timesjoke

You might be on to something Joe. There was really very little real quotes from the General, all of the really harsh sounding stuff came from other staff in reaction to what they thought was happening. If you actually read the entire article, you see that McCrystal was very careful to not openly say anything specific against anyone. A great General would know how to possition himself for a relatively "safe" exit if he really knew he could not win the objective with the resources at hand. Interesting idea Joe, I did not consider that possibility.

lol, as usual more excuses for helping Obama get elected, but it is people like you and IWS who made it possible for Obama to win, you badmouth the only guy who can beat Obama and later complain when your badmouthing helped Obama beat McCain. Lie all you want hugo, McCain and Palin would never have passed this kind of stuff, the problem with your desire to only vote for what "you see" as perfection is that you don't understand that perfection is impossible and while your sitting on your hands waiting for the impossible to show up, a lot of damage is caused..........Then you guys have the balls to complain about what Obama has done? You two made it happen, IWS did not even vote, my father always said those too cowardly to vote don't have a right to complain. But go ahead, complain till your face turns blue, I am sure that brings you comfort even thoiugh you are part of the reason all of this has happened in the first place.

No he did say what Obama told him: We have to consider who here has the biggest reason to lie and why. Obviously looking at the ground on the border we can see ourselves that there is no action by the administration to secure the border, we also know that this is a huge problem and the job fo the Federal Government to secure that border. We also know that Obama has directed the Justice department to find a way to sue Arizona because Obama does not like their actions to try and deal with this problem while Obama resists doing anything substancial to stop the problem so here we have fact after fact proving that Obama does not want to secure the border so using this fact, why? Why would he "hold back"? Combine that obvious question with this comment from Kyl and suddenly it all makes sense that Obama wants to use securing the border as a political barganing chip to get amnesty passed for the existing illegals. Looking at it from the other direction does not make sense, if Obama wanted to secure the border it would already be secured, he has the power, as Kyl pointed out there are already approved measures (like the fence) that can easily be put into effect without new legislation but Obama resists........

Because like Kyl said, they all know that once the border is secured the libs know they will not get the Republicans to agree to any form of reform that offers some form of amnesty, amnesty is their goal, and anything else, including the safety of the American people is secondary. I was reading a story yesterday about how several millions of dollars of funding for the INS actually gets redirected to environmental programs, supposedly patrolling the border causes "HARM" to the area and millions of dollars must be spent to 'off set' that harm to the environment.

Nothing I could add would describe it any better, good job IWS.

Of course it is unconstitutional, but I am sure a lot of veiled threats of criminal and personal civil litigation were tossed around to get BP to agree with it, if the victim agrees to wave their constitutional rights, then there is no violation. The damage done by this administration so far is exactly why I pointed out the harms of splintering the vote on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Obama was elected because conservative minded people were stuck on the idea of what they called principle and withdrew their support from the only conservative who could have beaten Obama. But that is history, we can't change that mistake but we can learn from it, maybe we can learn from it, but we know for a fact that everything happening now was made possible by the splintering, I hope we don't keep making that mistake because if we do, what Obama is doing now will be considered nothing in comparison with what we will see down the road.

I like this part: "Continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. So if the deep water drilling may not be safe, why not release the ban on the shallow drilling they would rather do? Safer. cheaper, creats jobs, and ensures a better supply of oil for all Americans, but liberals don't want that for some reason..........

You're close. If you go one or two steps back, you would find somewhere, somehow, a woman is at fault. In the modern era sometimes it is a gay male. Would that be the gay male playing the male role or the gay male playing the female role?

