1) USA communist, thank you . I will be more careful - and if this doesn't sound like an apology to my father - I only did it in a nice neighbourhood I know really well. Ok, that sounds like an excuse and you have made me feel incredibly guilty.....
I should have known new england states are deep red.
2) coryman - yes I think I didn't attempt to throw him out earlier out of pure shock at what he was saying. New York has really been cleaned up in terms of crime and tolerance towards arabs, I haven't been to the deep south recently.
3) H&S , I didn't know things were that bad in the UK. Here we get a kind of biased picture which is just " Yes, lets do this - Blair will be right behind us whatever we do"( it proves to be true but who knows ? ) What I am saying is that in the UK you hear a lot of what goes on in America and in America you hear relatively nothing about what goes in UK.

Lilly
Vt., USA

Yeh over here if i'm honest people from muslim backgrounds i.e from pakistan are the point of hatred around racists groups, People who r black are now mainstream, I asked a racist aquintance at mi college and he said that black people are still the point of jks but were better then arabs load of **** but there u go. Americans here are not liked, A lot of people hate America and Americans there is a lot of hate for u guys and for bush, Blair is seen as a lap dog to bush but if he tries anything like Iraq again he is gone......I hope.

No I'm not from the UK I'm from Ireland. And on the subject, a lot of people here, usually in about the 14-18 age group, hate British people. Why? For stuff their government did about 100 years ago. Dumb I know. There's all kind of **** happening in the world NOW, but no, let's stay a century in the past and hate people who weren't even around when it happened. A lot of said people also support the IRA without having a clue what they actually do.

Lilly,you should be more careful of trusting people but you should not feel guilty about this advice I give you,trust in people is needed to get along with others and believe that there really is a good side of humanity.It was only a reminder to you that as a woman you are vunerable and percieved as vunerable by some men if society.There are very good people in the world,there are also very sick,perverted,bad people.Do not feel guilty about this warning,I feel you have fallen prey to the common "blame the woman" syndrome,there is nothing to feel guilty about.

Yes, christmas alone with maybe 3 feet of snow in the deep deep red state of vermont is likely to cause woman's immune system to "blame the women" to get weaker. Thank you for that message, it made christmas better. I will definetely be driving back sometime today with doors and windows locked the whole time. Happy holidays to you and your family.

Lilly
P.S. if this was texas,I really would have had a gun. That I have never pulled the trigger of

Lilly,what makes the cold worse is that you are use to that nice weather down south,I remember that it took me a few years to get use to the cold midwest winters again after I had lived in the caribean area for nearly 6 years.Your body gets climatized to the area you live in,then if you move to a different climate it takes a year or more to get use to that area.I heard you can now carry concealed weapons legally in Florida and Texas,I don't personnally own any guns now but,at one time I did(only shotguns/rifles-no handguns),and back then you could not carry a consealed handgun/weapon anywhere in america,I guess you can tell a lot about a country by the gun laws they have and had previously,makes you wonder,why did they change??.Take Care,
U.S.A.communist
Illinois,U.S.A.

Unfortunately greed is a sad part of human nature and it is what nietzsche called "the will to power". If we didn't have a will to survive, humans would have died out by now , and if we did not all have obsessive desires to control others(to a greater or lesser extent ofcourse), life would be totally different. I think that all of us at some time in our life delight in having control over others, in holding power over someone else. In a relationship where only love is not reciprocated by both people, one will often enjoy the power they have over the other person - it is so difficult to analyze love when you're in it that you are weakened to begin with.
Corruption is probably inevitable , and it has been going since the constitution was written, but I have never seen such blatant lies as in the bush presidency. I was only a kid when clinton was re-elected , and even in the monica lewinsky stuff, I remember thinking that as long as he doesn't lie about politics, it's ok. At the beginning of the bush presidency in 2000, people related to him as a man, they thought he was a good guy, moral etc, but he was in a divided country of hallucinated republicans and angry democrats. And his only solution was to lie? The spin machines have never been busier, and now in the senate there is constant talk of who shouldn't be at a certain meeting, and about what deals to do with who to get a bill passed. What can you do? Idealism is a useful tool in politics, and essential for any belief in humanity, but people have to also be realistic and accept that this corruption is maybe here to stay.

Politics , I think, is the reason. It is because of elections and who will vote in which direction - you saw that the day after suspision was raised over which way hunters would vote we saw that movie thing with senator kerry hunting.... correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my theory.

