Tired_Old_Man

I was watching the news Sunday and Monday, and heard about Cuba's Leader Fidel Castro's surgery which required him to pass the reigns of power onto his brother Raul for the next week or so. The scene then changed to show the reactions of Cuban-Americans in Miami and the Cubans in Cuba. Outside of the totally opposite reaction to the medical/political crisis, I was struck with the following observations: #1. Over 90% of the Cubans were Black, but about 90% of the Cuban-Americans were White. #2. About 45% of the Cuban-Americans were in an age bracket to probably have been the grandchildren of the people that fled Cuba when Castro took control. #3. About 45% of the Cuban-Americans were in an age bracket to probably have been the children of the people that fled Cuba when Castro took control. #4. Only about 10% of the Cuban-Americans were in the age bracket to possibly have been the people that fled Cuba when Castro took control. #5. The Cubans seemed concerned for their leader. #6. The Cuban-Americans must have misunderstood the news to think that they had each hit the lottery. The last time I checked, most Cuban-Americans are Roman Catholic, which is a version of Christianity. I do not remember Jesus ever preaching the idea of gloating over the illness of anyone. Perhaps I am wrong and should go back to just observing. Obviously thinking about how sadistic the celebrations in the streets of Miami looked is beyond my comprehension. Many Cuban-Americans were chanting, "Castro is dead" while dancing in the street. Didn't Jesus say: "Love thy enemy as thy neighbor and love thy neighbor as thy self."? I guess many of the Cuban-Americans can't wait for Castro to die so that they can "go back" to Cuba, though that may be difficult, since many never have been there (see #2 & #3 above). I guess that those Cuban-Americans have a right to be annoyed at Castro. If it wasn't for Castro, they would be Cubans instead of Cuban-Americans, and we all know how dishonorable it is to be a citizen of the USA. Don't we? While I was watching the news today, I saw many Cuban-Americans interviewed in Miami and Newark NJ. Many said that they could not wait for Fidel to die, so that they could move back to Cuba. Many (as I mentioned above) have never been to Cuba, so I find it strange to hear that they want to "go back". While I was living in NYC, many of my friends were Puerto Ricans who had been in Brooklyn since they were children (or had been born in Brooklyn). I lived with a Puerto Rican family after my parents had died and considered them to be family (step-siblings). About half of them moved to PR when they got into their 40's, but most were back in the NYC area within a year or two. It is one thing to visit and another to live in a place like PR when you are accustomed to NY. I wonder how many of the 20 to 40 year old Cuban-Americans will move back (for the first time) to Cuba, only to return to Miami and Newark. If they move to Cuba, they will try to change Cuba into Miami. All the charm that they seek, will be destroyed by their invasion of the island paradise. McDonald's probably can't wait to hear that Fidel has died. After the Cuban-Americans of Miami, probably no one is looking forward to Fidel's death more than the fast-food chains and BuSh.

