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Revealed: how purrs are secret to cats' nine lives

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Revealed: how purrs are secret to cats' nine lives
By David Harrison, Environment Correspondent





Healing and the
cat's purr -
Fauna
Communications
Research
Institute

Journal of the
American
Veterinary
Medical
Association

The University of
Hull

Why do cats
purr? - useless
knowledge.com

How does a cat
purr, which cats
purr, and what
does it mean? -
Mad sci network






SCIENTISTS have discovered that the purring of cats is a
"natural healing mechanism" that has helped inspire the
myth that they have nine lives.

Wounded cats - wild and domestic -
purr because it helps their bones and
organs to heal and grow stronger, say
researchers who have analysed the
purring of different feline species.
This, they say, explains why cats
survive falls from high buildings and
why they are said to have "nine lives".
Exposure to similar sound frequencies
is known to improve bone density in
humans.

The scientists, from the Fauna Communications Research
Institute in North Carolina, found that between 27 and 44
hertz (a measure of the number of cycles per second) was
the dominant frequency for a house cat, and 20-50Hz for
the puma, ocelot, serval, cheetah and caracal. This
reinforces studies confirming that exposure to frequencies
of 20-50Hz strengthens human bones and helps them to
grow.

Dr Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, the president of the
institute, said: "Old wives' tales usually have a grain of
truth behind them and cats do heal very quickly. The
healing power of purring seems to explain their 'nine
lives'." The scientists say that sound waves created at a
particular frequency trigger the healing process in feline
bones. Purring is believed to have a similar effect to
ultrasound treatment on humans. Dr von Muggenthaler said:
"We are starting to solve a 3,000-year-old mystery as to
why cats purr. e next phase will be to explain the
mechanics of the process."

Almost all cats purr, including lions and cheetahs, though
not tigers. Dr von Muggenthaler said that purring had to be
advantageous to a cat to survive natural selection, but there
seemed to be no obvious advantage for a cat merely to
display contentment. A natural capacity for increasing bone
growth and strength and reducing healing time was,
however, "clearly advantageous".

Cats' ability to survive and recover quickly after falling
from tall buildings is well documented. One recent study,
published in The Journal of the American Veterinary
Medical Association, found that out of 132 cats that fell an
average of 5.5 storeys, 90 per cent survived, including one
that fell 45 storeys.

Other scientific teams are researching whether "sound
treatment" could be used to halt osteoporosis and even
renew bone growth in post-menopausal women. Dr David
Purdie, from Hull University's centre for metabolic bone
disease, said that the human skeleton needs stimulation or it
begins to leak calcium and weaken. "Purring could be the
cat's way of providing that stimulation for its own bones."

He said that it was difficult to devise physical exercises
for old people suffering from osteoporosis and speculated
that it might be possible to create a mechanism to use cats'
purring to help strengthen elderly bones.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=004582369062218&rtmo=fsw0rlMs&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/3/18/wcat18.html

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 3:14 PM

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Unfortunately

by Peter

Frequencies in the range of 30-50 Hertz have been proven to destroy the ozone and cause global warming. Moreover, a purring cat has been proven to produce 0.04% more CO2 than a non-purring cat.

We need anti-purring legislation and we need it now!

But seriously, that's interesting stuff, no? There's been numerous studies on the emotional impact of sound, both audible and inaudible (music, the cadence of speech, etc.) but little on the physical effects from what I know. What happens on the biological, molecular and atomic levels to cause such an effect?

And on a personal level, if my kitty purrs on my lap, will I still need Viagra?



Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 4:33 AM

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Hahaha!!!!!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

"And on a personal level, if my kitty purrs on my lap, will I still need Viagra?"

Not if your kitty knows what she's doing.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 4:34 PM

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A Minnesota high school officially sanctions "gay pride," but recently banned a solitary e

by J

By Stuart Shepard, correspondent


Elliott Chambers is 16, a Christian, and the owner of a sweatshirt that reads "Straight Pride" on the front with a logo of a boy and girl holding hands on the back. He tried to wear it at his school recently, which mandates "gay pride" stickers and posters be placed on walls and doors designating so-called "safe zones" for homosexual students.

"They have all this gay-pride stuff, and I thought it would be cool if we had a straight pride shirt for a change," Chambers said. "It was just to get people thinking."

It only succeeded in getting some of his classmates thinking of going to the principal's office, which is where Elliott ended up.

"(The principal) said that I couldn't wear it," Chambers said. "I guess his cover was that it would incite violence."

Lana Chambers, Elliott's mom, was livid when she found out about the principal's action.

"I said, 'You're telling me that he cannot wear this shirt because it's offensive to them (homosexuals)? Well, those signs are offensive to him! And to me! And I'm a taxpayer!' " Lana Chambers said.

Attorney Frank Manion, with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), said the principal's argument that banning the shirt is a matter of school safety is a "smokescreen."

"It's obviously discriminatory and something that the school should not be allowed to get away with," Manion said. "We've got to beware of the aims and the goals of, really, the radical homosexual-rights movement. "

Elliott had a new shirt made to wear after his sweatshirt was banned. It simply reads, "Help, I'm being repressed."



Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:33 PM

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Like Earlybird said

by Fat Freddy's Cat

That's more evidence of societal degeneration, or something like that. And even old Algore's quote would be correct is applied to modern American society; "Everything that should be up is down, and everything that should be down is up".

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 3:26 PM

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That's the truth if I ever read it FFC

by Earlybird

So very sad.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:31 AM

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Mini-Me

by DR. Evil

http://www.netlaughter.com/minime.htm

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:06 PM

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ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

by ha ha



Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:25 PM

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ROFLMFAO!

by Breathless



Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 7:32 PM

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oxy dopers will excape jail time....

by Ironicman

I'm sure a smart lawyer will get them off because there is no law against being an oxymoron.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 10:56 AM

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How clever Ironicman

by Earlybird

That was a really great play on words even though it's essentially true.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:33 AM

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Tax cuts for everybody..why none for Mega-Corps...

by Liberal

Because Republicans can't find any major Corporations that pay any taxes, thats why.

Harpers Magazine reported Pepsi Corp. paid zero taxes in 1999....Of course it cost them something to get out of taxes, their tax lawyers and lobbyist passed out free pop and pizza hut pizza to lawmakers in DC..

By the way, these tax cuts everybody are praiseing are over ten years....not all next year..

I expect Liberals to wipe that smirk off of Juniors' face by not buying anything this year and letting the economy sink into a depression.

The GOP think only of their rich Banker friends anyway....

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 9:38 AM

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Savings and Loan debacle in the 80s...

by taxpayer II

Yes I remember the Federal Government Payed the Bankers over 500 Billion dollars in the 80s because they pilfered their own banks and bought condos, villas,yachts, and race horses at the expense of American taxpayers.

Hey Liberal, Leopards and Politicans don't change their spots, they will camouflage themselves at times though...

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 9:59 AM

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Daddybush quote on S&L scandal

by AntiSmirk

Remember, Jeb Bush (in Florida) and Neil Bush (in Colorado) were neckdeep in S&L shenanigans.


    "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."

    -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter


Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:25 PM

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State chip-mill study was a fruitless exercise

by Anonymous

The Roanoke Times
Thursday, January 11, 2001 Page A15


The timber industry prevailed

State chip-mill study was a fruitless exercise

By SHIREEN PARSONS


In 1999, in response to citizen's concerns about the economic, social and environmental impacts of the growing number of wood-chip mills in Virginia, the legislature established the 13 member Joint Subcommittee Studying the impact of Satellite Chip Mills on Virginia's Economy and Environment, I was one of seven private citizens appointed by the speaker of the House of Delegates to, the 13-member committee.

Two of the seven citizen members, Rupert Culter and myself, represented the interest of human communities and the environment; the other five represented the interest of the timber and pulp-and-paper industries. Of the six legislative members, only two did not blindly support the industry.

Our 'study' of chip mills consisted of six meetings. We listened to presentations by economists, ecologists, environmental activists and citizens whose communities are suffering the effects of chip mills and the resultant deforestation. We learned that the Tennessee, North Carolina, and Missouri legislatures are studying the issue in depth, and that, because of its initial findings, Missouri has declared a moratorium on the construction of new chip, mills until all available data have been collected and analyzed.

We learned that, at the federal level, the Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a study of the cumulative effects of chip mills in an entire region. We read articles on the issue by national, regional and local media.

We learned that there is far more to consider than the on-site impacts of a chip mill, which include noise, dust and wastewater discharge. Within the over lapping 100-mile diameter sourcing areas for high-capacity chip mills, diverse, native forests with all their benefits including wildlife habitat, water quality protection and recreational opportunities - disappear at an alarming rate.

In Southside and Southwest Virginia, the landscape has already changed dramatically. Vast tracts of forest have been clearcut and converted to pine plantations, countless streams have been degraded and the devastation continues to spread. The logging regulations intended to protect water resources are poorly enforced by the Department of Forestry,

Local property values, both near Chip-mill sites and in the deforested areas, decline. Value-added wood industries find it increasingly difficult to get saw timber. Tourism declines no one wants to hike, camp, fish or hunt in view of a clearcut site or amid rows of identical pine trees.

Like all extractive industries, chip mills are sited in low-income and/or minority communities. Because a chip mill employs only a few people, the community residents don t even receive the benefit of jobs - all they get is the dust, noise, reduced property values and dangers of heavy truck traffic. Chip-mill profits typically are not spent in the community, and county and state taxpayers bear the cost of infrastructure improvements and repairs, and environmental remediation.

The committee also listened to presentations by Department of Forestry personnel and industry spokespersons, all of whom extolled the economic benefits of the wood-chip industry and denied any adverse impacts to communities or the environment.

On Dec. 6, at the sixth and final meeting of the study committee, which lasted all of two hours, the members were presented with a committee report and two proposed House Joint Resolutions. The report and proposed resolutions had been predrafted without discussion by, or input from the committee.

After little discussion, Cutler made a motion to adopt the proposed resolution that would have 'requested' a comprehensive forest-conservation-plan and a 'generic environmental impact study to document the cumulative impacts of forest uses on the major forest components,' but a vote was not taken on the motion. Instead, Del. Creigh Deeds, D-Warm Springs, countermoved to adopt the more meaningless alternative, which was passed by the committee with nary a; nay and one abstention (mine).

After a series of 'whereas' paragraphs, it resolves to 'urge' the secretary of commerce and trade and the secretary of natural resources to submit to the General Assembly an analysis of the impact that agency regulations have on the conversion of farm and forest lands.

It further resolves that the secretary of commerce and trade and the Department of Forestry 'be requested' to review agency programs related to forest sustainability and long-term health, identify agency programs that affect forest management, direct agencies to develop 'cooperative mechanisms' to administer such programs, and recommend to the chairs of the House Committee of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources actions that will 'enhance the health of the forest resource, while protecting the commonwealth s environment and associated-natural, historical, and cultural resources. All agencies are 'requested to cooperate in this effort.

The resolution signifies nothing -- the Virginia legislature has effectively washed its hands of the issue of the social, economic and environmental impacts of the wood-chip industry in Old Dominion. And the timber industry and the politicians who serve it couldn't be happier.


SHIREEN PARSONS of Christiansburg is a member of Virginia Forest Watch.


Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 8:04 AM

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Great job Sheriff Hammons!

by Earlybird

Mar 18, 2001 - 12:38 AM

Coeburn man held in slaying
Capital murder charged in October shooting
death

By KATHY STILL
Bristol Herald Courier

WISE _ A 32-year-old Coeburn man was arrested
Saturday and charged with capital murder and robbery
in the slaying of a grocery store assistant manager
five months ago.

Harless Fitzgerald Rose was arrested Saturday
afternoon by Dickenson County Sheriff Bobby
Hammons near Haysi. He was taken to Wise County
and jailed without bond.

A multijurisdictional grand jury issued a sealed
indictment Friday against Rose, and it was not
unsealed until he was in custody, said Wise County
Commonwealth's Attorney Joe Carico.

The indictment charges Rose with capital murder in
the killing of Timothy Dale Hughes, a 35-year-old
assistant manager at the Coeburn Payless grocery
store who was shot to death Oct. 5 as he and two
employees tried to make a night deposit at a bank.

The two employees told police a masked gunman
ambushed them as they approached the Miners
Exchange Bank branch. Hughes was shot twice.

Rose also was indicted on one count of robbery in
connection with the shooting, and he was indicted
earlier this month on drug charges during an
OxyContin sting in Coeburn, Carico said.

``We have two types of evidence that we'll rely on in
the trial,'' Carico said. ``We have several witnesses
that can link (Rose) to the crime. We also have
scientific evidence.''

Carico declined to comment about a motive but said
robbery always leads authorities to question why the
money was needed.

Police said Rose admittedly is addicted to the
painkiller OxyContin, the abuse of which has been on
the rise in recent months.

When asked whether the robbery had anything to do
with the addiction, Carico said it couldn't be ruled
out.

``It's possible,'' Capt. Mike Holbrook, chief
investigator with the Wise County Sheriff's Office,
said when asked about an OxyContin connection.
``Mr. Rose is an OxyContin addict.''

Coeburn police Sgt. Willie Stout has been
investigating the case since Hughes was killed. He
said the investigation was long and difficult but that
several people came forward with information,
including statements Rose allegedly made about the
crime.

Physical evidence links Rose to the crime as well,
Stout said. He declined to comment on that evidence.

``It was a difficult case,'' Stout said.

Four grocery store chains _ Payless, Food City, Food
Lion and Ingles _ established a $10,000 reward for
information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Holbrook said it was possible the reward will be
presented to someone who came forward with
information recently.

``We're happy they've been able to make an arrest,''
Alan Atwood, head of the Payless chain, said
Saturday. ``But it's brought everything back to us.
We're sad over what took place, but we've done our
best to get through the last six months. Maybe this
will give us some comfort, but we can't bring Tim
back.''

Rose is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Wise
County Circuit Court.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:53 AM

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I'm glad he was found.

by garbage man

This is another Criminal that needed to be caught.
Now lets hope that our legal system keeps the pace.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 7:06 AM

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That's great news!

by nemesis

I was starting to fear that the law-enforcement officials had given up.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:30 PM

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I happened to be listening to the scanner

by Betty Boop

and it sounded like a job well done.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 8:17 PM

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One less

by Peter

oxy addict to worry about ... for the time being.

Do you think the suppliers of illegal drugs should be held legally responsible for the same crimes of those that buy drugs from them if it can be proven that they have reasonable doubt that their buyers are involved in illegal activities to support their habit?

Somehow I have the feeling that this Rose cat is just another tough-guy dip**** who got manipulated into an awful act because of his weakness/addiction. And the real people responsible, and profiting, are still walking free.



Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 4:07 AM

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That could very well be true

by Earlybird

Buyers and sellers should all be held accountable, but in my opinion sellers should receive stiffer sentences.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:18 AM

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You have a good point........

by Haysigal

and my answer to your question would be YES in situations where the people walk in the dr. office on a cane claiming this and that is killing them. The same people walk out to get in their car and throw their cane in the back.....never look at it again until it's time to go back to the doctor. I know of this happening several times with several different ones.

All you have to do is hide and watch.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:31 AM

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Hillbilly Yahoo

by Peter

I shot abol. It pissed me off once too often and I toasted its ass.

Actually, I just decided to get rid of all the clutter and concentrate on what I'd really like to see happen--a site that grows from others' input with zero (or almost zero) maintenance and input on my part. Now if I could just find a job with that description, I'd be really happy. Too bad I'm not a democrat.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand. Ergo, henceforth and forever more, abol.com shall be the Yahoo of Appalachia, the mother of all mountain search engines, connecting the various and sundry (is that redundant?) folk of this region with the rest of the world ... and vicey versy.

God help us.

abol.com

(subliminal advertisement)


Yeah, it's scary I know, but somehow we'll survive. But the cool part is, based on the way I've coded it, I think it can benefit all of us--especially if you have a site you'd like to drive traffic to ... or a dangling participle you'd like to avoid.

How so?

It's not just a list of links; it's a database-driven app that tracks hits, votes and ratings. As the database builds, it tracks this data and throws certain links into a "what's cool" section. The actual algorithms involved on how it does this are top secret information, and wild horses couldn't drag the details out of me--although a cute long-legged blond might have a chance. (But should that occasion arise, I promise to stand firm ... and keep my zipper firmly zipped.)

abol.com

(another subliminal advertisement, just think "aol.com" and throw in the letter that follows "a")


This could (should) be the URL link for every site in this area, and you all (y'all? ... been living in the South too long ... I no longer say you's guys) have my permission to link to it from any of your sites.