Texas gun laws as I was last made aware of them

No state restriction on the sale or possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons like the AK47 and Uzi. Assault weapons are as easy to buy as hunting rifles. No restriction on the sale or possession of rapid-fire ammunition magazines that can fire up to 100 bullets without reloading. Federal law does prevent the sale of some assault weapons and rapid-fire magazines manufactured after 1994, but the federal law will sunset in 2004 unless Congress and President Bush renew it.

I am now living in my home state of new york - actually the weather there is bad summer or winter. In summer it is too too hot,in winter too too cold. If you like perfect weather you should live in mexico. It is beautiful all year round.

Lilly

I have been looking for gun laws in florida unsuccessfully. If you know them, please post them here as I am quite interested to see what they are.

Happy new year, and yes, I will spend most of my energy converting democrats. I am working on Senator Kerry and others right now.

Lilly

Lilly,gun laws are underkill not overkill as lobbyist try to make you believe.I am not sure about Fla. gun laws but I think you can carry a consealed weapon there legally.I was amazed how fast gun laws got so liberal as they are today but,I remember years ago states started talking about and legalizing the consealed weapons laws,I never kept up on how many states adopted new liberal laws allowing consealed weapons,it was more than a few states.I know 30 years ago it was illgal everywhere without a special permit.Are you living in N.Y. now,which part,up or downstate?Take Care,
USAcommunist

http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/

Yes, I am living in lower manhattan. Unfortunately I can't afford to live upstate - if the president is very good and raises the pell grants and if I can earn enough I will be going to yale next year!
Thank you for the link - yes, it is strange. I have yet to work out a plausible theory why.
Take care,
Lilly

Lilly,you can see the need for real socialisim when your faced with living where you are and trying to go to school and pay for everthing.The elite rich in this country have never faced those problems and that is why they continue to cost more and more because,as you know it is the elite rich who run this nation.I use to live on long island and have been to Manhatten many times,please be careful which part of manhatten you visit because there are still some dangerous parts to be in by yourself.N.Y.C. is a great place for communists/socialists to study and learn from,the rich control everthing in the city and try(do) to force the lower class of people off manhatten and into the bourghs of n.y.c.Take Care,
USAcommunist
Illinois,USA

USA communist, you are exactly right about manhattan ; it is controlled by millionaires not unlike Mr. burns in the simpsons. Not unlike Mr. Bush in the virtual interactive tv show "the white house".
But manhattan , besides being educational in terms of corruption and greed , is an amazing place. Greenwich village has got to be one of the most fun and interesting places. Times Square - actually I am unsure whether this counts as manhattan but even so .......
the winner of the town is the library. Seriously. This is by far the biggest and best I have ever been in . Thanks to a combination of smart democrats and stupid republicans there is an equal balance of books i.e. not just criticisms of the president , but also criticisms of the democrats. I spent so much time there in the last 2 years that I have been living here that they gave me a membership card for my birthday .
You know, new york state is the bluest of blue states , but the city is so consumerist and red it could be virginia. I am now attending a private but secular school and,surprise surprise , it is just as ridiculous as anyone says. New york is unhealthy everywhere but in school every thing is organic (supposedly) , and it is just sport, sport, sport. On my first day I was asked, actually told, I was going to be a cheerleader . Of course, I said no, and the next thing I'm doing is sitting in the principal's office agreeing to APOLOGIZE to this pathetic girl whose image was hurt. Teachers are endorsing this stupidity. The next terrible thing is physical education. I detest running for no reason - I run for a bus, taxi, metro or away from something . I do not run because somebody tells me to. All the girls there run to lose 3 extra pounds to achieve the remarkable freakish goal of a size 2. I am quite happy being a 4. And the truth seems to be that guys don't like skeletal figures. Strange. These two "humiliations" have caused me to be hated by all the popular kids and liked by the calculus club.
You are of course right that manhattan is dangerous , and I appreciate your saying I should be careful - I am a girl, I do not own a gun , nor would I enjoy being beaten up/sexually harassed. However manhattan really is pretty safe - if a guy you don't know says hey, honey , a cop immediately starts walking towards you. in saying this I do not deny that it is dangerous .....you can't really explain it, I guess you have to be there to feel it.

Lilly
p.s.:
When I wrote that post entitled america and americans i wrote that I have lived in every state. Apparently to "live" is to reside for more than 1.5 months. This sucks bigtime, as it means I have only lived in about 24. And also I forgot alaska.

I can't believe I wrote all of that stuff - it is badly organized and makes very little sense. As for relevance it leaves a lot to be desired. My only excuse is that the capitalists are making me feel kind of blue . What is so new about that actually ?

