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Why do TOP Republicans lie to their working class republicans and say President Obama raised their taxes? America has paid lower taxes under President Obama than they have in over 60 years? For the 3rd straight year in of office, American's have paid the lowest taxes in over 60 years, some are calling President Obama, the low tax president. If you only watch Fox News, you probably havent heard that. But why do Republican lie and say President Obama has been raising taxes since he stepped in the White House? Are they lying or do they just not know what they are talking about? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/04/15/857581/-Taxes-lowest-in-60-years,-thanks-to-Democrats-and-Obama http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002548-503544.html http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/04/15/taxes_at_lowest_levels_in_60_years.html William Gale, head of the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, tells CBS News that federal taxes are actually "at their lowest levels in 60 years." Said Gale: "The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous. The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand." As the head of the Tax Policy Center said, it really is hard to understand what the Tea Party is talking about when taxes under President Obama are at the lowest they've been in over 60 years. It kind of makes you just think. this "Tea Party", just wants to lie and get President Obama out of the White House. :)　 Just before this past Sunday’s Super Bowl, President Obama gave an interview with Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly and in the interview the President told O’Reilly "I didn’t raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years." The Associated Press (AP) wanted to fact check the Presidents statement and asked the Congressional Budget Office for the numbers over the last two years, and the CBO showed that President Obama was correct. AP Report excerpt: As a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950. And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike. But in the third year of Obama’s presidency, federal taxes are at historic lows. ... in the current budget year, federal tax receipts will be equal to 14.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, the lowest level since Harry Truman was president." The AP adds that even though federal income tax rates have remained unchanged, "many taxpayers are seeing their bills drop under Obama because of more generous tax credits for college students, working families, and homebuyers. Taxes are at HISTORIC LOWS, yeah republicans, fox news and the tea party are crying yelling and marching saying how Obama has taxed them to death. Obama didn't raise any taxes, he lowered them, JUST LIKE HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO DURING HIS CAMPAIGN. BUT THESE TOP REPUBLICANS DONT CARE, IT DOESNT FAZE THEM, BECAUSE LIKE THEY SAID, IT WENT TO WORKING FAMILIES, COLLEGE STUDENTS AND HOME BUYERS. SO THESE TOP REPUBLICANS WITH THEIR MILLIONS WILL LIE TO THE AVERAGE MIDDLE CLASS REPUBLICAN AND TELL THEM THAT OBAMA HAS RAISED YOUR TAXES. Thats why I dont hate all republicans, because I know there are a lot of republicans out there that are just being lied to and treated like 5 years old and pawns for the top Republican party. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/09/942354/-Tea-Party-pays-less-in-taxes-under-Obama-for-3rd-year-in-a-row-

Why do Top Republicans lie to their working class republicans and say President Obama raised their taxes? America has paid lower taxes under President Obama than they have in over 60 years? For the 3rd straight year in of office, American's have paid the lowest taxes in over 60 years, some are calling President Obama, the low tax president. If you only watch Fox News, you probably havent heard that. But why do Republican lie and say President Obama has been raising taxes since he stepped in the White House? Are they lying or do they just not know what they are talking about? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/04/15/857581/-Taxes-lowest-in-60-years,-thanks-to-Democrats-and-Obama http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002548-503544.html http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/04/15/taxes_at_lowest_levels_in_60_years.html William Gale, head of the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, tells CBS News that federal taxes are actually "at their lowest levels in 60 years." Said Gale: "The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous. The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand." As the head of the Tax Policy Center said, it really is hard to understand what the Tea Party is talking about when taxes under President Obama are at the lowest they've been in over 60 years. It kind of makes you just think. this "Tea Party", just wants to lie and get President Obama out of the White House. :)　 Just before this past Sunday’s Super Bowl, President Obama gave an interview with Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly and in the interview the President told O’Reilly "I didn’t raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years." The Associated Press (AP) wanted to fact check the Presidents statement and asked the Congressional Budget Office for the numbers over the last two years, and the CBO showed that President Obama was correct. AP Report excerpt: As a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950. And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike. But in the third year of Obama’s presidency, federal taxes are at historic lows. ... in the current budget year, federal tax receipts will be equal to 14.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, the lowest level since Harry Truman was president." The AP adds that even though federal income tax rates have remained unchanged, "many taxpayers are seeing their bills drop under Obama because of more generous tax credits for college students, working families, and homebuyers. Taxes are at HISTORIC LOWS, yeah republicans, fox news and the tea party are crying yelling and marching saying how Obama has taxed them to death. Obama didn't raise any taxes, he lowered them, JUST LIKE HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO DURING HIS CAMPAIGN. BUT THESE TOP REPUBLICANS DONT CARE, IT DOESNT FAZE THEM, BECAUSE LIKE THEY SAID, IT WENT TO WORKING FAMILIES, COLLEGE STUDENTS AND HOME BUYERS. SO THESE TOP REPUBLICANS WITH THEIR MILLIONS WILL LIE TO THE AVERAGE MIDDLE CLASS REPUBLICAN AND TELL THEM THAT OBAMA HAS RAISED YOUR TAXES. Thats why I dont hate all republicans, because I know there are a lot of republicans out there that are just being lied to and treated like 5 years old and pawns for the top Republican party. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/09/942354/-Tea-Party-pays-less-in-taxes-under-Obama-for-3rd-year-in-a-row- X - That's from the AP, The Tax Center, ect. You can look it up online and find any site that you trust ....abc, cbsnews....local newspapers, whatever you want. And they'll all say the same. Take this for example http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/555699.html Maybe you never heard of it but all it's repeating is what is coming from Associated Press. Do you know what the Associated Press is?The only child I see here is you because a rational adult would accept multiple pieces of facts. ....So even the head of the Tax Policy Center isn't good enough for you huh? I dont think any amount of proof will be good enough for you X- You would have to be one of the biggest fools Ive ever come across.you have no idea of what you're talking about. The Bush Tax cuts were for rich, the millionaires. Obama has cut taxes for the middle class 60,000 - 250,000. Are you that big of a no nothing or did you just not read "The AP adds that even though federal income tax rates have remained unchanged, "many taxpayers are seeing their bills drop under Obama because of more generous tax credits for college students, working families, and homebuyers." The average american isnt effected by the Bush millionaire tax cut. Lord, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're just some ignorant sheep that follows Fox News and Limbaugh. X - You moron, how the hell could the new 2010 congress have caused the tax relief when this is President Obama's 3RD straight year of being the lowest tax president in over 60 years. I didn't imagine anything, Republicans and Fox news and the Tea Party have constantly said President Obama raised taxes. Take Sarah Palin, she's on the Fox News Payroll, she gets paid 1 million a year. She has said President has raised taxes since the day he set foot in office. Think before you post .....if the Bush Tax cuts and republicans were doing the job then why weren't taxes at an all time low in 60 years in any of the years under Bush? But at an all time low for 3 straight years under President Obama. Thats not intelligent. X - You're just a no nothing, in 2009 back when Democrats had everything and were in complete controll,President Obama brought taxes down to an all time low. ......The Bush Tax cuts are what saved the day? Okay then why didn'they have taxes low under Bush? Dont mean jack anyway, the Bush tax cuts for just for the millionaires and his colleagues. But go ahead, vote against your own best interest, I almost feel sorry for you. The little gains republicans made at the very end of 2010 had nothing to do with 2009, 2010 low taxes. Yeah X, whatever you say....only when the Democrats got their butts kicked at the end of "2010" did the President lower taxes in - "2009" -to their lowest in over 60 years. You make a lot of sense friend, you'd make a great Tea Party leader.

How can the City of Chicago deny me access to my own home? How, exactly, is it legal to block off whole neighborhoods and deny residents access to their own homes? Friday, August 22, 2008 the city of Chicago blocked off the whole area from West Madison Street to Van Buern and city of Chicago employees at the road blocks refused my plea to allow me, a disabled resident, access to my home, which was a quarter block from the road block... A full half a block before Jackson Blvd, where all races and other bullshit usually take place! We had to drive around and around our neighborhood for over HALF AN HOUR before whatever the hell was going on in our neighborhood ended and we were allowed to go home. We stopped at each road block and tried to talk to the people guarding the road blocks to ask if we could go the quarter block down the road to the alley way we need to enter to legally park at my residence. I showed them my handicapped sticker, they refused to listen and threatened us with ticketing if we stayed there any longer… I showed them my crutch and the handicapped sticker the next loop around the neighborhood and again, they said if we stopped them one more time, we would be ticketed and they would call the police. We were totally denied access to our home! They said to park where we could and walk in. The only problem there is that the streets were blocked off for four blocks north and south and six blocks east and west so I would have to walk at least half a mile, if we could find parking, just to be able to get to my apartment. As a person that is disabled, I can tell you right now that it would have been an impossible task without having to go in to storage and getting out my wheelchair. How the hell is it legal to totally deny residents access to their homes? How is it legal to allow the people directing traffic to threaten arrest if we attempt to simply go home??? Will this require a lawsuit against the City of Chicago? Because I know a minimum of 10 MASSIVE apartment buildings that would love to join in to a lawsuit for being denied access to our homes on top of at least a dozen small businesses that were forced to shut down due to City Interference. I'm going to write my alderman, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, and as many forums as I can find to try and get this bullshit to never happen again... This happens CONSTANTLY in the summer! Whenever the City wants to throw a Race, Block Party, "Taste of" whatever... They just block off all major streets in and out of the neighborhood... Before, they have never denied me access to our homes... But this year, this is the 2nd time that we have had to drive around and around our whole neighborhood just TRYING TO GO HOME!! How on earth is this legal??? PLEASE tell me what you would do in my situation!!!

What is the best part time home based business, that's girly? I would like to start doing parties at my home or others' homes. I would like to start with candles, make-up, soap, etc. Something that can help me make money while still doing the girl thing. Nothing innapropriate though, because I would like to grow with it and help others to establish what I have established. And it's not at the top of my list to say, "Why don't you come join my XXX party"? I just need to know where the money is and is it something I can get easily started? If you have a source or someone I could talk to about starting, that would be great. Thanks ahead of time.

CHILDREN'S PARTY BAGS!? I want to start up a little business or hobby at home. I'd like to fill children's party bags and sell them on the web. I worked out costs, and there would be different types of party bags. For example, one of them would consist of a slide puzzle, fun snap cards, pack of four crayons, mini harmonica and a bouncing spinning top! I was planning on charging £1.99 for each party bag, plus £1.99 p+p or can come and collect for no charge . Each bag would be in a cellophane bag wrapped with ribbon. Would YOU buy this for your children? I need people's views! Thank you!!

Call the police or mind my own businesses? My in-laws are going down the wrong path & it scares me a lot! The 1 is 21, due to a medical condition should NOT drink! She does, she has house parties at my mother-in-laws house all the time. She already has an under age drinking fine. (from last year) She is also going to a college that is $40k+ a year. She is wasting so much money & time & putting so much stress on the family. She also lets under ages (under 18) drink with her. & they all leave no 1 stays the night. I heard stories from a 3rd party that people leave so drunk the person said they don't know how they make it to their cars let alone drive home. I have been told she is stealing money from her mom too, & has charged $1,000+ on her mom's credit card. Also I have a 19 year old in-law who does not having a drivers license but drives all over the place. She has a permit. To top it off she is driving my mother-in-laws car, that isn't inspected & does not have registration. I have been behind her on the road & I turned off I was so scared to drive behind her she drives like she is blind & speeds like crazy! She has been pulled over once & lied it was an emergency & the officer let her go. My mother-in-law has tried to talk to these girls but she yells she doesn't talk.....it just causes more problems. Yes my mother-in-law spend to much time with her boyfriend & works way to much. But some times you have to be a mother before you can have a life! Almost every day some one calls me complaining about the other. I quit talking to them now. Its not worth my stress level. My husband is at his wits end! He is sick over worrying about his family. I'm scared to have kids, because I could never bring them around his sister or mom! Whats the best thing to do.....Call the police or mind my own business? I don't want to cause problems for them for them that will screw up rest of their lives, but they are adults & need to realize that! Well over 18 well over 21.... closer to 25. We do not live there! nor will we ever live there! I'm also scared the girls throwing parties in my mother-in-laws house or driving her car can get her in trouble. We already have paid her bills we can't afford it again for people being stupid! I thought about waiting till I see her driving again & calling in the car. OR Waiting till they post about a big party on facebook & calling the underage hotline we have in our area.

Ladies, I am looking at a new business opportunity. Would you pay $60 for an amazing bra or host a bra party? The business opportunity is direct sales. So I would ask women for an invitation to come into their home and do customized fittings (with their tops on), and get them into the right bra and right size (80% of women are wearing the wrong size bra). The host would get a percentage of $ in return. We all are problably pretty tired of "sales parties", but these bras truely the most comfortable and most flatter I've every experienced. I need your help. I am in need of your opinion: Yes or no you would pay $60 for this bra? Yes or no you would host bra party?

Financial, political or government connoisseurs: what will happen next? Can the U.S.A. be saved? For couple of hours I've been going through CRAIGSLIST, first taking a look at real estate for sale in hope there'll be a good home rental there, since very few people are really following Craigslist's rules and post ads just about anywhere they want and I have found good bargains this way! I browsed through at least 850 of the for sales ads, which like I say include hundreds of rentals. I'm not surprised by huge amount of "For Sales" of lovely homes at prices 50k less than they were four years ago because this is something everyone in the U.S. knows and expects to find. What causes fear in my heart is the fact that in the BUSINESS category people are trying to sell everything, from $400 to $4k hot dog carts, and are selling sign companies, multiple dry cleaners, hundreds of restaurants, bars, pizzerias, delicatessens, shoe stores, car tire companies, auto parts stores, nightclubs, banquet halls, party-planning businesses, party rental businesses, supermarkets, shoe making companies, plant nurseries, hotels, Dollar discount stores, Hispanic coffee places (called cafeterias), daycares, ALF's, advertising and online businesses, cell phone stores, book making business, beauty salons, barbershops, fleamarket spots, fence companies, and even pawn shops!!! I mean, the pawn shop, in an economic situation like we have now we would think is a very profitable place and the owner would not want to sell--rent out maybe, but not sell! Add to this used Caterpillar equipment, construction and carpentry tools, commercial fryers, commercial freezers and slicers (by the dozens). Huge lots of shoes, cell phone carrying cases, motorcycles, boats (these two for barter daily as well as for sale), roofing material and equipment, huge collection of sports cards, dozens of restaurant equipments, landscaping trucks & equipment, entire contents of thrift stores, home-based etc. This is not counting what you find on the Barter or "For Sale" of each individual article! And 95% of what I mention is from businesses which are closing or have already closed. On top of that, right in the business section, there are law offices that supposedly are downsizing. I also personally see on TV some of Miami's eldest established practices advertising frequently and going as far as to "appeal to ethnic values" and remind audience and probable clients that they are "your American (meaning Anglo) lawyer, the one who's been here for such and such a long time"! Notwithstanding fact that some people have poor perception of attorneys--that excludes me because I know how truly valuable they can be!--so many will say that we can expect anything from a lawyer. And we can also expect them to advertise because out of state established firms have set up house here in Miami. But I can see these attorneys are feeling a lot of pressure, not so much from the Competition, but because by know most Miamians have declared bankruptcy, at least once already and it is difficult to have everyone declare a second time! Regarding foreclosure, most people are savvy enough to know they basically will be out of at least $4k and foreclosure will not be stopped; it will be slowed but not stopped. That's not taking into consideration the new law which went into effect last year in Miami-Dade county in which a judge gave order for banks to be able to move foreclosures at faster pace. So basically everyone in foreclosure is simply out of a house by now: what use can anyone make of an attorney for this? Basically in Miami most who are employed right now are the ones having anything to do with Medicare-provided services. Yes, that's a lot of people! Plus the 28,000 Metro-Dade employees, and all the part-timers in hotels and eateries in Miami Beach. But aside from these jobs there is not much else in Miami. At 13+% unemployment--which is probably considerably higher since illegal immigrants are not counted by agencies and most are paid under the table. There is the fact as well that our Congresswoman, along with Miami Mayor, on April of this year called for a census recount since it is not possible that Miami has 30,000 less people than it did in 2008 and 2009!!!!....This clearly says that the huge illegal immigration in Miami was greatly overlooked since they apparently did not let themselves be counted. Having lived in Florida for decades and having seen bad economy, especially in the mid-seventies, I can attest to fact that this had never happened before. Hearing news about Ohio this morning and about many government employees been laid off in so many places, I can only believe things will be worse pretty soon. That's not counting thousands of returning soldiers for whom work has to be found. So aside the U.S. getting in some Cold War/prolonged situation with China in which none of their goods get in here (and none of ours over there), and since an all-out-real-war w/ China is out of t and since an all-out-real-war w/ China is out of the question, what can the U.S. do to stop the economy sliding? For those not unemployed yet and/or still owning a business, they are aware of some things but not of the real gravity the country is in. My main concern is, who's minding the store?

I was beat viscously in my own home and no one was punished? Alright, this is my story, and it is kind of long so first off thank you to any one who takes the time to read it in full. I am going to start from the beginning March 13th I went to the birthday party of my wife's grand-father. Where I saw a man I haven't seen in nearly a year, who has lived in Ohio for basically my wife's entire childhood, that I've met once or twice on family holidays who just moved to Jacksonville less then a month prior to this. He is wearing a pistol on his side I ask him why he is carrying it and and he jokingly reply's "To use on you if you don't treat my niece well." (his niece is my wife, who he doesn't know at all as he lived in Ohio practically her entire life). I took this as a joke as I barely know the man, and thought nothing of it. ^ No big deal right, well here is where my story really starts 10 days later on march 23rd I got in to a argument with my wife, a stupid argument where she kept asking me what I wanted to eat while I was working on a computer, and regretfully I snapped at her and yelled I don't know. she then got upset, I felt bad and went up to her and tried to hug her and tell her I was sorry. She then began to yell in response: "Don't touch me! Leave me alone!" One of our nosy neighbors heard her yell at me, and proceeded to go over to her grandmother's who lives two trailers down from me to inform her we were arguing,(which is no one elses buisness as we are adults) where at the time her uncle (the man who threatened me with the gun) was at. Me and my wife stopped arguing and decided to have some time apart, I went to the bed room and laid down and my wife stayed in the living room with our daughter. Roughly three or four minutes later I hear a pounding on the door. My wife yells "Go away!" after which her uncle reply's What?!Open the damn door!" She then opens the door and while standing in the door way, explains to him that we had a stupid fight and it was none of his business and he needs to go home. He then proceeds to tell my wife no, and that I must be beating her because her face is red, (Which was actually from her crying during the argument) . he then proceeds to shove her out of the way while she is holding my 16 month year old daughter, and forces his way into my house. where he storms through our hallway breaking our baby gate, and my bed room door till he gets to the bed room. Where he proceeds to jump on top of me as I lay on the bed. He then wrapped his hand around my throat and started cussing at me, threatening to kill me, and punching me in the face which smashed my glasses on my face as I struggled. He then drags me off the bed, slams me into the floor, (banging my head against a desk and breaking it in the process), where he hits me in the back 6 or so times he then kicks me, puts his knee on my chest, and continues to choke and beat me. Some point during this my wife had followed him to the through the hallway and screamed at him to leave the house. When she saw what he was doing to me, and that he had no intention of leaving, she ran out of the house and down the road screaming for help: "Grandma help! Call the police! My Uncle broke in and is beating up my husband!" (Her gradma is the the man who was beating me, mother.)She comes over and he gets off of me he then proceeds to yell hes going to kill me several times as he's leaving and i am trying to get up and use the phone to call 911. He makes statements such as: "If you press charges you're dead! Call the police you ***** I don't give a ****!" etc. Well here is the part that really makes me sick to my stomach the cops arrive a few minutes later and put him in the back of their car in hand cuffs for about 10 minutes, and then they proceed to let him go even though I told them very clearly several times, that I wanted to press charges and I was afraid for me and my family's safety. After I found out they were letting him go I asked the cop "ok so I can just go into anyone's house, force my way in threaten that person's life, break their stuff, and not go to jail for it?" She then proceeds to tell me "Yes but you will likely get shot if you do, now stop being a smart a**, the law won't let us arrest him because it's a misdemeanor. If you want to press charges go down to the annex office and file this paperwork". I argued with the police officer, "How can he trespass in my house, threaten me, beat me, and break my stuff then not go to jail for it?!" (just wanted to add this in here the man is 6'2 200 pounds Iam 5'5 and 110 pounds). And all she said is he didnt commit any crimes they could take him to jail for, he has to trespass more then once. So he can beat you, break your stuff, threaten you, push your wife while shes holding your child, hold you down against your will, and force hi his way into your house and they won't put him away because these are all misdemeanors. So later in the night my wife calls her mother (who is the man who beat me, sister)and she lets us know that both she and his other sister (my wife's aunt) listened to him brag about how he was going to kick my a** the same day he threatened me with the gun at the birthday party, even though I've only met the man maybe 5 times in my entire life and spent maybe 10 hours with him altogether in that time. ^ now what does that mean to me, and my family? It means the viscous attack against me was all premeditated. Well the next day I go down to the paralegals office, where I proceed to press charges I asked "was it not a crime when he forced his way into my house by pushing my wife out of the way. Isn't that breaking an entering?" she then tells me "no that's not illegal because by opening the door even partially your wife was inviting him in". Well after talking with her and telling her the above s nd telling her the above story she says it can take two weeks or longer before they actually arrest him if not longer and that's IF a big IF they do. Well after finishing with the paralegal I go file a injunction against him to keep him from coming within 500 feet of me and I have to wait for tomorrow for that to get approved. What did I learn from all this? 1.Florida residents can break into any ones house and it will not be a crime as long as you open the door first. 2.You can beat the hell out of some one, break there stuff, threaten their life, and not go to jail for it. 3.If some one proceeds to break in your house, beat the hell out of you, break your property, and threaten your life, if you want if you want any sort of justice you better put a bullet in their head because out of the cops mouth that's the only thing you have to fear when you do it. Because its just a misdemeanor. 4. Last but not least Florida residents, a warning for you and your children according to Florida law if you or your child opens a door, and some one forces there way into your house and hurts you, rapes you, or anything else its your fault cause you opened the door which means you invited them in to do it. -------------------- Now the current result of all this is Night one I sit at home my face to swollen to eat and in to much pain to sleep while in fear for my life while my wife tries to fix my glasses so I can see He gets to go home and be safe with his wife and kids while I suffer in pain. Night two I'm still in pain and in fear for my life because hes still on the street with his handgun and all I have is the knowledge that he wont be able to come within 500 feet of me with out it being a cri crime, woopty doo! Hes already shown he has a complete neglect of the law. Hes still at home sleeping well with his wife. Day 3 My Injunction was approved but he wont go to jail for coming around me until he actually gets served. My back is in so much pain I intend to go to the hospital tomorrow. Hes still at home safe and happy, probably laughing now. April 6th 2010 two weeks after the incident I went to my injunction hearing the judge was about to approve the injunction he turned to the man who beat me and said is there any legal reason I should not grant this he said because it would interfere with his class D license the judge said fine give me your word you wont go near them I will dismiss it. He did Case dismissed I live in fear so he can get a job hell never actually apply for. I called the attorney that I went to, to files charges she said the case was that they would not be filing charges. he got away with he got away with this completely while I live the rest of my life in fear and no trust in the law. --------------------- Now I ask you, do you feel safe in your home knowing people will not go to jail for doing the above crimes? How would you feel if this happened to you? Do you think if I was any one of importance, or some one with a substantial amount of money, that this man would be walking free on the street atm? So much for the same laws for every one. If I was a cop, or a judge, or even a mayor this post would of never been made because he would be in jail. Is there any thing else I can do to get this man behind bars so I can feel safe in my on house again that I haven't already done? No I pressed charges, but the attorney stated they weren't going to follow through with it. ^ addressed to Kirk S Get pictures here http://www.firstcoastnews.com/life/community/forums.aspx?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3affb22467-a346-47a8-b0ef-9c891bdda855Forum%3aeae071ae-0210-4dd7-88fa-d2cfc8139506Discussion%3a75d1012d-7e69-4b27-8cec-baaf126f4f47&plckCurrentPage=0 where else can I go to get my story out ?

buying a car and using yahoo as a third party? hello, I am confuse because I am planning to buy a car though craigslist but i am not sure if its true or fake. I send an email to a seller and they responded back saying this: "Please take a few moments and read my email carefully, I know it is long, but because I received too many emails, I will explain all the details about the car and the transaction. For pictures and details please visit my site: jeepwra (dot) page (dot) tl To view the pictures please replace (dot ) with . At the moment I'm stationed at Hancock Field AGS an US Military AFB in Syracuse, NY. making final preparations before deploying to Iraq with the U.S. Convoy The car is already at our Military Logistic Department form Fort Belvoir, U.S. Army base near Bethesda, MD, crated and ready to go. The Logistic Department will deliver the car to your home. Since the car is in a military base, with no access you can not go there and take it, only the Logistics Department can deliver it, because the car is in their custody. Shipping may take anywhere between 1-2 business days depending on the destination.. All documents you need for ownership, loog book , manuals and bill of sale will be provided along with the vehicle. For the payment I would like to use Yahoo as a third party. They will keep your money into a protection account until you get the vehicle and will release it to me after inspection period is over and you agree to keep the car. So, this is not a blind transaction, you can see the car before committing to buy and to eliminate any concerns you will have 3 days to inspect it. If you decide not to keep it Yahoo will refund you the money, no questions asked, and shipping back will be my concern. I think this is more than fair for both of us. I'll start the official procedure, and Yahoo will contact you about this. If you are interested in buying it just mail me back with: - Your Full Name - Required by Yahoo (You'll receive important guidelines + instructions from them.) - Your Shipping Address and Phone Number - Required by the Logistics Department (They will call you with delivery/pickup instructions 1 day ahead so you can communicate what time schedule work best for your to receive the car) Again I want to point out that because I am going to Iraq this sale is my top priority and I am looking after a fast transaction, with no delays. That is why I decided to lower the price, to avoid wasting time with negotiations and find a buyer as soon as possible. Thanks, hope to do business with you soon!" So please can someone answer my question, saying if its true or not. Thank You

My daughter will be having her 8th birthday and wants to have an "Earth Themed" birthday party..PLEASE HELP!? My soon-to-be 8 yr. old was born on Earth Day is wants to have an Earth-themed birthday this year. She's crazy about saving the whales, the trees/plants, animals, and taking care of our Earth. I'd love to have some creative ideas for crafts/fun for her friends at her party. We'll probably have it at the park or if its raining, at my aunts banquet hall (she owns her own catering business). A few ideas my friends have given me are: *Make a round paper mache piniata (I have no idea on where to go or how to make my own) *Make Earth shaped rice krispie treats using blue and green food coloring by putting food coloring into the melted marshmallows and then shaping the 2 colors together. *I'd love to be able to make a sheet cake w/an actual round 3-D Earth sitting on the top either made of cake or maybe use a round styrofoam ball from a craft store and then ice it w/frosting (not sure if the frosting would stay or not). *Plant some seeds in small flower pots or plastic pails and have them paint/decorate them *Possibly have the kids decorate the own Earth Day tshirts *Earth themed scavenger hunt (either have them hunt for various hidden pieces of trash and then when they're finished w/the hunt, have them recycle them into the correct bins...glass, plastic, paper, etc.) and reward them w/a small tree to plant at home or flowers? ***I don't want to go overboard but I still want it to be fun for them too. ***IDEAS PLEASE!*** ***WEBSITE LINKS FOR IDEAS WOULD BE GREAT TOO!***

Headline Iraq: So. Will Obama renege on his promises re bringing troops home? Shall we give him time ? .. ...or will it be 'business as usual' as he puts Iraq on the back burner for the next four years. BAGHDAD – Iraq's Cabinet on Sunday approved a security pact with the United States that will allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three years after their U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. all we can do is hope I imagine. Barack Obama has yet to take office, and already the War Party is staking its claim to top national security positions. Robert Gates, who defended the surge and urged us to "stay the course" in Iraq, is almost certain to stay on at the Pentagon. And it looks like war supporter Hillary Clinton is going to be our Secretary of State. This is change? If the president-elect wants a Republican in his cabinet, why not Chuck Hagel, who opposed the war? Obama pledged to get us out of Iraq. Does the likely Gates appointment mean he may renege on his campaign promise? First I am not a 'lib' so get that straight. Second the words above are Not mine. I simply saw an article. I believe in giving him a chance. After all.. he's not even sworn in yet. Plus. Agreements can always be broken. btw stop assuming. Everyone who does not necessarily Think like you do does not make them a 'lib'. In fact many people do not embrace any particular political party. We simply think for ourselves. And we have no label, and do not need any in order to validate what we believe. Now. Have a cup of coffee.

Mother disowns me for college choice? I am 18 years old. I was recently accepted to every school I applied to, but narrowed it down to CUNY Baruch, and SUNY albany. I've been to both campuses, and SUNY albany is nice, but has a terrible reputation of being a party school, and has a large amount of drug, alcohol, and other violations issued to students each year. I live in brooklyn, and CUNY barcuh is among the best public universities in the entire nation, and one of the top business schools. I am not completely sure what I want to major in yet, but I decided to go to Baruch. When I told my mother, she went into a raging fit, telling me that I will never experience life If I stay at home for college. She started crying, and telling me that if I finalize this choice, she will disown me, and even divorce my father. I want to go to the college that is best for me, but I don't want to destroy my family. I also have a brother who is 3 years younger than me. What should I do? Thanks in advance, I am really distraught over the whole situation. Just to make it clear, I have 2 days to finalize my choice.

what is good for the goose, is good for the gander? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fred-silberberg/whats-good-for-the-goose_b_254808.html A while back I was in court with my female client defending a request by her husband that she be ordered to pay him spousal support. My client was irate over the fact that her husband would even think to make such a request, notwithstanding the fact that her net worth and earnings significantly outgrossed his. As we argued the case to the judge, my client kept telling me that this was ridiculous, a man should not be seeking spousal support from a woman. I told her that in my view, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander and while as a principal I, myself, was opposed to spousal support, if one spouse could get it from the other, it had to go both ways. This conversation reminded me of a similar one I had at an earlier time with a female colleague of mine. Her husband sought spousal support from her and she was equally outraged over it. As she put it "it's not something you bargain for when you get married". I reminded her that most people did not bargain for divorce at all, and that, while I was sympathetic to the fact that she did not want to pay the support, there had to be equal treatment under the law. If she could get it, why shouldn't he also be able to? In my more than 23 years of practicing family law I have heard just about all there is to hear when someone comes into my office. These were not the first times I have heard this complaint from women about spousal support. It also is not the first time I have heard similar statements when it comes to custody. Just last week a female client told me that she did not understand why her husband had a right to share equal time with their children when she was the mother. She complained to me that if they were still married, he wouldn't have equal time, he never spent that much time with the kids before. I told her that this is one of the consequences of divorce, if you want to get divorced, you have to understand that the other party has rights just like you do and that one of those rights, is the right to spend equal time with the children if their father is willing and able to do so. These talks in my office really emphasize the double-standard that seems to exist in the minds of many women caught in the midst of a divorce. It is totally acceptable to have the man pay spousal support, but not the woman. It is totally acceptable to have the mother raise the kids, but not the father. All of this makes me wonder, what was the point of the battle for equal rights? In this day and age, these women are the daughters of some of the same women who I remember burning their brassieres in the 60s, the daughters of women who stopped being stay at home mothers so they could go out and work, the daughters of women who went back to school to get advanced degrees. In many cases, these women themselves are the embodiment of the example that their mothers set for them. Some of them are overachievers, who can and have accomplished major feats in the business world, but somehow still see it as appropriate to be treated differently in the arena of the family law court. In the context of a child support dispute, one of my female clients lamented that "so I went out and built this successful business and my reward is I have to pay child support to him?". For years men bore the brunt of fallout of a divorce proceeding. They built businesses and professional practices and then had to buy their wives out of those businesses, or trade their homes for the businesses in the property settlement. They had to pay spousal and child support on top of it. And, to add insult to injury, many of them were relegated to visits with their children on alternating weekends and one night per week. This situation was commonplace in the days when men were the primary breadwinners and women stayed at home with children. However, times have changed. It has taken years of lobbying by father's rights organizations to the state legislatures, lots of time spent educating judges about the benefits that fathers can provide to their children if given the time to spend with them, and yet, it seems, that to a large percentage of the female population, this change to a more egalitarian legal system is somehow unjust. Society has changed and the family has changed. The traditional role models are not what they used to be. Women are out in the workforce, are often the breadwinners, and provide the same function in many families and in society that were primarily the province of men up until recent decades. It is only appropriate, therefore, that women and men be treated in an equal manner when it comes to the painful subjects of support and child custody that arise in divorce proceedings. Men are put in the spot light of being the main culprits of inequality. But it seems that many women at this day and age don't want it themselves. There is less or no shame towards women for this.

why is my dad being a jerk-very much of a party pooper? my parents separated lately, my dad was working overseas for a while then he retired, and since my mom and sister moved out i had to be in my house w/ my dad cause basically if i left too he would be totally alone. i was perfectly happy here, i dont ask him for money and i cook/clean. i contribute to bills. i notice though he takes out his anger or frustrations on me, particularly his bad investments that i have warned him about years ago. he nonchalantly told me it was none of my business and he was financially ok. turns out when he retired he realized he had no savings (my mom handled his money). and i find it unfair he takes his anger towards me when i warned him so many times 10 years before he retired. back then he was financially ok, but i knew he had no savings. on top of that he spent his retirement money on yet more bad investments that i also did warn him about. but he still did it. now he always insults me when i drink soda, he tells me what to eat and i lost so much weight when i visit my friends house her parents got alarmed cause i look like a zombie w/ sunken cheeks and skeletal frame. my dad casually tells me the stuff i eat is fattening that sometimes it got to a point i was too weak to stand up and cook. i had half can of soda the other day and i heard him say it was fattening. i dont drink it everyday, once a week at most. i want to move out but i dont want to seem like an ingrate, my bf and i are planning to marry soon and he is overseas right now so i am going to follow him. he says its not a good idea to move out right now because i would be spending more and it might not be safe for me. anyway my dad has been increasingly hostile to me, not violent but in a way that i am feeling bitter and hateful. i have been avoiding him around the house and it makes me feel guilty. he didnt seem like that before, but i wouldnt have noticed since he was only home 4x a year. i dont want to hate him anymore and i really hope somebody can help me with this situation, thanks. poopy- whats that got to do w/ me? im an entirely different entity

I am considering starting a business planning children's birthday parties? I'm a mom, and I'm also a born entertainer, and I have been told many times that I should go into business planning parties. Some people aren't creative. Some people don't have time to look for things. But everyone wants their child to have a fun, memorable birthday, right? i was thinking i could help parents decide on a theme, acquire party favors and decorations ( within the parent's budget, which we would set, or course) assemble favor bags, make invitations ( something I am VERY good at!) and help set up the home or venue and line up entertainment. Would you pay someone to arrange your child's party? I have photo documentation of the parties i've thrown for my own children, with the beautiful cakes I made myself, and the gorgeous decorations, the delicious spread of food. How much is a fair price for my fee? I was thinking for a party with ten children my fee would be $100 on top of supplies. I have a food handlers permit and childcare permit. input? you would be surprised how many people are that lazy. i have worked for a private party planning company in the past, and gained a lot of skill there. I was hoping to take this in a more fantasy-themed direction. You know, Fairy-princess complete with Princess, Pirate themed , Dr. Seus, old west, Vintage circus, ect.

How to Deal with Crazy Asian Mother? PLEASE HELP!? Hey guys, Sorry for the long description but I have a lot to say so please bear with it and contribute some advice if you can! So I am 21 years old and I am currently in college right now and it is my senior year. Basically, I lived at home for 3 years because I couldn't afford to live on my own yet. Also, I am one of those people who can't study and have a job at the same time because I need to study a lot to do well. However, I work during the summers and during breaks because I usually pay for everything myself. I currently have a 3.1 GPA and I am also in one of the top 10 business schools in the nation. For my senior year, I have decided to move out because I can't stand my mom anymore and I feel she is causing me undue stress. For example, she at least tells me 4 times a week while we're having dinner that my business degree is literally crap and that I will never have a job after college. She then goes on and says that my parents wasted tuition money on my degree and that I will never get a job after college or even earn as much as a doctor or pharmacist. She then always talks about how other people she knows kids have graduated with a biology degree or from med school and how great they are. In addition to that, even though I am 21, she never lets me hang out with my friends. I couldn't even attend one of my friend's graduation party because she wanted to keep me at home and she wouldn't even give me a valid reason why she wanted me home. She is always constantly yelling at me and always brings up my girlfriend in conversations because she hates her and always saying how horrible she is when in reality she's really not. Also, this summer my mom told me to get an internship and now that I got one she also puts me down on that to. Every time I go into work, she thinks I'm hanging out with my friends or something. Same case with the school year. Whenever I'm studying until 2 or 3 in the morning at the library, she always thinks I'm out with my girlfriend when in fact I am studying my butt off. My dad can't do anything about it because my mom gets seriously depressed when things don't go her way and she lays in bed all day so my dad can't go into work. My mom is very sweet outside to other people but inside the family it's tearing apart. Both my parents love my brother though because he is going to become an engineer just like my dad. He gets to move out next year because he has to go to a college that is not in town. I feel my mom does not act her age at all. Do you guys agree? She even once cheated on my dad and blamed it all on me. I had a test the next day after our family found out my mom had an affair and I got a C on that because what my mom said stung. My mom is always threatening to cut off my tuition to if I don't obey all her stupid rules. I literally stay in my room all day on weekends because my mom doesn't work weekends and I usually just sleep for 15 hours because I am really bored at home but my mom won't let me see my friends at all because she always says family comes first. Since I am moving out next year, my parents refuse to pay for my housing. What jobs can I do to make good money and not work as many hours but still pay for rent and utilities? I used to lie a lot in high school which was 3 years ago and my parents still don't trust me even though I have not told any lies when they asked what I've been up to. I've tried talking to my mom about this reasonably but every time we end up yelling at each other because talking to her is like talking to a wall. It won't budge. Do you guys think my mom is unreasonable and too controlling? I want to enjoy my senior year making my own choices so do you think I should move out? How do I fix things with a mother like this who does not think logically? Please help!

Need Help with Crazy Asian Mom! PLEASE HELP!!!? Hey guys, Sorry for the long description but I have a lot to say so please bear with it and contribute some advice if you can! So I am 21 years old and I am currently in college right now and it is my senior year. Basically, I lived at home for 3 years because I couldn't afford to live on my own yet. Also, I am one of those people who can't study and have a job at the same time because I need to study a lot to do well. However, I work during the summers and during breaks because I usually pay for everything myself. I currently have a 3.1 GPA and I am also in one of the top 10 business schools in the nation. For my senior year, I have decided to move out because I can't stand my mom anymore and I feel she is causing me undue stress. For example, she at least tells me 4 times a week while we're having dinner that my business degree is literally crap and that I will never have a job after college. She then goes on and says that my parents wasted tuition money on my degree and that I will never get a job after college or even earn as much as a doctor or pharmacist. She then always talks about how other people she knows kids have graduated with a biology degree or from med school and how great they are. In addition to that, even though I am 21, she never lets me hang out with my friends. I couldn't even attend one of my friend's graduation party because she wanted to keep me at home and she wouldn't even give me a valid reason why she wanted me home. She is always constantly yelling at me and always brings up my girlfriend in conversations because she hates her and always saying how horrible she is when in reality she's really not. Also, this summer my mom told me to get an internship and now that I got one she also puts me down on that to. Every time I go into work, she thinks I'm hanging out with my friends or something. Same case with the school year. Whenever I'm studying until 2 or 3 in the morning at the library, she always thinks I'm out with my girlfriend when in fact I am studying my butt off. My dad can't do anything about it because my mom gets seriously depressed when things don't go her way and she lays in bed all day so my dad can't go into work. My mom is very sweet outside to other people but inside the family it's tearing apart. Both my parents love my brother though because he is going to become an engineer just like my dad. He gets to move out next year because he has to go to a college that is not in town. I feel my mom does not act her age at all. Do you guys agree? She even once cheated on my dad and blamed it all on me. I had a test the next day after our family found out my mom had an affair and I got a C on that because what my mom said stung. My mom is always threatening to cut off my tuition to if I don't obey all her stupid rules. I literally stay in my room all day on weekends because my mom doesn't work weekends and I usually just sleep for 15 hours because I am really bored at home but my mom won't let me see my friends at all because she always says family comes first. Since I am moving out next year, my parents refuse to pay for my housing. What jobs can I do to make good money and not work as many hours but still pay for rent and utilities? I used to lie a lot in high school which was 3 years ago and my parents still don't trust me even though I have not told any lies when they asked what I've been up to. I've tried talking to my mom about this reasonably but every time we end up yelling at each other because talking to her is like talking to a wall. It won't budge. Do you guys think my mom is unreasonable and too controlling? I want to enjoy my senior year making my own choices so do you think I should move out? How do I fix things with a mother like this who does not think logically? Please help!

PLEASE Help me with Mom!!! So sad!!!? Hey guys, Sorry for the long description but I have a lot to say so please bear with it and contribute some advice if you can! So I am 21 years old and I am currently in college right now and it is my senior year. Basically, I lived at home for 3 years because I couldn't afford to live on my own yet. Also, I am one of those people who can't study and have a job at the same time because I need to study a lot to do well. However, I work during the summers and during breaks because I usually pay for everything myself. I currently have a 3.1 GPA and I am also in one of the top 10 business schools in the nation. For my senior year, I have decided to move out because I can't stand my mom anymore and I feel she is causing me undue stress. For example, she at least tells me 4 times a week while we're having dinner that my business degree is literally crap and that I will never have a job after college. She then goes on and says that my parents wasted tuition money on my degree and that I will never get a job after college or even earn as much as a doctor or pharmacist. She then always talks about how other people she knows kids have graduated with a biology degree or from med school and how great they are. In addition to that, even though I am 21, she never lets me hang out with my friends. I couldn't even attend one of my friend's graduation party because she wanted to keep me at home and she wouldn't even give me a valid reason why she wanted me home. She is always constantly yelling at me and always brings up my girlfriend in conversations because she hates her and always saying how horrible she is when in reality she's really not. Also, this summer my mom told me to get an internship and now that I got one she also puts me down on that to. Every time I go into work, she thinks I'm hanging out with my friends or something. Same case with the school year. Whenever I'm studying until 2 or 3 in the morning at the library, she always thinks I'm out with my girlfriend when in fact I am studying my butt off. My dad can't do anything about it because my mom gets seriously depressed when things don't go her way and she lays in bed all day so my dad can't go into work. My mom is very sweet outside to other people but inside the family it's tearing apart. Both my parents love my brother though because he is going to become an engineer just like my dad. He gets to move out next year because he has to go to a college that is not in town. I feel my mom does not act her age at all. Do you guys agree? She even once cheated on my dad and blamed it all on me. I had a test the next day after our family found out my mom had an affair and I got a C on that because what my mom said stung. My mom is always threatening to cut off my tuition to if I don't obey all her stupid rules. I literally stay in my room all day on weekends because my mom doesn't work weekends and I usually just sleep for 15 hours because I am really bored at home but my mom won't let me see my friends at all because she always says family comes first. Since I am moving out next year, my parents refuse to pay for my housing. What jobs can I do to make good money and not work as many hours but still pay for rent and utilities? I used to lie a lot in high school which was 3 years ago and my parents still don't trust me even though I have not told any lies when they asked what I've been up to. I've tried talking to my mom about this reasonably but every time we end up yelling at each other because talking to her is like talking to a wall. It won't budge. Do you guys think my mom is unreasonable and too controlling? I want to enjoy my senior year making my own choices so do you think I should move out? How do I fix things with a mother like this who does not think logically? Please help!

Is it unreasonable of me to ask my girlfriend why she did not call me back all night? Without having a fight? My long term girlfriend, whom is really acting over the top on this issue. Is not answering my calls. Last month, she went to a Family BBQ / Birthday Party back in her home town, she brought her 2 sons with her. Well, She left on Saturday morning, Around 7pm , I called her, Got no answer. Around the time I went to bed, I started to wonder if she was ok. Because She didn't call me to tell me she made it. So I called her again around 1130pm Saturday night. No answer. I left her a voice mail, that this was my second attempt. Well, the next morning, around 10am, she texts me saying " She was not igoring me, that there was a fight, all kinds of drama". I texted her back, " Why cant you just text me that your busy or something"? She responds with " LOOK, IM NOT EXPLAINING ANYTHING TO YOU". About 2 hours later, I call her, she answers the phone screaming at me that she does not want to fight with me. And that she has to get off the phone cause she's with her Family about to eat at a restaurant. Is it wrong for me to ask her why she did not call me back all night Saturday night? She asks me all the time why I miss her calls. She has even gone as far as to call my sister to question her about what I have been up to lately. I don't get why she makes me the bad guy for expecting her to return my call, or text. She as at a Party, not a business meeting, not a funeral. Am I wrong?

