Vacation

Well, I'm on vacation this week and the weather is miserable. I was able to work outside for exactly 4 hours on Monday and have not been able to be outdoors either over the previous weekend or all week. Snow and cold temperatures are not fun to be outside working in. The kids are stir crazy being kept indoors. They are tired of playing in the snow and want to ride their bikes on an icey street.

Terri Schiavo

To put into words what normal everyday people, family members of Terri Schiavo, are enduring as part of this media and court battle mess is beyond something I can describe. I don't know the details of Terri's mental or physical condition prior to her passing away a few hours ago. I don't know if she was able to comprehend what was happening to her. I don't know what side of the political and medical aisle to believe in this case. It is clear one side won the legal battle and that win resulted in Terri's passing today.

What can we do after this? We can make sure we have a "living will" in place. We can make sure our family clearly understands what our wishes are specifically to prevent such a recurrence. We can encourage our elected representatives to address this as a nationwide issue. After all, there must be thousands of such Terri's throughout this land in exactly the same situation. Yet, the media focused only on the pending starvation of Terri for days, ignoring the fundamental issue of how families should handle this same issue (in private). The family chose to put this to the media. I only hope my family would allow me, in the same situation, the dignity that privacy allows.

Battlestar Gallactica

Update - March 20th
The plot thickens further. The President gets her candidate in as V.P.... but who was the assassin working for? I was thinking her former V.P. candidate and not the bad guy we all thought.

Helo found out there were Cylon's that looked like Boomer and promptly got out of Dodge and away from the Boomer Cylon. And we know she is a Cylon because we saw her spine glow red like all the other humanoid cylons. He really booked when he made the connection. So the two part season finale will leave a cliff hanger with him alone, cold and hungry on the run on Caprica. I wonder if he can fly a ship and get off the planet like he was planning?

The President probably will survive into next season. At least until her six month term is ending. Have you noticed only about 40 days have passed since the initial Cylon invasion?

The fleet has been replenishing its Vipers and pilots... seems implausible, but the writers must think we are either stupid or don't pay attention to those details.

Here is my prediction for a cliff hanger... the fleet gets cornered somehow and must battle it out against at least one Battlestar.... remember the original series when one of the last episodes was them surprising and finally taking out a Battlestar? They've got no resources except what is with them on Gallactica... so re-taking some lost colonies and beginning the war anew is not plausible. You saw what Caprica looked like.... no bodies, no odor of bodies.... I wonder what happened to all the people? Did they get killed or imprisoned? I know a large percentage disappeared in the cataclism, but you'd think there would have been some survivors squirreled away somewhere in hiding.

Here's a plot twist I'd like to see... an underground guerrila movement in the colonies against the Cylons. People like you and me banding together with their own skills attempting to eck out their lives under threat of anniliation, but somehow surviving week to week, day to day. And then having helo get connected with them somehow on Caprica.

Update - March 11th

So now, maybe the 33 minutes episode is beginning to make more sense? Perhaps the Cylons were attempting to run the fleet out of fuel and force them to make a last stand and wipe them out.

Well, now they've got enough fuel to go several years without refueling. Previously, they targeted water which was also at a critical stage. What is next? Foodstuffs?

The Caprica story line continues. Helo is beginning to realize there are many of the same model Cylons. And of course, it looks like the Boomer Cylon with him might be pregant. The wifee thinks that is what the Cylons wanted. But I'm sure they could have gotten a sample from pretty much any willing male before the war. So the significance of Helo escapes me.

The rookie Viper pilots did well and not so well. Many bit the big one, but a few got bloodied enough that they will probably be pretty good in the future. Funny how the Galactica never seems to run out of Vipers, yet we see a few or many more get whacked in every episode.

The President is getting worse. I expect her to die in the middle of next season. Yes, I think this will continue for several seasons, not like the original that died after one. They were all Barbie and Ken dolls as I remember. They seem more like real people now.

The SciFi Channel has done a superb job on this series.

February 15th.

The plot thickens.

You have to wonder what the purpose of the Caprica story line is all about. Especially now that Boomer and Helo have gotten intimate. Perhaps they needed more than a blood sample to get his DNA. I'm wondering if we will see Boomer disappear again, then in coming episodes we see Helo copies begin to show up as cylon model 13's. How many different types of Cylon's are there? Didn't they say there were 12?