Times square is in manhatten,if you get a chance to look at a map you will see that the entire island that you are on is called manhatten,to get to or leave from manhatten you have to take one of the bridges or tunnels.Manhatten (Harlem is on manhatten also)is only one part of NYC but many people make the mistake and think its all of NYC.The boroughs of NYC are off the island of manhatten and consist of the bronx,brooklen,queens,they are actually on long island.The entire city of new york is all on islands and not even on part of the mainland of New York (the state).

The link below is manhatten,click on map to enlarge.

For some unknown reson the entire map was posted above instead of link,anyway you can see what I mean by the island of manhatten not being part of mainland NY state.

The link below is for NYC public library,you can check out e-books here without even going to the library,map insert on link shows you all their locations,you might need to do some research for you studies.You said your taking calc.,I hated calculus and I only took pre-calculus,good luck and take care. USAcommunist


http://www.nypl.org/

thank you for that map, it is something you rarely look at when you are actually living in a particular area. Or maybe this is just me. I rarely look at road/town maps when driving, I have been geographically lost my whole life and take no pleasure in being found.
With respect to calculus, I hate the subject. It happens not to hate me, and it beats taking d&t. Because according to my teachers, it doesn't matter if you hate your government, it's all ok, you'll be rich because you can do calculus. If anyone needs pyschological treatment it is math teachers.



The following article was published today in nytimes. Probably you read about it in chicago times , but what do you think ?
By CARL HULSE

Published: January 4, 2005


ASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - Stung by criticism that they were lowering ethical standards, House Republicans on Monday night reversed a rule change that would have allowed a party leader to retain his position even if indicted.

Lawmakers and House officials said Republicans, meeting behind the closed doors of the House chamber, had acted at the request of the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay, who had been the intended beneficiary of the rule change.




When they rewrote party rules in November, Republicans said they feared that Mr. DeLay could be subjected to a politically motivated indictment as part of a campaign finance investigation in Texas that has resulted in charges against three of his associates. The decision, coupled with other Republican proposals to rewrite the ethics rules, drew fierce criticism from Democrats and watchdogs outside the government, who said the Republican majority was subverting ethics enforcement.

Lawmakers said the party had also abandoned a proposed ethics change that would have effectively eliminated the broad standard that lawmakers not engage in conduct that brings discredit on the House, a provision that has been the basis for many ethics findings against lawmakers.

Representative David Dreier, a California Republican who is chairman of the Rules Committee, said Republicans on Tuesday would present to the full House a proposal that ethics cases be dismissed if the ethics committee, which is divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, is deadlocked. That plan has also drawn opposition from ethics advocates, including Democrats and some Republicans.

Those attending the Republican meeting, which was held on the day before the opening of the 109th Congress on Tuesday, said Republicans unanimously agreed to restore the old rule after Mr. DeLay told them that the move would clear the air and deny Democrats a potent political issue. In the past year, he has been admonished by the ethics panel three times: for his tactics in trying to persuade a colleague to support the Medicare drug bill, for appearing to link political donations to support for legislation and for involving a federal agency in a political matter in Texas.

Some Republicans who originally opposed the rules change enthusiastically greeted the decision not to go through with it.

"It allows the Republicans to focus on the issues, the agenda that is before us and not to have Tom DeLay be the issue," Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee, said. "I feel like we have just taken a shower."

Since the latest proposals about the handling of ethics complaints emerged last week, leaders of government watchdog groups have been outspoken in condemning the effort to change the handling of complaints.

"The Republican leadership appears to be cracking down on a system that got out of its control," said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause, one of eight advocacy groups that jointly urged Republicans to reject all the changes in the ethics rules.

The opponents were joined by the current chairman of the ethics panel, Representative Joel Hefley, Republican of Colorado, who may be replaced this week by the Republican leadership. In a statement, Mr. Hefley, who was traveling back to Capitol Hill, said he would oppose the rules changes if they reached the House floor.

"This is not the way to effect meaningful reform," he said, referring to the fact that Democrats had not been consulted. "Ethics reform must be bipartisan, and this package is not bipartisan."

Meeting in their own private session, Democrats sought to highlight their differences with Republicans on the issue by enacting a rule to require that any party leader who faces indictment step aside. Previously, the Democratic requirement applied only to committee chairmen and ranking members.

Democrats were also considering forcing a House vote on Tuesday to incorporate a requirement in official House rules that any leader of either party who faces indictment step down.

A spokeswoman for Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, said of the Republican about-face, Democrats remained opposed to the ethics package because a rule dismissing complaints in the event of an ethics committee tie would stymie enforcement.

