Tired_Old_Man

Our immigration laws are based on previous immigration, so Europeans, including British, Irish, Germans and Italians get first crack. Believe it or not, but not that many European want to come to the USA anymore to live. They have better work rules, better medical care and a standard of living that is as good or not better than here where they are. I know of many people who have moved to Ireland, the home of their parents or went to other European countries to escape the problems of the USA. We need people in this country according to many economists and other learned people. Should we ship out the 12 million (some estimate up to 40 million) illegal immigrants and them invite 12 million other people in? Maybe if we stropped the wasteful "War on Drugs", we would have some money to do that, or we could save the money and give it back to the Social Security fund. By the way, if we can find a way to start the 12,000,000 or more illegal immigrants on a path to legal status, they could help bail out Social Security for the Baby Boomers.

Drug trafficking is a problem, but like many of the problems that the USA faces, the real problem is that USA does not face the problem. The "War on Drugs" is a joke. All the "War on Drugs" actually does is keep many US military and law enforcement personal busy wasting their time that could be put to better use, wastes $12,000,000,000 per year that could be put to better use and most of all makes a lot of very rich drug dealers even richer. No matter how secure they make the borders, drugs will come in as long as there is enough financial benefit in selling illegal drugs. Republican (tough on crime) Presidents have commission studies on the "War on Drugs" and even though both Nixon and Reagan packed their commissions with hand-picked people, the results always came back the same; treatment (on demand) and education are the only way to win the so-called "War on Drugs". When I was living in NY, a family member of mine was an alcoholic and a crack addict. She was able after much fighting (with the bureaucracy) to get into a wonderful rehab center. The program was two months of in-patient aromatherapy followed by a 6 month halfway house placement with a gradual movement into normal society, but in a different environment than the patient came from. The rehab had a 67% success rate and my family member has been clean since 1993 and is raising a family while getting promotions to become head of her department on her job. As soon as George Pataki became governor of NY State, being a strong “law and order” advocate, he slashed the budget for rehab centers and increased the budget for prison building. Another family member of mine had the same addiction problems and went to the same rehab about a year later, but after Pataki's budget cuts, the program was now only one month and my niece did not fare as well. She reverted to her drug and alcohol use, became a prostitute to finance her habit, contracted AIDS and dies leaving 6 children to the foster care system. Pataki sure saved NY State taxpayers a lot of money. The financial cost of prisons and foster care is much more than the cost of rehab. The social cost is even greater. We complain about people not raising their children, but when we have one of every 100 men in the USA in prison, of course there are going to be many fathers who are not raising their families. With Black men the ratio is much worse. The "War on Drugs" is a failure socially and financially, but we will keep fighting it because politicians do not want to be thought of as weak on crime. They may be thought of as strong on “law and order” issues, but they are not increasing “order” with extra law enforcement, because they are trying to solve a social and medical problem with brute force. No matter how many commissions say that the solution is on demand rehab and education, the politicians will keep feeding the right-wing knee jerk attitudes and the Christian's puritanical attitudes, and another generation will be ruined. If it were possible to shut down the drugs coming in from Mexico, they would increase from Canada, and from the Caribbean and from commercial airline flights from around the world. When I worked at JFK, my airline was handling flights for small airlines or airlines which had so few flights into JFK, that it wasn't worth it to hire their own mechanics. One day after repeated warnings, the DEA impounded a 757 from a well known airline because of the hundreds of pounds of drugs that were inboard. Even if it were possible to shut down all imports of illegal drugs into the USA, then people would make synthetic versions of coke and heroin, etc. They are already doing it with drugs like Methamphetamines and Ecstasy. Drugs come in from Canada, but there is not the big uproar about the Canadian border. If you do not see the racism in the Mexican border debate, then that probably is a sign of your lack of racism, but believe me, not all people are as benevolent as you are.

Very Sad!!

We are not in bad financial shape, but neither are we wallowing in money. We are able to fly for free because I was an aircraft mechanic and it is part of my retirement package, but we must fly standby. Today JetBlue canceled 300 flights, and American, United and Delta also canceled many flights because of the weather on the East coast. That will back up travel for all airlines and make it difficult to travel on standby. I am worried about Tina getting home. Trying to get there will only make it worse. I forgot if it was in this thread or another, but I mentioned that I tried to make it to NY recently and there were no flights available, so I went through Raleigh/Durham NC, but then got stuck there and wound up coming back to Florida without ever getting to NY. It was so bad that even buying a full fare ticket wouldn't have helped. They were buying people off of the flights with vouchers for future travel.

