February 2004, Week 4
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February 2004, Week 4
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Monday February 23 , 2004 How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. Henry David Thoreau
I slept poorly last night, like a kid waiting for Christmas... I really want that bike in the worse way... Between Christy and I we managed to get the bike today, it was a hassle going through the bank to get a cashiers check, Christy is good at dealing with those people, I just get frustrated... and angry. I really don't like dealing with banks. I left my car in Woodland Hills and rode the bike home... it really is a nice bike. It floats up the freeway effortlessly. I got home about five minutes ahead of a rain shower... Christy was at the optometrist getting her eyes checked... they say she has the beginning of cataracts... bummer... they dilated her eyes... she looked like an alien. They also say that her prescription is wrong. She will go back and get them checked again in a week or two.
Tuesday February 24 , 2004 In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know
what he is doing. Owen D. Young Today Christy dropped off her car at Antelope Valley Ford. She told the Service Manager to replace the lens on the door light, two knobs on the dashboard, the rear
seatbelts because they didn't retract and that the backseat drivers side window fails to go up or down intermittently. He wrote it up and she looked at the top of the form and it said "Estimate $250" at the top, that's reasonable she thought and she signed it. I picked her up and we drove to Woodland Hills to get my car. When we were there the Service Drone called to say that it would be $982.00 to replace the knobs on the dash, replace the reflector that goes over the door light and replace the, "burned out motor" in the door and replace the seatbelts. She said "If we forget everything but the seatbelts how much would it be?" He said; "I'll call you back." I answered the phone and he said "That'll be $647.00." I told him "Forget it, we'll come and pick up the car." He said "That's fine, but you do realize there will be a $105.00 'Diagnostic fee'" I said "What the hell for, She told you what needed
to be done there was nothing to diagnose!" The wanted to charge $105 to look at seatbelts, missing lens and missing knobs and MISDIAGNOSE the "BURNED OUT MOTOR" in the door... What the hell kind of burned out motor works intermittently... it's either burned out or it isn't! (note; When Christy was pulling out with the car she honked and pointed to the rear window... it was going up and down fine... assholes) Christy went down an talked to the Drone's Service Manager and he looked at the form she signed and noticed that the only item that actually spelled out Diagnostic Fee was the item saying $88.81. The Drone never once explained what the charges were for, he purposely itemized the work to be done and put a Charge next to
it to imply that that was the cost of the repair. He abbreviated the work to be done and used the term Advise on one and 'Diag fee'. on the other... both said $88.81 plus $50 to replace the two $7.00 knobs and $20, to replace the $6.00 lens... that equaled the "Estimate" $247.00 at the top of the invoice. I can't believe those people, legal thievery. What they are doing is unethical and deceptive. When I go to T&J Auto they tell me on a printed out estimate what they are going to charge and they tell me verbally what the charges are for (They charge $35 for diagnosis) And I will bet you my right arm that they wouldn't charge me $600.00 to replace a motor in the door when the problem was a loose wire on the switch. Antelope Valley Ford is a finely tuned rip-off machine, they will forever be crooks in my mind. I will be posting this at the BBB, Car Talk, California Department of Consumer Affairs - Bureau of Automotive Repair,
Civil Justice Association of California, Cartrackers.com and any other place I can find on the Net... I will get my money back in the satisfaction I get knowing I have turned at least a few people away from those crooks. Mike had his "Transition IEP" today... he is not doing well at all... I have my suspicions about the cause but I won't put them forward till I know for sure. He is in a 'grace period' now, they will give him another 6 weeks to turn it around... I'm rooting for him but I am concerned about what another failure will do to him. Wednesday February 25 , 2004
Some things are of that nature as to make One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache. John Bunyan (1628 - 1688) I am concerned about my 'new' bike, it makes a loud clattering noise when it is hot. I took the bike up to the DMV to get it registered no problems, the tap was pretty stiff but I was prepared for that. I took it over to Cycle Rider and talked to Shelly, (Wonder if that is short for Sheldon) the mechanic, he has a lot of credibility
with me. I asked him to look at the bike and see what he thought about the chatter... he listened and said, Damn, that's loud, "It doesn't sound good to me." I asked him if they could do a tune up and figure out where the noise was coming from, he said. Yeah, sure, I have some good guys working here. I said they can do the valves and everything? He paused and said, to tell the truth, we don't get many Beemers in here, we could do it but it would be like experimental surgery..." I thanked him for his candor and went home. I called the previous owner and he told me that he had been told that that was 'normal' at the shop where he bought it. I called the shop and they said they hadn't seen the bike since it was sold, used, in 1999. I will take it in tomorrow or Friday.