It's amazingly quick (I learned some cool tricks), it's clean, and it can be an extremely powerful resource if we all contribute. So please, take a few moments whenever you get a chance and update the database. We'll all be better off for the effort.

Hints on adding links: The search capability is the real power of the system. Give a moment's thought when you add a link. Whatever you include in the description will be "searchable." For example, if you have a discussion board, think that others may search for "forum," "BBS," "conference," etc. Cover all the bases, and your link will show up whenever someone searches for the word in question.

Your submission won't show up immediately. Submissions are queued, URL validity is checked, and various other things happen "behind the scenes." The interface is quick and clean, but there's some powerful stuff going on behind the scenes to maintain the integrity of the database. But that's my concern, not yours. Just build the database.

I'm not a graphics person by any means, but I changed the abol logo to include a little bird. He looks like a crow, but actually he's a "dickbird," a rare and endangered species threatened by CO2 and oxygen and other noxious emissions and found only in Dickenson County. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a name, and a bird without a name is an appalling travesty unlike anything I can imagine.

So, although I haven't linked this to the abol.com site, I am announcing a "Name the Bird" contest to the eclectic and esoteric readers of the DCDB. First prize is an almost brand-new IBM PS/2 Model 50Z computer complete with VGA monitor, genuine IBM/Lexmark keyboard (the best keyboard EVER made in the history of mankind) and an IBM Proprinter III XL printer (the fastest dot-matrix printer you ever saw, and still manufactured by IBM subsidiary Lexmark and retailing for $390). Retail value of this prize package circa 1992 prior to the booming economy years of the Clinton administration? $4000+! Details will be announced later, but you're free to submit your suggestions now. All votes will be counted, except for hanging and pregnant chads.

abol.com

(just in case you forgot the URL)


Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:21 AM

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what was that URL again?????

by brain surgeon

i don't think i caught it..

i'm off to check it out right now..............;p

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 7:12 AM

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Go Hillbilly Yahoo!

by Haysigal

It's a needed service......thanks.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 11:12 AM

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That sounds like a winning idea, Peter

by nemesis

I'll do all I can to help.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:32 PM

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What're ya gonna call it?............

by tsopf

.....YAPallachia?

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 8:25 AM

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Pretty clever, how 'bout ...

by Peter

yahoo.mtdew.com ?


Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 4:18 PM

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How about...

by nemesis

...Shoeless Search?

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:41 PM

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on the same line of thought,,

by brain surgeon

barefoot.walk.through.the.mountains.and.streams.to.the.great.outdoors.com/search

.................;p

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:56 PM

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Educrats Declare War On Remaining Parental Rights

by Earlybird

Educrats Declare War On Remaining Parental Rights

By
Vin Suprynowicz

On Tuesday, May 19, 1999, Jared Salisbury,
9-year-old son of Phillip Salisbury, a $40,000-a-year
employee of Federal Express on Long Island, N.Y.,
was rushed by ambulance to St. John's Episcopal
Hospital, where he died of acute peritonitis from a
ruptured appendix.

At the hospital, officials learned the Salisburys had
decided not to get Jared all his childhood
immunizations — none of which would have
prevented his death. The Salisburys stood accused
of sending their children to the Church of God
Christian Academy, and of refusing to get them their
childhood immunizations, based on the father's
personal beliefs that such "shots" pose more dangers
than they're worth.

(A 1985 federal report prepared for the United
States Institute of Medicine concluded that if 3.6
million American children receive three pertussis
vaccinations each as recommended, 22 to 36 of
those infants will suffer permanent brain damage
from the vaccine each year.)

The state took the five remaining Salisbury children
and placed them in foster care, despite the fact that
inspectors found all the other Salisbury kids safe,
happy, well-fed and well-clothed, and the house
"reasonably clean." Their one-year-old daughter, who
was receiving only breast milk at the time, "was
weaned by force and against our will," Salisbury
says.

Salisbury's wife, Damaris, had the couple's seventh
child last spring. I spoke to Phillip when the child was
just two months old. "My wife had a baby two months
ago and today they took the baby." he told me. "Our
children have always been 100 percent breast fed.
The foster parent is a friend, so we're still going to
try."

The mother will have to visit the foster home several
times a day to feed her child.



According to reporting by Cheryl Romo in the Los
Angeles Daily Journal, which covers legal matters for
Southern California's attorneys, little Kameron Justin
Demery, aged two-and-a-half, and his twin sister
Karissa appeared to be doing fine until one early
morning after the Christmas holiday, 1995.

That was when Karissa was taken to the hospital
emergency room by her mom, suffering with what
would later be diagnosed as bronchitis.

The first thing hospital officials requested from their
mom, Jacqueline Bishop (then 29) were the children's
immunization records. But since Ms. Bishop had been
persuaded by her own mother, a licensed vocational
nurse, not to immunize the twins because of the very
real health risks, she didn't have any immunization
records.

Within days came the late-night government raid in
which the twins and their seven-year-old brother
were seized from Ms. Bishop by brute force.

The twins, Kameron and Karissa, were placed in the
foster care of David and Evelyn Miller, even though
the Millers had previously had all foster children in
their care removed by the DCFS because of
"excessive discipline." The Millers had also been
decertified as care providers in February, 1995 by
the Foster Family Network. But reporter Romo found
the previous abuse allegations against the Millers
were not reported to the DCFS hotline. They "fell
through the cracks."

On Oct. 14, 1996, little Karissa looked on as her
brother Kameron, against whom she had cuddled as
she fell asleep each night since she was born, was
beaten to death by Evelyn Miller, his state-licensed
foster care provider. Evelyn Miller is now serving a
sentence of 15 years-to-life for murder.



I've researched more than a dozen such cases in
recent months, and experts tell me it's the tip of the
iceberg. Florida child care workers will now take
perfectly healthy children out of loving homes
because they believe they're obliged to do so if a
younger infant dies of crib death. In the case of
Alexandera Dykes of Colorado Springs, daughter of
Travis ("Ted") and Anita Doolin of Las Vegas, the
children were taken away on a charge of "dirty
home" after she filed third-degree sexual assault
charges against a male case worker who slid his
hands up under her sweater and tried to pull her into
the bedroom in front of her young children.

The presumption in America today — first for the
poor but increasingly for all of us — is that our
children belong to the state. The state allows those
children to remain "out on loan" to their natural birth
parents only so long as you meet all the
government's requirements: Every vaccination
recommended by the major pharmaceutical firms, no
matter how dangerous or statistically useless.

No guns in the house; no strange faith-healing
religious beliefs. And you'd better make sure your kid
reports to the local government youth propaganda
camp from the age of six ... or is it 5 now? ... so the
local educrats get their subsidies based on a full
complement of little butts to warm the seats ... or
else.

Now comes Senate Bill 73, pre-filed Feb. 1 for this
session of the Nevada Legislature in the name of
Sen. Ray Rawson's entire Committee on Human
Resources and Facilities, since no individual
lawmaker has the courage to attach his or her name
to such a monstrosity.

The bill "requires state board of education to
prescribe form for reports of parental involvement in
education of children." In other words, it would enact
Las Vegas Assemblywoman (and Special Ed
teacher) Chris Giunchigliani's longtime dream:
teachers filling out report cards on parents.

The teachers union would help draft a form on which
teachers would grade parents on "whether the parent
or legal guardian ensures the attendance and
punctuality of the pupil, including, without limitation,
whether the pupil: (1) Completes his homework
assignments in a timely manner; (2) Is present in the
classroom when school begins each day unless his
absence is approved in accordance with NRS
392.130. ...

Also required would be "(b) A report of whether the
parent or legal guardian ensures the health and
safety of the pupil, including, without limitation,
whether: ... (2) Current information is on file with the
school regarding the health of the pupil, such as
immunization records...(3) The parent and child abide
by any applicable rules and policies of the school and
the school district; and ... (c) ... whether the parent
or legal guardian: (1) Completes forms and other
documents that are required by the school or school
district in a timely manner; (2) Assists in carrying out
a plan to improve the pupil's academic achievement,
if applicable; (3) Attends conferences between the
teacher and the parent or legal guardian, if
applicable; and (4) Attends school activities."

Looking forward to having your "parental report card"
entered into evidence if you ever face a child custody
hearing? Starting to get the idea that maybe we now
work for them?

This police state measure goes on to assure us that
the new parental report cards shall not "interfere
unreasonably with the personal privacy of the parent
and his child or the legal guardian and his ward." But
in fact, destroying any remaining family privacy and
freedom is precisely what this slave measure is
about, the trick being that educrats and teachers
unions will get to define the word "unreasonably."

I use the word "slave" advisedly — slaves on the
plantation two centuries ago probably had as much
freedom to decide how their kids would be raised as
we'll retain when the fascists proposing this crap get
through with us.

The premise of public education is that these
"experts" with their fancy "Ed" degrees know far
more about what and how our kids should learn than
do we "uneducated" boobs. Yet they're now so
desperate to shift the blame for their failures that
they seek a way to document "bad parental
involvement" as the main culprit.

Parental involvement? Taxpaying parents who show
up with detailed instructions on the course of study
and method of instruction best suited to their
individual child — let alone concerns or demands
involving library books and sex education curricula —
need not apply. Our only job — as SB73 makes
abundantly clear — is to gratefully pay up, while
teaching our children to obediently prostrate
themselves before the altar of the almighty state.

My advice? Do not call or write your senator or
representative to urge defeat of this measure. It'll just
get back-doored later on, slipped into law in some
other bill of a different name. Nope: They've shown
us what they intend, and there's only one solution left:

Pull your kids out of the government schools, today.
Home-school every child. Leave their charnel houses
of child enslavement and family destruction derelict
and abandoned. We only think we "need" their
glorified day care services because mom now has to
work full-time just to pay the taxes on dad's
paycheck ... to fund the government welfare schools.
Refuse to pay another penny in school taxes, loudly
and publicly. They've declared war on the rights of
parents to raise our own kids. And if it's war they
want, Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower
taught us the only terms we can afford to offer
fascists:

Unconditional surrender. An end to the government
schools. Close them all.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:40 AM

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Today's quote

by Earlybird

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:31 AM

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Virginias Next Governor....

by Inspired

Mr. Mark Warner undoubtedly the next governor of
Virginia was at the Breaks Park today. He gave a very inspiring speech on his ideas of how to go about running the state government, which included decent raises for teachers and state employees. Prescription drug plans for the needy, rewarding schools that excel academically and passing a state budget based on the current economic conditions rather the current governors ego.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 9:13 PM

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uninspired

by Financially expired

Sounds as if he may be going to enact a car tax!!
Gilmore is going to lenghts to keep a promise and that must seem strange to some. You'll get over it. Mark has been here before.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 10:01 PM

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No unfortunately, his motives don't seem strange- they are just transparent

by Same2U

Anyone with any intelligence, including Republicans, are deeply aware of his motives. His motives have nothing to do at all with the little bit of money you will save, but instead are focused on his grandiose plans in politics. The fact that he is willing to jeopardize the financial future of Virginia to win the votes he needs in northern Virginia is evidence of his self-centeredness. He is the only governor of Virginia that I am aware of that had to get volunteers to man a phone bank to call people in VA to get them to to call their senators and delegates to put pressure on them to vote his way. He has blamed every senator and delegate and tried to use as much pressure as he could but thankfully there are politicians who are trying to do what is fiscally responsible for the state instead of giving in to the governor's demands. He has certainly split the state and the party and who wins in that situation? Not the people or the state of Virginia! But on the bright side, this is the best thing to happen to the Democrat party in Virginia in a long time!

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:48 PM

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Did he mention

by Peter

... anything about jobs or pay raises for those not employed by the government?

As for teachers in the public school system, I know quite a few, including a fair number that have decided to quit. But not one quit because of the pay, thinking they could "do better" working outside the government. In fact, I know several teachers that live as far away as Knoxville and drive to Washington County and live here during the week in a small apartment and only go home on weekends. Why? Because teaching salaries, compared to the jobs on the outside, are already so disporportionate that they find that economically reasonable.

All of them I know are in the $40K plus category and have outstanding benefits, lots of days off, two months off every summer, ongoing education is paid for, etc.

No one's leaving because of the pay, so I don't think increasing it will help. Jus' my two cents.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:37 PM

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You make these broad sweeping statements that are just absolutely misleading!

by Same2U

You're really beginning to disappoint me in your lack of accuracy. It's hard to believe someone at all when they start manipulating the facts.

First of all, a teacher in Washington Co. VA with a BS degree won't be making 40K until they have been teaching 28 years. Something tells me that you probably hang out with administrators if they've got all that you claim they have. The ordinary classroom teacher is not there, at least not until they're about ready to retire, and isn't it a shame that that's when they finally begin to get to a decent salary. Other counties not on I-81 don't all fair as well either. Dickenson Co. teachers have to work past the time they could retire to reach 40K. As far as benefits go, I've had a hairdresser that had better benefits than the teachers do. ( I'm not putting down hairdressers but when my hairdresser told me her health and dental benefits I was amazed that a big group couldn't have benefits even close to hers.) Going on, for all of those days off, well they're not paid. Most teachers in SWVA don't get any paid holidays or vacation days. They're hired for so many days and they have to work them whether it's in the summer or on Sat. or what ever their school board decides. Many teachers I know have to work full time at a summer job to make ends meet and if there is a lot of snow days that make the school year go late in the spring, that just cuts down on their summer job pay.

As for your comparison of teachers' salaries to other jobs, Washington Co. must be in a slump. I have friends that work at a couple of local industries that exceed the local teacher salaries within the first 10-15 years and that's without them having a college education.

Next time you want to talk off the top of your head, at least explain to people that you are not talking about the AVERAGE classroom teacher in SWVA so that people don't get the wrong impression that all teachers are leading the life you claim. I personally don't know any TEACHERS that have the things you claim but I'll be glad to tell them about your county. LOL !

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:33 AM

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Whatever

by Peter

Hardly broad sweeping statements, just observations. I've actually considered returning to school and getting certification because I used to enjoying teaching (military courses, vo-tech, etc.) and the pay IS good compared to other things in this area.

On a per-hour basis, teachers are making between a $17 (starting) and $28 per hour, plus benefits, in SWVA. That's a lot better than minimum wage plus an extra a buck or two thru a temp agency ... or at a call center (arrrrgh!) with zero benefits.




Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 2:02 AM

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DUH ! to Whatever

by Same2U

That was a brilliant example to compare teachers' salaries to minimum wage jobs or other low-skilled jobs. Of course, the pay is better than at McD's ! However, if you compare the salaries of teachers with others who are required to have a college education then the disparity becomes evident. Fact is, as I stated, in the industies close to me, people with little college or technical education are making more than the maximun for teachers within 10-15 years of
their work and their benefits are much better! To make matter more clear, I have heard them brag to teachers that the way their shifts are run, that they work less time than teachers for more pay and they have a full week off every month.

But back to Whatever, I think that's the very thing for you to do is to go back to college so that you can teach. You will probably recieve some credit for experience in the military so that you won't have to start off at the bottom of the scale. I'd like for you to actually experience what teachers have to. There's nothing that will shut up people that mislead like a good dose of the truth!

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:41 PM

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I wasn't comparing ...

by Peter

... teacher's salaries with McD's. I was comparing them to other skilled non-union jobs (degreed or not) available in the area. I don't know of anything that starts out at clost to $17/hr. The latest census shows the average family income in Dickenson County to be less than $10K per year. I'm estimating here, but I know I'm close, that the starting salary for a new teacher fresh out of college with zero experience is around $20K-25K in SWVA. That's five times the average income of the area when the $10K average is assumed to be from a two-income family (which it can be, although I don't have the stats on that breakdown).

IOW, a young couple, both fresh out of college and teaching in the public school system making a combined $50K should not be hurting when the average family income for the area in which they teach is less than $10K. If this were Silicon Valley and the average income were $200K, I could understand--but it's not. If five times the average income isn't enough, how much is?

Re Silicon Valley, varying salaries depending on location can be a problem. One of my friends in the school system has had offers from outside the area in the $100K range, and obviously he's not making that here. But it's a choice of where he choses to live, the associated costs of living, etc. He's more than content with his $30K and his wife's $20K, and is well above the average family income in Washington County of $14.9K. And he also has time to pursue other hobbies and businesses to supplement his income--farming, computer consulting, racing, etc. And he's half my age



Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 4:20 PM

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A quick afterthot...

by Peter

Although poverty sucks, there's more to life than money. If I'm coming across as if teachers don't deserve the money they make, that's not at all what I mean.

