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Has anyone read:

by Cherry Garcia

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory,
by Brian Greene?

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 11:55 PM

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I haven't read it

by Earlybird

What's it about?

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:44 AM

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A Professor Green from Columbia University

by Cherry Garcia

wrote it. He writes about "string theory" which has supposedly been around in the world of physics for some time. He postulates that our universe is made up of tiny "strings" which rotate in 10 or 12 dimensions - matter even smaller than quarks. The theory supposedly links together the theory of relativity and quantum theory.
Anyway, it's supposedly written in lay terms to be easily read. Sounds pretty interesting.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 10:27 AM

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RE: DCSB

by Unicycle

These are just some thoughts and observations regarding the past several School Board meetings, and the actions taken by the Board. I will state upfront that these are mine alone. I have no proof, other than my observations and deductions.

At the June close out meeting the Board accepted Dr. Greear's recommendation to send Mr. Owens to the Career Center as Principal. At the July meeting there was an attempt by Mr Stanley and Mr Raines to have Mr Owens reassigned to the Central Office and to hire someone else as DCCC Principal. Their motion failed, 3-2.

After the July meeting there were several positions that needed filling for the current school year, which would start before the August Board meeting. There was an agreement by at least four of the School Board Members that the person who was recommended by the Interview Committee would be notified by Dr. Greear that they could assume that they would be hired, and that they could start working on Mon. August 14. Mr. Raines was the only member who did not agree to this arrangement, according to my information.

After the interview for the Criminal Law position at DCCC, the person selected for the position was notified, as were all of the other selected candidates for the other positions. It happened that Mr. Patton's favorite was not the one selected. Mr. Patton was one of the members of that interview panel.

At the August Board meeting all of the persons selected by the interview committee were hired except the one selected for the DCCC Criminal Law position. Mr Raines, Mr Patton and Mr Stanley voted to hire another person. Mr Patton was challanged by Mr Vance about his agreement to allow the hiring of all successful candidates, he said he did not remember such an agreement!! Mr Stanley was not challanged. Then Mr Raines made the motion to move Mr Owens back to the Central Office. This time Mr Patton voted for the motion, which he had voted against at the July meeting. What a coincidence!!! You scratch my back and I will scratch yours!!! I hope this is not a sign of things to come.

As I said at the onset, these are my thoughts and observations. It may not be as sinister as I think, but I do wonder.





Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 10:16 PM

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RE: "Back Scratching"

by Good Source

Patton is power hungry, bordering on criminal.

Raines has no guts, will follow anyone whom he thinks can gain the most power. A coat-tail rider.

Stanley has ulterior motives as well. Along with Patton and Raines, wants David Y. to be the next Superintendent. (see "puppet regime")



Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 2:01 PM

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Before The Election Patton Said!!!!!!

by Anonymous

That he was going to get Mr.Counts out of the school at Clinchco and Ms.Hay out of there also.Well he did!Also he said he would see that Mr.Grear would have to fined another job.You wait Grear is next.Patton campained on this.This man is as dirty as they come.And Maybe one day Raines will get sick of smelling that ring of S*^T on his nose from PATTON'S @ss.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 11:00 PM

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Interesting

by Old Observer

observations. We will wait and see how things work out. It now looks as Mr. Patton is in control of the School Board, due to his vote trading with Raines and Stanley.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 11:32 PM

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Is this Mr. Owens?

by Someone

Is this Mr. Erman Owens who used to teach at Sandlick?

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 2:31 PM

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Second the Opinion

by Agreeable

I agree with your opinions and let me further enlighten you all to some more facts. Maybe they aren't all exactly correct as told to me but remember this is just my opinion also. The facts stated are correct and add these to yours. The day of the interview, Greear was paying special attention to the candidate selected by the interview panel. He never spoke to another candidate but has his arm around Mullins (the first choice for the DCCC position) neck in front of all and was VERY friendly with him. Donnie Raines came to the school board office and sat with Donald Viers (the person hired) while he was waiting to be interviewed. There was a lot of tension during the interviews. Now, the Board Meeting. Well, the evening before Raines and Stanley were heard talking. Raines told Stanley to vote with him and he would vote with Stanley. Now the Board Meeting, Raines and Patton wanted Viers to have the job. Patton wanted Mark Mullins to be assistant principal at EHS and Stanley was the one that wanted Erman Owens brought back to the School Board Office. It was obvious that having Mr. Owens at the Board Office was not a particular subject of Mr. Greear's (who rumor has that he already wants to keep Owens at the DCCC and cut his salary - would have this year, but couldn't. Will be able to next April though). Now, it was obvious to all that Preston Vance is a Grear Yes Man. And, he sure did stick up for him at the Board Meeting and his candidate for the Law Enforcement position. But, never the less, Patton, Raines, and Stanley stuck to their deal and voted appropriately. Raines got Viers hired at DCCC. Patton got Mullins as assistant principal, and Stanley got the principals position at DCCC to be advertised to be filled and when this happens, Mr. Owens is suppose to be back at the School Board Office, but Mr. Greear says he won't be in his old position. This could be titled "Days of our Lives" or "Another World". This sound as good as a soap opera and I would encourage all to go to the school board meetings and listen, watch, and observe and see what conclusion you can come up with. Might be as interesting as mine.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 10:49 PM

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Godzlla Returns

by nemesis

'Classic' Godzilla Making Comeback

By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Guy in a lizard suit stomps on a building. Ahh, the memories.

Godzilla's back, the original, blue-blood Godzilla of almost two dozen cheesy Japanese
movies, not the pumped-up, digitized dinosaur created for the monster-budget Hollywood
version of 1998.

"Godzilla 2000," opening Friday, is the first of the Japanese reptile flicks to play American
theaters in 15 years. Distributor Sony is launching the movie in about 2,000 theaters, hoping
nostalgia for one of moviedom's favorite behemoths and interest in Japanese creations such
as "Pokemon" will help fill seats.

Sony has acquired recent "Godzilla" movies for video release in the United States. The idea
to return the low-tech lizard to cinemas came when Sony distribution chief Jeff Blake
visited Japan last year and saw huge lines for the movie at theaters.

"Clearly, the Godzilla myth is downright beloved in Japan," Blake said. "People here
certainly have a lot of recognition for Godzilla. There's some affection for him among baby
boomers, and kids may take to it because things like `Pokemon' have them interested in
Japanese product."

The monster's first screen appearance came in 1954. Godzilla's name in his home country,
Gojira, combines the Japanese words for gorilla and whale. The first "Godzilla" movie
released in the United States was re-edited and added Raymond Burr as a news reporter to
give it American flavor.

A string of sequels followed, including "Godzilla vs. the Thing," "Godzilla's Revenge" and
"Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla."

Since Godzilla supposedly evolved because of manmade radiation, some intellectualized
the monster as a cautionary tale about nuclear power and weapons. Others simply found the
movies goofy fun.

Toho Studios, current producer of the movies, had killed off the monster in 1995's "Godzilla
vs. Destoroyah" in anticipation of the coming Hollywood version. Though Hollywood's
"Godzilla," starring Matthew Broderick, grossed a healthy $380 million worldwide, many
fans felt it failed to capture the spirit of the giant reptile, who generally tries to protect
humanity despite his destructiveness.

For "Godzilla 2000," Toho simply picked up the story as if the monster had never died. This
time, Godzilla battles a 60-million-year-old meteorite that transforms into a UFO and later
another gigantic creature.

"This was kind of a rebirth movie," said Michael Schlesinger, a Sony executive who
supervised the U.S. version of "Godzilla 2000." "It was such a spectacular success in Japan,
we decided it was worth taking a shot, maybe the time was right for Godzilla to come back
to theaters."

The theatrical release of "Godzilla 2000" is not a huge risk for Sony. The studio acquired
the U.S. rights, re-edited the movie and dubbed it into English for less than $1 million. Film
prints and advertising run an estimated $10 million to $12 million, modest by Hollywood
standards.

Like previous Japanese takes on "Godzilla," the title character is played by a stuntman
inside a costume. Instead of computer-animated effects when Godzilla takes Manhattan in
the Hollywood version, the creature in "Godzilla 2000" runs amok on miniature sets.

The effects are a notch above previous "Godzilla" movies but still primitive. The movie
also features the wretched dialogue audiences love to giggle over, part of the campy charm
of a "Godzilla" picture.

"I can't imagine a life form that could survive 60 million years," utters one character. "Good
lord, let's just hope it's friendly."

Godzilla himself is played more seriously. In past films, there was the time a monster buried
Godzilla alive and did a Highland fling in triumph. Or the scene where Godzilla and another
monster played catch with a rock. Or the moment in "Son of Godzilla" where papa reptile
tries to teach his boy to breathe fire, but the tyke coughs up only a smoke ring.

"Almost everyone has seen at least one Godzilla movie," said Bill Warren, who writes
books about science-fiction movies. "They tend to be pretty childlike and childish, like Roy
Rogers movies. They're pictures made for kids, but made by sophisticated people, so the
movies start getting weird in interesting ways."

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:57 PM

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I love those...

by Paladin

"cheesy" movies from my childhood. Especially Godzilla VS Mechgodzilla and Godzilla VS Ghidora (that 3-headed monster?)

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 6:42 PM

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Movie/Theatre Review, "Space Cowboys"

by brain surgeon

the movie was pretty good,, how it ended was anticipated.. i give the movie ,

the theatre was terrible,, awful smells,, cramped rows,, no center aisles,, this caused us to have to stand up every time the people, that brought the crying two year old child, (they sat in the middle instead of on the end) had to go out..

this happened so many times we thought about leaving within the first 20 minutes.

this theatre, The Riverfield Ten located in Pikeville KY, is very nice and modern looking from the outside..

but inside cramped and stinky,, the seats are nice but to close together..

cost for two adults tickets $12,, med. popcorn $3.50,, large soda $1.75,, bag of skittles $1.25 .. total $18.50 .. i give the theatre a NEGATIVE ,

i will stick to Grundy from now on..............;p

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 8:31 AM

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too bad about the theater experience...

by Ross Jr.

It sounds like your experiece was a nightmare.

Any more comments about the movie (assuming you could overcome the distractions to see any of it!)? Two stars...what's best?

Other reviews:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/movies/titles/space_cowboys/reviews.php

Official site:
http://www.spacecowboys.net/

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 9:10 AM

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well the Movie was pretty good

by brain surgeon

but i don't want to give it away to those who haven't seen it yet,,

the two stars are all i could give it for it's ending and content as compared to earlier films by the two leads..

if you are a Clint Eastwood or Tommy Lee Jones fan like I am,, you should see it.......;p

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 9:25 AM

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Check Out The "Site Of The Day" On The 22nd

by nemesis

I think everyone will really enjoy it.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:33 PM

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Rodney Dangerfield To Renew Vows At Movie Premiere

by nemesis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Rodney Dangerfield, recovering from two operations
earlier this year, says he will renew his wedding vows this month at the premiere of his
latest film, a comedy in which he plays a polygamist.

"I'm excited about it," Dangerfield told Reuters in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I tell
my wife, 'I married you when I was drunk,' so she's insisting that I repeat the vows when I'm
sober."

The ceremony is to be held on Aug. 28 in Santa Monica at an invitation-only world premiere
of Dangerfield's new comedy, "My 5 Wives," which opens Sept. 8.

He said ribald comic Andrew Dice Clay, who co-stars with Dangerfield in the movie, will
preside over the ceremony. Other celebrities expected to attend include fellow cast
members Molly Shannon, Jerry Stiller and John Byner, as well as Tim Conway and Harvey
Korman

Dangerfield, 78, and his wife, Joan, 46, were married in December 1993. He divorced his
first wife in 1961.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:41 PM

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Anne Heche & Ellen DeGeneres Split Up

by nemesis

NEW YORK (AP) - Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche have split up.

"Unfortunately, we have decided to end our relationship," the couple said
in a statement in Saturday's Daily News. "It is an amicable parting, and
we greatly value the 3 1/2 years we have spent together."

DeGeneres, 43, was the first openly gay lead on television. A year after
declaring her homosexuality in a Time magazine cover story in 1997,
ABC canceled her "Ellen" series, citing declining ratings.

Heche, 31, and DeGeneres collaborated on an HBO film "If These Walls
Could Talk II' in April. Heche directed DeGeneres and Sharon Stone in
the story of a lesbian couple trying to have a baby - a tale said to mirror
the plans of Heche and DeGeneres.

Heche also filmed a three-month cross-country standup comedy tour of DeGeneres, which
culminated with an HBO cable special that aired last month.

The Daily News quoted unnamed friends as saying no third party was involved in the
breakup.

Heche had been romantically linked to actors Steve Martin and Richard Burgi before
hooking up with DeGeneres.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:39 PM

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Followup: Typical Hollywood Syndrome?

by nemesis

Actress Anne Heche Was Hospitalized

By KILEY RUSSELL, Associated Press Writer

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Actress Anne Heche was hospitalized after wandering up to a rural home appearing shaken and confused, hours after her breakup with Ellen DeGeneres became public, a deputy confirmed Monday.

Heche apparently parked her car along a highway Saturday and then walked about a mile to the house in Cantua Creek, where she knocked on the front door and made strange statements to the occupants, said Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Merrill Wright.

Sheriff's deputies took her to University Medical Center, Wright said. He said there was no criminal investigation.

Neither Wright nor the hospital would comment on what may have caused her condition. A spokeswoman for University Medical Center, Mary Lisa Russell, said no one named Heche was checked in and wouldn't say if Heche had been admitted under a different name.

Hospital records show Heche was released early Sunday after being seen by doctors for two hours, reported KFSN-TV in Fresno. Russell wouldn't confirm the report.

There was no immediate response to calls placed to Heche's agent, Steve Dontanville, or DeGeneres' manager, Erik Gold.

The incident came hours after the separation of Heche, 31, and DeGeneres, 43, was made public.

"Unfortunately, we have decided to end our relationship," the couple said in a statement in Saturday's New York Daily News. "It is an amicable parting, and we greatly value the 3 1/2 years we have spent together."

DeGeneres, 43, was the first openly gay lead on television.

The pair collaborated on an HBO film, "If These Walls Could Talk II,' in April. Heche directed DeGeneres and Sharon Stone in the story of a lesbian couple trying to have a baby - a tale said to mirror the plans of Heche and DeGeneres.

Heche also filmed a three-month standup comedy tour by DeGeneres, which culminated with an HBO cable special that aired last month.

The Daily News quoted unidentified friends as saying no third party was involved in the breakup. Heche had been romantically linked to actors Steve Martin and Richard Burgi before hooking up with DeGeneres.

Heche starred in the remake of "Psycho" as well as "Volcano," "Six Days, Seven Nights," and "Return to Paradise."

In July 1996, actor Robert Downey Jr. entered a stranger's home in Malibu and passed out on a child's bed. It was a month after he was arrested with cocaine, crack, heroin and a pistol in his pickup truck.

In April 1996, "Superman" actress Margot Kidder turned up dazed, filthy and cowering in a Glendale back yard, not far from the studio lot where she became famous as Lois Lane.She was taken to a county psychiatric ward and later checked into a private facility by relatives.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 6:09 PM

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Let's All Hope That He Gets His Wish

by nemesis

(ROCKINGHAM COUNTY) - Rockingham County prosecutors say revenge led Danial Lee Zirkle to murder his four-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old half sister last year. At a sentencing hearing yesterday, they argued that Zirkle killed the two girls to strike indirectly at their mother and his estranged girlfriend, Barbara Shifflett. Zirkle has pleaded guilty to stabbing Jessica Shifflett in her home and slitting his daughter's throat on a scenic overlook in Page County. Zirkle is scheduled to be sentenced in Rockingham County September 21st and in Page County August 28th. He's asking for the death penalty.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:16 PM

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Amen to that

by Earlybird

Someone who would cold-bloodedly murder his own daughters doesn't deserve one iota of sympathy and certainly doesn't deserve to live at our expense.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:47 AM

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i totaly agree

by brain surgeon

give him his wish .......;p

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 8:37 AM

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Witness: Clintons, Gores Used E-Mail Aliases (slickwillie@hotmail.com? woody@natureboy.com?))

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Witness: Clintons, Gores Used E-Mail Aliases

CNSNews.com
Saturday, Aug. 19, 2000

Testimony continued Friday in connection with a lawsuit filed by
former Reagan and Bush administration officials who contend
their FBI files were improperly acquired by the Clinton
administration.

Missing White House e-mails, which could provide "smoking gun"
evidence as to who was involved in the FBI file controversy, are
now more tantalizing than ever to investigators, who have
discovered that President Clinton, Vice President Gore and their
wives had private e-mail accounts under pseudonyms.

Robert Haas, a technician for Northrop-Grumman, the White
House computer contractor, revealed the existence of the e-mail
pseudonyms in court testimony in Washington earlier this week.

"For security reasons, I won't go into any part of this until we get
some sort of waiver. But there are alternative naming
conventions to get mail to the four principals (the Clintons and
Gores) that are not public knowledge," Haas said.

Federal Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Clintons' electronic
communications searched for specific terms relating to the FBI
files case, the Pentagon's disclosure of the arrest record of
former White House employee Linda Tripp and President
Clinton's release of personal letters from a former White House
aide, Kathleen Willey, who says she was groped by Clinton in the
White House.

A White House spokesman said there were no hidden messages
in the e-mail accounts. President Clinton has said in the past that
he does not use e-mail because of security concerns.

"I have no reason to think there's anything that's not on either
backup tapes or the electronic archives. We have searched the
entire e-mail system to be as responsive as possible," White
House spokesman Jake Siewert said in a statement.

The civil lawsuit against the Clinton administration, on behalf of
the former Reagan and Bush administration officials, was filed by
Judicial Watch, a judicial activist group. Judicial Watch believes
the Clinton administration engaged in an e-mail cover-up and
even threatened witnesses.

White House computer specialist Daniel Barry, who initially
uncovered the e-mail problem and the former director of the
White House Office of Administration, Ada Posey, are still being
cross-examined.

Independent counsel Robert Ray has decided not to prosecute
anyone in the FBI scandal, known as "Filegate." According to
Ray, his findings turned up no evidence that the FBI files
obtained by the Clinton administration were used for partisan
politics.

But Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman has no doubt about
the Clinton administration's culpability in the e-mail controversy.

"No reasonable person listening to this and other court testimony
presented in the last several weeks could conclude that the
cover-up of the e-mail problem, which included threats and
resulted in the production of documents to the court, Congress
and the independent counsels, was yet another in a claimed
series of innocent bureaucratic snafus.

"The Clinton-Gore administration is quite competent in both
committing crimes and covering them up," Klayman said.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that "never have we
seen such a well-oiled criminal operation in the White House. The
Nixon White House was amateur by comparison."

Meanwhile, a Virginia grand jury, empaneled by Ray,
subpoenaed Sheryl Hall, the former White House employee who
broke the Clinton-Gore e-mail case.

Hall has previously testified that she witnessed threats and
intimidation against Clinton White House employees aimed at
keeping them quiet about what Hall called the "cover-up" of
e-mail evidence in a number of Clinton scandals, including the
one involving the President and former White House intern
Monica Lewinsky.

The court proceedings in that case continue.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:45 PM

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Are environmental extremists partially to blame for massive forest fires?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Idaho Seeks Forest Service
Retirees

By Bob Fick
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Aug. 19, 2000; 6:06 a.m. EDT

BOISE, Idaho –– Forest Service retirees are being
urged to return to work in an effort to bolster crews
fighting wildfires that have burned across 1.1 million
acres in the West.

The latest call for reinforcements to assist firefighters
already on the job comes as colleges in the region are
being asked to allow students fighting fires to remain on
the lines.

"Our retirees have extensive experience in fire
operations, fire management and natural resources
management and their skills are much needed in one of
the most severe fire seasons in decades," said
Intermountain Regional Forest Blackwell, who oversees
national forests in southern Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and
Nevada.

He said the plea is part of a national call for help by
Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck.

Nearly 19,000 civilian and military firefighters were
spread throughout the West on Friday – 14,000 of them
in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Friday visited
Boise's National Interagency Fire Center, the country's
headquarters for fire suppression. He asked the Western
governors and college presidents to delay registration
deadlines to Sept. 15 so college firefighters, accounting
for a quarter to a third of the manpower in the field, can
remain on the lines. Montana and Idaho have already
done so.

Babbitt also said firefighters already have a blank check
to draw on the federal Treasury for supplies but money
cannot buy any more experienced crew bosses. That
money can be used to cover overtime, lodging and
transportation for fire crews.

"It's a very tough situation," Babbitt said. "We've got
two, three more weeks, maybe a month of fire season,
and the weather prognosis is not very good."

Nearly 19,000 civilian and military firefighters were
spread throughout the West – 14,000 of them in
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming where most of the active
fires burned.

The fire center reported 92 major fires burning in the
country on nearly 1.1 million acres.

So far this year, fires have burned 5.22 million acres,
the worst fire season in at least a half-century.

In Idaho, the 147,000-acre Clear Creek fire, the nation's
largest, was burning actively as fire crews labored to
keep it away from a Girl Scout camp and the watershed
for the city of Salmon.

Smoke from the fire that has burned since July 10
prompted the state to declare the air in the Salmon area
unhealthy and issue an alert for the elderly, children and
those with lung problems to remain indoors.

"The fire is a beast and there's no taming it," said Gary
Hart, a Clear Creek fire operations chief from Ventura
County, Calif.

