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cindy17838

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Posts posted by cindy17838

  1. (a little above 45 million last time I read).

    What good points? Bush cares nothing about old people or the physically handicapped. In private, he has admitted he wants to burn them for heat during the winter. Right, don't be a moron. Number One, it is not the governments job to provide health care for people. Number Two, out of the 45 million you mentioned, the're are many young people who do not feel the need to have insurance. And Number Three, you are lame and I don't wish to talk to you anymore.

  2. David Gilmour has the less harsh sounding voice, "Us and Them" is a good example. What they lost when Waters left was his composing, which might explain why Momentary Lapse of Reason was the last CD I bought by them. It's a great CD even if Waters isn't on it. Like many of their albums the whole thing is good not just a song or two.

  3. I couldn't think of a better candidate, could you? And that's sad to say about the democratic party. I wouldn't vote for Guiliani (unless Shrillary ran for prez, then anything goes!), but if McCain ran again, what could the dems muster to counter him?

    Oh wow, a political thread on my first night back to Songfacts after my trip and new boyfriend, how fun. There were better guy, Kirk, Frost, Richardson but the Dems chose to ignore the moderates, as usual, and went for the extreme left, again, as usual. Now some will say that Dean's only extreme position is on the war but who cares, perception is everything and people think of him as a northeast liberal and they don't do very well in national elections, Teddy, Michael D, and Kerry the moron. I saw a man yesterday that looked just like John Kerry and I almost started to run him over with my car, but that wouldn't have been very nice.

    The problem with the Dems is that they have lost touch with average people. I wrote an op-ed piece on what is wrong with the Democrats back during the campaign. Some of the points might seem superficial but they do point to part of the problem that the Dems have had. They once stood for things, now they only stand against them. There are many other problems than the ones I mentioned in the piece. I posted it in the Creative Writing section , although it might not receive the most favorable reviews. McCain, Rudy, Arnold, if they amend the constitution, will beat anyone the Dems have to offer. Hillary is extremely popular with about 40% of the country, problem is the other 60% would like to see her burned at the stake for the communist witch she is. "We will take things away from you on behalf of the common good." HC in San Francisco, June '04 In that last sentence if you change things to land her Marxist agenda is clearly shown.

    The one hope for the Democratic Party is the Republican core. Now that the Reps have control of every branch of government, including the statehouses, the core will want many of it's right wing ideas to get passed. Reagan Democrats and moderate Republicans will never pass some of the ideas of the far right, closed boarders, no abortions ever, no welfare, prayer in schools, national language, things like that. So they will get discouraged and possibly not vote. They will never be called Clinton or Kerry Republicans like the Democrats were in the 80's with Reagan but they will stop voting and allow the Dems to regain some of their former positions.

    The biggest problem for the Dems is the idea that it's the government's responsibility to solve people's problems. Republicans care about people also only they feel that people can care about people better than the government. One example would be Bush's faith-based initiatives. Where would you rather have your child spending time after school, a welfare office or a Baptist church? When I was young I spent a lot of time playing tennis, earlier in life I went to the Methodist church where they had video games. There was no 'indoctrination of the youth' as some liberals talk about, it was just a safe environment where kids could hang out after school. It didn't make me avoid drugs (I still smoke pot) or do better at school but it was a place where I could meet up with my friends after school to have a good time. There are many other examples of this type of thing with the main point being that the private sector is much more able to solve public problems than the public (government). Dems need to take this point to heart.

    And finally, on the question of Social Security, and to sound like I know what I'm talking about, the Washington Post recently posted a short paragraph I wrote on privatization that might make things clearer about that issue; it reads:

    ------------------------------------------------

    The proposed privatization of Social Security comes down to one issue, the rate of return on the money that is paid into the system. Currently the trust fund earns a 2% return; under the Bush plan that would allow for stock market investments the rate of return would be 8%, the historic ROR of the S&P 500 since 1910. While this seems like a small difference, when considered over the lifetime of a worker the results are staggering. Take the extreme example of a worker making only 20k a year for 45 years (ages 20-65). Under the current plan that worker would have accumulated close to $150,000 by age 65. Under the Bush plan of privatization that same worker would have a retirement account worth over $800,000. Clearly Bush?s plan works better. The real beauty of the plan is the money that is left over can be left to family members once the beneficiary dies. Under the current system the family is only left a ?death benefit? of around $300 dollars to cover burial expenses. Bush?s plan would allow for even the poorest workers to leave a large nest egg to their families. This would provide money for children to buy homes, for grandchildren to go to college and would actually decrease the wealth gap that exists in this country rather than increase it as the Democrats have warned. While very few people will work their entire lives for only $20,000 dollars a year the example makes it clear that not only is privatization the only way to save Social Security, but it is also the best way to help the working poor move into a more financially stable position in life with a secure retirement and an inheritance to pass along to their children.