I didn't disparage Christians. I stated that Communism would me possible if Christians were as pure as the Bible wants them to be. I am sure that Jesus wants Christians to be pure, though he knows that they can never achieve that goal. Jesus may have been the world's first and best Communist. When he fed the multitudes with the 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, didn't he give to each based on their individual needs? And when Jesus ministered to the sick, poor and needy, didn't he also give to each as their needs required? That is the main tenant of Communism, each gives according to his ability and each receives according to his needs and since Jesus didn't have the human frailty of greed, he was able to work and give without the motive of capitalism. I am a Christian, though I might not be the same type as you. I have seen Christians on TV shows and spoke to others in person who say that only their type of Christian will enter the kingdom of Heaven. These so-called Christians claim that Baptists, Catholics and other types of Christians plus Jews will not go to Heaven. They tell me it is in the Bible, word for word. The Qur'an does not consider Jews or Christians as Pagans. And the Qur'an only allows the killing of Pagans in defense. Not going over 8,000 miles to defend and kill pre-emptively, but when the pagans are attacking. The misinterpreting of the Qur'an is on a par with the misinterpreting of the Bible which allowed for the Inquisition and Salem Witch Hunts. But BuSh has done a pretty good job of killing non-christians, with or without the permission of Jesus. Again I say negotiate with your enemy. Talking to your friends gets you little, just as preaching to the choir gets few converts. And the USA has few friends left since BuSh took office. As far as spying goes? Nothing wrong with it. Torture: NO!! Wire-tapping? As long as there are court orders. The Republicans try to paint Liberals and Democrats as soft on security because the Liberals and Democrats want the administration to follow the constitution and the laws of the land. There is a special court set up that is open 24/7 for these cases. They have approved all but 4 of over 20,000 requests by the government for wire-tapping permission since the court was set up. And there is a 72 hour retroactive clause which says that if you accidentally hear anything without a wire-tap, you have 3 days to apply for a wire-tap and when approved, all of the last three days will be legal. Not good enough says BuSh, Cheney and Gonzalez. Is the president's name BuSh or Big Brother? Neutralization? What's that? A euphemism for killing leaders? Of course not. How would we feel if BuSh was Neutralized? I do not like BuSh, but I would not want him killed by the people the USA is fighting. In WWll, we knew the war was over when the Japanese and Germans signed peace treaties and surrendered. Ask yourself this: How will we know when the war on terror is over? When 1.2 billion Muslims are dead? When Bin Laden is dead? Did putting Hussein in jail solve the Iraqi Problem? What is right? To always strive for peace and the protection of life. I am not speaking about pin sized embryos, but live breathing humans. I am not talking about peace through war. How do I solve the problem? I already stated my solution above: Negotiate. Bin Laden would be hard to talk to because the USA has put a price on his head, and even if the USA arranged a truce with him (which Bin Laden offered earlier this year) the US credibility outside of the USA is too low for him to accept a meeting place, but Syrian president Al-Assad, Iran's president Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Shiite Militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr and Kim Jong-il are all available for negotiation, as is Fidel Castro. The reason I bring up Castro while speaking about negotiation is this: China has some oil rigs off the coast of Cuba, so now Castro can feed his people and China will take oil that the USA thought was theirs. I could (as a Liberal and Democrat) blame this situation on BuSh, but as a human Earthling, I will place the blame where it really belongs: On all the US presidents and the congresses since JFK. They were never willing to negotiate with Castro. Maybe if the USA had taken a stance of lets give him something he wants for something we would like (one more right at a time for Cubans), we could have avoided this situation. We can't throw China out of Cuban waters. We can't nuke them. They have ICBM's and nuclear warheads. Even if we could destroy China with no retaliation, Wal-Mart and Home Depot would go bankrupt and the US public would have no consumer goods to buy. I wonder what BuSh will do? Nothing, because these are not Muslim terrorists. TOM Dear Ms. Gadgetlady: Please do not take anything personal. We can disagree and still be civil.

Poor police work allowed the crime scene to become so contaminated that it may be difficult to ever get a conviction. Personally I believe that Karr had nothing to do with the killing, but he spoke (verbally, e-mail, etc.) with the killer and that is why he knows so much of the unpublicized information about the crime scene. The DNA might exonerate him, but he needs to spend time in jail for his false confession and for his other child porn and pedophilia related crimes. Or maybe a long stint in the loony bin?

I received an e-mail recently with an attached file called "heartattack1.pps". It is a slick presentation on how to save your life if you are having a heart attack while alone, BUT IS IS NOT TRUE yet, because of it's high quality and because it names a medical institution as it's source, it can be very dangerous and misleading. I wish there was a way to upload the file to this forum so that all of you could see how seductive it is.

BTW, I am not saying that Al-Quiada, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, Iran or North Korea are right. I am just saying that the USA is not right either in their dealings. It is getting difficult to distinguish between quotes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden. Take this Quiz and try to guess which of those 3 said each of the 20 quotes.