You kno Wez, that was a pretty good post and not so nasty so I will comment. Sure, the "Utopia" idea seems good in theory where we all just get what we "need" and everyone shares equally but the problem is, life is not a math equasion where everyone divides evenly on all levels of work/reward. Some people work harder than other people, some people put more energy into their education than other people (notice I did not say smarter, my possition is we almost all have the same potential to learn, just some choose not to) and use their education to better benefit them. I have a question for you Wez, if all humans got whatever they wanted without working, would they work anyway? In other words, if you got free electricity, free food, free television, free internet and there was no requirement to ever lift your finger to survive, would you go out and work just as hard as if you had to earn your living? I doubt many would work even close to the same degree so there is your measiring stick and why some people get more than other people, they "earn" it Wez. That is the biggest flaw in your point, you ignore the fact that some people are lazy, and even those who are not lazy still have some who are more energetic and outgoing than other people and will still make more money and be more successful. This concept works on all levels, not just business Wez, consider a basketball player like Jordan, he practiced playing his game almost constantly, from a young child to a young adult almost all of his spare time was spent working on his skills in the game, and as a result, he became one of the richest men in America, not because he took his success from someone else but because he earned it with more hard work than the next guy. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. ~ Michael Jordan Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. ~ Abraham Lincoln

People like you label me and everyone else a racist for one reason, to block an honest discussion based on the facts. Look at what you just did, I never said all Hispanics are leeches, you just lied Chi, those are your words inserted into my mouth so you can then have an excuse to claim I am a racist. I also never said whites were not on welfare, only you are talking about race, my possition has nothing to do with race, I am talking about illegal immigrants, why is it you can't talk about that group? Greed? Are not the illegals taking what they did not earn? Do they 'deserve' to take a better life by force? At least the actions done by the businessman is supporting the American system and he pays taxes to help pay for the services like schools that the illegals are taking by force. The illegal is nothing more than a thief.

I would not care as much if "you hispanics" would just support yourselves in the process and not leech your existence off the American taxpayer. At least when us Europeans took over this land we supported ourselves during the process.

Very funny eddo.

So all white people are decendents of Europeans and are entitled to a "free ride" with free money and housing without earning it because someone in our heritage was most likely from Europe? This has nothing to do with any one specific race, it is about the fact that we are out of money and it would not matter if the Mexicans were replaced with white Canadians who were invading America, I would still be against it. I have been all for a guest workers program where if someone from another Nation has a job lined up and can take care of themselves I woiuld gladly welcome them into America and accept their fair share of taxes. My problem is not about race, it is about taxpayer money being spent on those who cannot support themselves, it is about the crime they cause, and it is about the drugs they smuggle into America and the harms those drugs cause.

And everyone also had to take care of themselves, work hard and many died not being able to adjust ot the new requirements for survival, the illegals are leeching off taxpayers to provide for their survival, a completely different situation. My biggest problem with illegal immigration is how much it costs the taxpayer, look at how broke California is and a large part of that problem is how much they spend to support illegals. UN-CHRISTIAN? You obviously have no concept of what is or is not a Christian. What do you think, I have to turn a blind eye to an invasion that is bankrupting the Nation just to be seen as a Christian in your eyes? Facts are facts no matter if they are negative or positive and the facts are clear that America is already broke, we are out of money and cannot afford to play "social justice" to the world. I don't care what color their skin is or what religion they follow, or what language they speak, all of that is irrelivent to the fact that we can no longer afford to support 30 million illegals on the backs of the taxpayers. Your the bigot Anna, your so stuck on what you feel is "right" that you strike out at those who do not conform to your views, you make nasty accusations and call people names because you can't accept their right to have independent thought outside of your belief structure. I dissagree with people all the time, but I don't go to the extremes of hate like you and a couple other people here do Anna. I guess the real difference between us is I respect your right to your opinions even if I don't agree with them, you have never afforded me the same respect. Out of curiosity I just took a fast look at some info about illegals in Australia and was pretty surprised at how many people there don't even want the Government to use the term "illegal immigrants", it seems the correct term is supposed to be "unauthorised arrivals". So a huge stom of arguements are happening in that Country over what is estimated to be about 30,000 illegals and how much they are taking away from legal residents but Anna feels America should ignore 30 MILLION illegals? I have to laugh at that, by the way Anna, you do know that your also an invader of Australia right? Why not go back to where you came from if you think that the current owners of a Country have no right to defend their current borders?