Income taxes are done and sent off... Thursday February 26 , 2004 The Cynic says: the pessimist is a realist who isn't afraid to admit it. I left the bike to be tuned up, $225.00, I have no idea when the last time was that it was in for service and the fella I bought it from can't remember either so I need a baseline. I feel vindicated and a little ashamed at the same time... I am a 'Worst case scenario', 'glass is half empty' kind of guy. I expect the worst and that way I am never disappointed... The bike will be ready Saturday. That presents a logistical problem because Christy (who has to drive me there) is booked from 1000 till 1600 with Church, Potluck, Choir and "Singing Sabbath"... rats.
Off to the Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival kick-off meeting.
Well, that was a disappointment... We were informed at the meeting that HBO has leased the property where we hold the festival, Gene Autry's Melody Ranch. They are filming a Western Series there for their network, a nitty-gritty bloody and profane western to be precise. HBO has laid down the law in about the fact that they are paying big bucks for the use of the ranch and that while they are paying the lease they own the visual and intellectual property rights to it. There for there will be no still or video cameras allowed, no picture taking of any sort on the premises... not even cell phone cameras. I go to the damn thing to take pictures, and the folks who go in costume go to have their pictures taken... it will be an interesting event this year.
Friday February 27 , 2004
Logistics again, I called West Valley Cycle Sale's, Inc yesterday and they said the bike would be ready after 15:00 so. What I didn't realize was that Christy had a very complicated afternoon already scheduled, Early day for the kids, a meeting at noon with "B"'s therapist and an appointment for Calie to have her hair done... She managed to get her day all rearranged so that between 1530 an 1730. When we got to Winnetka there was a big black cloud hanging over the place, It started to rain a few minutes before we got to the shop. I paid ($168.04) Calie came home with her new 'pressed' hair... she is beautiful: Saturday February 28 , 2004 I rode into Palmdale and saw Laslo... I had to show my bike to someone who might appreciate it. No one out here really gives a damn. Sunday February 29 , 2004 bissextile (by-SEKS-til) adjective I was going to run into Simi and see John today but
time got away from me and it was just too late to go out there so I rode into Lancaster and picked up some medications and bought some stuff for cleaning the bike.
WARNING! If you don't give a damn about my opinion, if you think George Bush is the best president we have ever had, if you define yourself as a Republican first and an American second please read no further... I want us to remain friends. Thanks... Pete
1. John Kerry's Defense Defense setting the record straight 2. In search of the President's missing years 3. United States Department of Faith (Satire) 4. Marriage in the United States (Joke)
I really don't care about Kerry all that much, though the more I look into him the more I like him. If he is the Democratic Nominee I will vote for him, what I do care about is truth, the RNC has made misleading and deceitful and to my mind unethical accusations against Kerry. They have spun virtually every word he's said since he was in High School... sickening. I have been slowly wading through all the BS and in the process I stumbled on this article... it saved me a lot of work, everything in it is easily verifiable. war stories Setting his voting record straight. By Fred Kaplan Posted Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004, at 3:41 PM PT Before George W. Bush's political operatives started pounding on John Kerry for voting against certain weapons systems during his years in the Senate, they should have taken a look at this quotation: After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office. The speaker was President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992. They should also have looked up some testimony by Dick Cheney, the first President Bush's secretary of defense (and now vice president), three days later, boasting of similar slashings before the Senate Armed Services Committee: Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend. Cheney proceeded to lay into the then-Democratically controlled Congress for refusing to cut more weapons systems. Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them. The Republican operatives might also have noticed Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say noting of "major reductions" in fighter wings and strategic bombers. Granted, these reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution and the Cold War's demise. But that's just the point: Proposed cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular weapons system doesn't necessarily indicate indifference toward national defense. Looking at the weapons that the RNC says Kerry voted to cut, a good case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2 bomber and President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile-defense program) should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn't really vote to cut them. The claim about these votes was made in the Republican National Committee "Research Briefing" of Feb. 22. The report lists 13 weapons systems that Kerry voted to cut—the ones cited above, as well as Patriot air-defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and AH64 Apache helicopters, among others. It is instructive, however, to look at the footnotes. Almost all of them cite Kerry's vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on Oct. 15, 1990. Do a Google search, and you will learn that S. 3189 was the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273 was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons systems specifically. On a couple of the weapons, the RNC report cites H.R. 5803 and H.R. 2126. Look those up. They turn out to be votes on the House-Senate conference committee reports for the defense appropriations bills in October 1990 (the same year as S. 3189) and September 1995. In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty. Another bit of dishonesty is RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie's claim, at a news conference today, that in 1995, Kerry voted to cut $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget. John Pike, who runs the invaluable globalsecurity.org Web site, told me what that cut was about: The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues. An examination of Kerry's real voting record during his 20 years in the Senate indicates that he did vote to restrict or cut certain weapons systems. From 1989-92, he supported amendments to halt production of the B-2 stealth bomber. (In 1992, George H.W. Bush halted it himself.) It is true that the B-2 came in handy during the recent war in Iraq—but for reasons having nothing to do with its original rationale. The B-2 came into being as an airplane that would drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union. The program was very controversial at the time. It was extremely expensive. Its stealth technology had serious technical bugs. More to the point, a grand debate was raging in defense circles at the time over whether, in an age of intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range cruise missiles, the United States needed any new bomber that would fly into the Soviet Union's heavily defended airspace. The debate was not just between hawks and doves; advocates and critics could be found among both. In the latest war, B-2s—modified to carry conventional munitions—were among the planes that dropped smart bombs on Iraq. But that was like hopping in the Lincoln stretch limo to drop Grandma off at church. As for the other stealth plane used in both Iraq wars—the F-117, which was designed for non-nuclear missions—there is no indication that Kerry ever opposed it. The RNC doesn't mention it, but Kerry also supported amendments to limit (but not kill) funding for President Reagan's fanciful (and eventually much-altered) "Star Wars" missile-defense system. Kerry sponsored amendments to ban tests of anti-satellite weapons, as long as the Soviet Union also refrained from testing. In retrospect, trying to limit the vulnerability of satellites was a very good idea since many of our smart bombs are guided to their targets by signals from satellites. Kerry also voted for amendments to restrict the deployment of the MX missile (Reagan changed its deployment plan several times, and Bush finally stopped the program altogether) and to ban the production of nerve-gas weapons. At the same time, in 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In 1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996, he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In 1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile. (Interestingly, the F-18 and Trident II are among the weapons systems that the RNC claims Kerry opposed.) Are there votes in Kerry's 20-year record as a senator that might look embarrassing in retrospect? Probably. But these are not the ones. sidebarReturn to article The data on Kerry's voting record, from 1985 on, comes from the Council for a Livable World's annual report on key defense votes by all members of the House and Senate. The council is a private, Washington-based, congressional watchdog organization that advocates arms control. It ranks legislators by how often they vote for or against the council's positions. Kerry's scores range from 62 to 100, with an average in the high 80s. Thanks to John Isaacs, the council's president, for sending me the reports. Also thanks to Isaacs for providing Cheney's and Powell's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1992. Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. ************************* In Search of the President's Missing Years Published: February 27, 2004
