NoEd, I could use a laugh..

....say something, anything.

Re: NoEd, I could use a laugh..

This one gave me my first smile of the day.... enjoy

..======================================================
..
Corpus Christi, Texas

Subject: Who Needs Prayer?


Pedro was driving down the street in a sweat -- he had an important meeting
and couldn't find a parking place.

Looking up toward heaven, he pleaded, "Lord, help me. If You find me a
parking place I'll go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of my life and I'll
even give up tequila."

Then, suddenly and miraculously, a parking place appeared and Pedro pulled
in.

Pedro again looked up to heaven and said, "Never mind. Lord... I found one."
--

Happy Guy
-
"Ed" <> wrote in message
news:
> ...say something, anything.
>

Re: NoEd, I could use a laugh..

He's busy attending a George W. Bush worship ceremony. This is not to
imply he's snorting coke or trying to punch out his father in a drunken
rage.

Re: NoEd, I could use a laugh..

"Norm De Plume" <> wrote in message
news:
> He's busy attending a George W. Bush worship ceremony. This is not to
> imply he's snorting coke or trying to punch out his father in a drunken
> rage.

I liked the part about the what-me-worry smile. He does look a little like
Alfred E Newman if you think about it.

Re: NoEd, I could use a laugh..

Re: NoEd

Trivia question. Out of the last four presidential elections, which
candidate and in what year did the winner receive more than 50% of the
popular vote?

David, we do have other political parties? In 2000 the Green Party,
with Ralph Nader as its candidate, received 5-6% of the vote. Under
your system of government, that would mean some representation in your
House of Commons. In the USA it means a one way ticket back to the
farm. Btw, I voted for Ralph in 2000. I felt like a winner because
we, not the Republicans, defeated Gore. Go Green, go nuclear!

Mo

Re: NoEd

"Maurice" <> wrote in message
news:
> Trivia question. Out of the last four presidential elections, which
> candidate and in what year did the winner receive more than 50% of the
> popular vote?
>
> David, we do have other political parties? In 2000 the Green Party,
> with Ralph Nader as its candidate, received 5-6% of the vote. Under
> your system of government, that would mean some representation in your
> House of Commons. In the USA it means a one way ticket back to the
> farm. Btw, I voted for Ralph in 2000. I felt like a winner because
> we, not the Republicans, defeated Gore. Go Green, go nuclear!
>
> Mo

I'm just guessing but I'm going to say Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004.

The Greens got nowhere near 5% of the vote. They hoped to get 4% in some
states so they would automatically be on the ballot the next time. AFAIK
they didn't get 4% anywhere.

In a system that you (ought to) know is two party, you didn't defeat Gore,
you elected Bush.

-herb

PS: We have one independent (a socialist, I believe) in the House: Bernie
Sanders of Vermont.

Re: NoEd

Mo, this guy is an idiot. You should killfile this troll right away.
Don't attempt debating him. He shifts his story in a stupid and very visible
attempt to win.
Don't go there. A warning from someone who has dealt with this asshole for
years until he decided to hide from me using his killfile.




"Herb" <> wrote in message
news:mXb9f.7550$
>
> "Maurice" <> wrote in message
> news:
>> Trivia question. Out of the last four presidential elections, which
>> candidate and in what year did the winner receive more than 50% of the
>> popular vote?
>>
>> David, we do have other political parties? In 2000 the Green Party,
>> with Ralph Nader as its candidate, received 5-6% of the vote. Under
>> your system of government, that would mean some representation in your
>> House of Commons. In the USA it means a one way ticket back to the
>> farm. Btw, I voted for Ralph in 2000. I felt like a winner because
>> we, not the Republicans, defeated Gore. Go Green, go nuclear!
>>
>> Mo
>
> I'm just guessing but I'm going to say Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004.
>
> The Greens got nowhere near 5% of the vote. They hoped to get 4% in some
> states so they would automatically be on the ballot the next time. AFAIK
> they didn't get 4% anywhere.
>
> In a system that you (ought to) know is two party, you didn't defeat Gore,
> you elected Bush.
>
> -herb
>
> PS: We have one independent (a socialist, I believe) in the House: Bernie
> Sanders of Vermont.
>
>