  4. This is an op-ed piece I wrote last September about what was wrong with the Democratic party. I posted it for a reference from another thread about Howard Dean as new DNC chairman. The points are still true even if it sounds dated.

    ------------------------------------------------------

    Honesty, leadership, and the ability to handle a crisis; three very important qualities for a president, yet the current Democratic Party leadership has none of these. Well its time to put them all in the ground. R.I.P. DNC, you won?t ever get another guy in the White House with the group that makes up your core. The last time all three of these qualities were found in the same Democratic president was in 1952 and his name was Harry Truman, who is probably turning over in his grave at this very moment thinking about what his party has become. But the party of Truman doesn?t have to die, however it definitely has to change. An examination of what went wrong could be a good place to start.

    Working forward from Truman we find Kennedy, a man who at least possessed two of the three qualities that are definitely needed for the job of Commander in Chief. Leadership, lots of it, and his ability to handle a crisis was one in a million. Nuclear missiles were steaming their way to Cuba and he still had the country convinced they were living in Camelot. Now that is some serious crisis handling. Unfortunately honesty and even worse loyalty were in short supply. The threesomes and Marilyn were nice touches but he turned on the people who got him elected by unleashing his brother Bobby on the Chicago Italians. Bad form, they even helped by getting dead people to vote and he put them in jail.

    The last socialist president, LBJ, certainly made a mark. Despite the fact that we were a country founded on Adam Smith and not Karl Marx, he forged ahead with his Great Society programs while micro-managing a war 12,000 miles away. He provided wonderful leadership, and his devotion to the founding father?s economic policies was simply amazing, or maybe it wasn?t. However, even though he did saddle us with huge entitlement debt problems, in doing so he provided the current party with their only base of core voters with the quid pro quo notion of buying votes through government handouts.

    Jimmy Carter was possibly the most honest man ever to live in the White House. He was honest to a fault, however the crisis handling part could have used some work. Retreating to the Rose Garden during the Iran Hostage Crisis like a child hiding under the bed from the monsters in his room might not have been the best idea. He was a very decent and good man who just had leadership difficulties at the federal level.

    Mondale? What did he win, one state? Wow, and Dukakis, he couldn?t even tell Susan Estrich ?NO? when she told him to get in that tank. At least he would have submitted willingly to the Democratically controlled congress when they threatened to shut down the government if he didn?t raise taxes.

    And now to Bill Clinton or Slick Willie as some know him for his ability to handle a crisis. Unfortunately every crisis he had to handle was of his own making. We can also say he was possibly truthfully challenged. The voters obviously recognized and excused his handicap but were so afraid of what he might do, they voted out all his buddies in Congress. His true legacy is that he came into office holding a majority of the statehouses and both houses of congress. He left with Republican majorities in each of those bodies, but at least he took some of the White House furniture with him as a parting gift. The White House is not a Howard Johnson?s and the robes might be free but the furniture isn?t.

    Finally we get to Al Gore and his flop sweat. Guess he heard that antiperspirant could pose environmental hazards and so he chose not to use it. His commitment to the environment was admirable but might have been a little mistimed. It?s simply not a good look. Also, how many times were they supposed to recount the votes? I know, until he got the result he wanted. But the sheer hypocrisy of Gore calling the election ?stolen? boggles my mind. The recounts had to stop at some point and it was the same Supreme Court that stopped the recounts that gave the Democrats their one single collective issue, abortion. Roe v. Wade, good; Florida recount, bad. The whole party sounded like those sheep in Orwell?s book.

    So we come to 2004, George W. Bush is leading comfortably in the polls, and even fellow Democrats are telling John Kerry to get off that stupid windsurfer. And what are the new JFK?s qualifications. First we can look at the honesty question. ?I voted for the 87 billion right before I voted against it.? Oops he?s a liar, or truthfully challenged like BC because it?s impossible to vote for the same thing twice and in opposite ways. But unlike Slick Willie he doesn?t have the ability to look cute and discuss the meaning of the word ?is?. Or possibly he is just very, very confused. Second, on the leadership question, hmm, 20 years in Congress and not one piece of meaningful legislation with his name on it. So what was he leading, the gentleman caller parade to rich Republican?s widow?s houses?

    Lastly, on his ability to handle a crisis, which makes even Michael Moore laugh at him and call him a terrible candidate. Some Vietnam veterans were upset with his testimony when he got back from the war. First he ignored them and hoped they would just go away. Then he started telling Bush to make them stop the attacks, proving even John Kerry needs the help of George Bush in a crisis. By the way, Bush could not ask them to stop without violating the same laws that set up the 527s in the first place. That didn?t work so he turned to his Republican friends from the Senate who told him that he did sort of bring up the issue. And finally the last ditch effort of the undelivered letter to Bush at his ranch in Crawford. Now the Swift Vets are Americans who might have only wanted an apology, but John Forbes Kerry cried to everyone he knew about it and then went on vacation to the Grand Canyon. Americans want a strong leader who can handle a crisis. Real terrorists want to kill us; these Vets only wanted an apology. After a real crisis we might find Kerry curled up in the fetal position asking Teresa to make the mean men go away.