I noticed that while I was gone, a consensus was formed. It is easy when people of either the same religion, same ethnic or general background get together for them to agree with each other. I would like to have seen this (electronic) conversation take place with a equal number of Muslims who are neither terrorists nor fanatics nor extremists. Each person here has reinforced the other. That would not have been so easy to do if there had been other points to hear. Each of you feels sorry for the people on the 4 planes on 911. Each of you feels sorry for the people in the WTC and the Pentagon, But how many would share the grieve of the civilians in Afghanistan who were first pawns as the Soviet Union took over their country and then watched helplessly as the USA's CIA funded Osama Bin Laden and the other members of the Mujahadeen fought the Soviet army, only to see the CIA and USA funding leave Afghanistan while in ruins once the Soviet army retreated. Wasn't in wonderful of the USA to fight their cold war on Afghanistan soil? How many feel sorry for the innocent Iraqi civilians who did not elect Saddam Hussein, nor supported him as the USA reined bombs down on their homes? Hussein was also kept in power by the USA when they needed him to fight Iran in years past. I agree, "When terrorism is founded in religion, negotiation isn't going to cut it. If terrorism was only based on territorial matters, negotiation would be entirely possible." But when we say, "The Bible CLEARLY indicates that we are ALL sinners and that we have no HOPE, other than through the blood of Jesus Christ, to be anything but" then we are as intransigent as they are. When the USA is headed by a president who thinks he gets his marching orders from Jesus and leads a fight against people who think they are fighting for Allah, then peace is impossible. Allah is the same God as the God of the Old and New Testaments. The Qur'an says that Christians, Jews and Muslims have equal rights to Heaven. Many people who claim to be Christians are blind to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Where in the Bible did Jesus praise war? Jesus said "blessed be the Peace-maker". Where do the Muslim fanatics get their cries to "kill the infidel" when the Qur'an definitely states that Jews and Christians are not infidels. This war is not based on religious beliefs. It is based on religious misconceptions and misperceptions. We have Christian ministers who think that Israel should take over the Palestinian state in order to bring on Armageddon. Who is the anti-Christ in that scenario? The Christian ministers? It was mentioned earlier in the thread about how hard it is to talk to Bin Laden and it was also mentioned which countries fund Bin Laden, Hamas and Hezbollah. So why isn't the USA talking to those countries who are funding these terrorist groups? Because we would rather kick butt. But how many people are we going to lose before we realize that we are on the wrong path? How many more 911's are we willing to have? Are we going to invade Iran and Syria? Or should we just nuke'em? What is the USA going to do about the North Korean underground nuclear test that the intelligence agencies are saying is coming up? The USA warned them that a test will be considered provocative. The USA warned them that firing their ICBM would be provocative, so they fired it on the USA's birthday and also fired 6 more shorter range rockets to stick it up BuSh's nose. The USA threatens and does nothing. The USA might have tried negotiation. The USA could not have done any worse. The USA sent 150,000 troops to Iraq in 2003. The USA sent 15,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2002. Iraq had never attacked the USA, had no weapons to attack the USA and no means to get the weapons to the USA if they had any. So the USA invaded with 150,000 troops. Afghanistan was the country where the attack on the USS Cole was launched from. Afghanistan was the country where both of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon were launched from. So the USA invaded with 15,000 troops. Of the those 165,000 troops, instead of sending a split of 150,000/15,000. The USA should have sent a split of 0/100,000 and then maybe they could have caught Osama Bin Laden and they would have 65,000 just in case something else came up. The USA should not have destroyed Afghanistan towns and villages with B52 carpet bombing. They should have used ground troops with fighter, fighter-bomber and helicopter gun-ship support. The USA had a right to invade Afghanistan because the government was protecting people (Al-Quiada) who had attacked the USA. The USA had no right to do to the innocent civilians of Afghanistan what Al-Quiada had done to the USA's innocent civilians. In neither the Bible nor the Qur'an do two wrongs make a right.

Because human nature is greed. If people were as pure as the Bible wanted them to be, Communism might work. Maybe comminists were ungodly, but then again, so are capitalists. Communism = theory communism = practice

As I said earlier, you can't reason or negotiate with pawns. You do not see BuSh, Blaire, Bin Laden, Syrian president Al-Assad, Iran's president Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Shiite Militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr or kim Jong-il on the firing line. Do you? At least in a game of chess, the pawns shared the same board as the King and Queen, but in modern war-fare, the King and Queen get to stay home and watch while spinning the news to their favorite cable TV station. The leaders must talk because the pawns are only silent partners. And as they die they become even more silent.

Amen my sister!!

