I live in California ... I'm extremely fortunate to live in a state big and liberal enough to set our own standards and even
then we are hampered by the US government. I'm in favor of peaceful secession at this stage which is very sad in that my
family has been in the US so long that American is my only ethnicity. I have no other heritage.

There are states so poor, they exist at Third World levels and yet Europe has continued to curry favor with the right-wing
US government that has, since Reagan, destroyed our infrastructure. Your leaders know very well that our system has been
taken over by a coup. They know our elections are coached if not outright staged. They know. And yet they continue in a
farce in which they have far, far more to say than the average American. Do you honestly think Bush and his entire cabal
didn't intend to destroy our government once and for all? Gosh, I wonder why that might have happened.

Why do you save your hatred for the average American? Why not throw some of the venom at the world leaders who allow it to happen?
You don't think Stoltenberg might have a *little* more pull than I do? Norway is always in the top ten of nations giving to
charity yet the Appalachian Hunger Project which oversees food distribution to an area of the US so ravaged by poverty that it
truly is the Third World there, hasn't seen one cent of aid. Some of the world stepped up and tried to help during Katrina,
but it is the exception.

The globalists have been very clever since our takeover and especially in the wake of Ronald Reagan -- they have skillfully made
their #2 victims (second only to the good people of Iraq), the American people, the evil in the eyes of the world. Ergo, no one
will care when we're stomped into the ground.

But then they'll go onto you. And if you don't think they're in the EU, I would assure you they are.

I'm not supporting Hillary for the same reason I didn't support her husband -- they're kinder, gentler corporate fascists.
I'm a free enterprise person. I don't believe in totalitarian business ethics. Silly me.

She gave Barbara Boxer support because she needed her support.

I'm sorry, I see Hillary in far clearer terms than ever I did before. There is no reason for her continued "campaigning" other than to drive our party into the ground. That's her whole plan. There can be no other reason -- clearly BushCo has compromised the Clintons to such an extent, they're demanding she stay in the race to hurt Obama. Hillary is going to end up hated by nearly everyone except for her core that cannot seem to see what's really going on. If that's what you want, then cheer her on.

Yes, I sometimes truly think Hillary is only staying in the race to support McCain's candidacy. I honestly believe she may well be compromised based on 20 years of reading and writing about the Bush crime family and the Democratic whores who serve them. It's not just the BushCo CIA drug-running through Mena, Arkansas that Clinton supervised.

I think your support for Clinton is assuring us, my friend, of four more GOP years. If that happens, the blood of the innocent will be on the hands of her supporters, not just her own. There is no way short of destroying the party for her to get the nomination. Our only candidate IS Obama. You are choosing now -- siding with Hillary is supporting McCain.

It is said that John Lennon hated the song "Let it Be". McCartney has said he wrote it, in part, to help himself
deal with their breakup. Whatever it was that helped McCartney split from Lennon and heal through the process may
be what Lennon hated.

The Rolling Stones (agreeing with Lennon's dislike of the song) wrote a nasty one called "Let it Bleed". There are those
who insist upon making people "bleed" and those who heal themselves with such ideas as "Let it Be".

I'm one of the "Let it Be" people. I suspect many of the more extreme anti-AD folk are the "bleed" people who want to rip
open peoples' wounds and make them react, possibly because they themselves don't have the same degree of sensitivity.

NONE of these people are perfect. They're all flawed human beings. A good look at Edwards' background as an
attorney shows a history of working for individuals against big corporations. To say otherwise is disingenuous
as hell and David Corn (and Mother Jones' editorial board) should be ashamed. Senators don't just serve in
the senate as autonomous creatures -- they are there as representatives of their constituents. Wellstone
(for whom I had immense respect) served a much more liberal constituency than did Edwards. To play the game,
one must stay in it. Who would you have rather have had in congress -- a right-wing Republican politician or
Johnny Reid Edwards, a Democrat? I'd rather have had Edwards compromise AND stay in the senate than risk him
losing to a Republican.