#1 -Soldier Cylon
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6 - The blonde type (One killed initially in the mini-series during the first encounter with man on that far away space station where they are supposed to meet every year or so. One was killed on Caprica in white jacket, one is following Boomer, one is in or near the fleet and was on the Gallactica for awhile.)
#7 - Boomer (One on Gallactica, one on Caprica)
#8 - The media guy (I think we've seen at least three copies now - one blew up, one left on the space station, one on Caprica.)
#9 - Space Station Guy (One killed on the space station, one following Boomer on Caprica)
#10
#11
#12 - I'm thinking the fighter ship is Model 12 since it was semi-organic.

Didn't the blonde say something to Baltar at some point early after the attacks began about how many copies there were of each model? She did say there were 12 models didn't she?

I'm thinking Baltar is actually a cylon model himself and he does not know it yet. At first I thought he had an implant in his head and he was seeing something as a result of that implant, but the technology for that seems incredible to me for that. LESSOR things have been known to occur I suppose.

Basement Studies

Our backyard is nearing c0mpletion. I've got to order 3 loads of 12-inch boulders. More than 20 tons per load to place on the hillside to help prevent erosion.

Then comes the fun part. We will work on our basement this summer. It should be fun. We've been going through boxes now for about a month, sorting out what can be thrown out and what can be given away. I'm surprised how much we've given away and thrown out. Probably close to 20% of what we had down there already and we are not finished yet.

Anyone what to help me frame the basement? Anyone have any suggestions on books that might help me frame it properly?

MJ, Robert Blake, OJ and Scott Peterson

What good are juries when they are easily manipulated through the media and the opportunity of profit following a highly publicized trial. What good are witnesses that look to line their pockets following those same highly publicized trials?

While many of the juries are filled with noble, upstanding citizens like you and me, the balance are the gold diggers looking to profit before the media interest wanes. Scott Peterson is the latest. OJ was the worst. Robert Blake jurors are yet to take over. Then we will see the Michael Jackson profiteers appear.

My folks are routinely called for jury duty. Since moving to Utah, I have not been called to perform that duty. After seeing the process in the Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building, Compton, and several other courts in Southern California, I am beginning to form my opinion that perhaps professional jurists are the best method to prevent this adulteration of what was once a noble process. The media have corrupted this. Not the jurists. The jurists are responding to the Hard Copies of the world. That is what they see on the evening news and that is what they've come to expect when serving on the trial of the decade.

While the media is necessary for coverage of our criminal system, it has turned into a circus. We cannot depend on the media covering any trial without some sensationalism to draw viewers or sell newspapers. What can we do as law abiding citizens to change the corruptions?

So the Judge's Say

Once again, a liberal judge from San Francisco decided to legislate from the bench. Now they say the will of the people is not enough. Marriage for gays indeed!

What the Death Penalty is For

This guy in Atlanta is exactly the person the death penalty was designed for. He intentionally planned to disable a guard (he'd been working on it for awhile since a few days prior he was caught with two shive's). Disable the guard, cease a weapon or outright escape. Once he obtained the weapon, he proceeded to the court room where his presiding judge was located and killed him and his court reporter, then a sherriff deputy outside. He went out of his way to execute the judge. He could have escaped outright, but he made time and went out of his way to perform these hideous deeds. Exactly the person that should be executed.

If I hear of some bleeding liberal group complaining he did not get a fair trial or adequate representation, then I will go nuts myself. How can someone possibly stand up for this whack job?

Causes and Events Leading to Secession

I was cleaning out some boxes in the basement today and ran across this term paper from my JC American History class in 1982. I'm not sure what my grade was for the class, but I was proud enough of the paper to keep it all these years. After reading it and seeing all sorts of words I'd never use, I now wonder if I might have taken those phrases from a text somewhere without giving credit to the true author. Nevertheless. I enjoyed reading it again and am providing it here as a discussion topic.

Causes and Events Leading to Secession - Utah Chris - Dec. 1982.

In order to properly understand the causes and events which led to the inevitable secession of the Southern States in 1861 and the reasons which motivated those by whom the secession and civil war was advocated, we must confine our examinations to the history of the country and the conditions prior to the secession of the Unitied States. We must study the theory of the Constitution as understood and explained by its creators and the history of the period prior to 1861, at least as far as it relates to constitutional rights and constitutional construction. We must consider the views entertained by advocates of the states rights doctrine as distinguished from the views of the extreme nationalists, and the long-continued struggle between the leaders of these two parties.