Does Obama's foreign student visa (Columbia University) still allow him to be pres? WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it. -- Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. Â It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression? -- Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kickback hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around." -- Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government. -- Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security. -- Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means. -- Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system. Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan. If it does, then the above history doesn't

how does this sort of information get ignored by democrats? However, the underlying (more important issues) are verifiably true. In August and September 2006, Senator Barack Obama traveled to South Africa, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Chad and Kenya as a congressional delegation of one (Codel Obama) (“Codel Obama” The Hill 9/7/2006) While in Kenya, Obama consistently appeared at the side of fellow Luo Raila Odinga (“your agent for change’), who was running for President. (“Senator Rebukes Kenya’s Corruption” Chicago Sun Times 8/29/2006) Because of his African heritage, Obama was treated as a virtual “Head of State” in Kenya While campaigning with Odinga, Obama was openly critical of governmental corruption under President Mibaki –usually a fair, if undiplomatic, criticism from an objective observer. However, Kibaki’s government has been better than most—and Odinga has his own corruption issues.( “Loud and Populist, But No Political Outsider” The Guardian 12/29/2007) Obama’s partisan support for Odinga was considered so transparent, that the Kenyan Government spokesman, Alfred Matua, complained of political posturing to aid Odinga’s election chances: “It is very clear that the senator has been used as a puppet to perpetuate opposition politics,”(“Walking The World Stage” Newsweek 9/11/06) And, “…we earlier thought he was mature in his assessment of Kenyan and African politics,” Mutua told AFP.”We forgive him because it is his first time in the Senate and he is yet to mature into understanding issues of foreign policy,” he said.”(“Obama’s Kenya Honeymoon Ends Abruptly After Graft Rebuke” 8/29/06) Subsequently, Ambassador Ogingo Ogego made a public complaint to the US.(“Kenyan Envoy Kicks Off Diplomatic Row” My Africa 9/27/2006) Raila Odinga subsequently lost the controversial (probably rigged) presidential election. In what appeared to many—including Human Rights Watch– as a coordinated strategy from the top, (“Violence We Fled was Planned, Say Kenyan Refugees” Reuters 1/26/2008 and “Kenya: Violence Planned Before Poll, Says Report” The Nation 3/18/2008) his Luo supporters (a core of whom call themselves The Taliban”(“Ethnic Gangs Rile Kenyan Slums” Newsweek 1/10/08)) engaged in what US Envoy Jendayi Frazer called “clear ethnic cleansing” (“US Envoy Calls Violence in Kenya ‘Ethnic Cleansing’” USA Today 1/30/2008) of the Kikuyu opposition. Odinga’s supporters went on a rampage—burning Kikuyu homes and businesses, (“Ethnic Cleansing in Luoland” The Economist 2/7/2008) raping Kikuyu women, and murdering everyone in their path—including at least 50 Christian Kikuyu woman & children who had sought refuge in a church. They burned them alive. (“Mob Burns Kenyans Seeking Refuge In Church” CNN 1/10/2008) “We have evidence that ODM [Odinga’s party] politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence,” Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director for the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said on Thursday.” (Violence We Fled was Planned, Say Kenyan Refugees” Ibid) So: who is Raila Odinga that Senator Obama would expend his political capital and risk the goodwill of half the population of Kenya? Their relationship is unclear. The BBC initially reported that Obama and Odinga were first cousins.(“Odinga Says Obama is His Cousin” 1/8/2008) The Obama campaign has since denied a familial relationship. Raila Odinga’s father Oginga Odinga was leader of the “Kenya People’s Union” and perceived as a “committed socialist” (“Oginga Odinga: Kenya’s Most Persecuted Politician” Kenya: Key Issues 8/21.2002). Odinga Sr. was also the political ally of fellow Luo; Barack Obama Sr.(The Risks of Knowledge (Ohio University Press, 2004) p. 182) What we do know about Odinga is not good. A former Minister of Energy, Odinga is reported to have been set up in the oil business by the al Bakri Group and Muammar Quaddafi (“How Rich is Raila-The ODM Kenya Presidential Aspirant?” African Press 4/26/2007) Abdel Qader Bakri (or- Abdulkader al Bakri) was listed on the infamous “Golden Chain”–an internal Al-Queda list of wealthy Saudi financial sponsors seized by Bosnian police in a Islamic “charity” raid in 2001. (“Terrorist Financing Staff Monograph 9/11 Commission and “The Golden Chain”) According to his website, Odinga was educated in Communist East Germany, (Herder Institute, Leipzig & Otto von Guericke Tech. Institute, Magdeburg) (http://www.raila07.com) Odinga’s eldest son is named “Fidel” (http://www.raila07.com) Perhaps most troubling is Odinga’s links to Islamic extremists in Kenya. According to Voice of America and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, on 8/29/07, Odinga signed a secret agreement (exposed 11/27) with Sheikh Abdullah Abdi of the National Muslim Leaders Forum (NAMLEF) in which he agreed to institute Islamic law in exchange for Abdi’s support (eakenya.org)–thereby potentially disenfranchising and curtailing the liberties of millions of Christian Kenyan women. Further, he promised that Muslims suspected of terrorism would be safe from ex sweetjan, i deleted that part of the article at the top, for exactly this sort of response. if you go read the article, it addresses your "pants on fire" rating....nice try though. no, tony, you racist, i'm from Illinois. I got to see osama..er obama close up before any of you did, and I KNOW he's a criminal. Avro, i'm a libertarian. not a republican. I didn't even vote for Mccain. don't like him either, but at least he's not a criminal, like obama. I voted early, for Barr. what a shock. BOSTONIA.. it's an article from African Press International- yes i understand that your kneejerk is Everyone who doesn't worship obama is a neocon. IM (for the last time) A LIBERTARIAN AND I VOTED FOR BARR! But, I do live right under chitcago in illinois and happen to KNOW obama is a criminal. I'm just providing the warning, so that you cant say later "i didnt know"

Why are some people saying Obama did not support Odinga? when there is proof? Are his FOLLOWERS THAT BLIND? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6eVVVKFH... The mainstream media has justified ignoring this story based on a “conspiracy theory” chain email (politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements... making the rounds from some African missionaries. Politifact.com examined the email—which claims Obama gave $1MM to Odinga’s campaign—and declared it “a pants on fire”. However, the underlying (more important issues) are verifiably true. In August and September 2006, Senator Barack Obama traveled to South Africa, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Chad and Kenya as a congressional delegation of one (Codel Obama) (“Codel Obama” The Hill 9/7/2006) While in Kenya, Obama consistently appeared at the side of fellow Luo Raila Odinga (“your agent for change’), who was running for President. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1P_P8lBC... Raila Odinga subsequently lost the controversial (probably rigged) presidential election. In what appeared to many—including Human Rights Watch– as a coordinated strategy from the top, (“Violence We Fled was Planned, Say Kenyan Refugees” Reuters 1/26/2008 and “Kenya: Violence Planned Before Poll, Says Report” The Nation 3/18/2008) his Luo supporters (a core of whom call themselves The Taliban”(“Ethnic Gangs Rile Kenyan Slums” Newsweek 1/10/08)) engaged in what US Envoy Jendayi Frazer called “clear ethnic cleansing” (“US Envoy Calls Violence in Kenya ‘Ethnic Cleansing’” USA Today 1/30/2008) of the Kikuyu opposition. Odinga’s supporters went on a rampage—burning Kikuyu homes and businesses, (“Ethnic Cleansing in Luoland” The Economist 2/7/2008) raping Kikuyu women, and murdering everyone in their path—including at least 50 Christian Kikuyu woman & children who had sought refuge in a church. They burned them alive. (“Mob Burns Kenyans Seeking Refuge In Church” CNN 1/10/2008) “We have evidence that ODM [Odinga’s party] politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence,” Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director for the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said on Thursday.” (Violence We Fled was Planned, Say Kenyan Refugees” Ibid) VIOLENCE BROKE OUT AFTER ODINGA LOST can we expect the same thing here? Odinga also claimed he was a christian but did this in private: Perhaps most troubling is Odinga’s links to Islamic extremists in Kenya. According to Voice of America and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, on 8/29/07, Odinga signed a secret agreement (exposed 11/27) with Sheikh Abdullah Abdi of the National Muslim Leaders Forum (NAMLEF) in which he agreed to institute Islamic law in exchange for Abdi’s support (eakenya.org)–thereby potentially disenfranchising and curtailing the liberties of millions of Christian Kenyan women. Further, he promised that Muslims suspected of terrorism would be safe from extradition—thereby establishing a ‘safe haven’ for terrorists in Kenya SO AGAIN IS THAT SOMETHING WE CAN EXPECT FROM OBAMA? http://africanpress.wordpress.com/2008/0...

What do I do about my CRAZY mother!? She wants in my business 24/7. Like when I come home from school shes like "Hi how was your day? Did you turn those forms in? did you take your pill? Did you did you did you?" Whats even worse is, shes ALWAYS wanting to know where I am at all times. I'm 16 FREAKING YEARS OLD! I'm responsible, I have good grades, and I BARELY EVER smoke weed [just sometimes with my friends or at a party] To top that all off, shes EXTREMELY PARANOID. She always assumes that if I come home around 11 o'clock that I'm drunk and high. She THINKS I have some rampant sex life. BUT I'M STILL A VIRGIN. How can I get her to TRUST ME so I can get some PRIVACY. Weed, in my calm objective opinion, is a herb that is meant to be smoked. I can enjoy it whenever I please. I have a JOB and I go to school, and thats more then my mother can say. She stays at home everyday.

Please Help Home Work? Choose the answer that best describes the form of bias expressed in the following problem A reporter attended a movie that he enjoyed. One member of the audience stood up and clapped at the end. Which of the following indicates the reporter's bias? A.The movie had excellent special effects and the acting was well-done. B.At the end of the movie, the audience applauded loudly, signaling the high quality of the film. C.One actor's facial expression was very exaggerated, making his character difficult to believe. D.At the end of the movie, some members of the audience clapped while others booed. 2.Which of the following is an example of appealing to pathos? A.90 percent of people who exercise daily reported greater life satisfaction. Work out and you will be happy! B.At Maricella's House of Hair, you'll receive top-notch service from some of the industry's most knowledgeable experts. C.Kara's Cupcakes: The trusted name in the baking business. D.80 percent of habitual cheese-eaters live to age 80. Eating more cheese will add years to your life. 3.Which of the following is not a biased statement? A.Lawyers for both parties met in the courthouse today. B.Lawyers for the man who is clearly guilty showed up at noon. C.Lawyers for the prosecution have treated the man unfairly D.Lawyers are interested only in monetary gain. E.All of these statements reflect bias. F.None of these statements reflect bias. 4.Which of these is considered a "pro" of mainstream news reporting? A.the presence of clear-cut rules for reporting and consequences for not following them B.the diversity of viewpoints represented and the lack of corporate bias present C.any bias often clear and easy to pick out D.none of these 5.Which of the following best describes fallacies? A.Fallacies rely on incorrect inferences. B.All fallacies rely on overgeneralizing. C.Fallacies are also called pathological leaps. D.All advertisements rely upon fallacies. 6.Ethos does not do which of the following? A.appeal to the audience's ethics B.appeal to the audience's emotions C.appeal to the audience's logic or intellect D.any of these 7.Which of the following is not a biased statement? A.Gorps are intelligent, happy people. B.Gleegons are interesting and smart. C.Listen to what the Gorps tell you; they are always right. D.Elect Gleegons or things will become very confusing. E.Some Gleegons report being happy, and so do some Gorps. 8.The same event happens in two different places on the same day. One happens in rural America. The other happens in urban America. A newspaper chooses to report the incident in urban America on the front page of the paper and the incident in rural America on the second page. This is an example of _____. A.bias in layout B.bias in a headline C.bias in photography D.blatant favoritism E.none of these 9.The accuracy of independent news reports may suffer because _____. A.there aren't many clear-cut internal consequences for mistakes B.they tend to report more often C.they tend to represent diverse viewpoints D.they are not as reliable as mainstream news sources E.all of the above F.none of these 10.Mainstream media should always be chosen over independent media as the most reliable type of source. True False

Why do so many poor people support Republicans who serve the top 1% only, and other American curiosities? When it is so obvious that our two party system (and corresponding Media outlets like FOX NEWS) are a scam designed to obfuscate the real doings of our govt; when democrats and liberals both serve their rich masters and make laws based on how much they are paid; when it is painfully obvious that our govt serves big business, how are average citizens RAGING over "their" party's retarted "talking points"? Most brutally stupid: Why do so many minimally educated, working class mid-Americans champion, and swallow without doubt or question, the party line of the Republicans? The Republican party is neither "small govt" nor "conservative" in any way. They work SOLEY to protect the upper 1% of American earners who have DECIMATED middle America, closed factories so that they could get richer by making things in China, outsourced your jobs, foreclosed on your homes, and lied every inch of the way.... WHY are the most rabid supporters and largest voter blocks for Republican votes from poor people? Can you not see that your interests haven't been met in years? Or do you not research the ACTUAL laws passed by your candidate (just focusing on the baloney he sells you about gays and taxes?) The Democrats are just as corrupt, btw, but usually their voters generally benefit (like Union workers, etc...) from this party. And also, isn't it time to throw ALL the bums out, end special priviledges like cadillac health plans, and make campaign contributions and "careers" in Congress ILLEGAL? Let's have a govt full of people who have REAL jobs and consider it a priviledge to serve the people, not an entitlement! Dyin for REAL answers, not rants, and real suggestions on how to take back our country (not from the gays or the blacks or the atheists, but from the overfluffed BUMS who are destroying our constitution and our country with every stroke of the pen while laughing their way to the bank!) Free Tibet: Thanks for the insightful answer, but it really leaves me wondering: haven't we seen, time and time again, that Crony Capitalism is precisely what the Republicans practice? Haven't we seen-in both parties!-major financial firms putting their people in gov't positions, who then remove restrictions on the type of scam perpetrated by Goldman Sachs? While I agree that our gov't is out of control (did you see the SB 510 "Food and Safety" Act-terrifying), there is more than big govt to blame for society's ills. A purely capitalist system-with no regulation-basically allows the super-rich to exploit the poor. Is it not fallicy to cling to a thing that allows you to be exploited? And notice, with the bills passed that REALLY change our country, such as SB 510, there is LITTLE partisan bickering. Both sides sign on to these things, which are hardly reported. All that is reported are the few "talking point" issues. That seems sinister to me. Individualism is a beautiful thing, thoug

How do I get my friends to implement some basic sanitary standards? My married friends Jay and Helen display a complete lack of sanitation and hygiene when serving food. I am good friends with them and enjoy going to their home, but I dread eating or drinking anything there. I've given them a few hints but would really like to go all out and tell them what I think. Since they have a son who is just about to turn 2, I think it is especially important, so I'm wondering if I can use the health of their son as an excuse for talking to them. I realize that it isn't my business what they do at home by themselves, but if they are inviting people over and serving them food and drinks I think they have some sort of obligation to follow some basic rules. I admit to being a little bit of a germophobe, but I don't have any complaints about any of my other friends when I eat and drink in their homes, and I know they aren't perfect, and I'm not either. I'm not expecting them to go to extremes (such as hairnets or latex gloves), and I don't do that myself either. I was looking online for perhaps some online articles to forward to them, but a lot of what I found was for people in the restaurant business. Most of what I found for the home was for cooking, thawing, raw food, etc. I'm sure they aren't sanitary about that either. While there was a lot about washing hands, there was little or nothing mentioned about how to handle the plates, utensils, etc., and I think that the people who write these rules and tips don't realize how disgusting some people are. People like my friends need very detailed rules because I don't think they understand the concept or care. If I can find a book that goes into all this I would be happy to buy it for them as a gift. Yesterday I was at their home for a birthday party for their son. Here is what I observed: 1. Helen disposed of a used diaper in the garbage pail without washing her hands afterwards, then handled food. I’m certain that she didn’t wash her hands after changing the diaper, but it is possible that she could have used hand sanitizer as I wasn’t present in the room. In any case her hands were contaminated when she threw out the diaper and they weren’t washed. 2. Helen emptied bag of chips into a bowl, sticking her hand in the bag to help take the chips out, rather than just pointing the bag down and pouring them from the bag. 3. Helen used her hands in assisting her to place the slices of birthday cake on the plates. She used a regular knife to cut the cake, and I think with a cake knife it would have been easier to use the knife to move the cake to the plate without touching it. 4. While serving the birthday cake (and touching it as explained in item 3 above), Helen licked her fingers. 5. Helen handled the pizza in an unsanitary manner, touching it unnecessarily. To some extent this may have been difficult to avoid because the pizza had to be heated in the microwave. 6. Utensils for the birthday cake were in the plastic bag they were purchased in, but the bag was torn open on the end that touches the food, not the handle end. This makes it difficult for people to take a utensil without touching other utensils. 7. Jay handed me a cup of water with his hands over the top of the cup. 8. Drink cups were arranged face up rater than face down. 9. I was pleasantly surprised that they used a ladle like serving spoon for the bowl of ice, but I think that tongs would have been better. The other guests were unsanitary as well, and I saw them sticking the ladle inside their cups, possibly touching cups that they drank out of already. 10. I don’t know if either of them washes their hands when using the bathroom, but I can’t say for sure. I've witnessed Jay not washing his hands when using a public bathroom. I don’t know about his wife, but it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't either. ladydi - I have been friends with Jay for 23 years, and he and his wife are both very nice people. I’m not going to get rid of friends because they are lacking in their sanitary habits. But I need to reconsider whether or not to eat or drink anything in their home. Diane - I’m actually a pretty big slob, but I’m careful about washing my hands, and extra careful when serving food to guests. Their friends and family are probably almost as bad, but I still don’t think they’re anywhere close to normal. One of the main rules I was brought up with, and one of the few rules I would never even think of disobeying, was that we always had to wash our hands after using the bathroom. I think my other friends are a lot more careful about things, or at the very least what they do wrong isn’t as obvious. Antikythera - All I’m really asking is that if they’re serving food, they keep their hands clean and make more of an effort to avoid touching anything that is going into someone else’s mouth. At the party there wasn’t room to leave the pizza boxes on the table, so it probably wasn’t unreasonable for them to touch the slices when they had to serve and reheat it in the microwave. That wouldn’t have bothered me as much if they weren’t doing all those other things and I thought that their hands were clean. The last time I was over their house for dinner we had the pizza box on the table, so if I wanted another slice, it was easy for me to get it myself. But she took out a slice, put it on her paper plate - the plate she already used to eat off of - and asked me if I wanted it. I did refuse that slice and said that it was unsanitary. She wasn’t trying to save money on paper plates, I had my own plate already, so I think it is more a lack of common sense than anything else. ladydi - I didn't like any of the answers, and originally I was going to select Diane's as best because it seemed to be the most reasonable. I wasn't going to select your answer, until I woke up during the night with a mild sore thoat. Usually that is what happens first before I get a cold, hope it is just that and not e. coli. I'm not going to drop them as friends, but for my own safety I will no longer eat or drink anything in their home unless it is brought in from the outside and handled by me only - and that includes paper plates, cups, utensils, etc. If they have a problem with that, it is their fault for being disgusting, not mine. The last time I had them over for pizza, I told them that they weren't allowed to touch it and I would get it for them, and they still refused to listen. So they won't be invited again unless they agree in advance not to touch anything, and I think I should pour some hand sanitizer into their hands when they enter my apartment.

My 25 year old model stepmom wants me. What should i do? So heres the story. My dad is a 40 year old CEO of a huge company. his new wife is 25 years old. i know, gold digger. whatever, shes blonde and has a perfect body, obviously, cuz she has to in order to be a gold digger. anyway, my dad is always out of town on business trips. I am 17 years old, and a junior in high school. I have no problem getting girls and i can tell when a girl wants to **** me. anyway, my stepmom is like all over me recently, like massaging me, and pretending to accidnetly walk out of her room naked when im right in the hallway. and to top it all off, last night, when i got home after a party and went to my room she came in their and slept in my bed with me and was like rubbing my dick until i fell asleep cuz i was drunk. anyway, so obviously she wants it, and like i said, shes super hot. shes done a lot of modeling in the past, but i dont know how id feel after cuz thats my dads girl, but at the same time, i want it. what should i do?

My 25 year old gold digger stepmom wants to have sex with me? So heres the story. My dad is a 40 year old CEO of a huge company. his new wife is 25 years old. i know, gold digger. whatever, shes blonde and has a perfect body, obviously, cuz she has to in order to be a gold digger. anyway, my dad is always out of town on business trips. I am 17 years old, and a junior in high school. I have no problem getting girls and i can tell when a girl wants to fuck me. anyway, my stepmom is like all over me recently, like massaging me, and pretending to accidnetly walk out of her room naked when im right in the hallway. and to top it all off, last night, when i got home after a party and went to my room she came in their and slept in my bed with me and was like rubbing my dick until i fell asleep cuz i was drunk. anyway, so obviously she wants it, and like i said, shes super hot. shes done a lot of modeling in the past, but i dont know how id feel after cuz thats my dads girl, but at the same time, i want it. what should i do?

My wife has just told me some disturbing news about her co worker and Tuberculosis? I am worried that my wife has just told me that one of her co workers has been diagnosed with TB, apparently because it is in her lymph Gland and not Her Lungs there is nothing to worry about, she is also living with people who have 2 small children who know about it, my daughter went to a party at there house a few weeks ago, they all work in a Nursing home caring for the old, no one will say anything because the person mentioned will have to return to the Philippines if they find out, I have already told my wife that this is unacceptable but its not my business to tell on her, my wife only works there once a week, but i am deeply concerned that a) my baby could have caught something around there house and b) my wife could catch / bring it home, to top it off the person mentioned has been told to go and get medication from the GB but apparently the GB has failed to be there at any given time, my response to that was not very supportive, am i over reacting, should i seek medical advice I have expressed my opinion to my wife, she is from the Philippines, so is the co worker and so are the people the co worker lives with, they are happy to let her live with them rather than exposing her as she would be sent back home, what can i say, so my main concern is for my baby girl who went to a party at there house a few weeks ago, she has had the normal (this time of year) flu like symptoms, i agree from what i am reading that in all likely she is fine but on Monday i will be taking her to the GB for my own piece of mind, I totally don't agree with how they are handling it, they are All responsible adults and i have told my wife how irresponsible it is that a) they are working with old fragile people and b) they may be putting 2 young children at risk, some people aye... i'm not sure about the GB situation and the not being there to give the medication, that bothers me as well, perhaps its nothing or perhaps a sign it could be more than meets the eye so to speak, thanks all... Yes, i was referring to my GP, it was very late last night :) Thanks for pointing it out.

Is the world on the brink of change?...For the better, worse or same status quo with new faces? HAVANA - Now that Fidel Castro has retired, many Cubans are looking to his brother to let more people open businesses, own homes and even travel abroad. But it will probably fall to a new generation of leaders to ultimately fulfill or frustrate their dreams of prosperity. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A top opposition leader called Tuesday on President Pervez Musharraf to step aside after his ruling party conceded defeat in parliamentary elections. The vote was also a slap to Islamist parties, which lost control of a province where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have sought refuge. WASHINGTON - Barack Obama cruised past a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages. It was Obama's ninth straight victory over the past three weeks, and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner.

Please help me with parents problem!!!!? I know this is kind of long but please bear with it! Ok, so I'm about to become a senior in college and I go to college in the same town where I live. Basically, I'm not enjoying college at all because my parents are the typical Asian parents and they don't let me do any school activities or let me out to socialize either. I always get good grades in school and I am going to graduate on time with a degree in finance in one of the top 10 business schools. However, I have a lot of group projects and I usually don't get home until 11 PM to 2 AM because my groups usually meet in the evening. Everytime I get home my parents think I am out partying or hanging out with friends and they start yelling at me for it. It got to the point where my parents even followed me to one of my group projects to make sure I actually did have one which thoroughly embarrassed me. Next year, I plan to move out with one of my good friends and I already told my parents I would pay for my rent, food, furniture, and everything else that deals with the apartment and my mom wants me gone which I don't understand why because I don't drink or do drugs or anything. My mom isn't a good person either because she cheated on my dad and blamed it on me because I drive her crazy apparently. Anyways, since I want to move out my parents have been threatening to cut out my book tuition, car insurance, and even cut me off from my dad's health care insurance from work. I need help with these things because I need to work and I already calculated how much I would need and things but I still need help from my parents because I don't have enough money to cover everything. How should I go about asking for help? Do my parents really want me to starve or something? How come they are trying to make me miserable? -Emotionally Traumatized by parents

I really need help picking a Florida college/university...this is so difficult! Too many options...? Let me first start by giving you some background information on myself: - Senior - 3.7 GPA - Top 5% in class (rank 20) - 24 college credits earned in high school (AP and dual enrollment) - Undecided major, although I think business major is what I want most, specializing in entrepreneurship, since I've owned 3 of my own successful businesses since I was 16. - Have NOT visited any universities yet I applied to all of the major schools in Florida (resident), which are University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, and Florida Atlantic University. I've found out that I've been accepted to all four, and all for the 2011 Fall Term, except for University of Florida in which I was accepted for the Summer B term (starts July). Now many people have told me that I'm stupid for even considering this, but I was thinking about staying here in Palm Beach and going to Palm Beach State College (previously Palm Beach Community College). The main reason I'm even considering this is because of the financial situation I would be in...my parents are going to try to help me out with some college expenses, but the tuition and housing will most likely be my own responsibility (I think they said they'd buy my meal plan and books). I've applied for FAFSA, and I'm not sure how much I'll be getting yet, but I think it will be a good amount due to the fact its only in my dad's name, and his income for this last year was like $10,000, just because the economy is so bad and no one is building large homes (he is an estate builder). So anyways I know I'll be getting some money from that, which will help, alongside hopefully a 75% tuition scholarship from Florida Bright Futures (my SAT score was 30 points too low to get a full ride). This can be applied to either a university or the community college, along with the FAFSA money. And finally I know this isn't something I should be basing my whole decision on but it is something...I have a girlfriend here that as of now I've been dating 5 months and I really do think I'm in love with her...however she's a year behind me and if I went away to a university (besides FAU which is close to home), then I would probably have to break it off with her. Here is the list of pro's and con's for each option that I've put together: Palm Beach State College: - Get paid to go to college through FAFSA; tuition is ~$1,200 semester, FAFSA pays more than $3,000 per semester, and that's without any help from Bright Futures even! - Still could live at home (eek!), but save ~$10k total (2 years in a dorm cost) on housing expenses - Options to explore different majors and take different electives to see what I like best at a cheaper cost then doing so at a university - Save on meal plan, which would be ~8k total in a dorm for unlimited meals (which I have at home) - Ability to keep my job at Hollister during the year and lifeguard at a local waterpark during summer - Staying with my girlfriend for 2 more years, although that would mean commitment and having to get married to her or something once she graduates...which I don't want yet, too expensive! - Already earned lots of dual enrollment credits here, which I think can be transfered. Florida Atlantic University: - Close enough to home (40 mins) where I could live on-campus or at home still. - Looks better than PBSC when I transfer after a year or two - Tuition is cheaper - Almost the same pro's as PBSC University of Central Florida: - Great party school (good or bad thing?) - Not really a strong business program though - Lots of friends going there and getting apartments (cheaper housing) - Close to theme parks in Orlando - Only 3 hours from home Florida State University: - Beautiful campus! - Good business program - Awesome area with lots to do around town - Originally my first pick for college - Lots of pretty girls I've heard (; - Only con is how far away from home it is...7 hours. Which could be good or bad! University of Florida: - VERY strong business college - Ranked top among public schools - Great football team - 5 hours from home - I heard Gainesville is a boring city however? And the campus isn't that pretty? - Admitted for Summer B, not Fall term. Meaning I'd have to leave this town in July, which seems so close :/ So as you can see I've really though this through, and I'm getting lots of opinions for both sides on things. The main issue I'm having is whether to stay at home and go to PBSC (or maybe FAU), or to go off to one of the universities. Remember, money is what it comes down to, but if I have to take a student loan because it's more worth it to go to a University and get a better job/connections, then I'll do that. I don't know if going to a community college then transferring will affect getting a better job or not? Also I forgot to mention, lately my girlfriend has been lying to me and just aggrivating me on certain issues such as her future, she doesn't take very serious. She's gotten two F's so far in high school, and only has a 2.2 GPA. She has no plans for college, and I guess thinks that I will support her after she graduates. Think again. She is also only a sophomore, so I'd be stuck dating a high school chick when there's plenty of hot college girls out there (even though trust me she's gorgeous and tops most college girls anyways). I just don't like the fact I've been busting her in lies and can't trust her when she'll be in school without me.

The Amount of Clothes to Take to College? I am starting college in two weeks, I am started to get it ready and pack all of my stuff up. When my mom comes to watch me cheer at a few football games, she can bring me a few things but not alot and I probably wont be home until the end of November. I am trying to think of what all I am going to need. I have a decent size room, so I dont need to really skimp because of that. Right now I plan on taking: - 1 Thick Pea Coat - 3 Lighter Coats - 5 sweater / cardigans - 20 - 30 Going out tops - 10 dresses that can be used for parties, business events, dances - 10 - 15 bras - 30 pairs of underwear - 20 pairs of socks - 20 tanks, camis - 10 - 15 baggy tee shirts - 5 - 10 hoodies - 15 - 20 pairs of Soffee shorts - 10 - 15 pairs of sweatpants - 20 pairs of jeans - 10 pairs of jean shorts - 4 pairs of dress pants - 10 pairs of flip-flops - 2 pairs of tennis shoes - 5 pairs of flats - ugg boots, in black and brown - rain boots Is this appropriate for college? I have to be able to cover weather in the 90's in August, to possible below freezing in November, its Ohio.

Amount of Clothes to Take to College? I am starting college in two weeks, I am started to get it ready and pack all of my stuff up. When my mom comes to watch me cheer at a few football games, she can bring me a few things but not alot and I probably wont be home until the end of November. I am trying to think of what all I am going to need. I have a decent size room, so I dont need to really skimp because of that. Right now I plan on taking: - 1 Thick Pea Coat - 3 Lighter Coats - 5 sweater / cardigans - 20 - 30 Going out tops - 10 dresses that can be used for parties, business events, dances - 10 - 15 bras - 30 pairs of underwear - 20 pairs of socks - 20 tanks, camis - 10 - 15 baggy tee shirts - 5 - 10 hoodies - 15 - 20 pairs of Soffee shorts - 10 - 15 pairs of sweatpants - 20 pairs of jeans - 10 pairs of jean shorts - 4 pairs of dress pants - 10 pairs of flip-flops - 2 pairs of tennis shoes - 5 pairs of flats - ugg boots, in black and brown - rain boots Is this appropriate for college? I have to be able to cover weather in the 90's in August, to possible below freezing in November, its Ohio.

My Family Never Loved Me? On Friday May 1st me and my daughter and my daughters godfather went to my nephews birthday party. When we arrived at the birthday party Destiny wanted to play with her cousin Jacob. Jacob didn't seem too interested in playing with Destiny if anything he seemed annoyed and bothered by her. After a little while the kids went downstairs to play video games. Danny (Destinys godfather) went downstairs with them. After about 20 minutes I heard my daughter screaming and crying. Me and my sister Michelle Gerdes went downstairs to see why Destiny was crying. Danny informed me she was crying because she did not get a turn to play video games. The mother did not want her son to play the video game because it was too scary. The kids were fighting over the game controller and Destiny was getting upset that she didn't get to play the scary video game. Destiny then threw a temper tantrum I told her that she needed to go upstairs and sit on the couch for a time out. As we walked upstairs my sister was in the front of my daughter my daughter was behind her and I was behind my daughter. When we got upstairs I then retold Destiny that she needed a time out and she had to sit on the couch. My mother told me not to put her on a time out because this was a party. My daughter was still throwing a temper tantrum and I told my mother to mind her f ing business. My stepfather got mad at me and told me don't talk to your mother like that. I then told my stepfather that we were leaving because it was obvious that Jacob did not want to play with Destiny and we did not feel welcome. I then grabbed the toys r us bag of presents that I bought my nephew and started to head toward the front door to leave the house. She then slammed the door shut blocking me from leaving the house. She refused to let us leave. My sister then grabbed the toys r us bag out of my hand. I then grabbed the bag back and she started to bite my hand. I managed to get my hand out of her mouth and tried again to leave. She then lunged at me and jumped on to my back from behind making it very difficult for me to leave. She told me you are not leaving. I told her get off of me let me go I tried moving my body side to side to get her off of my back. My step father then lunged at me and we all fell to the ground on top of Destiny and my sister hitting her head on the dining room table as she went down. My step father had me in a head lock pushing my face to the ground cutting my air supply off. I could not breathe I thought I was going to die. I then looked up at my mother and told her I can't breathe he's hurting me. After a long minute and a half he let me go. I then tried to leave the house once again grabbing Destinys hand my sister then tried pulling Destinys hand away from me. My sister pulled Destiny so hard she came out of one of her shoes. I then tried pulling my daughters hand again to leave the house. My sister then grabbed one of my daughters pigtails she pulled so hard that my daughters hair scrunchee came out of her hair and that upset my daughter so much. Once we got outside it was raining and wet out. Destiny had only one shoe on at this time Danny was still stuck in the house. Then my sister yelled in Dannys face you better not leave me here with this mess. I then reached for my phone and dialed 911 at this time I was light headed, dizzy and disoriented when I was on the phone with 911. I was so weakened by this unfortunate event that we thought it was best to drive off and go home and not wait for 911. The reason why we decided to leave was because my daughter was terrified and scared of her grandpa. She told me grandpa was bad for hurting Daddy and that it wasn't nice and she was sad because she felt like she ruined the birthday party. We arrived home around 8:30pm and went to bed at 9:30pm. We were woken up at 1:30am by CPS and a police officer at our door. They told us they needed to see Destiny. They saw Destiny and told me to take off her clothes but leave her underwears on. They also asked Destiny a bunch of questions. The caseworker told me there was a report filed against me saying that I hit my daughters head with the door repeatedly it was clearly obvious that Destiny was not abused in any way she had no marks on her. I even pulled down her underwears and showed them her backside. This has been very stressful on me and my family. I've been in so much pain physically and emotionally. Early that morning I had to take Destiny to a doctors appointment for a booster shot. After my daughters doctors appointment we went to the hospital because I've been in such pain in my back and neck after what my stepfather did to me. We were in the hospital for 6 hours. When we got out of the hospital I called my house to check the answering machine there was a message from the suffolk county police department asking me to call them back. When I called them they told me my sister filed a police report against me and there was a warrant out for my arrest. I was to

Left or right. The end of politics? I have lived, as an adult, under both a Tory and Labour government and do not who to vote for at the next elections. The right. Despite Cameron re-branding, the Tory party is still the natural home of a certain type who is still stuck in 1952 when everybody knew their station in life and those at the top are there, because that’s the natural order of things. God, if you like, made things that way. They are not too fussy about money grabbing. Corruption (although they would not call it so), is still their main modus operandi in business. The left. The Labour party seems to perceive its role in government (both at local and national level), as a recruitment agency for minority groups, mainly ethnic and religious (a kind of inverted snobbism of the Tory). Endless public sector expansion acts as a hub for the formulation and promotion of identity politics and ‘access’ policies. To cover their back for the general incompetence that follows, they hire consultants (mainly Tory types who are not fussed about money grabbing) who can be blamed when things go wrong. Has politics lost the grand narratives of the past? Is it now all about minor details: and who’s got time for those? Can voting be anything other than holding your nose and choosing the lesser of two evils?

Friend annoys me with her MLM. How do I tell her to back off? I have a friend that I have known for a little over a year. I'll call her Marie. We have a great relationship however, a few months ago Marie got heavily involved with a company called NSA which sells a product called Juice Plus...Its pretty much an MLM (Multilevel Marketing).So in essence she is pushing 2 products 1.) juice plus pills and 2.) the juice plus business.Marie has been asking me if i want to join JP and each time i evaded (saying no without really saying no). Then she found out my mom was a nurse and she's been trying to pitch JP to my mother . A few nights ago, Marie called my mother trying to her to look at becoming a distributor for JP. My mom nicely told her she wasnt interested.She actually had to tell her a few times b/c even when mom said no Marie was still trying to sell to her. (My mother was also a bit shocked b/c when Marie called her, she called my mother by her first name, which she wasnt invited to do..i have no idea why she thought that was okay in any capacity). Anyway, recently I had a birthday party at my home and I invited Marie and a few of my very close friends. As soon as she got the chance she started trying to sell JP to my friends AT MY PARTY! (I was not around at the time she did it. I was busy with some of the last min. prep for the party.) I heard about it when she called me the next day, asking me for my friend's (I'll call her Jean), email address. Marie said she must have written Jean's email address down wrong or something..but i think Jean might have given her the wrong email address on purpose. So i stalled and said I dont recall Jean's email address from the top of my head... The next day, I see Marie friended Jean on facebook. and then Marie texted me this evening asking again for Jean's email address and said that she called my friend on the phone leaving a message. I called Jean and she told me that she was not interested in JP at all...which is exactly what i suspected. This whole thing is getting out of control. She is making my family and friends uncomfortable. Heck she makes me uncomfortable!!! When we go out to eat in resturaunts Marie tries to pitch JP to our waiter (she's done this 3 times) ! its annoying and embarrassing and now since she is annoying my friends and family its even more of an issue. How can I tell her to back off w/o hurting her feelings?

I've gotten accepted into all major Florida universities...but is community college a good option? I really need help picking a Florida college/university...this is so difficult! Too many options! Here's some background information on myself: - Senior - 3.7 GPA - Top 5% in class (rank 20) - 24 college credits earned in high school (AP and dual enrollment) - Undecided major, although I think business major is what I want most, specializing in entrepreneurship; I've owned 3 of my own successful businesses since I was 16 - Have NOT visited any universities yet - 75% of my tuition is paid for already via Florida Bright Futures I applied to all of the major schools in Florida (resident), which are University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, and Florida Atlantic University. I've found out that I've been accepted to all four, and all for the 2011 Fall Term, except for University of Florida in which I was accepted for the Summer B term (starts July). Now many people have told me that I'm stupid for even considering this, but I was thinking about staying here in Palm Beach and going to Palm Beach State College (previously Palm Beach Community College). The main reason I'm even considering this is because of the financial situation I would be in...my parents are going to try to help me out with some college expenses, but the housing will most likely be my own responsibility (I think they said they'd buy my meal plan and books). I've applied for FAFSA, and I'm not sure how much I'll be getting yet, but I think it will be a good amount due to the fact its only in my dad's name, and his income for this last year was like $10,000, just because the economy is so bad and no one is building large homes (he is an estate builder). So anyways I know I'll be getting some money from that, which will help, alongside hopefully a 75% tuition scholarship from Florida Bright Futures (my SAT score was 30 points too low to get a full ride). This can be applied to either a university or the community college, along with the FAFSA money. And finally I know this isn't something I should be basing my whole decision on but it is something...I have a girlfriend here that as of now I've been dating 5 months and I really do think I'm in love with her...however she's a year behind me and if I went away to a university (besides FAU which is close to home), then I would probably have to break it off with her. Here is the list of pro's and con's for each option that I've put together: Palm Beach State College: - Get paid to go to college through FAFSA; tuition is ~$1,200 semester, FAFSA pays more than $3,000 per semester, and that's without any help from Bright Futures even! - Still could live at home (eek!), but save ~$10k total (2 years in a dorm cost) on housing expenses - Options to explore different majors and take different electives to see what I like best at a cheaper cost then doing so at a university - Save on meal plan, which would be ~8k total in a dorm for unlimited meals (which I have at home) - Ability to keep my job at Hollister during the year and lifeguard at a local waterpark during summer - Staying with my girlfriend for 2 more years, although that would mean commitment and having to get married to her or something once she graduates...which I don't want yet, too expensive! - Already earned lots of dual enrollment credits here, which I think can be transfered. Florida Atlantic University: - Close enough to home (40 mins) where I could live on-campus or at home still. - Looks better than PBSC when I transfer after a year or two - Tuition is cheaper - Almost the same pro's as PBSC University of Central Florida: - Great party school (good or bad thing?) - Not really a strong business program though - Lots of friends going there and getting apartments (cheaper housing) - Close to theme parks in Orlando - Only 3 hours from home Florida State University: - Beautiful campus! - Good business program - Awesome area with lots to do around town - Originally my first pick for college - Lots of pretty girls I've heard (; - Only con is how far away from home it is...7 hours. Which could be good or bad! University of Florida: - VERY strong business college - Ranked top among public schools - Great football team - 5 hours from home - I heard Gainesville is a boring city however? And the campus isn't that pretty? - Admitted for Summer B, not Fall term. Meaning I'd have to leave this town in July, which seems so close :/ So as you can see I've really though this through, and I'm getting lots of opinions for both sides on things. The main issue I'm having is whether to stay at home and go to PBSC (or maybe FAU), or to go off to one of the universities. Remember, money is what it comes down to, but if I have to take a student loan because it's more worth it to go to a University and get a better job/connections, then I'

How can I tell if my grandpa was in the mafia? Have you known older people involved with the mafia? My grandpa is extremely kind, loving, generous, and loyal. He always teaches me life-lessons and so many amazing things. He is probably the wisest person i've ever met, but he is such a mystery to me. He never talks about his life before he met my grandma, and he is extremely quiet around people and the public. He is greek, and had to change his last name because his greek last name was too long. He's driven Cadillac's his entire life, he dresses extremely nice all the time. He wears suits all the time, but refuses to wear ties or tuxedos. His hair is always extremely nicely groomed, and he has well groomed facial hair. My grandma is the most open person i know, she tells me everything but whenever i ask about my grandpa she is really quiet about it and claims she doesn't really know about his life before they were together. My mom says that she and my uncle have always suspected he was affiliated majorly with the mafia but nobody knows. They know that my grandpa and all of his friends have owned night clubs and bars in L.A, and coincidentally all of them for some reason moved to my hometown state and lived here for the rest of their lives (I feel like they all moved to my state because they had to get out of California for some reason" And after they moved here, they all owned siding companies under a "private contracting and building supply" and the company is completely gone now, but the building they all claimed to work in is still owned by them. but its weird how still my grandpa and all his friends go down to the building and use it as a place to hang out. When my grandpa took me there when i was little, it was really weird... They were always just playing poker or watching golf or horse races on the couches drinking wine. They had a warehouse in the back and that's it. I don't get how they could always work there. Anyway, it was always weird cause my grandpa's best friend always gave me money when i saw him, even when i was like sooooo so little. Like silver and gold coins that are worth SO much more than normal silver dollars and things. My mom tells me stories that when she was a little kid, my grandma was going through a really hard financially and my grandpa "only owned the siding company" but all the sudden he was helping my grandma pay everything and even more, like they were always living the life out loud, and then all the sudden (my mom says she still remembers from when she was really little) my grandma was watching the news and my mom came into the room and my grandma said "thats to bad, well your father had 2 jobs and i guess he only has one for a little while" and my mom didn't get it cause she only knew of the siding company. My mom said that he would leave for the weekend with his friends on a trip to vegas and when he came home, he came with tons of cash, like all in bills too. She said that my grandma and grandpa had a couple huge vases in their room that was filled to the top filled with nothing but hundred-dollar bills. My grandpa and all of his friends smoke a TON whenever I see them. Like cigars and cigarettes all the time. My grandpa used to smoke at least 5 packs a day until he had a heart attack and died for 1 minute, but i guess he survived the heart attack... These are some more signs that make me think my grandpa was in the mafia: All of his friends are either italian, greek, sicilian, etc. All of their first names are like: leo, roy, frankie, daryl, nick, phil Their last names i can't all remember but i know that two of them was pervich, and tanzini They all drive really expensive classy cars especially cadillacs They all are extremely nice and love me, but they can be really quiet too. They always try to teach me about using my head when it comes to partying or business and they are always telling me never to get involved with certain things and stuff. They all look alike & act alike One time my uncle brought home a girl in highschool (she was my uncles age) and my grandpa recodnized her because she had a past of sleeping with his friend phil (that was even 5 years older than my grandpa) old, like he must had been a big shot. And my grandma and grandpa always have vip and connections when they go to las vegas, like they always have free hotel rooms at the wynn and belagio & whatnot. Are these signs of being in the mafia? What do you think? I really care about it and my grandpa doesn't have alot longer on earth. I love him to death because he's amazing, but i want to know more about him... What can i ask him that can give me some more clues? Whenever i ask him about if he was in it he just says " alot of people suspect that about me and leo and the boys, but we were never involved in it." Whats your opinion? What are signs of someone in the mafia? Pleaaaaaaase i amm dyying to know, its sooo interesting to me ;) thankkkks. well not just the mafia... do you think he was involved in shady business? or organized crime.......

What is the answer... causing DIVORCE idea's...? Wife and I, married for 20 years (this coming November) have a 19 year old daughter (20 in February). She has now gone to college twice and dropped out both times. In the last year she has dated a KNOWN druggie (who later had stole her debit card and taken $1,200 before getting caught - now running from law), 3 others, and now the new one. The new one is from a BAD family. She has become quite the party girl... and has a "worry about things later" attitude. Now, here is the problem... each time she has moved back home. NO PROBLEM. However, she will not do anything. Wife does NOT agree with a "chore list" for us all to have (we have a 12 year old too). I tried to do the chore list... and later found out that the wife was doing a lot of the 19 year olds chores. Wife also said that it was not fair to give the 19 year old MORE chores than the wife. However, 19 year old was not working-doing sleepovers-wife works 60 hrs weekly. Now, the 19 year old is back for 6 days as of now, and has stayed at the house 2 times. Staying at the boyfriends the other 5 nights. Hasn't so much as lifted a finger to do anything around the house. Wife has told her our RULE that NO-body is allowed in the house when WE are not home. But, she has repeatedly let her new boy in when we are not home. Has CALLED ONE business for a job, has a nearly $700 cell phone bill, nearly $4,000 owed to the college, and I am guessing $7,000 in loans the wife co-signed for. Also, last summer, she was living here, and had managed to save nearly $400 for school after working for 9 months. Wife had taken out a loan, in wife's name (with out my knowledge) for her school, sending food/money to daughter in school (because she refused to work) without my knowledge also. Meanwhile, 2-3 days before we were paid... we would have not ONE dollar for ourselves. I have NO problem helping out the children... after all, that is the parents JOB! But, if the child will not help themselves out... I have a problem. I also have a problem with the "overnight" stays. That is morally wrong and one of the top 10 sins! I also have a problem with her coming to our house, showering, eating, napping, then going out again. This is OUR house and you will follow by our rules. She should be out pounding the pavement for a job. ALL those student loans will be coming due soon... we do NOT have the money to pay them. But, the wife signed on them... so... Am I wrong? Please, be cruel to me if I am... Wife and I will NOT make it much longer... last summer was HORRIBLE. Sorry to say... I know that we will NOT make it through another. Can't believe wife would risk nearly 20 years of marriage for this... thanks for the replies... Jennifer, I think you hit the nail on the head... NOW, the question is, do I show her this post???