Over the past few weeks, This came as news to me, as I lived in and reported from Texas during those times and feel that questions about the story — Mr. Bush's life story — linger 10 years after his first political victory. Why they linger is a more complicated question, one that has as much to do with the press as it does with the president. Let's start at the beginning, with the 1994 governor's race between Ann Richards and Mr. Bush. Like many of George W. Bush's early opponents, the Richards team made the mistake of underestimating him. Ms. Richards's consultants and campaign strategists tried to portray Mr. Bush, initially at least, as a son of privilege who couldn't possibly be taken seriously. (Later they tried to spin him as a Machiavellian business mastermind; that didn't work either.) Mr. Bush's military record emerged as a weapon in the son-of-privilege arsenal, but the story had weak legs. This was partly because the records that the consultants and reporters possessed were incomplete — they were torn, with Mr. Bush's name and other crucial pieces of information blacked out — but also because the Richards campaign backed off the issue. As many people in Texas and beyond now know, Mr. Bush's Guard unit included more than a few sons of the state's rich and powerful, including Lloyd Bentsen III, son of the state's august Democratic senator. As Patrick Woodson, one of Ms. Richards's campaign consultants, told me earlier this month, "We were unofficially told that because of Bentsen's kid the Guard thing was not on the table." Then, too, the questions about Mr. Bush's military record were not focused on what he did in the Texas Guard but on how he managed to get in at a time when the waiting list for the National Guard, for instance, contained more than 100,000 names. Local reporters could coax one former Democratic state official into admitting, off the record, that he had interceded on Mr. Bush's behalf at the request of either a prominent Dallas businessman or George H. W. Bush, who was then a member of Congress. But the official's story — the source was later revealed to be former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes — was subject to change and there were no documents to support his claims. Late in the campaign, James Moore, then a reporter with KHOU-TV in Houston, put the question to Mr. Bush in a televised debate: had he received special treatment while other young men had fought and died in Vietnam? The candidate's less than illuminating answer: not that he knew of. But by then most Texans had made up their minds to vote for Mr. Bush — he trounced Ms. Richards, and the issue, not surprisingly, went away. Until 2000, at least. Mr. Bush's military service was an issue in the campaign, but, again, for various reasons, the digging didn't go very deep. Why? First, George Bush was a very popular governor. Ann Richards had run a divisive, partisan Statehouse. Mr. Bush, in contrast, was a genial host, and an efficient one. He wasn't the lightweight reporters had expected; he unified the Legislature, and he kept his campaign promises. His door was always open to the press — yes, he gave reporters nicknames — and many journalists were surprised that he could discuss tort reform as easily as he could talk about the Texas Rangers pitching staff. Not surprisingly, the state's political reporters took the governor seriously as a presidential candidate long before the national press did. But that loyalty created a new set of problems. Historically, journalists for the local daily don't do very well when the hometown pol makes a play for higher office. The Boston Globe, for example, has done a superb job investigating Mr. Bush's Guard record; it's my feeling, though, that the paper wasn't as impressive in its coverage of Michael Dukakis during his 1988 presidential run. (It was the local alternative weekly, The Boston Phoenix, that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for its campaign coverage.) And in Mr. Bush's case, many representatives of the Texas press corps — consciously or unconsciously — fell prey to the seductive notion that they were on a nickname basis with a man who might become the leader of the free world. The few who continued to dog Mr. Bush about his military service — most notably reporters at The Dallas Morning News — found their paths blocked in myriad ways. This time, it was Al Gore's handlers, not Ms. Richards's, who lacked enthusiasm for this particular avenue of attack. The vice president had served in Vietnam, but he couldn't claim war hero status, and any talk of military service inevitably reminded voters of Bill Clinton, who hadn't served at all. What's more, Mr. Bush's military service file remained incomplete — as it had in 1994. Some reporters got their information from time-consuming Freedom of Information Act requests, others took what they were handed by opposition researchers — in my experience, the unfortunate norm in most modern campaigns. If there was a release of documents comparable to the one made by the administration earlier this month, no one around here recalls it. What journalists had in the way of a paper trail led to suspicions that Mr. Bush's military record had been altered in preparation for a