As for his hair and his house -- Hillary lives in beautiful digs. Obama has a nice place, too -- one hell of
a lot bigger than mine. Edwards became rich fighting for people like us. I'm not a Marxist by any means -- I
think John should keep his house without having to answer for it. (BTW, Sam Walton lived in a 2200 square foot
house ... now there was a servant of the people, huh?) John was a poor kid in the beginning. He worked
hard and now he SHOULDN'T have something to show for it?

Quite frankly, these all sound like the same GOP talking points hurled at Edwards (Al Gore, too). David Corn should be ashamed
for reciting them ... and Mother Jones for printing them.

Believe me, I didn't like coming to this conclusion also. My ancestry (except for being 1/5th Cherokee) is all British.
I have a deep love and appreciation for the good my mother country has done for the world and I can't adequately express
how painful it was to go from thinking Great Britain's aristocracy is our friend to realizing it was still attempting to
wipe us off the face of the earth. That said, when researchers make very clear and substantiated links between Project Kennedy to Reagan (the plan to withdraw "bad Irishman" Kennedy as a social symbol and replace him with the more Royally Correct Irishman Ronald Reagan) and the British aristocracy, and all the other incidents (including the right-wing inspired anti-civil-rights campaign
in the US while the UK suddenly flowers with pro-civil-rights laws), even the most starry-eyed academic has to recognize that
the reality is a much more complex and painful one. It's fairly clear to me -- European aristocracy put Bush and Cheney in
place to destroy the US, this very imperfect bastion of individual liberty. Bill Clinton had made us too strong and the US population could no longer be relied upon to vote for puritan banality. As I always say to my non-union friends who decry unions, even
though they are making salaries largely high because of competition from unionized companies that must pay high salaries, if
you don't think unions are necessary, just wait till they're gone.

If you think the USA sucks (and right now, so far as the government is concerned, I agree with you), just wait till we're gone.

Evans-Pritchard, unfortunately, is still a very powerful and dangerous influence. Bill Colby (former CIA chief who was brutally
murdered) warned a couple of investigative journalists away from AEP, saying he was "far too powerful for peon Americans to
investigate". Colby turned up dead not long after. Who knows why.

Anyway, I wish you the best in your pursuit of the truth, whatever it may be.

... thus harming the poor here and conferring upon us forty years without the national health care
their subjects have enjoyed while our people (including the poor) paid the bill for their
national security.

If someone sees all Americans as being bad, then they're bigots ... I don't care if it is the Dalai
Lama. BushCo carried out a hit on my people and my culture and managed to sway the world to hate
their (aside from Iraqis) primary victims -- Americans. Those who hate us in lockstep with that
are doing BushCo's bidding.

Cheer up -- our country is dying quickly. I would hasten to suggest some of the notion of individual
liberty will die with it. We'll be held up as an example of why the people can't lead themselves and
therefore need monarchs to rule them. Just like the people who sneer at unions while working for
companies with high wages (high because of the standard of industry pay created by other union shops),
you'll find out the worth of us when we're gone.

There is no typical American. I'm 47 years old and I think I've heard a handful of people (who weren't politicians) do the old
"greatest country in the world". I have friends from Australia and Canada say the same thing about their own countries.
We have a DU'er here called "Thankfully in Britain" -- how is that not the same thing? Most of my friends struggle valiantly
for what they have, use weekends and odd hours to go out and protest/write letters/make phone calls or spend the little time
they have with their kids. Where are these typical Americans with willful ignorance or arrogance? I don't know them. The
ones I know are hurting. And the neocons have skillfully made most people blame the very people who are their primary victims
... the typical American.

One of the reasons this country is as terrified as it is, is we don't stand up for our own people. The morons on the far
right think cold-heartedness is some kind of call to patriotism. The people on the far-left seem to have no regard for the
very people who are suffering worst.

I have friends who should be getting chemo potentially living without it, I have family members struggling with mental health issues,
I have gay family and friends who must deal with institutionalized bias, and I could give you one example after another of the
"typical American" who is suffering.