In Montana, ranchers on horseback tried to herd cattle
out of harm's way but were forced to abandon the
animals as a wildfire burning southeast of Helena
spread to 100,000 acres. People have fled ranch homes
but officials said they did not have a count on the
number of evacuees, nor did they know how much
property was lost.

A wildfire in Wyoming that closed the busy southern
entrance to Yellowstone National Park was heading into
wilderness Friday, but another fire threatened a historic
lodge built by Buffalo Bill Cody near the park's east
entrance.

In California, a wind-driven fire 180 miles northeast of
San Francisco has burned 5,000 acres in the Plumas
National Forest. No homes or other buildings were
immediately threatened by the blaze.

–––

On the Net: http://www.nifc.gov

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:37 PM

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Sorry Fred

by Goregasm

These fires are all perfectly natural,the environment "cleanses itself" usually within a human lifetime. Unlike Bush's buddies' industrial pollution.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 6:21 PM

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Yes environmental extremists and the Clinton admin. are partially to blame

by Earlybird

Clinton Forest Policies Under Fire

UPI
Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000

WASHINGTON – The Clinton administration has cut fire-fighting budgets, failed to establish an effective
fire-fighting program and is pursuing land management policies in national forests that could hamstring state
efforts to reduce the risk of forest fires in land near homes and cities, Western state officials and Capitol Hill
critics said Wednesday.

The forest fires ravaging the West are likely to become the largest ever recorded in U.S. history, according to
the U.S. Forest Service. The blazes have re-ignited debate among federal and state land managers, timber
companies and environmentalists over how to best manage national forests and spend vital federal tax dollars.

The massive forest fires across 12 Western states will likely soon engulf more than a half-million acres and
surpass the size and scope of record fires from 1910. Montana and Idaho are among the states hit hardest by
the fires, where nearly 50 are burning.

But the fires have triggered sharp protest from Western state officials and the timber industry, who say they
have long warned that restrictive land management policies pursued by the U.S. Forest Service designed to
protect the land could prohibit states from "thinning" forests to clear the accumulation of wood and debris that
exacerbates fires. At the same time, such activities could provide at least some income for the beleaguered
timber industry, industry and state officials say.

Mark Rey of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said the administration has undercut
funding for fighting fires in its budget requests to fund other priorities and that land management policies
articulated by the Department of the Interior make preventing forest fires particularly difficult.

"The issues associated with these fires can be divided into two questions. One: Was the administration
prepared to fight these fires? The answer, by their own admission, is 'no.'

"The second is: Are they pursuing land management policies that are going to make it hard to reduce fire risk
in the future? And the answer is the policies they are pursuing ignore the fire risk that exists."

But environmentalists applaud the Clinton administration's efforts to rope off national forests from use. They
warn that efforts to bash federal land management policies are really intended to provide cover for timber
companies eager to get back into the business of ravaging American forests.

Montana Gov. Marc Racicot said Monday the administration had not done a good job balancing preservation
concerns and allowing some active management of land to prevent forest fires.

"Clearly, the White House has some responsibility for the forest system," he said.

"This is the time of our watch, and the circumstances call for a balanced approach to our national forests."

"They have just failed to address this," Racicot spokesman Julie Lapeer said of the Clinton administration's
wildfire policy. "A lot of people say this is an attempt to support the timber industry, and it is not."

Environmentalists warn of "Monday morning fire fighting" by critics of the administration in an effort to blame
them for the massive fires.

To date, wildfires have ravaged more than 4.9 million acres this year, doubling a national average of 2.4 million
acres, according to the Forest Service. On Aug. 16, nearly 85,000 acres were burning at one time in more than
300 fires across the West. Efforts for fight the fires are costing federal taxpayers alone nearly $10 million a day.

But the Clinton administration has continually undercut financing targeted for fighting fires. In its fiscal year 2001
budget request, the Bureau of Land Management asked its parent Interior Department for $400.9 million to
fight forest fires. The department lowered that number to $322.9 million before sending the request on to the
White House for review. The White House further knocked that number down to $297.2 million before sending
the request on to Congress for approval, according to Rey.

The administration enacted similar cuts in fiscal year 2000.

In a Jan. 3 internal memorandum, BLM Office of Fire and Aviation Director Lester K. Resenkrance told his
superiors at Interior, "This worsening situation compels me to share my deep concerns about the ongoing
budget issues in the fire and aviation programs. The primary issue of concern is continued under-funding of the
preparedness portion of the fire program."

At the same time, the administration has articulated land management proposals designed to protect national
forests. For example, the Clinton administration in 1998 unveiled the "roadless" initiative that when finalized
would prohibit the establishment or upkeep of roads in 40 million acres of national forests.

The administration has also articulated several draft region-specific land management plans designed to
protect particularly pristine areas such as the Sierra Nevadas.

Fuel for Fires Is What's Preserved

But Western state officials and their allies on Capitol Hill say that while the proposals are designed to protect
wilderness, they also preclude activities to reduce "fuel loading" in the forest by thinning them.

Decades of fire suppression have lead to a buildup of flammable materials in forest floors that would otherwise
burn in smaller fires if it were not for fire suppression. But "thinning" is effectively precluded under Clinton
administration policy. Areas devoid of roads under the roadless initiative obviously cannot be easily cleared for
fire prevention, for example.

In June 1999, General Accounting Office Associate Director of Energy, Resources and Science issues Barry
T. Hill told a House subcommittee that "reducing the growing threat of catastrophic wildfires is not emphasized
in the (Forest Service's) natural resource agenda or in its strategic plan, and top-level management has not
been involved in developing a fuel reduction strategy."

Some in Congress have moved independently to try to reduce the threat of forest fires in their districts.

After the colossal wildfires that nearly destroyed the Energy Department's Los Alamos laboratory in New
Mexico, Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., attached an "emergency" funding
amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill in July that will provide $240.3 million to the Forest Service and
the Department of Interior to remove material from forests near "urban or wildland interface areas" where cities
and forests meet.

Congress has not approved a final version of that bill. But the president is not likely to reject the fire measure,
congressional sources say.

In response to the GAO concerns, the Forest Service has begun the construction of a "Cohesive Strategy" to
reduce the threat of wildfires that includes methods to reduce fuel loading.

Forest Service Director of Forest Management Anne Bartuska says the strategy will identify 24 million acres at
the greatest risk of burning and prescribe methods to reduce those risks.

Such methods could include "mechanical treatment" to thin forests, or even prescribed burns to reduce fuel
loading. The strategy would require $800 million a year to implement at a total cost of around $5 billion,
Bartuska says.

But while the GAO report says the Forest Service had committed to completing that plan by the end of 1999,
Bartuska says the strategy is still not yet final. Critics say it appears to run directly counter to other
administration plans, such as the roadless initiative, and that it represents too little, too late.

Bartuska says the government is working hard to address forest fires and protect national forests, but admits
that sometimes the two issues appear to conflict. "It is a collision of priorities," she said.

(C) 2000 UPI. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:38 AM

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The Politics Of Forest Fires

by Naturalist

The Abuse of Other People's Hard Times: The Politics of Forest Fires

8/15/2000
Thomas Michael Power
Professor and Chairman
Economics Department
University of Montana
Missoula, Montana 59812
406 243 4586


To most of us, it is unseemly, at the very least, to take advantage of
other people's tragedy, hard times, and fear. Yet some folks, driven by
the pursuit of profits or political ambition or both, simply cannot
resist. That is the case with those seeking advantage from the terror
most of us in the Northern Rockies are experiencing as fires or at least
the smoke from the fires threaten to engulf us and render our homes and
home towns uninhabitable.

Except for suffocating the ash fallout from Mount Saint Helens, we in
the Northern Rockies have had the luxury of observing natural
catastrophes at a distance on our television sets. When floods swept
the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries in the upper Midwest,
simultaneously drowning and burning major cities, when hurricanes
repeatedly threaten to drive the sea across Florida and well into the
Carolina coastlands, when earthquakes threatened to drop large swaths of
southern California into the sea, we in Montana could shudder with a
distant fear and easy sympathy, for we faced no such immediate threats
of natural disaster. This summer's wildfires in Northern Rockies have
changed that.

While most of us have suffered with the unavoidable fire-related
anxieties, we have also been impressed by the hard work and heroism of
both neighbors and anonymous firefighters. But others have tried to
profit from the fires and the primordial fears they evoke. The forest
products industry has been in the lead in this exploitation of other
people's hard times.

The forest products industry wants access as cheaply as it can get it to
as much wood fiber as possible. It once had privileged access to
forested public lands. As the frontier economy has faded and government
give-aways have fallen out of political favor, the forest products
industry's privileged grip on public resources has begun to slip. The
current forest fires offer them an opportunity to try to regain some of
their lost clout.

The fires, timber industry spokespersons claim, are the result of
restrictions on commercial logging on public lands. If all of these
lands had been logged, they assert, the fires would not be burning. It
is the federal government and the environmentalists they are in cahoots
with who have caused the fires that now threaten us. As one timber
industry advocate baldly said, "I never saw a clearcut burn."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course clearcuts burn. When
long, hot summers dry out the grasses, brush, and logging wastes, they
can flare explosively. When they grow thick with closely packed young
trees, they present exactly the fire danger we are wrestling with now.
The logging roads provide human access that is the source of the vast
majority of forest fires.

If roading and logging eliminated the threat of wildfire, most of the
fires that threaten us now would not be burning. Look at where these
fires are: They are largely burning on the forest-urban interface in
areas adjacent to intense human activity. In Western Montana, for
instance, the fires are burning in the forests adjacent to some of the
rapidly growing residential areas in the nation, the Bitterroot, Helena,
and Clark Fork Valleys. These are not roadless areas that have never
been logged. Quite the contrary, they are areas that were roaded and
logged in the past. Those roads often have then provided access for the
human activity that now dominates these areas, including the home
building, residential settlement of the last two decades, and
recreational activity. The trees now burning are usually second growth
that followed past logging.

The bulk of the fires burning are burning outside of roadless and
wilderness areas. At last count in Western Montana over 75 percent of
the burned acreage lies outside of protected areas like National Parks
and Wilderness. Even more telling, 96 percent of the firefighting
effort is focused on roaded and developed areas where human lives,
homes, and other structures are threatened. It is not primarily
battling wilderness fires.

Commercial logging and the roads associated with it do not reduce the
threat of wildfire. They do the opposite. The timber industry has been
as insistent as anyone else that all wildfires be extinguished
immediately, thus, over the decades, allowing the fuel loads in our
forests to build. Commercial logging does not remove dangerous fuel
loads. Instead it takes the largest, most valuable, and most fire
resistant trees, leaving behind a firetrap.

Commercial logging is not a prescription for forest health; it is one of
the major causes of unhealthy forest conditions. Until the forest
products industry stops trying to insist that clearcutting our public
lands is necessary for the health of those lands, we will make no
progress in restoring those lands. Equating forest health with timber
company profits condemns out forests to either the commercial ravages of
the past or the management paralysis of the present. Both are bad for
our forests and for those of us who have chosen to live in beautiful,
but naturally dangerous, forested landscapes.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 8:31 AM

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And Now For The Rest Of The Story

by Naturalist

Earlybirds Post Is Nothing But Political Mumbo-Jumbo. If You Wish To Learn The Truth. Here Are The Facts. Directly Below Is An Index To Topics And Numerous Studies That Have Been Conducted Concerning Forest Fires And Prevention.


1. Comments from Speaker Hastert
2. Testimony from former Chief Jack Ward Thomas (and our response)
3. Commercial logging for wildfire prevention: Facts v. fantasies
4. What the government's own scientist say
5. Using Wildfires for political gain is shameful by Matthew Koehler
6. The Abuse of Other People's Hard Times: The Politics of Forest Fires by Dr. Power
7. Dear Collegue letter from Rep. McKinney: HR 1396 would prevent wildfires
8. One of the 7 editorials that ran in Montana blasting our Governor

Hastert blasts 'extreme' forest management

By JIM MANN
The Daily Inter Lake

Western forests need a "common-sense" management policy to reduce fire severity and to rebuild the region's natural-resource economies, said Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on a stop in Kalispell Monday.

The Illinois Republican spoke at a fund-raiser breakfast, endorsing Dennis Rehberg, candidate for Montana's lone House seat.

At a press conference, Rehberg also spoke of the need to bring "more balance" to natural-resource management.

Hastert traveled Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park and flew over some of the fires burning in western Montana Monday.

"We haven't been able to go out and clear out the forests of dead debris," he said, adding that it's "common sense" to more actively manage forested lands.

Hastert said the Clinton-Gore administration has imposed an "extreme" approach that has pinched off logging on federal forests.

"While I couldn't say that these fires wouldn't have happened," Rehberg said, "I can say they wouldn't have happened with the same severity that they have, had we had a more balanced timber-management program."

Environmental groups and the White House refuted similar comments made by Gov. Marc Racicot last week. They criticized Racicot for exploiting widespread fires in Montana for political gain. They rejected any suggestion that the Clinton Administration is to blame for a steady accumulation of fuels that has resulted from decades of aggressive fire suppression.

"I think the misguided policies were those of earlier decades," White House spokesman Elliot Diringer told the Associated Press. "However well-intentioned, they had the unfortunate result of allowing fuel to accumulate in the forest."

Hastert added that a George W. Bush administration would favor a shift in that direction. The Texas governor and his running mate, Dick Cheney of Wyoming, better understand western values than does Democrat Al Gore, with his "extreme" approach regarding natural resources, Hastert said.

------------------

Former USFS Chief Jack Ward Thomas, in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Agricultural Research, Conservation, Forestry and General Legislation on August 29., 1994 acknowledged that : 1) the Forest Service logs in insect infested stands not to protect the ecology of the area, but to remove trees before their timber commodity value is reduced by the insects; and 2) that the Forest Service fights forest fires to maintain high timber commodity value of stands, not to protect forest ecosystems.

"Because the US Forest Service's budget is directly tied to cutting down of our National Forests, the Forest Service has a long history of doing what is best for their bottom-line, and not what is best for our National Forests, clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat. If we ever hope to have our National Forests managed in a responsible way, we need to end the commercial timber sales program." Matthew Koehler, Native Forest Network.

"We support as a solution, a piece of legislation before Congress called the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, that would end the commercial timber sale program while redirecting taxpayer dollars - not towards cutting the forests down - but towards scientifically-proven restoration that reduces the risk of catastrophic wilfires and restores the biological integrety of our public lands." Also, Matthew Koehler, Native Forest Network

-------------

COMMERCIAL LOGGING FOR WILDFIRE PREVENTION: FACTS VS FANTASIES

By Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D., Western Fire Ecology Center

The notion that commercial logging can prevent wildfires has its believers and loud proponents, but this belief does not match up with the scientific evidence or history of federal management practices. In fact, it is widely recognized that past commercial logging, road-building, livestock grazing and aggressive firefighting are the sources for "forest health" problems such as increased insect infestations, disease outbreaks, and severe wildfires.

How can the sources of these problems also be their solution? This internal contradiction needs more than propaganda to be resolved. It is time for the timber industry and their supporters to heed the facts, not fantasies, and develop forest management policies based on science, not politics.

FACT: Commercial logging removes the least flammable portion of trees-their main stems or "trucks," while leaving behind their most flammable portions-their needles and limbs, directly on the ground. Untreated logging slash can adversely affect fire behavior for up to 30 years following the logging operations.

FACT: Commercial logging reduces the "overstory" tree canopy which moderates the "microclimate" of the forest floor. This reduction of the tree canopy exposes the forest floor to increased sun and wind, causing increased surface temperatures and decreased relative humidity. This in turn causes surface fuels to be hotter and drier, resulting in faster rates of fire spread, greater flame lengths and fireline intensities, and more erratic shifts in the speed and direction of fires.

FACT: Small-diameter surface fuels are the primary carriers of fire. Current fire spread models such as the BEHAVE program do not even consider fuels greater than three inches (3) in diameter because it is mainly the fine-sized surface fuels that allows fire spread. Commercial logging operations remove large-diameter fuels which are naturally fire resistant, and leave behind an increased amount of fire-prone small-diameter fuels.

FACT: Timber plantations comprised of densely-stocked, even-aged stands of young conifers are extremely flammable and vulnerable to catastrophic fire effects. When plantations burn they normally result in 100% mortality of trees, yet have no native seed sources to naturally regenerate stands. Thus, burned plantations require expensive and repeated management inputs to achieve successful reforestation.

FACT: Commercial logging spreads invasive weeds and stimulates the growth of "chaparral" brush which are much more flammable than the original forest cover. Once the commodity timber outputs have been removed, federal agencies have no economic incentives to manage the vegetation that colonizes sites disturbed by logging operations; thus, fires will continue to burn through logged areas.

FACT: Watersheds that have experienced extensive logging and road-building also experience greater fire severity than unlogged and unroaded watersheds.

-----------------------
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT'S OWN SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT LOGGING AND WILDFIRES:

"Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."
- Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, 1996. Final Report to Congress

"Logged areas generally showed a strong association with increased rate of spread and flame length, thereby suggesting that tree harvesting could affect the potential fire behavior within landscapes. In general, rate of spread and flame length were positively correlated with the proportion of area logged in the sample watersheds."
-Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)

"As a by-product of clearcutting, thinning, and other tree-removal activities, activity fuels create both short- and long-term fire hazards to ecosystems. The potential rate of spread and intensity of fires associated with recently cut logging residues is high, especially the first year or two as the material decays. High fire-behavior hazards associated with the residues can extend, however, for many years depending on the tree. Even though these hazards diminish, their influence on fire behavior can linger for up to 30 years in the dry forest ecosystems of eastern Washington and Oregon."
-Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)

"Fire severity has generally increased and fire frequency has generally decreased over the last 200 years. The primary causative factors behind fire regime changes are effective fire prevention and suppression strategies, selection and regeneration cutting, domestic livestock grazing, and the introduction of exotic plants."
-Integrated Scientific Assessment for Ecosystem Management in the Interior Columbia Basin (PNW-GTR-382)

"The high rate of human-caused fires has generally been associated with high recreational use in areas of higher road densities."
-An Assessment of Ecosystem Components in the Interior Columbia Basin and Portions of the Klamath and Great Basins--Volume II (PNW-GTR-405)

"Mechanically removing fuels (through commercial timber harvesting and other means) can also have adverse effects on wildlife habitat and water quality in many areas. Officials told GAO that, because of these effects, a large-scale expansion of commercial timber harvesting alone for removing materials would not be feasible. However, because the Forest Service relies on the timber program for funding many of its activities, including reducing fuels, it has often used this program to address the wildfire problem. The difficulty with such an approach, however, is that the lands with commercially valuable timber are often not those with the greatest wildfire hazards."
-Government Accounting Office: "Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats" (GAO/RCED-99-65)

Former Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee on August 29, 1994, acknowledged that: 1) the Forest Service logs in insect infested stands not to protect the ecology of the area, but to remove trees before their timber commodity value is reduced by the insects; and 2) that the Forest Service fights forest fires to maintain high timber commodity value of stands, not to protect forest ecosystems.

-------------------

(Note good GAO information in this... Interestingly enough, the same 1999 GAO report determined that "most of the trees that need to be removed to reduce accumulated fuels are small in diameter and have little or no commercial value," thereby raising further questions as to the intentions of the timber industry and their supporters.

Truthfully, the timber industry knows that while Forest Service budgets are tied directly to commercial logging-not forest stewardship-the Forest Service will continue its long-standing tradition of cutting down our forests while simply paying lip service "forest health."

This fact did not go unnoticed in the GAO report either. The GAO found that when addressing projects designed to reduce the risk of fire, Forest Service managers, "tend to (1) focus on areas with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels." )

Using Wildfires for Political Gain is Shameful

By Matthew Koehler

(Matthew Koehler is an organizer with the Native Forest Network. He can be contacted at 406-542-7343 or email: koehler@wildrockies.org. )

With wildfires burning throughout Montana and much of the western Untied States, it is unfortunate and disturbing that the timber industry and some of their supporters have decided to use the wildfires as an excuse to advance their political agenda of increased logging and roadbuilding in America's National Forests.

The timber industry and their allies are quickly blaming decreased timber sales in National Forests for the wildfires, with the hope of whipping the public into a hysteria to reverse attitudes and trends about National Forest protection.

Montana's own Governor Mark Racicot and Congressman Rick Hill have fallen victim to such politically self-serving pleas. Governor Racicot has apparently started his campaign for secretary of the Interior under a Bush Administration by appearing on national television calling for increased "stewardship"-i.e. logging and roadbuilding-in National Forests knowing fully that logging and roadbuilding are the problem, not the solution.

Meanwhile, Congressman Hill recently called for the Clinton Administration "to put forth new measures for the emergency recovery of vulnerable and affected timber to help prevent further devastation."

In other words, Congressman Hill's proposed solution is to "recover"-or cut down-any forests that are "vulnerable" to wildfire or "affected" by the current wildfires. At last count, that is all the forestland in the western United States.

This politically-driven "solution" from Congressman Hill comes despite the fact that many of the large wildfires throughout the west are currently burning in areas heavily logged and roaded during the past century-not to mention the fact that a number of wildfires have apparently been ignited by logging operations themselves. (more)

At a time when families and communities are pulling together to cope with the situation, the rhetoric from the timber industry and their supporters to increase logging in National Forests to reduce the risk of fire are not only highly unethical, but their calls are also not supported by scientific facts.