I replied: Thank you for an intelligent response. We seem to be in agreement on many of the ideas that you mentioned. Here, on the other hand is a sample of the other responses that I received: * Hell TOM, that's easy, we are stupid. * Good Question, Why? I guess it's because Jesus didn't have anything to do with 911. If that's not the answer then I must be Ignorant or uninformed or both!! * I have never mocked, belittled, or underestimated our terrorist enemies. On the contrary, I recognize them as intelligent, cunning, and well organized, as they commit murder in the name of their "God" and "Religion." This is why I advocate their total and complete extermination. P.S. they're towels TOM, not sheets. * I finished my reply to the first e-mailer with this: You will have to admit that the last one is troubling, at best, and scary at worst. The worst part is that the person that wrote it is intelligent and articulate, and has fought me tooth and nail on many issues. His arguments are difficult to refute. Difficult, because he lacks compassion and a sense of equality as human beings, so there is no humanity to appeal to, just the cold idea that we are superior to them and like vermin, we have a right (and maybe an obligation) to destroy them. Notice how he emphasizes their God and Religion. His (Christian) Religion obviously did not teach him that we are all God's children; his God's children and their God's children. His lack of understanding of his own religion allows him to not realize nor care that it is the terrorists' lack of understanding of their religion which perpetuates the hatred and the continual warring between the Eastern and Western civilizations. Civilizations; now that is an oxymoron.

Since no one wants to tackle this rhetorical question, I will post a few of the replies I got from e-mailing it to the people in my address book. #1. Yes,that is an interesting question. We have been brainwashed since childhood undoubtedly in the Christian way, and to see the others as infidels, evil ones. It is a terrible shame. I for one have tried over time to not do this. Possibly my father's distant relatives came from North Africa, or Tunisia and way back were Semites. Now,that includes Arabic and Hebraic people. Recently, I saw a very old photo of my dad, and you could really see a distant Arabic culture. Perhaps this is very strong in my genes,and that may be why I have not been driven to dislike others in "sheets", as I am sure you do not feel this way. Clearly, I do not believe that any culture anywhere which represses its citizenry, particularly its women is doing anything good for posterity. But, at this point, people might see this in some Arabic (or sheet,cultures) and decide to hate them for that. Our Western culture does many things that are not humane or correct so should we hate ourselves for that? Humans typically seem to dislike what they do not know, as with different foods, until they become educated about the unknown, and then perhaps there is some hope for understanding, and more than tolerance of differences, but acceptance.

I think I know what an ignore list is. Well, usually (at other forums that I have been a member of) a member on my ignore list can neither e-mail or PM me, plus I can't read his posts in the threads. Is that the way it is at LBT? What is a buddy list? What does someone on by buddy list get to do that a member not on my buddy list can not do? I never had a buddy. :doh: And what is a Journal Buddy list?

Are you in a union? If so, your employer may have violated his agreement with the union by switching to a plan that is inferior to the previous one. Many times medical plans have requirements as per the union contract that must be met. If you are in a union, I would talk to your union representative. If you are not in a union, then I see little recourse other than to ask your employer, “why?”. It is a shame that the insurance companies and the companies that purchase the plans do not realize that in the long run, bariatric surgery can be cost effective. The cost of surgery may be one large hit that eliminates the never ending multiple small hits of treating the complications of long term obesity.

Yesterday afternoon, I called Tina on the phone. She was crying because she had just spent 5 hours at her mother's nursing home and during that time her mother opened her eyes 3 or 4 times for a total of less than one minute and then nodded off back to sleep each time. Tina feels so helpless. She is wondering why her brother had been calling her on the phone almost every day to come up to Brooklyn from Florida, if it is only to watch her mother sleeping. Tina was also very concerned that her mother was swollen with many bruises. I felt so helpless. I wanted to hug Tina and try to comfort her. I know (from almost 40 years of marriage) that when she starts saying "I'm ok" that she really needs someone there to hug her and I wanted to feel her head on my shoulder so that her tears would have some place to land. I felt helpless because she felt helpless.:help: The most important thing that I could do was to make sure feeling helpless was not confused with feeling worthless. Too many times, we are helpless to solve the problems that face us, so we feel worthless. But that is never true. We always maintain our human worth no matter how much or how little we are able to influence the situation around us. I hope I succeeded and Tina still realizes her self worth.

That is the story of my life in a nutshell.

I hate to say this, but "shut down your PC and get to work".

I was allowed to take a midterm late during my sophomore year because I had a rash covering about half my body that caused me to spend about 3 hours a day taking showers trying to subdue the itch, plus I could not wear clothing without becoming so itchie that I scratched until I bled. My thermodynamics professor gave me a makeup exam with one main question and he threw a trick into the question that no one would be able to answer because of a little gimmic, but I just happened to know the missing link, so to speak, that allowed me to get 100%. It was one basic question with a large group of subquestions based on the previous answers. He was pissed off, because he wanted to use me as an example for not asking for or taking makeup exams.

