to John,
your facts are wrong friend, entry level wages have certainly risen more than threefold since the 1920's. They are not even in the same ballpark, or even the same planet. The standard of living today is something the working class 80 years ago could only dream about. The ranks of the middle class have swelled and continue to rise, fuelled by those formerly of the working class. The gap between very rich and very poor is however widening. Perhaps I might be in agreement with you in a debate on today's quality of life, which is of course not necessarily improved by earning and spending power. I sense that Americans have been in the mood for a while now to ask ourselves some searching questions about the values that we are teaching our kids and whether our priorities are straight. The coming war may delay those questions but afterwards they will loom larger than ever. As for your conspiracy theory, well, I just cannot see it. Charges laid in the buildings by American spooks ?
Organised and authorised by who ? What about the jet fuel burning at 1000 degrees plus melting the steel structure of the WTC ? both planes had full tanks.

To AA.
You are absolutely right, Hitler himself was the downfall of the mighty German military machine. They simply had no equal, but the war was punctuated by appalling strategic/tactical decisions by Der Fuhrer himself , most notably not proceeding to Moscow when the Russians were on their knees. Agree with you about Japan too. The recent decision by them to send ships and men to fight with us if necessary is, in my opinion, of staggering historical significance, although it hasn't been ratified yet.
They say in a democracy you get the government you deserve. I am thinking of the Israelis here. They must have KNOWN that electing Sharon would end in tears, and it is proving to be the case. The Taliban will fall, and Afghanistan will recover, with our help, but the real flashpoints that have me worried are Kashmir and Israel. 3 states with nuclear capabilities and temperastures continue to rise.........

Hey guys,

Didn't have a chance to read anything any of you have written, why would anyone anyway? Thought you would like to know the skies are friendly and the west coast is beautiful this time of year. Downtown San Diego is quite nice, restaurants stores anf titty bars.

Liberal idiot you should try the city out, lots of liberals and faggots.

God

Hey Idiot,

I sped through some of your writings, you are actully pretty funny.

Back to work. Got any nude pics of that wife of yours?

GOD

HEY GOD.....

ROTFLMAO....about 666 times...you cannot spell

C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-T-I-C-.....

So you must have a very vey small penis.

In 1970, wages at K-mart were $2 an hour. In 2001, wages at K-mart are $6 an hour. That's a threefold increase in the lowest level of entry level job.

The American philosphy, accurately expressed by God, is based on looking out for yourself. If you don't believe in looking out for yourself, if you believe in making the world better, then you never get promoted beyond a $6 an hour job at K-Mart. Most people would say our standard of living is through the roof, but that is only for a certain kind of person, not someone who is totally pure, totally innocent.

There are people like us, and we aren't doing too well. As God pointed out to Compassion, women have an easier time of making it if they are cursed with the quality of being pure in spirit. Men who are truly pure in spirit seem to have no chance.

My father is a multi-millionaire. I live in Charlotte, NC (should I fear God's wrath). My father has a 132 acre estate near Charlotte. I live in an apartment with my first girlfriend from high school, class of 1969. My girlfiend works and has no problem fitting in with the philosophy of the world.

But I have absolutely no desire to take care of myself, to lie to protect myself. I see all sides of every argument and come to a rational conclusion based entirely on truth, not on self-interest. Because of this, I can't make it anywhere in this world, which is all based on looking out for #1. Everybody does it to a greater or lessor extent. God does it overtly. Most people would consider him a jerk, but he is a very acceptable person in America, and he can be successful in our world. I am completely the opposite. Nothing in me allows me to get ahead, except that I am very smart.

In 1970 my mother realized that none of the qualities I was born with had any hope of making it in the world. She had a dream that I would design a tennis racquet and become famous. I got married, and tried making it in jobs. I never fit in, mostly because I was too honest and too guiless. In 1979 I said, "That's it. I'm not doing this anymore. Nothing in me gives me any motivation to go out and make money only for myself, or even for my wife." I quit working. My wife left me. I just started playing tennis.

I started working on my tennis racquets, having totally forgotten my mother's dream. In the 1980's I lived like a street person, but with a place to live, living on my wealthy family's meager help, with just enough money to eat cheaply.

I worked with the balance of my tennis racquets, making interesting discoveries. In 1988 I took a racquet I had developed to Wilson and showed it to Jim Baugh. Wilson studied my racquet for two weeks, then told me they were not interested. I went home and wrote a letter asking them to reconsider. In the letter, I suggested they could make racquets in different lengths, and I suggested the name Hammer for my racquet. I thought smaller people would prefer a racquet that was 26 7/8th inches while taller people might prefer a racquet that was 27 1/4 inches. My suggestion for different lengths was not the same as what is being done now, making racquets up to 29 inches, but to suggest that idea showed that I was very much in touch with what was going on in tennis racquet design.