But I don't mean to be wishy-washy, so he's my entire point: I think the financial compensation for teachers in the public school systems in this area are commensurate with what they could earn outside the school system in this area. I'm sure there are deviations, and much of it depends on their area of education; e.g., an 8th-grade science teacher with a engineering degree from MIT and MBA from Harvard could prolly do better elsewhere. It depends on whether one choses a career for the money or for other reasons. A social worker with a master's degree or a cop with a B.S. in criminal justice is hard pressed to find anything beyond $12-15K, so why should someone with a B.A. in art appreciation make two or three times as much? Just because they're a teacher?

The fact is that being a public school teacher, like many other professional careers, has never been a career one choses to make the big bucks--and I think there's honor in that. There's problems with our school systems, but I don't think pay is the primary problem. Except that everyone wants more of it and thinks they deserve it, regardless of occupation.





Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 4:57 PM

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Go "Back to the Future" Micheal J.

by Piglet

"A Social Worker w/ a Masters or a cop w/ a BS is hard pressed to find anything beyond $12-15k"??? Sorry, but you have to tell me where they make so little. Not even in Dickenson county.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:31 PM

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Maybe ...

by Peter

... just grabbed those figures from some help wanted ads run in today's paper. Seems low to me too, but that's what's being offered. I did a quick average of all the jobs that listed a salary/wage (ignoring the sales positions and "make money fast" door-to-door stuff); it worked out to be just over $11K, assuming a 2000 hr work year.

I mentioned social workers because IMO they are truly underpaid. Historically, their starting salary fresh out of college is barely above minimum wage. And having to deal day in and day out with bizarre domestic situaitons has got to be a lot more taxing than teaching in a public school I would think. My mother was a registered nurse and social worker, and many of my aunts and uncles are teachers, so I'm again just basing this on my personal perceptions. They don't apply to everyone.

As for the police, one of my friends recently left his job with the town police department to take a job with Red Onion. They offered him about $20K, which was a significant pay increase (according to him). That, and he wanted to finish his bachelors at UVA/Wise.


Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 11:19 PM

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Trying again to get my point across

by Same2U

I agree that teachers, nurses, and social workers along with other professionals should be paid fairly. Your comparison of teachers' salaries by hourly rates gives an impression that you don't consider them professionals. It's symtematic of todays society that many occupations dealing often with children are considered less important in many ways, including salary, than jobs that produce a product to sell on a market.

Saying that there is more stress to social workers than teachers is not necessarily true, either and I too, happen to be in a position to know what I'm talking about.

The truth of the matter is, that for one reason or another, young people are not entering the field of education and I can't say that I blame them. The students themselves will tell you that they wouldn't put up with the kids and the parents for the pay. Maybe it's time to stop saying that people shouldn't go into teaching for the money because no one tells the teachers they don't have to pay their bills and their taxes because they teach.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 10:02 PM

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Those are good points

by Peter

... and you may be right. I just take umbrage at the fact that those with relatively secure positions in this area with the public school systems as compared to those in the private sector feel that their salaries should be "doubled." (Someone made that point previously, maybe you, don't know, but it's ridiculous to think that a 21-year old fresh out of college with no teaching experience should start out teaching 4th-grade art at $50K+. Naaaah.)

Posted on Mar 20, 2001, 1:49 AM

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Regarding the teachers driving from Knoxville,

by Same2U

I don't suppose they happen to have retired from their teaching jobs in TN? That would certainly explain things that you failed to mention. I believe VA and TN have a reciprocal agreement to accept teaching certificates and work experience. I'm aware that several teachers have retired in VA and gone across the state line to teach. That way they can draw their retirement from one state and work in another. That would financially benefit them if they have the opportunity and the health to keep working. However, most of the teachers I know that have done that or are considering it are doing so because it helps them make ends meet because it takes teachers to retirement to start making a decent salary and then they can't afford to simply retire. This helps teachers catch up for those 15 or so years they were behind the industry workers on the pay scale.

However, this points out a fact you really should consider. If these counties are having to hire retired people and pay them at the top of the salary scale, then it should be evident that the teacher shortage is already here! I guess the pay and benefits that you mentioned as being so great are not great enough to draw the new kids into teaching.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:02 PM

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Not retired

by Peter

He's about my age, so he's not old enough t have retired from the TN school system. The reason he gave me is because the pay in VA was so much better. I'm pretty skeptical, and I'm not sure if that's the real reason, or even part of it, but that's what he said. He teaches special ed, not sure if there's extra pay for that or not.

What I don't understand in WashCo is that they have dropped the requirement for certification, which also allows them to hire teachers at less than half the pay. What has happened to industry seems to be happening to the teaching "industry." There appears to be a lot of politics involved, which by the way, is the number one reason the teachers I know have given as to why they want to get out of teaching in the public school system.





Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 3:39 PM

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Mark Warner...."NO", "NO", "NO"........

by Piglet

This is what he stated on the issue of depriving Va. citizens of their gun rights. His bumper sticker " Sportsmen for Mark Warner" explains it all. He also declared war on excess spending and having departments answering for their actions, starting with VDOT.
Dressed in bluejeans, boots and sweatshirt after taking a hike in the Breaks Park, Mark expressed his love of southwest Va., calling it "his home away from home". Anyone from here that has ever heard this man speak has to be as excited as I am about our future. Pity that Gilmore never had taken an interest in Dickenson Co.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:49 AM

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Yeah, and....

by Paula Ticker

Pity that Gilmore never took more than a couple minutes of his time to visit this area and the people here. He has no clue what it's like for citizens of DC and BC because he hasn't ever spent any time here, certainly not enough to enjoy it like Mark has. So how in the world could Gilmore know what our needs are and what he can do to help US?? OH, that's right! He don't and he hasn't!!!!!

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:36 AM

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Wrong again piglet

by Earlybird

Without Gilmore, the Coalfields Expressway would be dead in the water. Please think before you post, my little ham.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:51 AM

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Earlybird ...Dont get your feathers all ruffeled

by Native Son

we all know that if it hadn't been for the Clinton administration making the federal appropriation for the Coalfield Expressway prior to any state funds being committed " Good Ole Jim " would never have made a move or if he had he would have sent the money to northern Virginia. By the way, how many times during his administration has Mr. Gilmore visited Dickenson county ? I hope someone ask's him about this so he can hurry-up and make a campaign trip down here with whoever the GOP candidate will be then perhaps we can ask him where he has been. bye-bye birdie

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 7:09 AM

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How many times did Chuck Robber visit our area?

by Earlybird

Only when he was begging for votes dear.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:44 AM

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Their you go again.........

by Piglet

Always resorting to past officials. You honestly can't say anything bad against Mark can you? I don't know enough bout Hager/Early so I can't say anything negative about them. Just excited about Mark Warner and what potential he has for US. I'm glad that 50 yrs down the road you'll be able to bring up Bill and Chuck as your only defenses.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 9:22 PM

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Mark Warner is a spoiled rich kid with big friends in northern Va.

by Earlybird

Let's just pray that either Earley or Hager is able to keep Warner out of the Governor's mansion otherwise we're very likely to go back to the policies of one of the worst governors we've ever had- Doug Wilder.

Posted on Mar 20, 2001, 5:57 AM

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Not so Old Crow!

by Piglet

Guess thats why $$ for the Expressway have been redirected to another major route by Ybarra(ms) and Jim. If we had a Gov that would stick up for us and question VDOT then we would be in line w/ WV., but where does the voting count? Could it be N of Roanoke? As Mark said, "Virginia doesn't stop at Roanoke.., it begins and ends in southwest Virginia"!

By the way, whats the word with Ybarras position on Bushs staff? Wasn't she going to work for him?

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 10:20 AM

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Not true my little powderpuff

by Earlybird

If Governor Gilmore didn;t stick up for us, the Coalfields Expressway would already have been dumped long ago. As that rich kid Mark Warner says, Virginia begins at Roanoke and moves eastward.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:47 AM

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Talk is Cheap!

by Uninspired

But a person has to stand on his/her record. What's Mark Warner done besides lose a senate race? Where was he when his party lost both the Virginia House and Senate as well as the US Senate seat claimed by Republican, George Allen?

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:21 AM

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OH, WOW!

by Caliburn

I can hardly wait. Another election is upon us!

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 2:12 AM

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So if he's accidentally elected

by Earlybird

you won't mind if he breaks those promises. Unlike Governor Gilmore, I'm sure that rich kid would not feel obligated to live up to his campaign promises, especially to this part of the state.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 5:44 AM

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Funny for a Republican to talk about someone being "accidentally elected"

by James

Oh yes, and one minor correction:

Gilmore's promise was not to cut the car tax at all costs. From the very beginning he stated that this promise depended upon state revenue. State revenue levels DO NOT permit the expansion of the cut to the level the governor wishes.

So his promise was NOT to go any further than the budget situation allowed for. THAT PROMISE HAS BEEN BROKEN.

This is not about keeping promises... it's about breaking them. Gilmore broke this promise in order to build up his national political career at Virginia's expense.




Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 12:11 AM

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Not true

by Earlybird

This is indeed about keeping promises. State revenue levels DO permit the expansion of the cut to the level the governor wishes and he proved that by keeping his promise and following through. It's now history and we should all be praising Governor Gilmore for doing the right thing even though it's not politically correct. Honest politicians are truly a dying breed, and I only pray that our next Governor will be as honest.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:54 AM

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Earlybird

by Icon

surely you can not be so politically blinded that you will still stand by what Gilmore has done! Not even his constituants will stand by him, as far as keeping promises there is a time to let it go, he would be much more respected if he would admit that this will not work and try to repair the damage he has done.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 8:28 AM

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Very well said Icon

by James

There is bipartisan agreement statewide... Gilmore has been a miserable failure as Governor. It would be best to admit that, no matter what side you are on. Very respectable of you to point out the obvious for Earlybird. But I don't think she'll ever see the light, poor little dear.



Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 5:14 PM

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Gilmore will be much more respected for keeping his word

by Earlybird

This is indeed about keeping promises. State revenue levels DO permit the expansion of the cut to the level the governor wishes and he proved that by keeping his promise and following through. It's now history and we should all be praising Governor Gilmore for doing the right thing even though it's not politically correct. Honest politicians are truly a dying breed, and I only pray that our next Governor will be as honest.

Posted on Mar 20, 2001, 6:00 AM

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Wrong... Gilmore has failed, and instead of admitting it, he digs a deeper hole

by James

That was not the promise my fine feathered friend. The promise was that the car tax reduction would be expanded WITHOUT CUTS IN IMPORTANT GOVT. SERVICES if the revenue was at a viable level.

DUH!

Of course, revenue is always on target if you are going to make up for your tax cut by cutting essential state services! This is a no brainer Earlybird, and even your fellow Republican (statewide elected officials including our own Senator Wampler) have harshly criticized the Governor's actions.

You never admit when Gilmore is wrong... you never will admit when a Republican is wrong. I've chastised Clinton many times on this board, and Gore... and the Democrats WHEN I disagree with them. You are not willing to do the same.

Gilmore, instead of improving the economy of the state, is recking the state finances, threatening essential services.. all so that he can put on his national political resume that he passed a tax cut in Virginia.

Sure, cut taxes where needed and where possible. But don't cut essential state services to do that, which will end up costing you more in the long term. The economy took an unexpected and unforseeable turn south, and the Governor should keep his promise instead of acting like a spoiled brat and trying to treat the General Assembly, state Senate and our elected representatives like his children.

Two thumbs down to Governor Gump Gilmore.



Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 5:07 PM

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Smirking is lonely work for LUSERS

by AntiSmirk



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:50 PM

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Such a lovely smile ...

by Peter

... does my heart good.


Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:38 PM

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Hey, Granny C, you got company comin'!

by AntiSmirk

A Freeper sees the Light

Well this Freeper has finally had enough of the GOP. I figure that GOP must stand for "gang of
proto-simians." I registered to vote when I turned 18 and voted for Richrad Nixon for president.
Since then, I have stood in line for hours to vote, usually for Republicans. But sadly, I have to
face reality.

The Republican Party is nothing but a group of idiots. They are too stupid to run the country.
One thing the Democrats have been right about is that Republicans only care about the rich.
Yep. They're right. They are wrong about everything else but they got that one thing nailed
down. Republicans only care about the rich.

I refer of course to this ludicrous *^%$@**! bankruptcy bill that the Republican are probably
going to pass. Outside of the merits, which I argue do not support passage of the bill, what
about the perception?? Are Republicans deaf, dumb, and blind?? Do they not see that this is
something that the Democrats will use to sock it to 'em in few years. No matter if some
Democrats support it, the Republicans and Bush will get the credit - -every last little negative
bad-karma friggin' iota of credit. And if the GOP is stupid enough to do it, then they can do
without me.

I will hold my nose, take several good stiff drinks and priss my self down to the registrar's office
and become a Democrat. My God the thought appalls me!!! My family will disown me. My father
will probably change his name. But at least the Democrats have got some brains. That's a lot
more than I can say for the GOP.

I mean, how can any political party with a lick of common sense, pass a bill that favors the credit
card industry?? Do these goobers not know that families all over America suffer intra-family
fractiousness because of the credit card companies. Is the GOP some kind of fan of Usury??
Don't they realize people go to bed at night with their stomach in knots wondering how they are
going to pay the bills?

Well I don't have but one vote and the way things stand now maybe I don't represent much of a
threat to the GOP. But if I become a Democrat I will probably have many votes. I don't know how
they do it. I will probably have to learn the secret Democrat handshake or something. But by
God, I will. And trust me, GOP, I'm casting all my votes against you!!!

Flame away you non-caring Republicans!! Post to your heart's content you servants of the rich!
Pout and pontificate you purveyors of filthy lucre! Power to the people!!

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ab15be53f1d.htm

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:28 PM

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I think it's a necessary evil

by Peter

Due to the booming economy, personal bankruptcies began hitting new levels in 1998 and personal secured and unsecured debt hit an astounding 1.52 trillion.

I won't get into why Americans got themselves into such a pickle, but think of the economic impact if the anticipated bankruptcies were allowed to procede under the old existing laws. Trust me, those who haven't totally f'ed up their credit would end up paying the bills of those who have. It all trickles down, or up, depending on one's perspective.

If you doubt that, then lend me $10,000. I have no intention of paying it back, but apparently that's not an issue. Apparently, according to Clinton economics, you should be able to do this and no one loses. How does that work?








Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:24 PM

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What recession? We warned you......................

by AntiSmirk


The Dow Jones Industrial average, having fallen through the 10,000 mark earlier this week, dropped
below 9,900.

It was the Dow's worst week since October 1989 when DaddyBush wimped, "What recession?"


Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:14 PM

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Stock prices began dropping

by Peter

early last year, and their decline has nothing to do with current political policy according to the financial experts. But they could be wrong, what's your rationale for the drop?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:05 PM

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Dickenson County mining death

by nemesis

Mining Death

From the desk of NewsCenter 5
3/16/01 7:21:42 AM

Federal investigators are looking into virginia’s first
mining fatality of the year.
It happened Wednesday in Dickenson County, Virginia.
Authorities say 53-year-old Johnny Adkins of Hurley was
killed after a roof collapsed at the Basic Mining
Corporation’s mine number two near Nora. Adkins was a
mine foreman. Authorities say he was performing a
pre-shift examination when the roof caved-in.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:12 PM

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Test yourself to see if you’re an enlightened redneck

by nemesis

By GENE OWENS

Jeff Foxworthy’s humor has made it possible for us Southerners to refer
to ourselves as rednecks without draping ourselves in sackcloth.

Many Southerners shy away from the epithet as though it were a badge of
dishonor. But since “redneck” refers to the color of a neck exposed continually
to a blistering sun, it represents to me the mark of an honest worker.


Rednecks may not have college degrees to hang on the walls (though some
of them do), but they have horse sense of the kind that keeps the South
moving. They raise our food and haul it; operate our machinery and fix
it when it breaks down; keep the kilowatts surging and our telephone lines
humming.

They are the backbone of our region.

And enlightened rednecks are rising out of the humbler levels of our culture
to help us to bridge the gap between the old, divided South and a new South
in which diverse elements are blending to the benefit of all.

Some people might say that “enlightened redneck” is an oxymoron. They think
of rednecks the way Dr. Samuel Johnson thought of Scots: “Much can be made
of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.” Except they figure that once an
ignorant redneck, always an ignorant redneck.

Well, Scotland produced David Hume, Adam Smith, James Watt, Bobby Burns,
Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Thomas Lipton, to name
a few.

And Southern farms and factories have produced a platoon of luminaries,
from Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston and Abe Lincoln on down to Hugo Black,
Dick Russell and Jimmy Carter, with a slew of poets, novelists, playwrights
and composers thrown in.

So to me, “enlightened redneck” is a title to bear with pride.