Liberals, did you KNOW this stuff about Hillary Clinton? It's surprising, isn't it? If you're a Hillary fan you won't like these. If not, hold your sides. Hillary Clinton said that her childhood dream was to be an Olympic athlete. But she was not athletic enough. She said she wanted to be an astronaut, but at the time they didn't take women. She said she wanted to go into medicine, but hospitals made her woozy. Should she be telling people this story? I mean she's basically saying she wants to be president because she can't do anything else.' --Jay Leno 'Well, the big story -- Hillary Clinton will be running for president in 2008. You know why I think she's running? I think she finally wants to see what it's like to sleep in the president's bed.' --Jay Leno 'Top Democrats have mixed feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton running for president. Apparently, some Democrats don't like the idea, while others hate it.' --Conan O'Brien 'In a fiery speech this weekend, Hillary Clinton wondered why President Bush can't find the tallest man in Afghanistan. Probably for the same reason she couldn't find the fattest intern under the desk.' --Jay Leno 'Former President Bill Clinton said that if his wife, Hillary, is elected president, he will do whatever she wants. You know Bill Clinton -- when he makes a vow to Hillary, you can take that to the bank.' --Jay Leno A student from the University of Washington has sold his soul on eBay for $400. He's a law student, so he probably doesn't need it, but still, that's not very much. Today, Hillary Clinton said, 'Hey, at least I got some furniture and a Senate seat for mine.' -Jay Leno 'Hillary Clinton said today that she wants legislation to allow all ex-felons to vote. See, this way all the Clinton's former business partners can vote for her in 2008.' --Jay Leno Hillary Clinton's 506-page memoirs have come out. So much of her personality shines through, that in the end, you, too, will want to sleep with an intern.' Craig Kilborn In Hillary Clinton's new book 'Living History,' Hillary details what it was like meeting Bill Clinton, falling in love with him, getting married, and living a passionate, wonderful life as husband and wife. Then on page two, the trouble starts.' - Jay Leno 'In the book, she says when Bill told her he was having an affair, she said 'I could hardly breathe, I was gulping for air. No, I'm sorry, that's what Monica said.' - David Letterman 'Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed. He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family.' - David Letterman 'Last night, Senator Hillary Clinton hosted her first party in her new home in Washington People said it was a lot like the parties she used to host at the White House. In fact, even the furniture was the same.' - Jay Leno 'Senator Hillary Clinton is attacking President Bush for breaking his campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions, saying a promise made, a promise broken. And then out of habit, she demanded that Bush spend the night on the couch.' - Craig Kilborn 'CNN found that Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America. Women admire her because she's strong and successful. Men admire her because she allows her husband to cheat and get away with it.' - Jay Leno 'Hillary Clinton is the junior senator from the great state of New York. When they swore her in, she used the Clinton family Bible. . . the one with only seven commandments.' -David Letterman

whats the point of getting a minor dui charge lowered? Ok so i have ran into a problem from the past, it has now been 3 years and i have been out of a job, and seems like what keeps causing my problem was in my background check for a Minor DUI offense. Due to the businesses insurance company will not allow me to get a position at the job. Now im sitting here wondering what was the point of all this work for this stupid Minor DUI charge.. here's the story now went to a beach party labeled as the D.D. we were there for nearly 4-5 hours and we were in the middle of nowhere and it was about a 20 minute walk to be able to get to just the car. So during about the 2-3rd hour i had grabbed the weakest drink we had there which was i think a Smirnoff twist beer thing "flavored crap for girls" i only drank about 1/2 of this thing and then ended up leaving it behind to talk to some random guy who i guess we woke up with all the noise. And it felt like i was talking to this guy for hours. But the night came to an end and I had to drag all of these guys back to the car and get prepared for any "messes" We started to drive off and got probably 15 miles from the scene and pulled off the freeway which then i was tagged by a police car, i was pulled over and was told it was because my cars taillights weren't very visible for some reason "they were tinted very lightly" and that the right brake light wasn't working "which it was" .. car is a 1979 Camaro with awesome upkeep Well now that the cop had gotten me he smelled all the alcohol from the 3 other passengers and asked me if I had drank at all. I explained truthfully that yes but only 1/2 a beer "in his ears he probably heard 1/2 x 4 = 2 + 3 = 5 beers hes drunk!!" But i was underage at the time "limit here for underage is 0.020" We did the sobriety test did perfect on everything besides the breathalyser which for whatever reason came up as a 0.030 "official Breathalyzer was taken almost 30-40 minutes after and still came up .028" I might also put that i didn't eat anything that whole day was basically fasting. I was then brought to jail placed there for a night. Went to court almost 4 months after the ticket because they took forever to give me a court date. Then i got my charge lowered to a Minor in Possession after doing all required items on time Alcohol / Drug Assessment within 1 Mos. Attend D.W.I. Victim Panel within 60 days Paid all Fines No convictions of any offense involving Major traffic violations No driving unless validly licensed and insured "which i am" No similar offense Alcohol and/or drug related violations criminal violations Not drive with a alcohol concentration of .02 or more w/i 2 hours of driving do not refuse to submit to a breath / blood test If all conditions of the Deferral are met the charges to be dismissed "that is what the paper says word for word" I have done it all. Paid all $885 for all the crap fees and ticket, paid another $400 for the assessment and class which even the teacher was wondering why i was even there "I use to only drink during holidays not i don't drink at all" attended the victim panel "which i felt terrible for the person" walked home from jail while it was snowing and hailing. Having to pay for the SR22 insurance, Paid to get my license back. Top it off paying it all off with money I dint have. And now have had to deal with it screwing my job life over for 3 years. It shows on my driving record as Minor=> .02-1st OFNS FEDL COURT WA DMV Minor=> .02-1st OFNS F/R ENDS : 08/25/11 my question is what is the point of even bothering deferring the charge to minor in possession when it doesn't even do anything at all? what can i do to get rid of this problem? I also want to mention that i was planning on going into the military in the past and because of this they had to close my case in order for me to join. But never made it cause I suck at life and asvab tests "my math and english is terrible" Now please lets stay away from the "oh you were drunk you deserve all of this" or "hundreds of people die from drunk drivers" i know i get it problem was i wasn't even drunk, not even buzzed, i was nothing at all just got caught with the worlds smallest amount of alcohol i have ever drank in 1 sitting. No I don't have a drinking problem, no im not a alcoholic, no there is no history of it in my family. i get it you hear this 300 times a day on TV alone i've had to deal with getting the finger pointed at me already and trust me im a smart kid I was stupid at the time, but even then i still managed to pay the nearly $3k worth of bills, which got me no where in life. Im now 21 was 18 at the time of being charged. and like i mentioned i don't even drink anymore. so lets please stick to answering the question and help me find a way to get this thing done! Thank your friends

Do you know why Obamas budget has such a huge deficit? It's the economy stupid. Like more then 5 million out of work. That is just counting those that file unemployment. What about the ones who have fallen off that list? The uncounted. How about profits across the board for corporations and businesses have gone down? How about imports have gone down. How about consumers are cutting back? How about big ticket items have gone down? What about all the foreclosures? All of that means lost tax revenue. Then there is the increase in welfare, food stamps, medical care for those without insurance. Plus, regardless if it was a dem or repug stimulus bill, it would have resulted in a huge bill, no matter what party controlled it. I don't care if you are a free marketer, that is irrelevant now. Nor do I care if you are a Bush or Obama blamer, that is irrelevant too if you honestly think about it and use your common sense. I don't care if it was McCain who got the nod, or Obama, both would have faced a huge deficit, at the very least their first two years. Just how is America going to get back to work? Just how is America going to survive and come out on top? Just how in the hell are we going to keep funding our military and wars? Tell me, what is more important, fixing Iraq and Afghanistan, or fixing our own country? Why is Obama pulling out of one war and transferring that to our new Vietnam, or Soviet Union type retreat? Where can we cut back? What would be prudent? What should we increase? Were does it all stop? Who do we blame it on? Socialism and communism? Those that blame that really have no idea what either means. Free markets? Those that believe that will fix things do not understand human greed and power. Or should the blame be put on the government? How about deregulation? What about greed and the thirst for power? Our wars? Our politicians? The people and our thirst for shopping till we drop and maxing our our credit cards? 5% down on a new home we can't afford but government and credit carpet baggers pushed on us? Suv's and big screen TV's just so we can live in a little more comfort and status? Finally: Where does the money come from? Show me the frigging money! .

I have had it with my neighbors, any suggestions? We have never had a problem in our neighborhood until this family moved in. They are loud, rude, disrespectful people who don't care what so over that they have neighbors. Most of the problem is the three daughters but I fell that the parents are just as responsible because they do nothing about it. They through disruptive party's frequently that last till early morning, then not only are we sleep deprived the next day we are stuck cleaning up the mes in our yard, like bottles plastic cups, puke. The father runs a construction business out of his home, and the equipment is kept in his drive way that is right next to out bedroom windows, so the workers show up at 6-7 in the morning talking, laughing, singing, starting up equipment. They all park their cars in front of other peoples homes, its just so aggravating. Their multiple dogs bark constantly. Finally what put me over the top, last night at 12:30 in the morning I was woken up out of a dead sleep by one of the girls standing just on the other side of the fence that is four feet away from our bedroom windows talking on her cell phone, and she wasn't talking quietly, Im a hard sleeper but her conversation woke me up. i got up stamed my bedroom window hoping she would get the hint she was disturbing poeple, nope, continued her coversation. I then got back up opened my window and said could you please take your coversation some where else thank you! she shut up for a half a second then just kept going like nothing happened. I looked up the local police stations nubmer, and just as I dialed it I heard her say her phone was about to die, so i gave it a second, her phone died and she left, but i was so pissed i couldn't go back to sleep. I am at the end of my rope, talking to them does no good, the last time our elderly heighbor on the other side of us went over and asked them to quiet their dogs the oldest daughter cussed her out and told her their F***ing dogs thats what they do and slamed the door in her face. I know for sure im not going to just deal with it and let it slide any longer. from now on at the first sign of a problem im calling the local police. What would you do?

How come so many girls I know who say they are Muslim wear low cut shirts and short skirts? Like it's non of my business I guess you can do whatever you want but it just kind of bothers me that someone would call their self a Muslim when they can't even follow simple rules like covering up your boobs and wearing skirts below the knee and covering your arms. I know it is not mandatory to wear the scarf but you should still dress like a Muslim, right? Because lately I've been meeting a lot of "Muslim" girls yet they wear low cut shirts, tank tops, skirts, tight dresses and stuff like that. Sometimes I start to question if it is allowed in Islam since so many girls do it? But probably not. Still if you can't even follow that simple rule in Islam then I'm gonna assume that you probably don't pray or fast or anything else. Which is fine with me, you can do whatever you want be any religion you want just don't say your a Muslim when you really aren't, in my opinion. Just a little pet peeve of mine. What's sad is that I went to an Islamic school from Kindergarten to 8th grade and in high school I see their pics on facebook and they all dress like non-Muslims and they have boyfriends and everything. Yet on their religion thing it says 'Muslim'. Like idc that they party or whatever it's just the calling their self Muslim part you know? And this girl I met on the internet who says shes "Muslim" says she only wears the scarf when she goes outside, but at home she takes her top off on tinychat for random boys on the internet. Wtf? And she lives in a Muslim country. Oh well I shouldn't judge because I'm not exactly the best Muslim but I still dress conservatively, and I'm not a prude. I joke about sex and I've seen a penis before and I cuss a lot. But you know I'm a good person I think and you know the whole point of Islam is to read the Qu'ran AND apply it to your life. Most Muslims don't do that. Like those 20 "MUSLIMS" on 9/11 or whatever are just Muslim by NAME because they clearly do not follow the religion of Islam. At least not correctly. Ok so there's my little rant, opinions welcome.

Who do so many "Muslim" girls dress like non-Muslims? Like it's non of my business I guess you can do whatever you want but it just kind of bothers me that someone would call their self a Muslim when they can't even follow simple rules like covering up your boobs and wearing skirts below the knee and covering your arms. I know it is not mandatory to wear the scarf but you should still dress like a Muslim, right? Because lately I've been meeting a lot of "Muslim" girls yet they wear low cut shirts, tank tops, skirts, tight dresses and stuff like that. Sometimes I start to question if it is allowed in Islam since so many girls do it? But probably not. Still if you can't even follow that simple rule in Islam then I'm gonna assume that you probably don't pray or fast or anything else. Which is fine with me, you can do whatever you want be any religion you want just don't say your a Muslim when you really aren't, in my opinion. Just a little pet peeve of mine. What's sad is that I went to an Islamic school from Kindergarten to 8th grade and I see my friends from there and now they're in high school (well they're sophmore in college now) I see their pics on facebook and they all dress like non-Muslims and they have boyfriends and everything. Yet on their religion thing it says 'Muslim'. Like idc that they party or whatever it's just the calling their self Muslim part you know? And this girl I met on the internet who says shes "Muslim" says she only wears the scarf when she goes outside, but at home she takes her top off on tinychat for random boys on the internet. Wtf? And she lives in a Muslim country. Oh well I shouldn't judge because I'm not exactly the best Muslim but I still dress conservatively, and I'm not a prude. I joke about sex and I've seen a penis before and I cuss a lot. But you know I'm a good person I think and you know the whole point of Islam is to read the Qu'ran AND apply it to your life. Most Muslims don't do that. Like those 20 "MUSLIMS" on 9/11 or whatever are just Muslim by NAME because they clearly do not follow the religion of Islam. At least not correctly. Ok so there's my little rant, opinions welcome.

Does this mean im gay/bi? Last night my parents were out at a party, and i was home alone with my two brothers aged 11 and 13. I myself am 15. Well basically during the night we was watching a movie together and it had a very errotic sex sceene in it. After watching the moving i went for a shower and went to my bed. As I entered the room and close the door, i noticed my brothers were sitting on my bed. I asked them what they wanted and they said they were bored. They went on to ask if i wanted to play truth or dare with them. I reluctantly agreed, as i assume if i played the game they would just leave me alone. After a few rounds of silly truth questions that led me to reveal i had sex with my ex girlfriend, the game moved on. I was my turn and i said ok no more truths.. so dare. My brothers looked at eachother, wishpered and smiled, they said"We dare you to take your top off" - "Oh ahah and i thought this wouldnt be challenging" i replied as i removed my top. The turns went round and we found eachother sitting there topless. It was again my turn and they said "We dare you to take your trousers off" - i thought for a moment, i have walked around in my boxers before so what was the harm. As i removed them my brothers eyes stuck in sight of the bulge in my boxers. The game went round and we eneded up all sitting there in our boxers. It came to me and they said "We dare you to take your boxers off and w4nk for us" i asked how long for and they replied"Untill we say stop" so i took my boxers off to reveil my 5" flaccid dick which i began to stroke. My 13 year old brother was next and i jokingly said "I dare you to suck me" - He laughed and said no, so i told him that he was now out of the game.. It went to my 11 year old brother. As i sat they stroking my dick i thought to myself daring him to do the same thing would just end this stupid game and they would leave* so i said " Hhaha i dare you to suck me"..... a silence i looked at my other brother " he wont do it so i guess i wi--" i looked down to see my little 11 year old brother sucking on my dick. It felt so good i didnt think about telling him to stopthen my 13 year old went down on me to. After they sucked me for a good 10 mins i was hard as i would be at 7.5" then i pulled my 13 year old brother over to me and i took his cock out. Woah was i surprised..His cock must have been around 6" flaccid bigger then mine. I put it in my mouth and it grew to a big 8" he grabbed my head and started face fucking me. As time went on my 11 year old brother started sucking my 13 year old brother and i went down to business on my 11 year old brothers dick. It become errect very quick and it was a very decent 5 inches for his age. Things excalated and we found eachother sucking and fu(king eachother after which we all cummed all over my body, and i rodered them to lick every last drop off. Now its the next morning and i feal very guilty about what happend, i have had sex with a girl before, but have recently broken up with her maybe causing me to have this emotional swing. i do not in any way find boys/men attractive. Does this make me gay or bi (i still like girls and do never intend of having a boyfriend0?? Also do i tell my parents what we did or noot , please help me

How do you feel about the story of the Grasshoper and the Ant being rewritten? September 26, 2008 12:00 AM An Old Story The Mother of All Bailouts is a rerun. By Michelle Malkin . The time is ripe for a revised 2008 edition of “The Ant and the Grasshopper:” In a meadow on a hot summer’s day, a Grasshopper was chirping and carousing his time away. He watched scornfully as an Ant nearby struggled to store up large kernels of food and build a secure nest. The Ant pulled overtime shifts to pay off his loans and accumulate retirement funds for the future. “Give it a rest,” the Grasshopper said. “Why bother saving and slaving and toiling and moiling? Let’s party!” The Ant demurred: “I am planning ahead for winter, and you should do the same.” The Grasshopper blew off the Ant, squandered his supplies the rest of the season and abandoned his home while on vacation (paid for by tapping every last cent of his home equity gain) instead of holding down a job. When winter came, the Grasshopper’s pantry was empty, and his shelter ruined from neglect. The Ant, weary from planting, harvesting, and stocking up for months, was dining comfortably in his nest. Cold, hungry, jobless, facing foreclosure and up to his two pairs of eyeballs in debt, the Grasshopper limped to the Association of Community Winged Insects for Rescue Now and demanded recourse. The office was swamped with thousands just like him. ACWIRN immediately put the Grasshopper to work registering dead ants as new voters. Funded with tax dollars from the rest of the meadow’s residents, ACWIRN organized mass protests at the Bank of Antamerica, ambushed its top officials at their private homes, harassed their children and demanded that the meadow’s politicians halt all foreclosures (“We must keep Grasshoppers in their houses!”) and outlaw discriminatory lending practices against starving, homeless Grasshoppers (“Well-stocked shelters are basic insect rights!”) The banking industry capitulated; the Orthoptera Lobby secured hundreds of millions of dollars in housing earmarks, grants and counseling subsidies to support the Grasshoppers with the shadiest credit and employment histories. Antie Mae, the meadow’s government-backed home lending giant, fueled the push for increased insect homeownership in the name of biodiversity. Its executives cooked the books and headed for the hills. Katie Cricket and the Mainstream Meadow Media joined the grievance-for-profit circus, profiling Grasshopper sob stories and drumming up ratings as bewildered Ants wondered who was looking out for them. The banks drowned in toxic debt. More Grasshoppers fell behind on their mortgage payments. Bailout mania and panic gripped the meadow. Our little Ant, minding his own business, heard a knock on his door one late winter night a year later. It was his old, sneering Grasshopper neighbor. The Grasshopper had been hired by the meadow as a tax collector. “I’m here to take your provisions,” the Grasshopper cackled. But it was the Ant who had the last laugh. “I’ve learned my lesson,” he told his shiftless friend. “Why bother saving and slaving and toiling and moiling? I’ve spent all my savings. I’m walking away from my mortgage. Thrift is for suckers,” the Ant said as he headed out the door, leaving the Grasshopper empty-handed.

America or Europe, Which does more to destroy the environment? I suggest you read up on this before you condem America for destroying the environment U.N. data show U.S. greener than EU By Jennifer Harper THE WASHINGTON TIMES February 23, 2007 Finger-pointing critics often vilify Americans as the sole cause of global warming. But the typical image of SUV-driving, energy-hogging Yankees may be bogus -- a new analysis of U.N. data reveals that U.S. efforts to reduce greenhouse gases actually beat European policies. "Despite constant criticism from environmental activists at home and across Europe claiming the U.S. government is doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new evidence suggests America's efforts are more effective than those of Europe's," according to a study by H. Sterling Burnett of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute. The United States has spent more than any other country on research and technologies to reduce emissions, Mr. Burnett wrote, and the business-led efforts are paying off. "The U.S. is doing a far better job reining in its emissions than Europe, even though it has a faster-growing economy and population," Mr. Burnett said. "Rather than signing treaties that look good on paper but do nothing to really bring about reductions, U.S. industry has taken the lead as a business matter, reducing emissions as a matter of efficiency -- saving costs and improving the bottom line." Mr. Burnett's scrutiny of data from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report released Feb. 2 revealed that the U.S. rate of growth in carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 to 2004 was eight percentage points lower than from 1995 to 2000. The original 15 nations of the European Union increased emissions by 2.3 percentage points. From 2000 to 2004, greenhouse gas emissions from the EU countries grew at nearly double the U.S. rate. During the same time period, the U.S. economy grew by almost $1.9 trillion, "the equivalent of adding Italy to the U.S. economy," Mr. Burnett wrote in the analysis, released Wednesday. The U.S. population increased by 11.3 million people, more than the population of Greece, he found. "U.S. businesses are succeeding where European bureaucracy is failing," Mr. Burnett said. "Further, efforts like the Asian-Pacific partnership will do far more than [the] Kyoto [Protocol] to have a lasting effect on greenhouse gas emissions." The Asian-Pacific partnership is a nonbinding plan to cooperate on development and transfer technologies that would enable greenhouse gas reductions. Meanwhile, Americans may not be quick to buy into the assertions of "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's documentary that is in contention for an Oscar award Sunday. Global warming is not a "top-tier" issue, according to a Pew Research survey of 1,708 adults. Respondents ranked the issue fourth from last in a 23-item list of policy priorities for the White House and Congress. Only 19 percent expressed "deep concern" about global warming. A minority -- 47 percent -- blamed it on human activity. Among conservative Republicans, the figure was 20 percent; among liberal Democrats, 71 percent. "The issue is of relatively low priority for members of both parties," the survey said. It was conducted Jan. 10 to 15, with a margin of error of three percentage points.

a joke for u star if u like!!!.? Fastest Thing! A man is walking home through a park one night after a fancy dress party. While he is walking home he feels the need to s**t so he crouches down on the grass and does his business. Just as he is finishing he sees a policeman walking towards him. He covers the s**t with his hat. When the policeman arrives he asks the man, "What have you go under there?" The man replies, "I just caught the fastest thing in the world." The policeman says, "Let me have a look." The man replies, "As I said, it's the fastest thing in the world. If I take the hat off it it will get away." The policeman tells the man, "Take the top hat off and as soon as you do I will catch it." The man replies, "OK if you insist." When the man lifts the top hat the policeman tries to grab it and gets a handful of s**t. "What's this?" he screams at the man. "I told you it was the fastest thing in the world." the man replies, "But you sure scared the s**t out of it."

I can’t believe the Richardson campaign would discriminate against a worker like that. What bigots! Can you? LAS VEGAS (AP) - One of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson's top organizers in rural Nevada resigned Thursday after the campaign learned he had worked for a brothel and was wanted on a felony arrest warrant in California. "We did not know about all of this," Richardson spokesman Josh McNeil said after the staffer's record was brought to the campaign's attention by The Associated Press. "We accepted his resignation today." Kristian Forland, the campaign's eastern Nevada field director, is being sought by Los Angeles County authorities for failure to appear on four counts of writing bad checks. Forland also was arrested twice, once last year and again last month, in his home of Elko, Nev., on a similar bad check charge out of Las Vegas. In both arrests, Forland posted bail and was released. It's not clear from court records if the case was resolved. Forland also was investigated by Elko police after women working at Mona's Ranch, a legal brothel, complained he was shorting them on their pay. An investigator described Forland as "at best a manager of the property," according to a June 2006 police report obtained by the AP. No charges were filed. Forland said the bad check charges have come out of business transactions gone bad. Forland said he has hired a lawyer who is working to resolve the California case. Forland failed to appear in Los Angeles County Municipal Court on four counts of insufficient funds in January 1999, a felony. As for the brothel, Forland said he worked for a defunct investment group that briefly ran the bordello. "I oversaw the bookkeeping only," Forland said Thursday. "I never handled cash, I didn't deal with the girls per se." Forland was listed as the resident agent and officer for Mona's Ranch LLC from September 2004 to October 2006, according to the Nevada secretary of state's office. Forland was hired this month as Democratic hopefuls competing in the state's first early caucus began turning their attention to solidly Republican rural Nevada, where Democratic organizers are a rarity. He was vice chairman of the Elko County Democratic Party before taking a leave of absence to accept the campaign job with the Richardson campaign. This disgraceful person probably went over immediately to join Hillary’s campaign. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R2DIA00&show_article=1&catnum=0

Should I let these teenagers do this? My problem with them started at this time last year with them! I was away on a business trip. When 2 of them seen a truck at my back door. They hid under my grape vines. 1 calling the Sheriff,& the other taking photos with his cell phone. This led to the arrest of the 2 intruders! Returning home I ask who they were. And stoped by there home offering thanks and a small reward. They refused the reward. 2 days later they stoped at my home and ask for a favor. They wished to use my party house, A old stone home. I ripped the floors out of and poured a concrete floor As they were termite ate,and replaced the roof on as it was shot. And 1/2 top half. screened in for my grills, and cookers, and a picnic table. Were a large porch had been. Under the circumstance's I agreed. As long as they did no damage and cleaned up there own mess. And a quick phone call to the Sheriff got curfew extended 2 hours for them. Halloween morning some of them arrived. They placed a Large Stereo,Karaoke Machine, soda in the cooler with ice,hot dogs, hamburger, in the fridge,And several large cans of beans on the table. And redecorated the Party House.And left. At 8 pm they arrived. Feindish characters, Beyond recognition, They turned the stereo up loud, cooked flaming meat,and ground animal of some sort to blackness, Consumed sweet nectar's from cans, and had smoke rising from something in a large pot. They started a fire in the fire pit in the yard and proceeded to dance and chant around it. Raising there arms skyward. To heathen tunes, Next they sang into some Machine amplifying there voices,and screech's. And let out fiendish laughs. The Sheriff stoped once. And slipped up behind a tree. But I could tell even He was afraid to approach this band of Devils. And soon left. Unobserved. I was left traped in my home! Only able to look out the back window at these Crazed going on's. Till 2 am. When they gathered and left. I will say the next afternoon they arived transformed. And cleaned up there mess. Now they have ask to do this again this year. All considered? Should I let them?

Fair way to end a two year relationship? Whose at fault? I picked her up one night she called me because there was a huge bug in her car when she got home to her house from a party. Her dad locked her out and she was standing outside of her car because of this bug so I drive 15 minutes to go get her. She sleeps over and goes through my phone off and on the rest of the night. . . We wake up the next morning and her phone is vibrating non-stop so I grab and and say who is calling you/texting you at like 8:30 in the morning?? She said no one so I get suspicious and ask her to show me. She wont. So now I have a problem because I allowed her to go through mine because I knew I had nothing bad, and now I cant even ask who has been calling her. She wont tell me. So I take her phone off the night stand and try going through it. She follows me downstairs and is yelling give me my phone back at the top of her lungs so i go into my kitchen to get away. She gets my house phone and calls the cops on me and tells them i grabbed the phone out of her hand and all this shit. So the cops come walking up and we are outside of my house and I tell them I am all upset because I had showed her my phone so Im like fuck this shit this relationship is way out of control. I have no idea who she called when she needed a ride the night before, she wont tell me who calls her, or texts (not that its my business anyway). So the cops just give her a ride home and I leave at the same time for my dentist appointment. Haven't seen her face since.It has been nearly a month. It was insane. She had no respect for me at all.

Ever heard this cute joke? A man is walking home through a park one night after a fancy dress party. While he is walking home he feels the need to s**t so he crouches down on the grass and does his business. Just as he is finishing he sees a policeman walking towards him. He covers the s**t with his hat. When the policeman arrives he asks the man, "What have you go under there?" The man replies, "I just caught the fastest thing in the world." The policeman says, "Let me have a look." The man replies, "As I said, it's the fastest thing in the world. If I take the hat off it it will get away." The policeman tells the man, "Take the top hat off and as soon as you do I will catch it." The man replies, "OK if you insist." When the man lifts the top hat the policeman tries to grab it and gets a handful of s**t. "What's this?" he screams at the man. "I told you it was the fastest thing in the world." the man replies, "But you sure scared the s**t out of it."

A fast-paced, dehumanized workplace, materialistic hedonism, widespread narcissism...? ...conspicuous consumption, profiteering, insider trading, exploitative advertising, domination of nature, planned obsolescence, and gratuitous violence... ...Do you think we're having too much fun? And should music artists like "Pink," given the circumstances, encourage us to "Get The Party Started...?" ...Should we slow down a bit, and give "Pink" a valium...? ...Or should we throw a party, and discuss this topic some more over a few hundred pitchers of blended, top-shelf Margaritas and Daquiri's while we take raunchy pictures with our cell-phone cameras while making love to strangers as we listen to the latest CD's of Gangsta' Rappers and tell each other Stock Purchase secrets on the top floor of our office building near Sak's Fifth Avenue making sure we call home to tell our spouses we're in an important business meeting and won't be home tonight because we're "really" too busy experimenting with the latest designer drugs and latex glow-in-the-dark condoms?

is this how married people should act ? poll blue or silver? Marriage (Part I) Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady, and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: 'I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want -- and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing, and card-playing when I want with my old buddies, and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?' His new bride said: 'No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night...whether you're here or not.' (DARN SHE'S GOOD!) ************************************************ Marriage (Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Wife -- Cold As Ever'!' 'Yeah?' she replies. 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Husband -- Stiff At Last'!' (HE ASKED FOR IT!) ***************************************** Marriage (Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, 'And you are no good in bed either,' and storms out of the house. After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, 'What took you so long to answer to the phone?' She says, 'I was in bed.' 'In bed this early, doing what?' 'Getting a second opinion!' (YEP, HE HAD THAT COMING, TOO!) ***************************************** Marriage (Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife,' Mother of Six' in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it IS time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, 'Shall we go home Mother of Six?' His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, 'Any time you're ready, Father of Four.' (RIGHT ON, LADY!) ***************************************** THE SILENT TREATMENT A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper,'Please wake me at 5:00 AM.' He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go to see why his wife hadn't wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, 'It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.' Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. ***************************************** God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece. x x x

*¿Event Planning Business Name?*? I am starting a home based event planning business and am having the hardest time settling on a name. I would like to special in local (fayetteville/ft bragg, nc) events that are upbeat and creative such as fundraisers, birthday parties, childrens events, small civil weddings (adding a bit of flare so even those can be special), etc. I do not plan on getting into large weddings but I would like the name to be professional enough that ten yrs from now, when I'm planning upscale and business events...it is still appropriate. I am looking for something creative, fun, and modern while still maintaining a since of professionalism. My name is alicia (ali) and my last name starts with b (great for being @top of yellowbook listings). I also don't care for anything too "flowery" such as magestic, cherish, wonderful...or anything to generic such as events, planners, organizer. If you have a catchy slogan that'd be great as well! Thanks a bunch in advance :)

The 5 Parts of Marriage (star if you can handle it...lol)? Typical macho man married and a typical good-looking lady and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: Man: "I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?" "His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night................whether you're here or not." "(DAMM SHE'S GOOD!) "Marriage (Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever " "Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Husband - Stiff At Last" (HE ASKED FOR IT!) Marriage (Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you are no good in bed either," and storms out of the house. After sometime, he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, "what took you so long to answer the phone?" She says, "I was in bed." "In bed this early, doing what?" "Getting a second opinion!" (YEP, HE HAD THAT ONE COMING, TOO!) Marriage (Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife, "Mother of Six" in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of Six?' His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready, Father of Four." RIGHT ON, LADY!) Marriage (Part V) The Silent Treatment A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM Wake up." Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

is your marriage anything like these? Marriage (Part I) Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: "I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?" His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night ..whether you're here or not." (DAMN SHE'S GOOD!) ************************************ Marriage (Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever " "Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Husband - Stiff At Last" (HE ASKED FOR IT!) ****************************** Marriage (Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you are no good in bed either," and storms out of the house. After some time, he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, "What took you so long to answer the phone?" She says, "I was in bed." "In bed this early, doing what?" "Getting a second opinion!" (YEP, HE HAD THAT ONE COMING, TOO!) ****************************************** Marriage (Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife, "Mother of Six" in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of Six?' His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready, Father of Four." (RIGHT ON, LADY!) ************************************** Marriage (Part V) The Silent Treatment A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 am for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 am" He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM Wake up." Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. ************************************** God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

I threatened my neighbor with a knife then slapped her and threw her into a wall? Should I worry? Hey so I am 14 years old and my name is Courtney. I live in this huge house and my neighbors name is Denise and she is black, divorced, and she is a business woman but she complains so much! I was in my living room was once doing palates to Single Ladies, fairly quietly and she came banging on my door and told me to shut up. My parents were out in the backyard bbq'ing when this happened... Also once she was being a b!ttch to my mom and my mom slapped her and told her to get out. And I have been staying home alone the past 3 days because my parents are on a business trip. I wanted to throw a party so I asked my parents and they said yes, but an adult MUST supervise. So I asked my aunts 20 year old boyfriend (he is so awesome) to watch the party and he said yes. The party ended maybe 2 hours ago. My aunts boyfriend was in the basement watching a lot of the guys making sure they dont f around, and I was upstairs. The music wasn't that loud, and yeah people were talking and screaming but it wasn't that loud at all. Then Denise (my neighbour) fully walks into my house without asking, and she was NOT INVITED TO THE PARTY! I also had a slice of pizza on the counter which I was going to eat and she walked past it and threw it on the floor! I told her to get out or I am calling the police. She said not until some people leave and the music is turned down. I was like, if she doesn't leave, I will turn the music up and get everyone to be louder. She said she will call the police and I told her go ahead, its really early and its not even that loud. Then I turned the music on super loud and I lifted my top up (I had a bra underneath, I was JOKING!) and everyone was like WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO really loud and Denise got angry. Then I was at the side of the house eating and Denise came and argued with me. Also my bra strap was sticking out from the side of my top... no biggie right? Well me and Denise kept arguing (she is 30 years older than me!) and she told me she is gonna call the cops. Then she grabbed my bra strap and pulled it and let go and it hit my skiN! WTF that is assault! I slapped her face so hard and grabbed her and threw her into the wall and went inside and slammed the door. Should I wrry? THX xoxoxox PS I FORGOT TO MENTION... When I went outside with her, I took a knife with me and I touched her face and boobs with it and she knocked it out of my hand and then took it with her.

can u comment on Kamal Karna Roy@political themes & religions@tools to refurbish equity/ustice@politics?OK?kr? 1.6. 2011: HomeWorldIndiaSingaporeMoviesMusicSportsActorsTop BuzzHome » Kamal Karna Roy » Question & Answers ProfileImagesNewsBlogsVideosQ & AKamal Karna Roy Question and Answers Q Open Question: CONTROVERSY@B OBAMA@SEMI_REBUILT BIRTH REC BE@ ISSUE IN USA/GLOBE@YRS:see web:search woRDS:KAMAL KARNA ROY?o k?A 1.6.2011: Cross who has supposedly died? 0 Stars In Other - News & Events - Asked by pattycake - 1 answer - 8 minutes ago Birds, fish, Ok, so what's this now too? 0 Stars In Other - News & Events - Asked by AlwaysWondering - 0 answers - 32 minutes ago In Europe the war began with Hitlers attack on Poland in 1939....why? 0 Stars In Other - News & Events - Asked by Kristine - 3 answers - 1 hour ago Biva Member . dictatorial or venture democracy , a close pattern that of USA : Dr the rev kamal karna karuna roy aka joseph g Leader is grown@family,society ... - Google Kr How Do I Sign Up For My Free Obamacare? - dental health ... : Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:48:13 GMT IN U S MAJOR 2 PARTIES (DEMOCRATS & GOP,R DEFACTO POLITICAL SYSTEMS SUPPORTED BY NEWS MEDIA , GOVT & OHER AUTORITIES ARE VIOLATIVE OF U S CONSTITUTION, VOID TO FREE ELECTIONS AS CANDIDATES R DUMPED IN BOLLOT TO WIN FOR LOSE THE SEAT OF ELECTION. ... PL SEE WEB PAGES OF kAMAL KARNA ROY, ET AL ; GRASS ROOT AMERICA IS IN DANGER ,bUT IT DID NOT TURN 100% IRRELEVANT BUT IN NEED OF QUICK AMENDMENT ,SAID THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA ROY AKA/ &WAS BORN AS JOSEPH GERONIMO JR @GUAM, ... - Health Answer Open Question: WHY DR Kamal K Roy USRev Filed@US CIV. Complaints ... : Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:41:24 GMT 2009, OF THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA ROY ETAL .OBAMA & AFORESAID ROY DID NOT RESIGN HOPE OF US PRES,NOW OBAMA IS ON DEFAULT US PRES. & DR ROY IS ON DEMAND AND he is READY FOR the JOB OF US PRESIDENCY EFFECTIVE AS ON 1 .20. 2009. ... - Cheap Concert Tickets Now Complnt/writ@ussc/usdc@many Jurisdictions Prorata Claim ... : Wed, 05 Jan 2011 02:36:59 GMT Text-only versionThese search terms are highlighted: kamal roy miller palin These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: karna senator elect alaska. Home World India Singapore Movies Music Sports Actors Top Buzz Home » News ... - Free Movies Leader Is Grown@family,society Base & School.leader May Be ... : Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:12:07 GMT Home > All Categories > News & Events > Other – News & Events > Your Open Question Your question is open for business. Earn more points by answering questions. Can you answer these? Merry Christmas and happy 2011 from ITALY! ... The rev dr kamal karna roy aka & was born as joseph geronimo jr @ guam,us loves usa,all nations/people:love:kr? This is Google's cache of http://en.cyclopio.com/Kamal%20Karna%20R oy. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 13, ... - Google Kr Open Question: Dr kamal k roy usa politician v us systems of ... : Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:40:27 GMT Text-only versionThese search terms are highlighted: kamal roy miller palin These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: karna senator elect alaska Home World India Singapore Movies Music Sports Actors Top Buzz Home » News ... - Zebite.com Open Question: ASSOCIATED PRESS , GANNET NEWS, REUTERS NEWS,etal ... : Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:40:34 GMT PL SEE WEB PAGES OF kAMAL KARNA ROY, ET AL ; GRASS ROOT AMERICA IS IN DANGER ,bUT IT DID NOT TURN 100% IRRELEVANT BUT IN NEED OF QUICK AMENDMENT ,SAID THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA ROY AKA/ &WAS BORN AS JOSEPH GERONIMO JR @GUAM, ... - Zebite.com Open Question: the rev dr kamal karna karuna roy aka joseph ... : Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:17:15 GMT 0 Stars In Current Events - Asked by freetudu - 3 answers - 31 minutes ago Concert W:LOVE DEMOCRACY& LOVE Member since: 22 February 2010 Total points: 1 (Level 1) Your Open QuestionShow me another » The rev dr kamal karna roy aka & was ... - This Only Open Question: the rev dr kamal karna karuna roy aka joseph ... : Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:20:25 GMT ... by stategic powerful block in democracy in US republic including the news media and news conglomerates. see court actions pending in the main article of Dr kamal Karna Roy.strategist of god/s , religions, people, et al, activist ... :1.6. 2011: see web pages wth words:kamal k roy:Intervening 3ptyappellant ?UsdcAKcv:Miller v Lt gov Alaska etal?

My step dad is RUINING my life, what should I do!? My step dad is a big JERK! Last week he wouldn't let me wear a skirt to a party, and then he said I was acting like a tramp when he found vodka in my purse! Once he interrupted my BF and I in the hot tub and made him go home just because I took my top off! He is always telling my mom I smell like cigarette smoke and that I came home past curfew! Just because he doesn't have any kids and married my mom does NOT mean we are insta-family. How do I get him to mind his own business!?

Did you know there were several parts to a marriage? Marriage ( Part I ) Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady, and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: 'I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want -- and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing, and card-playing when I want with my old buddies, and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?' His new bride said: 'No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night...whether you're here or not.' (DARN SHE'S GOOD!) ************************************************ Marriage ( Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Wife -- Cold As Ever'!' 'Yeah?' she replies. 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Husband -- Stiff At Last'!' (HE ASKED FOR IT!) ***************************************** Marriage ( Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, 'And you are no good in bed either,' and storms out of the house. After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, 'What took you so long to answer to the phone?' She says, 'I was in bed.' 'In bed this early, doing what?' 'Getting a second opinion!' (YEP, HE HAD THAT COMING, TOO!) ***************************************** Marriage ( Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife,' Mother of Six' in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it IS time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, 'Shall we go home Mother of Six?' His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, 'Any time you're ready, Father of Four...' (RIGHT ON, LADY!) ***************************************** THE SILENT TREATMENT A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper,'Please wake me at 5:00 AM.' He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go to see why his wife hadn't wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, 'It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.' Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. ***************************************** God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece. (Sorry a bit long but worth the read ,, read it or now but its funny)

Sorry guys no offense intended, whats your opinion on these marriage relationships? Marriage Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady, and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: 'I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want -- and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing, and card-playing when I want with my old buddies, and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?' His new bride said: 'No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night...whether you're here or not.' (DARN SHE'S GOOD!) ************************************************ Marriage (Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Wife -- Cold As Ever'!' 'Yeah?' she replies. 'When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Husband -- Stiff At Last'!' (HE ASKED FOR IT!) ***************************************** Marriage (Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, 'And you are no good in bed either,' and storms out of the house. After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, 'What took you so long to answer to the phone?' She says, 'I was in bed.' 'In bed this early, doing what?' 'Getting a second opinion!' (YEP, HE HAD THAT COMING, TOO!) ****************************************** Marriage (Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife,' Mother of Six' in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it IS time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, 'Shall we go home Mother of Six?' His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, 'Any time you're ready, Father of Four.' (RIGHT ON, LADY!) ***************************************** THE SILENT TREATMENT A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper,'Please wake me at 5:00 AM.' He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go to see why his wife hadn't wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said , 'It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.' Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. ***************************************** God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

This girl's dad beat her up and I saw but she won' t let me tell the police ... what should I do? So hey I am 14. My parents are on a business trip so I am staying home alone. I was talking to this girl named Jane on the phone. I don't like Jane at all, and I was only talking to her because we were making arrangments for this party. Then I heard someone like yank her and scream out you fucknbitch. Then some man came on the line, screamed BYE and hung up. I was worried and eventhough I dont like her I grabbed my purse and ran to her house. I peeked through the living room window and saw Jane's dad HITTING HER! Jane got up and screamed at him and slapped him and he threw her against a wall and hit her. OK THIS PART IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GROSS ... She was wearing this white tank top and jeans. He was wearing boxers and a tshirt. He grabbed her, and he was like tiittt fuckinng her with her clothes on! Like they were both wearing clothes, but he was rubbing his dickkkkk on her booooooobs and grabbing her by the hair! I took pictures and ran. I saw her at McDonalds with her friends this morning and she looked really happy! I went into the bathroom and sent her a text mesasge telling her to come to the bathroom Then I told her I saw everything and she begged me not to tell the police, and she said her dad only beats her when he is drunk. And usually she fights back but last time she was loosing to him so she didnt. Then I flat out asked her if he ever raped her. She didn't say anything. She left. I am really worried! I think I will anonomisly tell the police. What should I do?

Marriage Couples? Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: "I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card playing when I want with my old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?" His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night ... whether you're here or not." (WOW SHE'S GOOD!) Marriage - Part 2 Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day o! f their 40th wedding anniversary. The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever " "Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads: "Here Lies My Husband Stiff At Last" (HE ASKED FOR IT!) Marriage - Part 3 Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you are no good in bed either, and storms out of the house. After sometime, he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, "what took you so long to answer the phone?" She says, "I was in bed." "In bed this early, doing what?" "Getting a second opinion!" (YEP, HE HAD THAT ONE COMING, TOO!) Marriage - Part 4 A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife, "Mother of "Six" in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of Six?'! His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready, Father of Four." (RIGHT ON, LADY!) Marriage - Part 5 [The Silent Treatment] A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper: "Please wake me at 5:00 AM." He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said: "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up." (Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests) Marriage - Part 6 (The Man of the House) The ! husband had just finished reading the book "Man of the House." He stormed into the house and walked directly up to his wife. Pointing a finger in her face, he said, "from now on, I want you to know that I am the man of this house, and my word is law! I want you to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I'm finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert. Then you're going to draw me a bath so I can relax. And when I'm finished with my bath, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?' His wife replied, "the funeral director?" SEND THIS TO SMART WOMEN WHO NEED A LAUGH AND TO MEN YOU THINK CAN HANDLE IT. Thanks for all the compliments comming in. I was afraid it was too long. Thanks again!!! : - ) <3

Who helps more people into the middle class, the left or right? The left has promoted access to the middle class through promoting public education including higher education, home ownership through things like the GI Bill, and unionization so people could make a decent living at their jobs. Until recently, I would have said the right's work your ass off and maybe start your own business worked about as well or complemented the other approach, but with the outsourcing of jobs, stripping workers of health care and pensions, and allowing monopolies to crush mom & pop start ups, and government subsidies and no bid contracts to some favored cronies, I'm not sure if people at the top of the GOP care about access to the middle class at all. I know a lot of Democrats support similar economic policies to the GOP, so this is more about the ideas than parties.