The truth of the matter is commercial logging doesn't prevent wildfires, it causes them.

Since 1996, Congress has spent $57 million on scientific assessments that have concluded commercial logging to be the primary activity causing an increase in wildfire intensity and severity.

For example, the Sierra Nevada Ecosystems Project stated in a final report to Congress, "timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."

Government studies have also revealed that no matter what logging system is used-thinning, salvaging, or clearcutting-areas that have been logged and roaded experience higher ignition rates, more rapid rates of fire spread, higher fire intensities and greater fire severity than unlogged areas.

In fact, according to Dr. Timothy Ingalsbee-a leading expert on fire ecology-"it is widely recognized that past commercial logging, road-building, livestock grazing, and aggressive firefighting are the sources for 'forest health' problems such as increased insect infestations, disease outbreaks, and severe wildfires."

The timber industry is fond of using a 1999 General Accounting Office (GAO) report which found 39 million acres of forestland at high risk of fire as their "silver-bullet" to justify more logging in National Forests. While the timber industry quotes such numbers, they fail to mention that-according to the Forest Service-87% of that acreage is found within heavily logged and roaded portions of our National Forests.

Interestingly enough, the same 1999 GAO report determined that "most of the trees that need to be removed to reduce accumulated fuels are small in diameter and have little or no commercial value," thereby raising further questions as to the intentions of the timber industry and their supporters.

Truthfully, the timber industry knows that while Forest Service budgets are tied directly to commercial logging-not forest stewardship-the Forest Service will continue its long-standing tradition of cutting down our forests while simply paying lip service "forest health."

This fact did not go unnoticed in the GAO report either. The GAO found that when addressing projects designed to reduce the risk of fire, Forest Service managers, "tend to (1) focus on areas with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels."

Clearly the American people need to decide whether National Forests should managed by sound science, or whether management should continue to be commercially driven and controlled by the timber industry and their congressional allies.

In the meantime, out of respect for the communities and families affected by the wildfires, let's request that the timber industry, Governor Racicot and Congressman Hill at least wait for the wildfires to pass before they start advancing their political agenda of increased logging and roadbuilding in America's National Forests.

------------------------

The Abuse of Other People's Hard Times: The Politics of Forest Fires

By Thomas Michael Power
Professor and Chairman
Economics Department
University of Montana
406 243 4586
tmpower@selway.umt.edu

To most of us, it is unseemly, at the very least, to take advantage of other people's tragedy, hard times, and fear. Yet some folks, driven by the pursuit of profits or political ambition or both, simply cannot resist. That is the case with those seeking advantage from the terror most of us in the Northern Rockies are experiencing as fires or at least the smoke from the fires threaten to engulf us and render our homes and home towns uninhabitable.

Except for the suffocating ash fallout from Mount Saint Helens, we in the Northern Rockies have had the luxury of observing natural catastrophes at a distance on our television sets. When floods swept the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries in the upper Midwest, simultaneously drowning and burning major cities, when hurricanes repeatedly threaten to drive the sea across Florida and well into the Carolina coastlands, when earthquakes threatened to drop large swaths of southern California into the sea, we in Montana could shudder with a distant fear and easy sympathy, for we faced no such immediate threats of natural disaster. This summer's wildfires in Northern Rockies have changed that.

While most of us have suffered with the unavoidable fire-related anxieties, we have also been impressed by the hard work and heroism of both neighbors and anonymous firefighters. But others have tried to profit from the fires and the primordial fears they evoke. The forest products industry has been in the lead in this exploitation of other people's hardtimes.

The forest products industry wants access as cheaply as it can get it to as much wood fiber as possible. It once had privileged access to forested public lands. As the frontier economy has faded and government give-aways have fallen out of political favor, the forest products industry's privileged grip on public resources has begun to slip. The current forest fires offer them an opportunity to try to regain some of their lost clout.

The fires, timber industry spokespersons claim, are the result of restrictions on commercial logging on public lands. If all of these lands had been logged, they assert, the fires would not be burning. It is the federal government and the environmentalists they are in cahoots with who have caused the fires that now threaten us. As one timber industry advocate baldly said, "I never saw a clearcut burn."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course clearcuts burn. When long, hot summers dry out the grasses, brush, and logging wastes, they can flare explosively. When they grow thick with closely packed young trees, they present exactly the fire danger we are wrestling with now. The logging roads provide human access that is the source of the vast majority of forest fires.

If roading and logging eliminated the threat of wildfire, most of the fires that threaten us now would not be burning. Look at where these fires are: They are largely burning on the forest-urban interface in areas adjacent to intense human activity. In Western Montana, for instance, the fires are in are burning in the forests adjacent to some of the rapidly growing residential areas in the nation, the Bitterroot, Helena, and Clark Fork Valleys. These are not roadless areas that have never been logged. Quite the contrary, they are areas that were roaded and logged in the past. Those roads often have then provided access for the human activity that now dominates these areas, including the home building, residential settlement of the last two decades, and recreational activity. The trees now burning are usually second growth that followed past logging.

The bulk of the fires burning are burning outside of roadless and wilderness areas. At last count in Western Montana over 75 percent of the burned acreage lies outside of protected areas like National Parks and Wilderness. Even more telling, 96 percent of the firefighting effort is focused on roaded and developed areas where human lives, homes, and other structures are threatened. It is not primarily battling wilderness fires.

Commercial logging and the roads associated with it do not reduce the threat of wildfire. They do the opposite. The timber industry has been as insistent as anyone else that all wildfires be extinguished immediately, thus, over the decades, allowing the fuel loads in our forests to build. Commercial logging does not remove dangerous fuel loads. Instead it takes the largest, most valuable, and most fire resistant trees, leaving behind a firetrap.

Commercial logging is not a prescription for forest health; it is one of the major causes of unhealthy forest conditions. Until the forest products industry stops trying to insist that clearcutting our public lands is necessary for the health of those lands, we will make no progress in restoring those lands. Equating forest health with timber company profits condemns our forests to either the commercial ravages of the past or the management paralysis of the present. Both are bad for our forests and for those of us who have chosen to live in beautiful, but naturally dangerous, forested landscapes.

------------------------

PREVENT FOREST FIRES-COSPONSOR H.R. 1396

For more information contact:
Jon Fremont, Office of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney: (202) 225-1605

Dear Colleague:

The federal government must insure that it is doing all it can to protect lives, property, and forests from the risk of unnatural catastrophic fire. Sadly, some of my colleagues are using the recent tragedy in Los Alamos as an excuse to increase the Forest Service's logging program. However, science shows that logging is the problem, not the solution. Fire risk reduction projects would be better accomplished by direct funding instead of continued subsidized logging. Why?

Logging increases fire risk. Logging causes adverse changes in forest composition. Logging operations leave behind debris that becomes tinder dry in open clearcuts. Chainsaws and other logging equipment throw sparks and start fires. The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Report, issued in 1996 by the federal government, found that "timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity." Logging has greatly increased fire risk on our National Forests.

Logging Does NOT Provide Fire Risk Reduction. Timber sales depend upon timber purchasers and the markets in which they operate, and are not based on actual fire risks. In many regions of the West, there is little demand for timber sales, especially the low value, small diameter trees that characterize thinning projects. According to a 1999 report prepared by the GAO, "most of the trees that need to be removed to reduce accumulated fuels are small in diameter and have little or no commercial value." Because there is no market for these trees, these projects sit on the shelf for years.

Forest Service budgets are tied to logging, not forest stewardship. The Forest Service has budgetary incentives to maximize the size of the commercial timber sale program. This leads to commercial "contamination" of projects that otherwise may be grounded in sound scientific principles. In their 1999 report, GAO found that Forest Service managers "tend to (1) focus on areas with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels." GAO further noted that "current incentives in the Agency's main fuel reduction program are acreage driven, not hazard based, and incentives in its timber program are largely driven by commercial rather than safety considerations."

Now is the time to provide adequate and responsible funding for forest stewardship. Together we can reduce or eliminate the risk of catastrophic wildfire in communities throughout the country in a scientifically credible manner. I invite you to join 92 of your colleagues as a co-sponsor of the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, H.R. 1396. If you would like to cosponsor this legislation, or if you have any questions, please contact Jon Fremont of my staff at extension 5-1605.

Sincerely,

Cynthia McKinney
Member of Congress

-----------------
Opinion
By the Chronicle Editorial Board
08/15/2000

Don't blame Clinton for the wildfires
By Bozeman Daily Chronicle Ed. Board


Politics is the crassest sport, especially when politicians try to spin a disaster to their political advantage.

In the latest example of the tactic, some high profile Republicans are blaming the Democrats of the Clinton administration for the forest fires raging around Montana and the rest of the West.

The Republicans stepping forward to spin the conflagration toward their political opponents include the party's candidate for president, George W. Bush, as well as here in Montana, Dennis Rehberg, candidate for the state's seat in the House of Representatives, and Gov. Marc Racicot, who angles for a position in the would-be Bush administration.

The Republican spin is that the Clintonites and associated environmentalists have reduced logging in the federal forests too much, allowing a dangerous buildup of standing wood ready to burn.

The Clintonites and enviros also get blamed for protecting virgin roadless forests too much and being too reluctant to use logging as a management tool.

Racicot has gone so far as to air his conflagration spin on national TV, including on CNN and ABC's "Good Morning America." Racicot says he warned repeatedly, beginning last year, that the federal forests in Montana need thinning to reduce the fire danger.

Like most blame games, this one breaks down when subjected to the facts:

n The fires consuming trees, brush and grass this summer are not only burning in never-roaded and never-logged wilderness. They're also burning in many forests that have been historically roaded and logged - as is shown by the toll of more than 50 buildings, including homes and cabins, destroyed so far by the flames. There are no buildings to burn in the environmentally correct wilderness.

n The fuels that are so ready to burn - small-diameter trees and brush - have built up for far longer than the Clinton administration has been in power, ever since the forests were put under federal management about 100 years ago.

For that long, the policy of the federal managers has been to allow logging companies to remove the large-diameter trees - the trees with thicker, fire-resistant bark and limbs out of reach of ground flames - year after year converting the forest to the smaller stuff that is way more flammable.

Logging companies take the large trees because they can be milled into the most profitable lumber products. With such relatively easy pickings, the companies failed to devise enough ways to profit on the thickets of small-diameter trees that grew up as replacements, so the forests steadily converted to tinder boxes.

The loggers have also prodded the federal foresters for decades to suppress natural fires wherever they popped up, even though many forests evolved naturally with frequent fires cleaning out the inventory of small stuff. The loggers and federal foresters together saw fire as an enemy that should not be allowed at all.

Many decades of skewing the forests toward the most flammable condition cannot be undone in a year or a single President's tenure, as Racicot and the other Republican spinners demand. It will take many decades to correct many previous decades of mismanagement, acre by acre over millions of acres.

And there is no evidence that putting the logging companies more in charge will reduce problems. Generations of loggers have pretty much had their way with the public's forests until fairly recently, and if blame is being spun, they have earned a share.

It's especially crass for politicians to make a political gain on the loss of homes and firefighter casualties, evacuations, and the choking smoke that Montanans have to breathe these days.

# # #


Matthew Koehler
Native Forest Network - Public Lands Project
P.O. Box 8251, Missoula, MT 59807
(406) 542-7343, fax (406) 542-7347
E-Mail: koehler@wildrockies.org

NFN's Public Lands Project works to protect America's National Forests from commercial logging and other forms of exploitation. To learn more: http://www.nativeforest.org/campaigns/public_lands/index.html

To learn more about the international forest protection efforts of the Native Forest Network visit:
http://www.nativeforest.org

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 8:47 AM

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Impressive, Nature Boy

by Ross Jr.

Nice job of accumulating top-notch references. It's always great to hear from people with true expertise.

Although much of the discussion of the Western fires has focused on forests, extensive grasslands and sage brush country have burned as well. The Hanford area (sage brush dominated) in eastern Washington was fairly well scorched this year. Logging this area would have been difficult and unprofitable due to a lack of trees.

There is no question that certain management approaches can reduce extensive fires, the most effective of which is prescribed burning. The Forest Service was in the middle of a prescribed burn in Los Alimos when they lost control. Interestingly, environmental "extremists" teamed with conservatives to grill the Secretary of Interior for this approach.



Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 10:44 AM

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I do believe that

by Naturalist

did nip that some what lame disscussion in the bud!

It's a sorry state of affairs when for some reason people such as Fat Freddy's Cat and Earlybird, think that they can blame decades upon decades of abuse by the logging industry and the Forest Service for the fires that run rampant in the west. Lets hope that we learn from this and pray it never happens to us. Some single fires in the west are larger, and have burned more acreage than whole counties here in southwest Virginia. Trying to make politics of the sad situation is pure stupitity. Conservative propaganda. As far as I am concerned it is all our own faults, for leaving matter's unattended for too long.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 3:41 PM

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Notes from the Shadow Convention

by CDF

The Week That Was -- An
Unconventional Diary
Filed August 17, 2000

Sunday, Aug. 13: The most inspiring part of the kickoff
of our bicoastal, bipartisan, by-the-people Shadow
Convention double-header was watching a sitting U.S. senator, Russ Feingold
(D-Wis.), step to the podium and take on his own party, refusing to toe the line and
accept what he called ``our brave new corporate democracy.'' With all the seasonal
emphasis on party loyalty and party unity, it was almost shocking to hear
Feingold's blistering indictment of what he called ``the worst display of fund-raising
and corruption in the political history of our nation .... Soft-money contributions,
make no mistake, are setting the agenda for the American Congress and for the
United States.'' It was like a cold shower on a sweltering day -- refreshing and
invigorating. It was like, well, straight talk.

Monday, Aug. 14: Violence in the streets. At the same time that President Clinton
was waxing on about our being ``one America,'' the L.A. Police Department's
exaggerated and disproportional use of force in confronting a crowd of protesters
showed that we are still very much a divided nation. And we'll stay that way until
those in positions of power stop looking at those inside the Staples Center as
people to be protected at all costs, and those outside in the streets as people to
be feared, controlled and brought down.

The Shadow Convention had its own ``LAPD moment'' when a bomb threat forced
part of the night's panel to be held out in the streets. Our evacuated audience
cheered. But the LAPD was less enthusiastic, deploying a hundred or so riot police
-- apparently in an effort to protect the good people of Los Angeles from Gore Vidal.
The police were armed with tear gas and rubber bullets -- which they didn't use.
Our panel was armed with zingers, barbs and the truth -- which they did. I'm not
exactly an impartial observer, but I still think our side won.

Tuesday, Aug. 15: Headline moment during a powerful program on the devastating
costs of America's war on drugs: a surprise appearance by New York's Rep.
Charles Rangel, one of the foremost proponents of the drug war in the 1980s, who
now feels ``it has been a war against people. It has warehoused our young. It has
denied us the opportunity to educate. It has forfeited the dreams and the
aspirations of young people. It has allowed drugs to come into our community as a
substitute for hope. This is unacceptable in any society, and it should be just
obscene in the great United States of America.''

Only-at-the-Shadow-Convention moment: Jesse Jackson bringing the crowd to its
feet, followed by Al Franken as Stuart Smalley, leaving the crowd rolling in the
aisles. ``When the poor, the black, the brown are caught with drugs,'' Jackson
roared, ``it's called a crime. When you're rich and inherit power, it's called a
youthful indiscretion. We demand one set of rules!'' ``I think pretty much everyone
should be in a 12-step program,'' advised Stuart Smalley. ``It teaches you things
like `It is easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world.' ''

Later at the Staples Center I got a glimpse of a horrible and painful condition known
as ``skybox envy.'' It mainly afflicts people who donated half-a-million dollars or
more, and its symptoms include unhappiness that one's luxury suite isn't as
luxurious as other luxury suites. These guys will never learn: It's not the size of
your skybox that counts, it's how you use it.

Many of the plush skybox occupants were members of the Jefferson Trust -- to join
it you have to contribute $100,000 or more to the party. So the Democrats took this
magnificent revolutionary and turned him into a fund-raising vehicle. At least the
Republicans called their fat-cat club the Regents.

Here's one for the department-of-hypocrisy file: The Democratic Party platform says
that the McCain-Feingold soft-money ban will be the ``first piece of legislation that
a President Al Gore will submit to Congress'' and that Gore `will fight for it until it
becomes the law of the land.'' But the Feingold of ``McCain-Feingold'' was given
only three minutes -- way before prime time -- to address the national convention.
While Feingold spoke, many of his Senate colleagues were attending a fancy
reception for party contributors hosted by Occidental Petroleum.

Wednesday, Aug. 16: With her rallying cry of ``Big money politics must end!''
88-year-old Granny D set the tone for the Shadow Convention's closing program on
campaign-finance reform. Then Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) related how he, his
wife, their new baby and all the ``baby stuff'' they were lugging were unable to get a
ride from the airport, despite an abundance of DNC courtesy vehicles -- which, he
was told, ``were reserved for big donors, not for members of Congress.'' It's the
story of this corporate convention in a nutshell -- and a diaper bag.

In the words of Joe Lieberman: ``Is America a great country, or what?''


Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:27 PM

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Most excellent post CDF

by Fat Freddy's Cat

You done good.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:23 PM

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The Green Panthers have been right all along

by CDF

Ages-Old Polar Icecap Is Melting, Scientists Find

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, NYT

The North Pole is melting.

The thick ice that has for ages
covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole
has turned to water, recent visitors
there reported yesterday. At least for
the time being, an ice-free patch of
ocean about a mile wide has opened
at the very top of the world, something
that has presumably never before
been seen by humans and is more
evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting
climate.

The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in
water was more than 50 million years ago.

"It was totally unexpected," said Dr. James J. McCarthy, an
oceanographer, director of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology at Harvard University and the co-leader of a group
working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
which is sponsored by the United Nations. The panel is studying
the potential environmental and economic consequences of
marked climate change.

Dr. McCarthy was a lecturer on a tourist cruise in the Arctic
aboard a Russian icebreaker earlier this month. On a similar
cruise six years ago, he recalled, the icebreaker plowed through
an icecap six to nine feet thick at the North Pole.

This time, ice was generally so thin that sunlight could penetrate
and support concentrations of plankton growing under the ice.
Dr. McCarthy said the icebreaker's Russian captain, who has
made the voyage 10 times in recent years, said he had never
before encountered open water at the pole.

Another lecturer, Dr. Malcolm C. McKenna, a paleontologist at
the American Museum of Natural History, said the ship, the
Yamal, crunched through miles of unusually thin ice and
intermittent open water on the approach from Spitsbergen,
Norway, to the pole. When the ship reached the pole -- which Dr.
McKenna and his wife, Priscilla, confirmed with a hand-held
Global Positioning System Priscilla, confirmed with a hand-held
Global Positioning System navigation device -- water lapped its
bow.

"I don't know if anybody in history ever got to 90 degrees north
to be greeted by water, not ice," Dr. McKenna said in an
interview. He instantly snapped pictures to document the
phenomenon in photographs.

The Yamal eventually had to steam six miles away to find ice
thick enough for the 100 passengers to get out and be able to
say they had stood on the North Pole, or close to it. They saw
ivory gulls flying overhead, the first time ornithologists said they
had ever been sighted at the pole.

Over the last century, the average surface temperature of the
globe has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, and the rate of
warming has accelerated in the last quarter century. (That's a
significant amount, considering that the world is only 5 to 9
degrees warmer now than it was in the last ice age, 18,000 to
20,000 years ago.) Scientists and policy makers are still
arguing about whether this is a natural fluctuation or an effect of
industrial society's releasing heat-trapping gasses into the
atmosphere.

"Some folks who pooh-pooh global warming might wake up if
shown that even the pole is beginning to melt at least
sometimes, as in the Eocene," Dr. McKenna added.

The Eocene was the geological period when the world's climate
grew significantly warmer. Around 55 million years ago,
according to sedimentary and fossil evidence, tropical
vegetation spread inside the Arctic and Antarctic circles. Water
and jungles dominated the polar environments, and in the
generally warm world, mammals for the first time grew in
number, size and diversity.

Previous studies of satellite and submarine observations have
seemed to establish a warming trend in the northern polar
region and raise the possibility of a melting icecap.

Scientists at the Goddard Space Science Institute, a NASA
research center in Manhattan, compared data from submarines
in the 1950's and 60's with 90's observations, demonstrating
that the ice cover over the entire Arctic basin has thinned by 45
percent. Satellite images have revealed that the extent of ice
coverage has significantly shrunk in recent years.

Dr. McCarthy said he would report the encounter with open
polar water to environmental scientists and consult other
scientists to see if new satellite remote-sensing data have
detected the extent of the melting.

Recalling the reaction of passengers when they saw an iceless
North Pole, he said: "There was a sense of alarm. Global
warming was real, and we were seeing its effects for the first
time that far north."

In their models of climate patterns, scientists have long
suggested that the northern polar region would be affected
earlier and more seriously than the southern region.

They said the greater expanse of land in the northern
hemisphere should respond more rapidly to temperature
change, presumably leading to marked climate change.


Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:36 PM

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Rosie's "Common Sense",, a cartoon

by brain surgeon

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1269



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:23 PM

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Very enlightening link Brain

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Thanks for posting it.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:51 PM

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your quite welcome F.F.C.

by brain surgeon

just something for the cause........;p

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:44 PM

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Rosie's "Common Sense"?

by nemesis

What a contradiction! Good cartoon and very interesting site though.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:35 PM

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The Know Nothing Candidate

by Goregasm

The Republicans have finally figured out how to not embarrass themselves - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. And George Dubya Bush has added a new dimension - he knows nothing. Bush is taking that ratio to new extremes.Mainly, that is because Bush is as devoid of ideas and solutions as his campaign. When he has said, several times so far in the campaign, that he doesn't know enough about an issue to form a position - he doesn't.there is another solid reason for the mental vacuity in Bush's campaign. It is the same reason why Republicans are unusually low-key lately. They are in grave danger of losing the House and Bush has many negatives and few positives.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 7:21 AM

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Agreed...and more

by Ross Jr.

It's fascinating to watch the development of this campaign. Bush rolls into the race proclaiming that he is now embracing a lot of liberal and centrist ideas. He starts the primary season with $65 million, yet he steals McCain's position on campaign reform. He runs tv ads ripping McCain for weeks; when McCain finally responds, Bush accuses him of going negative. The amazing part is the Republicans buy it, and McCain loses the race.

Now that the conventions are over, the situation is even more bizarre. The Bush campaign now stands firmly on both sides of every issue. Regardless of the position that the Gore/Lieberman ticket takes on an issue, they are accused by conservatives of either being raging liberals or hypocrites. Fascinatingly enough, this happens most frequently on core issues for the Republicans. Bush went over the $100 million dollar mark about a month ago, yet we hear shrieking about how Gore has sold out to big business. Both Bush and Cheney have been in positions of control of oil businesses, yet Gore is labeled as a "fat cat oil man" for owning a relatively small amount of holdings that aren't even in his name. I guess "hypocrisy" was the insult of the week for the conservatives because they are guilty of it themselves, and a good offense is the best defense.

Goregasm has it absolutely correct. The Republicans are hoping that they can rely on Dubya's short stump speeches and endearing humor while letting Gore flounder around trying to get a foothold. It seems to be working. If Bush wins the election, it will prove once more that it's nearly impossible to underestimate the intelligence of American voters.



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 9:03 AM

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A smidgen of truth in your statement

by Fat Freddy's Cat

"it's nearly impossible to underestimate the intelligence of American voters."

Witness Slick Willie and Algore being elected *TWICE!* Yopu would think that any intelligent voter might be fooled once, but by electing this criminal regime a second time, the American public have proven that they are either utterly stupid or devoid of any morals whatsoever.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:06 PM

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Good point...and is that why Dubya lifted Clinton's speech?

by Asst. Professor Skip

Who do you think George W. Bush resembles most: Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton? Dubya likes to pretend he's talking the talk of Reagan, but the reality is he is imitating Clinton in many ways: stealing the other party's ideas; quoting Clinton's speeches (but not citing Clinton); and, in reference to cocaine use, "deny deny deny."

Looks like I agree with you, FFC.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:29 PM

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I'm glad you agree. There might be some hope for you after all

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Ross, Jr.: "it's nearly impossible to underestimate the intelligence of American voters."

Fat Freddy's Cat: Witness Slick Willie and Algore being elected *TWICE!* You would think that any intelligent voter might be fooled once, but by electing this criminal regime a second time, the American public have proven that they are either utterly stupid or devoid of any morals whatsoever.

Asst. Professor Skip: Looks like I agree with you, FFC.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:41 PM

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Do I have to explain my post to you (again)?

by Asst. Professor Skip

Poor FFC -- struggles so hard with comprehension.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:48 PM

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Poor APS

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Struggles so hard to stay on a subject but often finds his comments straying wildly afield and in the end agreeing with me, but with no clue as to why. A friendly tip for you Skip: try to read the message you're commenting on and don't get sidetracked. That way you won't have to buy a clue.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 4:23 PM

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APS has one thing you don't ,FFC.....

by Sigmund Fraud

....COMMON SENSE!!

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:35 PM

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I beg to differ Siggy

by Fat Freddy's Cat

If Ass. Prof. Skip has any common sense, then why doesn't he show it?

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 4:28 PM

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or the

by or the

greatest nation on earth

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 9:59 PM

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Outrage Over Grand Jury Leak Backfires on Dems, Media

by Earlybird

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

For the story behind the story...


Friday August 18, 2000; 11:37 PM EDT

Outrage Over Grand Jury Leak Backfires
on Dems, Media

Democrats and their media mouthpieces had egg on
their faces late Friday, when a judge on the
panel overseeing Independent Counsel Robert Ray
revealed that it was he and not Ray who leaked
news that a new grand jury has been impaneled to
investigate President Clinton on Sexgate
charges.

From the moment the Associated Press broke the
story Thursday afternoon, Democrats howled that
the Bush campaign was in cahoots with the Office
of Independent Counsel, which they said had
leaked the story to deliberately embarass Vice
President Al Gore on the night of his convention
acceptance speech.

Never mind that Robert Ray is a Democrat who
earlier this year passed up the opportunity to
indict Hillary Clinton on Filegate and
Travelgate charges - or the fact that there
wasn't a shred of evidence linking Ray to the
leak.

But rather than wait for the facts to come in,
Democrats leapt at the chance to slander the
independent counsel:

"The timing of the leak reeks to high heaven,"
said White House spokesman Jake Siewert. "Given
the record of the Office of Independent Counsel,
the timing is hardly surprising."

"The timing just absolutely stinks," complained
former White House counsel Jack Quinn. "And the
American people are not going to be distracted
by it."

"To have a prosecutor so involved in the
political process reminds one not of America but
of a Third World country," an outraged Sen.
Charles Schumer told Newsday, adding, "For it to
break on the biggest night of (Gore's) political
career is a shot below the belt."

Democrat political consultant Bill Carrick was
beside himself, charging that "either these
prosecutors are the most malicious bunch of
people that ever lived, or they're so dumb that
they should just be disbarred for plain
political stupidity."

Not to be outdone, network anchormen Dan Rather
and Tom Brokaw peppered their convention
coverage Thursday night with complaints about
the timing of the grand jury news.

"You don't have to be a cynic to note that this
has all the earmarks of a carefully
orchestrated, politically motivated leak,"
Rather reported later on CBSNews.com.

"The Republican-backed Robert Ray is sponsored
by a three-judge panel that must periodically
decide whether Ray's investigation should
continue. This panel features two federal judges
backed by the Jesse Helms wing of the Republican
Party."

Rather's investigative instincts
notwithstanding, the leak, it turned out, came
from the third judge, Robert Cudahy, who was
appointed by President Carter.

Without a doubt, apologies to Mr. Ray are in
order from all concerned. Whether they'll be
forthcoming is another matter altogether.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 6:05 AM

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Untitled

by Goregasm

That's all the GOP offers America - peeping into your bedroom. If Bush is elected, they will repeat 1998 and shut down the government so they can investigate the sex lives of their political opponents.Where is the GOP outrage over Republican sex scandals.House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde:Hyde was a married member of the Illinois legislature when he had a five-year affair with Cherie Snodgrass, a married woman 12 years younger."The statute of limitations has long since passed on my youthful indiscretions," Hyde said in a statement. "Suffice it to say, Cherie Snodgrass and I were good friends a long, long time ago. After Mr. Snodgrass confronted my wife, the friendship ended and my marriage remained intact." According to the former Mrs. Snodgrass "... the affair continued for at least two and a half years after Hyde's wife, Jeanne, was told of the relationship." According to Hyde, he was 41 years old when his affair began in 1965, and by her account was nearly 50 when the sexual relationship finally ended. She also stated that she knew Hyde was involved in at least one other adulterous relationship besides the one he had with her.House Judiciary Committee member Bob Barr:The first hypocrite exposed by Larry Flynt is Bob Barr. Barr and his current wife, Jeri, were in an adulterous relationship prior to his divorce in 1986. Neither Barr nor his current wife, Jeri, denied an affair when asked about it repeatedly during the divorce proceedings. In fact they were married one month after the divorce was final. Barr is refusing to discuss his personal life with the news media. But he has repeatedly had a lot to say on Clinton's personal life.Also, Barr's former wife, Gail, said Barr paid for an abortion she had in 1983 and that he never objected to it. However, Barr said under oath in his 1986 divorce testimony that he did object to the abortion. Barr issued a statement saying "I have never perjured myself...I have never suggested, urged, forced or encouraged anyone to have an abortion." PLEASE NOTE: Barr claims to support "Family Values" and is a strong anti-abortion advocate.House Government Reform and Oversight Committee chairman Dan Burton:Rep. Burton has acknowledged that he fathered a child out of wedlock during an extramarital affair in the early 1980s.The relationship took place in the early 1980s, when Burton was a member of the Indiana Senate and the woman, now married, worked for a state agency.A spokesman for Burton's committee, Will Dwyer, said Burton made the admission to preempt rapidly surfacing reports of the affair.Please note that after the Clinton affair became known, Burton called Clinton a "scumbag".
UPDATE 1/5/99: Burton has also paid nearly $500,000 to Claudia Keller. Keller, a former model, is paid $22,000 a year for 2 days of work per week in Burton's office and $44,000 a year as a Campaign Manager. In addition, she is paid by Burton's office for the appearances of her "Buttons and Bows" clown service. Burton also paid her $250 a month for a room in her home. (This was the Campaign Headquarters even though it was outside his district.) Just for good measure, Burton's campaign paid at least $1,500 to Keller's daughter, Sandy; $1,000 to her ex-husband William Fair and even Keller's sister, Elizabeth, has received payments from Burton's district office.
Former House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston:On December 17, 1998 Bob announced, "... during my 33-year marriage to my wife, Bonnie, I have on occasion strayed from my marriage ... " He admitted that the reason he made the announcement was because he knew that his secret was about to get out. (What an honest man!)According to the Irish Times, Larry Flynt had evidence that Livingston had had affairs with at least 4 women. The Irish Times also learned that Livingston became aware that Larry Flynt had in his possession audiotapes of sexually explicit telephone conversations between Mr. Livingston and a woman. It was the nature of the sexual talk that was so disturbing, said this source. It was clearly a sexual relationship of a sado-masochistic or dominant-submissive nature.
At one point in the conversation, Mr Livingston asks the woman a question to the effect, can't I be the victim next time? (The precise wording of the question could not be confirmed.) What was clear was that Mr Livingston was clearly interested in playing a sexually submissive role.Mr. Flynt, for the record, did not wish to disclose the specific nature of the evidence he has against Mr Livingston. "It was much more than he said in his initial statement. He knew our investigation was under way."Other moral Republican's areOn December 17, 1998 Bob announced, "... during my 33-year marriage to my wife, Bonnie, I have on occasion strayed from my marriage ... " He admitted that the reason he made the announcement was because he knew that his secret was about to get out. (What an honest man!)
According to the Irish Times, Larry Flynt had evidence that Livingston had had affairs with at least 4 women. The Irish Times also learned that Livingston became aware that Larry Flynt had in his possession audiotapes of sexually explicit telephone conversations between Mr. Livingston and a woman. It was the nature of the sexual talk that was so disturbing, said this source. It was clearly a sexual relationship of a sado-masochistic or dominant-submissive nature.
At one point in the conversation, Mr Livingston asks the woman a question to the effect, can't I be the victim next time? (The precise wording of the question could not be confirmed.) What was clear was that Mr Livingston was clearly interested in playing a sexually submissive role.Mr. Flynt, for the record, did not wish to disclose the specific nature of the evidence he has against Mr Livingston. "It was much more than he said in his initial statement. He knew our investigation was under way."Rep. Henry Hyde
Broke up a family during his seven year adulterous affair!
Mike Bowers
Cheated on his wife for FIFTEEN YEARS!
Newt Gingrich
Dumped his ex-wife while she was in a hospital bed suffering from cancer...
Bob Dole
Cheated on his first wife with his current wife, Elizabeth Dole.
Former Rep. Bob Dornan
Reported to have cheated on and beaten his wife.
John Linder
Has a wandering eye for his female staff members.
Ronald Reagan
Dumped Jane Wyman by cheating on her with several Hollywood starlets
William Cohen
Dumped his wife for a new one.
Guy Millner
because he has sex with women he isn't married to....
Rush Limbaugh
Fat as he may be, he cheated on two of his three wives...
Mitch Skandalakis
Hired hookers from his Las Vegas hotel room!
Michael Deaver
Was so drunk he doesn't remember hiring hookers...
John Warner
Dumped his wife for Elizabeth Taylor...
Bill Randall
A Florida Congressional candidate and minister, he fathered an illegitimate child during his
affair!
Bill McCartney
Promise Keepers founder who didn't keep his Promise to his wife and then lied about it for
20 years!
Rep. Dan Burton
Had at least six adulterous affairs, and fathered a bastard son who, today, he ignores!!
Rep. Bob Barr
Cheated on all three of his wives!
Rudolph Giuliani
Boffs his assistant in Gracie Mansion while his wife stays home with the kids!
Sen. Strom Thurmond
Cheated on his fourth wife at age 88!!
Gilbert Davis
Allowed himself to be videotaped DrUnK during his adultery!
Bob Packwood
Drank huge amounts of hard liquor and then tongue-kissed his female staffers against their
will!
Gov. Kirk Fordice
Got so hopped up by his mistress that he crashed his Jeep Cherokee and got himself hurt!
Beverly Russell
The Christian Coalition coordinator who molested his stepdaughter Susan Smith, who later
killed her own kids.
.Marv Albert
Calls himself a Republican, bites his longtime mistresses, and has sex with her while wearing
women's underwear
Michael Huffington
The Former GOP Congressman who cheated on his wife Arianna - with other men!
Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin
had an adulterous affair with her Security Guard - a state trooper!
Rep. Helen Chenoweth
Who screwed most every married male member of the Idaho Legislature!






Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 8:27 AM

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You Rock Goregasm!

by A Fan of Goregasm

Keep it coming!

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:00 PM

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Just one question

by Rainman

What exactly does your reply have to do with Earlybird's post?

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:35 PM

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It seems that

by Goregasm

Republicans are only interested in Clintons Penis. Bush is running against Gore not Bill's unit.How do we know every politician hasn't had a Monica or two? We don't, because before this 10-6th crybaby congress, there's never been a bunch of vengeful buttholes enraged enough at losing two elections to spend $60,000,000 to hire more FBI agents than OKC and TWA 800 combined to scour Arkansas searching for women who may have known Bill Clinton.Are the American people going to pay another $60,000,000 while republicans chase Clintons penis?

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:06 PM

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I am not surprised by your ignorance.

by Caliburn

Your previous post had nothing to do with Earlybirds post and this post has nothing to do with Rainman's post. Rather than offer an appology for the stupidity of your democratic leaders and the biased liberal national media, you choose to attack others not involved in any way with this matter. You are a typical democrat. Attack and smear. Ignore the truth and shout louder than anyone else. I do believe you are Gerald Gray.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 10:57 PM

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It's all

by Goregasm

about Clintion's penis,and republicans can't keep there hands and minds off of it.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:47 AM

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Looks like you, Goregasm are the only one talking about it.

by Anonymous

Clinton's Penis that is.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 8:58 AM

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She doesn't want to get it Caliburn

by Earlybird

As some smart sage once said on the DCDB- the liberals already know all they want to know and don't want their opinions to be clouded by facts.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:03 AM

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Wait a minute

by Questioning

I thought the liberals said that about the conservatives. Are you sure?

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:55 AM

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I'm absolutely positive

by Earlybird

It was first said by either Topper, Caliburn, Nemesis or Rainman.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 7:12 AM

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I don't remember it that way

by Curious

I remember that it was Ross, Jr., or Assistant Professor Skip.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:02 PM

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Hee hee

by Earlybird

If that's the way you remember it, Brain Surgeon might have a real job on his hands because it certainly was not originated be a liberal.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 5:50 AM

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tough is my middle name

by brain surgeon

the tougher the job the better,,

realy gives my skills a work over........;p

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 6:18 AM

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Right....

by Sigmund Fraud

...I'd be willing to wager you can't remember where you crapped last!!

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 2:08 PM

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One major difference babydoll

by Fat Freddy's Cat

THEY DIDN'T LIE UNDER OATH!

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:54 PM

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You don't seem

by Goregasm

to mind that Reagan lied about arms for hostages.You don't care that Bush claimed he didn't know about it, either.You don't care that Bush lied about, "No new taxes."You don't care that Ford lied about not pardoning Richard Nixon.You don't care that Nixon lied about ending the Vietnam war in 1975 Think how many fewer panels would be needed for the Vietnam Memorial if Nixon wasn't such a damn liar.


Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 6:05 PM

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Soft memories, indeed

by Ross Jr.

It's amazing how easily we forget that Nixon topped them all in terms of lying again and again about matters of substance (not sex scandals). I have no doubt that much of the outrage against Clinton is retribution for the Nixon embarrassment.

(One small correction: the cease fire for the Vietnam war established in January, 1973. Nixon's original promise was to get our troops out by the end of 1970).

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 7:19 PM

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Thanks for the

by Goregasm

Correction Ross Jr. I was trying to rember the exact number of service men killed in the war, between the Nixon pledge and the cease fire. Guess I was thinking and not typing.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 9:17 PM

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A question for you Ross

by Fat Freddy's Cat

What administration got us into the Viet Nam war? Extra points for honesty.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 4:31 PM

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Try Eisenhower

by James

When the first advisers were sent.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:02 PM

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Not an easy question to answer...

by Ross Jr.

The answer to your question as stated is hardly clear, FFC. The experiences of World War II and Korea helped maintain the feeling in the U.S. that a continued show of strength would ward off Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. This attitude was shared by Democrats and Republicans alike from the late ‘40s through the ‘60s.

The Truman Doctrine (March 1947) provided funds to "support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures," aimed mostly at Communists in Western Europe and the Middle East. In 1949, Dean Rusk (deputy under the Secretary of State) announced that "resources of the United States would be deployed to reserve Indochina and Southeast Asia from further Communist encroachment."

Dwight Eisenhower committed advisors to the region but resisted direct involvement. He was advised by his staff and the Pentagon at various times to commit troops and tactical nuclear bombs. However, the Eisenhower administration abided by the terms of a 1954 agreement drawn up in Geneva and never committed U.S. forces.

In late 1961, John F. Kennedy made the commitment to place combat troops in Vietnam but was still denying this fact in January 1962. The combat troops were committed later that year.


Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 9:33 PM

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You STILL don't get it do you?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

THEY DIDN'T LIE UNDER OATH!

And most of the items you cite are untruths anyway.

Please buy a clue so you won't look so foolish babe.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 4:28 PM

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What about Ollie North?

by James

Your own Republican Senate candidate in 94? He was CONVICTED of lying under oath! LOL

Can you spell "lack of credibility"? LOL

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:04 PM

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Changing the subject again? Anyway, as usual, your facts are wrong

by Earlybird

Clinton was the one who shut down the government. Most of your other "facts" are mere idle gossip and you know it. But then what else can we expect except distorions, half-truths, lies, gossip and innuendo from you "all-knowing" liberals?

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:11 AM

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Your facts are the ones that are wrong!

by James

How can you claim that Clinton shut down the government when even the Republican Congress admitted it was them! Good grief, and you accuse someone else of having their facts wrong?

Newt Gingrich even stated that part of the reason they decided to shut down the government was because he felt snubbed by Clinton during the 25 hour flight to Yitzak Rhabin's funeral.

December 1995: President Clinton and Congressional Democrats Refuse to Yield to Republican Anti-Working Family Agenda: In December 1995, the Republicans were holding the federal budget process hostage in a vain attempt to force the President to yield to their demands to eliminate the Department of Education, slash Medicare spending, roll back 25 years of bipartisan progress on environmental protection, kill the COPS program and enact the largest education cuts in the nation's history. The Republicans had already shut down the government once in November 1995.

December 15-16, 1995: GOP Shuts Down the Government & Leaves Town to Celebrate the Holidays: On December 14, 1995, House Republicans walked out of the budget negotiations with the White House and the Senate, effectively shutting down the government for the second time that year. When the continuing resolution ran out at midnight on December 15, 1995, Congress left town, most of the government shut down, and a quarter of a million federal employers were out of work during the holiday season. [CQ Weekly, 12/23/95]

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay: "We don't have to negotiate with the Senate, we don't have to negotiate with the Democrats." [Washington Times, 01/08/96]

Republican House Budget Chairman, John Kasich: In July, House Budget Chairman John Kasich (R-OH) promised, "If we close down, people will listen." Sure enough, opinion polls that winter indicated the American people overwhelmingly blamed the Republican Congress for shutting down the government. [Washington Post, 7/25/95, 1/19/96]

House Majority Leader Dick Armey: Armey ducked the President rather than continuing budget negotiations: "Now if you're going to run around the country and tell the world how ugly we are all month long, you can't come back into town and expect a date on Saturday night." [CNN News 10/25/95]

Looks like it's YOU Earlybird with your facts wrong. Just goes to prove the saying, "What hurts is not what you DON'T know, it's what you KNOW FOR SURE, that JUST AIN'T SO."



Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 3:53 PM

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It looks like you're wrong again James dear

by Earlybird

First, if you really have an open mind, go to this link:

http://www.daily.ou.edu/issues/1996/jan-24/budget-timeline.processed.html

Washington, D.C.-- U.S. Rep. John Shadegg (AZ-4) today issued the following statement
regarding the pending government Shutdown:

"Approximately 3 weeks ago -- following a six day shutdown of the federal government --
President Clinton made a promise to the American people. After lengthy negotiations he agreed
to balance the federal budget over a period of 7-years using real numbers produced by the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Now on the eve of yet another costly and destructive
shut-down he is breaking that promise."