The general assumption that slavery was the sole cause of secession and civil war that followed is far from correct. It is clear that far beyond the question of slavery, even in the earliest days of life of the nation, the two parties began to struggle. The one to maintain the unrelentingly rights of the States, the other to establish and vest greater power in the central government. But even though this leading thought and concede thoughts (not words I would have used) were really at issue in the conflict, slavery was the proximal (again) reason of the civil war. The anti-slavery agitation focused and brought into activeness the theories of the extreme nationalists that the central government had the right to go into the domain of the state governments and regulate their domestic affairs. And the threats of abolitionists awoke the southern people to the realization that the guarantees of the Constitution for the protection of slave property were to be nullified and at least, their States rights destroyed.

Slavery was not only a heritage from the the mother country, but the history of early colonial times shows that it was a forced heritage that was resisted and opposed by the colonies. In the same spirit, the southern people opposed slavery at the time of the Declaration of Independence and were vigorous in resisting the further importation of slaves from Africa. The wisemen of that day foresaw the evils attending such a traffic. Its enormous profits would cause a further great influx of people hardly removed from savagery. But when slavery became a fixed institution, recongized, guaranteed and protected by the Constitution, the people of the south sought to improve, as far as possible, all the evils attending it.

Slavery was part of the common law of England prior to the settlement of the first colonies in America, and became the common law of the colonies; and at the time of the Declaration of Independence existed in each of the 13 colonies. This condition existed despite the efforts of some of the colonies to end it. In 1760, South Carolina passed an act prohibiting the further importation of African slaves. The act was rejected by the Crown; the Governor was reprimanded; and a circular was sent to all Governors of the colonies warning against "presuming to countenance such legislation".

England not only considered the slave trade beneficial, and fostered and protected it, but had actually inaugurated it and established it. William III passed an act reciting that "the trade was, highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom."

The first African slaves imported into America were landed by a Dutch trading vessel at Jamestown in 1620, and from that time, the traffic became general throughout all the colonies. Monetary profit to the traders and the need of the negro as a laborer was not the only incentive to this traffic. The press and even the pulpit contended that "it was humane and Christian to bring the heathen savage negroes to the protective care of civilized people." Slaves were imported in large numbers into New England until it was apparent that they were not able to deal with the rigorous climate of the north. Importation to the norther colonies and States gradually diminished and finally ceased. But Northeast shipowners continued to actively engaged in the business of importing and selling slaves. Southern colonists continued to fight against the traffic and Jefferson, in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, indicated the King in the "cruel matters of war against human nature itself." This traffic against which the colonies had waged war for a century continued to exist at the time of the Declaration of Independence; and when the Constitution was adopted slavery existed in every colony with the possible exception of Massachusetts, where in 1781, by a Supreme Court decision, it was declared inconsistent with the Bill of Rights, "all men are born free and equal."

The framers of the Constitution realized the sensitive and delicate nature of the question of slavery and wisely left it untouched except to protect the property rights of the slaveholders and to give to Congress the power to prohibit the importation of slaves after a certain date. Under a clause in Section 2, Article III of the Constitution, Congress later passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. It provided a $10 tax or duty on the importation of such persons prior to 1808.

Between 1878 and 1808, the question of prohibiting the importation of slaves was entirely under the control of the States and every southern State which had not already done so enacted laws prohibiting further importation of slaves. Jeffersons earnestness in opposing the traffic has already been noticed, and Virginia was the first State to prohibit it.

In 1807, Congress passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves into any part of the United States after January 1st, 1808. The vote in the House was 113 to 5. This vote shows the absence of any sectional division or sentiment on the subject. Prior to this, in 1784, Virginia ceeded the Northwest Territory to the United States, and in 1787, before the adopters of the Constitution approved the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. The 6th Article of the ordinance stated, "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." In December 1805, a petition to Congress to suspend the operation of 6th Article was reported on favorably but no final action was taken.