presidential bid — something that James Moore, the reporter who asked the Vietnam question in the 1994 governor's debate, suggests in a forthcoming book. Also, many people who were chatty in 1994 clammed up in 2000, perhaps fearful that they would alienate the future president or his famously long-memoried family. Without conclusive documentation or an attributable source, most reporters were stymied. It took Walter Robinson of The Boston Globe to look at Mr. Bush's file with a fresh eye; Mr. Robinson was the first to report, in May 2000, that Mr. Bush did not perform flight drills while in Alabama, and that the commander of the Alabama unit didn't remember him showing up for duty. But even that story was soon eclipsed by others in the heat of the campaign, most notably the revelation, late in the game, that Mr. Bush had been arrested in 1976 for driving under the influence. The issues surrounding his military service disappeared for another four years. In some ways, then, the president is right: questions about his military service have been raised every time he's run for office. But it's also true that the story still seems woefully incomplete and that there have been clear inconsistencies in the answers Mr. Bush and his associates have given about his time in the Guard. (Mr. Bush's associates said that he didn't take his 1972 military physical because his doctor in Houston was unavailable and that he lost his flight status because the plane he was training on was phased out — statements that have been shown to be debatable at best.) It's also disconcerting that each election cycle comes with a new set of "complete" documents. Perhaps 2004 will be the year that details of George W. Bush's time in the National Guard — indeed, his life in the early 1970's — finally get filled in. This time around, there are certain factors that might put added pressure on reporters, editors and news organizations to complete the story. After all, the questions about Mr. Bush's service are being raised while we are at war and while the president is facing a genuine war hero as a potential opponent. Maybe this year, 10 years after Mr. Bush's first political victory, the lingering questions will finally disappear. Mimi Swartz, an executive editor of Texas Monthly, is the author, with Sherron Watkins, of "Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron." ******************************
Instead of Admitting Economic Truth, Bush Resorts to Statistical ManipulationPresident Bush, attempting to obscure his record as the worst economic steward since Herbert Hoover, has become so desperate that he is exploring ways to manipulate statistics.1 Just days after Bush reneged on his pledge to create 2.6 million jobs2 and said with a straight face that "5.6% unemployment is a good national number,"3 the New York Times uncovered a White House report showing that the president is considering re-classifying low-paid fast food jobs as "manufacturing jobs"4 as a way to hide the massive manufacturing job losses that have occurred during his term. As CBS News reports, "Since the month President Bush was inaugurated, the economy has lost about 2.7 million manufacturing jobs."5 But if the president enacts the statistical change he is considering, this number would be purposely obscured because lower-paying fast food jobs would be added to make the real manufacturing losses look smaller. Of course, fast food jobs typically pay much less and have fewer benefits than real manufacturing jobs, meaning the statistical change would also obscure the fact that, under Bush, "in 48 of the 50 states, jobs in higher-paying industries have given way to jobs in lower-paying industries."6 All told, jobs in growing industries like lower-paid service sector/fast food jobs are paying 21% less than contracting industries like real manufacturing. The president's efforts to manipulate statistics and mislead Americans are also getting a boost from his allies on Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-OK) pointed to an optimistic "household" jobs survey as proof that "we're at an all-time high in employment" and that "the employment situation has improved rather substantially."7 The problem is that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said definitively that "payroll data" - not the household survey - "is the series which you have to follow" in order to be accurate. The payroll data shows "a loss of more than two million jobs since 2001." Sources:
************ I read a website that told step by step how to create an anonymous e-mail to protect yourself from.... something... he wasn't very clear what. The implication was that we are supposed to be afraid of Bush and his DNS I wrote: Defense from what? My name is Peter Allen Daggett, my e-mail is padagge@potc.net. I am 60 years old, Vietnam Veteran, Adoptive father of 7, I do not have to hide from anyone!!! George Bush and his henchmen are just a bunch of bullies who hide behind their offices and rank to send our children off to kill and be killed. He is not someone I choose to be afraid of. What the hell are you afraid of? If you are slandering or lying I can understand the paranoia, but if you are speaking the truth what do you have to
fear ********************** found this quite amusing. Courtesy of the US Department of Faith on Whitehouse.com Beloved American patriot Jerry Falwell recently announced that he will devote the remainder of his Godly life to advocating a Constitutional amendment banning marriage between people of the same gender. The United States Department of Faith supports Mr. Falwell's desire to impose Biblical edicts on Americans of all faiths by converting the Constitution from a document that restricts the power of government into one that limits the so-called freedoms of individuals. Nevertheless, the Department of Faith also recognizes that the Bible is replete with verses restricting marriage in many ways, not merely as relates to Mr. Falwell's infatuation with men licking each other. As such, the USDOF has delivered to the President and each member of the U.S. Congress the
following proposal to incorporate Biblical restrictions on marriage into our Christian nation's otherwise embarrassingly flawed and secular Constitution" Amendment XXVIII No State may sanction a marriage between people of the same gender. Amendment XXIX No State may sanction a marriage between a man and a woman who was married previously but has since divorced. (Mathew 5:32). Amendment XXX
No state may sanction marriage involving a widow (unless it is to her brother-in-law-see amendment 34). All women whose husbands have passed away
are to refrain from intimacy and pleasure for the remainder of their lives (I Timothy 5:5-15) Amendment XXXI No State may sanction a marriage between people of different races. (Deuteronomy 7:3; Numbers 25:6-8;36:3-9; 1Kings 11:2; Ezra 9:2;Nehemiah 13:25-27). Amendment XXXII No State may sanction a marriage between a Christian and a Non-Christian )2 John 1:9-11; Corinthians 6:14-17).
Amendment XXXIII No State may sanction a marriage between a man who's brother has passed
away and any woman other than his brothers widow. Each State must require the brother of a deceased man to marry his brother's widow. (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) Amendment XXVIII No State may sanction a marriage involving a man who has had sexual thoughts about a woman other than the woman he intends to marry (Mathew 5:28). No state may sanction marriage between a man whose brother has passed away and any woman other than his brother's widow. Each state must require the brother of a deceased man to marry his brother's widow (Deuteronomy, 25:5-10). Amendment XXXV. No state may sanction marriage between a man and any woman unwilling to promise in her wedding vows to ober her husband and submit to his every whim (Ephesians 5:22-23; I Corinthians 11:3; Colossians 3:18; I Timothy No state may sanction marriage in which the wedding ceremony is to occur during the woman's menstrual cycle unless the prospective spouses agree to refrain from intimate relations until the woman's period of uncleanness has terminated (Leviticus 18:19, 20:18; Ezekiel 18:5-6)
Amendment XXVIII No State may sanction a marriage between a minister and any woman other than a virgin. (Leviticus 21:13-14).
Amendment XXXIX No state
may sanction marriage between a rapist and any woman other than his victim. States must require a reapist to marry his victim (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) unless the victim failed to cry out, in which case the rapist is relieved of this obligation (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). Amendment XXXX No state may sanction marriage between a man and an aggressive or contentious woman (Proverbs 21:9; 21:19; 25:24; 27:15). In the Lord's Holy Name and in Service to our Christian Nation and Christian President, George Walker Bush United States Department of Faith I can only hope that somehow, some day, they'll finally see how stupid this whole anti gay thing is. A marriage can be two different things, it is ALWAYS a legal contract bound by laws of the state and country. and it MAY ALSO be a commitment made
before God and sanctified by a religion. Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Agnostics get married all the time. Here are some more: B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21) C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21) D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30) E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9) F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10) G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36) Foes lash Kerry for Vietnam War words Atrocity allegations from 1971 raise ire By David Jackson Tribune staff reporter February 22, 2004 As Sen. John Kerry's campaign gains momentum, conservative critics are attacking his anti-war activism in the years after his return from Vietnam, saying Kerry slandered veterans with his 1971 Senate testimony that alleged atrocities by U.S. soldiers. More than any single figure, Kerry's opponents say, he was responsible for creating the image of American troops as