I'd like to see some facts, scientific or fact based evidence of these claims. I think this is another opinion trying to be passed off as fact. Well it is based on my memory but I will see if I can find the study I am talking about. The point of the study was even with one illegal working, there are dependents like a wife and a couple kids who are not working, combine that with on average they are not working every day but are usually following seasonal work from place to place and while ready to work, can't work because the time is not right. I believe it is reasonable to believe that especially in this climate that jobs are harder to find, not easier and that would make the issues for illegals to work harder as well. Consider that even the San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu was asking for illegals to have the right to vote for school board elections because he says 1 in 3 parents of school age children are illegal immigrants. Even if the children are born in America while the parents are illegal, they still represent a massive burdon on the taxpayer to pay for things like their education and welfare programs while their parents are not contributing to the tax pool.

Great point Hugo. Most people forget that the individuals getting the loans were just as responsible as the banks that were giving them. Property values leaped and everyone was on a high road of making money. And guess who was really happy? Your local tax appraiser who was allowed to double and more the value of existing homes and tax the piss out of people because fo the artificial increase in prices, prices that today nobody wants to lower back down to those prior levels, and guess what, it is again the Government who does not want to let the prices return to normal because they are already spending the money based on those higher land values and letting the values decline to where they "should" be would cripple already hurting governments. Bender, you talk about how social programs are the right thing to do but the problem is not tax cuts or tax increases, you like most people completely miss the real problem and that is out of control spending by our Government represenatives. You could increase taxes to everyone in America to 50% but if the elected officials increase spending to match, your not going to pay down the debts, we can't fix out deficits without getting people in office who are willing to severely cut back spending. Cutting spending most likely would reduce social programs but who ever promised people a "free ride" in life? Compassion and welfare should be operated by family, friends, community and churches, not Governments.

All welfare enables the abuse of the system when it is operated by the Government. The people giving out the "free money" have no personal connection to the money and don't care if there is abuse or not, they are there to do their 8 hours and go home. If we eliminate all welfare by the Government and give back all that wasted tax money to those who earned the money in the first place, you will see more families and communities that can afford to help those who really need help and the bums are forced to go out and work. If a person's own family, church, neighbor, co-workers won't help them, they most likely don't deserve any help.

And the Obama administration is also going after the Arizona law that targets employers for hiring illegals. The vast majority of ilegals are not employed hugo, they are surviving on welfare programs so targeting just employers will not deal with the biggest problem. The illegal must get busted before the three years (or more) can start, right now the feds are not trying to catch even 2% of the total illegals in America so your three year estimate is based on a broken system where the federal government refuses to actually do their job. If the states start feeding new illegals into theur system it will force them to redesign the process to actually handle the kind of volumn of illegals that can make a difference to the problem, right now the INS is losing considerable ground to the illegal problem. Anna, You missed the biggest point that Bob does own his home in the sense that Bob is a tax paying American who is paying for the services (like welfare) that the illegal is living on. The billions of tax dollars President Obama talks about in emergency room care bills is a large degree caused by illegals who get free medical care and the taxpayers have to pay for it. We are all Americans, and us Americans have laws and rules as well as requirements to help pay for the services and care we receive, none of the illegals live under any kind of responsibility to America. No other County in the world allows the kind of open border acceptence of illegals the way America does for Mexicans, not one. No other Country allows illegals to have free welfare and housing the way America does, at least not on this kind of scale. Selfish Anna? America has around 30 million illegals all getting welfare in one form or another, how many illegals does your Country support? It all comes down to the money, we simply cannot afford to pay for these illegals anymore, the money is gone, our communities cannot pay their bills anymore and tax money is spent long before they ever get it in their hands. This has nothign to do with being selfish, this is about hurting our own families to help those who invaded America, broke our laws and are sucking out the life of every community they gather in, raise the crime rates, and are the key element in drug smuggling on that shared border with Mexico.