Let me suggest a few criteria for those who would like to measure up to
it:

• An enlightened redneck admires his Confederate ancestors but thinks secession
is a 19th-century concept that ought to be left in that century.

• An enlightened redneck knows that racial prejudice exists in the South
and every other corner of the country, and acknowledges that, deep in his
subconscious, he may harbor some himself. But he tries not to let it govern
his actions or dictate his choice of friends.

• An enlightened redneck knows the difference between the Ten Commandments
and the Bill of Rights, and though he may cherish his firearm and vote
with the NRA, he regards gun control as a political, not a moral issue.


• An enlightened redneck is proud of his own heritage, but respectful of
the heritages of others.

• An enlightened redneck acknowledges that history has been unkind to Americans
of African descent, saddling them with a disproportionate share of impoverishment
and crime. He doesn’t excuse the behavior of individuals, but he doesn’t
blame the entire race.

• An enlightened redneck puts ignorance in the same category as head lice:
Having it is no disgrace, but keeping it is.

• An enlightened redneck sees nothing incongruous about admiring Robert
E. Lee and Martin Luther King Jr.

• An elightened redneck has strong opinions, but doesn’t mind if you challenge
them rationally, even if you’re a liberal.

• An enlightened redneck prefers fried chicken to pheasant under glass,
but he wouldn’t turn up his nose at the latter.

• An enlightened redneck reads Mark Twain without taking him for a racist;
William Faulkner without regarding him as a scalawag.

• An enlightened redneck knows standard English, but doesn’t let it get
in the way of his communicating when he’s among friends.

• When an enlightened redneck sees outsiders doing things differently,
he observes closely to see whether there’s anything he can learn from them.


• An enlightened redneck knows who Dale Earnhardt was, but also knows who
W.E.B. Dubois and Sojourner Truth were.

• An enlightened redneck may not always agree with the NAACP, but doesn’t
equate it with the Ku Klux Klan.

• An enlightened redneck likes Budweiser, but isn’t afraid to try a Samuel
Adams once in a while.

• An enlightened redneck can pull for his team without hating the other
team.

• An enlightened redneck is proud when his school ranks in the top 10 athletically,
but even prouder when it ranks in the top 25 academically.

• An enlightened redneck can feel at home anywhere in the United States.


Readers may write Gene Owens at 6444 Doubletree Court, Mobile, Ala. 36695;
call him toll-free at (800) 239-1340, ext. 587; or e-mail him at gowens7117@aol.com.


© 2001 Times-News.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:07 PM

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I don't think secession was that bad an idea after all

by Cherry Garcia

!

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:57 PM

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Are there too many liars in the FBI?

by Fat Freddy's Cat

FBI wants to scrap polygraph tests for all employees idea. Do they fear that a large percentage of agents will fail the test? Hmmmmm?????

http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,279491-412,00.shtml

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:18 PM

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There must be a reason for them to back off

by nemesis

After all, the CIA requires that all employees pass a polygraph test. It reads as if the FBI fears that a significant portion of their work force would fail such a test.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:39 PM

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Disabled Fight Multimillionaires' Support of 'Death Tax'

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Disabled Fight Multimillionaires' Support of 'Death Tax'

CNSNews.com
Saturday, March17, 2001

Angered by the spectacle of prominent
multimillionaires publicly opposing repeal of the
federal estate tax, a Texas woman has responded by
forming a group of disabled taxpayers to launch a
nationwide advertising and grassroots campaign to
lobby Congress to abolish the tax.

"I was deeply offended by the callous and heartless
comments made by this group," said Erin O'Leary,
president of Disabled Americans for Death Tax
Relief. Millionaires Warren Buffet, William Gates Sr.
and George Soros ran national ads in February
urging Congress to keep the federal estate tax,
which would affect their own heirs.

The tax may be on the legislative chopping block
again this year. Though Congress voted to repeal it in
2000, former President Bill Clinton vetoed it.
Seventy-one percent or more of Americans think
estate taxes are unfair, according to two recent polls
by Zogby International and McLaughlin & Associates.

But that hasn't stopped supporters of the death tax
for lobbying against its repeal, and the high-profile
support for the tax by Gates, Buffet and others.

O'Leary, a private investigator diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis 10 years ago, objects to the
federal government taking "55 percent of the wealth
which families leave to their children and other heirs."

"Some of us who would receive this wealth are in
wheelchairs," O'Leary explained.

"Some are deaf or blind. Some are on respirators. In
order to live a full life, these Americans may require
medical help ... beyond that which is covered by
medical insurance. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates Sr. and
George Soros believe that these people should be
denied full financial help from their parents," O'Leary
charged.

According to O'Leary, aside from some high-profile
names, which now includes AOL Time Warner Vice
Chairman Ted Turner, the people responsible for the
millionaires' ad were less a random sample of
American millionaires than longtime Democratic
activists.

"Democrats outnumber Republicans 20-to-1,"
O'Leary wrote in an open letter to the American
people. "The four Republican signers of the ... ad are
even outnumbered by signers who contributed to
Ralph Nader's presidential campaign."

Gates testified before the Senate Finance Committee
on Thursday, saying, "I believe ... that it is not in the
interest of this country to have large fortunes passed
from generation to generation, forming ever larger
pools of money and accretion of power."

The estate tax, said Gates, "does make serious
inroads on what would, without it, be an ever
increasing, inexorable build up of a larger and larger
pool of money."

Supporters of estate tax repeal, however, argue that
the tax hurts family-owned businesses and the
economy as a whole.

"Because the estate tax falls on assets, it reduces
incentives to save and invest and, therefore, hampers
growth," said economist Gary Robbins, also
testifying before the Senate committee. "The estate
tax has a large dead-weight loss."

Copyright CNSNews.com

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:12 PM

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Coverup in Starr report on death of Hellary's boyfriend

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Ken Starr's Secret Reports

Reed Irvine
March 16, 2001


When independent counsel Kenneth Starr released
his report on the death of former White House
deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. in October
1997, he refused to make public reports written by
three consultants that he had hired to study the case.
Accuracy in Media (AIM) sued the Office of the
Independent Counsel (OIC) to obtain these and
other documents that should have been made public
long ago. The three reports by Starr’s consultants
were recently given to AIM. They appear to hurt
Starr’s case more than they help it.

Take the report submitted by Dr. Brian Blackbourne,
the San Diego County medical examiner. Its text is
only 3-1/4 single-spaced typewritten pages. Dr.
Blackbourne reports meeting with Dr. James Beyer,
the 75-year-old Northern Virginia medical examiner
who performed the autopsy on Foster. He says,
among other things, "I discussed the autopsy X-rays
with him."

That suggests that there were autopsy X-rays to
discuss, but Dr. Beyer has testified under oath that
he did not take any X-rays, even though he checked
the "X-rays taken" box on the autopsy report. When
asked about that discussion of the X-rays, Dr.
Blackbourne admitted that it was actually about the
absence of X-rays. He told me Dr. Beyer had
explained their absence, saying that his X-ray
machine was not working on the day he performed
the autopsy. That was what he had told the FBI and
the Senate Whitewater committee.

When Dr. Blackbourne was told that the first call to
service this brand new machine was made over three
months after Foster’s death, he was shocked. He
asked, "Do you mean that they couldn’t take any
X-rays for three months?" No, it meant that Dr.
Beyer was lying about the machine not working.
What is worse, Starr’s investigators, and presumably
Starr himself, knew that the claim that the machine
was not working was false. We know that because
the record of that first service call on Oct. 29 was
included among the documents AIM obtained from
the OIC. They had investigated Dr. Beyer’s excuse
and had found the proof that it was false, but they
did nothing about it.

Dr. Beyer had checked off "X-rays taken" and had
told a Park Police officer attending the autopsy that
they showed no bullet fragments in the skull. The
X-rays were undoubtedly taken. Crucial evidence
had vanished, but Ken Starr and his investigators
did not disclose that fact, and there is no indication
that they tried to find what had become of them.
They didn’t even tell Dr. Blackbourne that they had
evidence that exposed Dr. Beyer’s lie.

It turns out that Dr. Beyer is an old friend of Dr.
Blackbourne, whose faith in his honesty appears
unshakeable. He didn’t know that his old friend had
used "Clintonspeak" to cover up his lie about the
X-rays when he testified under oath before a Senate
committee. When asked when the machine was
repaired, he responded that he had no X-rays in his
files between two dates that spanned the day of
Foster’s autopsy. He was allowed to get away with
that evasion.

Dr. Beyer claimed to have found an exit wound
about the size of a half-dollar in the back of Foster’s
head that no one else saw. If that were true and the
shot had been fired where the body was found, there
would have been a bloody mess, but the police and
rescue workers and Dr. Donald Haut, the county
medical examiner who examined the body at the
scene, all said there was very little blood visible on
the body and none on the surrounding vegetation.
Park Police Sgt. John Rolla had tried to find an exit
wound by feeling the back of Foster’s head. All he
could find was a soft spot, and he reported that the
bullet did not exit.

Dr. Haut told the FBI investigators that there was
very little blood and that he had seen more damage
done by a .25 caliber bullet. The gun found in
Foster’s hand was a .38 revolver and the casing of
the expended round was HV, high velocity. If that
had been fired into Foster’s skull through his mouth,
there would have been a large exit wound and
torrents of blood.

Starr stacked the deck in hiring Dr. Beyer’s friend to
evaluate his work. Dr. Blackbourne won’t admit that
the evidence indicates that his old friend has lied
about the X-rays, but he should have been informed
before he wrote his report. Those who concealed
that evidence should be called to account no matter
what positions they now hold or hope to get.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:09 PM

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I guess it all depends on the meaning of the word

by Peter

"is" and "taken." I assume the same confusion may have surrounded Hillary when she said she wanted "to take some pictures" before leaving the White House. Staffers, being normal people, assumed she meant with a camera, but what she REALLY meant is that she wanted to TAKE some pictures ... and tables, and sofas ...

The whole Vince Foster thing gives me the chills.



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:31 PM

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Things have always sounded fishy

by Earlybird

concerning the Hillary/Foster coverup. Maybe the FBI files that the Clinton's had on Ken Starr kept him from telling us the whole truth.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:28 AM

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Tongue Twister

by Haysigal

I SLIT A SHEET, A SHEET I SLIT
AND ON THIS SLITTED SHEET I SIT.


Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 3:49 PM

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Don't try saying that to your mother

by Peter

... she's liable to make you wash your mouth out with soap!

(Gotta keep those "s's" and "sh's" separate ... )

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:34 PM

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Actually......it wouldn't be my Mother....

by Haysigal

but my Daddy. No matter hhow old I am.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 10:12 PM

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Mouth washer.....

by Snappy

I sure couldn't say that........

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:03 PM

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Don't feel lonesome......

by Haysigal

I couldn't either.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 10:16 PM

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Hee hee

by Earlybird

That's funny Haysigal. Hard to say but funny. I wouldn't want try to recite it in front of people.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:34 AM

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I have hard enough time.....

by Haysigal

by myself.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 11:14 AM

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City of Norton offers adopt-a-truck

by

Interesting Idea.
******************

City of Norton offers adopt-a-truck



The Coalfield Progress March 15, 2001

The city of Norton, in conjunction with The Great American Cleanup is again offering the adopt-a-truck and large, item pick-up programs to residents free of charge.

To accommodate the large number of anticipated requests for these services will begin Friday, April 20, and run through Monday, April 30.

Residents may have large appliances, bulky furniture and other items transported from their property to the proper disposal location.

For large loads of trash and tree limbs, citizens may make special arrangements for a city truck to be parked overnight at their residence. A driver will return the following morning to take a load to the city shop. ...

©Coalfield.com 2001

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=1537447&BRD=1283&PAG=461&dept_id=158551&rfi=6

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:47 AM

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That does sound like a great idea

by Earlybird

Is there any chance of it also happening in Dickenson County?

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:23 AM

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That would depend on how many people ask for it.

by garbage man

If enough people talk to their supervisors it might happen. But without feedback, they would not know that it is needed or wanted.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:58 AM

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Do you think the BOS would really be willing to listen?

by Earlybird

So far, it seems that they aren't willing to listen to anyone, but I hope my perceptions are wrong.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:56 AM

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All I can say is talk to them.

by garbage man

I think they will listen.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 7:04 PM

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nemesis, Your search feature dosn't work.

by garbage man

I was attempting a search to find the post about the Dumps in Kentucky as reported by the New York Times.
Could you help me find it.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 10:59 AM

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I found it.

by garbage man

But I still can't get the search to work.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:22 AM

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The search feature has been malfunctioning for a while

by nemesis

I'll inform Network 54 of the problem, since they're the ones who maintain the search feature.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:33 PM

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Thanks for keeping extensive archives.

by garbage man

Without them, it would have been impossible to find the News Link I needed.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 7:01 AM

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U.S.A. economy, stock market, U.S. Navy..Uncontrolable..

by Ironicman

President Bush must appoint Vince Mcmahon as Secretary of Defense, and Art Bell as Secretary of State in order to return our Country back to reality.

I'm afraid to watch TV any more, unless of course wresslin is on, thats my only fix of reality. we must all pray for President Bush to come to his senses and replace his top advisers or this Country will go to the,[reader fill in blank].

Oh, and lets not leave out the fact, we need a couple of Jamaican Psychics in the White House. Stay at home moms need some inspiration too.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 9:43 AM

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Read My Lips,, No New Emmissions

by Naturalist

The New York Times
March 16, 2001


Mr. Bush Warms Up
By GAIL COLLINS

Finally, we have a president who knows how to run the government like a
business.
Presuming the business is Pets .com.

Dick Cheney sat George W. Bush down this week and explained that even
though Mr. Bush had promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the
atmosphere, he didn't really mean it.

The vice president is in charge of the president's energy task force, when
he is not occupied with foreign policy, negotiating with Congress and
undergoing life-saving hospital procedures. So it's pretty remarkable that
he's already had time to determine that whatever the nation's energy policy
is going to be, it will not involve doing anything whatsoever about carbon
dioxide.

This was useful information for Mr. Bush, who signed off on a letter
disavowing his former position and went off to inspect another faith-based
initiative.

"I was responding to reality," Mr. Bush said, explaining why he had
repudiated his promise, humiliated the head of his Environmental Protection
Agency and made it pretty much impossible for the United States to do
anything about global warming for the next four years.

That was pretty good for just a few hours' work. But this is an efficient
administration, led by an M.B.A. from Harvard.

Mr. Bush arrived in the White House just as the nation was plunging into a
stock market dive and the California utility crisis. Since he is a guy
known for setting priorities, nobody was surprised when he immediately
honed in on taxes and energy. Then we began noticing that while the country
needed to quickly stimulate consumer spending, Mr. Bush was fixated on
eliminating taxes on the wealthy in 2011. The California crisis is mainly
about natural gas, and Mr. Bush keeps talking about drilling for oil in a
wildlife preserve.

The president seems to be governing some other country. Maybe Belgium is
the place that needs to eliminate the estate tax.

And then there was the matter of air pollution. I don't know if this nation
is ready for a charming president who can't keep his word.

Most people think reducing carbon dioxide emissions will help control
global warming. But Mr. Bush lumps global warming in the same category of
questionable theories where he puts evolution. So it surprised people when
he made a speech in Michigan last September, saying that if he was elected,
he would require power plants to reduce emissions of four dangerous
pollutants, one of them carbon dioxide.

This was not something that aides could ascribe to Mr. Bush's well- known
habit of articulating sentences in which only the nouns reflect his actual
thought. ("He meant to say we'll reduce emissions from plants.")

It was a read-off-the-teleprompter policy address, and it was a pretty big
deal. There are no mandatory emission standards on carbon dioxide right
now, and even Al Gore was afraid to demand any. In fact, in his speech, Mr.
Bush practically called the vice president an environmental wimp. "My
opponent calls for voluntary reductions in such emissions. In Texas we've
done better - with mandatory reductions, and I believe the nation can do
better," he said. (Who knows how many environmentally conscious suburban
voters in Florida this helped sway?)

This week, however, the administration decided that Mr. Bush had been
reading the wrong words. The speechwriter misspoke. "A campaign document
that was not well written," shrugged a White House spokesman.

Further spinning suggested that Mr. Bush thought carbon dioxide emissions
are already covered under federal law, and only intended to promise to
regulate things that are already regulated.
By yesterday, the administration was saying that Mr. Bush had simply
changed his mind after intense consultations with Mr. Cheney and several
senators who would not know global warming from a gas grill. Then he
informed Christie Whitman of the E.P.A., who's theoretically in charge of
the policy, that there had been a change in direction - in fact a veritable
U-turn.

