsympathetic to these policies). But this political campaign has created extensive collateral damage. It undermines public trust in public institutions, for reasons that have no basis in fact. It insults the career civil servants who run our procurement system.
Perhaps most tragically, it could cause mismanagement of the procurement system. Over the past decade we have tried to make procurement more oriented toward delivering mission results for agencies and taxpayers, rather than focusing on compliance with detailed bureaucratic process requirements. The charges of Iraq cronyism encourage the system to revert to wasting time, energy and people on redundant, unnecessary rules to document the nonexistence of a nonproblem.

If Iraqi contracting fails, it will be because of poorly structured contracts or lack of good contract management -- not because of cronyism in the awarding process. By taking the attention of the procurement system away from necessary attention to the structuring and management of contracts, the current exercise in barking up the wrong tree threatens the wise expenditure of taxpayer dollars the critics state they seek to promote.

Steven Kelman is a professor of public management at Harvard University. He served from 1993 to 1997 as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

 
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On 2/3/2004 MissouriMatt wrote in from (128.206.nnn.nnn)

Who is Dick Cheney? Sounds like he must be into slalom. He can't be a freecarver with that kind of stuff going on.

 
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On 2/1/2004 Smart Forum wrote in from (216.65.nnn.nnn)

Some forums have rules they actually follow and adhere too!

 
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On 1/30/2004 scared wrote in from (68.155.nnn.nnn)

Connecting the Dots to Cheney and Halliburton
January 30, 2004
By Tom Fairlie

At this point, many Republicans are tired of hearing about how the war in Iraq is all about oil. Likewise, they file every new conspiracy theory about Halliburton under the heading of "leftist rant" or in the cabinet marked "anti-corporate-America hogwash". To Bush supporters, our efforts in the Middle East are all about some lofty humanitarian purpose and spreading Democracy to those sorely in need of it. After examining the facts, all I can say is that I hope we don't spread some of our corrupt capitalism as well.

When one considers where the Bush doctrine has taken us so far, one must consider Dick Cheney's impact on the doctrine in the first place. Unlike any other vice president in modern history, Cheney wields much greater power than is normally associated with the role. Foreign dignitaries understand this: they know that the best and perhaps only way to get their point across in Washington is to schedule a meeting with the vice president. At the start, Cheney was allowed to pick most of Bush's cabinet. After the transition was over, he continued to act as Bush's point man on budget and policy matters-making many issues like Iraq his own.

Also unlike other vice presidents in recent memory, Cheney wasn't tapped from a role in government. In fact, after President Clinton's inauguration, Dick Cheney left his role as secretary of defense and spent most of the next eight years as the chief executive officer (CEO) at Halliburton.

Historically, many politicians have qualities that lend themselves to executive management. They know how to talk to people, they know how to sell an idea, and they know what it takes to make things happen in large organizations of people with conflicting goals. In Cheney's case, he had an even better quality: he used his government job to bring billions of dollars in new business to his future employer.

This all started in 1992, when Secretary of State Cheney retained Halliburton to undertake a classified study on the feasibility of outsourcing some of the Defense Department's work. In perhaps the least shocking report of the decade, Halliburton found that it did indeed make sense for the government to farm out some of its work. This landmark study resulted in 2,700 new government contracts that were worth billions to Halliburton. Analysts who studied both wars in Iraq determined that 1 out of every 100 Americans in the first war was a paid civilian and that this ratio had increased to 1 in 10 by the second war.

This surge in new business didn't stop when Halliburton hired Cheney. On the contrary, Cheney was able to continue his connections in the government to help double the value of Halliburton's contracts over the five years he ran the company. Unfortunately, Halliburton's success was in part dependent on business with Iran, Iraq, and Libya (among others). According to Cheney, dealing with shady regimes under U.S. sanctions was necessary because "the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States."

With Cheney running the show, Halliburton was also found by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to be overcharging the U.S. Army and was accused of questionable accounting practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). To add some icing on his cake, Cheney also helped Halliburton to increase its number of offshore tax havens from 9 to 44. In just one year (1998-99), Halliburton went from paying $302 million in corporate taxes at the start to getting an $85 million refund at the end.