Is this a good story? In school we are writing short stories, (5th grade) and I am almost done. Do you think this is a good idea? I am going to give you a description of the story- Darcy Tilver is a famous singer. She is 16, and is on world tour. Her 11 year old sister is a big fan. They are going to the next country for her tour, and on the plane it is crazy, like there funny, little 4 year old sister Juliana, who keeps on flickering the lights and annoying a teenager, a sleeping guy, a girl who hates Darcy and much more. But when they get off the plane, the pilot tells everyone except the Tilver family to get off the plane. The pilot is stranding them! The pilot flies away, leaving the Tilver's alone and stranded. Trying to keep alive, which they are pretty good at, things get crazy. Darcy teaches Juliana how to swim, yet she is horrible. And the oldest kid of the family, Michael, has an idea- since they still have their suitcases, to go on the lap top, and do live chat to tell them to get a search party! So Darcie gets her wonderful lap top, and finds the internet not working, but her web chat program working! Her opening act, Carly Quirtenson, who went on a different plane was on! Darcy was talking to Carly, yet Carly refused to put on a search party, because the fans were loving Carly more without Darcy, and Carly loved the spotlight. So, Darcy and her family are still stranded. Late at night, just before Darcy was about to go to bed, Juliana was still up! Juliana said some suspicious things like "You have to teach me how to swim because I am not going to be here tommorrow. Darcy asked why, and Juliana said nervously "None of your business!" Darcy ended up teaching her to swim, and Juliana was good! NEXT MORNING- They were looking for food, and they found some. While eating breakfast, they noticed something was missing, it was Juliana! They spotted a note, and it was from Juliana saying things like " I left because I am a good swimmer, and I am going to get back home! Come with me!", but obviously, they could'nt because it was a huge ocean. They were all so upset, because most likely Juliana will have drowned! 1 WEEK LATER- Darcy was talking to Carly again on web chat, and Darcy said " Oh, I really don't care about my fans, it is all an act, I just do it for fame and fortune!" When she said that, Crystal heard and got really upset. Crystal looked at a photo album with Darcy in it, like her journey from american idol (that is how she became famous) and stuff like that. Darcy later found her, and apoligized and told her that she really does like her fans, she just wanted to get Carly to help us get back home, because she was being like Carly, but it did'nt work. Crystal forgived her..... and the story goes on. So you get the point right? So is it good, and what is a good title?

Am I being inappropriate? Okay so here's a little information: I'm sixteen and my girlfriend just turned seventeen. We're teens, is the bit to take from that. I'd willingly tell you that I love this girl with all my heart and hope to continue that course for some time. And we've been dating over a year. We're both very down-to-earth people. We live about twenty minutes apart and at the time of these stories, neither of us drove so we relied on our parents to get us to each other. Possibly most important is that we are both virgins. To this day. My mother has a way of learning about every little thing I do for her. From the slightest expense to the biggest gift, it comes to her somehow. All events are past, since now I know her limits for me... Before I continue, I must voice my opinion here. I personally believe my mother lives in another time where teenagers behave very differently from behaviour now. So the first bit happened on the 2008-2009 new year. I was having an incredibly difficult time getting home after her friend's new years party. Her mom had been drinking a bit, cast her out of the driving scheme. My dad hadn't been drinking but he was ready to hit the floor at about eleven. So I proposed that I just spent the night at her house. Now before passing judgment, the criteria are drastically different from how they sound. First: Her mother and brother are extremely protective, she is the youngest in her family. Second: I would NOT have been and out of respect would not have asked to be sleeping in her bed. Naturally. The way the layout of the house was, I would sleep in a bed upstairs. I had NO intention of doing so, but in order to sneak into her room, I would have to get past her mom, a light sleeper, and her brother, who may not have been asleep at all, and is also rather light. So nothing bad could have gone down. But both of my parents insisted it was inappropriate and dad took me home at one in the morning and drove nearly as bad as drunk with his tiredness. And is it inappropriate today for a boy to spend time with his girlfriend in her room? Vice versa? We spend a lot of time in each others rooms, door always open and her rather protective brother just down the hallway. No funny business. But mom insists I'm being inappropriate and disrespectful It could just be my own skewed view of everything. I'm just a kid, after all. And I love to sound like a typical teenager, so I'll go ahead and say that many of my friends do the same if not far "worse" with their girlfriends of much less time and commitment. I'd prefer mature, well-thought out answers to help me with this. I'm very careful with whom I would share this with, but none of my close friends can give me a straight answer. So here I am. The ultimate question is the same bold one up top: Is that inappropriate? Thanks for taking the time to read and respond, it means more to me than you could know.

One twin is jealous of the other...What should I do? Okay I am a single mother of twin boys Joshua and Daren who are 12 yr old, well the thing is Joshua (who looks 15) is a lot more mature physically, mentally and socially than Daren is and Daren is hurt and jealous that josh doesn't spend any voluntary time with him. It all started when they were six, they were in separate classes and Daren was very hurt that Josh had new friends, well Josh got invited to a party and Daren wasn't. I sat down with them and chatted about it Josh was so excited but Daren was mad and jealous, he insisted that it was not fair and that Josh shouldn't get to go, Josh yelled I'M Going and Daren hit him well of course I spanked Daren and told him that he was not the boss of Josh and that Josh was indeed going, he cried, kicked and screamed but I stayed consistent and I let Josh go Daren never got any invites anywhere and Josh kept getting them ever since then Daren has been jealous of Josh and hurt that they were not as close anymore. Now fast forward to the current time. You see now it is worse, Josh is popular, Daren only has one on and off friend that is rude, and Josh is athletic and has all A's, Daren has bad grades. Now for a long time they were sharing a room until a week ago, you see I have a 2 bedroom house with 2 and a half bathrooms and a room meant to be a den (with a regular room door and a full bathroom) was used as my clutter room it is the biggest room in the house, well last month Daren was at my parents house I let him go somewhere because Josh goes places without him all the time, I was shopping and Josh was Home. Well while I was gone Josh decided to clean the clutter room he took old boxes out of the garage and put all of my important papers in them, then he put everything that was ripped or broken including two old desks that were in bad shape and put them on the side of the road, he then vacumed the room and dusted and then when I got home he showed me what he had done. I inspected everything and he then asked me could he move into the room and make it his, I said yes because he did the work that no one else would do and began to help him move his bedroom furniture into the room. Well when Daren came home I filled him in, but instead of being happy that he had his own room he was more mad and jealous that Josh was getting the big room instead of himself (Daren is older) Josh just walked out and went in his New room, I told Daren that although he is older Josh did the work and I was not going to let Daren benifit from Josh's effort, he was mad and just yelled but I sent him to his room. another thing is that Josh and his group of 6 best friends including the boy who invited him to his bday party when they were six, have this lawn mowing business, they mow lawns in upscale neighborhoods for a much lower price than pros would charge, well on top of his allowance of 15 dollars a week he earns about 200 bucks a month on cutting grass, so he has a lot more money than Daren, and unlike Daren pays for most of his own things such as Ipods, cell phone bill, PS3 and even a laptop, Daren does not have a laptop because I can't afford one. One last thing Josh and his group of 6 BFs have this thing where every other weekend they spend the night at each others houses well when it is Josh's turn to host they used to go into the living room but now they go in to Josh's room and leaves Daren by his self, I was going to confront Josh about that but then I realized that Josh is his own person and he shouldn't have to pay for his brothers lack in social skills, but I did tell him that he should set aside some special time for his brother who wants to be with him, but most of the time he just ignores him and leaves him by his self, which makes him feel horrible. What should I do, I don't want to punish Josh for being popular and being an individual or for being good at what he does, but I don't want to continue to let Daren's feelings get hurt over and over again. giving daren more things is not an option nor is making Josh take him everywhere with him, any other suggestions?

Do you think this is good enough to get published? I really want the truth even if it's harsh I'll give you a little sample: It was a perfect summer day. Natalie Davis was getting ready for her birthday party. She was clearing a spot on the table for the cake, but she had no idea that her life was about to be changed forever. Ding Dong “Mom, Sarah’s here!” Natalie yelled. She brushed her brown hair out of her face as she raced to the door. She was excited to get her birthday party started; she’d been waiting all last night and this morning. “Hi Natalie, how old are you today?” Sarah was holding a big box wrapped in birthday wrapping paper with a huge bow on top. “I’m thirteen today silly.” “Oh.” Sarah said with embarrassment. Sarah also had brown hair, it was much shorter then Natalie’s. She had very pretty green eyes that most people complimented her on. “Okay, let’s get this party started!” exclaimed Natalie’s mom as she put the birthday cake on the table. Natalie’s mom was a successful business woman. She was in advertising. Every other month her job carried her out of town on business, although she always tried her best to be home with Natalie. “Natalie, your father is on his way home with a big birthday surprise.” BAM The front door swung open slamming against the wall with such force, that the family portrait hanging on the wall came crashing to the floor, shattering glass everywhere. Everyone turned to see what interrupted the fun. Two uninvited men appeared. Both men had an earpiece, and were wearing black suits with ties, and dark sunglasses. They charged at them, one at Natalie and the other at Natalie’s mom and Sarah. As one of the men grabbed Natalie, she tried to fight back, kicking and screaming, but it was no use. As Natalie screamed for her mom, she saw that she was struggling to break free from the grips of her attacker. In her mom’s attempt to break free, she bit his arm with such intensity that the man’s initial reaction was to throw her to the cold tiled floor. As Natalie was being stripped from the comfort of her home, she could see her mother’s limp body lying on the floor with blood oozing from her mouth. The man, who took Natalie out of the house, put his hand over her mouth as he dragged her to a small car. He threw her into the back seat where another man was waiting, and slammed the door behind her. She tried to open the door, but it was already locked. Natalie was hysterical. “What do you want with me? Let me go! What did you do with Sara?” She threw herself into the door trying to get it open. The man next to her, grabbed her, turned her to face him, yelling at her to shut up. As soon as the first man got in the car, the driver ripped Natalie from life as she knew it. Although, most people would be terrified, for some reason, Natalie wasn’t. However, she knew she had to escape. Reaching for the door handle, she envisioned the taste of freedom as she yanked endlessly at it. As her vision grew deeper, she could feel the pain of hot needles tearing through her skin as her body hit the asphalt and rolled. She was sucked back to reality by the deep voice next to her saying, “Natalie, don’t fight it.” Then she realized that the pain she felt earlier was actually a needle sending a sedative through her veins.

THE KAMAL KARNA: A MODERN STORY OF REALITY? Hi, Lolita Profile Contacts Account Info You are signed in as: lolita_johnson@ym...Sign OutHelpYahoo!MailMy Yahoo!NewsFinanceSportsSearch Web Search Ask Answer Discover Search for questions: Advanced Search My Profile Home > Ask Your Question 3 Preview your question Preview your question Lolita J:love democracy Your Question THE REV KAMAL KARNA:WHO? 11.22. 2009 Hi, Lolita Profile Contacts Account Info You are signed in as: lolita_johnson@ym...Sign OutHelpYahoo!MailMy Yahoo!NewsFinanceSportsSearch Web Search Ask Answer Discover Search for questions: Advanced Search My Profile Home > Ask Your Question 3 Preview your question Preview your question Lolita J:love democracy Your Question THE KAMAL KARNA ROY, WHO? Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics World NewsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AK jOE GERONIMO JRA TRUE:STORYus Posted in the World News Forum Ads by Google Latest Newspaper - Find The Latest News On Any Topic, Free! Try it now. www.google.com/News Call Home To Bangladesh - Only 3.2¢/min from your cell phone Try First Call Free! www.Rebtel.com/Bangladesh Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics Top StoriesNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AKA jOSEPH GERONIMO JR:STORYus Posted in the Top Stories Forum Ads by Google Theraflu ®- Find Out Which Theraflu ® Treatment Is Right For You. www.TheraFlu.com The Ford Story - Visit The Ford Story to Learn how we are Doing Business Differently. TheFordStory.com Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics US PoliticsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments part of state of union in republic of usa @ weak? not bright:roy Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google Websites for Republicans - Sites for Republican Campaigns Fundraise, Network, Blog and More! www.NetBoots.net Sarah Palin’s Book Free - Get Going Rogue -- Incredible Offer. Go Here Now www.newsmax.com Stimulate the Economy - Not the Government Sign the Petition www.FreeStrongAmerica.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 2 of2 Lolita johnson Albany, NY Reply » |Report Abuse |Judge it!|#1 9 min ago the rev dr kamal karna roy et al vs b h obama ,usa et al www. IN TRICK @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us another » KAMAL KARNA ROY CANDIDATE GOP US 2008 MAY INFLUENCE US PRESIDENCY THOUGH HUMAN_GODS IN MAJOR PARTIES DENY IT? Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago IN TRICKS TO ACQUIRE LEADERSHIP AND POWER , SOME @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google McDonnell for Governor - Bob 4 Jobs Contribute Now! www.BobMcDonnell.com Lowering NYS Taxes - NYS Responsible Government Spending Vote to Cut Your NYS Property Taxes www.newyorkersforgrowth.com The Usual Suspects - SF politics, elections, and news - red meat for political junkies www.sfusualsuspects.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 roop k roy activist Join the community Saranac Lake, NY 1 min ago kamal roy@us nov08 hopeful pres.:263usdc cv suit pendShow me another » KAMAL KARNA ROY CANDIDATE GOP US 2008 MAY INFLUENCE US PRESIDENCY THOUGH HUMAN_GODS IN MAJOR PARTIES DENY IT? 8.15. 2OO8 NEWS WORLD WIDE SEE WEB WITH SEARCH OF WORDS " KAMAL KARNA ROY " & " FEDERAL JUSTIA DOCKET " WITH PLAINTIFF / PARTY 'ROY' 1 hour ago Category News & Events > Current Events Asking costs you 5 points. You can ask 4 questions today. Make sure your question follows the community guidelines. Share your updates withUpdates You can now share your activity

THE KAMAL KARNA ROY, WHO? Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics World NewsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AK jOE GERONIMO JRA TRUE:STORYus Posted in the World News Forum Ads by Google Latest Newspaper - Find The Latest News On Any Topic, Free! Try it now. www.google.com/News Call Home To Bangladesh - Only 3.2¢/min from your cell phone Try First Call Free! www.Rebtel.com/Bangladesh Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics Top StoriesNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AKA jOSEPH GERONIMO JR:STORYus Posted in the Top Stories Forum Ads by Google Theraflu ®- Find Out Which Theraflu ® Treatment Is Right For You. www.TheraFlu.com The Ford Story - Visit The Ford Story to Learn how we are Doing Business Differently. TheFordStory.com Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics US PoliticsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments part of state of union in republic of usa @ weak? not bright:roy Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google Websites for Republicans - Sites for Republican Campaigns Fundraise, Network, Blog and More! www.NetBoots.net Sarah Palin’s Book Free - Get Going Rogue -- Incredible Offer. Go Here Now www.newsmax.com Stimulate the Economy - Not the Government Sign the Petition www.FreeStrongAmerica.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 2 of2 Lolita johnson Albany, NY Reply » |Report Abuse |Judge it!|#1 9 min ago the rev dr kamal karna roy et al vs b h obama ,usa et al www. IN TRICK @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us another » KAMAL KARNA ROY CANDIDATE GOP US 2008 MAY INFLUENCE US PRESIDENCY THOUGH HUMAN_GODS IN MAJOR PARTIES DENY IT? Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago IN TRICKS TO ACQUIRE LEADERSHIP AND POWER , SOME @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google McDonnell for Governor - Bob 4 Jobs Contribute Now! www.BobMcDonnell.com Lowering NYS Taxes - NYS Responsible Government Spending Vote to Cut Your NYS Property Taxes www.newyorkersforgrowth.com The Usual Suspects - SF politics, elections, and news - red meat for political junkies www.sfusualsuspects.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 roop k roy activist Join the community Saranac Lake, NY 1 min ago kamal roy@us nov08 hopeful pres.:263usdc cv suit pendShow me another » KAMAL KARNA ROY CANDIDATE GOP US 2008 MAY INFLUENCE US PRESIDENCY THOUGH HUMAN_GODS IN MAJOR PARTIES DENY IT? 8.15. 2OO8 NEWS WORLD WIDE SEE WEB WITH SEARCH OF WORDS " KAMAL KARNA ROY " & " FEDERAL JUSTIA DOCKET " WITH PLAINTIFF / PARTY 'ROY' 1 hour ago

are u aware of socio political actions of kamal karna roy/ j g jr , 2008 pres.candidate yet hopeful@ct action? 11.22.2009: :STORYus Posted in the Top Stories Forum Ads by Google Theraflu ®- Find Out Which Theraflu ® Treatment Is Right For You. www.TheraFlu.com The Ford Story - Visit The Ford Story to Learn how we are Doing Business Differently. TheFordStory.com Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics US PoliticsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments part of state of union in republic of usa @ weak? not bright:roy Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google Websites for Republicans - Sites for Republican Campaigns Fundraise, Network, Blog and More! www.NetBoots.net Sarah Palin's Book Free - Get Going Rogue -- Incredible Offer. Go Here Now www.newsmax.com Stimulate the Economy - Not the Government Sign the Petition www.FreeStrongAmerica.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 2 of2 Lolita johnson Albany, NY Reply » |Report Abuse |Judge it!|#1 9 min ago the rev dr kamal karna roy et al vs b h obama ,usa et al www. IN TRICK @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us another » KAMAL KARNA ROY CANDIDATE GOP US 2008 MAY INFLUENCE US PRESIDENCY THOUGH HUMAN_GODS IN MAJOR PARTIES DENY IT? Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago IN TRICKS TO ACQUIRE LEADERSHIP AND POWER , SOME @POLITICAL LEADERS/ BUREAUCRAT LAWS FAILED@us Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google McDonnell for Governor - Bob 4 Jobs Contribute Now! www.BobMcDonnell.com Lowering NYS Taxes - NYS Responsible Government Spending Vote to Cut Your NYS Property Taxes www.newyorkersforgrowth.com The Usual Suspects - SF politics, elections, and news - red meat for political junkies www.sfusualsuspects.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 roop k roy activist Join the community Saranac Lake, NY 1 min ago kamal roy@us nov08 hopeful pres.:263usdc cv suit pendShow me another • Email to a friend • Related • • Open Question: THE KAMAL KARNA: A MODERN STORY OF REALITY? Hi, Lolita Profile Contacts Account Info You are signed in as: lolita_johnson@ym...Sign OutHelpYahoo!MailMy Yahoo!NewsFinanceSportsSearch Web Search Ask Answer Discover Search for questions: Advanced Search My Profile Home > Ask Your Question 3 Preview your question Preview your question Lolita J:love democracy Your Question THE REV KAMAL KARNA:WHO? 11.22. 2009 Hi, Lolita Profile Contacts Account Info You are signed in as: lolita_johnson@ym...Sign OutHelpYahoo!MailMy Yahoo!NewsFinanceSportsSearch Web Search Ask Answer Discover Search for questions: Advanced Search My Profile Home > Ask Your Question 3 Preview your question Preview your question Lolita J:love democracy Your Question THE KAMAL KARNA ROY, WHO? Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics World NewsNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AK jOE GERONIMO JRA TRUE:STORYus Posted in the World News Forum Ads by Google Latest Newspaper - Find The Latest News On Any Topic, Free! Try it now. www.google.com/News Call Home To Bangladesh - Only 3.2¢/min from your cell phone Try First Call Free! www.Rebtel.com/Bangladesh Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Confessions Home Forums Top Stories Popular Health Care Debate Local US Politics World Sports Entertainment Offbeat Other Topics Top StoriesNews Forums & Polls News Wire See 4 new replies to your comments REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY AKA jOSEPH GERONIMO JR:STORYus Posted in the Top Stories Forum Ads by Google Theraflu ®- Find Out Which Theraflu ® Treatment Is Right For You. www.TheraFlu.com The Ford Story - Visit The Ford Story to Learn how we are Doing Business Differently. TheFordStory.com Local Newspapers - Find Albany area newspapers - dailies, weeklies, tabloids. News.YellowPages.com/AlbanyComments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Lolita johnson Join the community Albany, NY 1 min ago Local News: Albany, NY | Sign Up | Sign In 1 2 3 China China Coal Mine Blast Death Toll Jumps to 87 Iran Top Iranian Reformer Jailed for Six Years Iraq Alleged Iraq Bombers Offer Conf

This girl pushed me down the stairs, then knocked me out! What should I do now? There is this girl I hate so much named Jane. She is so rude with me! But she invited me to her party, and my friends were going, so I went DXXXX The entire time she was being rude with me. Then when I was talking to my boyfriend, she came up behind me and poured a glass of ice down my top. I was screaming. We are 14 btw. My parents are on a business trip and Jane's parents are like always fighting and they left her home alone for the weekend. I went upstairs after Jane and confronted her and yelled at her, like WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME! Me and her ended up getting in like a physical fight. I was going down the stairs and she put her elbow around my neck and she was strangling me! People were gathered around the bottom of the stairs just watching... my boyfriend saw and he came running up but it was too crowded. I back kicked Jane and she pushed me and I fell down the stairs. I hit the bottom and my boyfriend helped me up. Jane just walked past me and she was like "OK GUYS, FOOD IS IN THE KITCHEN NOW!" I went in after her. She ordered pizza pizza and like a bunch of boxes of pizza were there. I was angry at her so I grabbed my slice and smashed it on her face!! She poured her drink on my and I started throwing more stuff at her. Then I stopped and I said sorry and I was walking into the dining room. I spun around and as soon as I did I saw Jane holding like this glass plate and she hit the top of my head. I woke up in her bedroom... she was not home, no one was. All my things were on the bedside table... I walked home. What should I do? I think Jane felt so bad so she took me to her room. Or my boyfriend could have done that. But Jane has major anger problems, this is not the first time she attacked me! Years ago she brought a knife to school and she was showing to to me and then she cut me.

An innocent person is involved in a freak auto accident? The driver of a commercial company was driving a truck and not paying any attention because he was too busy "talking on a cell telephone, while driving". He jetted across the lines of traffic, on an expressway, causing the top of an industrial cooler top to come flying out of the back of his truck flying like a frisbee doing about 90 mph hitting another auto, who as a result of, the driver of the vehicle hit obtained a "CLOSED BRAIN INJURY" due to his actions. The person injured has not been able to work for 5 years and lost their business of 14 years, which was very success, a home that had to be sold after19 years as well as other items they had obtained in their 45 years of life, to be able to pay for medications and everyday life as well as all of other things. They also obtained other medical issues as a result of same. What compensation should the injured party be compensated on a million dollar insurance policy for all the hell they have been through already and all she will have to go through the rest of her life since the injury is permanent?

Who would vote for Mitt Romney on his record? I have finally, after extensive research found part of his record. Wow, what a record.!! I am posting my findings with this question for those who doesn't like to open web sites. News * All News * In The News * Press Releases * Speeches * Debate Central * Word On The Web * Photo Gallery * Events * Chat Archive The Fourteenth Republican Debate From Florida Pat Buchanan: "His Performance Was Flawless" Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 11:56 PM EDT What They're Really Saying About Governor Mitt Romney At The Boca Raton, FL GOP Debate - Vol. II Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 11:55 PM EDT MSNBC'S Chuck Todd: "Romney looks good and sounds confident tonight." (Chuck Todd, "Romney Starting Off Well Tonight," MSNBC's First Read, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/, Posted 1/24/08) The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder: "Romney made a strong first impression." (Marc Ambinder, "Live Twittering Of The Debate," The Atlantic, http://twitter.com/marcambinder, Posted 1/24/08) Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey: "Florida voters got their final head-to-head look at the Republican presidential candidates tonight, and the winner of the debate was Mitt Romney." (Ed Morrissey, "Florida Debate: Romney Scores, Rudy Close Behind," Captain's Quarters' Blog, www.captainsquartersblog.com, Posted 1/24/08) - Morrissey: "He looked presidential, poised, and factually prepared." (Ed Morrissey, "Florida Debate: Romney Scores, Rudy Close Behind," Captain's Quarters' Blog, www.captainsquartersblog.com, Posted 1/24/08) - Morrissey: "In a debate that spent the first two-thirds with everyone doing well, Romney not only broke out on his own in the last stanza, he successfully parried some strange attacks from Tim Russert as well." (Ed Morrissey, "Florida Debate: Romney Scores, Rudy Close Behind," Captain's Quarters' Blog, www.captainsquartersblog.com, Posted 1/24/08) Michelle Malkin: "Romney's being treated like the front-runner and he's acting like it." (Michelle Malkin, "GOP Florida Debate: Show Us The Conservatism," Michelle Malkin's Blog, http://michellemalkin.com/, Accessed 1/24/08) Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Mitt Romney should send a thank you card to Tim Russert and Brian Williams. They threw hard balls at the former Massachusetts governor and he hit them all, many out of the park. Romney's allocation of time had to be disproportionate, but that was the Williams/Russert choice, and Romney made the most of it." (Hugh Hewitt, "'General Hillary Clinton' And 'They're Doing It In Europe Now,'" Townhall Blog, http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Hewitt: "Democrats watching tonight have to be very worried that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee." (Hugh Hewitt, "'General Hillary Clinton' And 'They're Doing It In Europe Now,'" Townhall Blog, http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/, Posted 1/24/08) American Spectator's Wlady: "Terrific Romney answer to Russert's nosiness about how much he's spent in Florida. Russert's mistake: his insinuation that he was asking the question on behalf of the people's right to know. Romney instead let it be known he'll report his spending on Jan. 31, as required by law; and there's no reason to give his opponents a competitive advantage." (Wlady, "Rich Man, Poor Man," AmSpec Blog, http://www.amspec.org/, Accessed 1/24/08) ABC News' Rick Klein: "Romney gets an initial question on the economy -- this is tailor made for him. ? He sounds authoritative and in control on this subject." (Rick Klein, "Live Blogging During GOP Debate," ABC News' Political Radar, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar, Posted 1/24/08) National Journal's Jennifer Skalka: "Winners?Mitt Romney -- Mistake-free night." (Jennifer Skalka, "No Battle In Boca," National Journal's On Call, http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/, Posted 1/24/08) Heading Right's Ed Morrissey: "Best line of the evening so far: General Hillary Clinton." (Ed Morrissey, "Best Line Of The Evening So Far," Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/, Accessed 1/24/08) - Morrissey: "Romney just delivered a hell of a punch against Hillary Clinton, Bill, and the Democrats." (Ed Morrissey, "Romney Lapping The Pack," Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/, Accessed 1/24/08) - Morrissey: "I am impressed." (Ed Morrissey, "Romney's Running Away With It!" Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/, Accessed 1/24/08) American Spectator's Phillip Klein: "Romney is clearly benefiting from the focus on the economy." (Phillip Klein, "Quick Debate Reaction," AmSpec Blog, http://www.amspec.org/blogger, Accessed 1/24/08) Heading Right's Fausta Wertz: "[Y]es, this is the Mitt Romney hour." (Fausta, "Back To Mitt," Heading Right Blog, http://headingright.com/, Accessed 1/24/08) Townhall's Matt Lewis: "If one had to assign a winner tonight, Mitt Romney would probably get the nod." (Matt Lewis, "GOP Debate Analysis: Florida Now A Two-Man Race," Townhall Blog, www.townhall.com, Posted 1/24/08) - Lewis: "The debate focused more on the economy than it did on any other topic, and I think he is more adept at talking about this topic than is his primary opponent, John McCain." (Matt Lewis, "GOP Debate Analysis: Florida Now A Two-Man Race," Townhall Blog, www.townhall.com, Posted 1/24/08) - Lewis: "He also did a good job of going after the Clintons -- something that McCain should have actually done more of." (Matt Lewis, "GOP Debate Analysis: Florida Now A Two-Man Race," Townhall Blog, www.townhall.com, Posted 1/24/08) - Lewis: "Romney was ahead in the last Florida poll I saw, and since nothing that happened tonight is likely to radically upset the apple cart, he wins tonight merely by maintaining the status quo." (Matt Lewis, "GOP Debate Analysis: Florida Now A Two-Man Race," Townhall Blog, www.townhall.com, Posted 1/24/08) What They're Really Saying About Governor Mitt Romney At The Boca Raton, FL GOP Debate Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 11:11 PM EDT MSNBC's Joe Scarborough: "I think conservatives probably related to Mitt Romney, talking about tax cuts, talking about being a governor, talking about what he did in the private sector for all those years. On the economic part of this debate, I don't think there is any doubt that this was Mitt Romney's best performance." (MSNBC's "Live," 1/24/08) - Scarborough: "The first 30 minutes - it was about the economy. I thought Mitt Romney absolutely dominated that segment of it." (MSNBC's "Live," 1/24/08) Time's Mark Halperin: "Romney A-" (Mark Halperin, "Who Wants To Be The Nominee?" Time's The Page, http://thepage.time.com/, Posted 1/24/08) MSNBC's Chuck Todd: "I thought this was Mitt Romney's best debate performance." (MSNBC's "Live," 1/24/08) National Review's Rich Lowry: "Romney has seemed authoritative – confident and on his game..." (Rich Lowry, "The Debate So Far," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Lowry: "'We're the Party of Change' ... Home-run answer from Romney. It was drawn from his standard lines on the stump, but a terrific message, convincingly delivered." (Rich Lowry, "'We're The Party Of Change'," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Lowry: "Good night for Romney." (Rich Lowry, "Good Night For Romney," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Lowry: "Romney is dominating the last half-an-hour." (Rich Lowry, "In Terms Of Sheer Time..." National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/24/08) Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham: "Romney just stole that issue from both Rudy and McCain. His answer was intelligent and far-reaching. I liked the idea of high-risk areas getting together to pool risk. Rudy's been trying to pander with this idea and I think both Romney and McCain made the pandering look silly by taking a broader approach." (Mary Katharine Ham, "The Cat Fund," Townhall Blog, http://www.townhall.com/, Posted 1/24/08) National Review's Kate O'Beirne: "Romney's insights about his state's National Guard was helpful. He seems particularly aggressive and sure-footed tonight." (Kate O'Beirne, "On Offense," National Review's The Corner, http://corner.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/24/08) Michelle Malkin: "Excellent Romney answer on Iraq. Strong, tough, focused on the surrendercrats. He takes on Dems for their withdrawalmania?cites debate in SC when Hillary refused to say she wanted to win and recycled Code Pink line." (Michelle Malkin, "GOP Florida Debate," http://michellemalkin.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Malkin: "Romney excoriates Dems and says 'how dare they' take credit for surge." (Michelle Malkin, "GOP Florida Debate," http://michellemalkin.com/, Posted 1/24/08) - Malkin: "Romney just out-McCained McCain on the war." (Michelle Malkin, "GOP Florida Debate," http://michellemalkin.com/, Posted 1/24/08) The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder: "Romney was swell on the economy..." (Marc Ambinder, "Romney Made A Strong First Impression... No One Tried To Jab At Him," Twitter Blog, http://twitter.com/marcambinder, Posted 1/24/08) Hot Air's Bryan Preston: "Mitt Romney is asked whether the war in Iraq was worth the sacrifice and effort. He delivers the best answer of the bunch and punches the hippies in the Democrat party to boot." (Bryan Preston, "Debate Highlights: Huckabee On The Economic Stimulus; Romney On Iraq," Hot Air, http://hotair.com/, Posted 1/24/08) Joe Scarborough: "Mitt Romney Absolutely Dominated" Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 11:00 PM EDT Governor Mitt Romney Lays Out The Vision To Strengthen America Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 10:38 PM EDT Tonight, Romney for President Communications Director Matt Rhoades released the following statement on the Florida Republican presidential debate: "The economic challenges confronting our country were central to tonight's debate. Governor Romney is the only candidate with a record of working in the real economy and creating jobs. That experience was on display tonight. He understands how to create jobs and how to bring change. That is the leadership we need in Washington, and in a few short days, the people of Florida will cast their votes for change in this country." Straight Talk Detour: McCain On Republican Vote Totals Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 10:30 PM EDT McCain Falsely Claimed That He Won Among Republicans In NH And SC In Tonight's Debate, Sen. McCain Falsely Claimed That He Won The Republican Vote In Both New Hampshire And South Carolina: MCCAIN: "But Look, I Won The Majority Of Republican Vote In Both New Hampshire And South Carolina." (MSNBC, [Unverified Transcript], Republican Presidential Candidate Debate, Boca Raton, FL, 1/24/08) However, Sen. McCain Lost In Both New Hampshire And South Carolina Among Self-Identified Conservatives And Republicans : McCain Lost Among Self-Identified Republicans In New Hampshire. "In New Hampshire, a state McCain had won in 2000 and lavished time and attention on this time around, he lost self-identified Republicans narrowly -- 35 percent to 34 percent -- to former governor Mitt Romney. But, it was among independents where McCain's winning margin came as he won that bloc by 13 points over Romney." (Chris Cillizza, "McCain And The Closed Primary Challenge," Washington Post's The Fix, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/, 1/24/08) McCain Lost Among Republicans In South Carolina. "In South Carolina, McCain lost Republicans by a statistically insignificant margin, but carried independents by a massive 42 percent to 25 percent margin -- ensuring his narrow three-point victory." (Chris Cillizza, "McCain And The Closed Primary Challenge," Washington Post's The Fix, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/,1/24/08) Conservatives Are Wary Of McCain's Past Tendencies And Willingness To Team Up With Liberal Senators. "McCain has long had difficulty currying favor from his party's conservative wing. Despite his solid voting record in the senate, many ardent Republicans have been unhappy with his past willingness to team up with liberal Sens. Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform and Ted Kennedy on immigration." (Alexander Mooney, "McCain Brushes Aside Suggestion Of Weak Republican Support," http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/20/mccain-brushes-aside-suggestion-of-weak-republican-support/, 1/20/08) "Support from the base will be crucial in upcoming contests: McCain now faces a bevy of state primaries where independents are not allowed to participate, beginning with Florida's vote on January 29. But the Arizona senator is predicting that his support among veterans, his economic proposals, and his record on environmental issues important to many Floridians will carry him to victory there." (Alexander Mooney, "McCain Brushes Aside Suggestion Of Weak Republican Support," http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/20/mccain-brushes-aside-suggestion-of-weak-republican-support/, 1/20/08) Gov. Romney: Working Together On Social Security Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 10:20 PM EDT Romney Record: A Stronger State Economy Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 09:49 PM EDT Governor Romney Helped Turn Around The Massachusetts Economy And Today, The State Is Among The Most Economically Competitive In The Nation: Because of work done by Governor Romney, Massachusetts is now credited with being one of the most economically-competitive states in the nation. - The Boston Globe : "Nonetheless, Romney's policies are credited with improving the state's competitiveness. His administration promoted high-density development to increase housing production, got a fast-track permitting law enacted by the Legislature to help businesses expand, and revived an agency to help firms move to the state." (Brian Mooney, Stephanie Ebbert and Scott Helman, "Ambitious Goals," The Boston Globe, 6/30/07) - The Beacon Hill Institute: Massachusetts "One Of The Most Economically Competitive States In The Nation." "Massachusetts ranks as the one of the most economically competitive states in the nation, buoyed by innovation, entrepreneurship, and an educated and skilled workforce, a new study concludes. The study, released today by the Beacon Hill Institute, a think tank at Suffolk University, ranks Massachusetts second only to Utah in the attributes that create and sustain high levels of income for residents." (Robert Gavin, "Reports: Mass. A Top U.S. Economic Competitor," The Boston Globe, 12/19/07) - The Information Technology And Innovation Foundation: Massachusetts First In The Ability "To Compete In A Dynamic, Innovation-Driven Global Economy." "It follows another study, by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank, that measures states' abilities to compete in a dynamic, innovation-driven global economy and ranks Massachusetts first." (Robert Gavin, "Reports: Mass. A Top U.S. Economic Competitor," The Boston Globe, 12/19/07) - Under Governor Romney, The State's Credit Rating Was Upgraded For The First Time Since January 2000. "Governor Mitt Romney today announced that Standard & Poor's has raised the state's credit rating one notch, from 'AA-' to 'AA'. This is the state's first ratings upgrade since January 2000, when Moody's Investors Service raised the state's credit rating from 'Aa3' to 'Aa2'." (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Governor Romney Announces Bond Rating Upgrade For Commonwealth's Debate," Press Release, 3/15/05) - MassINC And Northeastern University Report: "The Massachusetts economy is the envy of many other states. Our economy consistently ranks among the top in measures of New Economy success. We rank near the top of the nation in our level of labor productivity and have outpaced the nation in recent years in the rate of growth. We have the most educated workforce in the nation. We also score near the top in terms of knowledge jobs and innovation capacity." (MassINC & The Northeastern University Center For Labor Market Studies, "Mass Jobs: Meeting The Challenges Of A Shifting Economy," November 2007) Under Governor Romney, Massachusetts Added Tens Of Thousands Of Jobs After The End Of A Deep Recession: Before Governor Romney took office, Massachusetts was losing jobs month after month after the tech bubble burst in 2001. Under Governor Jane Swift, Sen. McCain's chief Massachusetts surrogate, the state lost over 140,000 jobs. - Massachusetts "Suffered The Deepest Job Losses In The Nation After The Tech Boom." "Massachusetts, because of its large technology sector, suffered the deepest job losses in the nation after the tech boom went bust in 2001, shedding 6 percent of its jobs, compared to 2 percent nationally." (Robert Gavin, "Job-Growth Study: Mass. Next To Last," The Boston Globe, 11/28/07) - Under The Previous Administration, Massachusetts Lost Jobs Month After Month. Under Governor Swift, Massachusetts lost 141,000 votes. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, "State And Area Employment, Hours, And Earnings," Massachusetts, Total Non-Farm, Seasonally Adjusted, Accessed 1/21/08) Under Governor Romney, jobs began to return to Massachusetts. Massachusetts added 57,600 jobs after the recession ended in December 2003. In 2006 alone, Massachusetts added 18,700 jobs. - Massachusetts Added 57,600 Jobs Since The Recession's End In December 2003 Until The End Of Governor Romney's Term. "Massachusetts has added 57,600 payroll jobs since December 2003." (Massachusetts Department Of Workforce Development, "Jobs In Massachusetts Up By 1,700 In December," Press Release, 1/18/07) - In 2006, Massachusetts Added 18,700 Jobs. "Total jobs are up 18,700 from one year ago to 3,224,700." (Mass. Department Of Workforce Development, "Jobs In Massachusetts Up By 1,700 In December," Press Release, 1/18/07) - Under Governor Romney, Massachusetts Posted The First Gain In Manufacturing Jobs In Several Years. "For the first time in several years, Massachusetts has posted a gain in manufacturing jobs, according to the 2007 Massachusetts Manufacturers Register, an industrial directory published annually by Manufacturers' News, Inc. (MNI), Evanston, IL. MNI reports Massachusetts has added 3,681 net jobs since August of 2005, indicating a slight reversal in the downturn the Bay state has felt since 2001." (Manufacturers' News, "Industrial Directory Reports Massachusetts Manufacturing Jobs Up," Press Release, 8/30/06) Under Governor Romney, personal incomes grew dramatically, and the level of personal income was far higher than the national average. - During Governor Romney's Term, Massachusetts Per Capita Personal Income (PCPI) Grew By 17%, Outpacing Per Capita Personal Income Growth For The Entire United States. In 2003, Massachusetts per capita personal income was $39,442 and rose to $46,255 in 2006. (Department Of Commerce, Bureau Of Economic Analysis, "State Annual Personal Income," www.bea.gov, Accessed: 1/21/08) - In 2006, Massachusetts Had A Per Capita Personal Income (PCPI) Of $46,255. This PCPI Ranked 3rd In The United States And Was 126 Percent Of The National Average, $36,629. (Department Of Commerce, Bureau Of Economic Analysis, "State BEARFACTS 1996 – 2006: Massachusetts," Accessed: 1/21/08) Under Governor Romney, Massachusetts Became A Better Place To Do Business: Under Governor Romney, the business climate improved and more companies were attracted to Massachusetts. - In Three Years Under Governor Romney, The Number Of Companies In The State's Development Pipeline Went From 13 To 288. "Under Ranch C. Kimball, who became Romney's secretary of economic development in 2004, the number of companies in the Massachusetts development pipeline jumped from 13 to 288 in three years." (Brian C. Mooney, Stephanie Ebbert And Scott Helman, "Ambitious Goals," The Boston Globe, 6/30/07) - The Boston Globe : "Last year, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. chose an 89-acre site at the former Fort Devens over one in North Carolina for a $660 million complex that will create 550 jobs. The deal required a customized tax credit, a $34 million infrastructure bond, and an unusual show of teamwork by Romney and the Legislature." (Brian Mooney, Stephanie Ebbert And Scott Helman, "Ambitious Goals," The Boston Globe, 6/30/07) Governor Romney took the action necessary to improve the state's business climate and stimulate the economy through pro-growth economic policies. - ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE: In November 2003, Governor Romney Signed An Economic Stimulus Package To Help Spur The Massachusetts Economy. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Economic Stimulus, Supplemental Budget Bills," Press Release, 11/26/03) - ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE: In June 2006, Governor Romney Signed A Second Economic Stimulus Package To Help Spur The Massachusetts Economy. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Vetoes Wasteful Spending, Cities Needed To Maintain Fiscal Discipline," Press Release, 11/26/03) - 2004 SALES TAX HOLIDAY: Governor Romney Enacted The State's First-Ever Sales Tax Holiday In 2004. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Promotes Tax-Free Shopping Day On Saturday," Press Release, 8/14/04) - 2005 SALES TAX HOLIDAY: Governor Romney Enacted A Second Sales Tax Holiday. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney, Dimasi, Hart Promote Tax-Free Shopping Weekend," Press Release, 8/14/0) - INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT: Governor Romney Signed An Economic Stimulus Package Making The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Permanent. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Economic Stimulus, Supplemental Budget Bills," Press Release, 11/26/03) - BIOTECH MANUFACTURING JOBS TAX REBATE: Governor Romney Proposed And Enacted A Tax Rebate For Manufacturing Jobs Created In The Biotechnology, Life Sciences And Medical Device Fields. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Economic Stimulus, Supplemental Budget Bills," Press Release, 11/26/03) - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TAX CREDIT: Governor Romney Proposed And Enacted An Expansion Of The Research And Development Tax Credit. (Jay Fitzgerald, "Gov Nearly Halves Package; Rebellious Legislators Vow To Override Stimulus Vetoes," The Boston Herald, 11/27/03) - COMMUTER TAX RELIEF: Governor Romney Signed Legislation Allowing Commuters To Deduct Transportation Costs From Their Income Taxes. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Governor Romney Signs $25.2 Billion FY 2007 State Budget," Press Release, 7/8/06) - BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: Governor Romney Proposed And Enacted A Refundable Tax Credit To Promote Development At The Former Fort Devens U.S. Army Base. (Stephen Heuser, "$660M Drug Plant, 550 Jobs For Mass.," The Boston Globe, 6/2/06) - PERMITTING REFORM: In August 2006, Governor Romney Signed Permitting Reform To Expedite The Permit Process For New Businesses. "Governor Mitt Romney today signed legislation that reforms and streamlines the commercial permitting process, making it easier for companies to expand and add jobs in Massachusetts." (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Permitting Reform Into Law," Press Release, 8/2/06) - INFRASTRUCTURE: Governor Romney Created A $200 Million Fund To Help Businesses Pay For The Infrastructure Costs Of Growing And Expanding. "The Governor signed into law the $200 million in bonding, half of which will go into a fund under the control of the Executive Office of Economic Development (EED) to help pay for infrastructure costs to help businesses grow and expand." (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Vetoes Wasteful Spending, Cities Needed To Maintain Fiscal Discipline," Press Release, 11/26/03) - MARKETING MASSACHUSETTS: Governor Romney Expanded Massachusetts' In-State Sales Force. "The Governor also signed $1.5 million for the creation of an in-state sales force to market Massachusetts to companies around the country." (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Vetoes Wasteful Spending, Cities Needed To Maintain Fiscal Discipline," Press Release, 11/26/03) I have one prescription that costs more than the insurance cost in Mass.