It all goes to show, his supporters said, that the guy is a great manager.
Knows when to hold, knows when to fold. "I don't think you should hold a
president to a campaign pledge that is not a good pledge," said Senator
Rick Santorum.

Read my lips - no new emissions.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:54 AM

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Now we know what the conservatives on this board want to spend their big tax cut on.

by Same2U

Gas masks and tons of sunscreen and hopefully a leaky boat for all of them.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:46 AM

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You know if James Same 5th and lib would shut up we could really cut down

by Here is an idea

on toxic emissions!

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 2:17 PM

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Hahaha!!!!!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Good point. ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:20 PM

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Then you had better put on your gas masks...

by James

Because you'll silence us when you silence the wind!



Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 5:12 PM

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I've never seen any convincing data

by Peter

that CO2 "emissions" are a threat. I'm not taking political sides on this issue, but the data suggests that it is not a factor to worry about.

The situation in CA is not primarily about natural gas, as the article states, but about the lack of new electric generation facilities. Gas-powered turbines are fairly efficient, but the fuel costs make them prohibative for constant use; utilities build them to supplement other generating sources during peak periods only. Many utilities have them and they have sat idle for over a decade, but are there "just in case."

The truth is, other than hydro and nuclear, the only realistically cost-efficient alternative to driving the turbines that generate electricity at this time is steam produced by COAL. And coal-fired generating plants can be surprisingly clean, precipitators can filter most of the pollutants, but CO2 is another issue. It's really hard for me do consider CO2 a "pollutant." Gadzooks, am I supposed to stop BREATHING?

I don't have the technical know-how to back this up, but I've read in a reputable engineering rag that simply planting a small woods around a coal-fired steam plant more than offsets the plant's CO2 emissions. Of course, I guess the pessimistic chicken-little doomsayers will complain about that too. Damn trees will convert so much CO2 to O2 that next we'll be hearing about oxygen being a "pollutant."



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:22 PM

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Good idea !

by Same2U

If you, FFC, Earlybird, J and all of J's aliases, and the rest of the radical Republicans would just hold your breath, I feel sure that multiple benefits will soon be apparent.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:32 PM

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I'm turning blue

by Peter

... now what? Has the atmosphere cleared up yet?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 10:47 PM

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It's looking better.

by Same2U

LOL !

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:35 AM

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Who exactly do you think the Car Tax Elimination Helps

by little poll

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:48 AM

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DUH!!!!!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Everyone who owns a car.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:21 PM

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My tax is

by little poll

$25.00 a year. I would much rather see that money go to fixing potholes and widening roads, or helping build the Expressway. Taxes are needed, and Mr. FFC it's a fact of life. Do you plan on getting out and paying for the potholes to be fixed on your road, directly out of your own pocket? Do you have a better plan. If so lets hear it?

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:51 AM

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Well now.......

by Caliburn

If you feel so strong about it, send your $25.00 in to the Treasurer of Dickenson County. In fact send in $100.00 if you are so committed to being taxed. They will be glad to take it. I don't know how many potholes the Board of Supervisors will fix with that money, but send it on in. This is a free country and you can give the government all the money you want.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 2:17 AM

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that made no sense whatsoever

by little poll

to hear you conservatives talk about how much you hate being taxed, makes me feel sorry for you. How do you think this country would manage, without taxes? Thats what I want to hear. Do you have a solution to how things will get done, if taxes are abolished? You can gripe and moan all you want about the government has it's hands in your precious money bag. The only people that the Car Tax elimination helps is people who buy new expensive cars. That is my opinion. And I do not by the way mind at all paying taxes, because I know the country would not survive without it. Were it left to conservatives to build our highways, and keep the infrastructure in place, it would not happen, you'd rather be buried with your precious money than spend it on anything other than something for your own selfish gain or pleasure.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 12:49 PM

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Well, that's calling it like it is !!!

by Same2U

I'm sure they won't admit it. They seem to be in constant denial about the truth. If they think things in Dickenson Co. are bad now, they should just have the intelligence enough to visualize what Dickenson Co. would be like without the tax money carrying the county.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 1:08 PM

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So

by Fat Freddy's Cat

refuse your tax cut.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 3:30 PM

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what is your stupid problem

by little poll

you're not going to give and answer are you? Or is that it? Do you think that taxes should be totally voluntary?? Is that it? Step up my man, and lets hear a plan. Would you rather have no government? No armed forces, no highways? Would you rather have the private sector and corporations handle everything? Grow up, and realize that taxes are in fact a necessity. Stop your arrogant bellyaching about how poor little you is taxed so unfairly. The car tax cut by the govenor was a stupid idea. Just a campaing promise scheme.


Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 4:46 PM

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You're my stupid problem. ROTFLMAO!!!!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

I would rather have a fair tax for all; probably a consumption tax. I also think government should interfere in peoples' lives as little as possible. People like you who want government to take care of you from birth to death are the main reason for the decline in America. You have no desire to work at building your own future and constantly lay the blame for your own laziness on others. And while I'm on a roll, I think that all government programs should come up for vote every year instead of automatically being renewed in perpetuity.

The car tax was a great idea and I commend Governor Gilmore for showing great leadership and great moral character in keeping his promise to us all.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 4:44 PM

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you have it all wrong

by little poll

never once did i say i wanted anybody to take care of me little man. I happen to live a fine life. I have no qualms with paying taxes, and it absolutely eats you up. I am quite successful thank you.


Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 6:48 PM

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Have you noticed that these radical conservatives all assume that we're broke?

by Same2U

That's beginning to tick me off but I know that it's just more evidence of their stereotypical, narrow-minded thinking or their stupidity. I'm not crazy about paying taxes but I do have the intelligence to understand the necessity for them and probably pay more than many of the posters on here.

Posted on Mar 19, 2001, 7:13 PM

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little poll do you hear that "Whoosh" ?

by Same2U

That's the sound of reality going right over the conservatives' heads, as evidenced by this post. This stuff would be laughable if these people weren't serious.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 4:53 PM

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all I can say

by 20 gauge

is if you don't want your tax refund, send it to me. I have never gotten a dime back while a Demo was in office. Geesh, getting back money and still complaining.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:30 PM

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CNN's Kelly Wallace disrespects the President,,

by brain surgeon

Kelly Wallace reporting on CNN Live at 6:00pm yesterday, Friday 03-16-2001, refered to President George Bush as "Mr. Bush" and "George W" at least 4 times during her report,,

never once calling him President Bush..

she also refered to former President Clinton as "Mr. Clinton" in at least 2 references..

this is a blatant show of disrespect to the President,,

i think both President Bush and President Clinton deserve better respect than this..


i will be letting CNN know my displeasure with her disrespectful reporting..............;p



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:30 AM

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CNN always shows disrespect

by Earlybird.

especially for Republicans. I've just come to expect it.

Posted on Mar 18, 2001, 6:25 AM

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Teen mother who fed her newborn baby to dog is jailed

by Earlybird


Mom of Mauled Baby
Jailed

he Brooklyn schoolgirl mother of a newborn
found half-eaten by a dog was held on
$500,000 bail yesterday on manslaughter and
criminally negligent homicide charges.

Lisa Small, 16, stood still and silent during the
brief arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Authorities contend the Thomas Jefferson High
School sophomore smothered the baby shortly
after it was born. Police initially believed she then
hurled the infant into a yard behind her apartment,
where a hungry dog mauled it so badly that it's
gender could not be determined.

But sources said yesterday that the teen may have
put the child on the first-floor fire escape, where it
was attacked by the pit bull-Rotweiller mix.

Small told investigators the baby was stillborn,
but the medical examiner concluded it was born
alive.

Detectives said the teen, who had been caring for
her ailing mother and kid sister, had hidden the
pregnancy and delivered the baby herself a few
days before the incident.

Nancie L. Katz and Leo Standora

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:38 AM

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More societal degeneration- 18-year-old girl convicted of raping woman

by Earlybird

Girl, 18,
convicted of
canal rape

A teenage girl who pinned a woman
to the ground during a "vile and
horrifying" sex attack has been found
guilty of rape.

Few women have ever been convicted
of rape and Claire Marsh, 18, is
believed to be the youngest.

The jury at London's Blackfriars Crown
Court spent more than nine hours
over two days deliberating and
cleared two boys, aged 15 and 16, of
the same offence.

Marsh, from
Margate, Kent,
punched the
37-year-old victim
in the face and
then ripped off her
top before she
was gang-raped on
a canal towpath.

A 15-year-old boy
tore off her
trousers and raped
the woman, the
court was told.

The jury heard how others in the
14-strong group - one aged just 12 -
looked on and shouted
encouragement as the brutal attack
unfolded shortly after midnight on 22
July last year.

Victim's escape

When the first youth had finished,
Marvin Edwards, 18, also raped her,
the court heard.

Marsh, who initially showed no
reaction to the verdict, will be
sentenced at the Old Bailey on 8 May
along with Edwards, of Brentford,
west London, and a 15-year-old, who
admitted rape at the beginning of the
two-and-a-half week trial.

But when Judge
Timothy Pontius
adjourned
sentence and
remanded her in
custody, rejecting
a defence
application for
interim bail, tears
began streaming
down her face.

"Given this was a particularly vile and
horrifying offence of sexual brutality,
a substantial custodial sentence is
inevitable," he warned.

Escape attempt

The court had been told how the
screaming victim, who had earlier
been hurled into the Grand Union
Canal in Ladbroke Grove, west
London, wriggled free from her
attackers, struggled to her feet and
made a run for it.

But she was then
caught, kicked and
punched repeatedly
and, at one stage,
dragged naked
along a gravel
path, lacerating
her bare skin.

The woman, identified only as Miss X
for legal reasons, told how her ordeal
continued: "They were just grabbing
my limbs like an animal sort of thing,
just dragging me along the ground
kicking me."

She was eventually able to flee naked
to her home.

The attack came almost four years
after the gang rape by youths of an
33-year-old Austrian tourist who was
also thrown into a Regent's Canal in
King's Cross, London.

Not unique

Between 1997 and last year a total of
14 women were charged with rape in
London alone.

Opening the prosecution, Richard
Whittam, had explained to the jury
that although Marsh was female it
was still perfectly possible to convict
her of rape.

By holding her
down "while the
event was taking
place", or simply
"encouraging" the
others while being
prepared to lend a
helping hand, she
was just as guilty as the actual
rapists.

During her evidence, Miss X told the
court that she had decided to head
home after a "lovely summers
evening" drinking but began chatting
to a young couple on a bridge over
the canal.

Met couple

The court heard the conversation
turned to drugs, with the pair offering
to share a "spliff" with her before
another dozen youngsters suddenly
joined them, including three more
girls.

The victim told the court how she was
surrounded and robbed before being
thrown into the canal.

She had no choice
but clamber back
on to the bank
where her
attackers waited.

In the weeks after
the attack,
detectives
matched DNA
evidence from
Edwards and the
woman.

In evidence, Marsh maintained the
gang's victim jumped into the canal
herself and insisted she had struck
the woman in the face only in
self-defence.

'Callous'

She went on to deny tearing her top
off, or even being present when Miss
X was raped.

Afterwards, Detective Inspector
Joanne Oakley said: "The victim was
put through a vicious attack made
worse by the fact that the group
callously tried to befriend her before
attacking her.

"She has understandably been
extremely traumatised by her ordeal
both on the night and in the months
afterwards.

"She is very please with the verdict
and now intends to fully concentrate
on rebuilding her life."

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:32 AM

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Bleah, talk about a clockwork orange

by Peter

I really expected to read before I finished the article where they all burst into song, "Singing in the rain ..."



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:01 AM

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I've heard about the movie

by Earlybird

and even seen previews but have never actually watched it. Is it worth renting?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:19 AM

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It's a good movie

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Weird but good. You'll love the part where Malcolm McDowell is strapped to his seat, has his eyelids pinned open and forced to watch movies over and over again. Well worth a buck.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:24 PM

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Today's quote

by Earlybird

Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:29 AM

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Foddershock joins the circus !!!

by Les Beanpillow

C:\My Documents\hum003abanjo.gif

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 2:26 AM

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Dammit !!! Forget it again ! Not workin`...

by Les Beanpillow

What`s the deal ?


Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 2:30 AM

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From the image location you listed

by Earlybird

it seems that you're trying to post the image from your computer. That won't work but I wish it would.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:42 AM

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I think you have to upload your image onto the internet

by Earlybird

and them copy the location and paste it in your message. Try the "Post my pic" link. I would really like to see it myself.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:41 AM

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Heh,,,, dodged it again looks like

by Foddershock

Am I gonna have to come over there to ward off the next attempt????

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 7:37 AM

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Keep trying, Les.

by Betty Boop

It took me forever to get something posted. Of course, I haven't been able to since. But I'm old and I don't retain things like you young people. Are you using Post My Pic?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:00 PM

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White House Considers Speeding Up Tax Cuts

by Hmm?

Friday March 16 2:18 PM ET
White House Considers Speeding Up Tax Cuts


By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is floating ideas to bolster the slowing economy by using a chunk of the $125 billion in surpluses expected this fiscal year to finance quick tax relief, congressional sources said Friday.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has been pushing for a quicker economic stimulus than offered in President George W. Bush's $1.6 trillion 10-year tax cut plan, and has suggested bigger retroactive tax cuts, congressional aides said.

``He made it clear that they have significant surpluses this year, larger than they will use, and there has been interest among some senators in doing a stimulus,'' said David Lackey, spokesman for Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.

O'Neill met Wednesday with a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats, including Snowe, who have a range of concerns about Bush's tax cut proposal. Plans being considered would speed up the income tax rate reduction part of Bush's tax cuts, and there has been some talk of rebates as a one-time stimulus, congressional aides said.

``There are currently a number of people working it out, working out how to accomplish it,'' a Republican Senate aide said. ``What Treasury is proposing would be a one-time shot-in-the-arm.''

Democrats immediately charged that Bush was raising the price tag of his tax cut. They also said the president was a bit tardy in catching on that his 10-year phased-in plan in which the bulk of cuts come in the last five years did not meet the economy's immediate needs.

State Of Union Message

``Secretary O'Neill said he's prepared to go higher than the $1.6 (trillion) to make it retroactive, to do whatever possible to add more to what has been proposed,'' Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said.

``That flies directly in the face of what the president said during his State of the Union message. But they're having second thoughts,'' Daschle, of South Dakota, said.

But Republican congressional aides were mixed on whether they expected the short-term stimulus would come on top of Bush's $1.6 trillion plan.

The White House said it was not changing the $1.6 trillion price tag, which Bush has called ``just right'' to leave money to pay down national debt and meet spending needs.

``He wants a $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years and he believes we need to work with Congress to get money into people's pockets quicker,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, adding that ``adjustments can be made in the phase-in'' to keep a retroactive bill within $1.6 trillion.

Democrats said O'Neill's overtures to speed up tax cuts bolsters their plans for smaller, quicker tax cuts.

Republicans, meanwhile, have said the weakening stock markets show the need for much bigger 10-year cuts that would provide a long-term economic push, and have called for cuts of over $2 trillion.

Facing a tough time passing his plan in the 50-50 split Senate, Bush has resisted urgings mainly from House Republicans to expand the tax cuts.

Some moderate Republicans and Democrats, concerned that the tax cuts may push the country back into deficits if surplus projections do not pan out, also are pushing for a mechanism to link phasing in the tax cuts to debt reduction.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010316/ts/congress_taxes_dc_12.html


Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 12:10 AM

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I say the sooner the better

by Earlybird



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:49 AM

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Earthquake art

by 5th



More about it here: http://www.gaelwolf.com/pendulum.html

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 8:58 PM

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Very unusual

by Earlybird

Mother Nature works some really astounding feats of magic doesn't she?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:52 AM

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Blondes

by

A blonde takes her seat in coach on an airplane and notices that the seats in First Class are much larger and apper to be more comfortable. So she walks throught the curtan and finds an empty seat and makes her self comfortabel.The flight attandet goes around checking tickes and tells the blonde to go back to coach thats what she payed for . The blonde says I am young , beauitful , and blonde . And I am sitting here all the way to New York! I mad flight attandet goes to the cockpit tells the captin. So he goes to tell the Bolnde to move he gets the same responce. Then he tells his co-piolet and he says " i have a blonde girl friend let me try. The co-piolet whispers something in the bolndes ear and she replys with a thank you and returns to her right seat . The captin ask him what he said to her . He replyed " Seats in first class dont go to New York! (sorry for any spellling mistakes)

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 8:50 PM

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Hee hee. that's funny. here's another one

by Earlybird

A brunette and a blonde are walking down the street when a pigeon flies overhead and drops a load directly on the blonde's head. The brunette says "oh dear! What a mess! I'll go get some toilet paper." The blonde says "never mind. By the time you get back with the toilet paper, the pigeon will already be halfway to California."