If Cheney did any soul-searching after dealing with authoritarian dictators and avoiding taxes, it certainly didn't affect his social circle. He continued his quest for power by helping to form the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 1997 along with a bunch of archconservative hawks such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Jeb Bush (the President's brother and governor of Florida). This organization's purpose is to ensure America's global dominance through strategic use of its military.

Ironically, this type of goal was nothing new to Cheney. In 1992, he and his Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz worked on what would be the country's new defense policy in a post-USSR world. Wolfowitz's staff created a plan that called for a dominant American military to "establish and protect a new order" that discouraged allies from challenging our leadership and "deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." Only public outcry kept the plan from moving forward.

In January 1998, the PNAC issued a statement to President Clinton asking him to "undertake military action" and remove Saddam Hussein from power. This tough talk occurred more than 10 months before the UN inspectors left Iraq. Let's try and put this in perspective - the CEO of a company that does a lot of work in the oil industry and with the defense department is urging the president of the U.S. to attack a sovereign nation in the absence of a direct threat when the same company would dramatically benefit from such an action. On balance, I don't think it's possible to have a greater conflict of interest than this.

Five months later, when Clinton still hadn't taken direct action, they sent a similar letter to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. This time, they upped the rhetoric and cited even more information about how dangerous Hussein was. Ironically, they suggested that "we should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power." Suddenly, the plot thickens. Why on earth would this group petition the President of the U.S. to declare war on another country and then list regime change third in the list "if necessary"?

Once in the White House, Dick Cheney declared that "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." Funny thing that, as public records show that Cheney still receives deferred compensation from Halliburton and still owns 433,000 stock options. The Congressional Research Service believes that stock options and deferred salary "are among those benefits described [.] as 'retained ties' or 'linkages' to one's former employer."

My first question is this: if Dick Cheney is so sure that there's no conflict of interest here, then why does his White House biography fail to make any mention whatsoever of what he was doing between 1993 and 2000? If I were the CEO of a billion-dollar business, I would sure as heck put that on my resume.

My other question would be: after reading this, are Republicans still positive that this is just "anti-corporate-America hogwash"?


Tom Fairlie is a senior engineer working in the defense industry and a part-time writer.

 
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On 1/27/2004 Slim jim wrote in from (24.185.nnn.nnn)

Get a hobby.

 
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On 1/27/2004 ashamed wrote in from (68.211.nnn.nnn)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0404/mondo1.php

Is Bush a deserter?

The moral dictates of the Christian right are nothing compared with the concerns of the protectors of public morality in the press corps. Ever vigilant in our behalf, they recently condemned Michael Jackson (Who needs a trial with the people's advocate Nancy Grace and CNN judge Larry King on the job?). But even Jackson didn't have the audacity to say what Michael Moore said—that the president of the United States is a deserter. Yes, indeed. He said that. Not only did Moore say it, but he said it in public on a stage in the midst of a political campaign. In the midst of a war, no less. The press corps blushed in shame for all of us and promptly condemned Moore as an ignorant fool who ought to stick with his disgusting comedy shows.

Fortunately for us, Michael Moore is crazy like a fox. By calling Bush a "deserter," he got the big-time journalists—horrified David Broder, incredulous Peter Jennings, outraged Robert Novak, nonplussed Tim Russert—to openly raise the deserter issue before millions. It is now a political topic once again. As the journalists damn Moore, the populace is once again wondering, well, maybe Bush is a deserter after all. And the idea of a deserter running this war makes it even more sick than it already is. Consider that this weekend warrior is already responsible for the following toll in Iraq: 513 GIs sent to their death; 8,000 medevacked out of Iraq; 2,919 wounded (missing arms or legs, or blinded, or psycho); and at least 22 GI suicides. God only knows how many Iraqi men, women, and children. And when it was his turn to fight for his country, Bush booked.