Mother disowns me for college choice? I am 18 years old. I was recently accepted to every school I applied to, but narrowed it down to CUNY Baruch, and SUNY albany. I've been to both campuses, and SUNY albany is nice, but has a terrible reputation of being a party school, and has a large amount of drug, alcohol, and other violations issued to students each year. I live in brooklyn, and CUNY barcuh is among the best public universities in the entire nation, and one of the top business schools. I am not completely sure what I want to major in yet, but I decided to go to Baruch. When I told my mother, she went into a raging fit, telling me that I will never experience life If I stay at home for college. She started crying, and telling me that if I finalize this choice, she will disown me, and even divorce my father. I want to go to the college that is best for me, but I don't want to destroy my family. I also have a brother who is 3 years younger than me. What should I do? Thanks in advance, I am really distraught over the whole situation. Just to make it clear, I still have 2 days to finalize the choice. My relationship with my mother was always fine, she just really wanted me to go to albany, and she believes that my father is trying to... I guess you could say "trick" me into going to a different school just because it is cheaper, not because it is a better value.

how does the article make distinction between firms? use these distionctions to analyze and gain insights? Abstract (Summary) Instead, Giancarlo Di Risio, Versace's bespectacled chief executive, presided over an evening that highlighted luxury goods: Parked at one end of the courtyard was a half-million-dollar Lamborghini Murcielago with a black-and-white leather interior by Versace. A huge poster showed an AgustaWestland helicopter with a Versace-designed cabin. Stacked nearby was luggage embossed with the brand's Greek motif, with pieces starting at about $4,000. The company found it increasingly tough to squeeze profits out of highly perishable fashions as production costs rose in Italy. In 1997, Mr. Versace was murdered outside his Miami villa. The firm's finances went into a tailspin, and it was forced to shelve plans to go public. Mr. Versace's 50% stake in the label went to his niece, Ms. Versace's then-preteen daughter Allegra Versace Beck, shifting the balance of power. Though Ms. Versace owns only 20% of the company, she was seen to exert huge influence because of her daughter's stake. A third sibling, Santo Versace, owns the remaining 30% of the company. Ms. Versace Beck, now 20 years old, manages her stake with the help of advisers. "I said to Di Risio, 'This is not going to work. This is going to die,'" recalled Ms. Versace. But, she said, "I was wrong, and he was right. We sell more now." » Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (1463 words) (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. Milan -- When Italian fashion house Gianni Versace SpA recently threw a cocktail party in the courtyard of its 16th-century palazzo to promote its latest creations, designer Donatella Versace ducked out of the soiree early, flanked by bodyguards. Instead, Giancarlo Di Risio, Versace's bespectacled chief executive, presided over an evening that highlighted luxury goods: Parked at one end of the courtyard was a half-million-dollar Lamborghini Murcielago with a black-and-white leather interior by Versace. A huge poster showed an AgustaWestland helicopter with a Versace-designed cabin. Stacked nearby was luggage embossed with the brand's Greek motif, with pieces starting at about $4,000. Mr. Di Risio is trying to shift Versace's attention away from clothes and to accessories, home interiors and other lifestyle products that will bring in new streams of revenue and offset fickle fashion cycles. "Fashion does not exist at Versace," he said, describing his strategy in an interview before the reception. The new approach is bearing fruit. Versace swung back into the black last year, posting a $25.4 million profit after years of losses, and has shaken off millions in debt. Driving that turnaround were rising sales in the lucrative accessories Mr. Di Risio is pushing. Yet the effects of the makeover have touched the core of the company's identity. Ms. Versace has begun taming the flamboyant clothing designs that once set her and the fashion house apart from the crowd. "I no longer recognize myself in that kind of woman," the 52-year-old Ms. Versace said in a telephone interview. The culture shift at Versace highlights how an increasingly competitive fashion industry is forcing even the most freewheeling players to embrace a corporate culture. Many labels, including LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton's smaller brands like Celine and Marc Jacobs, have also been toning down their looks to appeal to a wider swath of consumers. Designers who once called the shots are ceding authority to executives who run the numbers. "In the beginning, it was a shock for me," Ms. Versace said. "When you tell a person who is used to being in power -- to saying yes or no on everything -- to take a step back, it's not easy. But it was necessary." Tweaking a label's aesthetics carries risks. If pushed too far, transformations risk alienating loyal customers, says Robert Burke, head of New York-based luxury-goods consultancy Robert Burke Associates and the former fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. "You will always want to see a fashion edge to Versace," he says. Yet for family-owned fashion labels like Versace, pressure to make more money is high. They compete with publicly traded conglomerates such as LVMH and PPR SA's Gucci Group, which have the financial heft to expand with stores in the emerging markets of China, India and Russia -- seen as fueling the industry's growth. A number of Italy's top family-owned fashion houses, including Versace, Prada SpA and Salvatore Ferragamo SpA, are considering stock- market listings in the next couple of years. "An IPO would be the best way to raise money and implant in these countries," says Peter Farren, a luxury-goods analyst at the French investment firm Bryan Garnier. At Versace, a sobering realization is spurring Mr. Di Risio's moves: The clothes that once made the brand are now struggling to make money. In its heyday in the early 1990s, Versace stayed ahead of the fashion mainstream with lavish catwalk shows that celebrated the racy designs of founder Gianni Versace. The label amassed collections of real estate and artwork that enhanced the family's jet-setter status. The company found it increasingly tough to squeeze profits out of highly perishable fashions as production costs rose in Italy. In 1997, Mr. Versace was murdered outside his Miami villa. The firm's finances went into a tailspin, and it was forced to shelve plans to go public. Mr. Versace's 50% stake in the label went to his niece, Ms. Versace's then-preteen daughter Allegra Versace Beck, shifting the balance of power. Though Ms. Versace owns only 20% of the company, she was seen to exert huge influence because of her daughter's stake. A third sibling, Santo Versace, owns the remaining 30% of the company. Ms. Versace Beck, now 20 years old, manages her stake with the help of advisers. The Versace stakeholders decided the company needed a CEO who could turn the company around. Fabio Cacciatori, at one time an outside financial consultant for the company, became CEO in September 2003 but resigned in December. The company named Versace's then-Chief Financial Officer Daniele Ballestrazzi interim CEO as it searched for new leadership. When Versace recruited Mr. Di Risio from LVMH's Fendi label in the summer of 2004, the house was saddled with more than $146 million in debt and heading to a net loss of $124 million for the year, on revenue of $416 million. High-end retailers like Bergdorf Goodman had stopped carrying the brand. Bergdorf Chief Executive Jim Gold recalls that Versace was distributing too widely, diluting its exclusivity, and was overly consumed with making a splash on the runway. While many labels had started delivering retailers fresh designs more frequently, ahead of the runway collections, Versace resisted. Mr. Di Risio arrived with a new mantra. Clothing that is too fashionable, he told his lieutenants, is bad for business because it eats up capital and goes out of style quickly. Accessories and other leather goods are a better bet because they have a longer shelf life and fatter profit margins. To reduce Versace's dependence on fashion, Mr. Di Risio shut down lines such as Versace Intimates lingerie and Versace Young, a children's line. The company sold its unprofitable perfume, jewelry and watchmaking divisions, replacing them with lucrative licensing agreements with U.S. watch group Timex Corp. and Italian perfume and cosmetics maker EuroItalia Srl. Mr. Di Risio homed in on the company's shoes and handbags, which have higher profit margins because they cost less to produce than clothes but are easier to sell to a wide array of customers. Last year, more than 30% of Versace's $383 million in revenue came from accessories, compared with 4% when Mr. Di Risio arrived. He also expanded the label's push into home furnishings -- a business that generated sales of $82.5 million in 2006, up 55% from the year before. Versace recently unveiled its "Jet Seat," an aerodynamically-styled leather chair in a high-tech ceramic frame that is sold in Europe for <euro>38,000 (about $50,000). "It was like taking a blank page and rewriting everything," Mr. Di Risio says. To succeed, however, he had to get Ms. Versace on board. She had hoped to resurrect the costly haute-couture fashion shows the label had discontinued before Mr. Di Risio's arrival. But he argued she could more effectively enhance the line's exclusivity by holding showings for individual clients. "I said to Di Risio, 'This is not going to work. This is going to die,'" recalled Ms. Versace. But, she said, "I was wrong, and he was right. We sell more now." Ms. Versace had to become more conscious of how much time and money the label invests in promoting designs at events like the Oscars. Last year, the designer dressed actresses Hilary Swank, Uma Thurman and Salma Hayek and director Robert Altman's wife, Kathryn Reed Altman, who donned a navy-blue sequin gown. This year, however, Ms. Versace limited herself to one gown, designing a rose-colored dress with a sweeping train for best-actress nominee Penelope Cruz. For Versace's ready-to-wear line, Ms. Versace is going for looks she calls "a little more understated." Bergdorf Goodman will carry her designs in the fall for the first time in years. Ms. Versace is also working more closely with retailers, adding four more collections beyond the traditional spring and fall runway collections. These are shown to retailers in private visits, giving them a preview of what to expect. On the financial side, Mr. Di Risio has untangled the company's assets from those of the family, selling property he deemed "nonstrategic" to pay the company's debts. The family's Manhattan townhouse was sold for about $35 million, and its contents went up for auction in 2005. The paintings alone -- including works by artists Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein and Julian Schnabel -- fetched more than $11 million dollars. Flagship stores in New York, London and Milan that Mr. Di Risio described as "decadent and sad," were redone with sleek, minimalist designs. The label, which operates 82 stores and has 35 franchise operations, plans to open more than 10 boutiques by the end of the year, including seven stores in China alone. When Versace opened the doors of its updated Moscow boutique in April, an array of leather bags, belts and shoes greeted customers at the store's lacquered ground-floor entrance. The label's ready-to-wear collection was relegated to the upper floor.

All democrats agree we must stay on course in Iraq? How do liberals feel now? In the first debate between candidates for the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination, the leading contenders made clear that whatever their differences with the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, they are all committed to maintaining the US occupation of the oil-rich country and that, if elected president, they would not hesitate to use US military power anywhere in the world to defend the geo-political interests of American imperialism. The debate, which was broadcast by MSNBC television from South Carolina State University, included ostensible front runners New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, as well as Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Also included were Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska senator Mike Gravel. The debate was overshadowed by the deep crisis over the war in Iraq and the growing popular hatred of for the war—particularly among Democrat voters, who according to a poll released this week are 78 percent in favor of total withdrawal and 54 percent in favor of immediate withdrawal. While all of the candidates did their best to feign opposition to the war, the debate began just hours after the Senate approved a supplemental spending bill that will provide the White House with an additional $124 billion to continue the fighting and occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those on the platform sought to cast the funding bill as an “antiwar” measure because of the toothless and non-binding timetable in the bill for the withdrawal of some troops from Iraq. “The Congress has voted, as of today, to end this war,” Clinton declared. Echoing the comments of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid earlier in the week, Senators Clinton, Biden and Obama made it clear they were against “this” war—i.e., opposed to the way the Bush administration is conducting the occupation of Iraq, not “the” war itself. Clinton set the tone by claiming the US had done everything to help the Iraqi people to have “freedom” and “their own country” but now it was time for the Iraqis to decide whether they would “take that chance.” Blaming the Iraqi people for the devastating civil war that has resulted from the US invasion and the shattering of Iraqi society, Clinton said the Iraqi government had to provide “security and stability without our young men and women in the middle of their sectarian civil war.” These comments parallel previous statements by Clinton who has indicated that if elected she would keep large numbers of US troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future—not to protect the civilian population against sectarian reprisals,but to defend America’s “vital national security interests”: first and foremost, oil. In his remarks, Biden criticized Bush’s “fundamentally flawed policy” in Iraq, which he defined as the “notion of being able to set up a strong, central government in Baghdad that will be democratic.” The way forward, Biden said, was to “decentralize Iraq” and have a “limited central government” to “share their oil wealth.” Biden has been the most strident proponent of partitioning Iraq into ethno-religious statelets, dividing Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Such a proposal is a prescription for ethnic cleansing and mass killings on a scale not seen since the partitioning of India in the 1940s. Governor Richardson endorsed this reactionary proposal, calling for the US to establish a “political framework” to “divide oil revenues” and possibly “set up three separate entities.” Illinois Senator Barack Obama said he had opposed the war from the start and then attempted to justify his repeated votes to fund it as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and more than 3,300 US soldiers have been killed. He claimed that the troops needed the best military hardware possible in order to “come home safely.” In reality, Congress has the power to assure the safe return of the troops by cutting off funding, something the Democratic leadership refuses to do. Representative Dennis Kucinich pointed out this anomaly, saying every time the Democrats voted to fund the war they were “reauthorizing the war all over again.” The Democrats, he said, “have the power to end the war right now, and that’s what we should do.” Criticizing the Senate war-spending bill, Kucinich said he had proposed a bill that called for the United Nations to provide peacekeepers and security forces that “will move in as our troops leave.” Gravel—a Vietnam-era senator who opposed the Nixon administration on the military draft and the war—also denounced the war-spending bill, saying he was “embarrassed” by what was going on in Congress. Because Bush is determined to continue the war, the Democrats should pass a law, he said, making it a “felony” to keep the troops in Iraq. Neither Kucinich nor Gravel enjoys any support from the Democratic Party leadership, let alone from the Wall Street investors and other corporate backers who are pouring millions of dollars into the campaigns of the top contenders. Nevertheless, they play a central role in fostering illusions that the pro-war and pro-big business Democratic Party can be pressured to stop the war and defend the interests of working people. Kucinich in particular presents himself as the “voice of conscience” in the Democratic Party and living proof that there is an antiwar, progressive faction within it. In the 2004 elections, the Ohio congressman also sought the party’s presidential nomination. After the Democratic Party leadership smothered the Howard Dean campaign—around which significant antiwar sentiment had gathered—it took measures to suppress antiwar opposition within the party and to make sure the elections were not turned into a referendum on Iraq. This campaign culminated in the nomination of a pro-war candidate—Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Kucinich immediately dropped his campaign and called for “unity” behind Kerry, thus attempting to confine the opposition to the war tightly within the borders of a pro-war party. Earlier this week Kucinich introduced three articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney for the campaign of lies about WMDs and Iraqi-al-Qaeda ties that was used to justify the war against Iraq, as well as similar fabrications used to prepare another war against Iran. These are indeed grounds for impeaching Cheney. However, there is zero support for this within the Democratic Party leadership, which is averse to any serious struggle that might bring masses of working people into a political confrontation with the Bush administration. For that reason, when the debate moderator asked for a show of hands from the Democratic candidates on who supported Kucinich’s action against Cheney, not one hand was raised. In the end, Kucinich and Gravel functioned as foils during the debate so that the leading Democratic contenders could re-assert their commitment to defending the interests of corporate America with military force. This point was noted by the Washington Post, which said that Kucinich and Gravel “provided a counterpoint of left-wing ideas that drew rebukes for a lack of seriousness from Biden and Obama. The challenges from the liberal flank allowed almost all the others to assert that, despite their criticisms of President Bush’s Iraq policy, they are ready to use military force to retaliate against future terrorist attacks.” Fully embracing the “global war on terrorism,” the leading Democratic candidates singled out as potential future targets of US military action not only Iran and North Korea, but also Russia and China. Biden also specifically raised the possibility of intervening in Darfur, which leading Democratic think tanks hope will be a launching point for defending US interest in Africa, while at the same time selling it to the American people as a “good, humanitarian” war. Kucinich pointed out that Obama and Clinton had told pro-Israeli lobby groups that “all options were on the table with Iran” and that this was a thinly-veiled threat to use nuclear weapons. Obama justified his remarks by saying a nuclear-armed Iran “will be a major threat to us and to the region.” Calling Iran “the largest state sponsor of terrorism” because of its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, Obama repeated the same threats made by Bush and Cheney in the run-up to the war with Iraq, saying Iran could “place a nuclear weapon into the hands of terrorists,” posing a “profound security threat for America.” Gravel pointed out that the US has carried out sanctions against Iran for 26 years, while constantly threatening the country with military strikes. “Tell me, Barack,” he said, “who do you want to nuke?” Obama shrugged the question off, responding, “I’m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise you.” Biden was even more forceful, calling on Kucinich and Gravel to “stop all this happy talk here about the use of force doesn’t make sense. The use of force in Afghanistan is justified and necessary; in Darfur, justified and necessary; in the Balkans, justified and necessary. You guys can have your happy talk, there’s real life.” The debate made clear that the Democrats’ chief criticism of the war in Iraq is that it has placed an enormous strain on the fighting capacity of the US military and diverted attention from other threats to US interests throughout the world. The plan for “strategic redeployment” advocated by the Democratic candidates is aimed at maintaining colonial control in Iraq—by waging a bloody counter-insurgency with fewer troops, primarily US Special Forces and the Air Force—and freeing up troops for Afghanistan and interventions in other global hot spots. This support for militarism stems from the fact that the Democratic Party speaks for the same financial oligarchy as the Republicans. This truth was reiterated throughout the debate, as Clinton, Obama and Edwards went out of their way to praise the multi-millionaire and multi-billionaire hedge fund managers and Wall Street speculators who have enriched themselves at the expense of the great mass of working people. Clinton praised the people willing to invest their money in the “free market system” and the “entrepreneurial economy,” many of whom have poured some of that money into her multi-million-dollar campaign war chest. After repeating his refrain about being brought up poor and humble in a South Carolina textile mill town for the one thousandth time, John Edwards responded to a question about being hired by the $30 billion hedge fund Fortress Investment Group with the absurd claim that “those people in New York who work in financial markets understand—in some ways, at least—what can be done and can play a significant role in trying to lift people who are struggling.”

IF BH OBAMA EVER BECAME EPIC HERO HE NEEDED A BIRTH CERTIFICATE BUT EPIC GOD/S ARE EXEMPT OF REQUIREMENT:WHY? Hi, joymalin@ymail.co... Profile Contacts Account Info You are signed in as: joymalin@ymail.co...Sign OutHelpGet Yahoo! ToolbarYahoo!MailMy Yahoo!NewsFinanceSportsWeb Search Ask Answer Discover Search for questions: Advanced My Profile Home > Ask Your Question 2 Categorize your question Categorize your question Joy M_democracy Your Question new era,newer democracy,if made an epic,god/s, epican heros of villalionf? 1 2 3 Mexico 'Dangerous' Hurricane Jimena Threatens Mexico Afghanistan Afghan War Is Serious but Winnable, Top General Says China Report Rekindles China Derivatives Debate HomeForumsTop StoriesPopularPhotosLocal USPoliticsWorldSportsEntertainmentOffbea… TopicsTop StoriesForums & PollsNewsTop Stories Photos development@bh obama epic us style, ask any, no reply Posted in the Top Stories Forum Ads by Google News Headlines at AOL.com - Get the Latest Business, National and World News Headlines at AOL® AOL.com Obituaries - We Have Newspaper Obituaries! Find Any Obituary - From Any Year. NewspaperArchive.com/Obituaries! Need Windows in Seattle? - Professionally Installed Windows. Lifetime Warranty. Free Estimates www.procraftwindows.com/Seattle Comments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Female Lovechild MS Join the community Saranac Lake, NY 1 min ago 1 2 new epic chapter of b h obama presidency usa 1/2 terms | Afghanistan Photos: Women of Afghanistan HomeForumsTop StoriesPopularPhotosLocal USPoliticsWorldSportsEntertain mentOffbeatGamesOther TopicsUS PoliticsForums & PollsNewsNewswireUS Politics Photos A fake B cert with false data in HI/CA et al do make NO obamaELIGIBLE Posted in the US Politics Forum Ads by Google Meet Bob McDonnell - Best Leader for Virginia. Learn More. www.BobMcDonnell.com Care about health care?- Call Rep. Murphy and tell him to support the public option www.moveon.org/hc/murphy Barbary Coast Consulting - Agile and smart SF Bay Area communications, outreach, lobbying www.BarCoast.com Comments Showing posts 1 - 1 of1 Female Lovechild MS Join the community Saranac Lake, NY 1 min ago Obama followers produced birth papers as 2 hospitals as birth place of b h obama @ honolulu. Hospitals in honolulu denied that obama was not born there BH Obama received ok from democratic party in usa, edward kennedy, ms pelosi as if obama was truthfully born in usa @ honolulu HI. Obama b h is hiding exact place of birth of obama to make him eligible for u s pres job wef 1.20. 2009. Obama if may not prove his u s american birth , HE should resign from job of above noted authorities may use a choice to declare by enactment of a legislation that live children born on planet named earth during last century preceeding 11.4. 2008, if such babies if not declared felon on 18th birth date and living , with one PARENT AS proven u s citizen OF ANY ADULT AGE ,be declared u s citizen for life, such persons if illegally abused nationality of other countries may not lose 100% ALL LIFE PROOF U S CITIZENSHIP SO THAT IF OBAMA PROVES THAT HE WAS HONOLULU BORN,& WITH TRAVEL HISTORY TO pAKISTAN WITH INDONESIAN PASSPORT SHALL NOT BE INELIGIBLE FOR U S PRESIDENCY. tHE REVEREND DR kamal KARNA K ROY AKA JOSEPH GERONIMO JR MAY RETIRE HIS CLAIM TO BE ONLY ELIGIBLE PERSON NOT RETIRE TILL DATE 8.31.2009 WITH SOME DAMAGES TO WITHDRAW HIS CLAIM, TO UPKEEP HONOR OF usa, THE HONOR HAD HAD BEEN JEOPARDIZED BY B H OBAMA. bUT OBAMA MAY ESCAPE PUNISHMENT FOR VIOLATIONS OF MANY LAWS CONNECTED TO HIS BIRTH, HE WAS DEFINITELY BORN BUTLIVE WITNESSES SAY THAT HE WAS BORN IN KENYA OR OUTSIDE USA, BUT A DEEPROOTED CONSPIRACY MADE B H OBAMA, REBORN AND MADE IN USA. THE COMMENT IS APPROVED BY THE REVEREND DR ROY WHO HAD HAD BEEN PRESIDENTIAL FEC REGD LEGAL HOPEFUL AND HE DID FILE 258 FEDERAL OR IC J PETITIONS FILED TO ADJUDICATE HIS CLAIM TO BE ONLY NON RETIRED HOPEFUL PERSON,& LEGAL TO BE US PRESIDENT WEF 1.20.2009.oBAMA PERHAPS STOLE U S PRESIDENT'S JOB IN A FASHION MORE COMPLICATED THAN INCIDENT IN iran STOLEN ELECTION OF 2009 FOR IRAN PRESIDENCY. MS FEMALE LOVECHILD ,8.31.09 Based on your question, we think it belongs in one of these categories: Suggested Category Browse Categories Suggested Category Society & Culture > Mythology & Folklore Arts & Humanities > History Entertainment & Music > Movies Arts & Humanities > Philosophy Society & Culture > Religion & Spirituality Or, select a different category from our complete list. Select a category using our category browser below or view Suggested Categories. Arts & Humanities >Beauty & Style >Business & Finance >Cars & Transportation >Computers & Internet >Consumer Electronics >Dining Out >Education & Reference >Entertainment & Music >Environment >Family & Relationships >Food & Drink >Games & Recreation >Health >Home & Garden >Local Businesses >News & Events >Pets >Politics & Government >Pregnancy & Parenting >Science & Mathematics >Social Science >Society & Culture >Sports >Travel >Yahoo!

Lebanon: you know you're an Arab when....? I just found this so funny lol ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You have a Sitto always cooking for you You go to Arabic Restaurants, tell the owners you’re Arab, and think you’re going to get free food. You fight over who’s going to pay the bill You act like you want to pay, but in reality you hate to pay You would never call it Pita Bread You feel proud when someone famous or a celebrity has any Arabic blood in them. you belly dance as if your life depended on it If you are an Arab woman, you dye your hair an obviously fake shade of blonde that is nonexistent in nature and swear that it's natural. If you're a single Arab guy, you tell women you're a "successful businessman" or that you "own a successful business back home" even if you're an unemployed goat herder. Your favorite food is warag dawali, but you are embarrassed to tell your friends that you eat leaves for dinner. You get really happy and call the whole family to the room when there is a special or documentary on Arabs or anything Arab-related on CNN or PBS. You don't use the word "tease" in English cause you feel weird. You say “bolice” and “bastor” for “police” and “pastor.” You smoke as if it were your last day on earth…and you only smoke Marlboro. You cook a meal that lasts 3 days Your father swears at you with words that affect him You have 500,000,000 cousins Your relatives alone could populate a small city At weddings it takes the bride and groom 4 hours to kiss all the guests You have a gold necklace of your name written in Arabic Your middle name is your father’s first name If you are male, you’re named after your grandfather or great-grandfather You play cards till the break of dawn You can’t have a meal without bread You never run out of bizzer You bump Arabic music at all times You have to constantly remind your American friends to take off their shoes when they enter your house You've had a shoe thrown at you by your mother You get offended when Americans call Arabic bread “Pita bread” You teach your American friends Arabic word (mostly bad ones) and get happy when they use them in normal conversations You have a difficult Arabic name so you come up with an Americanized version of it like “Sam” or “Mike.” You've had someone tell you your fortune through your coffee cup You love Um Kalthoom and if you don’t, your dad makes you listen to her and tries to translate the words into English so you can appreciate her as much as he does Your dad eats mensef with his hands and forces his son to “join the men” You or your relatives own a grocery store, liquor store, restaurant, or gas station You eat hummus at least 4 times a week You own and/or play the tubleh You make Turkish coffee before leaving home to work, at the office, before lunch, after lunch, when having guests, before the guest leave, after the guests leave and before you go to bed You still have stored suitcases of clothes that you used to wear when you were five Everyone is a family friend If you are 25 and unmarried, your parents make you feel that you are getting old You hug and kiss relatives you have never seen before in your life You curse at your teachers or strangers in Arabic You flip out when someone mistakes you for a Mexican or Indian You can spot an Arab a mile away and they have spotted at you because they keep staring After a family meal, the women fight to the death over who should wash the dishes while the men sit on their behinds and discuss politics, waiting for their tea Your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner even if you’re in the next room You have at least thirty cousins You have 4 cousins, an uncle, a brother-in-law and 7 friends named Mohammed You arrive one or two hours late to a party and think it’s normal You are standing next to the largest suitcases at the airport You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone’s house You say bye 17 times on the phone When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover they know one of your uncles back home Your parents don’t realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making long distance calls You’re walking out of customs with your trolley at the airport and you see at least twenty-five members of your family who have come to pick you up You go back to your parents’ country and people treat you like a member of the royal family Your parents drink 6 cups of tea a day

A new kind of politics? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704060020apr06,1,1855420.story?coll=chi-news-hed&?track=sto-topstory MEXICANS IN CHICAGO: A NEW KIND OF POLITICS Influence on both sides of the border Activists' political power is rising in Chicago and their homeland, as they seek reforms through marches and money Advertisement By Antonio Olivo and Oscar Avila Tribune staff reporters April 6, 2007 To outsiders, the men and women gathered inside a sleepy West Side restaurant may have seemed unlikely power brokers: a janitor, a real estate agent and others hardly known outside their circuit of neighborhood dances and back-yard barbecues. Jose Luis Gutierrez, who plotted strategy with the group as a soccer match flickered on a nearby TV, was himself a wholesale grocer until last year. But Gutierrez is now a top aide to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and he was joined at the table by leaders of Chicago-area Mexican immigrant clubs, the engines behind a new political movement that is making itself felt from Illinois to Michoacan. Gutierrez received smiling nods when he likened the political muscle of the region's 563,000 Mexican immigrants to the power of Irish-Americans in the 19th and 20th Centuries, who came to control the Chicago machine. In May, the strength of Mexicans will be on display when many of the region's 300 immigrant clubs -- known as "hometown associations" -- will help organize a march in downtown Chicago a year after their political coming-out party, demonstrations that flooded the Loop last spring and charged the national immigration debate. For decades Mexican hometown associations have functioned as social networks whose members pooled their money earned here to help build new schools or churches back in Mexico. But leaders in Chicago's largest immigrant group have a more ambitious worldview than their predecessors, even more than the ethnic blocs that preceded them decades ago. Some, like Gutierrez, wield growing influence in both countries. One morning, he's unveiling a blueprint for more immigrant services in Illinois as director of the state's Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy. The next night, he's brainstorming with activists in his home state of Michoacan about a slate of candidates for Mexico's congress. An active role in Mexican politics might seem at odds with building political influence here. But Gutierrez and others say they form a budding new political consciousness among Mexican immigrants -- a "third nation" of sorts that transcends the border, advancing the community's cause on both sides. "The nation-state concept is changing," said Gutierrez, 46, who came to Chicago in 1986 and led one of the Midwest's largest federations of hometown associations. "You don't have to say, `I am Mexican,' or, `I am American.' You can be a good Mexican citizen and a good American citizen and not have that be a conflict of interest. Sovereignty is flexible." That concept worries some U.S. officials and scholars who see the dual loyalty as undermining the assimilation of Mexican immigrants. Irish, German and Polish immigrants eventually melded into Chicago's landscape, their ties to their native soil largely sentimental. But Mexican immigrants today are linked to their homeland like no group before, scholars say, connected by NAFTA, satellite TV, the Internet, cell phones and cheap non-stop flights. In Mexico, their power stems from the nearly $25 billion these immigrants send home every year, the country's second-highest source of income behind oil. Their political influence surfaces in places like Teloloapan, far up in the cactus-filled hills of the state of Guerrero, where a Chicago restaurateur helped build new roads and business. Grateful townspeople elected him mayor in a landslide. In the U.S., immigrants' power is driven by numbers and a growing deftness at the levers of this country's political machinery. That recently manifested itself in a fledgling political action committee called Mexicans for Political Progress, which raised $23,000 for Blagojevich's re-election and rallied volunteers to walk precincts during November's election. An unfolding movement Fabian Morales, a soft-spoken Realtor with a well-clipped mustache, stands at the center of the unfolding movement. He handled logistics for three massive immigration marches in Chicago last year -- including a four-day walk to suburban Batavia -- and co-founded Mexicans for Political Progress. After coming to Chicago in 1970, Morales helped launch one of the city's then-few hometown clubs, devoted to his tiny native village of Xonacatla, Guerrero. Back then, Xonacatla was without roads, potable water or electricity. It was a slow journey from other towns by foot or horseback, Morales said. The club members in Chicago resolved to change that. Collecting $50 to $100 at a time, Morales and others raised enough through barbecues and door-to-door soliciting to replace a house used for worship services with a towering marble church that rises from the green hillside. Morales has since helped develop CONFEMEX, an umbrella organization for most of the hometown clubs in the Midwest. Among other things, the group is a central voice in economic development in Mexico, representing an estimated $340 million in projects generated by U.S.-based hometown associations in the last five years, according to Mexican federal officials. "We want to focus on creating more jobs there so they don't have to think about emigrating," Morales said. The rising activity of hometown associations caught the eye of the Mexican government, which eventually created a "3-for-1" matching project, where federal, state and local governments split the cost of a new bridge or computer center with the U.S.-based groups. Those projects have given Mexican immigrants "a great moral authority" in their homeland, as well as political cachet, said Carlos Gonzalez, executive director of the Institute for Mexicans in the Exterior, or IME, a Mexican federal government agency that fosters stronger ties with expatriates. "During the 1970s, [Mexicans] called the people who left Mexico and acclimated to the U.S. 'pocho,' which, if you look in the dictionary, means 'spoiled fruit,' " Gonzalez said. "The change we've seen in the public perception of Mexicans in the exterior has been 180 degrees." In 2006, citizens abroad were allowed to vote in Mexican presidential elections for the first time. Leaders are also pushing for changes that would allow expatriates to vote in local elections and even hold elective offices while residing abroad. Recently, Gutierrez and others persuaded Michoacan to become the first state in Mexico to extend voting rights to expatriates. Their rationale: Almost half of those born in Michoacan, Zacatecas and several other Mexican states now live in the U.S. Timoteo "Alex" Manjarrez, 44, is among a small but growing number of Mexican immigrants making a bolder claim in their motherland. Arriving from his native town of Teloloapan, Guerrero, in 1980, Manjarrez spent 19 years in Chicago. The stocky, boyish-looking immigrant worked for years as a dishwasher at the Columbia Yacht Club and, eventually, became owner of three Mexican restaurants in the city. Fulfilling a desire shared by many immigrants, Manjarrez moved back to his native town in 1999 with enough money for his family to live comfortably. But the place he had longed for all those years was still frustratingly poor, despite the investments Manjarrez's hometown club made in new roads and other improvements. Manjarrez, who holds both Mexican and U.S. citizenship, settled in and quickly built a new health club and a hacienda-style restaurant named La Condesa, after the three he still owns in Chicago. In 2004, he ran for mayor of Teloloapan. With long-distance backing from his hometown club friends in Chicago, who sent money and telephoned friends and local officials on his behalf, Manjarrez won handily. 'The city that works' Since taking office, the man who sees Mayor Richard M. Daley as a political role model has pushed to remake Teloloapan into a Mexican version of "the city that works." The effort includes newly paved streets, a recreation center that replaces a local swamp known as "black waters," and a towering hotel being built privately by Manjarrez's family. Next to a new medical clinic, a donated Chicago ambulance sits in the parking lot. Its emblem has been painted over, but it serves as a reminder of the continued links Manjarrez has to his former city, where he maintains a home near Midway Airport, votes in U.S. elections and checks in on his businesses. Aurelio Santamaria Bahena, mayor of a town near Manjarrez's called Tlapehuala, labeled such changes "a blessing" for an area of Mexico dominated by crumbling lean-to houses and children in bare feet pulling bone-thin donkeys. But, as with other parts of the country where the immigrant handprint is deepening, the introduction of U.S.-style governance has also bred resentment. Local leaders of Manjarrez's own Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) are trying to drum him out of office, arguing he is too brash and condescending. The mayor counters the fight is about his efforts to take away "a plate of corruption that they've been able to eat from for years." The conflict was an uncomfortable backdrop during a recent PRD strategy meeting at a restaurant in Chilpancingo, Guerrero's capital. Headlines that morning featured a march against Manjarrez, orchestrated by his opponents. "People see you as an outsider," a worried Santamaria cautioned Manjarrez. "People don't think you see things as they are here." Manjarrez, wearing a black "La Condesa" windbreaker, patted his friend on the back and smiled. He had a media plan, one that might have made Daley proud. "We'll publish photos of the streets of Teloloapan before and after I came into office," Manjarrez said. "And, we'll ask the people: `Which would you prefer?' " That same week, Mexican immigrants from the U.S. and Canada met in Mexico City, as members of an advisory council created by the Mexican government. With a brash American style, they soon escalated their advice to demands, the members' voices echoing through the meeting hall. Morales, the Chicago Realtor, and about 100 other council members pushed Mexico to lobby the U.S. harder on immigration reform. They chastised their hosts for not creating more jobs. Buttonholing federal legislators in hallways, they reminded elected officials how much their districts relied on money sent from the U.S. They want 'results now' Gregorio Luke, a blond member of the council from Los Angeles partial to designer suits, observed that this kind of behavior wouldn't exist in a purely Mexican forum, where deference toward authority guides nearly all dialogue. "These people come here speaking Spanish, but they're negotiating as Americans," said Luke, a museum director who once oversaw cultural affairs at the Los Angeles Mexican Consulate. "They want to see results now." The meeting of the advisory council also illustrated the provocative overlap of Mexican and American political action. In addition to all-day strategy sessions on how to improve Mexico, council members brainstormed over late-night drinks on next moves in the fight for U.S. immigration reform. Many members had used their existing e-mail network to coordinate simultaneous demonstrations in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities. Though not active participants in the U.S. immigrant movement, Mexican officials urged their compatriots to keep on fighting. "Let there be no barriers or walls between Mexicans here on the inside and the outside," former Mexican President Vicente Fox told the group, referring to a 2006 U.S. law that allows for a 700-mile fence to be built at the border. The audience stood and cheered. The idea that the Mexican government might be helping its nationals shape U.S. politics has raised red flags, both in the halls of academia and in the more volatile world of talk radio and the Internet. Robert Leiken, director of the immigration and national security program at the right-leaning Nixon Center in Washington, argued that binational activism among Mexican immigrants is bad for both countries. In the U.S., the meetings in Spanish and the often-passionate interest in Mexico's future hinder assimilation, he said. In Mexico, the relationship to hometown associations fosters an unhealthy economic dependence on U.S. remittances. "If I went out to Pilsen and spent some time with people from a hometown association, I'd think these are really cool people," Leiken said. But, "Standing back and looking at this from a social policy standpoint, I see some real problems." James McCann, a Purdue University political science professor, found that immigrants interested in Mexican affairs were more likely to participate in U.S. politics. He helped interview about 1,100 Mexican immigrants and found that hometown clubs promoted activism. "The conventional wisdom is that any transnational engagement is going to suck the oxygen out of your civic life in the States," McCann said. "But it seems that if you open a new avenue of expression in Mexico, that new avenue might pay some other dividends in the U.S." Some of those dividends went directly to the Blagojevich campaign last fall, when the governor found himself being serenaded by a trumpet-playing mariachi band inside the Hacienda Tecalitlan restaurant on the Near Northwest Side. Near a trickling courtyard fountain, Morales praised the governor in Spanish at the kickoff dinner for the Mexicans for Political Progress PAC. While Morales once raised money for his hometown with $1 tamales, the price here was as much as $500 a plate. "Let us demonstrate our political power by voting in the election, by voting for our friends interested in the prosperity of Mexicans. Friends like Gov. Rod Blagojevich!" Morales told the crowd. Blagojevich, who speaks a hint of Spanish, took the microphone and shouted: "Viva Chivas!" a reference to a popular Mexican soccer team. When the laughter and applause subsided, he switched to English and added: "By organizing, you are empowering a community. Your voice will be heard." The mood is darker in northwest suburban Carpentersville, where a growing Mexican community has rallied in large numbers in the face of a local backlash against undocumented immigrants. Last fall, about 3,000 Mexican immigrants and their supporters turned up outside Carpentersville's City Hall in an unexpected show of opposition to a proposed ordinance that would penalize landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. The crowd was so riled a vote on the ordinance was postponed and has yet to be taken. The quick response came largely due to the hometown association representing the village of La Purisima, Michoacan, local activists said. The club turned to its telephone list of 400 families, said Salvador Balleno, the group's president. The turnout was a victory, but it has not deterred Carpentersville trustees from other proposals that would allow local police to trigger deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants and make English the village's official language. And as Balleno has struggled to register voters and rally volunteers for this month's village elections, even sympathetic politicians have seemed hesitant to link themselves too closely with the hometown association. Balleno now fears the village's hard-liners have the upper hand, intimidating some of the immigrants who protested last fall. "The [club] members know that if these people stay [in office] it is going to affect their kids," Balleno said, sounding anxious that an opportunity was slipping through his fingers. Jose Artemio Arreola, a key organizer of next month's march in Chicago, has been actively monitoring the battle in Carpentersville. He sees the activity there as part of a plan to create a political empire for Mexican immigrants, one linking hometown associations in Chicago and other cities to labor unions and Mexico's congress. His strategy includes moving back to his native state of Michoacan to run for congress there, something Arreola never imagined doing when he left a town overrun by poverty and ruled by local drug kingpins. He got his start in Chicago working in a plastics factory. Frustrated by the union representation there, he ran for shop steward and won. Unable to speak English, he relied on his bilingual co-workers to help him negotiate union contracts. He has since become a school janitor in Oak Park. The position pays little, but it has allowed Arreola to climb the ranks of the Service Employees International Union, where he has become key in that union's national efforts to tap further into the country's exploding Mexican immigrant workforce. All the while, Arreola has used the sharp elbows and old-school union tactics acquired in Chicago to become a power broker in his hometown of Acuitzio del Canje. He started in 2004 when the local mayor refused to back projects proposed by his hometown association. Arreola, a burly backslapper partial to gold neck chains, recalled thinking: "I need to take them out." He recruited a teacher to run for mayor in the Mexican town. Arreola then brought back a town phone book and, with others in Chicago, called voters one by one, promising a stream of U.S. investment if his candidate won. The incumbent opted for traditional rallies and car tours through town with a bullhorn. More than two years later, sitting in a Pilsen restaurant, Arreola opened a laptop computer and showed off the fruits of what proved to be an easy victory. Pictures of a new retirement home popped onto the screen, one featuring a grinning Arreola at a groundbreaking ceremony. Another showed a new computer lab with 40 computers for local schoolchildren, an investment in the future of Acuitzio del Canje. The town's name comes from an 1865 decision to make it the site for a "canje," or exchange of prisoners between warring Mexican and French troops. Sitting deep in the dusty mountains of Michoacan, it was neutral ground back then, Arreola explained, territory that didn't fully belong to either country but, in some ways, belonged to both. ---------- aolivo@tribune.com oavila@tribune.com - - - IN THE WEB EDITION Jose Artemio Arreola is one of several Mexican hometown association leaders in Chicago with multiple connections in Mexico and the U.S. From helping organize last year's massive immigration marches to slating political candidates in his home state, he wields influence on both sides of the border. To learn more about Arreola, watch videos and see photo galleries, go to chicagotribune.com/mexicansinchicago. Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