Wilson did use the exact weighting technique I showed them and the name I suggested, "Hammer", and it became the best selling tennis racquet in the world. My mother's dream came true, except for the part where I became famous for it. I got nothing, no money from Wilson. My racquet design took them to #1 in tennis.

If I had been more intested in how this would help me, I might have approached it differently. For one thing, if I was mostly interested in taking care of myself I would have had a good job and nice looking clothes. I would have been able to afford some kind of legal protection. But I was only interested in perfecting my racquet and selling Wilson on the concept I had developed. I just assumed I would get something in return. I wasn't looking for millions, just enough money to live comfortably for a racquet design I developed over eight years, while living in poverty, and it was a racquet that eventually made them hundreds of millions of dollars.

I still live in abject poverty. America is way too much into just taking care of yourself. We are not into justice, or truth.

In testing my theories, I say to myself, What would happen next?

If bin Laden is being used by very powerful people in America to change the attitudes of this generation, to make this generation more like the WWII generation, and like the Depression generation, they want bin Laden to organize and committ terror to start a war. That is intended to change the mindset of the world to be more like it was 60 years ago. And this is working like charm. People are becoming like their grandparents.

The people who want to change the attitudes of America must deal with a man like bin Laden because only a man like bin Laden, who has moralistic reasons for committing terror could get other men to kill themselves.

When they won't let him speak through the press, bin Laden who is motivated by a desire to make his moral points has no reason to commit acts of terror. So he stops. People are beginning to say, What terrorist war?

Since powerful people in America secretly want him to start this war for their purposes, those powerful people have to make a deal with bin Laden, and allow him to talk through the press. ...so he will continue to commit acts of terror.

Very convoluted. But low and behold, the next thing they are doing is exactly what I would expect: making a deal with bin Laden to let him speak through CNN.

Rational people would say, Why would they feel compelled to make a deal with bin Laden to let him speak to the world through CNN? One answer is, They really want him to continue his terrorist war.

to John , truly an awful story, but sadly all too common. It is a sad truth thatin today's America if you don't have high falutin' legal representation then your ass is grass, or at the very least flapping in the breeze. Maybe it was ever thus. Perhaps your understandable disillusionment and residual desire for some kind of (vicarious) revenge is leading you to an ill advised defence of Bin Laden. The man has talked freely to the media over the last few years and has repeatedly stated that innocent civilians are acceptable and indeed desirable targets. Although his motives may be moralistic there is no hint of morality there, certainly not morality compatible with the religion he purports to represent. The US government and military would be overjoyed to destroy him and his network without one single civilian casualty, this is a crucial difference that must be reiterated consistently. I know that as far as the military are concerned the PR of such an outcome would possibly be the overriding concern, but they would still sleep better at night as human beings. Bin Laden undoubtedly slept very well on sep. 11th. After all what is more satisfying than a job well done ? If massacre of infidel civilians is Bin Laden's idea of a job well done then surely sweet dreams awaited him that night.
You were shafted by Corporate America but you still have food on the table and a roof over your head, and a woman you obviously care for. This, my friend, is paradise on Earth. After all, you can't take it with you. I too have food and shelter, but you are one step ahead of me in the other department, still workin' on that one.
Incidentally if you are reading this AA, herein lies the small "c" in my conservatism i.e. will never waste precious time pursuing more wealth than I need, and I don't need much. Conservative values are not always aggressively capitalistic. I learned this from my father at an early age and 37 years of experience has not seen me change my mind.
Adios mi compadres, goin' on vacation today, up the country. No flying involved, two lane blacktop is as close to Heaven as I need, "Sweetheart of The Rodeo" in the stereo, tumbleweed drifting across my soul, meditation the American way ! Hallelujah God bless America.

To John Cauthen(JC),

As thoughtful and individual as you seem to be you apparently are getting a little side tracked. The conspiracies you speak of, seem a touch grander than I've imagined and point to a world order that is in collusion on a generational values basis. I'm unable to subscribe to your view and here's why.