rabid criminals. "We feel that those people who protested against the war on moral grounds, that's an honorable thing, but Kerry went over the line," said Jerry Kiley, a spokesman for an ad hoc group of activists who call themselves Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry. "He painted all Vietnam veterans as war criminals. We feel he's a traitor to the Vietnam veterans of this country who fought and died in a cause that they felt was just," Kiley said. The sharp accusations offer one measure of how that distant conflict still divides the nation and shadows the presidential campaign. President Bush's spotty 1972 attendance in an Air National Guard unit also has come under fire. At issue for the Massachusetts Democrat are 94 words he uttered during more than two hours of Senate testimony and questioning 33 years ago. Was Kerry accurate? Or does he bear a singular responsibility for smearing American soldiers, as his political opponents contend? In rumpled combat fatigues, the battlefield-decorated, 27-year-old former Navy lieutenant shocked the nation with his denunciation of the war's political and moral failings. Describing a conference held three months earlier by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the protest group he helped lead, Kerry said: "We had an investigation in which 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-by-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. "They told the stories [that] at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan." "In the context of the time, he is trying to convince the Congress and the American public about the wrongness of the war, and in doing so, he occasionally turns to hyperbole to get his point across. But the general thrust of his statement about [U.S. military tactics] that included the razing of villages and killing of civilians is true," said Oakton Community College history professor Richard Stacewicz, author of a 1997 book about the veterans protest movement. "Every one of those things he named happened--and I don't mean just once," said military historian Gary Solis, who served two tours as a Marine officer in Vietnam and then spent 18 years as a military prosecutor and judge advocate. "But when you put it all into one sentence, it makes so many individuals over there [in Vietnam] sound like criminals, and that's simply not the case," Solis said. U.S. war crimes were the exception, not the norm, and Kerry "painted with such a broad brush. In my view, those comments are unjustified," Solis said. Records and interviews show how Kerry's impassioned convictions were forged in the twin crucibles of war and protest. But as the years passed and Kerry launched a career in politics, he began to express some misgivings about the Detroit hearings that inspired the fiery speech that made him an unexpected celebrity in 1971. Interviewed for the 1983 PBS series "Vietnam: A Television History," Kerry said he wished the hearings had centered "not on the atrocity angle of things, even though I think it was real." In a 2001 interview with NBC's Tim Russert, Kerry said: "I don't stand by the genocide. I think those were the words of an angry young man. We did not try to do that. . . . But I stand by the rest of what [I said] happened over there." Nothing seen firsthand In a recent Tribune interview, Kerry said he and the men with whom he served had no firsthand experience with atrocities. It was January 1971, and wearing a hip patterned shirt, a 27-year-old John Kerry sat behind a rickety desk in a Catholic workers house in Detroit. As a documentary filmmaker recorded the scene, Kerry questioned a veteran about war atrocities he had committed and seen. "Is there something that you really kind of want to say in terms of the crimes and why they happened?" Kerry asked in a soft but persistent staccato. "What bothered you? What makes you say, `I want to testify; I want to say something'?" A dark-eyed youth thought for a moment, then said, "I would almost need a book to answer that, man." As the skipper in a Navy Swift boat patrolling the twisting, lethal channels of the Mekong Delta in 1968 and 1969, Kerry hadn't witnessed war crimes by U.S. forces, but he was deeply troubled by the ethics and effectiveness of America's tactics. Kerry questioned his superiors about the free-fire zones in which U.S. soldiers were authorized to treat any Vietnamese as a legitimate target, as well as bombing campaigns that terrorized peasants, according to records and interviews. On the battlefield at the time, stories about hidden crimes held wide currency. The young lieutenant had a sense that authorities were sometimes "misleading themselves and some were misleading others purposely," Kerry told the Tribune. "You had to be there to get the full measure of that." After four months of grinding combat in the delta--during which Kerry was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts--he left the war committed to ending it. He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War in the fall of 1970 and soon was serving as the group's spokesman and on