plz. help me to write the main idea of this article in the NY Times. in two pages.? November 5, 2006 Where Plan A Left Ahmad Chalabi By DEXTER FILKINS 1. London, August 2006 Many miles away in a more dangerous place the dream is ending badly. The bodies pile up. Good people stream to the borders. Leaders pile money onto planes. The center is giving way. The apartment on South Street in London is an antidote to Baghdad in nearly every respect. Where the Iraqi capital rings with chaos and violence, the sidewalks of Mayfair are quiet enough to hear your own voice above the cars. Baghdad is treeless and tan; the South Street apartment opens onto a private park filled with the lushness of an English garden. Just across the way is the Anglican church where General Eisenhower, stationed here as the commander of Allied forces during the war, came to pray. A maid greets you at the door, an elderly Lebanese woman who doubles as an Arabic teacher for the children. The parlor is neatly appointed and filled with art, most of it European, different from the Baghdad house, where most of it is Iraqi. There is “Sketch of a Woman,” by Lucien Pissarro, the French painter who propagated Impressionism in London; it catches the light nicely. The furniture is expensive, the kind that makes you hesitate to sit down. But the place has a lived-in quality too; family members come and go, clutching bags and calling to one another down the hallways. No one seems the least bit awed by the man of the house, who is dressed in a bespoke suit and carries himself like a monarch, and who, until now, hasn’t spent more than a day at a time here since before the Iraq war began. For Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq is an abstraction again. Once again, his native country is a faraway land ruled by somebody else, a place where other people die. It’s a place to be discussed, rued, plotted over, from a parlor on an expensive Western street. Iraq’s new leaders, the men who excluded Chalabi from the government they formed this spring, still call for advice — several times a day, Chalabi says. He is here in London, his longtime home in exile, temporarily, he says, taking his first vacation in five years. At lunch at a nearby restaurant an hour before, he ordered the sea bass wrapped in a banana leaf. He walks the streets unattended by armed guards. But the interlude, Chalabi says, is just that, a passing thing. His doubters will come back to him; they always have. As ever, he wears a jester’s smile, wide and blank, a mask that has carried him through crises of the first world and the third. Still, a touch of bitterness can creep into Chalabi’s voice, a hint that he has concluded that his time has come and gone. Indeed, even for a man as vain and resilient as Chalabi, his present predicament stands too large to go unacknowledged. Once Iraq’s anointed leader — anointed by the Americans — Chalabi, at age 62, is without a job, spurned by the very colleagues whose ascension he engineered. His benefactors in the White House and in the Pentagon, who once gobbled up whatever half-baked intelligence Chalabi offered, now regard him as undependable and — worse — safely ignored. Chalabi’s life work, an Iraq liberated from Saddam Hussein, a modern and democratic Iraq, is spiraling toward disintegration. Indeed, for many in the West, Chalabi has become the personification of all that has gone wrong in Iraq: the lies, the arrogance, the occupation as disaster. “The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz,” Chalabi says, referring to his erstwhile backer, the former deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. “They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out.” Chalabi still considers Wolfowitz a friend, so he proceeds carefully. America’s big mistake, Chalabi maintains, was in failing to step out of the way after Hussein’s downfall and let the Iraqis take charge. The Iraqis, not the Americans, should have been allowed to take over immediately — the people who knew the country, who spoke the language and, most important, who could take responsibility for the chaos that was unfolding in the streets. An Iraqi government could have acted harshly, even brutally, to regain control of the place, and the Iraqis would have been without a foreigner to blame. They would have appreciated the firm hand. There would have been no guerrilla insurgency or, if there was, a small one that the new Iraqi government could have ferreted out and crushed on its own. An Iraqi leadership would have brought Moktada al-Sadr, the populist cleric, into the government and house-trained him. The Americans, in all likelihood, could have gone home. They certainly would have been home by now. “We would have taken hold of the country,” Chalabi says. “We would have revitalized the civil service immediately. We would have been able to put together a military force and an intelligence service. There would have been no insurgency. We would have had electricity. The Americans screwed it up.” Chalabi’s notion — that an Iraqi government, as opposed to an American one, could have saved the great experiment — has become one of the arguments put forth by the war’s proponents in the just-beginning debate over who lost Iraq. At best, it’s improbable: Chalabi is essentially arguing that a handful of Iraqi exiles, some of whom had not lived in the country in decades, could have put together a government and quelled the chaos that quickly engulfed the country after Hussein’s regime collapsed. They could have done this, presumably, without an army (which most wanted to dissolve) and without a police force (which was riddled with Baathists). In fact, the Americans considered the idea and dismissed it. (But not, Wolfowitz insists, because of him. His longtime aide, Kevin Kellems, said that Wolfowitz favored turning over power “as rapidly as possible to duly elected Iraqi authorities.”) The Bush administration decided to go to the United Nations and have the American role in Iraq formally described as that of an “occupying power,” a step that no Iraqi, not even the lowliest tea seller, failed to notice. They appointed L. Paul Bremer III as viceroy. Instead of empowering Iraqis, Bremer set up an advisory panel of Iraqis — one that included Chalabi — that had no power at all. The warmth that many ordinary Iraqis felt for the Americans quickly ebbed away. It’s not clear that the Americans had any other choice. But here in his London parlor, Chalabi is now contending that excluding Iraqis was the Americans’ fatal mistake. “It was a puppet show!” Chalabi exclaims again, shifting on the couch. “The worst of all worlds. We were in charge, and we had no power. We were blamed for everything the Americans did, but we couldn’t change any of it.” It’s three and a half years later now. More than 2,800 Americans are dead; more than 3,000 Iraqis die each month. The anarchy seems limitless. In May 2004, American and Iraqi agents even raided Chalabi’s home in Baghdad. He has been denounced by Bremer and by Bush and accused of passing secrets to America’s enemy, Iran. At the heart of the American decision to take over and run Iraq, Chalabi now concludes, lay a basic contempt for Iraqis, himself included. “In Wolfowitz’s mind, you couldn’t trust the Iraqis to run a democracy,” Chalabi says. “ ‘We have to teach them, give them lessons,’ in Wolfowitz’s mind. ‘We have to leave Iraq under our tutelage. The Iraqis are useless. The Iraqis are incompetent.’ “What I didn’t realize,” Chalabi says, “was that the Americans sold us out.” Turkish coffee is served, then tea. I consider Chalabi’s predicament: the Iraqi patrician, confidant of prime ministers and presidents, the M.I.T.- and University of Chicago-trained mathematics professor, owner of a Mayfair flat, complaining of being regarded, by the masters he once manipulated, as a scruffy, shiftless native. “I’ve been a friend of America, and I’ve been its enemy,” he says. “America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I’d rather be America’s enemy.” And so he is. Sort of. With Chalabi, it’s hard to be certain, and not just because his motives are so opaque, but because he is never still. He is enigmatic, brilliant, nimble, unreliable, charming, narcissistic, finally elusive. The journey to Mayfair is a long one. What happened to Chalabi? Well, you might ask: What happened to Iraq? 2. Mushkhab, January 2005 The election is coming, and we are heading south. Twenty cars, mostly carrying men with guns. They hang out the windows, pointing their Kalashnikovs at the terrified drivers. Get out of the way or we shoot, and maybe we shoot anyway — that’s the message. But that’s Iraq. We move quickly, weaving, south in the southbound, south in the northbound. Very fast. Unbelievably fast. Drivers veer and career. We go where we want. We’re low on fuel, and a gas station beckons. It is one of the strange and singular facts of Iraqi life that despite sitting atop an ocean of oil, Iraqis must wait hours — often days — for gasoline at the pumps. Lack of refining capacity, smuggling, stealing, insurgent attacks, Soviet subsidies: it’s complicated. On the road outside Salman Pak, the line is perhaps 300 cars long. The Chalabi convoy cuts straight to the front of the line. No one protests. It’s the guns. The Iraqis wait for days, and our effrontery brings no protest. Not a peep. We get our gas and we speed away, guns out the windows. Very fast. An hour later, we arrive at our destination, Mushkhab. It’s a mostly Shiite town about 100 miles south of Baghdad. It is friendly country — to Chalabi, and still, then, to Americans. The whole town — the males, anyway — gathers round. Chalabi stands in the center, dressed in a dark gray Western suit. The Iraqis clap and read poetry; some of it they sing. It’s a tradition, a kind of serenade to the honored guest. “Hey, listen, Bush, we are Iraqis,” the poet says, and everyone is clapping. “We never bow our heads to anyone, and we won’t do it for you. We have tough guys like Chalabi on our side — be careful.” Everyone laughs. We move inside the mudhif, a tall, long, fantastic structure woven of dried river reeds, a kind of pavilion of rattan. The room is laid with hand-woven carpets, and on the walls hang framed yellowed photographs of the leaders of the tribe, Al Fatla, meeting with their British overlords many years ago. A pair of loudspeakers are set up in the front. Chalabi takes a microphone. “My Iraqi brothers, the Americans pushed out Saddam, but they did not liberate our country,” Chalabi tells the group. “We are asking you to participate in this election so that we can have an independent country. This is not just words. The Iraqi people will liberate the country.” He goes on a little more, warming to the Iraqis assembled about him. “On my way here, I saw a huge line of people waiting for gasoline,” Chalabi tells the group. “Some of them were there for two nights, carrying blankets with them. It makes me very sad to see my brothers wait for days to get gas at the station.” Shameless, huh? I thought so, too. Almost a thing of beauty. It was so outrageous I almost wanted to forgive him, as a teacher might her sassy but cleverest boy. And that’s the thing about Chalabi: he’s very difficult to dislike. It may be his secret. It was Chalabi, after all — a foreigner, an Arab — who persuaded the most powerful men and women in the United States to make the liberation of Iraq not merely a priority but an obsession. First in 1998, when Chalabi persuaded Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act (in turn leading to payments to his group, the Iraqi National Congress, exceeding $27 million over the next six years) and then, later, in persuading the Bush administration of the necessity of using force to destroy Saddam Hussein. And when it all went bad, when those nuclear weapons never turned up, the clever child shrugged and smiled. “We are heroes in error,” Chalabi told Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Almost with a wink. Lunch is served: a long table heaped with rice and roasted lamb. No seats. Everyone stands, dozens of us, and we dig in with our fingers. After a time, we prepare to leave. The table and the ground around it are littered with rice and lamb bones. We re-form into a convoy and speed toward the holy city of Najaf. By the time we arrive in Najaf, it’s dark. The fighting between American soldiers and the Mahdi Army irregulars laid waste to the city only a few months before, but on this night, Najaf seems remarkably calm. The pilgrim hotels lie in ruins, but the golden dome of the shrine of Imam Ali shimmers under a January moon. Chalabi exits his S.U.V. and strides inside through the 20-foot-high wooden doors. A clutch of Sunni leaders, whom Chalabi has agreed to show around, trail in step. The curiosities intersect: the Sunnis are not Shiites, and this is the holiest of Shiite places, the tomb of the son-in-law of the Holy Prophet and the very heart of the Shiite faith. But they are still Muslims, and they are allowed to pass. As a non-Muslim, I wait outside in the street. More unlikely than the presence of the Sunnis is their tour guide, Chalabi. Or it was unlikely. Not anymore. Chalabi, the Westernized, Western-educated mathematician, has entered his Islamist phase. It’s not terribly convincing. He does not don a turban. He has no beard. He does not pray. He does not, really, even pretend. But as a practical politician — as an exile come home to a strange land getting stranger by the day — Chalabi had to do something. Relations between Chalabi and the Bush administration began to sour almost immediately after the fall of Hussein, when the Americans decided against putting Iraqis — presumably Chalabi — in charge. Bremer considered him an egomaniac. When no W.M.D. turned up, more and more Americans came to blame Chalabi for the war. Chalabi’s association with the Americans grew more disadvantageous by the day. The break came on May 20, 2004, when the Americans, accusing Chalabi of telling the Iranian government that the Americans were eavesdropping on their secret communications, swooped in on his Baghdad compound. American troops sealed off Mansour, the neighborhood where Chalabi lived, while scores of Iraqi and American agents kicked in the compound doors. One of the Iraqis, Chalabi said, put a gun to his head. “Look, I think they tried to kill him,” Richard Perle, the former Pentagon adviser and longtime Chalabi friend, said of the American and Iraqi agents. “I think the raid on his house was intended to result in violence. They had sent 20 or 40 Humvees over there. Chalabi was being protected by a force of about 100 guys with machine guns. It is a miracle that it didn’t result in a massive shootout.” No shots were fired, but the break seemed final. Isolated, Chalabi turned to Islam — and, in particular, to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric and leader of two armed uprisings against the Americans and the Iraqi government. Sadr is an erratic and unpredictable young man who sometimes ends his sermons with apocalyptic visions of the “hidden” 12th imam revealing himself. He is also the most popular man in Iraq. In the anarchy that ensued following the fall of Hussein, Iraqis, once known for their largely secular outlook, ran headlong toward Islam. Religion and anarchy moved together: the worse conditions got in the streets, the more Islamic Iraqis became. In the three and a half years that I have known Chalabi, I never once saw him pray. Or give any indication that he harbored religious beliefs at all. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser and a devout Shiite, told me once that when he and a group of five senior Iraqi politicians visited the Imam Ali shrine in 2004, all of them prayed but Chalabi. While the others knelt, Rubaie said, Chalabi stood quietly with his hands folded in front of him. On this return visit to the Imam Ali shrine, Chalabi and his Sunni colleagues spent 10 minutes inside and exited without saying a thing. But word travels quickly down Najaf’s narrow streets, and by the time our convoy sped back to Baghdad, there were very few people in Najaf who did not know that Chalabi had come. Once, when I asked Chalabi about his flirtation with the Islamists, he answered not in terms of religion but of politics. Moktada, he explained, was not essentially dangerous but merely misunderstood, an outsider who could be coaxed into Iraq’s new democratic order. Chalabi was happy to act as the bridge, and if he benefited politically from his efforts, he was not complaining. “The Americans made a mistake when they excluded Moktada in the beginning,” Chalabi told me. “Our real business is to persuade everybody that Sadr is better inside than outside, and to provide some measure of comfort to the middle class that he is not going to eat them up.” Indeed, Chalabi and Sadr are not as unlikely a pair as they may seem. Musa al-Sadr, the late Iranian-born ayatollah and Moktada’s cousin, presided over Chalabi’s wedding in Beirut in 1971. Chalabi’s wife, Leila, is the daughter of Adel Osseiran, a leader of the Lebanese independence movement. Musa al-Sadr was the founder of Amal, which became the prototypical Shiite party in the Middle East. It seemed like a game, and not one that Chalabi liked to give away. Whenever I asked him about his coziness with Moktada, and how it squared with his own religious beliefs, I usually received a curt retort. For a time, Chalabi — and the Americans — got the better of the deal. Moktada fielded candidates in the January 2005 election, and his militia, though still untamed, fell into line behind its leader. He endorsed something less than an absolute role for Islam in the Iraqi Constitution. By early 2006, parties loyal to Sadr held the largest bloc in the Iraqi Parliament. As for Chalabi, Moktada kept him afloat a little longer. But in siding with the Islamists, Chalabi helped make them stronger than they were, and he threw his weight behind a number of trends that were only then becoming dominant: the Islamization of Iraqi society, the division of Iraq into sectarian cantons. Those trends later spiraled out of control, into the de facto civil war that is unfolding now. Some Iraqis who watched Chalabi then still don’t forgive him — and they think that ultimately, the Islamists got the better of him. “Ahmad’s problem is that Ahmad is usually the smartest man in the room, and he thinks he can control what happens,” I was told by an Iraqi official who worked with Chalabi at the time and who would speak only anonymously. “But these guys don’t care if you have a Ph.D. in math; they’ll kill you. In the end, things went way past the point where Ahmad thought they would ever go. I can’t imagine he wanted that. But he helped start it.” 3. Baghdad, October 2005 Chalabi is standing on the rooftop of his ancestral home in Khadimiya, a heavily Shiite neighborhood known for its shrine. Mansour, the area where he has lived since Hussein’s fall, has slipped into anarchy. The final round of nationwide elections is a couple of months away. For the moment, Chalabi is the deputy prime minister, behind the affable but ineffectual Ibrahim Jaafari. Across the street stand a pair of grain silos built by his father, Abdul Hadi Chalabi. Downstairs, on a wall in the sitting room, there is an old British map dating to the 1920’s, showing Baghdad, which was much smaller than it is now. North of Baghdad, in what was then farmland and what is now Khadimiya, a dot indicates a town. The dot says, “Chalabi.” At the time, Chalabi’s family owned nearly two and a half million acres throughout Iraq. Those vast holdings are reduced to the compound where Chalabi now stands. It’s about 10 acres, including the main house, which a team of workers is renovating, a large swimming pool, a grove of date palms and, in the back, a mudhif. There is a row of garages, decrepit now, where workers once serviced the machinery and trucks that brought the wheat and dates to market. “Imagine,” Chalabi says, turning to me. “And C.I.A. says I have no roots here.” Chalabi spent 45 years in exile. Under the Hashemite monarchy installed by the British after World War I, the ruling class of the new Iraq was largely made up of Sunni Muslims, as it had been under the Ottoman Turks. The Chalabis were part of the small Shiite elite; most of the rest of the Shiite majority formed a vast underclass. The remnants of that Shiite elite now form a sizable slice of the political establishment of post-Saddam Iraq. In addition to Chalabi, there is Adil Abdul Mahdi, the vice president, a Chalabi friend since boyhood; Ayad Allawi, the former president, who is a Chalabi relative by marriage; and Feisal al-Istrabadi, the deputy ambassador to the United Nations in New York. In the 1950’s, Chalabi, Mahdi and Allawi were schoolmates at Baghdad College, an elite Jesuit high school. Even in their class photos, nearly a half-century old, all three men are instantly recognizable: Mahdi, the soft-spoken intellectual; Allawi, the charming bully; and Chalabi, the boy genius in a bow tie. On July 14, 1958, King Faisal II, the British-backed monarch, was deposed and killed; a day later, the prime minister, Nuri al-Said, fled to the home of Chalabi’s sister, Thamina. She dressed Said in an abaya, the head-to-toe gown worn by women. With the army closing in, Thamina Chalabi took Said to the home of Feisal al-Istrabadi’s grandparents. Ahmad Chalabi, then 14, watched his mother and Bibiya al-Istrabadi weep as they pondered the prime minister’s fate. “Three or four hours later, Said was dead,” Chalabi told me. “He shot himself.” Chalabi fled Iraq a few months later, first for Lebanon, then England and then America, where he received a degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. (Dissertation title: “Jacobson Radical of Group Algebras Over Fields Characteristic p.”) He did not return to Baghdad until April 11, 2003. Chalabi’s homecoming, after the U.S. invasion, was not the triumphant return he hoped it would be. What should have been his principal claim to legitimacy — his central role in toppling Saddam — never carried him very far; it became a liability as Iraq descended into chaos. In the new Iraq, Westernized elites carried less and less authority. Power belonged to the clerics and to the populists. And then there was the scandal at Petra Bank in Jordan, the outlines of which every Iraqi, no matter how dimly educated, seemed already to know: that Chalabi had been convicted in absentia for fraud and sentenced to 22 years in prison for embezzling almost $300 million. (Chalabi, who fled Jordan before he could be arrested, has long denied the charges, maintaining that they were cooked up by the Jordanian government under pressure from Saddam Hussein. Last year, the Jordanians signaled that they were willing to pardon Chalabi. But Chalabi insisted on a public apology, which the Jordanians refused to give.) Even the small army of Iraqi exiles that Chalabi had raised before the war never grew to be much more than a personal militia. One poll, conducted in early 2004, showed him to be the least trusted public figure in Iraq — even less trusted than Saddam Hussein. Dexter Filkins The suspicions that ordinary Iraqis harbored about Chalabi were never relieved by his industriousness. As oil minister and deputy prime minister, Chalabi worked night and day, often on the minutiae of Iraq’s oil pipelines and electricity lines or the precise wording, in Arabic and English, of the Iraqi Constitution. I typically went to see Chalabi at night, sometimes at 9 or 10, and usually had to wait an hour or so while he finished with his other visitors. If it was true that Chalabi had returned to Iraq with the expectation of acquiring power, it was not true that he was unwilling to work for it. Chalabi, like all Iraqi political leaders, functioned in conditions of mortal danger at nearly all times. Even when he wanted to walk into his backyard, he had to be followed by armed guards. It’s an exhausting and debilitating way to live. But while many Iraqi exiles either gave up and returned to the West, or now spend as much time outside the country as in, Chalabi stayed in Iraq almost continuously following Hussein’s fall. For all the hard work, his zigging and zagging across the political spectrum frustrated many of the Iraqi elites — his only natural constituency — especially after his flirtation with the Islamists. “I don’t think Chalabi has any credibility left,” Adnan Pachachi, the 83-year-old former foreign minister, told me before the 2005 elections. “He is not acceptable to Iraqis. People don’t like him shifting all the time. This thing with Moktada — it’s ridiculous.” One who remained true was his friend Mahdi, who seemed, perhaps from his boyhood days swimming in the Tigris with Chalabi, to carry a deeper understanding of his old friend. “This is the style of Ahmad,” Mahdi told me just before the elections. “He was a banker. He works a dossier. Each time it’s different — he invests here, he invests there, he invests elsewhere. He has had successes, he has had maybe his failures. I can work with him.” Chalabi never grasped his essential unpopularity. In the first round of elections, in January 2005, Chalabi rode into office as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition pulled together by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the powerful Shiite religious leader. Nearly every Shiite in Iraq voted for the U.I.A., and a name on its slate all but guaranteed a seat in the Parliament. The leadership of the U.I.A. was sharply Islamist. Nearly a year later, as the December 2005 elections approached, Chalabi veered again, away from the Islamists, away from Moktada. Chalabi publicly chided the Shiite coalition as being too Islamic-minded, declaring he didn’t want to be a member of a government that was planning to transform Iraq into an Islamist state. By that time, of course, Iraq was already quite Islamist anyway. “They’re Islamist, and I don’t want to be part of the sectarian project,” Chalabi told me just before the elections that December. I actually believed him, but given his association with Moktada, it didn’t seem that many other Iraqis would. The reality, anyway, was more complicated. In the weeks before the election, the Shiite alliance offered Chalabi and his supporters 5 seats on its 275-seat slate; Chalabi demanded 10. Some Shiite leaders told me that they had deliberately offered Chalabi a low figure in the hope that he would leave their alliance for good. Mahdi, the vice president, denied that this was true. “For four days I tried to convince him; I even threatened him,” Mahdi told me. “I said, ‘Ahmad, if you leave this room, we will be no more friends.’ I was not serious. I was only threatening.” So Chalabi went his own way. If he had wanted only a seat for himself, he could have taken his place in the Shiite alliance; plenty of other Iraqis did. In going alone, he must have known that he was risking disaster. He went ahead anyway. A few days before the election, I drove up to Chalabi’s compound in Khadimiya for a lunch he was holding for tribal leaders. In much the same fashion as in Mushkhab 11 months before, about 100 sheiks from Sadr City listened to a Chalabi speech before descending on heaps of lamb and rice. One of the sheiks, a man named Sahaeh Masif al-Kindh, approached me as he walked out. “Chalabi didn’t forget us when we were living under Saddam,” al-Kindh told me. “He was Saddam’s biggest enemy. We don’t forget that.” 4. Washington, November 2005 The second round of Iraqi elections is only a few weeks away, and the wheel is turning again. Chalabi, once in favor, then out, is back in. Ostensibly, he has been invited to Washington by Treasury Secretary John Snow to talk about the Iraqi economy. But it’s more than that. He’s going to see Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The allegations that prompted the raid on Chalabi’s compound 18 months before, that he tipped the Iranians to American eavesdropping, are mysteriously forgotten. Indeed, everything seems to have been forgotten. Chalabi is rising on the catastrophe that Iraq has become. The Bush administration is grasping for anyone who might help them. On paper at least, Chalabi has a shot at becoming prime minister. Most of the meetings are private. There is a dinner at the home of Richard Perle for some of Chalabi’s old Washington friends. One of the events, a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, is public. The room is filled. At the end of a speech, Chalabi is asked by someone in the crowd if he would like to apologize for misleading the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Chalabi nods as if he knew the question was coming. “This is an urban myth,” he says. The audience gasps. Chalabi told me later that his role as an intelligence conduit on weapons of mass destruction began shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he was contacted by the Department of Defense. Not vice versa. “They came to us and asked, ‘Can you help us find something on Saddam?’ ” he said. “We put out feelers.” By that time, the autumn of 2001, Chalabi had a long record of working with the American government in its shadow war against Hussein. Throughout the 1990’s, however, Chalabi demonstrated time and again that he would pursue his own interests, even if they clashed with those of the United States. There was the time in 1995, for instance, when Chalabi, under the employ of the C.I.A. in the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil, launched an unauthorized attack on Hussein’s army. The attack failed to spark an uprising against Hussein; the Turks sent troops into northern Iraq; the C.I.A. was furious. It was a fiasco. “Very quickly he got out of control,” one retired C.I.A. officer who worked with Chalabi told me. “We didn’t know what he was doing over there. He was trying to provoke a war with Saddam.” Then there was the time, in 1996, when Chalabi interfered with a C.I.A. plot to topple Saddam. I heard the story not from Chalabi but from Perle, the Bush defense adviser and Chalabi friend. As Perle tells it, Chalabi called him in a panic from London, telling him that a C.I.A.-backed plot against Hussein was fatally compromised. The fact that the C.I.A.’s Iraqi front-man for the plot, Ayad Allawi, was a rival of Chalabi’s (as well as his relative) had nothing to do with his concerns, Perle said. As Perle tells it, he quickly telephoned the C.I.A. director at the time, John Deutch, who agreed to meet in downtown Washington. Perle said he spent an hour laying out Chalabi’s worries. “He was obviously concerned,” Perle said of Deutch. The plot went ahead anyway. It was a catastrophe. Hussein arrested as many as 800 people and reportedly executed dozens of high-ranking officers. As a final indignity, Hussein’s men dialed up Allawi’s headquarters in Amman, Jordan, on a C.I.A.-provided communications device they captured from the plotters and left a message: “You might as well pack up and go home.” Some people in the C.I.A. held Chalabi responsible, believing that he had spread word of the plot in order to deny Ayad Allawi the upper hand in the exile movement. “There was abiding suspicion in the agency that Chalabi blew it,” the former C.I.A. agent said. The fallout over the failed coup precipitated the C.I.A.’s decision to break ties with Chalabi. Chalabi dismisses those claims, and some in the C.I.A. from the period back him up. “Chalabi was as true to me as the day was long,” says Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. field agent in northern Iraq. “If Chalabi was going to blow the operation, why would he tell the C.I.A.?” There was the money issue, too. Throughout the 1990’s, as the C.I.A. and Congress funneled millions of dollars to Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress, rumors swirled about corruption. One of the skeptics was W. Patrick Lang, a senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. In 1995, Lang told me, he was sitting in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, when he overheard a group of Iraqis talking about the money they had received from the American government. “I knew who these guys were, and I heard them speaking Arabic, and it was obviously Iraqi Arabic,” Lang said. “So I went over and sat next to them and listened. So what they were talking about was how to spend the Americans’ money, going on shopping trips, stuff like that. Oh, they were talking about going shopping for jewelry for women, toys for kids. Consumer goods. They were also talking about Las Vegas. ‘We will sneak out of here and go to Las Vegas. We have a lot of money now.’ ” A couple of years later, Lang said, he visited the office of Senator Trent Lott, then the Senate majority leader. After introducing an Arab businessman to Lott, Lang sat in Lott’s anteroom with a number of Capitol Hill staff members who helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which provided millions of dollars to Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. They were praising Chalabi: “They were talking about him, that Chalabi fits into this plan as a very worthwhile, virtuous exemplar of modernization, somebody who could help reform first Iraq and then the Middle East. They were very pleased with themselves.” Lang, an old Middle East hand who had worked in Iraq in the 1980’s, said he was stunned. “You guys need to get out more,” Lang recalls saying at the time. “It’s a fantasy.” Years later, Lang said, many of the same men who were sitting in Lott’s office that day became key players in the Pentagon’s plans for an invasion of Iraq. Which brings us back to Chalabi’s “urban myth”: the notion that he provided bogus intelligence to the Bush administration and helped persuade them — or provide the pretext — to invade Iraq. In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Chalabi exhorted the audience to turn to Page 108 of the Robb-Silverman report, a recently completed blue-ribbon investigation, which, he said, exonerates him. It does, in a way. The report does not say that Chalabi & Company played an important role in the events leading to the war. It says only that the Bush administration did not rely much on intelligence Chalabi handed over in making the decision to invade. “In fact, overall, C.I.A.’s postwar investigations revealed that I.N.C.-related sources had a minimal impact on prewar assessments,” the report says. This is also Chalabi’s version. In the run-up to war, he says, he provided only three defectors to the American intelligence community. “We did not vouch for any of their information,” Chalabi told me. One of the people whom the I.N.C. made available to American intelligence was Adnan Ihsan al-Haideri, who claimed that he had worked on buildings that were used to store biological, nuclear and chemical weapons equipment. Chalabi told me that he made Haideri available to American intelligence at a safe house in Bangkok. He didn’t think much of Haideri or his information, he says, and was astonished to learn later that the information he provided became a pillar of the Americans’ charges against Hussein. “We told them, ‘We don’t know who this guy is,’ ” Chalabi said. “Then the Americans spoke to him and said, ‘This guy is the mother lode.’ Can you believe that on such a basis the United States would go to war? The intelligence community regarded the I.N.C. as useless. Why would the government believe us?” Perle, from his perch on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Advisory Committee Board, backs Chalabi’s version. He was privy to much of the intelligence the administration was collecting on Hussein in the days before the war. He says that American intelligence officials began from the premise that Hussein had never destroyed his stocks of banned weapons and that he had kept his programs alive. American spies were only looking to confirm what they thought they already knew. In any event, Perle said, very little of their information came from Chalabi. “I had all the security clearances,” Perle said. “I was pretty much aware of the people that the I.N.C. was bringing to the table to talk about what they knew. Everything they did came with a disclaimer. To the best of my knowledge, there was no single important fact that was uniquely conveyed to U.S. intelligence by anyone who had been assisted by the I.N.C.” Indeed, Chalabi says, much of the most important evidence that led America to war did not come from the I.N.C.: not the report on the uranium from Niger, and not Curveball, the Iraqi defector who made bogus claims about mobile biological weapons labs. “It’s not our fault,” Chalabi says. But the story doesn’t end there. A second report, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 2006, reached far more damning conclusions. The report states flatly that Chalabi’s group introduced defectors to American intelligence who directly influenced two key judgments in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war: that Hussein possessed mobile biological-weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. The report said that the I.N.C. provided a large volume of flawed intelligence to the United States about Iraq, saying the group “attempted to influence United States policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.” (Five Republican senators disagreed with the report’s conclusions about the I.N.C.) Chalabi’s denials are unconvincing for another reason. His role in the preparations for war was not just as a source for American intelligence agencies. He was America’s chief public advocate for war, spreading information gathered by his own intelligence network to newspapers, magazines, television programs and Congress. (A New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, was one of Chalabi’s primary conduits; in an e-mail message sent in 2003 that has been widely quoted since, she wrote that Chalabi “has provided most of the front-page exclusives on W.M.D. to our paper” and that the Army unit she was then traveling with was “using Chalabi’s intell and document network for its own W.M.D. work.”) Indeed, the press proved even more gullible than the intelligence experts in the American government. In a June 2002 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the I.N.C. listed 108 news articles based on information provided by the group. The list included articles concerning some of the wildest claims about Hussein, including that he had collaborated in the Sept. 11 attacks. David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, offers one of the most compelling explanations for how pivotal Chalabi’s role was in taking America to war. Kay said that while the C.I.A. had long regarded Chalabi with suspicion, disregarding much of what he gave them, Chalabi had succeeded in persuading his more powerful friends in other parts of the government — Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, and Wolfowitz. The pressure brought by those men, Kay told me, ultimately persuaded George Tenet, director of the C.I.A., that the White House was committed to war and that there was no point in resisting it. “In my judgment, the reason George Tenet and the top of the agency came over to the argument that Iraq had W.M.D. was that they really knew that the vice president and Wolfowitz had come to that conclusion anyway,” Kay said. “They had been getting information from Chalabi for years.” Of Wolfowitz, whom he has known for years, Kay said: “He was a true believer. He thought he had the evidence. That came from the defectors. They came from Chalabi.” Kay said he continued to feel Chalabi’s influence with Wolfowitz even after the invasion, when Kay was leading the team searching for W.M.D. from mid- to late 2003. “Paul, when faced with evidence that we had developed on the ground, would say, Well, Chalabi says this, the I.N.C. says this, why are you not seeing it?” Kellems, the Wolfowitz assistant, disputed Kay’s story, saying that Tenet’s views were shared by officials across the government. “The position taken on weapons was the consensus view of the United States, including of the Clinton administration and other Western intelligence agencies — as well as that of Mr. Kay himself prior to visiting Iraq,” Kellems said. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in Bush’s first term, adds a final turn to the labyrinth. In the frantic days leading up to Powell’s speech at the United Nations in February 2003, when he laid out the case for war, Wilkerson said he spent many nights sleeping on a couch in George Tenet’s office. During those preparations, Wilkerson told me, Powell insisted that every point he would make at the U.N. had to be supported by at least three independent sources. “We had three or four sources for every item that was substantive in his presentation,” Wilkerson told me in an interview in Washington. “Powell insisted on that. But what I am hearing now, though, is that a lot of these sources sort of tinged and merged back into a single source, and that inevitably that single source seems to be either recommended by, set up by, orchestrated by, introduced by, or whatever, by somebody in the I.N.C.” Wilkerson said that the revelations, some of which he says he has heard from his own friends inside American and European intelligence agencies, have forced him to rethink how America went to war. “I have maintained pretty much the same thing that the president said, ‘Well, we all got fooled, it was lousy intelligence, and no one in the national leadership spun the intelligence,’ ” Wilkerson said. “I am having to revisit that. And that is disturbing to me.” Wilkerson raises a crucial point. Assuming that Chalabi was a source for at least some of the bogus intelligence, we might ask ourselves: so what? Was the American national security apparatus so incompetent that it could be hoodwinked by a handful of shopworn engineers and an Iraqi mathematician to take the country into war? Or is the lesson more disturbing — that Chalabi simply gave the Bush administration what it wanted to hear? “I think Chalabi and the I.N.C. were very shrewd,” Wilkerson said. “I think Chalabi understood what people wanted, and he fed it to them. From everything I’ve heard, no one says he is dumb.” 5. Tehran, November 2005 Amid the debate about Chalabi’s role in taking America to war, one little-noticed phrase in a Senate Intelligence Committee report on W.M.D. offered an important insight into Chalabi’s identity. One of the principal errors made by the Bush administration in relying on Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, the report said, was to disregard conclusions by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency that “the I.N.C. was penetrated by hostile intelligence services,” notably those of Iran. The Iran connection has long been among the most beguiling aspects of Chalabi’s career. Baer, the former C.I.A. operative, recalled sitting in a hotel lobby in Salah al-Din, in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, in 1995 while Chalabi met with the turbaned representatives of Iranian intelligence on the other side of the room. (Baer, as an American, was barred from meeting the Iranians.) Baer says he came to regard Chalabi as an Iranian asset, and still does. “He is basically beholden to the Iranians to stay viable,” Baer told me. “All his C.I.A. connections — he wouldn’t get away with that sort of thing with the Iranians unless he had proved his worth to them.” Pat Lang, the D.I.A. agent, holds a similar view: that in Chalabi, the Iranians probably saw someone who could help them achieve their long-sought goal of removing Saddam Hussein. After a time, in Lang’s view, the Iranians may have figured the Americans would leave and that Chalabi would most likely be in charge. Lang insists he is only speculating, but he says it has been clear to the American intelligence community for years that Chalabi has maintained “deep contacts” with Iranian officials. “Here is what I think happened,” Lang said. “Chalabi went and told the guys at the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Tehran: ‘The Americans are giving me money. I’m their guy. I’m their candidate.’ And I’m sure their eyes lit up. The Iranians would reason that they could use this guy to manipulate the United States to get what they wanted. They would figure that the U.S. would invade. They would figure that we would come and we would go, and if we left Chalabi in charge, who was a good friend of theirs, they would be in good shape.” Lang’s thesis is impossible to prove, and Chalabi denies it. And even if it were true, Chalabi’s role would be difficult to discern: so many different Iranian agencies are thought to be pursuing so many different agendas in Iraq that a single Iranian national interest is difficult to identify. Still, if Lang’s and Baer’s argument is true, it would be the stuff of spy novels: Chalabi, the American-adopted champion of Iraqi democracy, a kind of double agent for one of America’s principal adversaries. In late 2005, I accompanied Chalabi on a trip to Iran, in part to solve the riddle. We drove eastward out of Baghdad, in a convoy as menacing as the one we had ridden in south to Mushkhab earlier in the year. After three hours of weaving and careering, the plains of eastern Iraq halted, and the terrain turned sharply upward into a thick ridge of arid mountains. We had come to Mehran, on one of history’s great fault lines, the historic border between the Ottoman and Persian Empires. As we crossed into Iran, the wreckage and ruin of modern Iraq gave way to swept streets and a tidy border post with shiny bathrooms. Another world. An Iranian cleric approached and shook Chalabi’s hand. Then he said something curious: “We are disappointed to hear that you won’t be staying in the Shiite alliance,” he said. “We were really hoping you’d stay.” The border between Iraq and Iran had, for the moment, disappeared. More curious, though, was the authority that Chalabi seemed to carry in Iran, which, after all, has been accused of assisting Iraqi insurgents and otherwise stirring up chaos there. For starters, Chalabi asked me if I wanted to come along on his Iranian trip only the night before he left — and then procured a visa for me in a single day: a Friday, during the Eid holiday, when the Iranian Embassy was closed. Under ordinary circumstances, an American reporter might wait weeks. Then there was the executive jet. When we arrived at the border, Chalabi ducked into a bathroom and changed out of his camouflage T-shirt and slacks and into a well-tailored blue suit. Then we drove to Ilam, where an 11-seat Fokker jet was idling on the runway of the local airport. We jumped in and took off for Tehran, flying over a dramatic landscape of canyons and ravines. We landed in Iran’s smoggy capital, and within a couple of hours, Chalabi was meeting with the highest officials of the Iranian government. One of them was Ali Larijani, the national security adviser. I interviewed Larijani the next morning. “Our relationship with Mr. Chalabi does not have anything to do with his relationship with the neocons,” he said. His red-rimmed eyes, when I met him at 7 a.m., betrayed a sleepless night. “He is a very constructive and influential figure. He is a very wise man and a very useful person for the future of Iraq.” Then came the meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. I was with a handful of Iranian reporters who were led into a finely appointed room just outside the president’s office. First came Chalabi, dressed in a tailored suit, beaming. Then Ahmadinejad, wearing a face of childlike bewilderment. He was dressed in imitation leather shoes and bulky white athletic socks, and a suit that looked as if it had come from a Soviet department store. Only a few days before, Ahmadinejad publicly called for the destruction of Israel. He and Chalabi, who is several inches taller, stood together for photos, then retired to a private room. At the time of Chalabi’s visit, Iran and the United States were engaged in a complicated diplomatic dance; the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, had been authorized to open negotiations with the Iranians over their involvement in Iraq. Still, Chalabi insists he carried no note from the Iranians when he flew to Washington the next week. Officially, at least, Iran and the United States never got together. As ever, Chalabi had multiple agendas. One was to learn whether the Iranians would support his candidacy for the prime ministership (the same reason he traveled to the United States). It makes you wonder, in light of the Baer and Lang thesis: was Chalabi telling the Iranians, or asking them for permission? Or making a deal, based on his presumed leverage in the United States? The possibilities seemed endless. Chalabi played it cool. “The fact that Iraq’s neighbor is also a country that is majority Shia is no reason for us to accept any interference in our affairs or to compromise the integrity of Iraq,” he said after his meeting with Ahmadinejad. Richard Perle, Chalabi’s friend, discounted the idea that Chalabi might be a double agent. “Of course Chalabi has a relationship with the Iranians — you have to have a relationship with the Iranians in order to operate there,” Perle said. “The question is what kind of relationship. Is he fooling the Iranians or are the Iranians using him? I think Chalabi has been very shrewd in getting the things he has needed over the years out of the Iranians without giving anything in return.” For all of the skullduggery surrounding the trip to Iran, though, the greatest revelation came later in the day. When the meeting with Ahmadinejad ended, he asked Chalabi if there was anything he could to do to make his stay more comfortable. Chalabi said yes, in fact, there was: would he mind if he, Chalabi, took a tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art? So there we were, in the middle of the Axis of Evil, strolling past one of the finest collections of Western Modern art outside Europe and the United States: Matisse, Kandinsky, Rothko, Gauguin, Pollock, Klee, Van Gogh, five Warhols, seven Picassos and a sprawling garden of sculpture outside. The collection was assembled by Queen Farah, the shah’s wife, with the monarchy’s vast oil wealth. And now, with the mullahs in charge, the museum is largely forgotten. The day we were there, the gallery was all but empty. We had the museum’s enthusiastic English-speaking tour guide all to ourselves. “Thank you, thank you, for coming!” Noreen Motamed exclaimed, clapping her hands. We walked the empty halls. Chalabi moved through the place deliberately, nodding his head, pausing at the Degas and the Pissarro. “Wow,” Chalabi said before Jesus Rafael Soto’s painting “Canada.” “Look at that.” A retinue of Iranian officials walked with us, unmoved by the splendor. Ahmadinejad had stayed behind. For all of the furies that emanate from the halls of the Iranian government, it has taken fine care of Queen Farah’s collection. Indeed, about the only way you would know you were not in a museum in New York or London was the absence of the middle panel from Francis Bacon’s triptych “Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendant,” which depicts two naked men. “It is in the basement, covered,” Motamed said with disappointed eyes. Finally, we came across a pair of paintings by Marc Chagall, the 20th-century Modernist and painter of Jewish life. The display contained no mention of this fact. Chalabi gazed at the Chagalls for a time. Then, with a rueful smile, turned, to no one in particular, and said loudly: “Imagine that. They have two paintings by Marc Chagall in the middle of a museum in Tehran.” The Iranian officials seemed not to hear. 6. Baghdad, December 2005 A winter rain is falling. Chalabi is standing inside a tent in Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum of eastern Baghdad. He’s talking about his plans for restoring electricity, boosting oil production and beating the insurgency. People seem to be listening, but without enthusiasm. The violence here, worsening by the day, is washing away the hopes of ordinary Iraqis. Less and less seems possible anymore. People are retreating inward, you can see it in the glaze in their eyes. As Chalabi speaks, I pull aside one of the Iraqis who had been listening. What do you think of him? I ask. “Chalabi good good,” the Iraqi man says in halting English. Whom are you going to vote for? “The Shiite alliance, of course,” the Iraqi answers. “It is the duty of all Shiite people.” When the election came, Chalabi was wiped out. His Iraqi National Congress received slightly more than 30,000 votes, only one-quarter of 1 percent of the 12 million votes cast — not enough to put even one of them, not even Chalabi, in the new Iraqi Parliament. There was grumbling in the Chalabi camp. One of his associates said of the Shiite alliance: “We know they cheated. You know how we know? Because in one area we had 5,000 forged ballots, and when they were counted, we didn’t even get that many.” He shrugged. But the truth seemed clear enough: Chalabi was finished. Chalabi, who could plausibly claim that he, more than any other Iraqi, had made the election possible, had been shunned by the very people he had worked so hard to set free. No amount of deal making or of public relations foot-work, or of endorsements from friends, was able to save him. Chalabi may have helped bring democracy to Iraq, but it was democracy that finished him. He was, in the end, a parlor politician, someone from the world of his father or grandfather, or maybe of Victorian England: a brilliant negotiator and schemer who might settle a country’s problems over a cup of tea. But in Iraq, by late 2005, real power was no longer held by the parlor men, or by politicians at all. It was held by people like Moktada al-Sadr, populist leaders with a militia and a mass following in the street. The election results were a harbinger of the civil war. Iraqis voted almost entirely along sectarian and ethnic lines: Kurds for the big Kurdish parties, Sunnis for the Sunni parties and Shiites for the big Islamist Shiite alliance. Iraqis who tried to run on a secular platform — Chalabi, for instance, and his relative, Allawi, in another party — found themselves abandoned. Just two months later, in February of this year, following the destruction of the Askariya shrine, a holy Shiite temple in Samarra, the civil war began in earnest: Shiite gunmen, who had for years been restrained by the Shiite leadership in the face of the Sunni onslaught, were finally free to retaliate. Chalabi, shut out of the government, claimed that his sin was one of miscalculation. There was some truth to this: in all likelihood, Chalabi did not lose because he had been convicted of stealing millions of dollars from a Jordanian bank. Or because of the rumors swirling around Baghdad that he had looted the treasury. Or even because he was an exile close to the Americans. No: plenty of Westernized Iraqi exiles were elected to Parliament — among them Mowaffak al-Rubaie and Adil Abdul Mahdi — who, like Chalabi, didn’t have local followings and were trailed by similar questions. Practically speaking, Chalabi lost because he had broken from the big cleric-backed Shiite alliance that swept the election. “I had not realized how polarized Iraq had become,” Chalabi told me after the election. He might have gotten a seat in the cabinet, but that didn’t work out, either. That stung: the new Iraqi government is staffed with Chalabi’s old colleagues, many of them members of the exile alliance he once led. Jalal Talabani is president. Adil Abdul Mahdi, his boyhood friend, is vice president. Barham Salih, comrade of many years, is deputy prime minister. His old confidant Zalmay Khalilzad, who played a central role in forming the new government, is the American ambassador. In the end, they couldn’t — or wouldn’t — bring him aboard. “Chalabi really made a mess of things,” said one Iraqi political leader who now occupies a key post in the government. He declined to elaborate. As anticlimactic as was Chalabi’s fall, its real meaning lay in a paradox: democratic politics no longer mattered. For three years, the American-backed enterprise in Iraq rested on the assumption that the exercise of democratic politics would drain away the anger that was driving the violence. Instead of bullets, there would be ballots. But at the culmination of that long process — two constitutions, two elections and a referendum — the violence was worse than ever. It turns out that democratic politics does not stop violence; indeed, the elections, by polarizing Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic communities, may have helped push the country into civil war. Effectively, by the fall of 2006, the overwhelming majority of Iraq had no government at all. It was a failed state. Yes, there were Iraqis — Chalabi’s friends — who went to their jobs every day, toiling dutifully and not so dutifully inside the Green Zone, which every day seemed more and more divorced from the reality outside. In the Red Zone, as the real Iraq is called, Iraq was a nightmarish, apocalyptic place, where gunmen kidnapped children and sometimes killed them, where bodies turned up at the morgue peppered by holes from electric drills and corpses lay uncollected in the streets, along with the trash, for days on end. Ahmad Chalabi devoted his whole adult life to toppling a dictator and achieving power in the place of his birth. He felled the dictator, helping along a reckless gamble that wagered the future of a nation. The gamble failed, a nation imploded and Chalabi never ascended to the throne he so coveted. But in an odd turn of fortune, the throne no longer had anything to offer. 7. London, August 2006 The conversation is wrapping up. The talk turns to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the machinations of those around him, what the future might hold. Chalabi, in an expansive mood, gets up, goes into a closet and brings out a note that Bob Baer, the C.I.A. agent, scribbled to him in that hotel lobby when the two men plotted a coup many years before. The talk, improbably, turns to memoirs; at the moment, Baer’s, “See No Evil,” was a best seller. I ask Chalabi, who is back on the couch, if it isn’t time that he write his own. He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Too early!” Chalabi says. “Too early!”