Re: NoEd

"Mark Freeland" <> wrote in message
news:
> Herb wrote:
> >
> > "Maurice" <> wrote in message
> > news:
> > > Trivia question. Out of the last four presidential elections, which
> > > candidate and in what year did the winner receive more than 50% of
> > > the popular vote?
> > >
> > > David, we do have other political parties? In 2000 the Green Party,
> > > with Ralph Nader as its candidate, received 5-6% of the vote. Under
> > > your system of government, that would mean some representation in
> > > your House of Commons. In the USA it means a one way ticket back to
> > > the farm. Btw, I voted for Ralph in 2000. I felt like a winner
> > > because we, not the Republicans, defeated Gore. Go Green, go
> > > nuclear!
> > >
> > > Mo
> >
> > I'm just guessing but I'm going to say Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004.
> >
> > The Greens got nowhere near 5% of the vote.
>
> The answer in 2000 was "none". No one got 49%, let alone a majority;
> Nader got 2.74%.
>
>
> > They hoped to get 4% in some
> > states so they would automatically be on the ballot the next time.
> >
> > In a system that you (ought to) know is two party, you didn't defeat
> > Gore, you elected Bush.
>
> It is not that simple, as you pointed out yourself - in order to
> establish a viable party, it is important to have a guaranteed slot on
> the ballot.
>
> The Greens have had a modicum of success at the local level. It's hard
> to do that without being able to get candidates on the ballot easily.
>
> Many people swapped votes, offering to vote for Nader in "safe" states
> in exchange for "meaningful" votes in contested states. Voting for
> Nader as such helped the Greens in some states, helped Gore (assuming
> the swap was for Gore) in others - hardly the same as saying that a vote
> for Nader was a vote to elect Bush.
>

>
> As this article points out, the 5% target was not to get the Green party
> ballot slots, but rather to nationally get federal matching funds.
>
> > PS: We have one independent (a socialist, I believe) in the House:
> > Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
>
> Great state, Vermont. You're forgetting one of their Senators -
> Jeffords. Of course he never won as an independent - maybe Sanders will
> do better when he tries for his seat.
>
>



Mark:

It is my understanding that in a winner-take-all system where the winner is
not required to receive a majority, there will always be two parties: the
party in power and the largest opposition party. Voting for a splinter
group does not elect an opposition candidate, it lowers the percent that the
party in power has to receive in order to take the seat or the electors.

In the UK the opposition party varies in some regions. This does not make
the UK a multi-party state, it just makes them a collection of two-party
provinces.

A lot of people preferred Nader to Gore but I seriously doubt that any true
Nader supporter preferred Bush to Gore and I am incredulous that Nader
voters were so opposed to Gore that they thought four years of Bush was a
price worth paying.

If we had proportional representation or a requirement of 50% to win it
might be different. Wishing it is so won't make it happen. The last time a
new party replaced an old party, civil war ensued.

-herb

Re: NoEd

Okay, where do I start:

1) The answer to the trivia question is GW Bush in 2004. As the
winner (keyword) of the election, he garnered 50.7% of the popular
vote. GW Bush in 2000 and WJ Clinton in 1992 and 1996 did not achieve
the distinction of having a majority of the popular vote.

2) I do stand corrected on the Green's popular vote in 2000. They got
2.7%, which still exceeded all expectations. I was confused as in my
state, the People's Republic of Massachusetts, they received greater
than 5%. Still given that they historically have little standing
across the country, they did very well. Also I do take exception to a
comment that they did not upset the election for Gore. Nader received
98,000 votes in Florida. The difference between Bush and Gore in
Florida was only hundreds of votes. I dare to surmise that the vast
majority of Nader's votes would have gone to Gore had Nader not been
the Green candidate, and the election would have ended weeks sooner
with Gore as President. New Hampshire is another state that would have
swing toward Gore.

3) David, some people think that our process of the electoral college
for the presidency is not fair or democratic. But we've been living
with it since we kicked Britain's butt out of the hemisphere. 8^)
There is a question as to whether states can split the electoral
college votes among candidates. Some states want to do that (obviously
for political reasons, not for fairness), and if/ when they do, it will
be tested in the Supreme Court.