America and it's hugely diverse ethnic mix is finding it hard to find common ground. There are so many constituencies in the USA that if you scan your cable system you'll need an interpreter to understand a great deal of the stations on the system. What we do agree about and find common ground in is that we are all Americans and will defend her interest(generalizing here) to the degree we personally feel she's been wronged. Hence what you see happening now. Yeah I know you're saying that the real power base, the old boy network, is the opinion that matters. But is it still that important? I think it's still quite important but fading. When you look at the financial networks and see reports being made by CEO's, chairmen, etc..., you see more and more different faces and hear accents. When you look at the faces of the military hierarchy, again we are faced with diversity. It seems a change is manifesting before our eyes. That change might be ruled by a commonality of spirit but not neccessarily of ethnicity. So how does this WW2 generation thinking work for the asst surgeon general who's parents were interned during the war? How about the surgeon general who's male descendants fought and returned to second class status? Or the secretary of state and ex-head of the military, who's parents came from the Carribean(Jamaica to be exact) and found themselves in a jewish ghetto. How about the head of the NSC/NSA who's parents were share croppers in the old awful south. I think there's some philosophical glue between them and their respective power structures but the 100% bond is no more or shouldn't be.

On an international level the changes are even more powerful and ominous for the old guard. Japan has become, although they have lost a lot of luster in the 90's, as great an economic influence as the US. They have started what will surely be an economic power shift that will most assuredly culminate in Asia becoming the economic epicenter of the world. Almost any economist will tell you that the coming century will see the ascendancy of Asia in general, China in particular.

What I do see is the world is still divided into blocks of common interest. The one that interest us now is the Islamic block. This block seems to be suddenly having a growth spurt. If it were an economy it would be considered a miracle and studied and it's architects deified. But it is a political conglomerration that is truly troubling. What the anti-terrorist coalition has managed to do is make Osama Bin-Laden into a martyr and prophet in Islam. When you say that he has moralistic reasoning behind him I quite agree. He did start out as just a conscientious detractor to the US presence in the holiest of places of the muslim world. And this started in the 80's when the Isreali's were perceived particularly negatively and for good reason. If given a podium to speak and given a constituency to run maybe he would still be there voicing his strong opposition or leading marches but he was given the toss and his family made to publicly repudiate him. Thus the stage was set for a martyr to be made. If you read the history of the prophet Mohammed you will see some similarities. Your comparison of him to Gatsby was pretty good on reflection. If anyone heard the interviews of of people talking about his early exploits they would have heard of a Saudi millionaire who in his bent on dabbling in badness was financier of radical groups. He was not considered much more than that. But I think it was the bitterness he had from his expulsion and familial repudiation that heightened his desire to do more. With the war in Afganistan raging and the Mujahideen and the USA beckoning he joined in that struggle and the rest we all know.

His name certainly does not mean the laden but I do detect that he has become laden with power and the inflated ego that comes with that. The causes that he is fighting for have lost more than they have gained in the things they have done. The very people that he is fighting for have had to publicly rebuke and repudiate him. It is only the foolishness of the approach in Afghanistan(the endless bombing) that has really resurrected him in the moderates eyes. That he has aligned aligned himself with a set of barbaric misogynist who claim that it is Shari'a they are enforcing when it is truly tribal/village customs had hurt him and his cause.

As the towers tumbled I immediately thought how could this happen? On further thinking I came to the common sense conclusion the heat of the fires must have weakened the support system(concrete and steel). I did the research and found out about the way heat affects steel and confirmed it with my Architect uncle who works 4 blocks away from the towers. His analogy was to think of a blacksmith and how he works with metal. If you think that charges were set though that means you would have have them placed there before the planes hit and fires. They pretty much have to be near the, if not at the fire floors(remember Ramzi Youssef), and there is no guarantee they would work. In any case nobody heard an explosion right before they came down and I wonder if they could.

OK JC, keep on formulating.

Until AA

To Facts,
You and the sweet heart of the rodeo take it easy. And please don't leave us alone with god for too long. We might have to find another party.

Sincerely AA.

BIN LADEN MASKS FOR HALLOWEEN!!!



BWAAAAWAWAWAHAHAHA!

They did it! What a usccess it will be! GENIUS!

The taliban should buy thousands of mask and force the population to wear it in order to hinder the manhunt!!!!

Hey D.O.G.,
Thanks for the compliment I think? But did you really go to San Diego to get faced at Hooters and go home alone. I bet you coulda brought that nifty little outfit you used in college and go to the guacamole smackdown. You and some guy slitherin around in olive green goop. Him holdin ya by the waist as he's about to make a throw and you, in a drunken stupor, screamin "whooooa rangers, lead the way". I'd pay to see that.

Your amigo AA.

One rescue person, on a tape, was shouting, "There are explosions!" In another tape a man said, "We heard explosions and we started running."

How the buildings came down would be very crucial to know. The lower floors were not burning. I think, even if the upper floors collapsed due to the fire, they would not have brought the whole building down. It should be studied.