    The American people want a leader who actually does things and has ideas. Ronald Reagan instantly comes to mind. There is a reason that so many Democrats converted to Republicans during his years. Geraldo Rivera was once asked if Bill Clinton ever made him proud to be an American. He had to stop and think of a time and it took him a while. Simply writing Reagan?s name makes me proud. He took two seemingly unsolvable problems, stagflation, which was the combination of high unemployment and high inflation, and the Communist threat of global nuclear war, and solved both. His solutions were considered radical at the time. Attack the economic problems from the supply side by eliminating punitive tax rates, which would stimulate new investment, give people more money to spend, and create new jobs to produce all the new products that were being bought by the people who now had all this new disposable income. Critics called it ?trickle down? economics, but no one calls it that today. Then the Communist threat of global nuclear war was solved in much the same way. Until Reagan, the Soviets had been considered evil people who we hated but had to be nice to. He saw the Soviets as just people who happened to live in an evil empire. He stopped being nice to them with the same appeasement policies Chamberlain had used with Hitler. However, he extended the hand of friendship to Mr. Gorbachev while telling him sternly to ?tear down this wall.? Then several years later we all saw something that seemed impossible only a few years earlier as the Berlin residents literally ?tore down that wall,? and Gorbachev, his supposed enemy, spoke of his longtime friend at his funeral earlier this year. That is a great man, that is a leader, that is a real legacy, and that is something we can all be proud of when we call ourselves Americans.

    So what to do first. Kerry is no Reagan, not even a Clinton or Gore, and this election is lost. The smear and hate campaigns of the Clinton years only worked because he came across as a halfway likable Bubba figure. They won?t work with Kerry, so just give up on 2004, its not going to happen; New Jersey is now a swing state. Second, realize that politics is about leadership and service to your country. Politics should not be about power and finding a cushy job to hold because making speeches is more fun than working in an office. Start supporting candidates who want to serve, not just win and then hang out, honest leaders with integrity. Kennedy gave the impression that honesty didn?t matter. LBJ gave the impression that votes could be bought through government handouts, and Carter gave the impression that ineffectuality can be made into an art form. Finally, Clinton showed that nothing really matters but winning then governing by opinion polls so you can win again. So forget these lessons from the past and run someone who actually stands for something. Right now Joe Lieberman is the first Democrat who comes to mind. He?s the Democratic equivalent of John McCain, every Republican?s favorite and most respected Democrat. He possesses honesty, integrity, and loves the American people and can?t conceive of hating them.

    Now, it has been shown how the Socialist policies of LBJ have not only failed but have made things worse for the people they were supposed to help. So stop promising to give away money, disguised as caring, just to buy votes. Americans as a whole have a wonderful work ethic. They believe they don?t really need special advantages to compete with other countries for jobs, and they don?t want to be told that they do. It?s insulting to people so stop it. Most Americans still believe they live in the best country in the world and hating that country offends people and relying on, and actually hoping for, bad conditions to win elections personally makes me sick.

    Finally, a little patience and common sense need to be brought into things. From Reagan?s election in 1980 it took twenty years for the Democratic Party to totally lose every branch of government. This will take time, so be patient. Reagan worked with a lot of Democrats to get his policies to work and Democrats will have to work with a lot of Republicans. Just like the Soviet people were not evil, neither are Republicans so when things come up like a terrorist attack or the collapse of a tech bubble, which had made millionaires out of secretaries, don?t start screaming about a job deficit. Things happen and it?s more important to use rational thinking and common sense to work together for solutions than to simply criticize the other side. Only by doing these things do I see any way for the Democratic Party to avoid a quick change to third party status and only in this way will they be able to bring back the party of Truman, FDR, even Kennedy, and Carter. It was once a proud party; let it be one again.

  5. it's the only way I can be friends with girls that I'm attracted to. They're not necessarily "good friends" per se since I have to pretend to laugh at their jokes, listen to their travails, and all that biz.I'll hang out with my usual friends for beer, bum their sleaze movies, tell lewd, sexist and racist jokes, work out, and do all the guy crap girls don't wanna bother with.

    I hope you are making a joke, otherwize you sound really pathetic. Hint, girls like beer too and even sleazy movies. The racist stuff is bad for anyone, what's wrong with you that you would even want to tell a racist joke?