Glad to see you back. I thought that maybe your computer was on the fritz.:help:

I find myself going to foreign sources for News so often though I never had to before. Has the news media submitted to the attacks of the Right or has it been bought by the Right?

When I said, "When someone starts boycotting money because it doesn't have "In God We Trust" on it, that is making a religious statement and it is more that showing that they are not ashamed to stand up for what they believe in. It is destroying the commerce of the country in order to get their way", I didn't say boycotting that one coin. I said money and I meant "all money". I was responding to the suggestion in the e-mail and was making the reference because all our money has religious words on it, so atheists for example, can't boycott money with religious statements, so we would have to take "In God we trust" off of all the money to get an equal situation. I guess I didn't explain myself as clearly as I wanted to.

Being Black doesn't make someone tolerant anymore than being White makes someone a racist. Sometimes Blacks are hurt so often by Whites that they just assume every question or comment has to do with race or racial stereotyping. Some Blacks do not realize that whites too can be the victims of racial injustice. Where I used to work, very few of the Blacks were aware of the different ethnic groups. When one White guy was trying to describe a fellow mechanic to a Black mechanic, he said "You know, that old Polish guy". The Black man didn't know a Polish surname from an Italian name, from a Irish name, etc. There is a lot of favoritism between White ethnic groups. I know of major companies (Fortune 500) where at one time, an Italian was doomed or an Irishmen was slated to the junk pile when it came time for promotions. Many Blacks do not understand this. They however, have one major thing going against them; while the different ethnic groups eventually blend in, Blacks are always easy to spot and easy to discriminate against, so White ethnic groups always pass them on the totem pole over time. A Black friend of mine admitted that after 911, he felt that he had moved up, because then Arabs were more disliked than him. Note: When I said Polish, I meant Polish-American, etc.

God, if you believe the Old Testament, went through the trouble of making "Thou Shalt Not commit Adultery" as one of his 10 Commandments. How come he didn't bother to write "Thou Shalt Not commit Homosexual acts" on one of those tablets? Maybe because men didn't have eleven fingers to count 11 Commandments? Maybe God was afraid that men (being basically stupid) would use their fingers as a crutch for the first 10 Commandments and their penis to count the 11th.

I used to belong to a "Codependents Anonymous " 12 step group. Half of the women in my group also belonged to a "Children of Holocaust Survivors" group. The stories they told of Hitler's rise to power and the parallels to BuSh's policies is scary to them (and to me). Coming from Brooklyn, I had many Jewish friends and more of them are insulted by BuSh's tactics than by the comparison between BuSh and Hitler. There used to be a website that had 10 quotes and the challenge was to identify who made each quote: Hitler or BuSh. Many are not aware that my sig is a quote, not from BuSh, but from Adolph Hitler. Many people got that one wrong on the website I mentioned, which is no longer available.

My heart goes out to you and yours. I guess the 3 is a charm logic never ends. I just finished speaking to my minister and his wife. They found out yesterday that her 87 year old father also has cancer and the doctors are giving him 6 months to live. Just prior to that I got off the phone with my wife, Tina. She was crying because she had just spent 5 hours at her mother's nursing home and during that time her mother opened her eyes 3 or 4 times for a total of less than a minute and then nodded off back to sleep. Tina feels so helpless. She is wondering why her brother has been calling her on the phone almost every day to come up to NY from Florida, if it is only to watch her mother sleeping. Tina was also very concerned that her mother was swollen with many bruises.

However, once one group is attacked or their rights reduced, it is easier for the public to accept another group's rights being curtailed. Regarding the Mexican border security problem. #1. BuSh does not agree with the Republican majority on the immigration policy. #2. No terrorists have come through the Mexican border, while some have come over the Canadian border (and some were caught). I am not accusing you of anything nor implying that the following are your feelings, but many people are anti-Southern border immigration because they fear that Whites will soon no longer be the majority in the USA and that scares them as much as Al-Quaida does. Thank you, Karen, I respect the ideas in your posts and the way you state them without name calling or innuendo, but other members at this forum (and at others) have branded me a traitor and some have invited me to leave the USA. Your posts have been as thoughtful as mine (though not as frequent or long winded) and I will always respect that.