I believe the "reimbursement required" column is the most important consideration. When America goes out to help in places like Haiti, we pay for the help we provide most of the time, when other people help us they have their hands out. If the majority of this "help" is only an attempt to make money off our problem then I would be careful about accepting "help" too.

Some recent elections where Obama added his support has also shown the same result, lol.

Everyone, even eddo has tried to inform you that illegals still get welfare but your need to believe everyone is racist does not let you accept the truth Chi, I understand your feeling a great deal of connection and even sympathy for people of your race, I also feel bad for these people who are mostly just looking to improve their life but at the same time we have to understand there are limits to everything, we have reached the end of how many illegals we can support, the money is gone and we have to make tough decisions as to who we give priority to, Americans who need help or illegals who need help. I did what any human can do, we shared many interests including our faith, she got depressed, walked away from our faith and walked away from our marriage, sometimes people change, there is no real explanation for it but I do know that she rejected my requests for counseling and time to see if we could repair our marriage and find her a path back to God. She got pregnant by the other man, the other man died and only then did she make a attempt to come back but at that point she had already done irreparable damage to the marriage, without trust there is no basis of marriage. All people make mistakes in life, I made a lot of them in my life and still do. Sharing what we learned from our mistakes is a good thing.

All of that is just a copout chi, you refuse to accept reality so it is easier on your politically correct mind to simply toss out accusations of racism. You did the same thing when you said illegals don't get welfare, you just can't let yourself see the truth, because that truth is not what you want it to be. I don't hate these parents, I don't want them punnished, I would just like to see these so called "adults" plan ahead for the future of their children, is that really too much to ask chi? Then again, if thinking was a part of making babies, we would not have 1.4 million abortions every year now would we chi?

Obviously it is necessary because you guys are pretending like the problem does not exist and calling me a racist just because I am telling the truth that mixed kids can have more problems than non-mixed kids. It is just crazy that even here on a internet forum you guys are more concerned with being politically correct then reality. Consider this: Yes, all kids can have problems, but not this problem, this problem is forced onto the children by their unthinking and uncaring parents. When even the college professors like the one in this example is pressuring the mixed kids to "choose" a race to identify with, obviously this is a bigger issue than your admitting to, as usual. Again, my point is about the pain felt by the children who experience difficulty, I don't care about the parents in the slightest.