"While the President's promise was conditioned on an agreement that CBO would consult
with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and that within the budget certain spending
priorities would be protected, he nonetheless agreed to a 7-year, CBO scored budget and put his
signature on this agreement. Notwithstanding his agreement he has refused to even propose a
7-year, CBO scored balanced budget," Shadegg stated.

"If the federal government shuts down tomorrow at midnight, the cause of that shutdown
will be clear. The President will have once again broken his word. The blame for this next
shutdown will be his and his alone," said Shadegg.

"Within the parameters of the President's previous promise, Republicans stand ready and
willing to negotiate. If however he feels free to violate that promise, there is little to negotiate."

If and when good faith negotiations resume between Congress and the White House over a
balanced budget deal, Shadegg said he cannot support any new budget deal which spends
significantly more money than Congress has proposed. "The people of the 4th District did not
send me to Washington to make a deal with President Clinton. They sent me to fight for the
principles I articulated in my campaign: to change the direction of the federal government and
spend less, not to increase spending," Shadegg said.

"This is a spending issue. We are in a battle to end the excessive, government spending
which has resulted in an ever increasing deficit and a burdensome debt. Having come this far,
we cannot now back down, compromise, spend more money and increase the size of
government."

The attached chart displays the budget bills and tax cuts for 1995. "As this chart shows,
proposed spending levels have increased consistently as the legislation has moved through the
process. Similarly, the tax relief we promised the American people has been pared down. If
there is going to be any more compromise, savings should go to deficit reduction," Shadegg
said. "We cannot tell the American people we have balanced the budget -- if we are not on the
road to doing so. I will not back down in this fight."





Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 6:26 AM

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Do you have any other source for your news?

by James

...other than Newsmax.com, the most biased Conservative news outlet there is?

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 4:01 PM

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I'll help you

by Earlybird

find other good news sites like Newsmax and CNS if you are ready to open your eyes dear.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 6:31 AM

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Today's quote

by Earlybird

Steven Wright:
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:45 AM

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A stronger Republican

by Topper

I find I'm becoming a stronger Republican with every word out of Gore's mouth. James is making me stronger, too. They say that which doesn't kill you will make you stronger.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:55 AM

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You may need strengthening

by Asst. Professor Skip

Do you really feel the threat of death from Gore's speeches or from James? Ouch!

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 1:26 AM

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Me too

by Earlybird



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:42 AM

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You go Topper

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Only weak minds can be negatively affected by the Demo-gogery of Algore and his lackeys.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:50 PM

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Let us grow stronger.

by Caliburn

And kick the $*%# out of them Demos.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 11:03 PM

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Remember how conservatives say that "Clinton made a mockery of America to the world"?

by Anony-man

Here's an editorial from a British newspaper/site. The URL is:

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/17/timopnope01006.html

This is your average reaction to Bill Clinton among developed European countries. Contrary to what the GOP would have you believe, HE isn't mocked abroad, but the false puritans who tried (and continue to try) to make a legal case out of his pecadillos, are. I even remember reading an Irish news site at the time the Starr report was released, where they carried news that not even CNN's web site contained. Items such as prominent Europeans (entertainers, public officials, Nobel prize recipients, etc.) coming together in a show of support for Clinton. Items such as a German journalist filing suit against Ken Starr because the decimation of Starr's pornography to letigimate sites would allow access to it in German schools...

Yep, Kenny's pal and fellow Clinton pen!s-obsessor Robert Ray, desperate for sloppy seconds, may have done the Democrats the biggest favor possible today by leaking the story about more Lewinsky BS that Americans clearly want to put behind them.
-------------------------
Clinton - still master of all he surveys


As I watched Bill Clinton deliver his masterly valediction to the Democrats in Los Angeles on Monday, I was reminded of a guiding principle for understanding American politics that has served me well in the past 20 years. If you want to know what is going on in America, don't believe what you read in the papers. There is no substitute for flying across the Atlantic, seeing events with your own eyes and talking to ordinary Americans.

This has been a firm principle of mine since the early 1980s, when I first went to work in Washington a year after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. President Reagan was derided by pundits around the world and throughout America itself as a cross between a village idiot and Dr Strangelove. His economic policies were ridiculed as "voodoo economics" by no less a person than his own Vice-President, George Bush. In his first year in office, the United States suffered its worst recession since the 1930s. And yet it was evident after just a few weeks' travel around the country that America was at a turning-point, that the Reaganauts had caught the flood tide of history, that the President himself had an almost psychic rapport with America's public mood.

Never have the media - and especially the powerful Washington-based opinion barons who dominate everything that passes for political thinking in America - failed so utterly to take the measure of a politician as they did with Bill Clinton.

How many American pundits imagined just over a year ago, in the midst of the ludicrous impeachment "trial" before the US Senate, that Bill Clinton would be remembered by history not as an embarrassing sexual pervert, but as one of the few truly great US Presidents of the 20th century?

According to conventional wisdom, history will record President Clinton's political and economic achievements as no more than a footnote in a Karma Sutra-style chapter on sexual gymnastics. Nobody denies that America is more economically prosperous, more socially stable and more globally dominant than at any time since the early 1960s, but most commentators maintain that the President deserves little or no credit for all these boons.

And virtually all Washington pundits believe that Al Gore's best electoral strategy now is to show a frosty disdain for Clinton's personal foibles, while emphasising the Vice-President's alleged involvement in developing the policies the White House pursued. Gore's own handlers and spin-doctors seem impressed by this theory.

Why, then, do I believe that both these assessments of Clinton's legacy are wrong? Why do I think that the President will look a towering and impressive figure both through the telescope of history and through the microscope of electoral tactics?

On the question of electoral tactics, recent experience suggests that American voters are often more intelligent than political pundits. If history judges Clinton well, then so probably will the voters. If the Clinton legacy is viewed with gratitude by the public, then Gore's best bet will be to present himself as the candidate of continuity and a vote for him as a vote of thanks to President Clinton. As for Clinton's "personal problems", there is no reason why his priapism should reflect more negatively on his successor than the Alzheimer's disease which began to afflict Reagan in his later years (and was certainly much more debilitating from a practical standpoint).

But why should the public be grateful? After all, governments do not create prosperity. Profitable employment and sustainable economic growth are created by private businesses, workers and investors. Thus Clinton cannot directly take credit for America's superb economic performance and the first sustained improvement in the living standards of poor and middle-class Americans for 30 years. But what this argument misses is the negative role that governments usually play.

Governments may not be able to do much to improve productivity or create jobs, but they can certainly wreck the economy. To say that the Clinton Administration did America's economy no harm may sound like damnation with faint praise, but it is an accolade of the highest order.

Consider how few other governments - not just in America but anywhere in the world - can claim to have done nothing to obstruct economic progress for two full presidential terms. Certainly this cannot be said of Reagan and Bush, who presided over two recessions, created a dangerous budget deficit and permitted the wildest exchange-rate swings in US history, or of Carter, who almost lost America its global economic leadership, or of Nixon and Ford, who coined the word "stagflation", or of Kennedy and Johnson, who inaugurated 15 years of global economic crises with their vast expansion of government spending and inflationary financing of the Vietnam War.

This catalogue of blundering governments could be extended backwards through history to the dawn of civilisation and geographically across the length and breadth of the capitalist world. It does not prove, as is often claimed by conservatives, that the only good economic policy is no policy at all.

On the contrary, many of the world's worst economic mishaps, ranging from the US Depression of the 1930s to the ERM fiasco in Britain and the collapse of the Japanese economy in 1997 were based on the premise that governments should use some kind of auto-pilot to set interest rates and taxes and then simply let events take their course. Thus to say that a government's greatest economic achievement is to do the economy no harm, is not the same as to advocate a policy of laissez faire. Both economic theory and history have shown that capitalist economies do not remain stable for long if left to themselves. Booms and busts have to be consciously avoided with skilled and responsible management of monetary and fiscal policy. Free trade must be actively promoted, often at substantial political cost. Financial markets are not always automatically self-correcting; crises have to be consciously averted or contained. Competition is constantly threatened by monopolistic forces; it needs to be actively protected and enforced.

This is what Bill Clinton has done, by appointing outstanding people to run his Treasury Department, by giving political support to the Federal Reserve Board while quietly reminding it of its dual mandate to promote economic expansion as well as keeping inflation under control, by actively intervening in global financial crises, by encouraging his Justice Department to pursue an aggressive policy of anti-trust enforcement, by taking some big political risks on behalf of free trade.

All this is just a longwinded way of making the point that Clinton crystalised in the most heartfelt sentence of Monday's speech. "To those who say that the progress of the last eight years was an accident, that we just coasted along, let's be clear: America's success was not a matter of chance, it was a matter of choice."

From now on, it will be up to Gore to bang the drum with this message. Whether he can do so half as effectively as Clinton remains unclear. Late tonight, after his acceptance speech in Los Angeles, we may have a better idea.

But whatever happens to Gore, Clinton's position in history seems pretty secure. On the most politically charged issues that divided America during the 1970s and 1980s - abortion, civil rights, affirmative action, sexual tolerance, school prayer and even the level of taxes and the size of government - it is the radical Republicans who are now desperately trying to silence their extremists and clambering on to the progressive, liberal territory staked out by Clinton, not the other way round. Above all, Clinton has removed from the political agenda the radical Republican demands for a minimalist laissez faire government and an end to progressive taxation that were hailed as irresistible in the years up to 1994.

In Britain it is often said that Labour won the last election only by conceding that it had lost the argument. But in America exactly the opposite is true. Even if the Democrats were to end up losing this year's election (which seems most unlikely), Clinton will have won many of the most important arguments in American politics.





Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:51 AM

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Well what do you expect from socialist commentators and apologists?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Socialists stick together and attack anyone and anything that they feel exposes their comrades. That's a known fact that anyone with an open mind would be able to see.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:00 PM

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Conservatives take note: the words this week are "apologist" and "socialist"

by Asst. Professor Skip

FFC --

Take a hard look at Dubya's proposals for social security and other entitlement programs. Unless he's a lying hypocrite (last weeks' word), then he's slowly becoming a socialist (this week's word).



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:24 PM

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Yeah....

by Sigmund Fraud

you've got an "open mind" all right,BABE. So open that I'll bet I could look in one of your ears and see daylight on the other side. ROTFL

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:49 PM

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Speaking of open minds

by Fat Freddy's Cat

I think it's about time for you to air yours out because it's becoming all moldy and mildewed.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 4:32 PM

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That's the absolute truth

by Earlybird

Very insightful FFC.

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 6:34 AM

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a Midi guess

by brain surgeon

could it be...
.
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.
.
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.
.

.
.
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the theme to ; "The Fall Guy"...????

.....;p

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 12:38 AM

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Same Genre, But...

by nemesis

...Nope. Not "The Fall Guy" theme.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:45 PM

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COALFIELD EXPRESSWAY MAP

by Anonymous

I have replaced the "guestimate" map with one that is accurate. You may see the route of the Coalfield Expressway by going to the following link:



COALFIELD EXPRESSWAY


Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 11:20 PM

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CORRECT LINK

by Sorry about that

I have replaced the "guestimate" map with one that is accurate. You may see the route of the Coalfield Expressway by going to the following link:



COALFIELD EXPRESSWAY


Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 11:23 PM

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Thank you for posting this link

by Earlybird



Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 6:40 AM

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Chickenhawks versus Pacifists?

by Anony-man

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate:

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt - Served his country in uniform, 1965-71
House Minority Whip David Bonior - Served his country in uniform, 1968-72
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle - Served his country in uniform, 1969-72
President of the Senate Albert Gore - Served his country in uniform, 1969-71

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - avoided the draft, did not serve.
Majority Leader Dick Armey- avoided the draft, did not serve.
Majority Whip Tom Delay - avoided the draft, did not serve.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott - avoided the draft, did not serve.

Conservatives make great fun of President Clinton for questioning the Vietnam War,
standing up to his beliefs and questioning his own participation in that war as well, i.e.,
being honest and walking the walk of his own belief system at least for a time.

On the other hand there were literally millions of dishonest hypocritical, cowardly
right-wing loonies who supported the war while refusing to personally participate.

Here are just a few of the Chicken Hawks:

Elliott Abrams - Sought deferment for bad back.
Richard Armey - Sought college deferment, too smart to die.
Bill Bennett - Sought graduate school deferment, too smart to die.
Pat Buchanan - Sought deferment for bad knee.
George W. Bush - Daddy got him in the National Gaurd
Dick Cheney - Sought graduate school deferment, too smart to die.
Tom DeLay - - Sought college deferment, too smart to die.
Newt Gingrich - Sought graduate school deferment, too smart to die.
Phil Gramm - Sought marriage deferment, too loved to die.
Jack Kemp - Sought medical deferment while in the NFL.
Rush Limbaugh - Sought deferment for ingrown hair follicle on his ass.
Trent Lott - Sought deferment, didn't want to muss his hair.
P.J. O'Rourke - Sought deferment, too stoned.
Dan Quayle - Family got him into the Reserves.
Pat Robertson - Father pulled him out of Korea as soon as the shooting began.
Kenneth Starr - Sought deferment for psoriasis.
John Wayne - Sought deferment to further acting career.
Vin Weber - Sought deferment for asthma.
George Will - Sought deferment, too much of a wussy.






Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:39 PM

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You forgot a couple or three

by Donkey Dung

Bill Clinton-Personally wrote a military general groveling for his deferment saying how much he loathed the military. Was this before or after he went to Moscow, Russia to smoke dope and be a war protestor against the United States of America?

Al Gore-Daddy Gore got him a nice, safe office position during the Vietnam War.

Rick Boucher-Don't ask, don't tell.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 10:24 PM

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Not a bad point or two...

by Asst. Professor Skip

Yes, we can't forget that Bill Clinton actually stood up for his ideals. No doubt, a lot of people found and still find his stand offensive; many of these folks are on Anony-man's list of draft dodgers.

As for Gore -- you could be right. But, the very fact that Gore went to Vietnam at all puts him a few notches above Bush. Do you think Dubya could find Vietnam on a world map?

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 1:34 AM

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Remember when Algore got himself lost in a forest?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

It was just a few months after the start of the regime's first term. Old Al apparently had to answer nature's call and promptly got himself lost. The contingent that was with him had to search and search before they were able to find him a couple of hours later. I guess the forests out in the country aren't quite as easy to find your way around in as the ones where he grew up- Washington, D.C.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:14 PM

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Remember when Dubya...

by Asst. Professor Skip

Remember when Dubya's record for the last year of his reserves record disappeared?

Remember when Dubya couldn't remember various European capitals?

Remember when Dubya decided he wouldn't lower himself to giving an honest yes or no answer to questions about his cocaine use?

Funny stuff, don't you think?

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:39 PM

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And remember when.....

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Algore had to go tinkle in the middle of important discussions about illegal campaign contributions?

Remember when he invented the internet?

Remember when he thought the movie "Love Story" was based on him?

Remember when Algore couldn't tell he was in a monastery?

Funny stuff don't you think? And the list certainly doesn't stop there.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:47 PM

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Fat Freddy's Cat, aka Limbaugh's parrot: strike one, strike two ... strike three?

by Asst. Professor Skip

Limbaugh delivered all that garbage out of context, FFC. Read the entire passages. Don't you find it embarrassing to have someone else do your thinking for you, particularly when they are wrong so often?

Unfortunately, Bush's antics are stand alone and require no context.



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:53 PM

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APS....

by Sigmund Fraud

...she has to have someone do her thinking for her(she's "mentally" challenged!).

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 5:53 PM

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You're a woman?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

I thought you wrote like a woman. But why are you using a man's name? Oh wait. I don't want to
know. Yeeks!

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 4:46 PM

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I've read every one of Algore's lies

by Fat Freddy's Cat

They are self-explanatory. Not a single one that I've read has been taken out of context. I only listen to Rush maybe once or twice a month bur maybe if you would listen every now and then, you might start to learn things. Don't you also find it embarrassing and demeaning to be an apologist for such an idiot as Algore and his master?

Posted on Aug 21, 2000, 4:38 PM

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Hey : FUBAR

by River Fisherman

Any objection to a man coming out and being a good neighbor ?

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:07 PM

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Hey, R.F.

by Les Beanpillow

Ol` FUBAR`s been havin` some computer problems here lately. Might havta call`im.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 1:37 PM

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That's correct....

by Mr. Fix-it

..hope to have him running Sunday night.

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 2:10 PM

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Haysi virus

by Joker

You have been hacked!!


As we don't have any programming experience, this virus works on the honor system. Please delete all the files on your hard drive, then manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list.

Thank you for your cooperation.



Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:04 PM

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AW,, MAN,,,

by brain surgeon

,, what a bummer ,,

i lost all my gif's and jpg's with that virus..

good thing i have them saved on my geo cities web-page...

i bet that Asst. Prof. Skip would have been pleased if i lost them allllll,,



........;p

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:32 PM

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Star letter concerning garbage collection is right on the mark

by

To the gentleman who wrote that letter, you were right on the mark with what you wrote. I am glad that someone out there is committed to going above and beyond the duties of their job to inform the citizens of our county on waste issues.

I do not agree with the woman who wrote in from Backbone Ridge. I can understand her frustration, but I believe when someone stands up as Mr. Hill did, and speaks out to protect his fellow workers as well as inform the people, he is to be commended, not ridiculed.

Thanks again to him for his letter.



Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:08 PM

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Thank You Mr. Layne.

by

I feel that as a public servant, I should strive to do the best work possible for the citizens of this county. At the Solid Waste Dept., we try to do everything in our power to keep our county clean. We are limited to certain duties.

With the help of the residents, we all will overcome. If you can help by reporting those who would make our county into a dumping ground, we all can make a difference.

Report Litter Bugs to the proper authorities.

To coin part of a phrase form Smokey the Bear,

Only You Can Prevent Litter.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 8:44 PM

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Hear, hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by theherbwoman

Ze Garbage Man speaks ze truth!!!!!!!!

BIG OLE' ROUND OF APPLAUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bravo! Bravo!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 10:40 PM

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Let's Hope The Coalfields Expressway Is Started Before Gilnore Leaves Office

by nemesis

We don't know how the next Governor, no matter what his political persuasion, will view the need for the Coalfields expressway.

****************************************************************************************************

By KATHY STILL
Bristol Herald Courier

RICHLANDS-- The Commonwealth Transportation Board
gave Southwest Virginia what it wanted Thursday by picking
the corridor local leaders endorsed for the Coalfields
Expressway.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shirley Ybarra
announced the road alignment in an interactive broadcast from
Richmond to Southwest Virginia Community College. Two
rooms full of officials from Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise
counties attended the event.

The four--laned highway will travel 51 miles across rivers
and ridges from Pound in Wise County, through Dickenson
County and from Buchanan County to West Virginia.
"Gov. Jim Gilmore feels very strongly about building the
Coalfields Expressway," Ybarra said following the CTB's
meeting in Richmond. "It will be a modern, safe and efficient
highway through this mountainous area, as well as an
economic lifeline for a region experiencing double digit
unemployment and a declining population."

Del. Bud Phillips, D--Sandy Ridge, also praised Gilmore's
"bold" efforts to have the project included in all legislation the
General Assembly considered in the transportation funding
package this session.

Ybarra said the CTB's action on the expressway was the most
expensive item the board took action on Thursday but was the
least controversial because of staunch local support.
"That says a lot about Southwest Virginia and how you've
rallied around the project," Ybarra said.

The corridor selected for the project follows a ridgetop
alignment that provides access to several towns in the
three--county region and to the Breaks Interstate Park. The
route includes a connector to the Breaks Interstate Park and
ties in with improvements Kentucky is making to Route 460.
The corridor also supports a loop in Buchanan County that
would protect the cultural and historical aspects of the Harmon
community.

The alignment has the exressway starting at Route 23 in Pound,
traveling along the ridge north of Route 83 and turning south
just west of Clintwood. For a short distance, the expressway
travels along Route 83 in the vicinity of theDickeson County
Technology Park. From there, the expressway crosses the
Cranes Nest River and continues along the ridge tops in a
northeasterly direction. It then crosses the Russell Fork River
north of Haysi and continues to Bull Gap toward Harmon and
Maxie. The expressway then crosses the Levisa River along
Route 460 north of Grundy near Looney's Creek. The route
continues east along the ridgeline in Buchanan County and
connects with the West Virginia Coalfields Expressway at the
Virginia/West Virginia border near Paynesville.

The corridor will displace six businesses and 104 households,
according to CTB data. The roadway comes with a $14.5
million right--of--way cost and will require $5 million worth
of utility relocation. It will also require 24 bridges that cost
over $5 million each. The entire project is estimated to cost
$1.1 billion, Ybarra said.

Now that the corridor has been selected, the Virginia
Department of Transportation can now complete the Final
Environmental Impact Statement required by the federal
government, Ybarra said. The statement details the purpose
and need of the road and the environmental and technical
aspects of the route.

The Federal Highway Administration will review the
document and issue a Record of Decision by mid 2001,
Ybarra said. The next step will be for VDOT to decide
whether to start the road design itself or proceed with what
Ybarra called a "creative" public/private partnership for
development of the project.