Our system of government allows for a President from an opposing party
to head the government, while the House and the Senate could be
controlled by the dominant party. In this situation the Presidency is
pretty weak. That's because the real power resides on Capital Hill.

4) The answer to David's question about how many seats the Greens have
on Capital Hill is zero. Maybe I am totally off base, but I thought if
a party received across the board 3% of the votes, that they would
receive some seats in Parliment.

5) Mark, remember the whole vote swapping fiasco in 2000. The Dems
were panicing, and this was a last ditch effort to derail people from
voting for Nader in key states. I don't think anyone really took this
serious, though it did get a lot of publicity.

No time to get into the whole hanging chad thing.

Mo

Re: NoEd

Maurice wrote:
> Okay, where do I start:
>
> 1) The answer to the trivia question is GW Bush in 2004. As the
> winner (keyword) of the election, he garnered 50.7% of the popular
> vote. GW Bush in 2000 and WJ Clinton in 1992 and 1996 did not achieve
> the distinction of having a majority of the popular vote.

No, although Bush in 2000 actually had a challenger who won *more* of
the popular vote.

>
> 2) I do stand corrected on the Green's popular vote in 2000. They got
> 2.7%, which still exceeded all expectations. I was confused as in my
> state, the People's Republic of Massachusetts, they received greater
> than 5%.

Actually, noise aside, Mass always struck me as surprisingly
conservative. Long string of Republican governors, and the social
policies are anything but 'liberal'. Tax burden is actually something
like 20th in the Union.

It gets its liberal reputation in the same way that the rest of the
country views Texas as the arch-conservative state (the state with the
most executions, etc). ie there has to be a 'liberal' state, and the
Kennedy's are in Mass, so it gets designated as such.

What Mass is, is a state where blue collar, Catholic, union voters and
political institutions retain power, whereas in most of the rest of the
US that New Deal political bloc has been consigned to history. Couple
that with a very high level of post secondary and post graduate
education (and post graduates tend to vote Democrat, wherever they are
in the US), and you get the 'people's republic'.

An outsider's impression to be sure.


Still given that they historically have little standing
> across the country, they did very well. Also I do take exception to a
> comment that they did not upset the election for Gore. Nader received
> 98,000 votes in Florida. The difference between Bush and Gore in
> Florida was only hundreds of votes. I dare to surmise that the vast
> majority of Nader's votes would have gone to Gore had Nader not been
> the Green candidate, and the election would have ended weeks sooner
> with Gore as President. New Hampshire is another state that would have
> swing toward Gore.

Let's not forget the Patrick Buchanan vote (by mistake).
>
> 3) David, some people think that our process of the electoral college
> for the presidency is not fair or democratic. But we've been living
> with it since we kicked Britain's butt out of the hemisphere. 8^)

Urp. There's this country called *Canada* that has 30 million people
and is in the Western Hemisphere and is still part of the Commonwealth.
Not to mention Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Bermuda, Bahamas etc. None of
which were independent until after WWII. So no, the British were not
ejected from the Western Hemisphere.

It did seal the fate of French North America, though-- the Louisiana
Purchase became inevitable, and the expansion west into the Treaty
regions.


> There is a question as to whether states can split the electoral
> college votes among candidates. Some states want to do that (obviously
> for political reasons, not for fairness), and if/ when they do, it will
> be tested in the Supreme Court.

As I understand it, the Constitution is silent on this point. The
actual tradition that they vote for the candidate with the plurality is
only 100 years of so old. Maine in particular, I think, has always
split the electoral college vote.

>
> Our system of government allows for a President from an opposing party
> to head the government, while the House and the Senate could be
> controlled by the dominant party. In this situation the Presidency is
> pretty weak. That's because the real power resides on Capital Hill.

Less and less true, I think-- true in the era of Sam Rayburn and LBJ
(as Senate Majority Leader, not President). Contrast Carter
(Democratic House and Senate) to Reagan who was a much stronger and
more successful President. It's not at all clear now which is more
powerful: it seems to wax and wane. What the President has is a much
greater resource of bureaucracy and appointees.