I never said "all" children who are mixed will have problems, but the possibility of problems are enough that parents should plan for, and those who don't plan for it, have caused a lot of pain to their children, this is not my opinion, this is supported by almost every study ever done about mixed race children, one example: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/final.paper.pub/_pwfsfp/00000071.htm Abstract The United States is a multicultural society. Social interactions among ethnic groups are getting more common nowadays. As a result, the population of interracial marriages and partnerships have gradually expanded. This paper focus on the identity problems among the biracial children from black/white families as well as conflicts they are facing. In addition, I will provide some suggestions from the counselor's points of view in order to help biracial children to be well-adapted in American society. Paper The United States is a multicultural society. Social interactions among ethnic groups are getting more common nowadays. As a result, the population of interracial marriages and partnerships have gradually expanded. In 1990, the U.S. Bureau of the Census reported that there were at least 900,000 biracial married couples in the United States (Winn & Priest, 1993). These mixed relationships are producing an increasing number of biracial offspring. A biracial child is operationally definded as one whose biological parents are of dissimilar racial groups. For example, the children of parents who are African American and Asian, Cuban and European American, Puerto Rican and Native American (Adler, 1987; Winn & Priest, 1993; Nishimura, 1995; Herring, 1995). The statistics of the 1990 census estimated that the number of children born from the interracial marriages were ranging from 5000,000 to 5,000,000 (Winn & Priest, 1993). In the field of biracial children's research, most of the studies focus on those biracial children who were from African American and European American marriages (Jacobs, 1978; Johnson, 1992; Bowles, 1993; Brown, 1995). The U.S. Census Bureau counted 65,000 black/white interracial marriages in 1970 and 218,000 in 1989. This represents an increase of 300% in less than 20 years (Brown, 1995). I will present a brief overview of the identity problems and the conflicts among biracial in this paper, especially the offspring of black/white couples. Moreover, I will also provide some suggestions from the counselors' points of view in order to help biracial children to be well-adapted in American society. Identity Problems Erik Erikson (As cited in Bowles, 1993, p.11) defined identity as " 'the creation of a sense of sameness, a unity of personality now felt by the individual and recognized by others as having consistency in time-of being, as it were, an irreversible historical fact.'" Bowles (1993) suggests that the individual and communal identities are very important for people to form a mature and healthy personality. However, interracial offspring can be considerably more complicated than that of single-race children (McGoldrick, 1982). For example, the biracial offspring often experience difficulties with gender confusion, self-hatred, alcohol and other drug abuse, suicide, delinquency, alienation, and denial of self, as well as racial self-identity (Benson, 1981). According to McRoy and Freeman (1986), these biracial children also display a high incidence of academic and behavioral problems. What are those factors that influence biracial children in their personal identities? As Bowles (1993) points out, the personal identity is influenced primarily by family relationships. The next influence is from peers as well as societies. Herring (1992) states that "biracial children are particularly vulnerable to differential treatments by their parents and relatives, social rejection by their peers, and ambivalent attention in their schools and communities" (p. 124). Bowles (1993) stresses that families provide the foundation for the biracial children to form their racial identities. However, if the interracial couples have the greater differences between spouses in cultural background, their interactions may negatively affect the ethnic and cultural identity formation of their biracial children (Herring, 1992). Biracial children often experience the identity confusion. Their choice of ethnic identity is related more to societal norms and expectations that are partially transmitted to biracial children by their parents (Bowles, 1993). According to Bowles' (1993) description of his clinical practice, two black women who were married to whites expressed that "being white would make for 'an easier time in the world' for their daughters" (p.420). However, one of their daughters expressed her feeling that "I am always fearful that others will not see me as white and that makes me anxious all the time" (p. 420). Bowles (1993) also points out the following: If a child dis-identifies with a parent, he cannot use that parent as a reflective mirror, telling the child who s/he is. If mirroring is not possible, the child cannot develop and differentiate her "real" self and feels a sense of emptiness, abandonment and alienation. These feelings result because the child disowns part of who s/he is. When the child is confronted by the alienated part of the self, the child experiences toxic shame. The alienated part of the self makes the child feel that s/he never quite belongs: that s/he is always on the outside looking in. (p. 422) According to Bowles (1993), shame affirms one's sense of being worthless and inferior. Therefore, failure to identity with one parent would lead biracial children to have the feelings of shame, emotional isolation and depression (Bowles, 1993). In American society, children of mixed black and white racial heredity are often categorized as black (Bowles, 1993; Brown 1995). Hence, these children of mixed black and white are more likely to see themselves as black in order to resolve their conflicts of racial identity (Brown, 1995). A 23-year-old college senior from the Brown (1995) Interracial Young Adult Interview said: I thought of myself as mixed. It was not a problem for me until someone said, "well how can you consider yourself interracial? You are black!" That was in my "Race Awareness" class. (The professor... was trying to get