The CTB approved a design/build proposal in April submitted
by Brown & Root Services of Texas under Virginia's
Public--Private Transportation Act of 1995.
Sen. William Wampler, R--Bristol, urged the CTB and VDOT
to move ahead now with the Brown & Root proposal and let
the company assume some of the risk by doing the design prior
to the federal review. Wampler said some federal
representatives in the region will work to expedite the
documents so the project can move forward.

Sen. Phillip Puckett, D--Lebanon, pledged to do all he could to
work with the CTB and Brown & Root so the project can
begin soon. Some local officials have said the roadway could
be built in 10 years under the Brown & Root proposal.
The expressway is to be funded with 80 percent federal money
with the rest coming from the state. The public/private
proposal calls for the authority to fund the project through
bonds, then lease the roadway to the state for the next 30 years
at a cost of about $4.8 million per year. The roadway then
becomes the property of the state after the 30--year--lease
expires.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:26 PM

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Pin 'em down!

by Observer

The Coalfield Expressway is THE issue of the new millenium for this region! It's up to us to make sure that ALL candidates for local, state and federal offices pledge to keep the effort going with all due haste. For once, let's stand together, regardless of politics!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:53 PM

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Man Chops Off Hand To Collect Insurance

by nemesis

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A heavily indebted Taiwan insurance salesman asked two friends to
chop off his left hand on Friday in a bid to collect on insurance policies totaling up to
$645,000, police said.

Huang Chun-ming, 35, was admitted to hospital and tried to pass it off as a gruesome attack
by a teenage motorcycle gang.

"We were shocked," Tsai Shui-sheng, police chief of the central city of Taichung, told
Reuters by telephone.

"We felt a bit suspicious because we combed the...crime scene, but could not find the
missing hand."

Police said they questioned one of Huang's friends, who admitted to committing insurance
fraud because Huang had ran up gambling debts of T$20 million.

Huang drank kaoliang, a strong Chinese spirit, before his friends chopped off his hand with
a samurai sword, police said. They had to hack it more than once.

Police later found Huang's missing hand at his home.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:18 PM

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Isn't that kinda like

by AhMT

cutting your nose off to spite your face?

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:44 PM

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Court Bans Drunk Wheelchair Driver

by nemesis

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - A Bavarian court has imposed a three-month driving ban on
a man who was arrested drunk in charge of his motorized wheelchair.

The court in Munich said Thursday the ban applied to both his wheelchair and any other
vehicle. It also gave the defendant a two-month suspended jail sentence.

The man was caught using his electric wheelchair while three times over the legal
blood-alcohol limit. The court rejected the defense's plea that the motorized wheelchair did
not qualify as a vehicle in a legal sense.


Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:16 PM

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VA Man Trapped Three Days In Outhouse

by nemesis

IVANHOE, Va. (AP) -- For three days, Coolidge Winesett sat mired in the five-foot hole of a partially collapsed outhouse, alternately yelling for help and trying to cope with the stench.

"I tell you what, it was hard to get one breath down there,'' Winesett, 75, said Wednesday, a day after being rescued by a mail carrier who noticed that Winesett's deliveries were still in the box and went looking for him.

Jimmy Jackson, the mail carrier, found no sign of Winesett at his house or car. But Jackson spotted Winesett's crutch propped beside the outhouse.

"The closer I got, I heard a faint sound like somebody trying to holler,'' Jackson said.

Winesett, who is partially paralyzed from a stroke and lives alone, fell Saturday when the floor of the outhouse and part of a wall gave way.

"Down it went and took me with it,'' he said. "I thought it was an earthquake. Then I realized where I was at. ... I done a lot of hollering, but nobody couldn't hear me.''

Winesett was saved from being dunked in the deepest sludge by the collapsed floor, but he suffered splinter scratches and had to endure the odor. He was taken to Wythe County Community Hospital and treated for dehydration and infection from the scratches.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:15 PM

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Yeah

by Paladin

I saw that on the news yesterday. Mighty horrible ordeal!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:24 PM

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Officials Say Coalfields Expressway Route Will Create 5,000-10,000 Jobs

by nemesis

by AMY GATLEY


CLAYPOOL HILL — The Coalfields Expressway now has a place to call home
on Southwest Virginia’s map, even though the first stone has yet to be
turned on the project.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shirley Ybarra announced the final
location of the expressway route Thursday at Southwest Virginia Community
College near Claypool Hill. The announcement, via satellite, came minutes
after the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board formally approved
the route.

The 51.1-mile road will cost an estimated $1.09 billion to construct and
will displace 104 households and six businesses. Right of way access costs
will total $14.5 million. About $50 million in funding has already been
appropriated for the project.

The route will feature 24 bridges and will cut an estimated 40 minutes
and 10 miles off the current travel time following Route 83. About 1,200
forested acres will be affected by road construction.

The expressway, designated as U.S. Route 121, will begin at Route 23 north
of the Route 23 business connection in Pound. It travels along the ridge
north of Route 83 and turns south just to the west of Clintwood, close
to the Dickenson County Technology Park.

The route turns east and crosses the Cranes Nest River, crossing the Russell
Fork north of Haysi and continuing in the vicinity of Bulls Gap into Buchanan
County. The route then continues to the Virginia/West Virginia state line
near Paynesville, W.Va.

Ybarra said the route was chosen from six alternatives and was selected
on the basis of environmental impact, historic preservation and economic
development initiatives.

‘‘We looked at what is the best way to serve the region,’’ Ybarra said.


The total travel time of the route is expected to be around 84 minutes
or less, with a design speed of 50 mph. Virginia Department of Transportation
spokeswoman Brenda Waters said the 50 mph speed is used only in the draft
design of the corridor, and a definite speed limit will be determined once
a final design is developed.

Lenowisco Planning District Director Ron Flanary said he anticipates at
least 500 acres along the corridor can be used for industrial development,
creating upwards of 10,000 jobs in Wise, Dickenson and Buchanan counties.


Ybarra added that among the road projects discussed by the Commonwealth
Transportation Board at its Thursday meeting, the Coalfields Expressway
had the most widespread approval.

‘‘It was probably the largest budget item, or at least the one with the
largest price tag,’’ Ybarra said. ‘‘But it was the one with the least amount
of controversy, and I think that says a lot of the folks in Southwest Virginia
— how you have rallied around a very important project and the governor
has recognized this.’’

Delegate Clarence ‘‘Bud’’ Phillips said the construction of the expressway
may bring in as many as 1 million tourists to Southwest Virginia and create
a direct linkage to Breaks Interstate Park near Haysi.

‘‘Southwest Virginia is the fastest-growing area of the state for tourism,’’
Phillips said. ‘‘We are growing at a rate of anywhere from 7 to 12 percent
beyond what the state is growing. It’s a $12 billion dollar industry in
the commonwealth, and we want our part of it, and the Coalfields Expressway
will allow us to get our part of it.’’

Ybarra said the next step in the road’s progression will be to submit a
final environmental impact statement to the Federal Highway Administration.


A preliminary environmental study comparing at least six proposed routes
was completed, but the state needs federal approval before final design
work can be developed. Ybarra said she expects the environmental study
to be submitted by 2001 and a decision to be released by the administration
in the summer of 2001.

After the highway administration issues a record of decision on the environmental
statement, Ybarra said VDOT will then determine if its state engineers
or a public-private entity will perform a design/build proposal on the
road.

‘‘All of this is moving on as it should be, and we really want to do it
as quickly as possible,’’ Ybarra said.

Sen. William Wampler stressed that the transportation board should speed
up the process by reviewing and approving a design/build proposal submitted
in a private-public partnership administered by the Brown & Root firm of
Houston.

‘‘I think we need to move forward with the negotiations with Brown & Root
and let them assume part of the risk and spend the dollars that we can.
Let their engineers design it if that is the will of the Commonwealth Transportation
Board. ... I would like to have that negotiation complete so when the feds
do get their act together we will have the design work done and we can
go on without the project being delayed,’’ Wampler said.


© 2000 Times-News.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:12 PM

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1 million tourists to Southwest Virginia

by

"Delegate Clarence ‘‘Bud’’ Phillips said the construction of the expressway
may bring in as many as 1 million tourists to Southwest Virginia and create
a direct linkage to Breaks Interstate Park near Haysi."


Now is the time to start cleaning up Dickenson County. If we wait for the "Tourists", we may never get it cleaned up.


Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 11:45 AM

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the %$$#@*&! site of the %$$#@*&! day

by Grandpa Blaze

%$$#@*&! Dan Rather is %$$#@*&!? biased? %$$#@*&! it all! I never would have guessed. %$$#@*&! good link though.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 4:52 PM

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I like today's site

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Now when I want to find out the name of some character actor and what he or she has appeared in, all I have to do is find the name that goes with the face. Nice link.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:18 PM

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Noonan: "the real Gore is a loser"

by Mr.Eon

Banal, Boilerplate Boob-Bait
Pundits say we saw the "real Gore" last night. If so, the real Gore is a loser.

BY PEGGY NOONAN
Friday, August 18, 2000 4:52 a.m.

Al Gore's acceptance speech was a rhetorical failure and, in my view, a strategic blunder of
significant proportions.

It failed as rhetoric not, as his defenders quickly claimed, because it lacked "poetry" and
"song," but because it lacked thought. It was relentlessly banal and formulaic, its sound
shaped not by the simple speech of the honest man but by a reflexive
politico-bureaucratese: "The future should belong to everyone in this land. . . . We’re
entering a new time. We’re electing a new president. . . . In our democracy, the future is
not something that just happens to us, it's something that we make for ourselves
together."

It was boilerplate boob-bait punctuated by tired vows. It has been called specific but was
only declarative--specific only in the way a shopping list is. Would that seasoning, even
just a bit of pepper, had been on the list.

It seemed written by a committee of second-tier communications aides, but Mr. Gore says
he wrote it, and we must take him at his word. It certainly didn't have much Shrum in it. I
had imagined reading it with reporters and producers when the text was released before it
was delivered and, finding a word that's just right or a passage in which thought was
linked to feeling, shouting with delight, "Shrummy! Page three, graf seven, Shrum strikes!"
But Bob Shrum, the fabled Democratic speechwriter, did not strike--or, if he did, it was
perhaps in the second way in which the speech failed, its seeming strategic miscalculation.

Mr. Gore's speech seemed to aim purely at his base, at the left of his party and the more
leftward part of the electorate. The text hit every liberal pleasure point--from creation of a
national health care service to affirmative action to no school vouchers to a woman's right
to abortion to a federal pre-school daycare system to class warfare featuring greedy
polluting nicotine-head oil-company gangsters vs. decent people like you and me.

It was unleavened by any hint of doubt and unshaded by the assumption that decent
people can disagree. It was, in short, amazingly . . . retro. It sounded not at all like what
one might have expected--a post-Clinton era rallying cry informed by the insights of the
Democratic Leadership Council, and brought to a new level in the new century.

Instead it sounded like Walter Mondale in 1984, or Teddy Kennedy in 1980, or even Hubert
Humphrey in 1968. It sounded like something untouched by the history of the past 15
years or so. It sounded like something Rep. Maxine Waters would like. It was playing to
the base in a way that seems so narrow, so constricting and unsophisticated that it has
left me full of questions I did not expect to be asking at the end of the Democratic
National Convention.

Why would Al Gore on his big night play to the left of his party, and ignore most of the
assumptions and views of the middle--of independents and Republicans who are still
looking around, of McCain people and young professionals?

Because he had to forestall the threat of Ralph Nader on the left and Buchanan on the blue
collar-protectionist right?

Because he believes he doesn't really have his base, even now, and must win it?

Because he thinks he can, in the coming weeks and months, pivot to the center, hoping no
one will remember his acceptance speech? Was the speech therefore brilliantly boring in
that it effectively communicated to the left in such an unmemorable way that no normal
person could be expected to remember any of it? Was it deliberately boring as a tactical
matter--that is, did he anticipate that America would turn it off 14 minutes in, while the
left would like it and remember it?

Or, as some are asking, does he think he's going to lose, and if you're going to lose you
might as well lose standing for something? But if he thought he was going to lose, why did
he choose Joe Lieberman?

In the entire speech Mr. Gore mentioned Bill Clinton only once, at the very beginning of his
speech. He used the word "future" 12 times. By contrast, in his 1988 acceptance speech
Vice President George Bush mentioned Ronald Reagan three times by name and devoted
several paragraphs to a discussion of the Reagan-Bush administration's accomplishments.
Mr. Bush admired and respected Mr. Reagan and sought to be associated with him.

Clearly in this speech Mr. Gore sought to break from Mr. Clinton, and he at least achieved
that. All of those wholesome family films and speeches by family members conveyed the
message: I am not a weirdo like Clinton. But to break with Mr. Clinton, was it necessary
also to break with the DLC insights Mr. Gore once cared so much for, and to return to the
old Mondale-era sound and reality of the Democratic Party?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I suppose time will reveal them--or
whether the questions were the right ones.

But I must tell you that right after the speech I did some talking-head commentary and
tried to express my disappointment, and was told by pols and pundits alike that "this is
the real Gore," and that we should feel some satisfaction that he showed us who he is.
Well, if that's who Mr. Gore is, he's a loser.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 2:33 PM

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Peggy Nooner?

by Goregasm

Bush was introduced by a professional wrestler, Gore had Steven Hawkins,the man who is sitting in Newton's chair at Cambridge.If that doesn't explain the difference between these two men, nothing will.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:09 PM

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A new perspective

by Ross Jr.

Peggy Noonan could have saved a lot of space and energy on her editorial if she would have simply stated, "I hate Algore. I always will. Nothing he can say or do will change that." Her non-stop bashing of Gore was completely uninformative and left me wondering why I bothered to read it.

Reading Noonan's diatribe made me realize that I owe Carl Limbacher a sincere apology after I accused him of being the most biased writer in print.


Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:14 PM

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Democratic delegates boo the Boy Scouts of America

by Mr.Eon

Democratic delegates boo the Boy Scouts of America

Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published 8/18/00



LOS ANGELES — When Gloria Johnson learned that a group of Eagle Scouts was about to
take the stage at the Democratic National Convention, she immediately went into action.
She and other California delegates grabbed poster board and markers and made signs that
read, "We Support Gay Boy Scouts." As the uniformed Scouts took part in the opening
ceremony, the delegates, seated in the front of the hall, waved their signs — and booed.
Under normal circumstances, jeering at children is the sort of behavior that might get a
delegate sanctioned, if not booted from the convention altogether. But anyone who expected the
Democratic leadership to scold the Boy Scouts of America bashers is attending the wrong
convention.
Support for homosexual rights has become an integral part of the Democratic orthodoxy, as
unassailable as the party's pro-choice or civil rights planks. Since the Supreme Court ruled that
the Boy Scouts can ban homosexual leaders, the Democrats have sided squarely with
homosexuals in condemning the decision.
Indeed, Democratic National Committee spokesman Rick Hess was careful to avoid
criticizing either the Boy Scouts or the delegates, instead stressing that the party is staunchly
committed to homosexual rights.
Most Democrats support the work the Boy Scouts do," said Mr. Hess. "At the same time, we
want to see gays and lesbians treated with respect. Democrats across the board support equal
rights for gays and lesbians and we want to make sure they're not discriminated against."
The Boy Scouts, meanwhile, were shocked by the negative reception. The Los Angeles
Council of Boy Scouts sent a half-dozen Eagle Scouts and an adult leader to the event at the
request of Democratic organizers, said council spokesman Joey Robinson.
"I think whatever the national policy is, the kids don't set the policy. When you boo the
policy, you're booing the kids," said Mr. Robinson.
Fortunately, he said, the Staples Center was so noisy during the Tuesday night ceremony that
none of the boys heard the booing, although the adult leader did.
Delegates who participated in protesting the Boy Scouts yesterday said they had nothing
against the boys, but wanted to send a message to the Democratic Party for inviting the Scouts.
"Of course, we're not against the kids — it isn't about them," said California delegate Craig
Christensen. "But there were groups that could have been picked that haven't been so blatantly
discriminatory. . . . It was a thoughtless thing to do."
Alex Mallonee, a California delegate who didn't participate in the demonstration, said he
sympathized with the homosexual delegates.
"I think it was odd that they had the Boy Scouts up there, given the situation," he said. "It
was pretty insensitive."
This year's convention has almost twice as many homosexual delegates as the 1996
gathering, thanks to recruiting efforts by the national party. Mr. Christensen said there are 212
openly homosexual delegates at this year's convention, up from 125 four years ago.
Delegates give credit to the DNC, which instructed state parties to work on making their
delegations reflect their states' minority composition. For many states, that meant setting
"targets," which are different from quotas, Democrats insisted.
When states submit their delegation plans, the DNC asks them to have their delegations look
as much like their voters as possible," said Mr. Hess. "This is wholly different from quotas —
this is Colin Powell-type recruitment."
In California, that meant setting "targets" of 5 percent homosexual men and 5 percent
homosexual women. The California delegation ended up with 34 openly homosexual delegates,
the largest concentration of any state.
Delegate Jeri Dilno said the state party would have appointed homosexual delegates if the
caucuses fell short of those goals. "A friend of mine was appointed that way the last time [in
1996]," she said.
The Georgia delegation also set a goal of 5 percent and met it by electing five openly
homosexual delegates out of 105, said delegate Annette Hatton.
Wisconsin delegate Jane Fee, 73, who was born a man but has been taking female hormones
and dressing like a woman for the past dozen years, said he "came as part of the female quota."
But since he never had a sex-change operation, he acknowledged he fulfills the Democratic sex
quotas all by himself.
"Actually, the diversity that we show in the Democratic Party, whether it's by quota or not,
indicates that we really are interested in having all of America represented by the party," said
Mr. Fee, a father and grandfather who used to be known as James.
As for the Boy Scouts, Miss Hatton added that she never heard any booing during the
ceremony, although other delegates and news accounts reported booing.
Michael Perez, chairman of the National Stonewall Democratic Federation, called the
protesters "very supportive of the kids."
"We're 100 percent behind the kids," said Mr. Perez. "We don't agree with what their
establishment came up with. There are gay Boy Scouts out there, and we want them to know we
support them."
Rep. Jennifer Dunn, Washington Republican, didn't see it that way. "The Boy Scouts are
revered by most people," she said. "It's the kind of thing that reflects badly on the Democratic
Party."
• Bill Sammon contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2000 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 2:28 PM

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James

by Caliburn

Tell us what you think of this behavior.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:18 PM

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As a former boy scout...

by James

I find it inexcusable to boo young men who are doing their best for an organization they believe in. I also find it inexcusable that this organization excludes young men who are doing their best for the scouts, simply because of their sexual orientation.

Anyway, the actions of these delegates is wrong, and I hope it was only a small number of the delegates as this article seems to indicate.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:34 PM

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Does it really matter that it was "only a small number"?

by Boss Hogg

It's disgraceful that such a worthwhile organization would get booed by even one democrat delegate let alone a "small number". I sure didn't hear any of the convention leaders or, more importantly Gore or Lieberman, chastise the delegation for showing such poor taste. James, it truly says volumes about the national democratic party and the moral slide it is on when the Boy Scouts of American is booed at their convention.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:45 PM

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As you know,

by James

The boy scout organization has kicked young men out for being gay. That is what the delegates were booing I believe. However, to make those young men, who had nothing to do with the decision of the national organization, feel unwelcome is totally wrong.

However, we can't lay the blame on anyone other than the delegates who did this. I hadn't heard of it before I posted it here, and it's likely that with all the buzz on the floor, many never even knew it took place.



Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 10:26 PM

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Oops

by James

I meant to say "I hadn't heard of it before I read it here" lol. As I did say it, it didn't make much sense. Sorry.



Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 10:28 PM

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That still doesn't excuse the democrats behavior

by Boss Hogg

So what if the BSA doesn't want gays in its ranks? It's a private organization and receives no government funding. They should have every right to exclude or include whoever they want. Spin it any which way that makes you feel better about but the fact remains that delegates at the democratic convention booed one of America's most respected and beloved organizations.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 11:33 PM

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No matter

by Goregasm

what you or I think about the few Cal. delegates who acted foolish at the convention.This is still America,and the First Amendment say's thay can do it.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 6:47 AM

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Mighty Strange Exclusion!

by Observer

The Democrats embrace every leftist radical known to humankind but allow little Boy Scouts to be treated very shabbily without so much as an apology!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 7:06 PM

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Anti-Rape Rally to Confront First Lady on Broaddrick Charge

by Mr.Eon

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

For the story behind the story...


Friday August 18, 2000; 6:45 AM EDT

Anti-Rape Rally to Confront First Lady
on Broaddrick Charge

The mainstream media refuses to do it. Not even
New York's so-called pit bull press corps has
dared ask Senate candidate Hillary Clinton about
allegations her husband is a rapist.

But on Saturday Mrs. Clinton may be able to
dodge the question no longer.

At high noon outside the first lady's Manhattan
campaign headquaters, sexual assault victim
Katherine Prudhomme will lead a rape awareness
protest, hoping to get Mrs. Clinton to address
the question, "Do you believe Juanita?"

Two weeks after Bill Clinton was acquitted on
Sexgate impeachment charges, NBC News unveiled
the bombshell they'd been sitting on throughout
Clinton's Senate trial. In a 23-minute emotional
account gleaned from five hours of videotape,
Juanita Broaddrick told the network's Lisa Myers
about her brutal 1978 sexual assault at the
hands of then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill
Clinton.

Ever since NBC's Broaddrick broadcast, the
debate has raged: Is the President of the United
States actually a rapist? Clinton himself
refused to deny the charge personally, issuing a
statement though his lawyer instead.