We have entered the age of the executive, imperial presidency.

You could argue the Gingrich era was the peak of Congressional power,
which is likely to wane now that Tom Delay is in such trouble.

>
> 4) The answer to David's question about how many seats the Greens have
> on Capital Hill is zero. Maybe I am totally off base, but I thought if
> a party received across the board 3% of the votes, that they would
> receive some seats in Parliment.

No you have to win a consituency (what a Canadian calls a 'riding').
The Moslem People's Party or the Kashmiri Liberation Party are probably
the most likely next 'break thru' parties into the British Parliament
due to concentrations of moslem immigrants in certain cities-- those
votes are deserting Labour over the War in Iraq and over Israel policy.
The next most likely is the far-right British National Party.

There is one socialist party member: a breakaway faction called
'Respect' which elected George Galloway, who famously humiliated your
Senator Norm Coleman (and is being prosecuted over Iraq food-for-oil).
Galloway ran in a heavily moslem part of East London, and defeated a
black Jewish woman who was the MP for Labour (Blair's party) (I'm not
kidding: until Clinton pardoned him, her father was a 40 year refugee
from the Civil Rights era in Alabama, unable to enter the US: then the
96 year old judge wrote a letter to Clinton saying that he had only
imprisoned her father because he was black).

>
> 5) Mark, remember the whole vote swapping fiasco in 2000. The Dems
> were panicing, and this was a last ditch effort to derail people from
> voting for Nader in key states. I don't think anyone really took this
> serious, though it did get a lot of publicity.

Bush has set a dangerous precedent. You can win with no majority, and
then govern from the extreme of your own party, rather than from the
centre. I am sure some Democrat, be it Hilary Clinton or another, will
return the favour. Bush has strengthened the hand of the Presidency
remarkably-- the increased role of the central government in the
economy and of the presidency in setting policy may well be his most
lasting legacy.

>
> No time to get into the whole hanging chad thing.
>
> Mo

Re: NoEd

No the UK is a multi party state. There are 3 (4) national parties in
Parliament: Labour, Tories, Liberal Democrats, (Respect).

The other national minority parties are British National Party (far
right), Moslem People's Party, Kashmiri Liberation Party (there are a
few others).

The only regional parties in Parliament are the Northern Irish ones:
Ulster Unionists and the Sinn Fein (the political wing of the
provisional Irish Republican Army (as distinct from the official IRA)).

The Scottish and Welsh Nationalists dominate in their own regional
parliaments (which are much less powerful than any State House) but
AFAIK they have no nationally elected politicians (SNP might have a
couple).

Then of course there is the European Parliament, where all of the above
parties have representation (system of voting is different and more
pure proportional representation).

Re: NoEd

"darkness39" <> wrote in message
news:

[snip]

> Actually, noise aside, Mass always struck me as surprisingly
> conservative. Long string of Republican governors, and the social
> policies are anything but 'liberal'. Tax burden is actually something
> like 20th in the Union.
>
> It gets its liberal reputation in the same way that the rest of the
> country views Texas as the arch-conservative state (the state with the
> most executions, etc). ie there has to be a 'liberal' state, and the
> Kennedy's are in Mass, so it gets designated as such.
>
> What Mass is, is a state where blue collar, Catholic, union voters and
> political institutions retain power, whereas in most of the rest of the
> US that New Deal political bloc has been consigned to history. Couple
> that with a very high level of post secondary and post graduate
> education (and post graduates tend to vote Democrat, wherever they are
> in the US), and you get the 'people's republic'.
>
> An outsider's impression to be sure.

And not entirely inaccurate but there is something big that you are missing.
Founded as a religious commonwealth, there is a 385 year old tradition that
the state has an active role to play in people's lives, we are all equal
before the law and the idea that the people as a whole own the state. Even
conservatives expect a high degree of state services and regulation.

We started the revolution by defying our royal governor and governors ever
since have been weak figureheads with no real power. The Governor's Council
weilds the authority that many other states' governors hold. With
ridiculously veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, it is the
Speaker and Senate president who can pass any law they choose and only a
vote of the people can constrain them.