Who's your daddy? Answer's at the drugstore (What Do you Think?? About That. )? Skip navigation MSN Home | Mail MoreHotmailMessengerMy MSNMSN DirectoryAir Tickets/TravelAutosCareers & JobsCity GuidesDating & PersonalsElection 2008GamesGreenHealth & FitnessHoroscopesLifestyleMaps & DirectionsMoneyMoviesMusicNewsReal Estate/RentalsShoppingSpacesSportsTech & GadgetsTVWeatherWhite PagesYellow PagesSign Inmsn.comfeaturing Today Show Nightly News Dateline Meet the Press MSNBC TV NBC Sports HealthKids and parentingsponsored by Categories U.S. news World news Politics Business Entertainment Health Diet and nutrition Women's health Men's health Kids and parenting Sexual health Mental health Pet health Fitness Aging Cancer Heart health Skin and beauty Health library Sports Tech & science Travel Weather Local news Browse Video Community Photos Disable Fly-outMarketplace Shopping via MSN Shopping Start a business Entrepreneur.com Dating via PerfectMatch.com Homes for Sale via HomePages.com Investments $7 online stock trades Career Center via Monster Autos via MSN Autos Who's your daddy? Answer's at the drugstore Pharmacy chain markets DNA paternity tests in 30 states nationwide Pierre-philippe Marcou / AFP - Getty Images file New at-home DNA paternity tests require samples of cells swabbed from the cheeks of the child, the alleged father and, ideally, the mother. View related photos Video Who's your daddy? DIY paternity test debuts March 27: A new type of at-home medical test can reveal a child’s paternity. But is it a good idea? NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports. Today show Most popular • Most viewed • Top rated • Most e-mailed Giada De Laurentiis has a baby girl! Kathie Lee Gifford returns to morning TV Meet the losers of the Joy Fit Club Two popular cholesterol drugs may not work Obama, McCain forged oh-so-fleeting alliance Most viewed on msnbc.com A twist of fate Amateurs solve mysteries of the unnamed dead Families write about shared tragedy Solar farms to rise on California rooftops Photos: Mistaken identity Most viewed on msnbc.com Two popular cholesterol drugs may not work Giada De Laurentiis has a baby girl! White House unveils financial-rules overhaul Kathie Lee Gifford returns to morning TV Woman stuck to toilet remains hospitalized Most viewed on msnbc.com By JoNel Aleccia Health writer MSNBC updated 8:36 a.m. ET, Thurs., March. 27, 2008 JoNel Aleccia Health writer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • E-mail After two decades, Sean Reid of Surrey, British Columbia, discovered that he had a son. Fred Turley of Des Plaines, Ill., learned he didn’t have a daughter. And Wendy Lieb of Lewis Center, Ohio, made certain she wasn’t going to be a grandmother quite yet. In all three situations, crucial genetic information altered the lives of the people involved. And in each case, it came not from a doctor or other medical source, but from a $29.99 kit on a drugstore shelf. Reid, Turley and Lieb are among more than 800 customers who responded to the first wave of marketing for do-it-yourself DNA paternity tests sold as Identigene by Sorenson Genomics of Salt Lake City. Story continues below ↓ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sales in three western states — Washington, Oregon and California — were so brisk last fall that Rite Aid Corp. expanded the product this week to some 4,300 stores in 30 states across the country. “The running joke is that we’re the Maury Povich family,” said Reid, 37, who confirmed years of speculation about a former girlfriend’s son with a kit purchased at a Bellingham, Wash., store. “But why not do it privately? We did this as discreetly, as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible.” For users like Reid, the tests provide easier answers to one of life’s crucial questions — Who’s your daddy? — said Douglas Fogg, chief operating officer of Identigene. “Everyone is purchasing the tests because they’re curious,” said Fogg, who expects to sell at least 52,000 tests this year. “They’re looking to establish questions about their own child or their own paternity.” But for genetics experts, drugstore marketing of DNA testing raises questions of accuracy and ethics. “From our perspective, direct-to-consumer genetic tests raise all the same issues for lax government oversight, potentially misleading or false advertising and the potential for making profound medical decisions on the basis of poorly interpreted or understood results,” said Rick Borchelt, a spokesman for the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University. At the very least, the kits have the potential to complicate the lives of the people who use them, legal experts cautioned. “We all need to take a step back and realize that this is different than many tests that you take,” said R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “This is a life-changing moment.” DNA tests join other diagnostic tools The paternity kits have taken their place on store shelves next to other diagnostic tests that don’t rely on DNA, including those for pregnancy, HIV and blood sugar, said Michael S. Watson, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics. Unlike genetic tests for health conditions, tests that use DNA to determine paternity are fairly simple to provide and fairly easy to interpret, said Watson. They're subject to limited oversight, however, with no review required by the Food and Drug Administration and no certification required under the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, or CLIA. The Identigene kit includes swabs for collecting cell samples from the inside of the cheeks of the child and the alleged father. Collection of the mother’s cells is optional, but strongly recommended to strengthen the results. The swabs are packaged and mailed to the Sorenson laboratory in Salt Lake City where they’re analyzed. Cast your vote Are at-home DNA paternity tests a good idea? The Sorenson lab is accredited by the AABB, the agency formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks. Results are reported online, by phone or by mail in three to five business days. They come back as a probability figure that verifies paternity with 98 percent to 99 percent accuracy, Watson said. Total cost is about $150, including the price of the kit and a $119 laboratory processing fee. For another $200, users can purchase validated tests that meet legal requirements for determining paternity, Fogg said. Court use questionable But Susan Crockin, a lawyer who specializes in reproductive technology, said consumers shouldn’t count on the tests standing up in court. Video Who's your daddy? DIY paternity test debuts March 27: A new type of at-home medical test can reveal a child’s paternity. But is it a good idea? NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports. Today show “The jury’s still very much out on these tests in terms of reliability and establishing a chain of custody,” said Crockin, a consultant for the Johns Hopkins public policy center. Most of the users who have been buying the kits — which have gone on sale for as low as $17.99 — don’t plan to use the results to resolve legal issues, Fogg acknowledged. Instead, most are looking to answer social questions. And that's where the complexity comes in. Because the cell samples are taken in private, there’s the potential for fraud and deception, noted Charo, the ethics expert. “I can imagine rather peculiar circumstances in which somebody has a swab taken without their knowledge,” she said. “It raises questions about informed consent.” Even when people do consent, the results can be unsettling. Watson estimates that between 5 percent and 10 percent of genetic tests he's conducted show a child is not related to the presumed father. “It could break up families,” Watson said. “Some will be broken because that was the goal. Others will be broken up and that wasn't the goal.” But people who’ve used the at-home tests swear by the ease, the accuracy — and the results. After 20 years, a mystery solved For Reid, the paternity test opened the door to a new extended family. He’d always wondered whether the baby born to a former girlfriend was his, even though she insisted the child was fathered by another man. When the girlfriend contacted Reid on Facebook last summer, the pictures she sent of her oldest son raised the question anew. “My wife, said ‘Oh my, that’s you,’” said Reid, a nurse. Internet research pointed Reid to the Identigene test, which was cheaper and more convenient than other options. With cooperation from his former girlfriend and her son, they all took the tests, with results that altered everyone’s lives. “Our newest son has a family he never knew he had including grandparents, aunts, and three younger brothers who are all very excited to meet him,” Reid said. For Fred Turley, 55, the DNA test confirmed what his companion had told him: the 4-year-old girl he helped care for was not his. The news was disappointing, but clear, he said. “The bottom line is, I don’t have to live with the uncertainty about her being my daughter and wind up in a fight just to find out,” Turley said. “This won’t change how I feel about the girl. It will just remove what had become a major concern.” For Wendy Lieb, 41, the DNA test restored her 20-year-old son’s future. He’d already quit college, taken a job and assumed the responsibilities of pending parenthood after a girl he had sex with at a party claimed she was pregnant with his child. Click for related content Comprehensive sex ed may cut teen birth rate Baby boys more likely to die than girls 1 in 4 teen girls has at least one STD ‘He just didn't look like my son at all.’ Lieb said she was proud of her son’s response, but perplexed after the baby, a boy, was born. “He just didn’t look like my son at all,” Lieb said. “And we have fairly strong genes.” A trip to the drugstore and 10 days later, the answer was clear: her son was not the father. “I thought it would have required thousands of dollars and a trip to the doctor,” she said. Lieb is relieved for her own child, of course, but also for everyone involved. As difficult as the situation has been, she said, it will be easier for them to adjust now, rather than years later. The test may raise ethical questions, she said, but it also provides the peace of mind that comes with answers. “I think it’s a lot more ethical for you to find out the truth,” she said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23814032?GT1=43001

How can anyone vote against 0bama's great Health Care Plan? Are they racists? Key Senators May Rebuff Obama on Health Care Oct 22, 6:49 AM (ET) By CHARLES BABINGTON WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democrats' control of a hefty majority in the Senate - plus the House - would suggest that President Barack Obama is within reach of overhauling the nation's health care system this fall. But the numbers mask a more complicated reality: Obama and Democratic leaders have modest leverage over several pivotal Senate Democrats who are more concerned about their next election or feel they have little to lose by opposing their party's hierarchy. One is still smarting from being forced to abandon next year's election. Another had to leave the Democratic Party to stay in office. And some are from states that Obama lost badly last year. These factors will limit the president's ability to play his strongest card - an appeal for party loyalty and Democratic achievement - in trying to muster the 60 votes his allies will need this fall to overcome a Republican filibuster in the 100-member Senate. When lawmakers face a tough vote, their uppermost thought is "survival," said Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who spent three terms in the Senate. On a very few occasions, Simpson said, then-President George H.W. Bush asked him to cast a vote likely to cause him political problems back home. That was perhaps three times in 18 years, said Simpson, who held a GOP leadership post. "I swallowed hard and went over the cliff," he said. But it's a sacrifice that presidents and party leaders should not count on, he said. The Democratic leaders' limited leverage will complicate the push for allowing the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies. Some Senate Democrats who oppose the idea are from states that voted heavily against Obama last fall. Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces a potentially tough re-election race next year in Arkansas, where Obama lost to Republican John McCain by 20 percentage points. She says she will base her health care votes on what is best for Arkansans. Choice and competition among insurers are good, Lincoln said, but "I've ruled out a government-funded and a government-operated plan." Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, where Obama lost by a similar margin, said she might be willing to let some states try "fallback or trigger" mechanisms that would create a public option if residents don't have enough insurance choices. But she told reporters, "I'm not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be." Another Democratic senator, who also may prove wary of Obama's overtures, takes the opposite stand. "I would not support a bill that does not have a public option," said Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. "That position will not change." Burris' willingness to bend could prove crucial this fall if Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., need every possible vote in crafting a compromise, such as a national public option that is triggered if certain insurance availability targets aren't met. But Burris may be in no mood to play ball. Obama and other top Democrats sharply criticized his appointment to the Senate in December by an ethically tainted governor, Illinois' Rod Blagojevich, and they forced Burris to abandon hopes of winning election in 2010 by making it clear they would not back him. In short, Burris, 72, has virtually nothing to lose by defying his party's leaders and voting as he pleases. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is another potentially crucial senator with tenuous ties to the Democratic Party's hierarchy. Rejected by Connecticut's Democratic voters in the 2006 primary, he kept his Senate seat by running as an independent. He now calls himself an Independent Democrat. Lieberman has criticized the health care bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee, but it and other health bills are undergoing changes. Another centrist Democrat whose vote is uncertain is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a political battleground state. "I want to know what works for families and small businesses," said Bayh, adding that he might back public insurance options run by states, not the federal government. It's possible that Obama and party leaders eventually will ask Democrats such as Bayh, in the name of party loyalty, to vote to block a GOP filibuster of a health bill even if they plan to vote against the bill on final passage. The strategy might enable Democrats to muster the 60 votes needed on a crucial procedural question and then pass the bill with a simple majority. Bayh said that if a party leader "is asking some of us to enable the passage of legislation that we think would be harmful to the people of our state, I don't think that's a fair thing to ask." It's possible that centrist Democrats are holding out for favors from Obama and party leaders, such as pet projects for their states or help in their next campaign. Obama already has lavished special attent

Can you translate these English paragraphs to Tagalog about UAE??? Introduction Background: Definition Field Listing The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf coast granted the UK control of their defense and foreign affairs in 19th century treaties. In 1971, six of these states - Abu Zaby, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy, and Umm al Qaywayn - merged to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They were joined in 1972 by Ra's al Khaymah. The UAE's per capita GDP is on par with those of leading West European nations. Its generosity with oil revenues and its moderate foreign policy stance have allowed the UAE to play a vital role in the affairs of the region. Geography Location: Definition Field Listing Middle East, bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, between Oman and Saudi Arabia Geographic coordinates: Definition Field Listing 24 00 N, 54 00 E Map references: Definition Field Listing Middle East Area: Definition Field Listing Rank Order total: 83,600 sq km land: 83,600 sq km water: 0 sq km Area - comparative: Definition Field Listing slightly smaller than Maine Land boundaries: Definition Field Listing total: 867 km border countries: Oman 410 km, Saudi Arabia 457 km Coastline: Definition Field Listing 1,318 km Maritime claims: Definition Field Listing territorial sea: 12 nm contiguous zone: 24 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin Climate: Definition Field Listing desert; cooler in eastern mountains Terrain: Definition Field Listing flat, barren coastal plain merging into rolling sand dunes of vast desert wasteland; mountains in east Elevation extremes: Definition Field Listing lowest point: Persian Gulf 0 m highest point: Jabal Yibir 1,527 m Natural resources: Definition Field Listing petroleum, natural gas Land use: Definition Field Listing arable land: 0.77% permanent crops: 2.27% other: 96.96% (2005) Irrigated land: Definition Field Listing 760 sq km (2003) Total renewable water resources: Definition Field Listing 0.2 cu km (1997) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): Definition Field Listing total: 2.3 cu km/yr (23%/9%/68%) per capita: 511 cu m/yr (2000) Natural hazards: Definition Field Listing frequent sand and dust storms Environment - current issues: Definition Field Listing lack of natural freshwater resources compensated by desalination plants; desertification; beach pollution from oil spills Environment - international agreements: Definition Field Listing party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea Geography - note: Definition Field Listing strategic location along southern approaches to Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit point for world crude oil Government Country name: Definition Field Listing conventional long form: United Arab Emirates conventional short form: none local long form: Al Imarat al Arabiyah al Muttahidah local short form: none former: Trucial Oman, Trucial States abbreviation: UAE Government type: Definition Field Listing federation with specified powers delegated to the UAE federal government and other powers reserved to member emirates Capital: Definition Field Listing name: Abu Dhabi geographic coordinates: 24 28 N, 54 22 E time difference: UTC+4 (9 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) Administrative divisions: Definition Field Listing 7 emirates (imarat, singular - imarah); Abu Zaby (Abu Dhabi), 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah (Sharjah), Dubayy (Dubai), Ra's al Khaymah, Umm al Qaywayn (Quwayn) Independence: Definition Field Listing 2 December 1971 (from UK) National holiday: Definition Field Listing Independence Day, 2 December (1971) Constitution: Definition Field Listing 2 December 1971; made permanent in 1996 Legal system: Definition Field Listing based on a dual system of Shari'a and civil courts; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction Suffrage: Definition Field Listing none Executive branch: Definition Field Listing chief of state: President KHALIFA bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan (since 3 November 2004), ruler of Abu Zaby (Abu Dhabi) (since 4 November 2004); Vice President and Prime Minister MUHAMMAD bin Rashid al-Maktum (since 5 January 2006) head of government: Prime Minister and Vice President MUHAMMAD bin Rashid al-Maktum (since 5 January 2006); Deputy Prime Ministers SULTAN bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan (since 20 November 1990) and HAMDAN bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan (since 20 October 2003) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president note: there is also a Federal Supreme Council (FSC) composed of the seven emirate rulers; the FSC is the highest constitutional authority in the UAE; establishes general policies and sanctions federal legislation; meets four times a year; Abu Zaby (Abu Dhabi) and Dubayy (Dubai) rulers have effective veto power elections: president and vice president elected by the FSC for five-year terms (no term limits); election last held 3 November 2004 upon the death of the UAE's Founding Father and first President ZAYID bin Sultan Al Nuhayyan (next to be held in 2009); prime minister and deputy prime minister appointed by the president election results: KHALIFA bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan elected president by a unanimous vote of the FSC; MUHAMMAD bin Rashid al-Maktum unanimously affirmed vice president after the 2006 death of his brother Sheikh Maktum bin Rashid al-Maktum Legislative branch: Definition Field Listing unicameral Federal National Council (FNC) or Majlis al-Ittihad al-Watani (40 seats; 20 members appointed by the rulers of the constituent states, 20 members elected to serve two-year terms) elections: elections for one half of the FNC (the other half remains appointed) held in the UAE on 18-20 December 2006; the new electoral college - a body of 6,689 Emiratis (including 1,189 women) appointed by the rulers of the seven emirates - were the only eligible voters and candidates; 456 candidates including 65 women ran for 20 contested FNC seats; one female from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi won a seat note: reviews legislation but cannot change or veto Judicial branch: Definition Field Listing Union Supreme Court (judges are appointed by the president) Political parties and leaders: Definition Field Listing none Political pressure groups and leaders: Definition Field Listing NA International organization participation: Definition Field Listing ABEDA, AFESD, AMF, FAO, G-77, GCC, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt (signatory), ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, LAS, MIGA, NAM, OAPEC, OIC, OPCW, OPEC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO Diplomatic representation in the US: Definition Field Listing chief of mission: Ambassador (vacant) chancery: 3522 International Court NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20008 telephone: [1] (202) 243-2400 FAX: [1] (202) 243-2432 consulate(s): New York, Houston Diplomatic representation from the US: Definition Field Listing chief of mission: Ambassador (vacant); Charge d'Affaires Martin R. QUINN embassy: Embassies District, Plot 38 Sector W59-02, Street No. 4, Abu Dhabi mailing address: P. O. Box 4009, Abu Dhabi telephone: [971] (2) 414-2200 FAX: [971] (2) 414-2603 consulate(s) general: Dubai Flag description: Definition Field Listing three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and black with a wider vertical red band on the hoist side Economy United Arab Emirates Top of Page Economy - overview: Definition Field Listing The UAE has an open economy with a high per capita income and a sizable annual trade surplus. Despite largely successful efforts at economic diversification, nearly 40% of GDP is still directly based on oil and gas output. Since the discovery of oil in the UAE more than 30 years ago, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living. The government has increased spending on job creation and infrastructure expansion and is opening up utilities to greater private sector involvement. In April 2004, the UAE signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with Washington and in November 2004 agreed to undertake negotiations toward a Free Trade Agreement with the US. The country's Free Trade Zones - offering 100% foreign ownership and zero taxes - are helping to attract foreign investors. Higher oil revenue, strong liquidity, housing shortages, and cheap credit in 2005-07 led to a surge in asset prices (shares and real estate) and consumer inflation. Rising prices are increasing the operating costs for businesses in the UAE and adversely impacting government employees and others on fixed incomes. Dependence on oil and a large expatriate workforce are significant long-term challenges. The UAE's strategic plan for the next few years focuses on diversification and creating more opportunities for nationals through improved education and increased private sector employment. GDP (purchasing power parity): Definition Field Listing Rank Order $167.3 billion (2007 est.) GDP (official exchange rate): Definition Field Listing $192.6 billion (2007 est.) GDP - real growth rate: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 7.4% (2007 est.) GDP - per capita (PPP): Definition Field Listing Rank Order $37,300 (2007 est.) GDP - composition by sector: Definition Field Listing agriculture: 1.8% industry: 59.3% services: 38.9% (2007 est.) Labor force: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 3.065 million (2007 est.) Labor force - by occupation: Definition Field Listing agriculture: 7% industry: 15% services: 78% (2000 est.) Unemployment rate: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 2.4% (2001) Population below poverty line: Definition Field Listing 19.5% (2003) Household income or consumption by percentage share: Definition Field Listing lowest 10%: NA% highest 10%: NA% Inflation rate (consumer prices): Definition Field Listing Rank Order 11% (2007 est.) Investment (gross fixed): Definition Field Listing Rank Order 21.8% of GDP (2007 est.) Budget: Definition Field Listing revenues: $58.88 billion expenditures: $38.06 billion (2007 est.) Public debt: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 22.9% of GDP (2007 est.) Agriculture - products: Definition Field Listing dates, vegetables, watermelons; poultry, eggs, dairy products; fish Industries: Definition Field Listing petroleum and petrochemicals; fishing, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, commercial ship repair, construction materials, some boat building, handicrafts, textiles Industrial production growth rate: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 4.3% (2007 est.) Electricity - production: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 57.06 billion kWh (2005) Electricity - consumption: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 52.62 billion kWh (2005) Electricity - exports: Definition Field Listing 0 kWh (2005) Electricity - imports: Definition Field Listing 0 kWh (2005) Oil - production: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 2.54 million bbl/day (2006 est.) Oil - consumption: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 372,000 bbl/day (2005 est.) Oil - exports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 2.54 million bbl/day (2004 est.) Oil - imports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 137,200 bbl/day (2004) Oil - proved reserves: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 97.8 billion bbl (2007 est.) Natural gas - production: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 45.07 billion cu m (2005 est.) Natural gas - consumption: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 39.56 billion cu m (2005 est.) Natural gas - exports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 6.848 billion cu m (2005 est.) Natural gas - imports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 1.343 billion cu m (2005) Natural gas - proved reserves: Definition Field Listing Rank Order 5.823 trillion cu m (1 January 2006 est.) Current account balance: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $41.67 billion (2007 est.) Exports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $156.6 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.) Exports - commodities: Definition Field Listing crude oil 45%, natural gas, reexports, dried fish, dates Exports - partners: Definition Field Listing Japan 23.4%, South Korea 10.3%, Thailand 5%, India 4.8% (2006) Imports: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $101.6 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.) Imports - commodities: Definition Field Listing machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, food Imports - partners: Definition Field Listing China 13.1%, India 10.2%, US 8.9%, Japan 6.2%, Germany 6.1%, Italy 4.7% (2006) Economic aid - donor: Definition Field Listing since its founding in 1971, the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has given about $5.2 billion in aid to 56 countries (2004) Economic aid - recipient: Definition Field Listing $5.36 million (2004) Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $76.62 billion (31 December 2007 est.) Debt - external: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $57.52 billion (31 December 2007 est.) Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $44.37 billion (2007 est.) Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $14.14 billion (2007 est.) Market value of publicly traded shares: Definition Field Listing Rank Order $138.5 billion (2006) Currency (code): Definition Field Listing Emirati dirham (AED) Exchange rates: Definition Field Listing Emirati dirhams per US dollar - 3.673 (2007), 3.673 (2006), 3.6725 (2005), 3.6725 (2004), 3.6725 (2003) note: officially pegged to the US dollar since February 2002 Fiscal year: Definition Field Listing calendar year Transnational Issues Disputes - international: Definition Field Listing boundary agreement was signed and ratified with Oman in 2003 for entire border, including Oman's Musandam Peninsula and Al Madhah enclaves, but contents of the agreement and detailed maps showing the alignment have not been published; Iran and UAE dispute Tunb Islands and Abu Musa Island, which Iran occupies Illicit drugs: Definition Field Listing the UAE is a drug transshipment point for traffickers given its proximity to Southwest Asian drug-producing countries; the UAE's position as a major financial center makes it vulnerable to money laundering; anti-money-laundering controls improving, but informal banking remains unregulated

Is immigration out of control? Anthony Browne says Britain is already overcrowded, and that pro-immigration arguments are almost all flawed. Something strange is happening when a left-wing government publicly accuses the BBC, riddled with institutionalised political correctness, -of can you think of a more wounding insult?- a “Powellite anti-immigration agenda”. The Pope publicly denouncing one of his cardinals as a Satanist would hardly be more surprising. It is not just cats of the postwar fractured Left scratching each other's eyes out; David Blunkett s intemperate outburst was in reality an admission that he is losing the most important political argument of the day. It is not only that Britain doesn’t want mass immigration but that, despite the government's attempts to persuade us that we need it, even parts of the BBC are finally waking up to see that there are real problems. If it s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it must be Heathrow The fact that the BBC found the courage to reflect the concerns of its licence-fee payers is a clear sign that the tide has turned in the immigration debate. The presenter of the programme, John Ware, declared in the Daily Mail that the BBC could no longer sew up its lips on the issue, and that anyone with an open mind has to face up to it. Unfortunately for the government, more and more people on both the Left and the Right are becoming open-minded on the problems of the government's policy of actively encouraging mass immigration. The pro-immigrationists trusty tactic of suppressing all inconvenient truth and debate by denouncing all critics as racist, fascist or xenophobic just isn’t working: there are too many intellectually honest people who can see that baseless insults aren’t answers to real problems. The subject of immigration has been taboo in Britain since Enoch Powell s infamous speech a third of a century ago: there has not, until a few months ago, been one debate in Parliament about the optimal types and scale of immigration, only debates on the minutiae of immigration laws. Everyone agreed to that silence so as to promote good community relations. But the government took advantage of the taboo to overturn 30 years of policy which aimed for zero primary immigration, claiming that it wants about 150,000 immigrants a year. Labour, in its self-righteous arrogance, performed this remarkable U-turn confident that no one would break the taboo. When I started writing in the Times about the economic and demographic consequences of mass immigration, Blunkett denounced me by name in Parliament as bordering on fascism. I was contacted by Sir Andrew Green, the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who had just set up a lobby-group, Migration Watch UK, to curb immigration, and wrote a profile of his new group. Ever since, Blunkett has been denouncing it as “right-wing” and “tin-pot”, despite the fact that its advisory council consists of former ambassadors, former heads of the government's immigration service, several professors, a Sri Lankan law lecturer and a Sudanese businessman. The trouble for the government is that while promoting mass immigration might make people feel cosmopolitan and modern, and calling critics racist may make people feel virtuous, few of the consequences of mass immigration have been thought through. The long immigration silence has meant that all negative consequences of migration have been suppressed, and only the positive aspects talked about. If you blind yourself to all negative consequences of a complex policy, you are bound to conclude that it is a thoroughly good thing and want as much of it as possible. Civil servants sat with ministers discussing all the good things about immigration without anyone daring to think any of the bad things, and they concluded that the borders should be pushed wide open. This state of immigration denial has led the government to develop an ostrich attitude to many of the damaging consequences of its open-border policy, where it ―and the left-wing media normally including the BBC― are psychologically almost incapable of being intellectually honest. It was only after the continued, hysterical screaming of most of the tabloid media that the government and other pro-immigrationists conceded there might be a problem with widespread abuse of the asylum system. Likewise, the government refused to accept that mass immigration from disease-prone countries brings in diseases until a piece I wrote for this magazine caused a storm of protest (and the usual smearing), and the government was provoked into reviewing the need for immigrant health tests. But there are many other issues that the government still refuses to face up to: 1. Mass immigration hugely exacerbates the housing crisis. When Migration Watch produced a report last week saying that levels of immigration would require 1.8 million extra homes by 2021, the government threw insults, said the figures were plucked out of thin air and refused to produce its own forecasts. In fact, Migration Watch simply used the government's own housing methodology, and the Housebuilders Federation says immigration is a leading driver in the demand for new housing. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, responsible for housing, is taking away the rights of communities to refuse to have housing imposed on them, and yet refuses to admit that there is any connection between immigration and housing demand. The amount of housing needed is so vast that it will be impossible for the government to build its way out of this crisis. Like importing an HIV epidemic from Africa, this is an issue that won t go away. 2. Britain is already overcrowded: it is one of the most densely populated islands in the world; twice as densely populated as France and eight times as densely populated as America ―and increasing population density damages quality of life. Already, we can t find space for new airports, roads, prisons and asylum centres. It is not just millions of new houses, but the new infrastructure of roads, hospitals, schools, water supplies and other utilities. Our public transport system is ridiculously overstretched and roads are excessively congested. The government has embarked on a programme of population growth through immigration that will push the population up from 60 million to 66 million by 2031 but it refuses even to talk about the consequences of this. 3. Mass immigration -as opposed to limited immigration of skilled workers to meet shortages- damages the employment prospects of those already here, particularly the unskilled. The Home Office commissioned an economic study on the impact of immigration, which found that an increase in immigration amounting to 1 per cent of the non-immigrant population would lead to an increase of 0.18 percentage points in the non-immigrant unemployment rate. However, in an extraordinary act of politically correct immigration denial, the immigration minister Beverley Hughes issued a press release saying, ‘The research shows that it is simply not true that migrants “take the jobs” of the existing work force’. However, London, where most immigrants come, has become the unemployment black spot of Britain, with 7 per cent joblessness, higher than any region of the UK. There is such a large pool of cheap labour that, for the first time ever, national chains such as McDonald s and Burger King are no longer paying their highest rates in central London. Shop shelf-fillers now earn 10 per cent less in London than the average for the rest of the country. The world s leading expert on the economics of migration, Professor George Borjas of Harvard University, complains that everyone is happy to accept that increasing labour supply reduces wages in all circumstances except when it comes to immigration, when they enter denial. 4. Imposing mass immigration on a society that doesn’t want it damages relations between the communities that are already here. If people are opposed to the immigration policy, they are likely to be opposed to the people it brings in and will often confuse immigrants with those born here. The old wisdom that a firm but fair immigration policy is essential for good race relations has been forgotten by the government. Refusing to address legitimate concerns forces voters into the hands of extremist parties such as the British National party. 5. Mass immigration increases inequality in society by increasing the wealth of those who employ immigrants (who tend already to be rich) and reducing that of those who compete with them (who tend to be poor). The US government has estimated that half the rise in income inequality in the US is due to mass immigration. 6. Mass immigration is no solution to an ageing society, because immigrants grow old at just the same pace as non-immigrants. One of the country's top pension experts, Professor David Miles, said that trying to solve the pension crisis by importing more people is “madness”. 7. Mass migration of unskilled workers promotes low-skilled, low-wage industries and reduces economic productivity. Alan Greenspan told the Senate earlier this year that labour shortages in the US in the last century, when immigration was very low, forced companies to innovate and was the main reason why productivity in the US overtook that of Europe. Importing unskilled labour did nothing to save the textile mills of the north of England, and this disastrous policy has left behind impoverished, bitterly divided communities. 8. Much if not most of the supposedly temporary migration such as student visas, holiday working visas and seasonal agricultural workers is permanent because the dream of life in the West is so powerful for so many from the poor parts of the world. The government has no controls to ensure that those it invites in actually leave. 9. White flight is ghettoising Britain’s cities and fragmenting communities. A totally unpublicised report commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister last year found that white flight was now a leading cause of internal migration in the UK. In London as a whole, white Britons account for just 60 per cent of the population, and for fewer than half the population in six London boroughs. Mass immigration from the Third World to the cities exacerbates white flight, but the government refuses to face up to the consequences. Professor Robert Putnam, author of the celebrated Bowling Alone, which is about the decline of community spirit in the US, has found that the more ethnically diverse a population, the less sense of community there is. The government may not face up to these issues, but an increasing number of people are doing so. Bob Rowthorn, the left-wing professor of economics at Cambridge, dismisses all the economic arguments and opposes mass immigration on the grounds that all people have a right to decide their culture; Geoff Dench of the left-wing Institute of Community Studies in London's East End opposes mass immigration because of the welfare loss to the white working class, and because it is so damaging to race relations; Professor Lord Layard, the designer of Labour s welfare-to-work programme, has warned of the damaging impact on the unskilled; Ruth Lea, the head of policy at the Institute of Directors, has called on government to reduce immigration ―she insists businesses must look beyond the short-term profits of cheap labour, and look at the long-term social and economic consequences. As the taboo about immigration is broken, more people are becoming more open-minded about it. The government will eventually be forced to face reality and to curb its addiction to mass immigration. It is just a question of how much pain it puts the country through and how much it sacrifices the working classes and race relations before it does so.

Economics Professor says Obama's plan will further hurt the US, thoughts? Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN WSJ October 16, 2008 What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits? AP The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation's next president. Yet despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements. From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback. To be sure, Mr. Obama has been clouding these positions as he heads into the general election and, once elected, presidents sometimes see the world differently than when they are running. Some cite Bill Clinton's move to the economic policy center following his Hillary health-care and 1994 Congressional election debacles as a possible Obama model. But candidate Obama starts much further left on spending, taxes, trade and regulation than candidate Clinton. A move as large as Mr. Clinton's toward the center would still leave Mr. Obama on the economic left. Also, by 1995 the country had a Republican Congress to limit President Clinton's big government agenda, whereas most political pundits predict strengthened Democratic majorities in both Houses in 2009. Because newly elected presidents usually try to implement the policies they campaigned on, Mr. Obama's proposals are worth exploring in some depth. I'll discuss taxes and trade, although the story on his other proposals is similar. First, taxes. The table nearby demonstrates what could happen to marginal tax rates in an Obama administration. Mr. Obama would raise the top marginal rates on earnings, dividends and capital gains passed in 2001 and 2003, and phase out itemized deductions for high income taxpayers. He would uncap Social Security taxes, which currently are levied on the first $102,000 of earnings. The result is a remarkable reduction in work incentives for our most economically productive citizens. The top 35% marginal income tax rate rises to 39.6%; adding the state income tax, the Medicare tax, the effect of the deduction phase-out and Mr. Obama's new Social Security tax (of up to 12.4%) increases the total combined marginal tax rate on additional labor earnings (or small business income) from 44.6% to a whopping 62.8%. People respond to what they get to keep after tax, which the Obama plan reduces from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents -- a reduction of one-third in the after-tax wage! Despite the rhetoric, that's not just on "rich" individuals. It's also on a lot of small businesses and two-earner middle-aged middle-class couples in their peak earnings years in high cost-of-living areas. (His large increase in energy taxes, not documented here, would disproportionately harm low-income Americans. And, while he says he will not raise taxes on the middle class, he'll need many more tax hikes to pay for his big increase in spending.) On dividends the story is about as bad, with rates rising from 50.4% to 65.6%, and after-tax returns falling over 30%. Even a small response of work and investment to these lower returns means such tax rates, sooner or later, would seriously damage the economy. On economic policy, the president proposes and Congress disposes, so presidents often wind up getting the favorite policy of powerful senators or congressmen. Thus, while Mr. Obama also proposes an alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch, he could instead wind up with the permanent abolition plan for the AMT proposed by the Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D., N.Y.) -- a 4.6% additional hike in the marginal rate with no deductibility of state income taxes. Marginal tax rates would then approach 70%, levels not seen since the 1970s and among the highest in the world. The after-tax return to work -- the take-home wage for more time or effort -- would be cut by more than 40%. Now trade. In the primaries, Sen. Obama was famously protectionist, claiming he would rip up and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Since its passage (for which former President Bill Clinton ran a brave anchor leg, given opposition to trade liberalization in his party), Nafta has risen to almost mythological proportions as a metaphor for

Was the Reagan Administration the most corrupt ever? Ronald Reagan's Criminal Administration: "By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever." James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior was indicted on 41 felony counts for using connections at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help his private clients seek federal funds for housing projects in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Watt conceded that he had received $500,000 from clients who were granted very favorable housing contracts after he had intervened on their behalf. In testifying before a House committee Watt said: "That's what they offered and it sounded like a lot of money to me, and we settled on it." Watt was eventually sentenced to five years in prison and 500 hours of community service. Although not convicted, Edwin Meese III, resigned as Reagan's Attorney General after having been the subject of investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel on two occasions (Wedtech and Iran-Contra), during the 3 short years he was in office. E. Bob Wallach, close friend and law classmate of Attorney General Edwin Meese, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $250,000 in connection with the Wedtech influence-peddling scandal. Lyn Nofziger--Convicted on charges of illegal lobbying of White House in Wedtech scandal. Michael Deaver received three years' probation and was fined one hundred thousand dollars after being convicted for lying to a congressional subcommittee and a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after leaving the White House. The Iran-Contra scandal. In June, 1984, at a National Security Council meeting, CIA Director Casey urged President Reagan to seek third-party aid for the Nicaraguan contras. Secretary of State Schultz warned that it would be an "impeachable offense" if the U.S. government acted as conduit for such secret funding. But that didn't stop them. That same day, Oliver North was seeking third-party aid for the contras. But Reagan, the "teflon President" avoided serious charges or impeachment. Casper Weinberger was Secretary of Defense during Iran-Contra. In June 1992 he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of concealing from congressional investigators and prosecutors thousands of pages of his handwritten notes. The personal memoirs taken during high level meetings, detailed events in 1985 and 1986 involving the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger claimed he was being unfairly prosecuted because he would not provide information incriminating Ronald Reagan. Weinberger was scheduled to go on trial January 5, 1993, where the contents of his notes would have come to light and may have implicated other, unindicted conspirators. While Weinberger was never directly linked to the covert operations phase of the Iran-Contra affair, he is believed to have been involved in the cover-up of the ensuing scandal. According to Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to congress and the American public. Some of the notes are believed to have evidence against then Vice-President George Bush who pardoned Weinberger to keep him from going to trial. Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor indicted for defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4. million. { Republicans will point out that Donovan was acquitted. And that really matters in Donovan's case, because he was a Republican. But it didn't matter for Clinton or any of his cabinet, most all of whom were acquitted, because they were Democrats!} Elliott Abrams was appointed by President Reagan in 1985 to head the State Department's Latin American Bureau. He was closely linked with ex-White House aide Lt. Col. Oliver North's covert movement to aid the Contras. Working for North, Abrams coordinated inter-agency support for the contras and helped solicit illegal funding from foreign powers as well as domestic contributors. Abrams agreed to cooperate with Iran-Contra investigators and pled guilty to two charges reduced to misdemeanors. He was sentenced in 1991 to two years probation and 100 hours of community service but was pardoned by President George Bush. Robert C. McFarlane was appointed Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor in October 1983 and become well-known as a champion of the MX missile program in his role as White House liaison to congress. In 1984, Mc Farlane initiated the review of U.S. policy towards Iran that led directly to the arms for hostages deal. He also supervised early National Security Council efforts to support the Contras. Shortly after the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed in early 1987, McFarlane took an overdose of the tranquilizer Valium in an attempt to end his life. In his own words: "What really drove me to despair was a sense of having failed the country." McFarlane pled guilty to four misdemeanors and was sentenced to two years probation and 200 hours of community service. He was also fined $20,000. He received a blanket pardon from President George Bush. Oliver North--Convicted of falsifying and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress. Conviction overturned on appeal due to legal technicalities. John Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor, --guilty of five criminal counts involving conspiracy to mislead Congress, obstructing congressional inquiries, lying to lawmakers, used "high national security" to mask deceit and wrong-doing. Richard Secord pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress over Iran-Contra. Alan D. Fiers was the Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Central American Task Force. Fiers pled guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information from congress about Oliver North's activities and the diversion of Iran arms sale money to aid the Contras. He was sentenced to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service. Fiers agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for having his felonies reduced to misdemeanors and his testimony gave a boost to the long standing criminal investigation of Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor. Fiers testified that he and three CIA colleagues knew by mid-1986 that profits from the TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran were being diverted to the Contras months before it became public knowledge. Alan Fiers received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President Bush. Clair George was Chief of the CIA's Division of Covert Operations under President Reagan. In August 1992 a hung jury led U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to declare a mistrial in the case of Clair George who was accused of concealing from Congress his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair. George had been named by Alan Fiers when Fiers turned state's evidence for Lawrence Walsh's investigation. In a second trial on charges of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice, George was convicted of lying to two congressional committees in 1986. George faced a maximum five year federal prison sentence and a $20,000 fine for each of the two convictions. Jurors cleared George of five other charges including two counts of lying to a federal grand jury. Those charges would have carried a mandatory 10 months in prison upon conviction. Clair George received a blanket pardon for his crimes from President George Bush. Duane R. (Dewey) Clarridge was head of the CIA's Western European Division under President Reagan. He was indicted on November 29, 1991 for lying to congress and to the Tower Commission that investigated Iran- Contra. Clarridge was charged with five counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements for covering up his knowledge of a November 25, 1985 shipment of HAWK missiles to Iran. Clarridge was also suspected of diverting to the Contras weapons that were originally intended for the Afghan mujahaddeen guerrillas. Clarridge received a blanket pardon for his crimes on Christmas Eve 1992 from President George Bush. Environmental Protection Agency's favoritism toward polluters. Assistant administrator unduly influenced by chemical industry lobbyists. Another administrator resigned after pressuring employees to tone down a critical report on a chemical company accused of illegal pollution in Michigan. The deputy chief of federal activities was accused of compiling an interagency "hit" or "enemies" list, like those kept in the Nixon Watergate period, singling out career employees to be hired, fired or promoted according to political beliefs. Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations she politically manipulated the Superfund money. Rita Lavelle was fired after accusing a senior EPA official of "systematically alienating the business community." She was later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served three months of a six-month prison sentence. After an extensive investigation, in August 1984, a House of Representatives subcommittee concluded that top-level EPA appointees by Reagan for three years "violated their public trust by disregarding the public health and the environment, manipulating the Superfund program for political purposes, engaging in unethical conduct and participating in other abuses.". Neglected nuclear safety. A critical situation involving nuclear safety had been allowed to develop during the Reagan era. Immense sums, estimated at 200 billion or more, would be required in the 1990s to replace and make safe America's neglected, aging, deteriorating, and dangerous nuclear facilities. Savings & Loan Bail-out. Hundreds of billions of dollars were needed to bail out savings and loan institutions that either had failed during the deregulation frenzy of the eighties or were in danger of bankruptcy. Reckless airline deregulation. Deregulation of airline industry took too broad a sweep, endangering public safety. Additionally: Richard Allen, National Security adviser resigned amid controversy over an honorarium he received for arranging an interview with Nancy Reagan. Richard Beggs, chief administrator at NASA was indicted for defrauding the government while an executive at General Dynamics. Guy Flake, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, resigned after allegations of a conflict of interest in contract negotiations. Louis Glutfrida, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned amid allegations of misuses of government property. Edwin Gray, Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank was charged with illegally repaying himself and his wife $26,000 in travel costs. Max Hugel, CIA chief of covert operations who resigned after allegations of fraudulent financial dealings. Carlos Campbell, Assistant Secretary of Commerce resigned over charges of awarding federal grants to his personal friends' firms. John Fedders, chief of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission resigned over charges of beating his wife. Arthur Hayes, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration resigned over illegal travel reimbursements. J. Lynn Helms, chief of the Federal Aviation Administration resigned over a grand jury investigation of illegal business activities. Marjory Mecklenburg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources resigned over irregularities on her travel vouchers. Robert Nimmo, head of the Veterans Administration resigned when a report criticized him for improper use of government funds. J. William Petro, U.S. Attorney fired and fined for tipping off an acquaintance about a forthcoming Grand Jury investigation. Thomas C. Reed, White House counselor and National Security Council adviser resigned and paid a $427,000 fine for stock market insider trading. Emanuel Savas, Assistant Secretary of HUD resigned over assigning staff members to work on government time on a book that guilty to expense account fraud and accepting kickbacks on government contracts. Charles Wick, Director of the U.S. Information Agency investigated for taping conversations with public officials without their approval.