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:48 AM

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Very Funny

by

HAHAHA

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:12 AM

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Funny !

by Same2U



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 11:47 AM

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Blondes

by

A blonde takes her seat in coach on an airplane and notices that the seats in First Class are much larger and apper to be more comfortable. So she walks throught the curtan and finds an empty seat and makes her self comfortabel.The flight attandet goes around checking tickes and tells the blonde to go back to coach thats what she payed for . The blonde says I am young , beauitful , and blonde . And I am sitting here all the way to New York! I mad flight attandet goes to the cockpit tells the captin. So he goes to tell the Bolnde to move he gets the same responce. Then he tells his co-piolet and he says " i have a blonde girl friend let me try. The co-piolet whispers something in the bolndes ear and she replys with a thank you and returns to her right seat . The captin ask him what he said to her . He replyed " Seats in first class dont go to New York! (sorry for any spellling mistakes)

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 8:48 PM

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Tired of grieving over dead pets? Help is on the way

by nemesis

Perpetual Pets, Via Cloning

What's new, pussycat? This year, perhaps the first replicated tabby.
Research teams are collecting cells, and money, from folks who want
multiple generations of their dogs and cats.

By AARON ZITNER, Times Staff Writer


NEW ORLEANS--Lisa Johnson laid her cat to rest
near some alder trees in the backyard, marking his grave
with a ring of stones. Then she heard about Richard
Denniston and his effort to create the first-ever cat by
cloning. Soon, she was back at the grave with a shovel.
And so, three days after his death beneath the wheels
of a car, Johnson's much-loved Cowcat underwent a resurrection of sorts.
Johnson took his body from the ground, sped it to a veterinarian and had
some skin removed. She sent the tissue to Denniston, who induced the cells
to multiply.
Now millions of Cowcat's cells live on, frozen in liquid nitrogen and
waiting for scientists to do with the cat what has already been done with the
cow, pig, goat, mouse--and of course with Dolly, the famously cloned sheep.
While no one has cloned a cat yet, three top-notch U.S. teams are racing
for what is the next big trophy in the burgeoning field of cloning. Experts say
the first one could be born this year, with the first cloned dog probably
coming later, its arrival hampered by the peculiar hurdles of the canine
reproductive system.
Even before the first copied cat arrives, companies connected to each
research team are already running a test of what happens when cloning is
offered as a consumer product. The looming question is whether cloning, if
ever perfected, will win acceptance as a way to produce children. So far, the
idea has provoked more outrage than approval, with scientists and ethicists
last week condemning an Italian doctor, Severino Antinori, for announcing
plans to try to help infertile couples through cloning.
But when it comes to animals, at least, Johnson and hundreds of other pet
owners are proving that many people will set aside any fears about the
technology and embrace it wholeheartedly.
"If they said it was available, I would say, 'Don't wait for my check. Let
me give you the number of my Visa card right now,' " said Phyllis Sherman
Raschke, a retired probation officer from Sylmar, Calif., who paid Denniston
$700 to preserve cells from her cat, Sammy. "I am generally not a dingbat,"
Raschke added, defending her enthusiasm. "I have my PhD. I'm not a funny
lady with 93 cats in my house and one litter box."
Debbie Thieme, an emergency room nurse near Pittsburgh, paid $1,500 to
preserve cells from three of her dogs, who are fighting various forms of
cancer. "I'll clone them all. I'll have my pack back together again, someday."
"We were in such agony when Cowcat died. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't
eat. It was hard to function," said Johnson, a Seattle-area homemaker who
had named her pet for his spotted black-and-white coat. "Some people may
think it's blasphemous to dig up a grave, but I just love the cat."
Obtaining cells is a required step in cloning, which uses the DNA within
the cells to produce a new organism with the same genetic makeup as the
original. The old and new animals are thought to be something like identical
twins--very close in appearance but not necessarily in personality or
behavior.
In the four years since Dolly's birth, several companies have made a
business of cloning cows for farmers, who want to copy the genes of their
most productive animals in order to boost milk and meat yields. Specialists
say that several hundred cloned cows have been produced in this country
alone.
Now cloning is on the verge of moving from the farm to the living room,
and the ramifications could be large. If companies like Denniston's Lazaron
BioTechnologies LLC make people more comfortable with cloning, they may
also pave the way for its use in creating children.
"This will be a test bed for human cloning," said Ronald M. Green, a
Dartmouth College ethics professor. If proved safe in pets, "it will accustom
us to cloning as a form of reproduction and will make it more likely that
people will accept human cloning somewhere down the line."
In addition to Lazaron of Baton Rouge, La., companies preserving animal
cells for eventual cloning include Genetic Savings & Clone of College
Station, Texas; PerPETuate Inc. of Sturbridge, Mass.; and Advanced Cell
Technology Inc. of Worcester, Mass. Tissue processing fees range from $600
to nearly $1,400, and the companies charge a monthly storage fee of about
$10. None has set a price for the cloning itself, but the cost could top
$20,000, at least initially.
Nearly all samples come from live pets; some companies say they can
take cells from animals that have been kept cool, but not frozen, for up to a
week after death. None of the companies is accepting human tissue for
storage.
Its sheer novelty aside, cloning might offer a variety of benefits. Owners
could spay and neuter their pets, as vets and others forcefully recommend,
and still breed their favorite animals. In a nation that destroys 5 million or so
cats and dogs at shelters each year, cloning would produce a single pup or
kitten instead of a litter.
But there are many unknowns. Some critics fear it would demean the
individuality of a pet to know that DNA is already in the freezer, ready to
grow into a replacement.
"I'm stumped on that one, myself," said James Serpell, director of the
Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of
Pennsylvania. "It might kind of denigrate the individual to have it constantly
reproduced.
"But in a curious way, it might also increase its value, like fine wine. You
could have whole generations of the same dog within a family--or at least
people seeing it as the same dog, a copy of the dog that their grandfathers and
parents had."
Critics also say the companies are selling a fantasy that they can't possibly
fulfill: the notion that an old friend will rise from the dead. "It's the idea that
we're also cloning personalities, and that's where I think this is snake oil,"
said Alan Beck of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue
University.
No one knows, in fact, whether a cloned cat would retain that funny meow
of the original or perform the same parlor tricks that thrilled its owner. Some
aspects of personality are partly based on genes, and perhaps those can be
reproduced, said Lou Hawthorne, chief executive of Genetic Savings &
Clone. But at the same time, Hawthorne said, "we bend over backwards" to
explain that cloning cannot copy the animal's experience in the uterus or in
the wider world, which also shape appearance and behavior.
There is another caution for pet owners and cloners. In the lingo of the
field, cloning is "inefficient": It produces many stillborn or deformed animals
for each live cow, sheep or goat. Before creating Dolly, scientists tried their
technique on 276 other sheep cells, producing 28 embryos that failed to
develop normally.
In fact, spokesmen for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say they see
nothing wrong with cloning pets in itself, but they ask whether it can be done
without producing damaged animals.
"Given the enormously high rate of miscarriages and birth defects, one
wonders whether someone who really loves a pet would want to subject that
pet's genetic twin to such travail," said Richard Doerflinger of the bishops'
group.

Egg Is 'Factory' for Cloning a Being
No one knows why cloning goes awry. But that question was on the minds
of scientists scrubbing up one recent day in a New Orleans surgical suite at
the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species.
As veterinarians slipped on hairnets and surgical masks, technician
Barbara Vincent reached into a pet carrier and gently pulled out Cassandra,
one of 150 cats who live in the research colony here. The 6-pound tabby had
spiked a slight temperature, the result of nerves. This was her first trip to the
surgical suite, and the sight was unfamiliar: coiled oxygen tubes, doctors in
green scrubs, a cold, metal operating table.
Soon, the year-old cat was drifting away under anesthetic as Vincent
cooed, "Think good thoughts. . . . Think good thoughts." Researcher Earle
Pope and two veterinarians quickly made small incisions in Cassandra's
shaved belly, inserted a tiny camera and guided their instruments to her left
ovary.
Watching their work on a video monitor, the vets poked a thin tube again
and again into the fleshy orb of the ovary, sucking out the egg cells that had
grown inside.
It took seven people and thousands of dollars in equipment to harvest
Cassandra's eggs, a process from which she would quickly recover. But for
this team, the effort was worthwhile. "It all starts with the egg," Pope said.
"That's the factory for producing a new cloned being."
Cloning relies on the egg's ability to divide and grow into a whole
organism. What kind of organism is dictated by the DNA within the cell,
which acts like a blueprint.
Traditionally, the DNA comes from a mother and father--from the egg
itself and from a male's sperm. In cloning, by contrast, DNA is removed from
the egg and replaced with genetic material from an entirely different
animal--an animal like Cowcat, who has donated a cell sample in order to be
copied.
Brett Reggio of Lazaron, who is a research partner of the Audubon center,
showed how it works.
In his lab at Louisiana State University, Reggio placed a cat's egg cell
under a microscope. It came up big and silvery on the attached video
monitor, like a ball bearing trapped in a glob of jelly.
Toward one end was some dark material--the cell's DNA. "That's what
I'm going to remove," Reggio said, maneuvering a tiny pipette, thinner than a
human hair, next to the egg. With a flick of his wrist, he pushed the pipette
into the cell, then sucked out the DNA.
Next, Reggio placed some cat skin cells on the microscope stage. They
looked like tiny gnats, buzzing around the giant sunflower of the egg. "Each
one of these skin cells has a nucleus, and in the nucleus is all the DNA
needed to make a whole cat," Reggio said.
He drew one of the skin cells into his pipette, punctured the egg again and
released the skin cell inside.
With a tiny zap of electricity from a nearby machine, Reggio fused the
skin and egg cells. They were now one--an egg from one cat containing DNA
from another. The whole process took less than 10 minutes.
What Reggio had just done has been accomplished hundreds of times with
cat and dog cells. If all worked properly, the egg would grow in a laboratory
dish for a few days before researchers transferred it to a surrogate mother,
who would carry it to term.
And yet, no one has succeeded with cats or dogs. Cassandra's eggs were
being used to tweak the process so that it might work.
At the Audubon center, scientist Martha Gomez put some of Cassandra's
eggs in a chemical bath designed to encourage them to start dividing into an
embryo. Then she put the eggs in a second bath designed to temporarily stop
the cell division. Researchers think that hitting the pause button this way
might help the embryo grow properly. They believe it gives the egg time to
"reprogram" its new DNA, telling it to act like the fresh DNA of an embryo
instead of the genetic material that operates a mature skin cell.
By testing different types of these baths, Gomez hoped to find which
combination would produce the healthiest embryos. "And this is just one tiny
part of the cloning process," she said. "There are so many other problems."
One is proving especially nettlesome in dogs, said Mark Westhusin, an
associate professor of veterinary physiology at Texas A&M University and
principal scientist on a dog-cloning project.
Dogs come into heat only once or twice a year, and that is the only time
they are able to become surrogate mothers.
Cats come into heat more frequently. Even when Westhusin produces dog
embryos, it is hard to time their transfer to a surrogate mother. This requires
him to keep more than 40 dogs on hand to act as surrogates and egg donors.
While several teams are working on the cat, Westhusin's group is the only
one with a comprehensive program to clone the dog. Called the Missyplicity
Project, it is funded by an anonymous donor who has put up $3.7 million in
hopes of cloning his own dog, Missy.
Cloning researchers say their work will bring corollary breakthroughs in
dog and cat contraception and in agriculture.
The Audubon research center, whose primary goal is to aid endangered
species, believes that cloning could be one of the lifelines to save mountain
gorillas, pandas, pygmy chimpanzees and other animals whose numbers are
dwindling.
But not everyone believes cloning will catch on among the nation's 90
million dog and cat owners. Kathleen Revelt, a veterinarian in Jeannette, Pa.,
said, "Around here, it's economically depressed enough that it's a struggle to
vaccinate and provide basic care."
But one of her own clients is dreaming of the possibilities. Thieme, the
emergency room nurse, is a self-described "wolf freak" who decorates her
home with wolf sculptures and wolf clocks. Her four dogs look something
like wolves as well.
Three of the dogs are fighting cancer, and Thieme has preserved cells
from each of them. Nikki, age 7, just had surgery to remove part of her palate.

Eight-year-old Diamond receives radiation therapy for a soft-tissue
cancer. Wolf, 13, is largely immobile, his hind legs dragging behind him as a
result of liver cancer.
"I think there's one mistake God made. He didn't let animals live a little
longer," Thieme said. "I'd like to see them live to 20 or 30. You just want
them to live a little longer."
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 5:13 PM

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Want to try a 'Ghetto Burger'?

by nemesis

Begone, 'Ghetto Burger' sign?
'Bigger fish to fry,' one customer says

BY JEREMY REDMON
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Mar 16, 2001


The Ghetto Burger has come a long way - from its hand-patted birth in a Church Hill
mother's kitchen to national news.

And it owes everything to its name.

Customers mobbed Send-a-Chef for the 7-ounce Texas toast treat after reading about its
controversial sign in the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday.

The lunchtime wait at the Nine Mile Road restaurant ran as long as a half-hour yesterday.
The crowd of customers was sometimes 40 deep.

News reporters and cameramen maneuvered through the crowd as chefs worked double
time to keep up with the burger demand.

During short breaks, co-owner Frank A. Pitchford responded to television, newspaper and
radio reporters, some from other states.

"That was a burger my mom used to fix when we were growing up in hard times," Pitchford
said about his formative years in Church Hill. "I didn't put it up on the sign to be offensive
toward the neighborhood."

But some eastern Henrico County residents have asked Pitchford to take down the
restaurant's "Home of the Ghetto Burger" sign or make it smaller.

They say the word "ghetto" refers to a "low-income area" and "second-class citizens."

"Instead of Ghetto Burger, it could have been a 'Larger Burger' or a 'Huge Burger,'" said
Richard Bland, of Hechler Village, who wants the sign reworded. "The word could be
changed. Jumbo - anything that means large."

Others worry the sign will hurt their efforts to attract more businesses to the aging Nine Mile
Road area of eastern Henrico County.

"His business has just blossomed," said the Rev. C.W. Robb, also of Hechler Village. "I
went over there at 1 o'clock. I have never seen that many folks - even when Kentucky Fried
Chicken was there.

"My concern is [that] he wording SIGNhe has on the sign will have a negative impact on any
business we try to bring to the area," added Robb, who is offended by the sign's wording. "I
believe that strongly."

It has also offended county Supervisor Frank J. Thornton.

"They have too much time on their hands," said customer Renard Roots, of northern
Henrico County. "There are bigger fish to fry."

"If we said 'fat burger,' are the obese people going to come and get worried about it?"

Pitchford and his business partner plan to decide today the fate of the sign's wording.

Customers who couldn't shoehorn their cars into the restaurant's lot parked at a vacant
Bonanza restaurant next door. Construction workers, couples and business types braved
the rain for the juicy, home-style burger.

Send-a-Chef sold 435 of the sauteed onion-topped sandwiches for lunch yesterday. Some
customers showed up at Pitchford's restaurant just to show solidarity.

"I don't see anything wrong with it," George Willis, of Richmond, said about the sign as he
waited for his lunch. "As I grew up, when you said 'ghetto burger,' they gave you a bologna
sandwich because they couldn't afford the hamburger."

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 5:11 PM

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Global Warming: Lies, Lies, Damnable Lies!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Global Warming: Lies, Lies, Damnable Lies!

By
Alan Caruba


Some years ago I concluded that the New York
Times was little more than a journalistic criminal
enterprise. Throughout the last decade, the Times
devoted itself to publishing every kind of lie possible
to advance the global warming hoax and it continues
to do so shamelessly.

On February 26th, it issued "A Global Warning to
Mr. Bush" in which an editorial asserted that "the
seemingly indestructible snows of Kilimanjaro that
inspired Ernest Hemingway's famous short story may
well disappear in the next 15 years." Yeah, right. And
the entire Northeast was supposed to have been hit
by the biggest blizzard in 50 years about two weeks
ago. You could have read about it in the Times and
every other newspaper. They were all wrong.

The Times, however, goes beyond merely being
wrong. It deliberately fabricates global warming lies,
depending upon an endless parade of breathless
scientists ready to announce that the North Pole is
melting, the oceans are rising, or that global warming
will produce mass murders, plagues, and an
outbreak of anything you care to name.

You can pretty much read the same lies in most
mainstream publications from Newsweek to every
idiot who repeats the eco-mantra that carbon dioxide
is causing global warming. I have yet to have read a
single reporter that even stops a moment to ask if
this is true or not.