But one voice has been conspicuously absent -
Hillary Clinton's. The feminist icon who helped
establish Arkansas' first rape crisis hotline
and who has made renewing the Violence Against
Women Act a top priority of her Senate campaign
has yet to address the rape charge.

Prudhomme first gained notoriety in December for
daring to ask the question the media won't of
Vice President Al Gore, at a Derry, New
Hampshire, town meeting. Gore's painfully
awkward response remains the single most
dramatic moment of the presidential campaign:

PRUDHOMME: When Juanita Broaddrick made the
claim, that I felt quite credible, that she was
raped by Bill Clinton, did that change your
opinion about him being one of the best
presidents in history? And do you believe
Juanita Broaddrick's claim? And what did you
tell your son about this?

GORE: [Laughs] Well, I don't know what to make
of her claim, because I don't know how to
evaluate that story, I really don't.

PRUDHOMME: Did you watch it?

GORE: No, I didn't see the interview. No.

PRUDHOMME: I'm surprised that you didn't watch
the interview.

GORE: Well, which ... what show was it on?

PRUDHOMME: ABC, I believe.

GORE: I didn't see it. There have been so many
personal allegations and such a nonstop series
of attacks. I guess I'm like a lot of people in
that I think that enough is enough. I do not
know how to evaluate each one of these
individual stories. I just don't know.

How would Mrs. Clinton handle the same question?
Perhaps we're about to find out. Prudhomme is
bringing a videotaped copy of Broaddrick's NBC
interview to personally present to the first
lady - if she dares to accept it.

Joining Ms. Pruhomme for the anti-rape rally
will be Marie-Jose Ragab, President of the
Dulles NOW chapter and former International
Director of NOW.

The rally begins at noon Saturday, August 19,
outside Clinton's New York campaign
headquarters, 450 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. A
press conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 2:15 PM

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Today's quote

by Earlybird

Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:22 AM

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Wasn't Prince Albert's acceptance speech terrible?

by Earlybird

He dragged on and on for about an hour (I lost count of the actual time but it seemed like an eternity). The funniest part (pay close attention all you conspiracy people who think Gore was sired by a space alien) was when he said "I now accept your nomination" in a monotone mechanized drone. Listen to the speech for yourself and you'll probably do as I did and laugh out loud when you come to that part. It was truly hilarious.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:20 AM

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True

by Nature Boy

But Bush is no better. We conservationists have been betrayed by broken promises once too often. That's why I'm voting for the environmental friendly Ralph Nader and the Green party.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 4:42 PM

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Good I dea

by Right field

more of you should do just that. James will you and Ross the Boss join him???

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 8:37 PM

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Not a bad idea....

by Ross Jr.

I sympathize with Nature Boy, but I won't go his way. Gore has not compromised his environmental ideals as much as has been portrayed, and Bush isn't even a pretend environmentalist. But on the rest of the issues....yeesh.

Bush -- no
Nader -- no
Gore -- maybe
Harry Brown (Libertarian) -- looking better all the time




Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:30 PM

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Speech on the Issues!!!

by Goregasm

I thought it was a great Gore speech,one that makes coke-boy Smirk seem like someone you would be uncomfortable with hiring to mow your lawn. Smirk is just a rich,vapid puppet, and we know who's pulling the strings! Al, on the other hand, is a MAN of substance.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 10:22 PM

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Prince Albert is a "man of substance"? Hee hee

by Earlybird

I'm glad that you're trying to develop a sense of humor. Keep at it.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:53 AM

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Man of substance...

by Asst. Professor Skip

That was a snappy one-liner, Earlybird, but provided no "substance." Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us concerning your perceived deficiencies in the substantive content of Gore's speech.


Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 4:44 PM

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He's Not Nearly....

by Sigmund Fraud

...as hilarious as YOU are!!!

Posted on Aug 20, 2000, 3:06 PM

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Gore Math/ Sounds like private ionsurance would be cheaper here too.

by Right field

SCHIP plan is to expand the program by $42 billion, yet the program will only cover an additional 1 million of the 11 million children without health insurance -- leaving millions more without any coverage.







Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:17 AM

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Where "IS" the Math?

by Goregasm

Show us the Numbers Right field.Mabe News Max.com did not include the math?If you would like I can show you George Dubya's record on Texas insurance for children.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 8:44 AM

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School Board

by sick

One big sick mess at the school board meeting and mine and your children are the ones who must pay.Politics at its worst and not taking sides except to say it was at the wrong time and at the wrong place.There is to much family connections in this school system and it must stop,No matter who's politics it is.The children are suffering over this petty politics and our county is sinking.People are being put in positions of education that they are not qualified to do only because of their politics and this is on both sides and who pays for this. Wake up Dickenson County before its too late.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 11:01 PM

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School Board Meeting

by Sick Parent # 2

I was there and whole heartly agree with you. I would honestly and seriously encourage every parent who cares, even a little bit, to go to the school board meetings from now on. I couldn't believe that these supposedly educated people were acting like they did. I have seen kindergarten children argue and act more professional than what I witnessed tonight. I was so ashamed of our school board and the way they conducted themselves. It is no wonder our children don't pass the SOL's, with the leaders our county has gotten. There is a struggle between the Superintendent of our schools, the personnel, and the board members about who is going to be in control. It is like Dr. Lyle said," politics at it's best tonight." It is a political struggle, as well as a power struggle and buddy system. Education plays no part it it. For example, the Law Enforcement position at DCCC was given first by school personnel to Robert Mullins, who appeared to be a favorite of Dr. Greears. Letters were sent to other applicants that they did not get the position, even though the board had NOT even met and decided on who got the job. Mr. Mullins had his education in counseling. Tonight the board argued and argued and argued and finally Patton, Raines and Stanley voted to give the position to Donald Viers (Johnny and Joyce Viers son). Mr. Viers has a Bachelors degree in Accounting. Now there were other applicants and one had a B.S. degree in Criminal Justice and various other degree's including an Education degree and to my knowledge that person wasn't even considered. This was just one of the many things the board members argued about. Every time Patton said something, Vance had a remark of some kind for him. Every time Vance said something, Patton had a remark for him. They even took time to throw up each other's politics and talk about how they got elected. It was a pity to witness this behavior. God have mercy on our school's is all I can say.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 11:53 PM

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I'll contribute to the costs of suing their @SSES!

by Anonymous

If what you say is accurate then it sounds to me as if there are a few people who applied for the job who ought to run out and get a lawyer. I don't usually advocate filing suit at the drop of a hat but apparently these folks were screwed big time in this hiring decision. A person with a degree in accounting got the job over someone with a degree in law enforcement? Bill Patton and his cronies just took us back another 20 years. They ought to face big law suits and be PERSONALLY held liable for their actions. What I wouldn't give to be on that jury!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 8:35 AM

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Motion seconded

by rascal

I agree with you, maybe with a lawsuit these people will get their heads out of their @ss's and start to pay attention to the school system. Then maybe if politics will get flushed down the toilet they can work in the student body's best interest.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:53 PM

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School Board Meeting

by Disappointed

I have read the messages and Sick is not even a good word for it. Disappointed isn't either, but all I could think of. I thought someone was going to pull out the boxing gloves and we were going to have ring side seats to the best fight in the county in a long time. I encourage all to go to the board meetings from now on and you may see a political fight without having to pay for it. I would suggest maybe having the Town Police or Sheriff's Office at all school board meetings from now on. I doubt this would help. I am making a joke but seriously, I was so very disappointed in our school board members, Dr. Greear and other's involved in this play for power, politic's, and buddy system. We have good educated people in this county who can teach. We just have people running our school system that give a _____. If qualified people, not buddies, people out of this county, family and soforth were hired to teach, then maybe we would have better schools and children. How can anyone expect our children to behave and take education serious after what I and others witnessed tonight. I agree, let's all pray for help and pray for our children. Pray for the parents and teachers that do care and are qualified to teach. And for God's sake, pray that our school board members and personnel don't decide to shoot it out.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:07 AM

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School Board Meeting

by Plain Spoken

You don't have to have an education to work for the Dickenson County School System. All you need is good suction, a good old buddy, the right political power (straddle the fence if necessary) and if possible it is good to know something on somebody. It is a shame, it's a shame, it's a shame. What is our school system coming too.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:18 AM

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School Board

by Caliburn

This is the way it will be for as long as Bill Patton is on the Board. Why the people of the Ervinton District elected such a person is beyond understanding.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:30 AM

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THATS WHY!

by AMERICA

He was elected because we live in the land of the FREE and the home of the brave. That is the right that each and every citizen of Dickenson County and the entire United States has! It is called the democratic process and I am not referring to politics in this instance, as each and every family who has sent a loved one to battle knows. This is why so many people come to the United States each year, because we do have the right to choose those people whom we feel would best represent our interests in public office! I am sure that no matter what is voted upon, every one at some point disagrees with the person whom they cast their vote for. Again, this is the democratic process that is practiced each year when you and everyone else goes to the polls to vote, because you are an American and if you do not agree with the way they are voting, then you should run for a seat on the school board and see if everyone will agree with every decision that you make! That is your right as well as mine and every other person who posts his complaints on this discussion board. I guarantee you that you cannot please everyone.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 8:38 PM

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Is that the best you can do?

by Anonymous

You sound like a broken record. Yada, yada, yada--he was elected in the democratic process--yada, yada, yada--we live in a free country--yada, yada, yada--men have given their lives for this great nation--yada, yada, yada! Listen......NOT ONE PERSON HAS SAID THAT THE SYSTEM OF ELECTING OFFICIALS IS BAD, JUST THAT THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS CAN AND DO MAKE LOUSY CHOICES AND BILL PATTON IS LIVING PROOF OF THAT! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW HE WAS ELECTED BUT THAT IT WAS HE WHO GOT ELECTED. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE TWO AND IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:02 PM

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Bill Patton Rules!

by BTK

Mr. Patton apparently had a disagreement with the selection panel's recommendation for the position for the law enforcement teacher at the Voc. School. His person was not the selected one!! He then arranged an agreement with Stanley and Raines to have another person hired, his favorite. He then changed his vote from the past meeting, and voted with Stanley and Raines to have Mr. Owens transferred back to the School Board Office. You scratch my back, and I will surely scratch yours. It stinks!! Politics should have nothing to do with the School Board, but it surely does. The childred and the citizens to Dickenson County are the ones who suffer. It is a sad day in our county!!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:32 AM

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What amazes me

by Silent Observer

is how Bill Patton can get his followers. Could it be that he has some dirt on them or they wanted his vote on another matter? Wake up and smell the coffee Dickenson Co., politics at its worse!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:43 AM

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Easy to do in the Ervinton District

by Anonymous

All you have to be is a loud mouth, obnoxious democrat. Nothing else matters and the majority of voters in that district could care less about quality education. They care a lot more about how big of an ass Patton can make of himself.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 11:38 AM

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I find that

by Anonymous

particularly disturbing. The mere fact that someone would lump such a large group of people together and use such a broad generalization to cover them. Evidently you are not familiar with the Ervinton Dist. because if you will check the election results for that schoolboard seat you will see that it was not a landslide victory for Mr. Patton nearly as many people voted against him as for him and while I know that a one vote majority is as good as a million in an election I think the numbers in themselves would be enough to discredit your broadbanded remarks. Not everyone in the Ervinton Dist. condones these actions.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 1:27 PM

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History speaks for itself

by Anonymous

Sorry to break the news to you but the Ervinton District has a history of a long standing love affair with Bill Patton. I know that every last person in that district does not condone Patton's actions but those type of people are in the vast minority. When I see the day that a serious and successful Patton recall effort gets underway then I'll be the first to say I was wrong about the majority of Ervinton District residents. Tell me how much of a chance you give that one.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 1:39 PM

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The Board Screw Up

by Dumbo

I have to agree with all that you and silent observer said, but another thing I saw that amazed me was the way the Mr. Vance was acting. I couldn't believe him either. He apparently was siding with Mr. Greear's favorite and there was some back scratching going on there too. Neither person that was consider and put in the position by either Vance and Grear or Patton, Stanley, and Raines had the proper education to teach the Law Enforcement class. Other applicants, who did have law enforcement degree's and criminal justice degree's weren't even considered. It was just a political power and buddy system, back scratching deal. Our children in the Law Enforcement class will be the one's to suffer. And it makes you wonder about all the other teacher's that have been hired recently. Were they properly educated or were they buddies, back scratchers, political buddies, family and so forth? What has our school system come to when the board and school personnel don't care about education anymore. It's just money and power.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 12:58 AM

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Do I understand this correctly? The person hired to teach Law Enforcement does not

by AhMT

have a degree in Law Enforcement, but in accounting? Does this person have ANY law enforcement training? If not, how can he possibly be qualified to teach law enforcement? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:39 AM

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Here is exactly how he is qualified: He's an FOB

by Anonymous

Friend of Bill. Surely you didn't already know that that was all that mattered.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 11:35 AM

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get your facts straight dumb@ss......

by your good buddy

...I do believe Mr. Viers has road experience with the DCSO, and experience as a corrections officer at ROSP. A degree is not required for this job, sooooooo....accounting really doesn't matter then does it?, his experience does!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 3:38 PM

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Amen brother.

by Student of DCCC Law Enforcement Technology

His experience makes him a great candidate. You see, This class is mostly hands on work. Handcuffing, Fingerprinting, driving courses, etc. The other candidates for the job did not have any of this experience. In a Law Enforcement career, all the knowledge in the world wouldnt help you when you have to buckle down and get your hands dirty, which is often required. Personally, I like the new teacher. My class mates and I met him briefly today, and he seems to have the qualities needed for the job. However, NO ONE can wear the shoes of the previous teacher, Robert England. He left humongous shoes to fill, and I dont think there is a teacher in the state that could fill them. Mr. England is perhaps the best teacher to have ever taught in Dickenson County. If you have a bone to pick with the School Board, Make it one of them not meeting his price to stay. Our loss is certainly Wise Counties gain. If I could, I would transfer to a Wise county school just to be able to be taught by him again.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 4:16 PM

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Exactly right!

by DCCC Law Enforcement Student (2nd year)

I agree witht that 100%. I also know Mr.Viers and feel that he will do an great job with the class. I think that everyone who is making a big fuss over this and talking about politics are right also though. However, if a different teacher had been hired the same things would have been said, only by different people. Why? Because any governmental, county, or town jobs in Dickenson County are ALL BASED ENTIRELY ON POLOTICS, this is not meant to be a criticism, only the TRUTH. These things will never change unless someone can prove and sue because of the actions that are taken to insure someone gets a job because of their polotics, and to be frank, i dont see that happening anytime soon. And people wonder why all of the youth leave Dickenson County!

Posted on Aug 22, 2000, 8:40 PM

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explaining

by Anonymous

All we are saying is some of the other applicants had degrees and training for this type of teaching and should not have been passed over. One of them even had previous experience with the sheriffs department as well, but was this person considered for the job? No they were not I feel the board was wrong on this decision, they should have chosen the most qualified person for the job if they really had the students interest in mind.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 4:32 PM

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What...

by Another Student of DCCC Law Enforcement Technology

What exactly is your idea of our "Interests?" You dont know, and neither do any of the School Board Members. Listen all who are posting. All we want is someone who will treat us fairly, while being calm, and not over exaggerating certain aspects of the job. We are the students, but it really makes you wonder who really needs the teaching. To the school board, GO TO MR. ENGLAND AND PAY HIM WHAT HE WANTS!!!

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:03 PM

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$$$$$$$

by 99 and counting

If I remember right, the school board didn't get enough money to hire everyone they needed as it was. How in the H--- could they go and raise mr England more? If they would pay more they may have still had Mr Mullins at the voc school and all of this mess wouldn't happened. Talk to the BOS about the school budget.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 10:32 PM

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That is the problem. Who do they cre about?

by Anonymous

When it comes to the students, does the newly elected members of the School Board have them in mind? Maybe they are only looking out for the Democrat party members that need a job.

And for the Board of Supervisors, lets not forget them. What are their intentions for the County as a whole? It would seem that they are acting the same way. Taking care of there political friends first and not worry about the problems arising in the county.

Who is best qualified for the job? NO! More like what party member friend is needing a job this week.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:07 PM

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Thanks for the clarification

by AhMT

as to Mr. Viers' qualifications. And to be fair, this kind of swapping and trading favors and jobs was very common when school board members were appointed. The difference now is the political component. If Mr. Viers has hands-on experience and the other candidates did not, in spite of their degrees, then perhaps he is the best person for the job. I always preferred a teacher who has done it as opposed to one who has read about it. Hopefully some of the DCCC LE students will hang around and keep us informed as to the quality of education they are receiving...that, in my opinion, would be the best indicator.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:41 PM

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Experience?

by Citizen of DC

Road experience? Being a process server doesn't get you much experience, ROSP, maybe 1 month, couldn't handle the pressure.



Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 1:29 AM

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Its pretty sure

by Sick of DC politics

that the best person for the job didnt get it due to mr. Patton and his pals. Maybe we will learn someday.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 10:04 AM

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Unbelievable

by 123456789

What is a better method of gaining experience, studying books about enforcement for 4 years or protecting and serving the people of dickenson county for several years. Mr. Viers has been working in law enforcement for several years. How you came up with only 1 month is beyond me. He was also a jailer for many years. Don't think I wrote this on behalf of Bill Patton either. I share the same dislike for the politics he instills in the county as you. This just shows what ignorance we allow in our county.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 3:13 PM

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For sure, Maybe

by Joker

A guy in a bar is arguing with a blonde. He says, "It's irrelevant."

She says, "Irrelevant? What does that mean?"

He says, "It doesn't matter."

She says, "Yes, it does."


Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:21 PM

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Hee hee

by Earlybird

That's funny.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 6:30 AM

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Midi Guess

by guessing

The theme music for the underdog cartoon?

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:14 PM

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Oops

by Guessing

looks like someone else already guessed it

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:29 PM

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sound like it to me too

by brain surgeon



Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:30 PM

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Ah yes, its a bird, its a plane...

by AhMT

It's Underdog! Now who remembers the words

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 10:51 PM

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I Remember Some Of The Words

by nemesis

Do you know all of the words to the song?

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:29 PM

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Hah!

by AhMT

Right now it's a good day if I remember my kids' names!

The chorus, however, went something like this:
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder, fighting all who "something" and plunder da-da-da UNDERDOG!
Tee-hee

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:46 PM

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Correct

by nemesis

It was the theme to "Underdog". Herbwoman already guessed correctly but I read her answer, got disconnected and forgot to respond.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:28 PM

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Help Requested

by nemesis

For any members of the LPD Sports Forum, could one of you post a message on that forum about the current poll and give the DCDB url? I've lost my password and have tried for the past four days to have it sent to me, but Jim's auto-mailer apparently isn't working properly. Thanks for any help.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:30 PM

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Criminals

by B.I.G. MAN

Can you imagine working at the following company? This company has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
3 have been arrested for assault
71 can not get a credit card because of bad debts
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are current defendants in lawsuits

In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving



Can you guess which organization this is?



Give up?




Here the answer.....





It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.


Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:17 PM

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Just Imagine...

by nemesis

...If someone did a study like this on all state and national politicians in this country.

Posted on Aug 19, 2000, 5:48 PM

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Woman Survives 3 Days Upside Down in Car

by nemesis

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - An elderly Florida woman was found alive and
tethered by a seat belt in her upside-down car on Tuesday, three days after the vehicle
careened off a bridge and somersaulted into a stand of trees, police said.

Tillie Tooter, 83, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, was en route early Saturday to greet her
granddaughter at a Fort Lauderdale airport when her car spun off the highway and fell 40
feet (12 meters) into a swampy patch of mangrove trees, police said.

For three days, Tooter caught rainwater in a plastic bag, a firefighter said, while her family
begged the public for help in finding her.

"It's such a relief, we're so glad they found her," Tooter's granddaughter, Lori Simms, said
tearfully. "I'm just so thankful and relieved she's alive."

A highway worker heard Tooter's cries on Tuesday morning and alerted police and rescue
squads.

The vehicle was hanging upside down in a thicket of trees within feet of the ground,
according to chief Daniel Hanes of Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue.

"We had to cut away the trees with chainsaws and remove the roof of the vehicle," Hanes
said. "She was inside" and wearing her seat belt.

Hanes described Tooter's condition as "remarkable" and said she was listed as stable in a
Fort Lauderdale hospital, suffering bruises and "plenty of mosquito bites" but no broken
bones.

"We've always known her to be an extremely gentle, kind person," Simms' boyfriend Steven
Poulos said. "Now we find out how tough she really is too."

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:16 PM

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i heard that on Paul Harvey

by brain surgeon

that is one tough woman.....;p

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 7:25 PM

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Yep, she's one tough lady

by nemesis

She probably eats her "Raisin Bran" without milk.

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:32 PM

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no ,, more like her,,

by brain surgeon

,,Grape Nuts......;p

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 9:37 PM

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Elderly Man Thwarts Bank Robbery

by nemesis

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Vancouver police are crediting a 74-year-old man with thwarting
a bank robbery by hitting the masked thief on the head and then chasing him as he tried to
escape.

The man, whose name was not released, was a customer at a bank branch on the city's east
side on Tuesday when the alleged robber entered the building wearing a mask and
brandishing a 12-inch knife, police said.