Standford Professor of Economics says Obama's plan will hurt us, thoughts? Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN WSJ October 16th, 2008 What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits? AP The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation's next president. Yet despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements. From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback. To be sure, Mr. Obama has been clouding these positions as he heads into the general election and, once elected, presidents sometimes see the world differently than when they are running. Some cite Bill Clinton's move to the economic policy center following his Hillary health-care and 1994 Congressional election debacles as a possible Obama model. But candidate Obama starts much further left on spending, taxes, trade and regulation than candidate Clinton. A move as large as Mr. Clinton's toward the center would still leave Mr. Obama on the economic left. Also, by 1995 the country had a Republican Congress to limit President Clinton's big government agenda, whereas most political pundits predict strengthened Democratic majorities in both Houses in 2009. Because newly elected presidents usually try to implement the policies they campaigned on, Mr. Obama's proposals are worth exploring in some depth. I'll discuss taxes and trade, although the story on his other proposals is similar. First, taxes. The table nearby demonstrates what could happen to marginal tax rates in an Obama administration. Mr. Obama would raise the top marginal rates on earnings, dividends and capital gains passed in 2001 and 2003, and phase out itemized deductions for high income taxpayers. He would uncap Social Security taxes, which currently are levied on the first $102,000 of earnings. The result is a remarkable reduction in work incentives for our most economically productive citizens. The top 35% marginal income tax rate rises to 39.6%; adding the state income tax, the Medicare tax, the effect of the deduction phase-out and Mr. Obama's new Social Security tax (of up to 12.4%) increases the total combined marginal tax rate on additional labor earnings (or small business income) from 44.6% to a whopping 62.8%. People respond to what they get to keep after tax, which the Obama plan reduces from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents -- a reduction of one-third in the after-tax wage! Despite the rhetoric, that's not just on "rich" individuals. It's also on a lot of small businesses and two-earner middle-aged middle-class couples in their peak earnings years in high cost-of-living areas. (His large increase in energy taxes, not documented here, would disproportionately harm low-income Americans. And, while he says he will not raise taxes on the middle class, he'll need many more tax hikes to pay for his big increase in spending.) On dividends the story is about as bad, with rates rising from 50.4% to 65.6%, and after-tax returns falling over 30%. Even a small response of work and investment to these lower returns means such tax rates, sooner or later, would seriously damage the economy. On economic policy, the president proposes and Congress disposes, so presidents often wind up getting the favorite policy of powerful senators or congressmen. Thus, while Mr. Obama also proposes an alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch, he could instead wind up with the permanent abolition plan for the AMT proposed by the Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D., N.Y.) -- a 4.6% additional hike in the marginal rate with no deductibility of state income taxes. Marginal tax rates would then approach 70%, levels not seen since the 1970s and among the highest in the world. The after-tax return to work -- the take-home wage for more time or effort -- would be cut by more than 40%. Now trade. In the primaries, Sen. Obama was famously protectionist, claiming he would rip up and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Since its passage (for which former President Bill Clinton ran a brave anchor leg, given opposition to trade liberalization in his party), Nafta has risen to almost mythological proportions as a metaphor f

Is this a good book? I'm currently writing this book. Is this good? The hallway buzzed with noise as Mabel tried to squish through the crowd. “ Oh my gosh! Isn’t this cool?!”, Noah grabbed Mabel’s shoulders and screamed. Noah cleared her throat. “I mean, it’s the first day of middle school and…” She stopped and stared at the group of football players as if they were rock stars. Mabel stared at the group. Noah pulled out her vanilla Lip Smacker and smiled. “Look, there’s Robert!”, she said smacking her glossy lips and smiling. Mabel sighed. Robert has been her only crush since second grade and during the summer, she promised herself that this year, in seventh grade, she would make him hers. She just wondered why he never hung out with her or even said a word to her. Is it because she wasn’t pretty enough? Or was it because he didn’t like girls who stuck their noses in books and paid attention in class like Mabel. As a straight-A student, she only cared about education. If she got a C or lower, he he hallway buzzed with noise as Mabel tried to squish through the crowd. “ Oh my gosh! Isn’t this cool?!”, Noah grabbed Mabel’s shoulders and screamed. Noah cleared her throat. “I mean, it’s the first day of middle school and…” She stopped and stared at the group of football players as if they were rock stars. Mabel stared at the group. Noah pulled out her vanilla Lip Smacker and smiled. “Look, there’s Robert!”, she said smacking her glossy lips and smiling. Mabel sighed. Robert has been her only crush since second grade and during the summer, she promised herself that this year, in seventh grade, she would make him hers. She just wondered why he never hung out with her or even said a word to her. Is it because she wasn’t pretty enough? Or was it because he didn’t like girls who stuck their noses in books and paid attention in class like Mabel. As a straight-A student, she only cared about education. If she got a C or lower, her mom would start a long conversation about “if you don’t have the grades, Mabel, you may never get into Harvard. You need to take education seriously. Now go study and promise me a better test next time.” Mabel would nod her head and run off to her room. Mabel knew it was because of that. Noah, Mabel’s best friend since kindergarten, was cool and never shy. In be fact, Mabel would be totally jealous of her because on top of being a straight-B student, she was cute, friendly, funny, and had adorable style. Hmm…what if Robert likes Noah? Mable wondered to herself. She was stunned. “Noah, do you think that I’m…you know, geeky?” Noah looked down at the floor. “Um…well, you’re not that geeky, you’re just…” Mabel interrupted, “Nerdy?” Noah nearly yelled out “Yes!” Mabel stared her. She was right. The two headed to the girls bathroom. “Are you sad?” asked Noah as she applied mascara and pink eye shadow. Mabel finished tying her shoes and let out a calm “No.” Noah smiled and said, “Perfect! My make up is so perfect. No smudges, no colors getting mixed up!” Mabel giggled, “Your pink eye shadow doesn’t match your dark red lips”. Noah grinned and started to sing “Ain’t no other man”. “You look and sing just like a miniature Christina Aguilera!” Mabel said while putting on nail polish. There was no one else in the bathroom and they felt relaxed. Rrrrring! “Oh my gosh! We’re gonna be late!” Noah struggled to pack up her cosmetics in her purple pouch. “Wait!”, screamed Noah, “my lips got smudged!” Mabel sighed. Why was it that Mabel only needed nail polish to feel beautiful while Noah needed the whole enchilada? Noah finally found a light shade of lavender and wiped it all over her lips. She put on a coat of her signature vanilla Lip Smacker. They rushed out of the bathroom and into the classroom. The teacher stared at them. He was a bald man with round, black glasses and he had on a button-down shirt, a tie with prancing elves, and tuxedo pants. “You girls got lucky. Class starts in one more minute but everyone else came early. Guess they’re all excited about stepping up and becoming seventh graders.” They took the seats in the front next to each other. A couple seconds later, the teacher announced “Five, four, three…” Amber, Raquel, Ashley, and Anna rushed in right when he was going to say “two”. Mabel and Noah looked at each other and mouthed the words “popular girls”. This group is even worse than all the bullies. These girls were so preppy and girly and Amber was the head of them. It was her who said what do and what not to do and everyone else in her crew did exactly what she said and she treated them like servants. They even wore matching clothes and today, it was plaid Bermuda shorts, sparkly tank tops, and ballet flats. The group took the seats right next to Robert. Amber worked up her charm and flirted with Robert. Mabel grunted and played around with the key chain in the pocket of her hoodie. “No more being a nerd,” she whispered to herself. Apparently, Noah heard and winked. She then whispered, “Good idea, Mabel!” The teacher cleared his voice and in a soft therapist voice said, “Hello students. My name is Mr. Smith and I’m going to be your history teacher.” Everyone stared at him as if he was speaking another language. As always, Mabel knew that Mr. Smith would be a great teacher. Mr. Smith pulled out a box of textbooks and passed them out. “Everyone, please to turn to page 6. Please silently read this section on ancient Egypt.” Everyone got right to work and started reading while Mr. Smith sat down at his desk. He jotted down things on a notebook. Half an hour later, when everyone was finished reading, he passed out slips of paper to everyone. “Please put your slip into the hat on my desk”, he pointed to his desk “we will be starting our ancient Egypt projects and now we are picking partners.” Mabel’s heart started pounding. The only way that Robert could notice me is if I worked with him on a project, she thought. “The first pair is Rachel and Chris.” Mable was shocked. Who knew Rachel, the sophisticated wannabe-lawyer would wound up with the kid who did arm farts in front of the teacher? “The next pair is Noah and Robert.” Mabel almost cried. How could this be? But then she calmed down. What if she used Noah to ask Robert some questions about what kind of girl he was into? Hmmm…maybe Noah was more useful than giving bad makeovers. Mr. Smith glanced up at the clock. “Whoops! Time is running out! I better assign partners and fast!”, he said in a cartoon voice. “Harold and Mabel. Thomas and Amber. Tiffany and Raquel. Anna and Mohammed. Ashley and David.” Mabel felt like dying. How could she possibly be stuck with Harold, the boy who picks his nose and eats a plain sandwich with a massive dallop of mayonnaise and a pickle or two to top it off. Mabel never forgot the time when he shoved one of his icky sandwiches up her throat. She barfed and had to go home early. After history class, Mabel went to the bathroom while Noah went to ask Mr. Smith some questions about the project. Mabel was upset that Noah got to be Robert’s partner. Noah barged into the girl’s bathroom. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” groaned Noah. Mabel just applied some lip-gloss and looked the other way. Noah frowned. Mabel then smacked her lips and blew her nails. “Mabel, you can’t give me the silent treatment forever. Now, tell me why you’re so mad.” Mabel cleared her throat, “Why do you get to be Robert’s partner and I don’t?” Noah looked at Mabel as if she was stupid. “Mabel, the whole partner-picking thing was random, so I didn’t get to choose.” Mabel rolled her yes, “So what? I’m still mad.” Noah started to get angry and shouted, “Its not my fault!” Mabel stared at her. Mabel had never seen Noah erupt before. She must have really pressed Noah’s buttons, but she didn’t care, or at least pretended not to care. Mabel finally got the message: Noah might actually like Robert. “Wait a minute,” said Mabel “you like Robert.” Noah was silent. “Do you like Robert?” Mabel demanded. Noah nodded her head. Mabel started crying. Noah approached Mabel and hugged her. Noah whispered, “Are we still friends?” Mabel wiped her tears and said, “I don’t know.” Mabel left the bathroom, slamming the door, and went off to English class. Luckily, Mabel didn’t have English class with Noah so she would have to deal with Noah passing notes asking, “Are we still friends?” Mabel knew this because this happened last year. English class was pretty quiet without Noah yelling out answers and whispering jokes about Mrs. Renoldi. Mrs. Renoldi was an old-fashioned lady who probably still believed it was the 1900’s. In a turtleneck sweater, shiny silver pants, loafers, poofy hair, a red and green headband, and novelty earrings, she was the nerdiest teacher in the whole school. After English class, Mabel went over to get her science book from her locker to study at lunch. Noah had slipped a note into Mabel’s locker: Dear Mabel, I’m really sorry. Please forgive me. I mean, it’s not my fault that I have a crush on Robert. Besides, its not like I’m going to flirt with him or something. -Noah Mabel carefully studied the note. Wow…Noah even used the blue gel pen I gave her last year , thought Mabel. She did feel bad about being mad at Noah for no reason. She wanted to forgive her, but she wasn’t sure yet. She pulled out her science book and her wrinkled up paper bag and headed over to the cafeteria. Lunch just wasn’t the same without Noah. Mabel had a peanut butter sandwich, homemade brownies, orange juice, and an apple. She glumly ate lunch. She wondered where Noah was sitting. She glanced through the whole cafeteria until finally she spotted Noah. Mabel gasped and choked on a chunk of the apple. There was Noah sitting with Amber, Ashley, Raquel, and Anna laughing it up right in front of Mabel. Mabel felt gullible to even want to forgive Noah. Noah was trying to make Mabel jealous and it worked. Mabel thought of a plan to embarrass Noah for life. The next day, Mabel completely ignored Noah and Noah ignored her back. Mabel was lonely while Noah flaunted herself with the “popular girls”. During history class, Mabel watched as Noah smiled and blushed right in front of Robert. That’s when Mabel realized that he really did like Noah. “Want to eat lunch with me?” he said to Noah. The whole class gasped. The star of the football team and the preppy, happy girl…eating lunch…together? Mabel watched as Noah and Robert giggled at lunch. They seemed as though they’ve known each other forever. Mabel couldn’t stand it. She walked over to where Noah was sitting and dumped milk all over her head. Noah screamed. Noah went running like a dog with a tail on fire. And Robert frowned. “What the heck, you geek?!” he shouted. Mabel stared at him, feeling the tears slipping out of her eyes. A geek? Great, now I know he thinks I’m a geek, she thought. Mabel took her wrinkled up paper bag with an apple core and half of the sandwich and walked out of the cafeteria. She went to her locker and stared at herself in the mirror of her locker. She checked herself. What was so geeky about her? Moments later, she realized what was nerdy. Square black glasses that were so big that they took up half of her face. A piggy nose. Red and blue braces. A button down cotton shirt. Plaid trousers. Socks up to the knee. Maybe if she stretched them, they’d cover her whole leg. And red low top Converse. She felt the word in her mind. That word. Geek. Its time to stop being a geek once and for all, she thought. Chapter 2 Mabel looked at herself in the mirror in the morning and smiled. “No more being a geek!” she screamed in delight. As she walked through the hallway at school, she finally knew that being a geek was over for her. “Ooh hot!” screeched the boys. And that one sound that made it feel worth it. Gasp. Gasp. Mabel was wearing a red tube top with the word “baby” written in fold foil. She wore an incredibly mini mini-skirt. She had strappy red sandals and she dyed her hair cherry chocolate with red and black streaks. She wore a chain necklace, earrings, and a tattoo. She went to class. History class, she sighed. Mr. Smith looked at her. The teacher’s pet has gone wrong. “Um, Mabel, would you like to read page 12, paragraph 2?” Mabel stared at him. Look, I’m not a kiss-up teacher’s pet girl anymore. I’m a hot, bad girl, she thought. “No.” she said in a snobby tone. She knew how to do this voice perfectly because the popular crew practically created that voice. Mr. Smith looked at her. “Please read the paragraph, Mabel.” Mabel then said, in a snobbier tone, “No.” Mr. Smith turned red. “READ THE PARAGRAPH!” he screamed. “No.” Mabel said like she was tring to be annoying. Mr. Smith then said, “Mabel read the paragraph or else.” Mabel stood up and walked toward him, “Are you threatening me?” she screamed. “Get your backpack and head to the principal’s office. You’re in big trouble, ma’am!” The class roared with “Ooooh!” and “Uh oh!” And what Mabel was waiting for. Gasp. Gasp. “So, why didn’t you read the paragraph?” asked the principal. Mrs. Harper was sitting at her desk in a light blue business suit, high heels to match, and a messy bun. Mabel stared at her wrinkles. Um…there’s something called Botox, thought Mabel. “I’m waiting to know.” The principal added. The office was so depressing. The desk Mrs. Harper was sitting at was flowing with tattered papers. Pens and pencils were all over the floor. Mabel was sitting on a little pink stool. There was a countertop with coffee mugs and file folders. The carpet looked as though there was a wild party in there. Gum on the floor. “Mabel, are you going to talk or not,” asked the principal. Mabel sighed. “I just didn’t feel like reading.” Mabel put on her puppy dog hoodie. If Mrs. Harper saw Mabel with a tube top, the trouble she was already was in would be doubled. “Tube tops aren’t allowed”, Mrs. Harper would say over and over again. Mrs. Harper rose her eyebrows, “So, why didn’t you feel like reading.” Mabel decided to lie. It was the only way to get out of all this trouble. “Well, I didn’t feel like reading because I was in a bad mood. I felt like crying.” Mrs. Harper suddenly switched from principal mode to therapist mode. “Oh, dear! What happened, Mabel?” Mabel replied as glumly as she can, “Well, I like Robert and now Robert likes Noah and I want him to like me.” Mabel then stated crying for real. By trying to lie, she ended up telling the truth. Mrs. Harper nodded her head, “It’ll be okay, dear. Boys are mysterious people, really they are. Don’t cry please.” Mabel cried and cried. Mrs. Harper reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a mango-flavored lollypop. Mabel took it even though strawberry-flavored lollypops were her favorite. She wiped her tears and left the office. She went to bathroom to wash her face. Noah walked into the bathroom too. “So, what happened in the office?” asked Noah. Mabel replied, “Nothing. I didn’t get in trouble.” Noah smiled. “That’s good,” Noah giggled. “The whole class was talking about it while we were supposed to be working on our Egypt projects. Everyone thought you got suspended or something.” Noah added. Mabel sighed. She really did miss Noah. Mabel asked, “So, how is it going with Robert?’ Noah shook her head. “All he ever talks about is Amber. I found out he’s using me to get to Amber. So I dumped him during history class.” Mabel felt so bad. “How could we have let one boy ruin our friendship?” Mabel asked sadly. “I missed you so much. There was no one to dip Oreos into chocolate milk with while watching cartoons, no one to play soccer with, no one to watch movies with, no one to bake cookies with, no one to play “hair salon” with. No one to do anything with. Please, please, please, please be my best friend again.” Noah cried. Noah was sobbing. Mabel yelled happily, “Of course I’ll be your friend again!” They hugged and cried. “Everyone was talking about your geek to chic makeover today,” Noah said. Mabel smiled, “My days as Geek Girl are over!” Noah then added, “The football team was even talking about how hot you looked. And Robert!” Mabel leaped with excitement. She ran over to Robert. “Hey, Robert!” she said in that total flirt tone. Robert looked at her. “You look really hot.!” Mabel giggled. “Wanna go out to the movies this Friday night?” she asked. Robery smiled, “Yeah, sure.” Friday came and Mabel was throwing clothes out of her closet. Her room was a little small. Her bed, with her pink and lime green bedding, was in the middle, magazines with cut out pictures of celebrities were all over the carpet, and one pink dresser and a desk with a laptop. Her closet was small, which is why most of her clothes were all over the floor. Where is that pink tube top? she wondered. She found her tube top under her bed and pulled it on. She grabbed her high heels and skinny jeans. She put glittery pink eye shadow and sparkly pink lipstick. She headed over to the theatre and walked up to Robert, who waiting inside near the snack area. “Want popcorn?” asked Robert. Mabel blushed as pink as her lipstick and said, “Yes, please” in her most innocent little girl voice. She has used this voice to get herself out of trouble with her mom. He paid for popcorn and purchased a drink and escorted Mabel to a seat way in the back. Robert sat down and put the popcorn in Mabel’s lap. Mabel smiled weakly. This was her first date ever and she felt so awkward. The movie started and Robert smiled at her. She wasn’t interested in watching ‘Superman strikes again’, but she pretended to be completely interested in it. She sighed and daydreamed about getting married to Robert. She smiled and dozed off. Before she knew it, the dream became beautiful the more she imagined. “Mabel”, Robert said while shaking her. He cleared his throat, “Wake up, Mabel!” Mabel woke up, still sleepy. “What happened?” she asked, feeling drowsy. Robert frowned. “You missed the whole movie because you fell asleep”, he replied. Mabel widened her eyes. What a jerk I am. The one and only hottie who I loved for so long finally went on a date with me and I fell asleep. Poor guy paid for tickets and snacks and I wasted it all and fell asleep. Fell asleep, she thought. “I’m sorry.” Mabel said. Robert got up and said, “Come on, lets go.” Mabel sighed. The one and only boy she really loved is going to dump her after one date. Just one date! No, she was not going to let him dump her. They went outside and sat at the bench. Robert was waiting for a taxi to pick them up. Mabel grabbed his arm, “Are you still mad at me?! All I did was fall asleep during the movie! You can’t blame me for being a bit tired. You’re not the one who has to study, play the violin, play the piano, go to soccer practices every day, and still have time to do homework! And then I still have chores and you in my life! So, why are you mad if you can’t understand what I go through every freaking day of my life!” Mabel had yelled this out so loud that everyone waiting for the bus and exiting and entering the theatre could hear. She sounded like a crazy woman who wanted to break up with her husband. Robert stood there, embarrassed as everyone stared at Mabel and Robert. Robert just glared at her and looked down. “I wasn’t mad at you, just a little annoyed. That’s all. But you had to embarrass me in front of all these people.” Mabel shrugged. “I’m really, really sorry, Robert. Please forgive me.” Mable said. Robert hugged her and replied, “Just don’t let it happen again.” They let go and Mabel quietly sad, “Ok.” Noah called Mabel two hours after she got back from the date with Robert. Noah seemed pretty excited. “So, how did the date go with Robert?” Mabel sighed, “I fell asleep during the movie and he seemed pretty upset and I yelled at him in public like a mad woman with no therapist who wanted to divorce her husband and live alone in a mountaintop in Oregon or something.” Noah giggled, “Don’t tell me you brought up the fact that you practice piano and stuff. And why Oregon? I heard that Wisconsin has pretty nice mountaintops perfect for mad women with no therapist who want to divorce their husband.” Mabel laughed, “This is probably the last time me and Robert will ever go out on a date.”

kamal karna roy, a newer vision of life in new and upcoming democratic rule ?

kamal roy epoisode in u s a politics_republican and general ; do u hear some ?

you may not know a person, a gop member,clergy, leader of people millions, u s gop pres rebel nominee to be?

3rd chapter of Its Complicated? plz read!!? Chapter 3: Warnings Should Be Taken Seriously When I was in the shower I was thinking long and hard about what Lance said. Maybe he’s right…I don’t know! But he won’t hurt me again! I know he won’t…he just really likes me. That’s it! Yeah. That’s the only reason…I hope. After I got out of the shower, I quickly changed. I texted my best friends. (we have 3 way texting.) Lizz- You shouldn’t have left me alone with him… Linds- WHY?? DID HE HURT YOU?? Frank- What did he do?? Lizz- Well we had a HEE-UGE talk about how I’m not in the relationship for sex… Linds- WHY?? Frank- He raped you, didn’t he?? Lizz- HE DIDN’T RAPE ME!! He only tried…I’m going to a party with him this weekend too! Frank- No you’re not!! He’ll hurt you!! Linds- Tell me everything later. I gotta go!! Love you!! Frank- Love you too!! Lizz- Love you too!! But I’m going to the party!! And there’s nothing you can do about it! Bye! ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> The next day was a Friday, and we didn’t have school. Something happened I guess…I heard a person raped a girl from our school in one of the classrooms. Not only did he rape her…he murdered her, too. I was a little freaked out! I watched the news, and the incident was all over! On all the news stations! Kinda freaky! It never showed a picture because he was underage. I started thinking of me being that girl and Kellan being the murderer…UGH! I decided to take a nap so I wouldn’t have to think about. I woke up at midnight, and the party was at 3:30! A.M!! I had four messages on my phone when I woke up. Lance- I heard he hurt you on your date! I heard it was Kellan who killed the younger girl. She’s in our grade. I think her name is Mara. Frank- I’m sorry! I told Lance. He does like you…a lot. Kellan- Hey babe!! Did you hear bout that girl?? Bad way to die! Linds- Don’t go to the party! I heard Kellan was the guy who killed Mara! Don’t go! ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Why did they care so much if he hurt me? Well…I mean…yeah it would scare the hibby jibbies out of me too if he hurt one of my friends. But he wouldn’t hurt me! The next thing I realized, I looked at the clock, and it was 1:00. I had basically 2 hours to get ready!! I still had to do my hair, make up, and find a sexy outfit! I looked in my closet. There was a really cute mini skirt…I took that out, and just got a tank top and put it on. I decided to just put my hair up in a pony tail, and I did make-up slowly so I could think. What if it was Kellan who raped that girl? And murdered her? I could be next in line! Maybe I shouldn’t even go. He could hurt me worse today…I wish Mom and Dad were here, but NO! they had to take a stupid business trip! When I was done, Kellan texted me. Kellan- I’m on my way. Look hot. ;) Lizz- OK. But nothing stupid! Can Lance come? Kellan- That jerk?? NO! I want you all to myself. Lizz- Well I’m inviting him. Kellan- Fine. But then you know something bad will happen. Preferably from me. Lizz- If you lay one finger on me, I will be so pissed. And Lance is coming because he’s worried. Kellan- You know…you can totally expect something to happen if you keep warning me. I’m at your house. Come outside. Lizz- I don’t think I wanna go. Maybe Lance and Linds are right. I don’t think I wanna go. Kellan- YOU’RE COMING! DON’T MAKE ME COME UP THERE! Lizz- I’m sorry, but we’re over. Kellan- I’M COMING UP THERE TO GET YOU!! NOW!! That freaked me out! I didn’t think he’s the one to hurt people…but I guess I was wrong. I hear him coming! What do I do?? I’ll call Lance! I was dialing the number as he came in my room. I was panicking, so I asked him a question to stall him. “How did you know where my room is?? Are you stalking me??” I laughed at my own joke, but his face was still straight, and he looked mad. “OMG you CREEP!! Get out of my house! I will call the police! LEAVE!!” “I will stay, and you’re coming with me to that party! You don’t want your parents to come home finding your blood all over your room and your body on your bed…do you?” He smiled that scary smile…that I’ve learned to become scared of. I gulped, and I sensed he knew I was freaked out. “You killed Mara didn’t you?? Why? She was so young! She’s my age! Why would you do that?” I started sobbing as he put me over his shoulder to leave. “Like I said…younger girls are easier to get.” That’s when we got to the car, and he gave me a glass of water. I saw something dissolving in the bottom, but I was too thirsty to care. I drank the whole thing in a matter of seconds. We got to the party in 5 minutes, and when he picked me up…well that’s the last thing I remember. ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>< When I woke up, I was in a dark room. I was really cold, and I realized the reason why in no time at all. Where are my clothes?? *gasp* Why is Kellan not wearing any clothes either? OMG AM I STILL A VIRGIN? “I really wanted you to yell at me for not being safe…but this way…I can have a child.” He smiled the evil smile again, why he put on a tux. I then remembered today was the dance! I started sobbing again. I’m only a teenager! Hardly! I’m a freshman! “Listen…if you got me pregnant, so help me! You will be in court between the time I know, and the time I cry.” After I said it, I realized it was the wrong thing to say! However, he came over to the bed with a dress. He then put it on me. He laughed at my expression. “You should be in this…well because today’s your dance. And I really wanted you to go. But…well you have made me mad the last time Lizz!” He grabbed a knife, and I screamed as he came towards me. The door bursted open, and Lance, Lindsay, and Frankly came in. Sarah trudged behind. Lindsay and Frankly looked at me and started to cry. Kellan grabbed me and pulled me towards him. He took me to the back of the wall, and put the knife to my throat. . “One step towards us, and your little friend here will be dead between now and…well the time you step towards us.” I was sobbing…so much it hurt my stomach. “I’m so s-s-sorry!! I didn’t want this to happen! I’m sorry Lance! I should have trusted you! I…I…I really like you.” Kellan looked at me with a look of sadness in his eyes. “So you only really liked him?? That’s it!!” and he cut me…not deep. But deep enough for me to lose a lot of blood, and pass out.

Lee Iacocca has a very strong argument about Iraq, Bush, etc. It's an easy read. Agree/Disagree/Comment?:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Iacocca Subject: Lee Iacocca speaks out Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound Bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting Senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I Have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize This country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a Pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by Passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I Don't need it). The most famous business leaders are Not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While We're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and Nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is Waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours Traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How About you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a Patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm Ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, You're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the Young people." I'd love to speak to them as soon as I Can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds And get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up Because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will Listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a Straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to Strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't Vote because they don't trust politicians to represent Their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys Work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this Crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at Least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't Do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We Didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding Answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who Call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a Dictatorship, not a democracy. And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an Intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the Reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of Factions. We're a people. We share common principles And ideals. And we rise and fall together. Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to Action and make us stand taller? What happened to the Strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to The courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of Great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do Better. Where have all the leaders gone? The Test of a Leader I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the Top. I've figured out nine points, not ten (I don't Want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call Them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or Complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every True leader should have. We should look at how the Current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this Crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe We can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to Screen the candidates who say they want to run the Country. It's up to us to choose wisely. So, here's my C list: A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to People outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner Circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world Is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags About never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the Headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a Newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left To me to decide whether we should have a government Without newspapers, or newspapers without a Government, I should not hesitate for a moment to Prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets His daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through The sound system, he's ready to go. If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to Hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right. A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't. Leadership is all about managing change whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School. A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him. A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths, for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy. A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk. If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs. To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION, fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get omething done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President, four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake. It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership. A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof. A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner. You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know, Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liber... e-mission-accomplished Bush. Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world and I like it here." I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while. The Biggest C is Crisis Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero. That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq, a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will. A Hell of a Mess So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point. Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time. Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it? Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough. Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?. Copyright © 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved.

the rev kamal karna karuna roy ,newer horizon in sight for resolution _ bipartisan/ unique political resolve?

hedge-fund managers are consistent Democratic donors.? Hedging Your Votes Taxing questions. Democrats have so far gotten the lion’s share of hedge-fund managers’ campaign contributions in the 2008 presidential money race — 75 percent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics/Absolute Return magazine analysis of the candidates’ first-quarter financials. Next week, when financials are due, we’ll know if the trend kept up in the second quarter. For now the more interesting question is: Will it continue after the Democrats raise taxes on private-equity and hedge-fund managers, as they appear determined to do? Last Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on “carried interest” — the percentage of a fund’s returns that its managers keep as compensation. This comes after 14 House Democrats proposed a bill that would more than double the taxes that fund managers pay on these fees. Your typical fund manager takes around two percent of the fund’s value as a fee for managing the money, and on this he pays regular income tax of up to 35 percent. In addition, he keeps around 20 percent of the returns on the fund’s investments — on this he pays the capital-gains tax rate, which President Bush cut to 15 percent in 2003. These funds are quite large, in the billions, and generate outsized returns, so these guys have been in the news lately for their astronomical take-home pay. Now the Democrats want their cut. They say it’s not fair that these managers pay such a low rate on so much income. They want them to pay the regular income-tax rate — 35 percent. Here’s where things get weird. Typically political parties crack down on the other party’s donors, not their own. But unlike their financial brethren in the greater securities/investments community, hedge-fund managers are consistent Democratic donors. While the industry overall only shifted its giving to the Democrats in 2006 when a power-shift looked all-but-certain, CRP/Absolute Return data show that hedge funds have favored Democrats for longer and by wider margins. In 2006 hedge funds gave 69 percent of their campaign cash to Democrats (the industry overall was more closely divided at 53-45). They gave 67 percent to Democrats in 2004. In 2002, it was 84 percent. As mentioned above, first-quarter filings from the 2008 presidential candidates show that the funds continue to favor Democrats. Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd received the most — close to $350,000 — which reflects the large number of hedge funds in his state as well as his position as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. John Edwards came in second with over $190,000. Almost all of that money came from the Fortress Investment Group, which also paid him close to $500,000 in consulting fees last year. (Edwards told the Associated Press that he took the job “primarily to learn” about financial markets and their relationship to poverty.) Hillary Clinton came in third, followed by Rudy Giuliani and then Barack Obama. A top Republican fundraiser I talked to simply didn’t believe these numbers could be accurate. He pointed to a number of high-profile hedge-fund managers who have given to Republicans, such as Paul E. Singer, a founding partner at Elliott Associates and major Giuliani backer. When I asked him to assume that the numbers were correct for argument’s sake, he said, “Then it would be the stupidest thing I could imagine.” Evidence that hedge-fund giving runs counter to the sector’s best interest also comes from the fact that the Managed Funds Association, which represents hedge funds in Washington, directs most of its giving to Republicans. In 2004 the split was 68-32. Even in 2006, with the rest of the industry trending Democratic, the MFA favored the GOP 57-41. CRP executive director Sheila Krumholz says, “The Managed Funds Association is a good example of a business association giving for more pragmatic reasons, based on its legislative agenda and more in the general interest of these firms. Yet many companies,” she says, “even members of the association, give 100 percent to Democrats.” Avenue Capital Group, D.E. Shaw, Farallon, Fortress, and yes, Soros Fund Management are among the major Democratic donors who populate the association’s membership list. One can think of several reasons why hedge-fund giving is so at odds to what one would perceive to be the best interest of the industry. First, most hedge funds are located in blue states and therefore represented by Democrats. It probably makes sense for these managers to give to a Chris Dodd, a Hillary Clinton, a Nancy Pelosi, even if they don’t share their ideologies. That could skew the data. But a closer look at the giving patterns of some of the top donors finds political contributions spread out over a large number of Democratic candidates and PACs. Thomas F. Steyer, senior partner at Farallon Capital Management in San Francisco, gave $1,000 to Nancy Pelosi (and $5,000 to her PAC), sure. But he’s given tens of thousands more to other Democrats, running the gamut from the hawkish Joe Lieberman to the very liberal Russell Feingold. Not all hedge funds are located in blue states, either. David Bonderman, a big Democratic donor, runs the Texas Pacific Group from Fort Worth, Texas. Second, one could argue that influential lawmakers from both parties support higher taxes and more regulation on hedge funds, so it doesn’t matter whether they give to Republicans or Democrats. Iowa Republican Charles Grassley, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, has long favored forcing hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, something they argue they shouldn’t have to do. And in a statement at Wednesday’s hearing, Grassley defended the idea of raising taxes on publicly traded partnerships like Fortress and Blackstone. But this explanation is also lacking. It is the Democratic party, not the GOP, that seeks to roll back Bush’s investment-friendly tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. Carried interest and hedge-fund managers are merely the softest targets in what promises to be a broader Democratic attack on the Bush tax cuts. The fundamental logic — that the investor class is overcompensated and ought to pay more — is the same. Listening to the Democratic vs. the Republican candidates for president provides an even clearer demonstration of the difference between the parties. John Edwards, ardent student of the industry though he may be, has come out in favor of higher taxation and increased regulation of private-equity and hedge funds. And Thursday the New York Sun reported that Barack Obama has also come out in support of doubling taxes on publicly traded partnerships. Hillary Clinton, who along with Chuck Schumer represents Wall Street in the Senate, is the only holdout so far (a spokesman told the Sun she is still “evaluating” the issue). This bit of politically-motivated reticence aside, the Democrats’ track record on taxes speaks for itself. By any measure of common sense, a smart man would bet on the GOP to keep taxes low and capital deregulated. Finally, there’s the Soros factor. But while this can partially explain large discrepancies in past cycles, particularly 2004, Soros’s pocketbook was silent during the first quarter of 2007, and the Democrats dominated anyway. What’s left is the explanation offered by CRP’s Krumholz: “I sense that, for these individuals, a lot of them are ideologically allied with the Democrats possibly in spite of economic interests that would seem to favor a Republican alliance.” In other words, it’s Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas, only in reverse. Hedge-fund managers tend to live near the top of cosmopolitan, culturally liberal societies. They tend to find Republican positions on embryo-destroying stem-cell research and gay marriage to be nothing short of primitive. They tend to be extremely bright and thus prone to the fallacious idea that if more people like them ran the government, they could solve just about any problem with a new government program. They can afford higher taxes. Unfortunately, the rest of America can’t. Investment capital is the lifeblood of business expansion and job creation, and the idea that Congress can’t find offsets in the bloated federal budget and must raid Wall Street for more money is preposterous. I know — no one deserves to have their taxes raised quite like these extremely well-compensated benefactors of the party that seeks to destroy them. However, as usual, it’s up to conservatives to know better.

rev kamal karna roy a newer politician in strategic redevelopment _ changes to evade "jungle democracy"? Click here to join the NEWSWEEK community, post comments and subscribe to our e-mail newsletters User Name: Password: Forgot password? News Politics Tech and Business Culture Health Voices Quick Guide Periscope National News International Next 2008 Iraq War Issues 2008 Against the Odds Video Top Story Campaign 2008: A Game of Survivor My Journey to the Top Latest News Clinton hints at shared ticket PAKISTAN Elections Usher in a New Face By Zahid Hussain, Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK Mar 3, 2008 Issue « Return to Article Related:Makhdoom Amin Fahim Pakistan Peoples Party Pervez Musharraf Discuss Comments: Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/03/2008 10:05:01 PM Comment: TRIANGLE OF JUNGLE DEMOCRACIES USA TO PAISTAN TO RSSIA UJDER PUTIN TO USA. JUNGLES ARE DEEP FOREST BUT GREENS ARE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT OF SHADE. OTHER JUGLES ARE DEEPLY OF CONCERN TO PEOPLE. bUT WE THE PEOPLE MUST BRING TO EQUITY IN JUSTICE,LEADERSHIP AND OPTIMUM PRIVILEGES TO MOST SOONER THE BETTER, SAID DR THE REVEREND KAMAL KARNA ROY , A MR CLEAN FOR U S PRESIDECY 2008 AS SCHEDULED, BUT MAY NOT BE HELD WITH U S DISTRICT COURT INTERVENTIONS AS PROVIDED IN U S CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS OF U S. REPORTED BY REV MR PREMANGHU ROY DAS EFORMS AGENT IN DEMOCRACIES WORLD WIDE IN NEED OF REDELOPMENT. SEE BELOW WE NEED TRUE DEMOCRATIC CONDITIONS FOR WE THE PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:36:46 AM Comment: THE lunch hosted by Mr Asif Zardari for the newly elected members of the three leading parties on Feb 27 may well be remembered as a landmark in the long awaited transition to a democratic dispensation in Pakistan. The squalls that rocked the state on Oct 12, 1999 and in the form of the 17th amendment inflicted much damage. Then, the catastrophe of Nov 3 put all salvaging efforts beyond the capacity of any single party. The existing distortions in that historic but half-alive Constitution present a nightmare and demand the exercise of the highest form of political wisdom and legal expertise. The process of eliminating them by creating a new interface between politics and law has just begun. Pakistan???s present crisis is characterised by the bitter harvest of constitutional violations, growing imbalance between a power-hungry centre and the handicapped federating units, uncontrollable violence by ever-proliferating bands of extremists and, above all, by a rapidly rising table of sub-surface social anger at glaring inequalities of income and opportunity. A reasonably broad-based coalition government may provide a healing touch. There is no great virtue in a two-party system anymore as, for quite some time to come, regional aspirations will deepen particular identities of the constitutive elements of a diverse nation. The greatest achievement of the three top leaders present at Mr Zardari???s lunch is that they successfully persuaded their followers that these identities were perfectly compatible with an overarching national identity. Scratch the surface and lurking just beneath the protest against the humiliation of the higher judiciary and repeated violations of the Constitution is a palpable anguish of poverty and deprivation. Pakistan must eschew politics of vendetta but that does not mean that every crime against the state and society be brushed under the carpet. It needs a high-powered Commission on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in the interest of historical accuracy and to build dykes for future security. We need to replace mercenary relations with relations based on mutual respect, community of interests and coordinated pursuit of common objectives within our respective national parameters. A strong and stable national coalition can be built around the present understanding between the PPP, PML-N and ANP. The US-led West should welcome it and not undermine it as it alone can make Pakistan???s battle against militant extremists effective The west should to withdraw their support from the one Musharaf who loathed by the people at maximum Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:07:40 AM Comment: THE results of the election that took place on Feb 18 were astonishing. President Musharraf???s supporting party Pakistan Muslim League (Q) was wiped out and the ministers who were lucky enough to keep their seats are now at a safe distance from President Musharraf. The people at large want the president to go with no other choice. However, the US has been unduly interfering in our politics as its Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has emphasised the need to continue President Musharraf???s rule. Pakistan has remained under military rule for more than half of its life, and the people no longer want any dictator to rule over them. As the PPP has secured the maximum number of seats, followed by the PML (N), the ties made between these parties also pose a serious challenge to the president???s stay any further in office. His rule for eight long years has brought many hardships to the nation and now he should quit The US slogan for democracy is and justice is just a slogan and in real and practicle not willing to be so for their own agenda From whome to expect the justice and democracy in the world the only power it self violate This is not the Musharaf pakistan but of 1,600/-Millions people and what they think of the rest This is not in the benifit of US to support the cruel one of the country who now the people think as Mechile G.Choaf The people and the young generation have very strong anti US sentiments due to their blind support of Dictator Musharaf This is not a good sign and this will increase with passage of time Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/29/2008 2:12:44 AM Comment: IN THIS ENVIORNMENT OF ECONOMIC FEUDALISM WHERE THE MIDDLE CLASS MUST SUFFER IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE pROFITS OF MULTINATIONAL CORpORATIONS, WHO BENEFIT FROM CHEAp LABOR, THE AMERICAN DREAM HAS BEEN LOST. MULTINALTIONALS FROM INDIA HAVE BROUGHT THEIR CHEAp WAyS TO AMERICA. WE NOW HAVE AMERIANS GOING TO GET HEART SURGERy IN INDIA BEAUSE IT IS CHEApER. OUR INFORMATION TECHNOLy JOBS HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED TO INDIA. CHINA WAITS UNTIL WE INVENT IT AND THEN THEy STEAL IT. WHy REINVENT THE WHEEL. ARABS FINANCIERS OWN OVER TWELVER pER CENT OF OUR ECONOMy AND IN RECENT MONTTHS HAVE "BAILED" OUT OUR BANKS. IN ADDITION, ARAB INTEREST FROM DUBAI AND KUWAIT HAVE FINANCED OUR pOLITICAL LEADERS ENDEVOURS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE pOLITICAL SpECTRUM.. IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE. We have been fooled by our own government and there is no way any Republican is going to win this election. THE Middle class has had it with all this Bin LADEN terrorist crap. WE are now scared of our own government more than we are of the terrorist because the decisions this government is making on our behalf is not in our best interests and it is killing us. The government is now dominating our civil liberties. They are giving the states millions for Real ID Cards. This is just the start of government intrusion. Combine this with the misuse of the Patriot Act and the future Plans of insurance comPanies and corporations to have full access to our personal records and we have a real crisis. Credit Card companies have already started selling and sharing our personal information with the private sector. We really have to wake up and protect our constitution it is all we have to defend ourselves against interests that become too rich and powerful in this country. The government keeps expanding and is being predominantly controlled by special interest and lobbyist. The middle class is being weakened and our civil liberties are being threatened. Real ID Cards will not make "us safer" infacat terrorists can obtain fake ones and move about freely. The American people did not vote on Real ID Cards, we need a vote. Our constitution would have to be ammended in order for Real ID's to become legal. I do not know what has happened in Washington but it is getting out of hand. They know what they are doing is unconstitutional so they are trying to bribe the states by offering them money. I hope every state agrees with me and Prevents the federal govenment from imPosing THIS unconstitutional law. If the states allow the government to do this then they would have set a bad Precedent that could lead to further government violations. WHy IS THERE A NEED TO WIRE TAp EVERy CITIZEN. ARE yOU KIDDING ME. yOU NEED A WARRANT. THIS IS MADNESS. GOVERNMENT IS USING TERRORISM AS AN EXCUSE TO INTRUDE ON OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. THIS IS INSANE. McCain will continue to implementt these misguided REpublian policies. McCain's ONE HUNDRED year agenda is not in AMERICA"s BEST INTEREST. Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/28/2008 4:32:34 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEDA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. LET US REMEMBER BERG. I AM NOT JEWISH, HOWEVER I FEEL THAT WE MUST NEVER FORGET. IT IS WORTH THAT yOUNG ARABS AND JEWS FROM ALL BACKGROUNDS START FORMING GROUPS THAT ENCOURAGE THE INTERACTION BETWEEN JEWS ARABS MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. SOMETHING LIKE AN NGO. ANyONE FROM ANy BACKGROUND CAN CAN CONTRIBUTE. WITH ONE OBJECTIVE IN MIND. FRIENDLy RELATIONS. NO PRESSURE TO SET FOREIGN POLICy , JUST GETTING THE TWO ADVERSARIES IN THE SAME ROOM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WILL BE IN AMERICA'S AND THE WORLD'S BEST INTEREST. . THAT IS THE FIRST STEP . WHEN yOU TRy AND IMPOSE yOUR WILL "ALL OF A SUDDEN" ON THE MASSES, THEN ASSAASSINATIONS LIKE THOSOE OF RABIN AND BHUTTO WILL BE INEVITABLE. "WHEN ANy ONE INDIVIDUAL BEOMES LARGER THAN THE CAUSE THEy ARE CHAMPIONING THEN THEy THEMSELVES BECOME AN OBSTALE TO THEIR OWN CAUSE" EDDIWHERE 2008. EDDIEWHERE © 2008 Posted By: VoteResponsibly08 @ 02/27/2008 4:45:32 PM Comment: What is Obama going to do when he faces these people??? God Help us all..He does not have the know how and depending on advisers 100% is not my idea of a commander and chief! Do something! media, Press...you have given obama a Free Pass long enough! Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/27/2008 4:27:53 PM Comment: democracies in usa and pakistan, both are in jeopardy in respect of we the people of the nations, superpower or allied nation.both entities must detour to achieve people's wishes entertained. for dr kamal karna roy a small time democratic strategist in efforts to revive themes of equities for all.released by an assistant to dr roy identified by e mail id 2.27. 2008 new york Posted By: Houlbelat @ 02/27/2008 11:16:25 AM Comment: Is it a democracy reborn in Pakistan or sham of the highest order? People in Pakistan voted in favor of Bhutto's party, not for Zardari, who was responsible for her twice ouster from the Premiership due to his shameful dirty roles of Mr.10%. Country's biggest grass root party preaching "Government of the People, by the People, for the People", which was founded on the basic principle of providing them respectable " Bread, Dress and Shelter", was created by Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator. Now, the party is orphaned in a bomb-blast death of his daughter during another military rule. Situation brings forth her rootless spouse, "Mr.Tenpercent Zardari", holding the People's mandate ( at ransom?), for endless exploits. Whatever the words mean, they cannot change the genes. The name "Zardari" literally means "Gold-Lord" and he lives his name literally. He was responsible for legislating and monopolizing gold import into Pakistan (through an Emirates based gold-tycoon of Pakistan origin) on a ridiculous 2% custom duty and made unfathomable ocean of fortune. If the US administration is ready," to let them have their rounds of discussions, still expecting the [Pakistani] Army to take the necessary military action, counting on an interesting transition", then the whole riddle is solved. The ongoing change in Pakistan is not a change of " act" in the drama being staged but, a "change of gear into a powerful all terrain drive", to move forward on the designed road-map, crossing effectively all rugged and bogging tracts en-route. Posted By: engal @ 02/27/2008 3:08:04 AM Comment: Comment:Chinese's a Literature of the YanYuHongChen is very reality for the economy,the Culture,the Education,the Politice ,the Philosophy and the Business,but i expecting who the Leaders in International that will be the best support us and it will be Might spread you and the Literature to the Golabl.' chengchengcheng123@yahoo.cn Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/26/2008 3:06:30 PM Comment: Pakistan's elected leaders must be slow and very effective in democratic gains or the gains couod be reversed by internal forcesalien to ruling coalition in jeopady with foreign interests. jungle democracies have been most powerful mvirus which curbs democratic rights of citizens, that is what history tells us. see also below as relevant. the reverend dr kamal karna karuna roy author of electronic and hard copies publications which may give insights to living beings as known as human_animals may often behave in pure animal conducts to support their polluted rational feelings. interests, vested interests etc etc. rationality vs animality is the tug of war type emements of the living beings all over the Globe: Pakistan leaders be careful in your step ahead. as the powerfuls, nations, superpower or most entities give priorities to their own hidden agendas. native leaders could be in a privileged position to judge events those may cause them favor or pains: pl see below; dreams of freedom for people individual or national may not award any grants from external forces or native rulers, but steadfast demand and actions if orchestrated with pragmatic resolutions may succeed in demands of true liberty of coexistence. quotation from democratic strategist *** republican candidate U s presidential electoral competition 2008 by the rev ms lisa n r alston. 2.26. 2008 new york. Posted By: SAM08 @ 02/26/2008 11:50:41 AM Comment: The people in pakistan should have asked Zardari before woting for him if his going rate of kick backs will still be 15% or will it be more Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/25/2008 8:42:42 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. Posted By: shaista @ 02/25/2008 5:19:05 AM Comment: The newly retired General Musharraf has displayed no intention of leaving office despite his king party losing even after plenty of evidence that he had planned to rig the elections. The caretaker government was anything but neutral and the Election Commission was suspect. But pressure from Washington compelled him to change his plans. Had he still engaged in massive rigging, not only would he have drawn Washington???s ire but also evoked ugly street protests. He knew that if the ???agitators??? caused the country to come to a standstill, the army would distance itself from him. Without their protection, he would not last a day in office. The habitual offender Musharaf this time fail for not carrying out a full pleadge crime of rigging due to international observer existing These people will never be convinced that it is time for the ex-general to go. To them, he is the embodiment of truth, the doer of all good things, and the prince of enlightened moderation without whom Pakistan would return to the Dark Ages. It is time for Musharraf, to wake up and realise that the game is over. Everything Musharraf stood for was repudiated on Feb 18. The electoral results have made it clear, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the people do not wish to see Musharraf holding court on radio and television day in and day out. Aitzaz Ahsan spoke for millions when he said, ???Musharraf is the most hated & loathed man in Pakistan.??? During the last several months, poll after poll showed Musharraf???s popularity plummeting like a lead coin in a bottomless well. But he continued to reject the polls by saying that they only represented the views of a few thousand people and asserted vainly that he was vastly popular in the populous countryside. But even the King???s party was not taken in by the myths spun out by the monarch. It knew that once rigging was no longer an option, its fate was sealed. Why else would they seek to obtain the release of one of the key instigators of the Lal Masjid takeover, Abdul Aziz, just days prior to the vote? This was an obvious ploy designed to play on the religious sympathies of the people and to garner much needed votes. How else could one justify releasing a real and confirmed terrorist from jail while holding the nation???s eminent justices and barristers under house arrest? Musharraf had said not too long ago that he would step down when he saw that the people were no longer with him. He said he was continuing as president only because it was in the national interest. He would rather be playing golf or tennis, he noted, but the situation required him to sacrifice his personal interests. Well, the time has now come for him to do the nation a favour and quit as he is the only evil for this country. Posted By: democratic_reforms @ 02/24/2008 11:12:22 AM Comment: JUNGLE DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN. NO PAKISTANI PREMIER SHOULD ENGAGE IN DIRECT FIGHT WITH PERVEZ MASSAREF TO ENGAGE PAKISTAN AGAIN N VIOLENCES, AND/OR EMMERGENCY. tHIS IS BECAUSE MUSSAREF IS NOT ALONE BUT HE HAS SUPPORT FROM INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POWERBLOCS. A SLOWER APPROACH TO DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION IN PAKISTAN MAY BE MORECORRECT FOR THE TIME SCALES. THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY, A US AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL _ REPUBLICAN HOPEFUL, NEW YORK 2.24.2008 Posted By: Mohdsheikh @ 02/24/2008 12:49:45 AM Comment: Washington's top ranks seem unworried about what the new civilian leaders might decide. The only worry Americans have about the moment to keep up Musharraf in Presidency because Musharraf has amended the constitution in such a way no one else can do any thing without his consent and authority. This is worrisome for the new elected politicians. They know very much the hard fact that they have not been elected on merits, it is the hatred against Musharraf they have en-cashed. Because Musharraf have destroyed the true democrative spirit of the Pakistan???s Constitution by extremely autocratic and extra constitutional way before conducting the general election so that he could do the post election rigging. If those powers are not taken away from the presidency then the politicians will be nothing more than tools in his hands. If the politicians failed to restore highest court judges that will mean they are empty handed. Moreover they won???t be able to face their voters who have sent them Islamabad to clean up the mess and deliver good to them. Mohammad S Sheikh, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan Islamabad - Rawalpindi Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:08:02 AM Comment: My salutations to Dr. Rice for a job well done on the American side. Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:07:07 AM Comment: Hats off to Ms Rice, never in the history of public service t America has so much been freely gi