What led the Times to issue its editorial warning? It
was President George W. Bush who got elected to
office saying that the science surrounding global
warming was inconclusive and that the Kyoto treaty
based on the theory was flawed and unworkable. A
lot of us, including myself, breathed a big sigh of
relief when we heard that. We figured, elect GW and
then let's rid ourselves and the world of this noxious
treaty. This week he began to move in that direction.

His handpicked choice to head the Environmental
Protection Agency, Christie Todd Whitman, began
spouting global warming nonsense the same day GW
delivered his budget speech. The former Governor of
New Jersey is an idiot who saddled her State with
billions of dollars of debt before departing for
Washington. She was elected to rid the Garden
State of a Governor who had raised taxes, driven
business away, and was an environmental nutcase.
The voters, G-d help us, keep getting screwed no
matter for whom we vote.

My friend, S. Fred Singer, a former director of the
US Weather Satellite Service and Professor Emeritus
of Environmental Sciences from the University of
Virginia, wrote Whitman on March 2nd. Here's a bit
of what he told her.

"The overwhelming balance of evidence shows no
appreciable warming trend in the past 20 years, nor
indeed since about 1940. While some surface
readings in far-away locations (mainly Eastern
Siberia and the tropical oceans) show a warming
trend, the well-maintained stations in the United
States do not.

"Weather satellite date, the only true global
measurements we have, show no warming. Neither
do the independent data from weather balloons,
which confirm the satellites in all respects. In
addition, so-called proxy data, i.e., non-thermometer
records from tree rings, ice cores, etc., show no
warming."

There Is No Global Warming!

Well, unless you include the past 10,000 years since
the last Ice Age. Yes, in that case, the Earth has
most certainly been enjoying almost consistent
warming. If it were not, the history of man would be
very different. Man, of course, is blamed by the
Greens as the "cause" of the current "warming"
which is not occurring. Mankind does not warm the
earth. The Sun does that.

All this talk of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) is just
nonsense. The climate of the earth was warmer
1000, 3000, and 6,000 years ago. All periods during
which human civilization was developing. At the time
of the dinosaurs, CO2 levels were five times those
that exist today. The long-range threat to earth isn't
too much CO2, it's too little!

It would be a naive kindness to assume that EPA
Director Christie Whitman is simply uninformed. Were
that the case, she would do herself and the nation a
big favor by keeping her mouth shut about the subject
of global warming. Instead, she has been all over the
place blathering about it being "a real phenomenon"
and even suggesting we might have to put "caps" on
carbon dioxide.

It turns out, though, that someone must have
explained things to President Bush because, on
Wednesday, the White House put out the word that it
does not favor regulating CO2 emissions from power
plants. He also made it clear that he takes a very dim
view of the UN Kyoto Climate Control treaty.

Carbon Dioxide is a natural, abundant chemical
that is essential to the growth of all plants and
trees. You and every other member of the
planet's six billion human population emits CO2
every time they exhale. Termites produce ten
times the amount of C02 than all the fossil fuels
burned in a year worldwide. The technology of
energy production, transportation, etc., has been
calculated to be only 0.04%. The UN Kyoto
Climate Control Treaty is intended to control
that! Do you think 0.04% has any effect? The
notion of calling CO2 a "pollutant" is ludicrous.
Worse, it is a criminal fraud.

But fraud is the name of the game for Greens.
Hearing of the President's decision, David Doniger
of the Natural Resources Defense Council said, "He
has turned his back on the overwhelming science that
shows the planet is in danger from carbon dioxide."
That is a lie. A very big lie.

Those of us who have been fighting against the
torrent of lies surrounding and advocating the global
warming theory thought we might rest at last, safe in
the knowledge that the new President understood
how completely absurd it was, how absurd it is to
even consider US participation in the Kyoto Treaty
that permits twenty other nations to do nothing while
we ruin our economy.

The President's decision against capping CO2
emissions is a small step in the right direction.
However, new bills are being introduced in Congress
for just that purpose, so we must gird up again to
protect our nation, our economy, our security, our
dynamic, technological way of life against those who
would take it from us by deception.

George W. Bush is moving in the right direction. The
next step is to declare the UN Kyoto treaty dead on
arrival. Christine "Browner" Whitman needs to get
that message, too.





Alan Caruba, pulls no punches pointing out environmental
lies and liars, political pandering, food police nutcases,
animal rights lunatics, and the entire managerie of
mis-information and dis-information at The National
Anxiety Center. E-mail Mr. Caruba at ACaruba@aol.com.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 3:56 PM

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I've been studying this global warming thing....

by Ironicman

It seems to me the Conservatives are on the side of anti-global warming, and they know if this phenomenon is accepted, the liberals will pass a bunch of laws prohibiting farting, and even eating beans and high fiber foods.

This, of course will destroy the American food industry, and maybe the world economy. Keep it up boys, you gotta save the country.

We need holes in the ozone so this `Fart Gas' can escape into outerspace. They may even force us to breathe into Carbon Dioxide tanks or worse yet, strap fart tanks onto our backs..

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 5:31 PM

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Rangers Declare Win in Beret Battle

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Rangers Declare Win in Beret Battle

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Friday, March 16, 2001; 9:46 AM

WASHINGTON –– Color matters. After months of wrangling with Army brass in the Pentagon,
the elite Rangers have won approval to switch the color of their berets from black to tan.

Col. P.K. Keen, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga., said Thursday
that the Army's senior leaders approved the Rangers' request to make the change.

Normally a fashion fuss inside the Army would not draw much outside attention. But this is no
ordinary fuss.

The Rangers raised a ruckus when Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki announced in October
that the black beret the Rangers wear proudly as an exclusive badge of honor would become
standard-issue headgear for everyone from Army cooks and clerks to colonels and generals.

The Rangers considered it a slap in the face, a cheapening of their hard-won right to wear an
exclusive hat. They managed to stir interest in their cause on Capitol Hill and even at the White
House. On Thursday they declared victory, although their initial efforts had been aimed,
unsuccessfully, at retaining the black beret instead of switching colors.

"The Ranger tan beret will represent for the Ranger of the 21st century what the black beret
represented – a unit that leads the way in our conventional and special operations forces," Keen
said.

The Army's decision to approve the Ranger color change appeared to settle the major element of
the controversy. However, the deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, is reviewing whether
the Army erred in contracting with China and other foreign manufacturers to supply the black
berets.

Wolfowitz and Shinseki scheduled a Pentagon news conference Friday to discuss "the way
ahead for Army headgear."

For years, the black beret has been the exclusive headgear of the Rangers, a small, elite force
with a glory-covered history. Currently, only three Army units are authorized to wear berets:
Airborne units wear maroon berets, Special Forces wear green (and are known famously as the
Green Berets) and Rangers wear black.

In their announcement Thursday evening, the 75th Ranger Regiment said the Army had approved
its request to change its beret color "to maintain the distinctiveness of the unit and reflect the
legacy of more than two centuries of Ranger history."

"After studying several options, the Rangers decided on the Ranger tan beret," the announcement
said. It said Keen sent a memorandum to Shinseki on March 9, requesting the change from black
to tan.

Shinseki approved it Thursday.

"The decision to adopt the Ranger tan beret is based upon maintaining a distinctive beret for our
Rangers as the Army transitions to the black beret," Keen said. He said the Rangers support the
Army's decision to make the black beret the standard headgear.

"Rangers have never been measured by what they have worn in peace or combat, but by
commitment, dedication, physical and mental toughness, and willingness to lead the way –
anywhere, anytime," Keen said. "The beret has become our most visible symbol. It will remain
so."

The Rangers were the first soldiers to scale the cliffs at Normandy's Omaha Beach on D-Day.
They parachuted into Panama in 1989 and went to Somalia in 1992-93. During that mission, 18
Americans – including six Rangers – were killed in a failed attempt to capture a Somali
warlord.

Still unresolved is the Army's decision to get a waiver of a legal requirement to have the black
berets manufactured in the United States. It did so because of the rush to institute the black beret
as standard headgear for the Army on June 14, the Army's birthday.

When Shinseki made his surprise announcement in October, he said, "When we wear the black
beret it will say that we, the soldiers of the world's best army, are committed to making
ourselves even better." He said the beret would be a "symbol of unity."

The announcement drew immediate and lasting protests, mainly from retired Rangers who felt
Shinseki had cheapened their proud tradition by making the black beret a common currency.

Under Shinseki's order, all soldiers – other than those authorized to wear green, maroon or tan
berets – will wear the black berets with dress or casual uniforms, or with combat fatigues while
in garrison. In the field, they will continue to wear the baseball-style cap or Kevlar helmet.

The beret will replace the current fold-up "overseas" cap, the saucer-like "service" cap and the
baseball-style cap.

–––

On the Net: Pentagon: http://www.defenselink.mil

© 2001 The Associated Press

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 3:46 PM

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Do the Airborne and Special Forces

by Peter

get to keep their maroon and green berets, or do they have to switch to black?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:09 AM

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I'm not sure but

by Fat Freddy's Cat

I think they intend to give different colored berets to each speciality. Colors proposed are:

Mess workers will receive a greenish-brown month-old spam colored beret.

Don't ask, don't tell soldiers will receive a pink beret.

NCOs will receive a butt-kissing dung brown beret.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 4:41 PM

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Pink berets?

by Peter

Heh, the "gay berets," huh?

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:40 PM

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Charity Group Attacked for Refusing Drag Show Money

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Charity Group Attacked for Refusing Drag Show Money
By Lawrence Morahan
CNS Senior Staff Writer
March 16, 2001

(CNSNews.com) - Media outlets and homosexual activists in New Mexico have attacked the
management of a local faith-based homeless shelter after it declined a donation raised from a
drag show.

Chris Ames, a member of Risclee, a "group of gays and straights who frequently put on drag
shows to raise money for charity," said he offered the Albuquerque-based Joy Junction
homeless shelter a check for $1,200, representing the proceeds of a drag show it held on Feb
24.

The shelter respectfully declined the donation, saying the manner in which it was raised
conflicted with its Christian principles on homosexual behavior.

"Being a faith-based ministry, that's not exactly what we're all about," said Jeremy Reynalds, the
shelter director who founded the Joy Junction ministry in 1986.

Joy Junction is the largest emergency homeless shelter in New Mexico, providing half of the
300 beds provided year round for the homeless in Albuquerque. It receives no federal funding
because of the religious aspects of its operations.

But Ames claimed the shelter's position on homosexual behavior conflicted with another
Christian principle. "It says in the Bible that you should not judge somebody unless you want to
be judged yourself," said Ames.

The judging began shortly after Reynalds' decision to decline the contribution. Within hours,
Reynalds said calls from media outlets came flooding in, along with about 150 e-mails.

The initial e-mail response was overwhelmingly negative, Reynalds said, but it leveled off as
people became more informed on the story. Phone calls to the office ran about 50 - 50 for and
against.

After the initial response, Reynalds was fired from a local radio station where he occasionally
substituted as a talk show host.

"Although I am sure that your circumstances were justified in your mind, I find it hard to believe
that a gift for food, or cash donation, would be turned down by you," wrote KBTK General
Manger Bruce Pollock in an e-mail provided by Reynalds. "These attitudes are not fair to the
homeless, gay homeless and the gay community in general. A gift is a gift."

Reynalds said the reaction showed that many community members were not aware of the
difference between a faith-based ministry, such as Joy Junction, and state or federal agencies,
where religious convictions are not an integral part of the group's daily operations.

"Our job is to help the homeless in conformity with basic Christian principles. We help
homosexuals. If you come in to us and say you're gay, we will help you," said Reynalds. "If you
bring a partner in, we will still help you, but your partner will have to sleep in another
building."

Reynalds does not discount the possibility that the shelter may have been set-up because of his
outspokenness on issues related to homosexuality.

"If we had chosen to go ahead and take the donation, it's our feeling the gays would have gone to
the media and said, 'hey, this guy writes against the gay lifestyle, but he takes gay money,'" said
Reynalds. "When I refused the money, they ran to the media and called me a homophobic bigot."

Reynalds has written columns defending Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a critic of homosexual
behavior and activism; and John Paulk, the former homosexual and employee of Focus on the
Family who was attacked as a hypocrite by homosexual advocacy groups after he was
photographed in a homosexual bar.

Since the controversy broke two weeks ago, Reynalds said several people have come by the Joy
Junction offices and written checks to cover the $1,200 drag show donation refused by the
shelter.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 3:42 PM

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That's the shelter's prerogative

by Earlybird

It's the same as a pimp making a donation to a church. The gays were only doing it for publicity anyway.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 5:58 AM

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YES!!!!! The fat lady finally sings!!!!!

by Fat Freddy's Cat

But she's no lady.

Good Bye, Rosie – Fat Lady Sings!

Dan Frisa
Wednesday, March 14, 2001

Talker Rosie O’Donnell’s ratings have sunk so low they nearly match the level she herself
occupies in the political gutter.

On a continual downward slide for more than a year, the rotund Rosie will quit her show, which
is at the bottom of the daytime TV heap.

The once-popular comedian saw her popularity drop in nearly direct correlation to her
increasingly outrageous leftist positions.

From her strange affection for ultra-liberal Babs Striesand to her vocal and repeated support for
Senator Slick Hilly to her sneak attack on Tom Selleck while guesting on her show, O’Donnell
staked out positions far outside the mainstream of middle America.

All of which is no surprise, as this entire scenario was reported and predicted in this column last
year. See Americans Tune Out Hypocrite Rosie.

Rosie obviously got carried away with fame and stardom, forgetting her middle-class suburban
roots as she ran with the "beautiful" left-wing Hollywood crowd and actually thought she could
say anything and get away with it.

While her charity work is noteworthy and to be commended, Rosie learned the hard way that
spitting in the face of commonsense, conservative values had a price, as regular people literally
tuned her out and turned her off.

She brought it on herself and got precisely what she deserved.

And her fate was determined the way it should be, by the marketplace, unlike efforts by the left to
blackmail conservatives from the airwaves by applying political pressure.

It was time for O’Donnell to go and it’s good that she’ll be gone.

*

E-mail Dan: danfrisa@newsmax.com.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 3:33 PM

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I agree with you FFC

by Earlybird

It's way past time for the fat woman to sing (even though she can't carry a tune in a bucket).

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:00 AM

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Between the bushes

by AntiSmirk



Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 1:39 PM

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However, poll favors Bushjr by 94%

by AntiSmirk

POLL: AMERICANS THANK BUSH FOR CONTINUED NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE

NEW YORK -- Ninety-four percent of Americans approve of President Bush's performance in
repelling foreign invaders, according to a new survey.

"Americans are happy that their country hasn't been taken over by another nation,"
commented pollster Bob Harris. "When Bush became commander in chief, many Americans
believed that he might inadvertently open the borders to enemy troops, who would ruthlessly
occupy the land, exploit its people for slave labor and set up mass extermination camps.
Americans are grateful that this hasn't happened."

On other issues:

94 percent of Americans "agree that Bush's decision not to spread bubonic plague is the
right way to go."

94 percent of Americans "favor the president's eat-whatever-you-feel-like-eating policy as
being in touch with average people."

94 percent of Americans say that the president has performed "better than they expected."

The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3 points.


_____________________________________________________
"has performed 'better than ... expected'" rotflmao!!

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 2:04 PM

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The Cold Hard truth

by J

Reagan- Lowers taxes raises revenue Wins cold war while Democratic Congress keeps spending and running up debt.

Bush Sr- Protect Oils supply policy pulls us out of a normal recession.


Clinton- Don't ask don't tell. but the intern told

Republican Congress - cuts spending Improves economy.

Clinton Taks credit for it Clinton does not manage the economy

Bush Jr inherits the beginning of a recession that started a year ago.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 5:48 PM

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All true

by Earlybird



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:02 AM

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Bush jr the recession PLEASE

by Hmm?

It take awhile to turn an aircraft carrier around.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 5:51 PM

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A Quote from Jerry Garcia [not Cherry]

by Hmm?

"I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty.
Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing
quite well for themselves."
* Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead)


Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 8:51 AM

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And I'd be willing to bet

by Fat Freddy's Cat

that 99% of that 23% are Democrat politicians.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 3:58 PM

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Heh... That's deep Fred

by Cherry Garcia



Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 8:00 PM

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JFK The original supply sider

by Hmm?

It really made my day when I first heard about the conservative group using JFK speeches in support of his own tax cuts to rally support for Bush's. JFK understood the obvious truth about tax cuts and he expressed the truth quite well in 1962.
40 years later his words reveal how far to the left the Dims have travelled and how shrill and demagogic they have become.