"It still eviscerates the ethics process," said the spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider.

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Aides to Mr. DeLay said the Republican decision to drop the rule changes had been intended to defuse the Democratic attack.

"We want to make sure the substance comes first, and that anything that would hamper or undermine our agenda needs to be nipped in the bud," Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, said.

Mr. DeLay's action came as a surprise. Aides said he and J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, who commended Mr. DeLay for his action, conferred on the plan briefly before the closed session.

Lawmakers said it was unclear whether the Republican leadership had the votes to force through a package of ethics revisions, and some commended Mr. DeLay for his effort to spare lawmakers a difficult vote.

"I think it is the mark of a leader to take a bullet for the team rather than making the team take a bullet for him," said Representative Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

Mr. Kirk and others said the ethics fight was a potentially serious distraction.

"It is never a good idea when you are involved in a road race or any other athletic contest to tie your shoelaces together," Representative J. D. Hayworth, Republican of Arizona, said.

The ethics fight had threatened to overshadow the opening of Congress, a day that is traditionally set aside for ceremony and for welcoming the new members and their families.

President Bush, once an unsuccessful candidate for the House, greeted the new members at the White House on Monday and made a wry reference to his own Congressional campaign. "I ran in 1978, came in second in a two-man race," Mr. Bush said.

The president urged the new lawmakers to try to lower the level of partisanship as they take on major issues that come before the House and Senate in the next two years.

"My hope is that we can show the nation that we can come together to achieve big things for the good of the country," he said.



Lilly

"Democrats and watchdogs outside the government, who said the Republican majority was subverting ethics enforcement."


Lilly,this kind of corrupt politics is a everyday affair in Washington DC,I remember when John McCain (senator rep.) passed the original campain finace bill which they had to fight for nearly 10 yaers to pass ,after it was law the polititions found new ways to except money(bribes)within the first yaer of the law.Senator McCain talked about it a year later stating that the law had been dodged and there was still the same amount of contributors contributing in other "legal" ways that the law did not cover.The corruption of both political partys is another reason I became a communist,the american democracy is not anything like a real democracy and never will be,rich capitalists will always find a way to get money to their political canidates in america.Legal bribery makes sure the rich capitalists are always represented,this leaves no fair representation for the rest of the american citizens and their concerns.
USAcommunist

Yes, it would be an accurate statement to say internal politics such as this are "an everyday affair in D.C". Money and favors change hand like nobody's business. I have a strange kind of respect for Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) because as you very well know Washington is a tough town with a lot of entrenched special interests. He got his career back after all that Vietnam stuff which I am sure you know about so I will now write down the long long list. I would have a hard time hating Mccain if he were to win the presidency .

Take care,
Lilly

I also have a high respect for this republican because,he pushed thru a bill the democrates should have years before,unfortunatly both parties found new ways to get around that campain finance law.I respect him for his honesty but disagree with his capitalist republican party.USAcommunist

The democrats are actually just as capitalist in many ways as the republicans, and I wouldn't count on McCain for honesty. There are a hell of a lot of corrupt and dishonest things he has done in his time - threatening to change parties - this caused the republicans and bush to chase after him as he is a valuable politician. The democrats also chased after him because there is nothing they need more at the moment than a mainstream democrat. Although the mainstream is moving further and further right.
But the McCain-Kerry commission is pretty good.
I have only met John McCain a few times and he's such a nice guy , you wouldn't for aminute think he would do stuff like this. Kind of like John Edwards......a son of a mill worker from N.Carolina..

Lilly

Lilly,your correct,both parties are the same,I became a communist/socialist after years of tring to believe in the american system of politics.I don't think this country needs new polititions,it needs to change the entire system of goverment that allows this political system to exhist,because it's corrupt thru and thru.A real democracy can run fairly under a socialist goverment because socialists have much higher standards for the goverment to be responcible to its citizens.It also controls capitalisim instead of capitalisim controling the goverment as is now the case in America.

"Giving peace a chance only gives Saddam Hussein more time to prepare for war on his terms, at a time of his choosing, in pursuit of ambitions that will only grow as his power to achieve them grows."

McCain said that right before he voted to authorize the president to go to war, now he's back peddeling as are so many polititions are about the war in Iraq, you are correct not to trust any politition in this country that voted for this illegal invasion of Iraq, some american congressmen did not vote for this action, but, to few to stop Bush.

Yes, I remember hating him for saying that. However McCain needed some popularity from the President at that time (not that this is any excuse). The House is like one big american public high school.