Interesting E-Mails
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Interesting E-Mails
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[Excerpt from an email] I heard Tony Blair's remarks after the WTC atrocity and was actually moved to tears. Since then I have been less than impressed. It’s impossible for us to know the pressures and dynamics that exist for a man in his position but it seemed to me he had an opportunity to take an independent stance, maybe even set up an independent anti-terrorism coalition but apparently he decided the butter for his bread was on Georges butt. He is smarter than bush but not nearly as ruthlessly committed. At one point I had hoped that Blair was just doling out rope for bush to hang himself but apparently Tony has hooked his career to George’s star… I am thankful that Jacques Chirac & Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Putin and those crusty Germans have some gumption… Bush could have made this work if he wasn’t such an arrogant bully… the war is stupid, it is a transparent diversion, I wish I knew for sure what he is trying to obscure with this madness. I actually cringe when Bush speaks, and I find Rumsfeld extremely distasteful. Me too, even Powell has sold his soul, I was counting on him to have some integrity and to speak the truth but it seems he has fallen in line with his leader… When Blair explains things, they seem eminently reasonable. Maybe that only makes it worse, I don't know. I suspect that it makes it worse… he’s very slick, like a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner Salesman. Blair’s problem now is that all his reasonable rhetoric is tarnished, partly by the phony report he gave and partly because his arguments make no sense… You don’t kill people to save them from tyranny, you don’t attack people who haven not threatened you, you don’t break down your neighbors door and kill him because you suspect he has a gun… it’s insane… [deleted] is more sympathetic toward war than I am. He simply says that he would prefer some other solution, but no one has come up with one yet. How about perpetual inspections… how about sending them food and medicine… How about moving the Vatican to Beirut? How bout drafting the Bush Twins, Anything is better than war… anything. That's true, but I still don't want war. I am afraid that the image of the U. S. in most of the world, is simply that of a huge bully who goes around twisting everyones arms until they cry uncle. Yes and it shames me… I hope the world is smart enough and sophisticated enough to hate bush and his cabal and not Americans… remember over half of us didn’t vote for the beady eyed little weasel. It also seems that Bush had decided that he would go to war in March regardless of anything else. It really doesn't seem to matter what France or Russia or the UN or even Blair thinks. He is going to do what HE wants to do. Yeah, he will get a notch on his gun and thousands will die and America will have incredible clout in the middle east until the world takes us down… we can’t fight the world and we can’t survive if we insulate ourselves from it. I will never again trust a man who puts his religion before his humanity… I am not well pleased with George personally either. Amazingly, he has, in a sense, lost me my supposed best friend. At Christmas 2001, she simply said she didn't want to be friends anymore, after 15 years, because I said what she considered rude things about Bush………… Anyway, I still don't understand why she has ended our friendship, but George was in there somewhere. I have had a similar experience with a fella I worked with for about 8 years. After we retired we kept in touch, he in Sacramento and me down in LA. We had been arguing good naturedly for about 2 years I would attack Bush and his insane projects and he would attack me. Then I said something that apparently jerked his chain too hard and he told me flatly that he was not interested in corresponding with me any more and that was the last I heard from him. To be totally honest I was getting pretty hot too. I had written this: Arguing with Republicans is a pointless exercise... they are right and you are wrong, that's just the way it is ... “live with it”. Abortion is bad, My guns are good, Your guns are bad, regulation is bad, deregulation is good, taxes are bad, no taxes are good, Deficit Spending is good, Welfare is Bad…Liberals are bad, American flag stickers are good, Patriotism is good, Questioning authority is bad, My freedom of speech is good, Your freedom of speech is bad, I wrote that after an exchange with another fella at a monthly get together but admittedly my friends remarks from earlier had also entered my mind. I will never be able to discuss Bush or Politics with him again though… Politics is like Nitroglycerine… handle with care. I am sure my politics has alienated people I don’t even know, I write about my views all the time I even post them on my webpage. Lately I have gone out of my way to be sure folks know where I stand… I can’t just sit back any more. Coincidentally we exchanged e-mails yesterday for the first time since December 14, 2002 (seems longer) when I asked him for some help making a decision on which digital camera to by. In my circles I am decidedly the outsider as far as social, economic, religious and politics are concerned, that leaves the weather, how bout those Dodgers and “Where’s lunch” so I spend a lot of time chewing on my tongue. I have put a lot of mental energy into trying to understand the dynamics of friendship and though I have had some epiphanies, in reality, I am still at a loss. Friendships come hard for me because I am not a very gregarious person and meeting new people is difficult for me. I tend to become tongue tied and I have been told I come across as aloof and ‘stand-off-ish’ I’m not sure what that means but it’s apparently a turnoff. I have no patience at all for ‘small talk’ and most people I meet seem to speak exclusively in ‘small talk’ “Hi, how are ya, nice (awful, terrible, etc) weather we are having, how bout those Dodgers, do you BELIEVE the piercings on that kid?… yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Life is so short I wonder why folks spend any time at all talking about petty insignificant irrelevancies… I have met too many people who are content to skip along on the surface of life, never get involved, never have a point of view that they can honestly call their own… never have something in their lives that they can get passionate about… To risk losing a friend by speaking from your heart is courageous and scary, it is a hard thing to do. I think it is better to be tell the truth than to support the lie for the sake of a friendship. If the friendship survives it will be stronger if the lie is keeping you together then what is the friendship worth? Thanks for letting me spout off… I was talking to myself as well and struggling through that last paragraph was a minor epiphany for me… Nice to have a venue for thoughts like this… The exchange below resulted from a remark on rants being pointless without publishing some sort of solution to the problem (I will need to go back over mine and see what sort of grade my rants would rate under this premise.
Pete
Well it looks like things are all atwitter inside the Beltway. Somehow they have decided that campaign finance reform is the most important worry consuming the average American today. They are breaking their own arms trying to pat themselves on the back for getting something out. Of course it’s so full of loopholes that it will not make much difference. It will “punish” the investors in politics by forcing them to write fifty checks, one to each state organization, instead of just one big one to the national. That’ll fix their wagons! It also will step all over first amendment rights by putting a gag order on certain groups but not all within sixty days of an election. How long do you figure it will take them to get around that one? Another instance of where our elected officials have tweaked a marginally good law into something that can only benefit them get re-elected but they will take credit anyway. I don’t know about you but I really don’t care where they get their money. Of coarse I would like it disclosed because if it came from the Mafia or the drug lords of Columbia that might influence my thinking about the candidate and the party. I consider it much more important to know how the money is being spent. Fifteen to thirty second advertisements saying, “Vote for me, the other guy is an ass.” or “Save the Children”, vote yes on Proposition XYZ by the Committee of Concerned Elder Women Seeking A Better World just doesn’t do it for me. How about this, if they really think they would like to change things for the better. Instead of attacking the symptom, attack the disease. Campaign Reform! First, Campaign Reform should ban all television, radio and print ads. I’ve never seen one that tells you enough to make an intelligent decision anyway so they are just a waste of time and money they only serve to influence the apathetic & ignorant. Next, educate the uninformed so they no longer voting for the “One with the nicest smile”. Use all those millions currently being spent on those ridiculous ads and sponsor debates to be presented on television, radio and the print media. Granted, we probably won’t get people to watch, listen or read but we will have provided an opportunity where there isn’t one now. Debates would be the only legitimate avenue to hear the issues. Have two or three a week in several formats; Formal, Town Hall, Question and Answer sessions from different groups right up to Election Day. It would also be important to invite all the candidates. What’s with this story of inviting only the top two or three contenders? If the other candidates have legally qualified for the ballot they should be included too. Who knows what two or three months of face-to-face debates would do to motivate the voting publics thought processes. This should be applied to the Propositions and Bond Issues as well. There would be some details to work out but I believe the basic idea would give the voter a much better chance of finding a candidate that would better represent their thoughts and views. It would not stop the negativity but would give the recipient the opportunity to instantly respond. I would also advocate the implementation of the “None Of The Above” category on every ballot. If there is an instance where None Of The Above gets the most votes all candidates are forfeit, the incumbent remains in office until a new election can be held. This has been an editorial comment from the FONN (Fair Oaks News Network). Your comments would be appreciated and no doubt ignored, as you're just a biased left wing radical anyway.