its executive committee. Kerry was a moderating force in the group, which was, as veteran and poet Larry Rottmann put it, "riddled with malcontents, druggies, informers, hangers-on and groupies--and some of the finest men of their generation." He played only a behind-the-scenes role in quizzing witnesses before the organization's first big pitch for public attention in 1971, the so-called Winter Soldier hearings. Hoping to indict the war's savagery, the veterans rented a meeting room in a Detroit Howard Johnson motel and held a three-day panel discussion on alleged war crimes in Vietnam, modeled on hearings held during the 1960s in Europe by philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell. Of the 25 soldiers accused of taking part in the massacre, only one, Lt. William Calley Jr., was convicted of murder, and Calley was paroled after serving a third of his 10-year sentence. Kerry and other Vietnam Veterans Against the War members "were very careful to double-check" the accuracy of soldiers' accounts at the Detroit event, because prominent war opponents such as author Mark Lane had been heavily criticized for relying on spurious evidence of atrocities, said University of Waterloo history professor Andrew Hunt. "Kerry was involved in that. They really did their work." Voices of Winter Soldiers One by one, the veterans at the hotel stated their names and ranks, and, although they risked prosecution and personal shame, described immoral acts they had committed or seen firsthand. Former interrogator Nathan Hale, a specialist 5th class with the Americal Division, testified that he was told by his captain to use any means necessary, including rifle butts and knives, to elicit information from prisoners. Kenneth Ruth, a former E-4 in the 1st Cavalry Air Division, showed a slide of an interrogator yanking a rope tied to a prisoner's testicles. There were also numerous accounts of rape. The Nixon White House quickly launched an effort to undermine the testimony. "The men that participated in the pseudo-atrocity hearings in Detroit will be checked out to ascertain if they are genuine Viet Nam combat veterans," White House counsel Charles Colson wrote in a memo. But in the end, authorities offered no public challenge to the veracity of the allegations. It was not until seven years later that the testimony was challenged, in conservative writer Guenter Lewy's 1978 book "America in Vietnam." Lewy wrote that he had examined a Naval Investigative Service file that seriously discredited several of the Detroit veterans. Some were revealed by Navy investigators to have falsified their identities and weren't even in Vietnam, Lewy wrote. Government officials today cannot verify that Naval Investigative Service report's existence. "We have not been able to confirm the existence of this report, but it's also possible that such records could have been destroyed or misplaced," said Naval Criminal Investigative Service public affairs specialist Paul O'Donnell. "I don't think Lewy is interested in presenting any of [the Winter Soldier testimony] as truthful," said University of Richmond history professor Ernest Bolt. "He has an angle on the war as a whole." Bolt said it is impossible to tell whether Lewy fairly characterized the naval investigative report because no other historian had seen it. "He's using the points of their investigation that fit his purposes," Bolt said. Oakton professor Stacewicz said it is possible that several imposters did testify among the 150 or so veterans in Detroit: "Could a couple of people have slipped through? Possibly. But does that impugn everybody else? Not in my view." Truth can be elusive How prevalent were the atrocities described by the veterans in Detroit? The number is unknowable, historians say. "They are the kinds of events that by their nature are unreported," Solis said. Records show about 95 soldiers were convicted of war crimes, as were 27 Marines. "That's as close as anyone can come to numbers," Solis said. "And obviously, that's much lower than actual offenses." One thing is certain: The press and nation paid little attention to the Detroit hearings. "We thought this was going to crack the country wide open and turn the war around, but it never got out of Detroit," veterans organizer Bill Crandell said. "Winter Soldier was an incredible downer," said Chicago veteran Barry Romo. Indeed, in the end, the event failed to convince anyone but those already primed to believe allegations of U.S. brutality. Spurred by the failure of the hearings, Kerry persuaded the anti-war veterans to take their case to Washington. Rolling together the veterans' accounts of war crimes with his own heartfelt opposition, Kerry delivered his Senate speech. He was interrupted by frequent standing ovations from others in the hearing room. Considered by many to be one of the peace movement's defining moments, Kerry's speech helped galvanize the protests and turn popular opinion against the war. And it confirmed him as a presidential candidate in waiting. Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local//> |
OUSTON