If we worked for NorthWest Airline, we might not have needed a Lap-Band. They recently distributed a booklet to their employess who face job-cuts and salary cuts. The airline suggested that workers can take "a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods." The booklet also says the workers should not be "shy about pulling something you like out of the trash" and not to go shopping while hungry. Gee, and I thought our economy was doing so well.

And you can't negotiate with an F16 pilot about to drop his load or fire his Gatling gun, nor can you negotiate with a sailer about to push the launch button on a cruise-missile because these are pawns in the chess game, nor could you have negotiated with a Soviet or American ready to turn the key releasing ICBM's, but the USA and the Soviet Union did negotiate and there was never a war. There was also strategy called MAD and it was both ingenious and insane, but it worked because both sides knew the consequences, but in this war, neither side seems to know or care, or maybe only one side knows, but the other doesn't care. Either way, negotiations could take place if the USA wanted it. The USA must look at it's actions propping up the unpopular governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt. The USA talks of democracy, but would hate to see the election results in those countries. We claim them as friends and help them subdue their populace because we either want their oil or their strategic value. Some will call me un-American or an America hater for what I write, but I want to see the USA live in peace. I just don't believe in "Peace through War". I do not believe you can beat love into a person or a people. No one is more of an American than I am because he thinks that peace comes at the end of a gun while I think that peace comes at the end of a discussion. In the 34 days that Israel and Hezbollah fought, Israel won almost every battle (body-count and destruction wise) but it looks as if Hezbollah has won the war. The action of undiscriminating overkill by the Israeli army and the position of the USA not to allow the UN to stop the violence has united Sunni and Shiite. If Israel and the USA must kill 1.2 billion people to win, there will be no victory for anyone.

Do you think marketing has anything to do with it? My grandson's 5th grade teacher conducted a class debate about company's responsiblities regarding cancer and obesity. Most of the class said it was the individual responsiblity of the consumer at fault. I asked my grandson, "If so, then why do these companies spend over a Million Dollars for less than a minute add during the Super Bowl?"

It is easy to talk about pre-emptive strikes when you live in the country that spends more money on it's military than all of the other countries of the world combined. As far as peaceful foreign policy except the other side doesn't want to talk, it is the USA who refuses to talk with terrorists or refuses to talk with madmen. Let's face it North Korea, Iran and Syria all have something that the USA wants. To refuse to talk to them or as Condoleezza Rice says, "they know what they have to do" is foolish. They are tired of jumping through the hoops that the USA says they have to jump through. If the USA doesn't want Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, then the USA should negotiate with them. If the USA doesn't want Syria to feed weapons to Hezbollah or Hamas, then the USA should negotiate with Syria. If the USA wants Castro to give his people more civil and human rights, the USA should negotiate with Castro. Prior to the July 4th missile tests, the USA told North Korea through an intermediary that they would negotiate the missile situation if they took the missile down. The USA told Iran through an intermediary that they would negotiate the nuclear situation if they stopped their program. The USA is always willing to negotiate as soon as the other side has given up everything that the USA wants. Let's say you were looking for a used car and saw an add for a vehicle that Kelly Blue Book says is worth $10,000, but you feel can be gotten for $8,000. Call the guy up and tell him to lower the price to $8,000 and then you will come and look at the car. See if you can negotiate then. Of course not. You have already gotten your outcome. That is what the USA constantly does. No, I do not hate the USA. I love this country, but I am afraid that we have gotten too big for our bridges. Just about every country in the world has felt the sting of war on their home-land. Not us, until 911. Then we felt it. We cried. Did we learn how bad it feels and decide that war is wrong? No. We just went about our business and did the same thing to innocent civilians in two other countries as was done to us. Al-Quaida doesn't want to take over the USA. They just want the USA out of the Middle-East propping up tyrannical governments and supporting Israel no matter what. They will keep hurting us until we learn that the more Muslims we kill by accident (or collateral damage), the more fanatics there will be. I can't give an exact figure, but I would imagine that for each innocent person we kill by accident, there are 5 new fanatics ready to die to avenge their loss. If I killed you, I am sure your brother, sons and father would want me dead and that some might try to kill me if there was no justice system or if the justice system failed to act. It is easy to talk about religious fanaticism when they are Muslims, but not all Muslims are the same. The USA used as an excuse to invade Iraq that Hussein had something to do with 911. I wonder if BuSh thought that all Christians were the same in Northern Ireland in the 1970's. Both the IRA and the Roman Catholics that they represented, and the protestants that they fought are Christians, but they were far from an homogeneous group. It may seem like I have wandered, but think of this; "Did mighty England bring down the IRA with force?" The mighty USA will never stop the Muslim fanatics with force. They must find out what the problem is and address it. Building more nuclear bombs and more aircraft carriers is not going to solve the problems. Matthew; 26-52: "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Each Year, The USA Spends more Money on Swords than all the rest of the countries of Earth Spend Combined.