  6. how old are you? 34

    left or right handed? right

    zodiac sign? Pisces

    Flavor of ice cream? Chocolate mint chip

    been on an airplane? yes

    Like Neil Diamond? please

    Black or blue ink? black

    right or left side of the bed? right

    How tall are you? 5'6"

    like cheese? Never on burgers but on pizzas, yes

    Why songfacts name? my name and auto-generated number

    worst subject? Literature, I hate Poe

    Favorite book? Confederacy of Dunces

    What's you favorite vacation, camping, travel, beach, sit around the house etc? used to be skiing but I live in the mountains now, so the beach

    What do you do when you're sad? ride my bike a long way

    Whom do you aspire to be like? Maria Sharapova

    Are you ticklish? horribly, my family used to torture me as a child. Just because someone is laughing doesn't mean they are enjoying it.

    Are you a good dancer? when I'm drunk

    What´s your favorite drug? weed

    What do you drive? Jeep Cherokee

    Coke or Pepsi? Coke

    Are you more like your mother or your father? Dad

    Do the cops have your mug shot on file? No

    Any unusual scars or interesting birthmarks? left eye, I fell down stairs

    Ever modelled? yes, little kids clothes for Sanger Harris, bought out by Foleys

    Can you sing? Yes, but only in the car or shower

    Favorite Pink Floyd song? "Us and Them"

    Favourite Beatle? George, R.I.P. wrote, "Within, Without you" my favorite Beatles song

    Favourite song of all time? Spirit of Radio, Rush

    Do you have any pets? one dog, named Fred, see my avatar

    Least Favourite band? New Kids on the Block because they started the boy-band thing

    Favorite band of all time? Rush

    Do you speak another language? no

    Every have a serious injury? yes, several, breaking my nose was the worst because you don't get sympathy you just get laughed at for the stupid looking bandages

    Vegetarian? if it tastes good then eat it, any questions

    On average, how much time do you spend on Songfacts per day? less than one hour but that's because I don't spend as much time on the computer as I used to

    Do looks matter? yes, they shouldn't but they do. Size matters too

    How old were you when you had your first real kiss? fourth grade at the roller skating rink

    Most altruistic moment last year? (I worked six days of hurricane relief in Florida last fall)

  7. My first thought was that someone scored a Big-8 and they figured they could get back together at least for one weekend. The funny thing about the band is they are great in concert. I've seen them five times and the last two times I've actually bought tickets, the others I was invited to. They only have two songs I can tolerate on the radio or stereo, "Dr. Feelgood" and "Wild Side" but live I seem to like all their songs even "Shout at the Devil", a song I hated in junior high. Their videos are also good or maybe that's Tommy going solo with that blonde woman. :angel: Everything over six is a bonus to be thankful for, right?

  8. Who cares, really?

    It was just funny and since I was watching the game and since it was sort of music and sort of news I thought I would post it. I'm not a fan, don't get any ideas. I also saw an opportunity to speak badly about Brittney and I couldn't pass that up.

  9. Alex Lifeson... TWICE!!!

    Stevie Ray Vaughan.

    Lifeson, many times, Stevie only once at Austin Auquafest, 1987.

    All time favorite would be Eric Johnson several times

    Angus Young was great at one of my first concerts. I rushed the stage and was leaning over the barricade for ACDC's whole set

    Eddie Van Halen is right up there with Johnson but for different reasons

    If you have seen the movie, "High Fidelity", those are my top five.

  10. There used to be a guy who posted named Jayson who mentioned WinMX. I had used Kazza before and wasn't pleased compared to my old experiences with the original Napster. WinMX is better than all of them. Check it out, it's all free and there is no spyware or seach more stuff going on. I have found songs that probably need to be forgotten on it. ::

  11. Ashley Simpson got booed at the Orange Bowl Halftime Show. This was probably due to the lip-syncing incident on SNL. However, doesn't everyone lip-sync on Saturday Night Live? No big deal, but Brittney was caught lip-syncing and no one cared. Ashley is at least from Texas so she has one positive thing going for her, Brittney has none.

  12. Thats what I think! People say "you can fit ipods in your pocket." Is it that hard to hold a walkman in your hands?

    My MP3 player fits in my pocket and all the songs were free. I used my old one when I was on my way to work; my new one I use when I'm skiing. ::

  13. The thing I'm sort of greatful for now that things were so bad at home when I was a teenager I wasn't too concerned with the goings on at school. It is a very difficult time and if I had it to do over with I would have quit school when I was 16, gotten my GED, enrolled in the community college, taught tennis and gotten out of my parent's house. My last two years of HS did nothing but teach me to drink every day and cover up bruises with make-up. They call it "the best years of your life" but I'd guess less than five percent of people would actually agree with that.

    The biggest problem is that you think no one else experiences the same things as you do causing you to feel totally alone much of the time. Not true at all but it is bad at the time.

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