Although the importation of slaves was prohibited, the institution of slavery became more firmly entrenched in the slave holding States. In 1819, a violent dispute arose between the north and the south on the occasion of the proposal to admit Missouri as a State. After a year of bitter controversy, a settlement was reached in a compromise where Missouri, with a State Constitution permitting slavery, was admitted, but as to the remaining portion of the territory of the United States north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north, it was provided that slavery should be prohibited (I wonder if this is the Mason/Dixon line?). In the north, the compromise was exceedingly unpopular and a general movement looking toward the abolition of slavery was commencing.

In 1840 and 1844, the Anti-Slavery Party had Presidential candidates in the field. The annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the further acquisition of territory furnished cause for additional controversy over slavery. In 1848, the Anti-Slavery Party showed growing strength and political campaigns took an increasing bitterness. One side depended on the guarantees of the Constitution to protect property rights (slavery), and the other insisted upon their right to prevent the extension of slavery, "while conceding" as Judge Cooley admitted, "that the Federal Government was powerless to disturb it in the States." During these times of fierce controversy, the greatest minds from all sections of the country devoted their efforts to securing peace. Clay, Webster, Cass and Benton met harmoniously and their efforts secured the compromise of 1850 by which California was admitted as a free State, new States were to be permitted to be carved out of Texas, the slave trade was prohibited in the District of Columbia, and new territories were to be organized without either expressly permitting or prohibiting slavery. The Missouri Compromise was repealed and the Fugitive Slave Law was nullified in the north. As a result, in Kansas, armed conflicts erupted between the opposing factions ending with John Brown making a raid with a band of Northerners into Virginia in October of 1859, in an attempt to incite the negroes in the south toward insurection and bloodshed.

The almost unanimous sentiment, North and South, upon the question of re-opening the African slave trade is shown by the vote on the resolution introduced into the House by South Carolina on December 15th, 1856. "Resolved, that it is inexpedient, unwise and contrary to the settled policy of these United States, to repeal the laws prohibiting the African slave trade." This resolution was adopted by a vote of 183 to 8 and those voting against it explaining that "no proposition looking to the opening of the slave trade having been presented was out of place." In 1856, the Anti-Slavery Party had made great progress and came near to electing their candidate for President. It was also hoped that the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case, would put an end to the political agitation, but the decision was adverse to the theories of the abolitionists and added fuel to the flames. The Supreme Court and the venerable Chief Justice became objects of venomous abuse as a result. Moderation and reason seemed annihilated in the bitterness of feeling (sort of sounds like the DemonCats now adage, doesn't it?). The ablest minds of the North were trying to construct arguments to justify the compelling policy of ending slavery. Floods of anti-slavery literature poured out of the north and was passed to impressionable youth, the pulpit, the lecture halls, and the press. Each took it up and echoed it with appeals.

While many people in the north were acting solely on the belief that slavery was wrong and should be abolished, it was not until the question became one of national and political importance that the party opposed to the one in power used it as a means to secure control of the government. Like all other questions that become political, misrepresentation of the grossest character were made in order to attain political ends (sounds like the DemonCats again, doesn't it?). The southern people were greatly incensed by the misrepresentations over their cruelty and immorality, and believed the object of these was to arouse sentiment leading by an attempt by the North through the national government to interfere with the rights of self-government guaranteed by the Constitution and to deprive them of their property (slaves). The feelings of resentment naturally followed and widened daily, weekly and yearly, until it became apparent that only the ceasing of the agitation could prevent the complete separation of the two factions and lead to civil war. From the moment John Brown began his raid in Virginia, the south saw the necessity of preparing to protect its rights and property, within the Union if possible, out of it if necessary.

These were the conditions in 1860, when the Anti-Slavery Party or Republican Party (funny how the Republicans never get credit for this, especially when the party was formed from the Anti-Slavery movement), elected its candidate not on the strength in the north, but on the division among the Democrats. By the election of Lincoln, the south came away with an understanding that the Constitution was to be disregarded and slavery destroyed, leading to their financial ruin and the annihilation of the south. Wendell Phillips said, "the state of things is just what we have attempted to bring about... the Republican party is a party of the north pledged against the south." (Now, I'd call the Republican party the party of the sensible pledged against the party with a mental disorder.) And the southern people turned to the only remedy remaining to them after the 75 years of the Union when they believed was legal and proper for the denial of rights by the national government, namely, secession.

