Mickey

Am I missing something, are there prominent politicians calling for a blanket ban on guns or a ban on store owners having a gun? Who are we mocking here? There are lobbying groups all over every angle of gun control issues but has any party made it part of their platform to ban guns?

I'm your worst nightmare, a liberal with a mean streak. Persuasive arguments are built with powerful metaphors. Most lawyers are writers not talented enough to be writers.

Firing squad is too nicey nice. I say let him spend a weekend listening to my wife nag away. He'll beg for a firing squad in less than 2 hours. Seriously, how about you stake him down with a few hundred starved rats, instant Purina Ratchow. Stick his hand in a blender and hit "puree". Here's one: drag him out to see, shovel enough chum over the side to attract every shark within a hundred miles and then drop him into the middle of the feeding frenzy, dangle him a bit first just so he gets to really savor the moment. Look, fishing accidents happen all the time.

I hope you know how to evade process servers, my suit papers are on the way. Better start hiding assets while you can. Before I'm through, I'll own everything you have, including that '73 Vega.

I have seasons and made most of the home games. This team really has a chance to be something special. Edelin is an ace in the hole that pretty much everyone has forgotten about. If he gets back up to speed and plays like he did in 2003, this team can take it to another level. So far, G and Pace have been pretty much trading off as the point guard for the team which hurts because they are both scorers, one from inside and the other from the perimeter. Playing point, one of them is out of the loop. With Billy, those guys can concentrate on working to get open. On top of that, Billy can beat most guards in the league one on one and almost never misses. Our offense takes a huge jump forward with him in the game. The problem is his defense. In the Gerogetown game the Hoya's hit two critical threes in a row, same guy, same spot when Billy was at the top of the zone. Both were on his side. B went crazy and yanked him quick. If Billy can sharpen up his defense we are seriously a legit contender for the title this year. Otherwise, I am not sure we can put that many good games together. You never know but still.....these guys could really do some damage.

Lighten up yourself plastic man.

"are about to tax plastic bags" is overstating the situation a bit. The Commissioner on the Environment asked the Mayor and the Board of Suprervisors to "consider" the tax. That is about it. It hasn't even been proposed as legislation so to go from that to "about to tax" which makes it sound as if it is an imminent reality is going further than the facts. Stupid idea? No question. However, it is a stupid idea that hasn't even gotten off the ground yet. Why don't we wait until they actually do something stupid before we condemn the whole city and the very notion of government shall we? Right now all you have is one guy who mentioned a really stupid idea. Besides, I'm sure we won't have to wait long.

Yeah, its about time we stopped coddling 3 year olds and started toughening them up a bit.

Easy to say, hard to do. They only had an afternoon to get trained. The two who were trained and only on the registers were still very slow because they didn't know what they were doing.

I believe these vehicles have a little know defect in the door handles which can cause the doors to open unexpectedly. The spring that holds the door handle down so it retracts after you let go of it and so that it doesn't rattle around does not have sufficient tension to do the job. The manufacturer of the component part screwed up. The spring is so bad it even fails to meet federal standards which were written so that no manufacturer could possibly fail to meet them. They require that the spring be able to handle 30g even though real world crashes generate up to 180g. This spring pops, I believe, at around 8g. It doesn't even meet Ford's own specifications. Ford did their own study and concluded that it was a manufacturing defect which required a recall. Then they studied the cost and decided against it, the lawsuits are cheaper than the fix. Of course, the fact that people are being ejected from the vehicle after hitting a pot hole is apparently not important enough. Have the springs changed.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.............he thinks everything over there is going just swell, big success. Hip, hip hooooooraaaaaayy. Don't spoil it for him, he has so few pleasures in life. I like how she says she is going to rebuild our alliances and yet can't acknowledge that the administration's policies are why they are broke and need rebuilding in the first place. I am not saying he should have therefore changed those policies, just be honest that they came at a cost as far as our "allies" are concerned and they she should be honest about that. Minor point, I know but it is a slow day.

Wow, I just heard from a guy I had e-mailed after finding out that he had been researching Americans who served in the RCAF, Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII on the possibility that my relative, given that his mom was Canadian, served in the RCAF as opposed to the RSAF. He tells me that my relative, was a graduated pilot from No. 5 Service Flying Training School, Brantford, Ontario Canada. He even had is RCAF service number. He was killed in a flying accident flying a Blackburn Shark on coastal duty with No. 7 BR Bomber Reconnaisance Squadron on June 20, 1942. His name appears on a memorial in Ottawa Canada and there is an organization that is dedicated to caring for all the graves of RCAF veterans killed in service so I can call them and have them add his grave site to their list. On top of that, when I went through the Honor Roll names of WWII vets from Sennett, I ran across the a guy with the exact same name as a good friend of mine. I gave him a call to tell him of this coincidence and turns out it was no coincidence, it was his Dad. Turns out both of our ancestors lived in that small town at the turn of the century and a whole bunch of them served in both WW's, possibly togehter. Small world. Man, sometimes the internet is just too cool for words.