I don't know how many people in other countries (and this one) who would normally have giving hearts to the poor...
after hearing about an Appalachian poverty outreach program (parts of my family came from the Appalachians) say,
"There aren't any really poor people in the US."

I guess they think they're just "typical Americans" complaining too much.

Europe has conspired with us when it suits them, just as we've conspired with them. You cannot
distinguish one political body's actions from another in any serious way, going back many years.

In point of fact, there are a number of theorists who make a good case for the Bush regime
(going back to the JFK assassination) being nothing more than a royalist attempt to destroy
the US. When you consider all the extreme measures taken by the CIA under the Bush regime
(in all its forms), it does make one wonder. Particularly while the UK is bursting forth with
liberal ideals while the right-wing is pushing a backward, knuckle-walking agenda in the US,
and when you see Bush's deep connections to the Queen's Bank, to say nothing of the US far
right.

None of us really have any idea to what degree these people have assisted each other. To idealize
the EU as "good" and the US as "bad" (which is essentially what this perspective does) is, imho,
childlike or disingenuous.

Frankly, I think the US ought to be finding our own way toward a government which would guard
against both the old US mindset AND the EU. I think they're both ultimately a threat to the
well-being of the new world.

JFK ... RFK ... MLK ... Watergate ... The "Reagan Revolution" ... it's astounding how the same names keep
cropping up in all those situations, all connected to one name -- Bush.

I often make this point when apocalypse soon threads present themselves. It's an academic exercise perhaps, but I think it's
an important one to make. Some people take almost orgiastic glee at the prospect of such huge, horrible things
happening. They all huddle together and excite each other with, "Ooooh, it's all gonna go down in terrible fashion
and then we get to rebuild" celebrations. The same thing happened during the whole Y2K thing, the same thing happened
(here locally) when we went through a cluster of earthquakes a number of years ago (people on message boards assured
each other the end was near and happily, almost enthusiastically prepared for it). The same thing happens here ...
there must be five different apocalypse soon themes that have cropped up here, with many of the same participants,
over the last few years. When such claims are challenged, the participants angrily fight back, as if their dreams of
utter destruction are being threatened.

Y2K came and went, we survived ... the cluster of earthquakes led to the greatest period of seismic inactivity in the
region in years ... and almost all of the scenarios we've stressed about have never come to pass. Now absolutely, one
of them may, and then like the hypochondriac who dies we can write on our tomb, "I told you I was sick".

You folk may get pumped up at such dire scenarios, but there are many people reading this board who are clinically
depressed. I was trying to make the point to y'all, that those people would read this thread having those thoughts.
You have responded with your own reasons, but those are the reasons of people who are not clinically depressed. That's
why I make the points I do. Should you not say these things? Of course you should, if you think them. But not everyone
sees a huge disaster as this exciting challenge. They don't necessarily make the associations you do that we'll get
through it. They see only the end.

This is why I make the point -- we will get through it, we will survive, we will prevail. Bush and Co. will be brought
to justice, if only by the hatred of history. And all those countries rubbing their hands together with glee at the
prospect of our utter destruction just may see us come back even bigger, even better. And the Anglo Aristocracy to blame
for our destruction (the Neocons and their brothers in the Henry Jackson Society in the UK and elsewhere ... poor Scoop
has had his name appropriated as camouflage, nothing more) may well find millions of deeply pissed off Americans, once
the young people figure out what has happened to us over the last forty years. Then I feel sorry for the innocents who
will be in the way of their rage, but such is the way of history.

I was just dotting the i's and crossing the t's that weren't being made in your posts. Not everyone goes from challenge to
solution. A lot of people see only the end. I don't think any of us want to trigger somebody's suicide, simply because
we're celebrating the opportunities of the apocalypse. lol

That is all ... I'll hesh now.