Lincoln was not an extremist, but not as conciliatory as Douglas or Bell. He regarded slavery as an instrument of man's selfishness, but he recognized the constitution right of the south to maintain the institution. Although, before the presidential campaign, he had protested the extension of slavery into the territories, Lincoln opposed radical measures advocated by the abolitionists, and saw some hope for the ultimate extinction of slavery in the natural course of human affairs. The south, however, listened primarily to his more radical comments, which held slavery to be "a moral, a social, and a political wrong," and trusted neither him nor his party. When he was elected, seven States of the lower south from South Carolina to Texas, seceded and formed a separate confederacy.

As the various States seceded, they took possession of the federal property within their boundaries. But they did not have the strength to seize certain offshore forts, notably Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charlestown, South Carolina, and Fort Pikens, in the harbor of Pensacola, Florida. South Carolina sent emissaries to Washington to ask for the surrender of Fort Sumter, which was garrisoned by a small force under Major Robert Anderson Bucahanan. Major Anderson repeatedly refused to yield the fort while fearing he might provoke a clash. In January 1861, he decided to reinforce it. By his direction, an unarmed merchant ship, the Star of the West, proceeded to the Fort with troops and supplies. When the vessel attempted to enter the harbor, it encountered fire from shore batteries and turned back.

When Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4th, 1861, he dispatched a naval relief expedition to the Fort. He notified the South Carolina authorities who notified the Confederate authorities, that ships were on the way to bring supplies but not to land troops or munitions unless resistance was offered. This move placed the Confederate government in a dilemma. If they permitted the expedition to land, they would be bowing tamely to Federal authority. Their people might not believe that they meant to sustain secession. But if they fired on the ships or the Fort, they would make themselves appear as the aggressors. After hours of discussion, the Confederate government in Montgomery, Alabama, order General P.G.T. Beauregard, in charge of Confederate forces at Charlestown, to demand surrender, and if the demand was refused, to reduce the Fort. Beauregard made the demand, Anderson rejected it. The Fort was bombarded for two days on April 12th and 13th, 1861. On April 14th, Anderson surrendered.

War had come. Lincoln moved to increase the army and called on the States to furnish troops to restore the union. Now, four more slave States seceded and joined the Confederacy.

The American war of the 1860's was not a Civil War in the usual sense. The contestants were not fighting for control of the government, but over the attempt of the south to become a separate nation. The term Civil War does not take into sufficient account the Confederate States of America being an organized, responsible government, possessed of the attributes of sovernty.

The importance of the Civil War in the stream of American History is immense. This conflict settled once and for all the questions of secession and slavery. It won for the nation and its form of government increased prestige abroad. It gave a tremendous impetus to nationalism, industrialism, consolidation, and urbanization. It also enhanced the predominance of the North and East in numbers, wealth, and power while plunging the South into greater depths of economic and political subservience. The war further provided a rich and enduring theme for history, literature, folklore, and drama. Yet it failed to resolve many old issues and created countless new ones. From the advantages gained by big business during the war and reconstruction periods were to arise many of the domestic problems that beset the nation for decades to come. It did not secure for the negro, the full participation in a free society. And it left a legacy of hatred between victor and vanquished.

Agent Orange

During the Vietnam War, we used Agent Orange as a defoliant of jungle areas to make it easier for us to identify opposing troop movements. Turns out, Agent Orange primarily consists of dioxin. A strong carcinogen probably worse than DDT in its capacity for long term damage to mammals including man. Dioxin does not break down in the environment but is a bioaccumulator. It accumulates up the food chain and increases in concentration as it travels. Much like mercury or PCB's.

Well, since the vietnamese killed so many of their own following the 1975 fall, they now have decided all their birth defects and other health issues are associated only with dioxin. Well, it can't possibly be poor water quality, contaminated water, malaria, poor diet, etc. It must therefore be 100% attributable to the dioxin in their environment left over from the war. Well, dioxin is a bad actor, but is it solely responsible? Doubtful.

You've got to evaluate the whole picture. Perchlorates in the water is bad. Hydrocarbons in the water is bad. There is probably alot of both left over from the war and was used by all sides in the war. Both can have similar effects as dioxin. But hydrocarbons and perchlorates do not bioaccumulate. Even though I don't like admitting it, but the dioxins are probably a big reason for the healthcare crisis in Vietnam. Should we pay for it? No way. It was a war.

How to get Bin Laden.

I've been thinking. We can't seem to pry him out of the tribal border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so what should we be doing?