In a building demolition, sequential charges are placed in the columns. The explosions start at the top and, in sequence, they bring the building down. What happened to the towers looked exactly like a building demolition, not a collapse from fire, which happens in a slower and more agonizing way.

Yes they would have come down, or at least most of the building, but not that fast.

I think the frustration of Muslims is a matter of meekness versus pride. They want the powerful to treat them fairly. A prideful person would say, I can solve my own problems. The Muslims, who are generally meek in spirit want the US to go over to Israel and tell the Israelis something like this, "We treat the blacks fairly and we highly respect their contribution to our society. If you Israelis do not treat the Palestinians with the same type of respect, you will feel some of our wrath. Then they want us to make it happen: pressure Israel to protect the rights of Palestinians in the same way we protect the rights of blacks, which is no longer even an issue. Now we respect the rights of the Mexicans in our country and we greatly appreciate their contribution. I appreciate Mexicans everytime I see all the beautifully cut grass and total lack of litter along every street in Charlotte. I think the Mexicans are so happy because they have no problems living six people to one apartment. They don't have any rent! So their paychecks make them feel rich, and they are a happy group of people, and they make our cities literally sparkle. The Muslims were originally created as the lessor son, but they want to be treated with equal respect. If we helped them have a better life, we would not be seen as The Great Satan. Instead, we would be seen as the Great Rich Uncle, which is how they would like to see us, and then they might not be flying airplanes into our buildings.

That is what bin Laden would have said if they let him talk, and many people, including me, would have said, "Hmm, let's kill him for what he did but you know, he has a point."

However, there is another group who honestly think our wealth is the root of all our problems. It's not a good idea to name names, that makes enemies, but I will name one name: Bill Bennett. He makes many statements that suggest we would be much better off if we weren't as rich. He has made statements that start with, "This may sound Bolshevik but..." He really scares me.

People blame the Muslims for wanting to destroy our wealth because the are jealous of us. I think they are not jealous and they want us to be a benevolent rich uncle. However, there is a large and powerful group of fundamentalist-thinking people in the US who really want to take away our wealth and take us back 50 years. They make movies for TV with 1950's attitudes and fashions. They seem to control every show on my cable TV system: Time Warner. There are too often nights when there are 900 channels and nothing is on. They are very powerful. If the buildings could not have been brought down that quickly or that neatly by airplanes; if the airplanes crashing through the buildings were just part of the special effects, then we need to look at that other group of people who happen to be tickled pink by America's mindset right now.

my penis is quite fine thank you.

d.o.g.

A.L.I.,

Whatta ya think about our boys from the 3rd batt. now Huh? Huh? Huh? Speechless.

What kind of goofie spin will you and your
Anti-American think to much about things that don't matter friends put on this great moment in our great countries history?

To soon to figure out what the newest liberal spin will be?

Please highlight your best material and re-post it for my review, I need to get to no the enemy better.

D.O.G.

As for me, I am definitely not a liberal. I originally thought that bin Laden was evil and crazy. He has an adopted mother. Who has an adopted mother? You can't adopt a mother! He lives in caves. I thought he believed that having wealth was wrong, and of course he is willing to do extremely destructive acts. In short, he is evil.

Then I heard him speak. I realized he wanted us to know how his people felt. I don't agree with his methods, and I am sure that you, God, also agree that violence is never a good thing.

Yeah, right. In the face of total apathy, or when facing a complete unwillingness to understand your viewpoint, as you know, violence is the only way you can be effective.

But I am warning of a much larger conspiracy who really do want to destroy our wealth. Bin Laden's deputy, who is much less sophisticated than bin Laden made two statements in his speech. He said, "America's young men are looking forward to living. Our young men are looking forward to dying." So, he wants to be treated more fairly by wealthy people. He does not think wealth is evil, in fact he wants a piece of the American pie. Even though he is on the other side of the world, he has this sense that America's moral duty is to make the whole world rich. I agree with that. But Bill Bennett said the problem with America is that average people have too much money. I am sure that Bennett also believes average people should not be allowed to fly around the country so easily. Well, somebody is fixing that. The only question is who. Bennett stated on MSNBC our biggest problem was too much wealth and freedom. Bin Laden's deputy called for Holy War, and said all Americans are now legitimate targets. I thought to myself, "They should not be broadcasting that!"

Insiders said they would not allow bin Laden or his people on TV without being edited. Okay, good idea. Then MSNBC put on their scroll, running beneath the screen, "So and so (bin Laden's deputy) calls for Holy War against all Americans." I said wait a minute, that's the part they should not be broadcasting, and now they are repeating it.

It wasn't the call for violence they were opposed to. It was the reasonable things bin Laden said that they were not going to broadcast.