"I guess this gentleman decided it was only a knife and he was going to do something about
it (the robbery)," Janice Williams, a police department spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

The elderly man waited as the robber, with cash in hand, began leaving the building and then
threw a metal coin box at him, hitting him on the head, according to police.

Police said the dazed thief, whom they identified only as a 35-year-old U.S. citizen,
removed his mask and ran outside to a waiting bicycle, only to have the 74-year-old
crime-fighter pursue him down the street.

The man attempted to catch the robber on foot, but after realizing he was not fast enough,
flagged down a motorist for help. The pair pursued the thief in the car and called police
with a cell phone to bring them into the chase.

"Basically the suspect ran into the arms of police," Williams said.

Williams said police "recognize the courage of this customer" but caution that it is usually
not a good idea for unarmed citizens to confront armed criminals. "You could put yourself in
a potentially dangerous situation," she said.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:14 PM

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Three Farm Workers Die In Manure Tank

by nemesis

DRAYTON, Ontario (Reuters) - Ontario police are investigating an accident in which three
farm workers died after they climbed into an 18,000-liter liquid manure tank and were
overcome by the fumes.

Police believe the men were killed by inhaling deadly methane gas when they climbed into
the nearly empty tank to repair a faulty part.

The men were using the mobile tank to spread manure on a farm field near Drayton, Ontario,
80 miles west of Toronto, around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, police said on Wednesday.

One man entered the tank to make the repair, but failed to return. A second man went in to
rescue him and the third was then prompted to go in after the other two failed to come out.

Henry Redekop, 23, Gary Ferrier, 32, and Eric Schulz, 33, were pronounced dead at the
scene. The precise cause of the deaths has yet to be determined. The bodies were removed
from the tank by firefighters wearing air tanks.

Police said criminal negligence on the part of the farm owners has yet to be assessed.

"It's too soon to tell. We're still investigating the cause of death and trying to put the pieces
together on what occurred," said Ontario Provincial Police Constable Darryl Campbell.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:13 PM

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Boy

by Corn Crib

What a way to go

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 8:15 PM

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Man,

by Harry

I couldn't live like that, either.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 8:47 PM

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Coalfields Expressway Route & Official Name Revealed

by nemesis

by AMY GATLEY

RICHMOND — The Coalfields Expressway will be built along the preferred route of all counties involved, according to a draft resolution of the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

The board is expected to give the final approval of the route location Thursday at a hearing in Richmond. The hearing will be followed by a live teleconference by board Chairwoman Shirley Ybarra at Southwest Virginia Community College near Tazewell.

According to the resolution, the expressway will be located along what is known as the ‘‘preferred route.’’

Delegate Clarence ‘‘Bud’’ Phillips, D-Sandy Ridge, said the 54-mile route stretches across the ridgetop coming to Breaks Interstate Park then follows the ridge on the North side of Haysi, south of Clintwood and then to Pound.

The proposed route is the preferred route of Dickenson, Wise and Buchanan counties, Phillips added.

The preferred route and five alternative routes were the focus of several public hearings held during the past year in Dickenson and Buchanan counties.

There will be access roads to all major towns along the route, Phillips said, and an off-ramp connector road going to Breaks Interstate Park and connecting to Route 460 into Kentucky.

‘‘It really adds another dimension to the Coalfields Expressway,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘Route 460 goes through Kentucky, Virginia to Bluefield, and on to Roanoke. That is a major corridor route as well.

‘‘Not only would it connect with 460, it would also connect with Route 23 and potentially Route 58, which makes it a significant improvement in terms of the connector road. ... It would connect all that system up.’’

The exit roads along the route would allow for access to the Dickenson County Industrial Park and potentially the future Buchanan County airport site, Phillips said.

Besides finalizing a location, Phillips said the transportation board has also officially named the road.

As of Thursday, the Coalfields Expressway will be designated as U.S. Route 121.

‘‘I think that is significant,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘Now we have an actual route number to go on maps. When you see a route number go up on a potential road, it gives everyone a great sense of hope and optimism that it will become a reality.’’

Although $53 million has been appropriated by the Department of Transportation for the road, Phillips said many residents are still skeptical that the road will be built. But with a location and road name in place, and funding on the way, Route 121 is a definite reality.

A subcommittee of the transportation board is also reviewing a public-private partnership proposal by Brown & Root Construction Co. for construction of the route. Phillips said a decision on that proposal is expected to be made within the next several months.

© 2000 Times-News.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:12 PM

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will it still be known as the Coalfields Expressway ??

by brain surgeon

like the Blue Ridge Parkway?? or will it just be called U.S. route 121???

i was realy hoping for the Coalfields Expressway to stick........;p

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 7:30 PM

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I'm Sure It'll Still Be Called The "Coalfields Expressway"

by nemesis

Just like U.S. 23 is disignated the "Country Music Highway".

Posted on Aug 18, 2000, 5:34 PM

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More Info

by DARKSTAR

http://www.vdot.state.va.us/info/News/state/nrCO08172000_coalfields.html

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 8:48 PM

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sounds good,, but will it be another 10 years in the start up of this

by brain surgeon

wait and see........;p

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:08 PM

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An Italian boy and a Jewish boy

by the Jester

A little Italian boy and a little Jewish boy, lived about a block apart in
the neighborhood and basically grew up together. The Jewish boy was the son
of a Jeweler and the Italian boy was the son of a hit man.

Oddly enough, they had the same birthday. For their 12th birthday, the
little Jewish boy received a Rolex watch and the little Italian boy
received a 22 Baretta.

The next day, they are out on the street corner comparing their presents
and neither is happy, so they switch gifts with each other.

The little Italian boy goes home to show his Father and his Father is
NOT pleased. "What are you, nuts? Let me tell you something, you idiot!
Some day you're gonna meet a nice girl, you're gonna wanna settle down
and get married. You'll have a few kids, all that stuff. THEN one day,
you're gonna come home and find your wife in bed with another man. What
the hell ya gonna do? Look at your watch and say, 'Hey, how long you
gonna be?'"

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 4:45 PM

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How to speedload this board

by CDF

Turn off images, java and javascript thru browser preferences. Speed gain due to not loading images (including those frickin' banner ads) should be self-explanatory. However, there is another little dealie running hidden under the main index of this board and on individual message pages... a counter from TheCounter.com that tracks lots of interesting things including IP numbers and hosts.

TheCounter is running poorly today so it hangs the page loads. Turning off javascript eliminates the drag plus increases your privacy protections.

Just thought y'all might want a clue.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 1:40 PM

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dats sum so-looshun

by gdmfsob

but den i'd miss all dem purty pitchers.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 2:22 PM

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Mine already loads quickly

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Even with my slow connection speed, the entire page usually loads in 10-20 seconds.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 3:48 PM

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Now if....

by Sigmund Fraud

...only you brain would load that quickly!!

P.S. If you really think that's fast,it's time for you to buy another computer. Yours must have come over on the Mayflower.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 4:35 PM

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It Sounds Like FFC...

by nemesis

...Is either a subscriber to MountaiNet or NAXS like I am. If I set my preferences to store images each time I connect, I find that the DCDB and other sites with images load a little slowly the first time, but are much faster when I revisit.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:35 PM

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i do load that quickly,,

by brain surgeon

,,oh ,, sorry ,, you were making a funny about F.F.C. ,,, i guess i missed that the first time,,

i thought you were wishing for better connection speed for me.........;p

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 7:34 PM

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Nemesis is tracking us?

by Anonymous

That's not nice nemesis.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:07 PM

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Heh. Not Hardly

by nemesis

Network 54 has recently installed a new counter. This is the same counter that I tried on here for a while until some hacker broke in and ran the numbers up into the thousands in less than an hour.

I have no control whatsoever over this Network 54 counter, however counters can be useful if you have a homepage because you can actually see what other sites have links to your page. This is especially useful if you trade links with other sites, because some people will put your link up for about a week or so in order to get you to link to them and then remove your link.

Network 54 survives on advertising banners, and I'm sure that the advertisers would also like to know which sites are linked to Network 54, so that's probably the reason that they're now using this counter.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:24 PM

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You mean people actually

by Corn Crib

click on them there banner things? I try to stay away from them thangs, tried them a time or two and went on the god awfullest goose chase there ever was.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 8:30 PM

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The Network 54 Counter Does Slow Things Down A Bit

by nemesis



Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 5:38 PM

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Clinton Administration Takes Stand on Kentucky Law

by Mr.Eon

Clinton Administration Takes Stand on Kentucky Law

(CNSNews.com) - The Clinton administration is taking a stand in support
of a local anti-discrimination ordinance passed by the city of Louisville,
Kentucky. The ordinance, enacted last year, bans discrimination against
homosexuals in housing, employment, etc. A Louisville physician - a
Southern Baptist - filed suit against the ordinance on the grounds that his
religious beliefs prevent him from hiring homosexuals. President Clinton's
Justice Department this week filed a friend-of the court brief, urging a
federal judge to reject the doctor's appeal. Wire services report this is the
first time ever that the Clinton administration has gone to court in support of
a local government's effort to protect homosexuals from employment
discrimination. The move comes less than three months before the
presidential election.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 1:25 PM

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wots naixt?

by gdmfsob

Dem trayters'll be a tellin me i hafta har sum dam revenoors t' hep me wit my still.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 2:24 PM

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What? Bush gets the bounce in new poll

by Mr.Eon

What? Bush gets the bounce in new poll

Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published 8/17/00



LOS ANGELES — Republicans here are reveling over continued dissension in Democratic
ranks, prime-time emphasis on faded party liberals and now a new poll that shows George W.
Bush getting a bounce from the Democrats' own convention.
"They've always put on a really good facade up until now," said Republican Gov. Christine
Todd Whitman of New Jersey. "This is a party trying to figure out, does it win an election or
does it go back to its liberal base?"
While that assessment is expected from Republicans, some Democrats publicly expressed
growing frustration over Vice President Al Gore's poor performance in the polls.
"We pick up the morning paper, and we can't understand how a guy like George W. Bush can
be leading a guy with the kind of caliber, experience and know-how as Al Gore," Sen. Joseph
Biden of Delaware told a breakfast meeting of the Michigan delegation yesterday.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts even grumbled about the overshadowing — and lingering
—presence of President Clinton.
"We may need to get the Jaws of Life to pry him free from the thing — but we've got to pry
him free. The fact is . . . he is a vastly talented, enormously engaged political person, but he has
to step back now."
A new bipartisan poll taken overnight Tuesday shows Democrats have plenty to grumble
about. According to the Battleground survey, Mr. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee
and governor of Texas, actually increasing his lead over Mr. Gore from eight to 11 points during
the Democratic Party's showcase.
Republican leaders' assessment was that Democrats have squandered valuable time on
internal squabbles, such as Rep. Loretta Sanchez's fund-raising flap at the Playboy Mansion, and
on more serious problems, such as the black community's rift with vice-presidential nominee
Joseph I. Lieberman over affirmative action and school vouchers.
"This is a pretty dispirited Democratic Party right now," said Republican National
Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson. "There's an apathy [in the hall] that I sense that certainly
wasn't at our convention. There are a lot of empty seats, people don't jump up and down out of
their seats with enthusiasm to applaud speakers."
Some Democrats, however, said the party is unified.
"There's tremendous enthusiasm about Al Gore and his message," said Jon Corzine, a U.S.
Senate candidate from New Jersey. He said delegates are "fired up."
While Republicans still expect the presidential race to be essentially a dead heat by Labor
Day, they say the signs of discontent at the convention point to trouble ahead for Democrats,
both in getting out their own vote and luring independents.
Combined with Monday night's partisan attacks, in which Democrats criticized Mr. Bush
directly or indirectly 138 times (by the GOP's count), Republican strategists say there is
evidence of at least a temporary backlash against the Democratic ticket.
"I don't think it's serving their interests," Mr. Nicholson said. "It's probably helping us. It
turns off the American people, and that's what this battle is about."
Said one Republican operative, "If they're trying to say they are new Democrats, why did
they drag out the 'Lefty Loser' contingent?" referring to Tuesday night's lineup of former Sen.
Bill Bradley, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. All three
men have failed in presidential bids over the past 20 years.
"I know why they did it — they're trying to consolidate their base," said Mr. Nicholson. "But
it surprised me how far they went to the left for a party that's trying to reinvent itself."
Mr. Gore has been attracting only about 75 percent of Democrats in surveys, compared with
more than 90 percent Republican support for Mr. Bush.
"They lurched left . . . with Ted Kennedy leading the way," said Republican Gov. James S.
Gilmore III of Virginia.
In contrast, Mr. Bush controlled the Republican convention in Philadelphia to such an extent
that the party complied with his desire to scrap the traditional night of partisan jabs at
Democrats. Virtually no one mentioned Mr. Gore from the podium.
Mrs. Whitman said the speech by her fellow New Jerseyite, Mr. Bradley, raised many of the
same issues for which he criticized Mr. Gore in the Democratic primary.
Mr. Bradley "used about one paragraph to talk about Al Gore and then went off on a diatribe,
I felt, of the failures of this administration . . . that there are 44 million uninsured Americans.
That, to me, was vintage Bill Bradley talking about his campaign four years from now," Mrs.
Whitman said.
"I'm surprised they allowed him to give that speech," she added.
Republicans said the chinks in Democrats' armor will not change the GOP's strategy or its
campaign message, but the noticeable dissension at this convention could have an impact on
Democratic fund raising.
The Republican National Committee is operating a "Victory 2000" command post on the fifth
floor of a building across the street from the Staples Center, site of the Democratic convention.
Mr. Nicholson, Republican governors and congressional Republicans such as Rep. David
Dreier of California hold daily press briefings to counter the Democrats' message.
They also prowl the halls of the convention, seeking intelligence and reporters.
One Republican source said the GOP is especially interested in the continuing split between
Mr. Lieberman and black Democrats, saying it highlights one of Mr. Gore's shortcomings in
leadership compared with Mr. Clinton.
"Clinton had this incredible ability to say, 'Shut up and get in line behind me,' " the
Republican said. "Gore just doesn't have that ability."
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, once considered a vice-presidential candidate for Mr.
Gore, acknowledged yesterday Democrats still have work to do with their base of traditional
supporters.
"Right now, the Democratic base is energized and in the days ahead it will be united," Mr.
Richardson told The Washington Times. "This is a period where we're getting our strategy
together."

Copyright © 2000 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 1:17 PM

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GOP launches statewide ad attacking Robb on taxes

by Mr.Eon

GOP launches statewide ad attacking Robb on taxes

By BOB LEWIS
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- With Sen. Charles Robb in Los
Angeles for the Democratic National Convention, Virginia
Republicans launched a major statewide advertising blitz
attacking Robb as tax-happy and ridiculing his claim to be a
fiscal conservative.

The ad, launched Monday, will continue for more than a week
and likely signals the start of a television war that won't let up
until after the Nov. 7 election, said state GOP director Ed
Matricardi.

"This is a very big ad, ... very, very huge buy,'' Matricardi
said. He refused to disclose how much the party paid for the
television blitz or exactly how long it is scheduled to last.

"It's big enough to get our message across to every voter in
the state that Chuck Robb never met a tax increase he didn't
like and that George Allen is a tax cutter,'' Matricardi said.

Allen, a conservative former governor, has made taxes a
central theme of his campaign to deny Robb a third term. He
has especially criticized Robb for voting in 1993 for
President Clinton's deficit-reduction package, which
included a tax increase.

The ad singles out seven Robb votes on continuing the
so-called marriage penalty tax, and says Robb voted to
increase taxes on Social Security recipients and that he
proposed a 50-cent-a-gallon increase in the tax on gasoline.

"Chuck Robb calls himself a fiscal conservative -- typical
Robb-speak,'' the narrator says as the ad begins. As he
cites Robb tax votes, the screen displays a montage of
newspaper clips and pictures of Robb. A subtext cites the
numbers and dates of some of the votes.

Then, the spot focuses on "George Allen's straight talk,'' and
his pledge to end the marriage penalty, cut taxes on Social
Security benefits and oppose higher gasoline taxes. It ends
with a phone number for viewers to call to "Tell Chuck Robb
... Stop Taxing Virginians!''

Robb has complained repeatedly that Allen has distorted his
record, especially the gasoline tax. That measure, introduced
in 1993, was a resolution authorizing a study of whether
raising the gasoline tax would decrease U.S. dependence
on foreign oil in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.

Robb said he opposed recent a Republican bill to cut the
marriage-penalty tax, because he favors another version that
provides more relief. Under present tax law, two single
people enjoy wider tax brackets than a comparable married
couple, resulting in an average tax bill $1,400 higher for 25
million couples.

Robb's campaign found out about the ads Monday in Los
Angeles, said his campaign spokesman Moe Elleithee.

"We're very disappointed but not surprised that George Allen
is waging a negative campaign of distortion and
manipulation. It hasn't been giving them any traction so far,
and we are confident that it won't do much for them from here
on out,'' Elleithee said in a telephone interview.

The most recent independent polling shows Allen with a
10-point lead over Robb. A survey conducted a month ago
by Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.,
showed Allen supported by 49 percent of the 620 registered
voters surveyed statewide, and Robb backed by 39 percent.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage
points.

The ad signals that the GOP is jumping into the race full
force, well before Labor Day when campaigns traditionally
escalate into fall combat mode.

"I think this campaign heated up long ago and we will not
slow down until Nov. 8,'' Matricardi said. "I don't think either
side will let up off the gas, and this won't cool off until after the
election.''

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 1:15 PM

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What do older women and doggy doo have in common??

by AlGore.com

The older they get, the easier they are to pick up!!!

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 12:51 PM

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Carl Limbacher: An Interview with Asst. Professor Skip

by Asst. Professor Skip

A chance meeting on an airplane gave Carl Limbacher four hours to interview Asst. Professor Skip, well-known veteran of discussion board wars. Mr. Limbacher was unable to interest any publications in the interview, so the rights to the text were released to Asst. Professor Skip.

C.L. Thank you for agreeing to this interveiw. However, I will warn you that I will be asking tough questions.

SKIP: Feel free to ask away. I've reluctantly read some of your work, so I'm familiar with your style.

C.L.: Oh? So you're a fan?

SKIP: Hardly. In my opinion, you are biased to the point of near-blindness and you have little regard for the truth.

C.L.: Fair enough. Now, is real your name Asst. Professor Skip?

SKIP: No. Asst. Professor Skip does exist, however. He's really an assistant professor of music at a very small southwestern school. I read one of his messages on an obscure discussion board. His name to is an unusual combination of overt pretentiousness and pure goofiness, so I borrowed it for the DCDB.

C.L: Alright, so you are a thief. Interesting. Let's talk about other names you've been accused of using. Are you Gorewhore, Goregasm, Anonymous, Ross Jr., H. Stern, Bystander, Repo Man, James, Slim Eddies Dog, DEMO, D-Dog, that guy who's name is the same as his message title, and all the other detractors of the conservatives on the DCDB?

SKIP: No.

C.L.: No what?

SKIP: I'm not all of those..

C.L.: Do you multiple post?

SKIP: Yes.

C.L.: Will you at least tell me who you aren't?

SKIP: Ok, I'll give you some names, but not all, of those I am not. I do not post under Gorewhore, Goregasm Anonymous, James, or Bystander. I'm not even half of the remaining names in your list, but I won't say any more.

C.L.: Well, I guess that's the best we can do. Are you really in academia?

SKIP: Sort of. I work at a humble educational institution in the Midwest.

C.L.: Are you some sort of administrator, like a dean or vice president?

SKIP: Don't be offensive. Let it suffice to say that I'm neither an assistant professor nor an administrator.

C.L.: Ok. New subject: how did you come to be a bleeding heart liberal?

SKIP: (laughs) I'm not. I actually have voted Republican more times than Democratic. I have the distinction for having voted for two of the most scandal-ridden presidents of our time: Nixon and Clinton. Interestingly, I voted for both only for their second terms.

C.L.: Sounds like you can't even buy a clue.

SKIP: It's been said before.

C.L.: Why do you hate Rush Limbaugh?

SKIP: Well, just like you, he's a mean-spirited bag of wind who has no regard for accuracy in reporting, despite the fact that millions hang on his every word. His biggest errors are repeated endlessly as if they are true, even years after they've been shown to be false. He is epitomized by the joke: What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenberg? One is a huge Nazi gas bag, the other is a zeppelin. In fairness, Limbaugh probably isn't a Nazi.

C.L.: In other words, you don't like him because you are an elitist, liberal, pompous @ss.

SKIP: No, I told already told you. I'm not a liberal.

C.L.: Last question: are you a woman?

SKIP: What? No! Do I look like a woman?

C.L.: Well, you're wearing women's clothing.

SKIP: I'm wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. And so are you!

C.L: Yes, I know. Do you think I look gay?

SKIP: I didn't think about it at all. I guess not.

C.L.: (rolls his t-shirt to make it look like a halter top) Do I look gay now?

SKIP: (laughs) Yes, very much. You stole that from Scary Movie.

C.L.: (giggles and pats Skip on the knee) Oh, you! You're a smarty. Did anyone ever tell you that you have a pretty mouth?

SKIP: My wife, maybe. Thanks, I guess.

C.L.: (giggles again) Thank you.


Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 7:38 AM

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Very clever Skippy

by Fat Freddy's Cat



Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 3:45 PM

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that was great Skip

by brain surgeon

best laugh i'v had in a while,,
but you could have used some graphics,,
thanks........;p

Posted on Aug 17, 2000, 9:45 PM

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