Comments welcomed; send your remarks to me. padagge@potc.net
My next project will be to respond to this (Below) from Jerry. I will spend my spare time today (I think I’ll have seven and a half minutes beginning at 13:38:30) thinking up my beliefs of why this might have happened… I will post it evening if my Alzheimer’s doesn’t kick in. I have some ideas but I need to do a little research and find some corroboration for my preconceptions, as, no doubt, will he, we'll see if we agree.
Well, this is hooey... I came back home from
the gym to another e-mail from Jerry, he found
Their originator was T. Cullen Davis of Fort Worth, a born-again Christian who devised the lists as a fundamentalist attack on public schools. Davis was born again through a remarkable course of events. He and his brother Ken had built the family business in oil equipment into a billion-dollar conglomerate, but in 1976 Cullen was arrested for a double murder, accused of shooting his stepdaughter and the lover of his estranged wife. The sensational trials, which featured lurid tales of his wife's drug and sex parties and his mansion, became the talk of bridge tables and barrooms across Texas. After his acquittals, Davis turned from the fast life to Christianity. One night at his home, he and James Robison, a television evangelist, took hammers to Davis's million-dollar collection of jade and ivory statues, smashing them as false religion. He plunged into a reading program on public schools, fought plans for sex education and lobbied for the teaching of creationism. Sometime around 1982, Davis constructed the lists and passed them around to other fundamentalists. His 1940 offenses were close to the seven on the Yale bulletin board: 1. talking 2. Chewing gum; 3. running in the halls; 4. wearing improper clothing; 5. making noise; 6. not putting paper in wastebaskets; 7. getting out of turn in line. But he listed 20 modern problems: 1. rape; 2. robbery; 3. assault; 4. personal theft; 5. burglary; 6. drug abuse; 7. arson; 8. bombings; 9. alcohol abuse; 10. carrying weapons; 11. absenteeism; 12. vandalism; 13. murder; 14. extortion; 15. gang warfare; 16. pregnancies; 17. abortions; 18. suicide; 19. venereal disease; 20. lying and cheating. I asked him how he had arrived at his items. "They weren't done from a scientific survey," he told me. "How did I know what the offenses in the schools were in 1940? "I was there." How do I know what they are now? "I read the newspapers." To read the entire debunking (it's pretty interesting) http://www.urbanlegends.com/collegiate/school_troubles_hoax.html I have written about being scammed before, I hate it... this isn't really a scam it's just another case of people wanting to believe things that agree with their preconceptions. I have a lot of faith in the debunker sites, lots of them have disappeared off the NET lately... Urban Legend's is still around and so is Truth or Fiction... Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: [Fwd: Fwd: Fw: *.jpg]]] Oh Internet Guru, not that I would want to, but if I did, is there a way of just forwarding the Jpeg photo in this message. I thought I had done it once before, but no luck this time. I use Netscape 4.72.
Drill down through all the damn forwards
Double click the picture
Check “Save To Disk” Click “OK”
Give it a name
Make note of the folder or move it to a folder of your choice
Open a new e-mail
Insert or Attach the picture…
My rule of thumb: if it’s not worth the trouble to do this, it’s probably not worth the trouble to send in the first place.
I used the “Insert” option… it won’t work with the Ludites who refuse (or are unwilling or unable) to use HTML E-Mail. -----Original Message----- I don’t have time to read… I am retired so except for tracking the precipitous decline of my IRA, business is just a barely heard buzz in the back ground, I am as Self-improved as I care to get… and for the moment, fiction is too real to read for pleasure and reality is too fantastic to be ignored… I make time for the Internet… I use it like Maureen… except… she makes money at it. If you ever figure out that “be a better dad” business let me know… My youngest is six, I have been trying to figure fatherhood out since my first kid was born, 34 years ago… Seen this? Response to "Bill of Non-Rights" below.
Subject: Bill of Non-Rights ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. Thiscountry is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be. ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
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