us to say whether we consider ourselves black or white.) [The professor explained] "You can't be both." "If there was a war, blacks on one side and whites on the other, which side would you go on?" I said: "Probably neither, because I would have to choose between my father and mother, and I don't have a favorite." But since I could not answer, he was yelling at me, 'People see you as black.' "That is just describing my color," [the participant responded] "but if I go by what I know, I can't consider myself black." I remember I was very upset, and I wanted to drop out of class after that.... But ever since then I have been filling out forms...by what people see me as rather than what I should put down. I know a lot of my friends are the same way. Well, my black friends, anyway. I don't want to have every single day an argument. (p. 127) Brown (1995) found that the majority of the biracial participants (74.8%) in his study had experienced some degree of conflict about their racial identity while growing up. "They continued to feel misidentified by society, rendered invisible, and pressured to deny their white parent and their own whiteness" (Brown, 1995, p.128). According to Herring (1992), biracial females may limit their future choice of sexual partners and activities to minority men. Biracial males may project the risk of rejection by white women. Suggestions for Counselors According to Nishimura (1995), a good counseling program will prevent the problems that are formed by biracial children. He suggests some recommendations for school counselors: (a) Conducting a careful examination of his or her own personal attitudes about interracial marriage and biracial children. (B) Providing a broad description (visual and verbal) of possible family compositions when families are the discussion topic © Expanding the concept of one's cultural background to include multiple cultural heritages. (d) emphasizing that diversity goes beyond the acknowledgment of racial groups to include biracial people, different lifestyles,age, gender orientation, and physical disabilities. (e) Being sensitive to the dilemmas of biracial children when topics pertaining to personal and group identity are being presented(p.55). Indeed, school counselors must develop a positive working relationship with biracial children. In addition, school counselors must increase their own awareness and knowledge regarding the cultural customs of other ethnic groups. They can apply the understanding of other ethnic groups to help the biracial children to build self-esteem as unique individuals (Herring, 1992). School counselors should also provide resources that help to educate biracial youth about their parents' racial heritage (Herring, 1995). The biracial children should be encouraged to explore both sides of their racial heritage in order to form a positive sense of identification with their ethnic and cultural roots (Gibbs, 1987). However, counselors should be sensitive to their own feelings, values, and perceptions related to biracial children (Winn & Priest, 1993). Biracial youth have more positive outcomes when they are reared in supportive family systems (Herring, 1995). Consequently, facilitating the family involvement is necessary, particularly in parents and siblings (Gibbs, 1989). It's important to teach biracial children that a family which consists of different cultural backgrounds is common and acceptable. Interracial children have the same parenting needs as all children. As a result, Winn and Priest (1993) provide some suggestions for parenting: (a)Parents of interracial children need to bring both cultures and languages into the home and to give their children extensive experiences with a wide range of ethnic and racial groups. (b)They need to support their child's exploration of first one side and then the other side of his/her heritage. ©They need to accept with patience and understanding the ambivalence and possible negativism this exploration engenders (p. 33). A child can be helped to incorporate both parents into his or her identity when offered an interracial label. Parents should have accepted what their children have to say about race before correcting them. Parents need to allow their children freedom to individualize without guilt or divided loyalties; for the first agenda in childrearing is to build positive self identity (Jacobs, 1978; Johnson, 1992). It is also important that giving biracial children the opportunity to develop relationships with racially diverse peers (Winn & Priest, 1993). Nishimura (1995) points out that peer relationships greatly influence how adolescents view themselves in relation to others. However, Williams (As cited in Herring, 1992) found that interracial children are chosen as friends and playmates just as often as other children. Conclusion Interracial identity is the most conducive to the emotional well-being of interracial children. According to Johnson and Nagoshi (As cited in Winn & Priest, 1993, p.30), "biracial children who grow up in a nurturing family and in a community where biculturalism is met with acceptance, will experience no greater problems than monocultural children." If we afford a choice, most biracial children would choose to classify themselves as biracial rather than identify with a single racial group. Therefore, it is important to provide biracial children positive role models that include family members, peer group, school and community members (Nishimura, 1995). I believe that if American society pays more attention to those biracial children and help them to develop a healthy sense of themselves, the problems of biracial children will be diminished. Regarding the field of biracial children's researches, most studies focus on black/white families. It is rare to see the researches that study biracial children of other interracial families such as American and Asian. Would those biracial children have other difficulties of dealing with their racial identities than black/white biracial children? Maybe they have less problems than black/white biracial children. Researchers should be further in the studies of other interracial children except black/white population.

I don't know what is more pathetic, that all Hugo can do is tell lies about me and even my dead mother, or that three people felt his attacks on me was rep worthy, lol.