Well, from a military standpoint, here is my suggestion for what it is worth. Our special forces need to keep the main choke points between the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan under continual surveillance. Check points at every border crossing needs continual monitoring so there would be nowhere for his messangers to cross without taking the backroads that our special forces would be monitoring. Even if it takes 2 more years.

Find Mullah Omar and you will find clues to Bin Laden. He's hiding in Afghanistan. He would not dare leave because it would admit defeat for his cause. Can't kill him. Turn him over to the new Afghan government for trial for all those beheadings they had there before 9/11 and destroying those rare budist rock carvings. Anything he has in his possession pointing toward outside assistance has to be coming from OBL. Where else might it come from?

The tribal areas in Pakistan need continued Pakistan Army intrusions. Our helicopters and their troops to isolate specific tribal areas, surround, and search foot by foot. Pay the tribes off to give us individual in their midst. How can a tribal leader turn down a million bucks for a village made of mud bricks? Gradually, root out the couriers and safe houses. If the tribes don'e cooperate... well, that is likely. Then more persuasive means must be found. Confiscate all their weapons and leave the army there for a few weeks. Destroy their opium crops, but pay them for other cash crops. If that does not work, then, pull out the army and leave them without weapons and go to the next village. Someone in those villages knows something and will give us hints. That is all we need.

His SUV. How many times have I heard that he travels in a convoy of black SUV's. How many black SUV's are there in the tribal areas? We must have cataloged all of them by now by air. Sneak in and put lojack on each in the dark of night with a listening device and a satellite relay nearby. Eliminate each one systematically. Maybe there are 40 or 50 in that area. But we could target the most likely first. You get every position of each exactly and you can listen to what is said inside of each. They can't be guarding their wheels nearly as tightly as they are guarding OBL.

Spies. So how can we put boots on the ground in these tribal areas? It has to be someone that would not normally be suspected. What boots on the ground might pass scrutiny? How about legless criples that are nothing more than beggars? I'm sure we've found a few in Afghanistan that had their family killed by the Taliban that has nothing left in their life to look forward to than payback. Send them to some of the chokepoint villages with instructions to hunt out the foreigners or Arabs in their midst. Tell them to be in a certain part of the village as a signal during certain times of the day. We can watch with out overhead assets and determine if there is something to be found in each village and systematically work our way northeast through the tribal areas. He does not have to know much other than what he to look for and how to signal our assets. Might work. They'd be beyond scrutiny. Now I'm getting nutty.

Electronic tools. OBL has been using cassette tapes for awhile. I don't think he wants anyone to guess on where he might be by the background or trees or hillsides, etc. Lets sell a series of digital video recorders in the tribal areas. Sell maybe 40-50 or so. Tell the villagers they fell off a truck. Each has a code that tells us where it is located at all times that can be found on the videos that are released. We've got to be able to build something this simple. It sounds James Bondish, but I'll bet we could do it. One of those digital video players will definitely be obtained somewhere for OBL and end up making his next video. How could it not?

Check out that valley on the last video he shot outside. We have this cruise missle mapping software that can look at the shape of a valley or mountains and know exactly where it is. This was from before global positioning. We should be able to match that background where he is climbing down through the boulder field and trees to a position on a map. Then we go in and interview the locals. They must know the direction OBL came from before arriving and the direction he left when departing. Narrows things down a bit.

So what is Hillary up to?

They say Hillary is going to the center. Trying to appeal to conservative middle. She is talking about how religious beliefs are a good thing (especially when it might make some Christian Conservatives get confused about what she has proclaimed the last 15 years).

She is not taking any controversial stands on anything. She lets Senator Mr. Ed Kennedy say it all for her. If she gets caught voting the wrong way or debating the wrong issue, then she could have that used against her in the next presidential primary. Can't let that happen now can we Hillary?

This family cannot seem to stay out of the news. Now former President Clinton is getting another operation yielding a two or three day period of a news cycle.

And what is this about Clinton and Bush doing the Tsunami thing together. Is Clinton getting the inside scoop on Jeb's possible run in 2008? Or is elder Bush getting the scoop on the Clinton strategy for Hillary?

We can't let this party win another seat until all this animosity is put to rest. I can't watch the news anymore due to all the liberal rhetoric. I don't hear much of that coming from the right side of the aisle... but the left side is burning my ears.