All the educated affluent and middle-class will move (along with the whole tax base) out of the backward states. All that will be left are the poor and the right-wing ignorant population, and since the latter largely creates the former, there will always be more poor people than affluent wingnuts. In the short term, those states will lose tax base and industry (which will need the educated folk to even operate). In the long-term, they will face a social uprising unlike any they've seen before. These Christian tyrannies are stocked with idiots (stoked on by Limbaugh and his ilk) too ignorant to see the moderating base and affluence of the progressives actually support and sustain their cultures. The US south particularly will ultimately lose its culture.

The only reason only half of me says it is that simple compassion would necessitate some kind of underground railroad of the poor to abortion clinics in free states. And that is part of what will trigger a civil war ... which is the aristocracy's whole plan in the first place, imho.

If you need "wake-up calls" and "cold splashes of reality", then by all means, avail yourself. To further
torture and overwork the metaphor, I woke up in the cold, I'll die in the cold, I live on the bits of warmth,
like a lot of people do. One way the right-wing (as demonstrated in all the Psych Ops studies) has kept us
at bay is by defeating us before we even get going. When you add to that, you're only doing the work for them.
The "wake up call people" are attacking a large section of their own base when they use this kind
of sustained invective. And if you care more about embracing your "wake up call" than properly addressing the
requirements of the people to whom you are addressing your comments, then you pretty much deserve the result *you* get.

Not everyone is like you. Speak to your own people who need wake-up calls. We each talk
to our own, which is why I made the point.

Why do we need to know? There are some people who so avowedly hate Americans that no scrap of evidence that this was a heroic
act will be enough for them, any more than Bush's starry-eyed moronic masses will believe anything against him. It doesn't matter how much DC capitalizes on what happened -- the important thing is those people died horribly. They didn't die fictionally, they didn't die on a movie screen. They were flying one moment, knowing they were going to crash into something, knowing they were helpless to stop it
and instead of dying meekly like victims, a group of people DID try to take action. That plane then turned over and went spiraling into the ground at a terrific rate of speed until it crashed. Can you imagine the terror those people went through?

It's hardly surprising or uniquely American - it's what humans would do. It's not terribly difficult to accept in any other situation.
Even so, to hell with the "truth" about "93" -- all we'll get is more distortions of things we can never know. September 11th alone is enough to upend the Bush monsters.

Leave the memory of these people to be what their loved ones must think them to be.

When people weight train, they add extra weight. This strengthens muscles, including the heart. It's entirely possible this is one of the off-setting factors. The fact of the matter is the research shows a minimal impact on longevity. It simply does. There IS one ... obesity is definitely disabling ... but it's not the "fat people die young" myth that we're all told. It simply isn't. If you don't believe me, talk to a weight doctor who's gone to school in the last ten years.

>and yet we let morbidly obese people get a free pass.

I didn't realize there were people giving out free passes! Who are they? I want one! lol I've been verbally attacked in supermarkets by *chain smokers*, for heaven's sake. My mother (an alcoholic) hated fat people. Many, many times people direct their own control issues at obvious targets - like fat people and smokers. Most people have their control issues hidden. We unfortunate ones do not. But our health is our business -- not theirs. Who is anyone to hand out "free passes" to a fellow flawed human being?

>There's no arguing that fact - it's all physics and makes perfect sense.

It may make "perfect sense" (which seems to be the emotional version of "common sense"), but it's not true. Obesity does not cause hypertension. It simply doesn't. It MAY improve existing hypertension to lose weight, but not in all cases.

>tons of studies

Cite them with sources, not hyperbole. I've given mine here and will give others in PM if asked.

> and I'm ready for the flame shield) i

My friend, I'M the one being flamed. People just hate to have their comfortable prejudices questioned. I'm just saying people should INFORM THEMSELVES and not believe conventional wisdom -- if the snipes at me aren't a clear sign that prejudices are being questioned, I don't know what is.

It's like rationally discussing gayness with fundamentalist Christians. They've been taught so long to see things from only one perspective, they can't see it any other way.

>just don't see how melody can claim that morbid obesity can pretty much be ignored.

Where did I say that?