Posts Made By: Brett Wylie

In "Mark Twain" tonight, Hal Holbrook does a wonderful monologue of Twains', a story in which a presbyterian, a catholic, a methodist (etc.) are locked up in a cage together .. and when looked on upon .. only a few fragmentary bits of clothing exist...

Hi Donald,
I've collimated using a ccd camera, in focus mode taking continuous images every 3-4 seconds, zoomed in about the same. Thought I'd try it as I'm thinking of purchasing the hyperstar setup.

It bothers the hell out of me, that Richard(Pearl) who headed the pentagons advisory board, and who is still a member, and who is on several defense industry boards, was giving a "seminar" as a richly paid consultant, on how to make money on the war in Iraq, to industry reps, two weeks after recieving a secret briefing on plans for the invasion. While American kids are dying to liberate the ungrateful. While the American middle class tax payers are footing the bill he makes personal big bucks. Non bidding post war cleanup contracts given by fiat. This is integrity?
I'd like to get a little "free education" for MY kids and some national health care for the lot of us; while we are going over the brink of fiscial irresponsibility to do the impossible task of ferrating out islamic terrorists all over the world where ever they may be...Vietnams' quagmire is going to be peanuts compared to this.

James,
www.ctj.org/
http://www.ctj.org/html/accel.htm
Tax cut #2 is a bit fairer to the working class (scared to read the fine print!) then tax cut #1, but only because of outcry and pressure politically, that Bush favored the rich (which he definitly does). We can thank political pressure for this, not Bush's compassionate conservatism. Even with this bill, there are substantial savings for the rich..Snow for example will save $200,000 estimated on tax on dividends. Thats not peanuts. My wife and I made 115,000 last year and paid 16,000 in federal..ok..but what do we get for our tax payments; I just don't agree with the priorites of this administration and how it is going about solving the nations problems; To heck with both major pol parties, neither one is worth a hoot, they're both sucking blood out of the same animal. The primary issue on this point, is whether Bush is truly concerned about the welfare of all the people in this country or is he concerned about his personal contacts, those who have special agendas, personal greed. His track record points to the latter. He mouths issues for political purposes, but his actions show what his real intentions are.

Paul,
Two things..
the interest due and paid on the national debt which in essence takes money away from goverment services..
the giving away penny on the dollar, of the nations natural resources..for example the tax cuts to oil companies as incentives for offshore oil well developement..these are companies posting record profits over the last several years..if Iraq's oil belongs to the Iraqi people, then what about "our" oil..I'm just asking...
Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, a Bush appointee, lobbied for "National Environmental Strategies," a firm that represents the National Mining Association. As a Reagan administration official, Griles was involved in the controversial sale of 17,000 acres of federal land for $2.50 an acre under the 1872 Mining Law. The buyers quickly resold it, making a $37 million profit.

"The purpose of impeachment

It is crucial to note the original purpose of impeachment when considering the most suitable punishment for Clinton. The Founders were clear that impeachment was not meant to be a punishment for individual wrongdoing, but a remedy for threats to the national interest. In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton said of impeachment:

The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.
Notice the word "immediately" -- the Founders were not talking about harm to society that was indirect, theoretical or several times removed.

The Founders showed the non-punitive nature of impeachment when they declared that Congress could only remove a president, not punish him with fines or prison sentences. They reserved punishment for regular courts of law after the president left office. They did this because they believed that no person should be placed in double jeopardy for the same offense, a principle they even wrote into the 5th Amendment.

You can see this point another way as well. In the regular courts, there are strict rules of procedure, guaranteeing due process for the accused. The rules clearly define the rights and responsibilities of both the defense and the prosecution. But such rules largely do not exist in the impeachment process. Indeed, the lack of rules is remarkable. The Founders intended this to be more of a political process than a judicial one. Impeachment was meant to remove a threat to the nation, not to serve justice to individuals."

Joe,
Understanding your upset..but what model scope are we talking about here?

James,
Whats your argument here? My point is that the Iraqi military was no match for the combined forces against it. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed. It was a slaughter. No air cover, no air defense to speak of, no armor that could match the coalitions...pinpoint munitions on the part of the coalition forces. Much better trained and armed foot soldiers.

We would have no problem dealing with an Iraq armed with nukes..if we can deal with N.Korea, China, Russia, ex-soviet block dictatorships, Iran, Pakistan, India, France, Britain..no, I'm not putting them all in the same political basket, but Saddam would know how hopeless his position would be against an arsenal of minuteman missles just like everyone else does; And it's a big if, to get one together..you know as well as I do that it's easy to build a nuke but not that easy to build a nuke..what I mean is, there is plenty of literature and online tech. material to show one how to build a nuke..but getting it altogether isn't that easy, and hiding the fact your building one without at least arousing suspicions isn't that easy.

I think this administration and you (not inclusive)have vastly overrated Iraq's threat. I'll take China to give us a good row instead, and were treating them with kidd gloves.

We have written before about the blessing of arms that the west sold to Saddam.

What is done is done. This administration was not open and forthright about it's reasons, and still hasn't admitted to the committment we are tied to, regarding the future of Iraq.

By the time this is over the American people will have stepped up to the bat with more than a few lives lost, multiple hundred wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and we will be rewarded by what? the undying gratitude of Muslims? The end of a third rate military threat? Our troops repositioned out of Saudia Arabia?

What a bargain! I'll take 2 more? (Iran/Syria) or 3? + Saudia Arabia..or heck, let's just blow the heck out of everybody that disagrees with us and we can have the whole world to ourselves.

I think it's time we stopped being the worlds police department and concentrated our wealth on providing for a better quality of life for all the working and legit disabled americans. Let the arabian people liberate arabian people, let muslims liberate muslims.

Vincent,
We're going to see Bush move to the center as the 2004 election draws near..don't think he didn't learn a bit from Clintons success in doing so, wven while the Repubs b..ched about it..they "secretly" admire it.
You can already see it..he's expecting the electorate won't recollect that he's spent the better part of 4 years screwing the poor/middle/upper middle class to enrich the super rich.

Paul,
I look at mine everyday, just to be sure the tread hasn't worn thru yet.

Seriously, the symbolism and language of Christian soul searching is found in so much of the worlds religous literature, some that preceeded christ and some post christ, that it is an ignorant person who claims all knowledge of the subject by their reading solely of the C. bible on the subject.

Thinking of my past journey to Florence, Italy where I viewed the bottled remains of christian believers waiting for the second coming..they must have failed to pay their tithes...way past time for a pick up. Time to call the lords glorious goverment center and find out what the problem is.