What are the facts? The single best rundown on this issue was contained in an article by Walter V. Robinson of The Boston Globe on May 23, 2000. On May 28, 1968, Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston and was selected for pilot training. In July of that year a board of officers said he should be commissioned as a second lieutenant; he left for six weeks of basic training and was commissioned that September 4. Then he took off for eight weeks to work on a Florida Senate campaign. Next he attended and graduated from flight school (November 25, 1968, to November 28, 1969). He trained full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington, where from July 7, 1970, to April 16, 1972, he attended frequent drills and alerts.

From this point on, his record is murky. Bush's records reveal no sign he showed up for duty during his fifth year as a guardsman, according to the Globe. On May 24, 1972, Bush had moved to Alabama to work on a Senate race and received permission to serve with a reserve unit there. Headquarters ordered that he serve with a more active unit, and on September 5, 1972, he got permission to perform his Guard duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But there is no record of his turning up, and the unit commander says he never did. From November 1972 to April 30, 1973, Bush was in Houston but didn't go to his Guard duties. In May 1973, two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's Houston unit were unable to rate him for the prior 12 months, claiming he had not been at the unit during that time. From May to July 1973, Bush logged 36 days on duty after special orders for active duty were issued to him. His last day in uniform was July 30, 1973, and that October 1, after beginning Harvard Business School, this weekend warrior was discharged from the Texas Air National Guard. That was eight months before his Guard tour was scheduled to expire.

If the president wasn't a deserter, what was he?

 
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On 1/24/2004 hugh r wrote in from (68.232.nnn.nnn)

Steven Bradley!! Please contact me as soon as you can... I have had some stickers made up of the logo you sent me! They turned out excellent and I want to share them with you... but I LOST your email address!! HR

 
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On 1/8/2004 MissouriMatt wrote in from (128.206.nnn.nnn)

If only there were more skaters in the world... If only someone had given Bin Laden a good sandboard back in his teens. He still might hate Americans and want to drop the bomb, but would've likely talked angrily about it and then said, "f#@! it. Lets go hit the sand."

 
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On 1/8/2004 swollenCrunchyKnee wrote in from (166.50.nnn.nnn)

Chuck, I agree. Assumptions made online do not allow for healthy discourse. I bow out of that pointless exercise as well. Trying to change any true believers (be it "liberal" or "conservative") political views online usually just leads to useless ranting.

Yes, if we ever skate the same pool, ramp, ditch, slowlom course, hill, it would be great to sit down over an adult beverage and discuss the state of the union.

 
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On 1/7/2004 Chuck wrote in from (65.229.nnn.nnn)

Mr. Knee...yes, of course, you are right. I was completely wrong assuming your political views are "pat". Just because it is folly to argue politics with others, particularly online, because political views are tightly held and rarely changed (ie, one interpretation of "pat"), I should not have assumed you hold your views as strongly as most others, myself included. Perhaps you don't? Nor should I have assumed you suffer from cognitive dissonance, just because virtually all liberals, and a goodly number of conservatives for that matter, have this affliction. I am curious, though...you say I know nothing of your worldview, and yet you choose to make presumptions about mine ("How is that ability working out for you?"). So, it would appear we are now both guilty of being a#@!s. Which is how this sort of thing usually goes...

Since arguing politics, especially online, is about as lame an exercise as one can undertake, at this point I will respectfully bow out. Feel free to get the last word in, or not, whatever floats your boat. If ever we should meet, I would be pleased to have a pleasant discussion over your beverage of choice, as long as we can keep minds open and tongue civil. Or skate a ramp, ditch, park, or some cones with you...it's all good.

Good day.

 
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On 1/7/2004 crunchyknee wrote in from (166.50.nnn.nnn)

Hey Chuck, nice to see that you have such a great deep understanding of my world view that you can lay down a blanket statement about my having a "pat view of the world." How is that ability working out for you?