And it's so much fun to see the left squeal like pigs over the use of St. John's own words!!


From the Washington Compost...

Keepers of The JFK Copyright

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, March 16, 2001; Page A21

Ransacking the legacy of former presidents is about as venerable a political technique as there is. If you can go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, as Democrats did in the 1980s in opposing Reagan's "entangling" anti-Communist engagements in Central America, so much the better. Democrats and Republicans routinely invoke the two Roosevelts, Truman and Eisenhower in supporting everything from environmentalism to resisting the military-industrial complex.

But, oh, tamper with the memory of John F. Kennedy and the guardians of the flame will strike you down for sacrilege. The Sopranos aren't half as fast defending their own.

Consider: A private conservative group has been running regional radio ads supporting the Bush tax plan, citing Kennedy's across-the-board tax cut and using clips of his December 1962 speech to the Economic Club of New York.

Well. You'd have thought the Taliban had blasted away the giant JFK bust in the Kennedy Center. Brother Teddy and daughter Caroline shot off an angry letter (1) denouncing the ad and (2) demanding that the perpetrators "cease from using President Kennedy's image and voice in any political advertising you are running in support of President Bush's proposed tax cut."

The denunciation is fair enough. The demand is comic, though characteristic, Kennedy presumption.

Note first that the letter is not from associates, say, former Treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen, the man who famously told Dan Quayle: "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine." This is from kin. This is personal.

The official reason for the attack on the ads is their alleged intellectual dishonesty. Yet Teddy betrayed the deeper reason when he called the ads "rather indecent." The Boston Globe echoed that sense of hallowness breached. It pronounced guilty of "bad taste" those daring "to dragoon a revered former president into their service in such a misleading fashion."

This is ridiculous. It is yet another instance of this family appropriating for itself the legacy of the 35th American president. By what right? Divine? "If President Kennedy were here today, he would vigorously oppose President Bush's irresponsible tax scheme," sayeth Ted and Caroline. They can be no more certain of that, especially given what JFK said and did in 1962, than anyone else.

The family is clearly playing on his martyrdom. Martyred he was. But regarding the political use of his official record, that is an irrelevancy. Like all other presidents, Kennedy left a record. It belongs to all Americans. For what other president would someone dare claim that the use of his "image and voice" be prohibited?

In fact, the ads are perfectly reasonable. The ostensible reason for Teddy and Caroline's outrage is that Kennedy's tax cut returned fewer aggregate dollars than would Bush's to those earning over $300,000. But today, the class of wealthier people is larger than 40 years ago -- in part because of prosperity set off by the Kennedy tax cuts.

Sure, the aggregate amount of money returned to the wealthy is higher. So what? The key point is that the Kennedy tax cut returned to the wealthiest Americans 26 cents on every marginal dollar they earned. The Bush tax cut would return less than 7 cents.

Kennedy cut rates for the very wealthiest by almost one-third (from 91 percent to 65 percent). Bush cuts them by only one-sixth (from 39.6 percent to 33 percent).

Moreover, the ads showed President Kennedy defending the principle of cutting even the highest marginal rates. The "current tax system," he says in the speech, "exerts too heavy a drag on growth" and "reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk taking." Investment and risk taking are precisely the activities of the wealthy. Indeed, in one clip Kennedy says that the poorer Americans will spend the tax refund, while the richer ones will invest it.

That is the heart of the tax argument today: lower tax rates for the wealthy. Citing Kennedy on this question is a perfectly legitimate recourse to history.

Today's Democrats, unlike Kennedy, oppose cutting the highest marginal rates as an affront to fairness because the rich invariably benefit disproportionately. The logic of that position, however, is that one can never cut the upper rates. They can only be ratcheted higher. That is precisely how we got to the 91 percent rate that Kennedy decried -- and cut.

Having signed on for a tidy $900 billion tax cut of their own, the Democrats (to paraphrase the famous dinner repartee between the gentleman and the willing lady) have established the principle and are now only haggling over price. The fact that we hear cries of sacrilege about a perfectly reasonable analogy to JFK's tax cut is a sign of how at sea the Democrats find themselves, shorn of power and recovering from Clinton.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12638-2001Mar15.html


Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 8:45 AM

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True

by Fat Freddy's Cat

Kennedy was very conservative (for a Democrat).

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 4:22 PM

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Taxpayers May Be Stuck With Clintons' Legal Tab

by Earlybird

NewsMax.com



Thursday, March 15, 2001 12:57 p.m. EST

Taxpayers May Be Stuck With Clintons' Legal Tab

Tax!payers may get stuck with Bill and Hillary Clinton's
outstanding multi-million dollar legal tab - a development
that's being covered as breaking news today in other venues,
but something NewsMax.com readers learned about two months ago.

As part his Jan. 19 11th-hour deal not to indict the former
president, Whitewater independent counsel Robert Ray said the
Clintons had waived their right to reimbursement for any and
all legal fees "in connection with this matter."

The mainstream press interpreted "this matter" to mean Ray's
entire investigation, including the Whitewater, Travelgate and
Filegate probes, as well as the Lewinsky investigation.

The next day, for instance, the New York Times reported:

"Mr. Clinton also agreed to pay a $25,000 fine to the Arkansas
Bar Association, which had been considering whether to have him
disbarred, and also promised not to seek reimbursement of any
legal fees from a federal court - something he would be
entitled to under the independent counsel law as someone
investigated but not indicted."

But before the ink was dry on Mr. Clinton's no-indictment
agreement, deputy independent counsel Keith Ausbrook told
NewsMax.com exclusively, "This has been misreported a bit.
Clinton could seek reimbursement with respect to other parts of
the Whitewater investigation." (See: OIC: Clinton Can Seek
Reimbursement for Whitewater Legal Bills.)

Today, those who don't read NewsMax are learning for the first
time that they may be saddled with the balance of the Clintons'
non-Lewinsky legal debt after all.

"Ex-President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton still
face $3.9 million in legal bills - and may ask the taxpayers to
help pay it, lawyers said yesterday," reports the New York
Daily News belatedly. Ditto the TV and radio news networks.

Better late than never, we suppose.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 6:17 AM

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Who payed the tab of the Right Wing acusers?

by Liberal

You got it......The TAXPAYERS!

Wasn't that about fifty million dollars? Of course that money was spent WISELY, wasn't it?

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 9:04 AM

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Of course the money was spent wisely

by Earlybird

Anytime you're investigating criminals, like the Clinton Administration, you have to spend money. Just like detectives are paid to investigate gangs, murders and such. The money wasn't wasted because a lot of Clinton's cronies were found guilty and jailed. Even Clinton himself was found guilty of lying under oath and forced to pay a $95,000 dollar fine, as well as having his license to practice law revoked. More criminal activity from the Clinton-Gore Administration is even now surfacing.

Posted on Mar 17, 2001, 6:10 AM

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The Clintons are multi-millionnaires

by Fat Freddy's Cat

and they not only *won't* pay their own bills but they are still soliciting donations to the bloated Clinton Defense Fund. The Arkansas Maffia is still alive and well and trying to suck-up all the money they can get their greedy little hands on.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 4:11 PM

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House GOP Pushes New Abortion Limits

by Earlybird

House GOP Pushes New Abortion Limits

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 16, 2001; Page A01

With an ally now in the White House, House Republicans yesterday opened a coordinated
campaign to begin imposing new restrictions on abortion, starting with a bill that would impose
penalties on people who harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman.

As a House panel began work on the proposal making it a federal crime to injure or kill a fetus
during an attack, abortion foes and supporters said the bill signaled the beginning of an effort to
capitalize on President Bush's election and enact legislation that was stymied for years by
President Bill Clinton.

Bush has already pleased abortion opponents by cutting off family planning funds to
international groups that provide abortion referrals and by appointing conservative John D.
Ashcroft as attorney general. Now lawmakers say that in the coming months they will seek to
impose incremental restrictions on abortion while averting a direct confrontation over women's
constitutional rights to obtain the procedure.

The measures include a ban on a controversial procedure opponents refer to as "partial birth"
abortion, a restriction prohibiting anyone but a parent from transporting a minor across state
lines to have an abortion, and limitations on who can administer mifepristone, an abortion pill
previously known as RU-486 that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration shortly
before Clinton left office.

Without the threat of a presidential veto, abortion opponents said they will also try to add
abortion language to spending bills, such as possibly imposing parental consent requirements on
family planning funds and eliminating contraception coverage for federal employees.

"There's some significant opportunity to complete some issues where not only members of
Congress, but the majority of people in the country, are on the same side," said Rep. Roy D.
Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the GOP leadership. "This is another one of those issues where the
House is likely to set the agenda. I think the Senate will respond."

Passage of antiabortion legislation is assured in the House, which approved many of the
measures in the last Congress. Supporters of the proposals hope that by moving early on a
number of them, they can influence the course of debate in the Senate, which traditionally has
been less receptive to bills restricting abortion access.

"The landscape is full of land mines now that are potentially quite lethal in terms of a woman's
right to choose," said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive
Rights League. "The Senate remains our fire wall, if there's a fire wall in this."

Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who has voted in favor of a "partial
birth" abortion ban, said Democrats "will have to take them one step at a time. We see this not
as an abortion issue, but as a women's rights issue."

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that while lawmakers do not have "a list" of
which antiabortion bills they plan to bring up in the next several months, "obviously we have
more opportunities in bringing about some reasonable regulation of abortion" now that Bush is
in the White House.

Republicans said they were deliberately choosing measures that they believe would resonate
with most voters and avoiding a frontal assault on the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision that guaranteed women's right to abortion.

"This is a pro-life Congress, House and Senate," House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey
(R-Tex.) said. "But I would have doubts Congress would overturn Roe v. Wade."

Rep. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who initiated the Unborn Victims of Violence Act that the
Judiciary constitution subcommittee took up yesterday, argued that many abortion advocates
believe a fetus should be protected once the mother has decided to carry it to term. Graham and
other proponents of the measure said it was aimed at fetal protection, rather than undermining
abortion rights.

"Once the woman has decided to have the baby, we are trying to protect it like any other
member of the human family," Graham said. "I think we get 70 percent plus support for that."

Under the bill, any perpetrator of a federal crime of violence against a pregnant woman could be
charged separately for injuring or killing her fetus at any stage of development, even if the
attacker was unaware of the pregnancy. Twenty-four states have some form of fetal protection
law, though more than half of them cover specific stages of development.

While Graham said the legislation would provide prosecutors with an added tool to punish
brutal crimes against pregnant women, Democrats such as New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the
subcommittee's ranking minority member, decried the bill as "disingenuous in the extreme."

"The real purpose is to establish a doctrine, contrary to the Supreme Court decision in Roe v.
Wade, that the fetus is a separate person," Nadler said at the outset of the hearing. "This is
driven by the politics of abortion rather than the substantive effort to fight violence against
women."

The measure, which could come up for a floor vote before the congressional recess that begins
April 9, is widely expected to pass the House despite strong Democratic opposition. It sailed
through the House 254 to 172 in 1999, but never came to a vote in the Senate. Democrats offered
a substitute two years ago that would have enhanced the penalties for attacking a pregnant
woman, but it was narrowly defeated.

Senate Republican leaders say they face several challenges in seeking to dismantle abortion
protections, particularly the "partial birth" procedure. The Supreme Court's rejection last year
of a Nebraska law outlawing the late-term procedure has frustrated GOP lawmakers, who say
they have the votes for such a bill but remain unsure whether the proposal is constitutional.

"Is 'partial birth' abortion the right issue to bring up?" said Senate Assistant Majority Leader
Don Nickles (R-Okla.). "I'm reviewing that right now."

Still, Nickles expressed confidence that abortion opponents will score some successes this
Congress. Even such an abortion rights advocate as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she
would consider supporting fetal protection legislation like the Unborn Victims Act if it required
intent on the part of the attacker and applied to a viable fetus.

"When somebody beats to death a woman who's 8 1/2 months pregnant, and kills her child, there
are grounds for a crime against the child," Feinstein said.

It is this kind of consensus, according to National Right to Life Committee legislative director
Douglas Johnson, that abortion opponents are hoping to achieve this Congress.

"It's a matter of what can be accomplished in the short term, particularly in the Senate," Johnson
said. "These things seem to have a fighting chance."

For abortion rights advocates such as Nadler, the new political climate confirms what they
feared when Bush won the presidency. "Last year we didn't worry about these bills," he said. "If
the Senate didn't kill them, the president would. Now we have to worry about them."

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 6:11 AM

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Today's quote

by Earlybird

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.

Gore Vidal

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 6:08 AM

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Just like....

by

Some of the poster's here. hee haw

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 2:10 PM

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The history teacher's fagometer

by Delgado

Student's family sues Taft teacher

Teacher allegedly wrote slur on a valentine he gave the
13-year-old boy last month

Published 03/14/2001 10:36:29 PM

BY BILL DOLAN
Times Staff Writer

CROWN POINT -- The family of a Taft Middle School student is suing his history teacher over
allegations he gave the 13-year-old boy a candy heart on Valentine's Day and wrote "Fag" on it.

The suit was filed in Lake Circuit Court against Donald E. Miller, who is described as a popular
teacher for the past three decades.

Miller could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

School Superintendent H. Steve Sprunger said Wednesday that Miller has been placed on
administrative leave and relieved of classroom duties with pay pending an investigation into the
matter.

When asked if Miller's teaching contract could be terminated, Sprunger said, "That is an option
we are reviewing."

Merrillville lawyer Jim Brown, who represents the eighth-grader, asked that the boy not be
publicly identified for fear of retribution because some classmates are circulating petitions to
have Miller reinstated.

The suit alleges Miller rubbed an inoffensive valentine message off the candy heart and wrote
"Fag" on it before giving it to the Crown Point boy in front of his fellow students.

"I can't deny any of this," Sprunger said, adding that he couldn't confirm it either or discuss the
matter while it remains a private personnel matter.

Brown alleged the parents complained to the principal, Michael Hazen, but were told "that's just
Mr. Miller being Mr. Miller." Hazen couldn't be reached Wednesday for comment.

Brown said Miller has picked on other students, pretending that a television remote control was
a "fagometer" that he pointed at students.
Brown said Miller also has mocked overweight female students.

Brown alleged the boy may have drawn Miller's attention because the student has Tourette's
syndrome, a neurological disease that causes tics -- involuntary, rapid, movements or
vocalizations. He said the boy is being treated at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital in
Chicago to control the symptoms.

Brown said the boy first exhibited the tics in elementary school, and the staff members there
were very understanding. He said the parents informed some of the boy's Taft teachers of the
condition, but not Miller.

Sprunger said the administration has dealt decisively with teachers who have acted
inappropriately with students. "We will not tolerate that."

Brown said he has not included the school administration in his suit at present, but may.

http://archive.nextwerk.com/webpublisher21.nsf/59e4ec26071e8a97862567e600248868/c83590270efb858286256a10001dcca2?OpenDocument





Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 4:02 AM

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23%

by She

Well, Guess we know where that other 23% is hiding.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 7:39 PM

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St Patrick's Day Question # 2...................

by theherbwoman

What did one Irish canibal say to the other Irish canibal?

Posted on Mar 15, 2001, 11:05 PM

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Answer......................

by theherbwoman

"Ay, 'n wasn't he a daarlin' broth of a lad!"

Posted on Mar 15, 2001, 11:06 PM

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St. Patrick's Day Question....................

by theherbwoman

What's green and sits outside all the time?

Posted on Mar 15, 2001, 11:01 PM

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Answer.................

by theherbwoman

Why, it's Paddy O' Furniture!

Posted on Mar 15, 2001, 11:04 PM

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LOL

by Earlybird

That's really funny Herbwoman.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 6:20 AM

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Radical Departure

by OakTree

There's a need for a departure from conventional ideas about the future of the coalfields of southwestern Virginia, the forest communities of the Pacific Northwest, the desert lands of the Southwest. There is no need to physically leave, to depart. The need is to move into a new realm of thought and action. The move will not be easy but it is very clear that doing nothing, which is pretty easy, will not solve the problems or reduce the sharpness of the pain that some of us now experience or see on the near horizon. We need a different way of doing things, a different way of thinking about ourselves and our future, a way to work together. We need a new way of seeing ourselves as the center of a vast, important activity. We may need a radical departure

Posted on Mar 15, 2001, 10:09 PM

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Yeah

by Fat Freddy's Cat

I'm about ready to start brewing my own booze and ethanol, plant a garden, switch from meat to tofu and erect a windmill for my electrical needs. If I open a cathouse in my home, I'll be completely self-sufficient.

Posted on Mar 16, 2001, 4:02 PM

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