But one more attack and the worm will turn. I will say that the new attack is proof that the BuSh administration's plans for defending the USA and its war on Iraq were not the correct choices. I will also say that the money spent on Iraq could have been better used to beef up US security at home. The republicans will ask that in this time of war, can the US public afford to trust the security weak Democrats? They will also say that the Democrats' interference with the NSA eavesdropping and other CIA and FBI measures is the reason we were attacked again. Who do you think the panicking US public will believe? Giuliani for President Ann Coulter for Vice President

There are two sides to every story: I guess a case could be made that these interpretors were traitors to the Iraqi people and as Ann Coulter says, they should be tried and executed as traitors.:faint:

I watched the buildings burning from my attic window after watching the planes fly into them on TV. My daughter-in-law stood next to the WTC as the second plane hit and was hit with debris flying from the blast. She watched as people jumped to their deaths rather than be burned. She ran from the towers as they fell. I wiped the gray debris and the tears from her face after she walked the 8 miles to our home. Three of my x-aircraft mechanic coworkers who had become police and firemen died in the towers that day. My next door neighbors, my son and my step-daughter had all worked in the towers. Some of my coworkers who were not laid off from our airline after 911, were assigned to sift for pieces of our plane, some at the WTC sight and some at the sight in Staten Island where the debris was brought. At least two are dying of diseases caused by breathing the pollution from the debris (though our government told us the air was safe to breath). So what made BuSh and Giuliani heroes? How does BuSh ride the wave of being the “National Security President” when he was president during the worst security failure in the history of the USA? How did Giuliani become "America's Mayor"? He did nothing to stop the attacks. He put his bunker in the 3rd tower to come down that day; building #7 which was not hit by a plane, but fell anyway. How did the US voting public award credit, when blame would have been a more appropriate response to these two? Rudy tried to float an idea that he stay on as mayor until things were back to normal after 911. The election was 2 months away and Rudy thought they should be postponed. Is that the kind of man we want as our next president? One who would suspend all the rules because of a problem? Were the 911 attacks a tragedy to BuSh and Rudy (as they were for you and I) or just another opportunity to them and for them?

True, but you had better hire an army to protect your propety. I hear Halliburton has armies for hire. For a mere 1/2 million per man per year, you can rent as many contractors, I mean soldiers as you want.

I can not vouch for the authenticity of the following e-mail which I received it yesterday, but Snopes.com does not show it as false and it fits in with what you were saying: * Giuliani not a HERO: I am an active Battalion Chief who searched the rubble of WTC for 9 months. I saw the bodies and what was left of them. I'll never forget the horrors of 9/11. No one will speak for me as a spokesman. NEVER FORGIVE and NEVER FORGET,not even when a politician needs to roll you out to help him recover from bad press. Giuliani and his commissioners ran north to safety when they heard that another plane was missing. My son, FDNY FF Jimmy Riches' body was recovered from WTC site on March 25,2002. If Giuliani had his way, when he tried in November 2001 to end the recovery phase of WTC operations,my hero son's body would have been scooped up by machine and trucked to the S.I. Dump. The heroes all died on 9/11. Giuliani also had my son working that day with a radio that didn't work at WTC(we know this from 1993),and Motorola with whom his connections are suspicious. Giuliani also had the OEM command center built at 7 WTC against the wishes of Jerry Hauer,head of OEM. Rudy also had a room specially built in Command Center so that he could smoke his cigars all on the taxpayer's back. 7 wtc collapsed on 9/11/01 because it was located near a prime terrorist target, but Rudy could walk there from City Hall and He knows best. It's his way or you are gone as was Bratton, Hauer,etc,etc. The whole Kerik fiasco, the FDNY radios and Giuliani's association with Motorola, MUST be investigated more vigorously. Kerik probably learned from his boss how to take stocks from companies illegally,yet will fire the beat cop who takes a cup of coffee. Safir had lunch at known mob hangouts and took an illegal trip to the Academy Awards. Rudy Giuliani's ability to appoint people in high places who do not possess the knowledge base and abilities to perform their assignments is definitely a shortcoming .Politicians are now going to look for their 9/11 family puppets to show off to the media and America with the upcoming Presidential elections. Giuliani treated the dead heroes of 9/11 with disrespect and the IAFF is right to call a spade a spade.Tell America the truth. As for Lee Ielpi being the unofficial spokesman for the 9/11 families, this is ridiculous. This is a typical Giuliani move. Some will kowtow to politicians at any cost. This week Mr. Ielpi went to Washington,DC with Rep. Gary Ackerman as guests of The King of Jordan. Abdullah was addressing Congress and telling them to be tolerant. Mr. Ielpi then had lunch with them. Have we all forgotten how they danced and celebrated in the streets of Jordan on 9/11/01 while our sons were laying under the rubble. This is the ultimate disrespect for the murdered 9/11 Americans. I will "NEVER FORGET." Battalion Chief Jim Riches FDNY