Thanks Tom. I'm working on getting just that information. I found some historical info today on the RCAF and you are right, there were a lot of American commercials pilots who wanted in on the fight long before Pearl. The easiest way for them was to just stroll across the border and sign up with the Canadians. Since his mother was Canadian, it would have been prett easy for him to sign up there. If so, he is the second ancestor I have found of mine that crossed the border to fight with the Canadians before the US entered, in one case WWI and in this one, WWII. All I have right now are census reports which allow me to connect the dots from my family today to this fellow, a cemetery listing and a local "Honor Roll" of citizens who served and died in WWII. That is genealogy for you, it is the process of unraveling a mystery that is interesting ony to you.

It sounds like maybe RCAF is the best candidate.

Thanks, now all I have to do is figure out what a 22 year old farm boy from upstate NY would be doing in the Swedish Air Force and how would he get killed "in service" flying for a neutral country? I guess its either that or a typo. Looks like I will be hiking it to a cemetery to verify the inscription. What was the USAF called before it was called the USAF? Think of it this way, the more time I spend on this genealogy, the less time I have to post here. Now if that isn't a call for volunteers to figure this out....

The RSAF started out as the SADC in 1968 and changed their name to the RSAF in 1975 according to their web site. Thanks anyway. It is a puzzlement.

Canada maybe. thanks

I don't want to complain too much because I think a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage is a bad idea. Still, after 4 or 5 months of the "flip-flopper" stuff, he deserves this reversal of his to get tossed at him. "Turnabout is fair play". The people who should really be mad are the evangelicals. Maybe they will have some vigils on the steps of the Captol like the did when they were praying for God to politically castrate Arlen Specter. Ahhh, the power of prayer, sometimes it definitely works.

I am doing some genealogical research and ran across a relative who was born in 1919 and died "in service" in 1942 in World War II. His grave marker has the inscription: "Flt. Sergt. Pilot R.S.A.F." I haven't seen the actual inscription so perhaps the "R" is really a "U" but that is just a guess. I know that Sergeant Pilots were enlisted men trained as pilots which was something pretty new. Pilots in early 1941 had to have two years of college and they were made officers. In mid-1941 they changed that and the "Flying Sergeants" were started. They did much of the flying in conjunction with the invasion of Africa in November of 1942. The only Air Forces I can find with those initials are the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Rebuplic of Singapore Air Force. Neither existed in 1942. His mother was Canadian/English according to her census entry in 1910 and his grandparents were both born in England in the 1820's and emigrated to the US in 1852. I believe the UK had "Flight Sergeants" as well, ie, enlisted airmen. Maybe there was a Commonwealth Air Force with those initials? He was born in upstate NY (Cayuga County) and grew up there. Any ideas on what Air Force we are talking about here?

Now that the election is over and the evangelical vote is in the bag, Bush bagged his promise to push for a Constitutional Amendment banning Gay Marriage. Doesn't that make him a........... FLIP-FLOPPER??????????

Nick Saban would have to be a bona fide moron to trade the 2nd highest pick in the entire draft for Travis Henry and our 2nd round pick which comes pretty late in that round. Look at what the few teams who have simply swapped a pick that high for another in the first that was lower recieved in exchange for that swap. New Orleans swapped first rounders to get Ricky Williams with Washington who had the 5th pick in the draft, not the 2nd like the fins do, the fifth. They got all of New Orleans' picks for that entire draft and they got their 1st and 5th picks in the next draft. In 2002, the Seahawks swapped with the Packers allowing the Packers to move up 8 picks late in the the first and Seattle got the Pack's 2nd round pick for their trouble. Last year Cleveland and Detroint swapped their picks, 6 and 7 in the first and Detroit recieved Cleveland's 2nd round pick for simply dropping down one pick. The 49er's swapped with the Eagles, dropping down 12 spots but picking up a 2nd round pick. These teams receied extra picks in the second just for swapping and dropping a bit. You are suggesting that Miami would give up the 2nd highest pick in the draft for the equivalent of a back so mediocre that we took a chance on a guy with a fragmented knee and a year of rehab ahead of him to try and upgrade along with a late pick in the second round. Again, Saban would have to be an idiot. He could get a lot more for that pick than that and this draft is rich in running backs.