I agree, but the average American has no savings and owes $9000 in credit card debt, plus mortgage and car payments. Regrettably the average American does not have the will-power to push away from the "keep up with the Jones" TV and internet adds. There is no reason why SS can not be around when you retire. Just insist that the government is not allowed to make it a game based on the stock market fluctuations. The poorer the person, the less likely he will be able to beat the market.

Frances, Jeanne and Wilma!!

Sounds like a good scenario except; #1. BuSh surrounded himself with cabinet and second level advisers from PNAC who had signed a letter in 1998 asking President Clinton to oust Hussein. #2. Two cabinet level officials and others who had privy to cabinet meetings have said that BuSh asked "how can we get Iraq?" at his first cabinet meeting in January 2000. #3. Every time a CIA report came to BuSh with news that led one to believe that there were no WMD nor any means to deliver them, BuSh demanded a new report. I have worked for large corporations and I know that one does not keep his job long telling the boss the opposite of what he wants to hear. #4. Pre-emptive strikes might sound good in principal, but they are not a very good foreign policy in practice. If every country wants to be sure that they are not attacked by surprise, then they must attack by surprise which gives the other country the right to sneak attack. It is a policy which basically says, "Might Makes Right". And since the winners write the history books, BuSh thought it would work this time. If he read his father's book however, he might have though and acted differently (and over 2600 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civillians might not have lost their lives needlessly).

The cable networks said the same thing. Though Karr said he knew the Ramsey's, the father denied it. $118,000 is a strange Ransom request. The only thing in common seems to be the first names of the suspect and the father.

If you had dated me in college, you would not have forgotten me.:hungry:

It is supposed to be against Federal Law to take away a pension. A strike has no bearing on a pension. There must be more to this story. I lost much of my pension when my company went into bankruptcy (for the 3rd time) and then was bought in a bankruptcy auction by another company. My company had shorted the pension fund. The Federal government chose not to go after the executives of the company for Federal law violations, but now I will collect a reduced pension from the PBGC who collected all the money in the plan and is paying out proportionately to the short-fall. BuSh signed a bill into law yesterday, in fact, to try to stop companies from playing these pension games in which they skim profits from the fund in good times and leave the funds under funded in bad times.

AK47's are worse:eek:

100% true IMHO. I made the huge mistake about 20 years ago while in shop steward union school (conducted by a professor from Cornell's dept of labor) to mention that unions were a form of communist organization. The other gung-ho "USA First" class members were ready to rip my throat out until the professor came to my (verbal) aid to assure them that I was correct. There has never been a Communist country on the planet Earth. Only if the Premier, President or Party Leader (what ever the head of state was called) made the same amount of money as the janitor who cleaned the head of state's living quarters (the county's "White House" per se), would it have truly been a Communist country.

And Thank God For Spell Checkers!!!!

Actually, I did not sleep while in English 101, 102 or 103, but I made the huge mistake of dating an English major who was 2 years ahead of me. She typed all my papers for me (free). My sub-par writing skills can be blamed on that youthful indiscretion of 44 years ago.

The average American has negative savings and owes over $9,000 in credit card debt. If you add in the mortgage and car payments, the average American is so far in debt, that no savings plan is going to bail him out. Belt tightening is the only answer. It makes me wonder why removing the estate tax is so high on the agenda of the working poor.

As I said, we do not live in America. We each live in (one of) "The United States of America. Each state has it's own laws and regulations.