Mercy!

I wanted to give you some examples, but realized that so many of my “first house purchase” stories were not of the “good” variety, and didn’t want to rain on your parade. I’m happy that you are excited about your first home. It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? What I’ll always remember is the rush of good feeling I got when I went to the new (actually, real old) house after closing, got out the key, unlocked the front door for the first time, and we walked inside OUR home. Well, one good story – I stayed a long time there. When I moved, I sold it for more than 10 times the purchase price.

If I were saying that you used the specific word “traitor,” I would have surrounded it with quotation marks. When someone says that “In order for the Democrats to gain back power, we MUST ‘lose’ in Iraq” – I MIGHT take that as the remark of a comedian, or as someone who loves to get a rise out of people regardless of the circumstances - but in either case, it is someone who is painting an entire political party as treasonous. If, on the other hand, you were merely quoting a source, could you provide a link, please?

Son, you might want to look up yonder and see who started this thread. When someone drops into a pretty good discussion and starts up with the Dems are traitors who give aid and comfort to the enemy talk, as Kap just did, yes, I am disgusted. Or maybe exasperated would be a better choice of words. But in my brief time in this forum, if I needed a model for a poster who did nothing but drop into political discussions with a sarcastic remark and then disappear, I need look no farther than you. Why don't you add to the discussion with something positive, or at least constructive?

That sounds like a raving lunatic talking. Did you mean to use green? Or should I just tune in AM blab radio? By the way, what IS George W. Bush's policy in Iraq?

Perhaps of more relevance for our discussion, the only way our own elected American officials can appear in Iraq for meetings is to fly in unannounced, be met with a substantial contingent of privately-contracted security forces, hunker down somewhere under U.S. military control for a couple of hours, do some quick photo ops, and then get out of the country before nightfall. And who can blame them?

Like, totally ignore my previous post. I just visited Michelle's site. Yes, you should answer her Right Away.

Hmmmm. I'd play it a LITTLE more low key and harder to get.

Surely we’ve all done some regrettable things under the influence of nicotine.

Twenty is great! Congratulations. And only 12 months to go before you are legal for absolutely everything in every jurisdiction worldwide. And may the coming year provide you with material aplenty to make many interesting political posts.

I scrolled through every bloomin' one. Well, I looked at all the photos, anyway. What does that make me? Shut up. I didn't even recognize half of them. My fave was Diana Rigg, both the young and the mature. I guess she's darn-near as old as my beloved Ms. Julie. Hmm. Maybe I should put in a good word with Mr. Mayor for a "Diana Rigg Day." I can say that Steff gave me the idea.

It hardly matters what makes sense anymore. We went in on the cheap, Wolfowitz telling us we would be greeted like the liberators of France. After the Iraqi army melted away, it became clear that we had no coherent plan to build a nation while fighting urban guerrilla warfare. Rummy had surrounded himself with yes-men who supported his vision of a new military. The Bush administration s***-canned General Shinseki when he spoke the truth before a congressional committee about the real numbers of troops that would be required to do the job properly. Our Marines weren’t designed to be an occupying force, but we will never commit a sufficient number of Army troops. We won the war. We are losing the peace. Time to come home. The tipping point has occurred with the American public. It doesn’t take tactical genius on the home front for wives to know that when their 50 year old husbands in the Reserves are having to ship out to Iraq for second and third tours that something bad is happening with our formerly shining volunteer military. Rep. Murtha’s call for an immediate withdrawal allowed for six months to get the bulk of it done with ready-response troops withdrawn to perimeter locations. That gives all those opposed to that quick a timetable to “compromise” on something between now and less than a year. And that is what I think will happen.

Ain't it the truth. But I do believe that a change is gonna come...........

Some may call it a slippery slope. I call it a nuanced point of view. I don’t care if my neighbor keeps a licensed weapon to go fulfill his desire to personally kill an animal for his dinner table. I do care if a convicted crackhead can get his hands on a handgun, or a major nutcase can stockpile armor busting weaponry. Same way as I view a mother and her already-born child as having more intrinsic worth than an egg which just happened to get itself fertilized last night.

But you started the thread! What could be more political than rankings of “most dangerous US cities” with the main focus on the one ranked worst? The personal is political, and all that. Anyway, last time I moved within Chicago, I made use of the clunky, official Chicago crime statistics website: CPD Recently Reported Crimes There’s now a very cool new unofficial site (6 months old?) with a browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago. It lets you look at the information in a number of useful ways, complete with various maps, of course. Chicago Crime Database I’m not a gloom, tomb and doom person, but I find those sorts of sites fun to mess around on occasionally. It can be weird to discover that areas where I’ve felt safe to walk around may be a little dicey, and others that look ratty may not be so bad. I’m sure other cities have similar sites.

Yeah, well you Commies can have my weapons only when you pry the M47 Dragon Anti-tank Guided Missile System off my cold, dead shoulder. Power to the People! Right on! Etc.

Mmmmm. Buttermilk. Another delicious milk product which I’m positive isn’t the same as it used to be, but I don’t know what’s different about it now. Also, Buttermilk was the name of Dale Evans’s pretty horse. I hope she didn’t stuff it when it died like her husband, Roy Rogers, did with his horse, Trigger.

Do you think I just fell off a turnip truck? I’m hip to your sorry-ass-no-green-using-sit-back-and-wait-to-see-what-sort-of-responses-this-provokes tactics. Can you believe that 17,108 of those 30,242 gun deaths were suicides? I never would have guessed so high. Should we informally consider them in your criminal category or the nuts category? There might even be an al-Qaeda joke hidden in here somewhere, too.

Not trying to pick a fight here, just reacting to the "us" versus "those nuts in the Middle East" dichotomy. I'll just mention that in 2002 there were 30,242 gun deaths in the U.S. Carry on.

If you’re talking about that yellowish stuff that comes out of a waxed cardboard carton from the dairy case, then no. If you’re talking about that heavenly homemade drink that contains fresh eggs, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, brandy and rum – hmmmm. These days, I actually prefer it without the alcohol. Strangely, I never drink it outside of the November-December holiday period.

--from http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/en...xenu_part_.html

Maybe DBAHO was just taking the opportunity to stock up on that item critical to any secure Aussie man’s kit - his stubbies. Any bloke can sport boardies; secure guys flaunt their stubbies.

Could you list, like, two or three?

Gosh, all this talk about "pubes" is causing me to have flash backs to the Clarence Thomas hearings, and to have to visualize again and again how my beloved Coca Cola product was desecrated. Also, I went out and rented Long Dong Silver as a result of those hearings. But, of course, that was only in the interests of furthering my life-long continuing education.

Me too! I might have worded that a bit differently myself, but I certainly agree with what I think you're expressing Are you SURE you’re not older than 17? You certainly sound evolved for that age. B)