Mangled? Lets see if that is true. You said: "To "lie" requires intent. One is not a liar if one is incorrect in good faith. Many people were wrong in this situation, both domestically and abroad. To label them liars is self-serving, unless you actually can read minds" I paraphrased that position as: "For example, you pointed out that unless we can read minds we don't know what Cheney was thinking so it is unfair to call him a liar." Please show me the difference between the two that is so great that you feel justified in accusing me of having "mangled" your position? Rather than just make the accusation, why don't you prove it, if you can? You also said: "Just because something does not exist now, doesn't mean it never existed. In this case, the UN documented the existence of massive quantities of WMD after Gulf War I. Iraq was supposed to coordinate the disposal of those through the UN Inspection Team precisely for tracking purposes. They did not do that." I paraphrased your position as: "Further, you reiterated the same argument that has been made many times, that there were WMD's in 1991 and Iraq did not prove they all had been destroyed." Again, please show me the major difference between your stated position and my restatement of your view that you think justifies accusing me of having "mangled" your position? Rather than resorting to insults, you might try actually discussing the issue but hey, if you want to trade barbs, I'm game. I got in a fight once in 6th grade and from that point on, whenever that kid saw me he would turn tail and run, giving me the finger while he scampered away. Your insults remind me of that.

Former intel/ops guy or not, you haven't the slightest proof that the administration has secret intel that they haven't divulged as opposed to the tons of intel they have divulged or had leaked over the last 2 years that would prove the one thing they most want to prove, that Cheney was in fact right. You are simply speculating. If there are reasons why it is solid speculation, so be it. There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, I know that. I just think the reason they stopped looking is simple, there is nothing to find, not even evidence that it was there and is now gone. If terrorists do end up with these things and they use them what does that say about the way it was fought by this administration? Who should be held responsible for this "gigantic error" if not the administration running the show? As for the democratic reaction, what does it matter? The President got his way on this one, he got a war and all the money in the world to fight it and a second term to finish it. If these WMD's are found, and in the wrong hands no doubt, it won't be democrats to blame. The debate over whether this was an innocent miscalculation or worse or something else hasn't had anything to do with the conduct of the war and the efforts to find and secure those weapons. The failure to do that rests in the hands, ultimately, of the commander in chief. Lets hope the left is right on this, no pun intended, that there was never a there there to begin with.

Ahhhh....the secret intel canard once again. A circle of self justification, it is practiaclly a perpetual motion machine. Cheney wouldn't have said what he said unless we had some secret intel that we couldn't release supporting his claims that there was "no doubt" that there were WMD's being amassed against us in August of 2002. Since he did say what he said, there must be secret intel proving just that. Therefore, the fact that he made the claim proves the truth of that claim. Thus, saying is proving. If sufficiently motivated one can come up with many scenarios that would excuse Cheney. I am not really trying to persuade anyone on that. His supporters will find some reason, regardless of the utter lack of any evidence supporting that reason, to explain away what he said and the subsequent result of the search for WMD's. Maybe they are in Syria, maybe there was super secret intel, maybe they are buried in the desert, maybe they were transformed into secret decoder rings. The reality though is that despite all those flights of excuse and rationalizations, the plain fact is that our credibility has taken a beating on this. Believe me, I was hoping we would find those things and I repeatedly pled for more time for the searchers whenever this came up on the board. The ball game is over. We needed to find them to win some cred back on this issue and we didn't. Not only that, we called off the search so we aren't ever going to find them. We have to deal with this somehow and telling the world that maybe there was secret intel isn't going to get it done I'm afraid.

Sorry, I can't possibly understand your brilliant points, you are just too smart for me. If what you mean by "understand" is that I don't agree with you, then you are right, I don't "understand". For example, you pointed out that unless we can read minds we don't know what Cheney was thinking so it is unfair to call him a liar. I responded by saying, again, that I didn't know what was in his heart but I did know what he said and under what circumstances. You are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I am not and I explained why. Does that sound like I didn't understand you or that we simply disagree? Further, you reiterated the same argument that has been made many times, that there were WMD's in 1991 and Iraq did not prove they all had been destroyed. I responded that I wasn't persuaded by the presence of such weapons 12 or 13 years ago long before years of inspections and the destruction of stockpiles by inspectors and coalition forces. Besides, even if I agreed that this raised sufficient suspicion for further action, do you really think that the lack of proof that all weapons ever known to be in Iraq were destroyed is sufficient basis for the VP to make the claim that there was "no doubt" that such weapons were there and being amassed against us in 1992? Again, I understand you prefectly well, I just disagree. People disagree here all the time. However, not everyone does so with a rudely dismissive attitude as you did.