Personally I believe that president Clinton was too much of a panderer to the right-wing-nuts of the country. However, the brown-shirts of the GOP were on his ass throughout the 2 terms, it is a wonder that he got anything done. Also, since he was our last truly elected president, and never made such blatant attempts to distance our government from a representitive democracy to a corporate theological police state like pResident Bush and his people are doing now -- I do not think the comparisons are apt.

I would like to hear about examples of how Clinton's "end runs around Congress" were worse for our country than compared to Bush's patriot act/using the 911 bully pulpit/corporate welfare/destroying the environmet/wrapping the executive branch in a cone of silence.

 
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On 1/6/2004 Chuck wrote in from (65.229.nnn.nnn)

"On 1/6/2004 CrunchyKnee wrote in from 166.50.xxx.xxx:
...Should the Republicans and Bush prevail, the radical reforms enacted under his first term--a shift of power away from Congress toward an increasingly imperious presidency..."

I guess you missed the part about Bill Crinton using the "Executive Order" to make end runs around Congress more than any other president before....or since for that matter. Or does that cause too much cognitive dissonance with your pat view of the world?

 
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On 1/6/2004 CrunchyKnee wrote in from (166.50.nnn.nnn)

Swollen bursa every time I skate (bursitis). I injured it a pipe several months ago, then went down on it hard at the last COSS slalom race, and now it just plain swells up and is painful after any inpact. Getting old does suck in some ways. MissouriMatt, your injuries sound pretty bad. Rehab and skate is my new mantra. Politics is an easy diversion for me as well.

Skate and tolerate.

 
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On 1/6/2004 MissouriMatt wrote in from (128.206.nnn.nnn)

Hey CrunchyKnee,
What did you do to your knee? I haven't skated since father's day. Tore my ACL and MCL at the skate park. Fixed the ACL but the MCL had a thread left, so they decided to see if it would heal on it's own. It's not. There may be more surgery or all of my future skating may take place with a $1,000 Breg Knee brace. Nice brace by the way. That's the left knee. The right knee ACL replacement was 1991, five years after the tear. I'll skate again, just not sure how soon. Thought I'd be there by now.

All of that might explain why I'd talk politics instead of sk8. By the way. One of the problems with politics in general is that it attracts people who want power. They hoard power, when they should disseminate. Damn I miss the skating. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay. I'm better now. Back to work.

Matt Gaunt
Columbia, Missouri
12 Deck Quiver
All bearings clean
Waiting for the day

Happy New Year with thoughts of Peace and Skating

 
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On 1/6/2004 CrunchyKnee wrote in from (166.50.nnn.nnn)

I think this pretty much sums up '04 in the USA. We stand at a crossroads in America. Make your vote count this year. If you are comfortable with John Asscroft and Bush's assault on the constitution then by all means cheer from the sidelines. At least you'll be "safe", gays won't be able to get married, and them dang "lib'rals" won't take you guns.

Should the Republicans and Bush prevail, the radical reforms enacted under his first term--a shift of power away from Congress toward an increasingly imperious presidency, the transition from European-influenced secular democracy to Third World-style theocratic police state, perpetual war--will take on an air of institutional permanence. The neoconservatives' vision of the United States (aggressive, unilateral, despised and feared) will slowly but surely replace the 20th century ideal of the American nation (strong yet slow to anger, generous, democratic and freedom-loving).

 
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On 1/6/2004 And I vote... wrote in from (68.117.nnn.nnn)


 
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On 1/6/2004 henry wrote in from (172.177.nnn.nnn)

Wesley T.,

that's not true. I didn't call anyone arrogant or greedy. Don't be so paranoid about that. I can imagine precisely what would happen to the world if that were true, so that's not the point.

Second, i didn't talk about the United States' nuclear powers primarily.
There are enough lunatics with the finger on the trigger out there. And, there's no doubt about the impressive possibilities of the US' over-powered armed forces.

But what you said in that former post sounded like: "We, the US, have the moral authority over the world. If you're not in that opinion, it doesn't even matter, because we could crush you like insects."
That can't be your understanding of democracy and freedom, and if so, you are perverting that terms. That's exactly how a dictator would argue.

peace, henry

 
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