Don't confuse Greens with liberals. They can be rather puritanical and
dogmatic.

-herb

Re: NoEd

"darkness39" <> wrote in message
news:

> > Our system of government allows for a President from an opposing party
> > to head the government, while the House and the Senate could be
> > controlled by the dominant party. In this situation the Presidency is
> > pretty weak. That's because the real power resides on Capital Hill.
>
> Less and less true, I think-- true in the era of Sam Rayburn and LBJ
> (as Senate Majority Leader, not President). Contrast Carter
> (Democratic House and Senate) to Reagan who was a much stronger and
> more successful President. It's not at all clear now which is more
> powerful: it seems to wax and wane. What the President has is a much
> greater resource of bureaucracy and appointees.
>
> We have entered the age of the executive, imperial presidency.
>
> You could argue the Gingrich era was the peak of Congressional power,
> which is likely to wane now that Tom Delay is in such trouble.

It actually seems to run in cycles. Nixon and Clinton were hardly weak
presidents and FDR was as close to a dictator as we ever came. There is
nothing like a disastrous presidency (Nixon, e.g.) to send the pendulum
swinging back in the other direction. The current incumbent is in the
process of going from our worst president to our most unpopular president.

The struggle between Congress and the President for supremacy is designed
into the system with the people acting as the referee. Politicians here can
be counted upon to do whatever it takes to get them reelected.

-herb

Re: NoEd

"darkness39" <> wrote in message
news:
> No the UK is a multi party state. There are 3 (4) national parties in
> Parliament: Labour, Tories, Liberal Democrats, (Respect).

Are you saying that the Liberal Democrats are randomly distributed among the
British Isles? I didn't think that was the case but I don't really know
much about the current makeup of parliament. I thought it was a common
practice, in local constituencies, for opposition parties to agree which
should oppose the government's candidate.

I would be very surprised to learn that, in most districts, every seat is
contested by three viable parties.

Europe is a joke.

-herb

The important stuff

"Herb" <> wrote

>I didn't think that was the case but I don't really know
> much about the current makeup of parliament.

> I thought

Herb is admitting that he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. He would just
like you to believe otherwise. He is a troll.

Re: NoEd

"Herb" <> wrote
> we are all equal
> before the law

I told you he was an idiot.

Re: NoEd

Ed wrote:
> "Herb" <> wrote
>
>>we are all equal
>>before the law
>
>
> I told you he was an idiot.
>
>
To paraphrase Orwell, the more money you have the more equal you are.

Re: NoEd

"David Wilkinson" <> wrote in message
news:dk7ucs$gfd$
> Ed wrote:
> > "Herb" <> wrote
> >
> >>we are all equal
> >>before the law


[snip moronic troll quoted, yet again, by David]

> To paraphrase Orwell, the more money you have the more equal you are.

If you put this quote back into context, I said we have this belief. I
certainly didn't say it was reality.

-herb

And Herb continues to prove his stupidity.

"Herb" <> wrote

>> To paraphrase Orwell, the more money you have the more equal you are.
>
> If you put this quote back into context, I said we have this belief. I
> certainly didn't say it was reality.
>
> -herb

He needs to get out of that apartment.

Re: NoEd

Herb wrote:
> "darkness39" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
>.
> >
> > You could argue the Gingrich era was the peak of Congressional power,
> > which is likely to wane now that Tom Delay is in such trouble.
>
> It actually seems to run in cycles. Nixon and Clinton were hardly weak
> presidents and FDR was as close to a dictator as we ever came.

Hmmm. FDR was stymied (a lot). Are you thinking during WWII? Which I
agree was a separate (and special) case.

My impression is there has been a general strengthening of the
Presidency relative to the Congress.

I agree it is cyclical, although in reality Clinton did very little
that wasn't Congressionally mandated or driven: he was just a master at
starting behind the curve, and getting ahead of it.


There is
> nothing like a disastrous presidency (Nixon, e.g.) to send the pendulum
> swinging back in the other direction. The current incumbent is in the
> process of going from our worst president to our most unpopular president.

FWIW I think he will spring back. He is surrounded by a very powerful
and politically adept family and he himself is not *personally*
unpopular. By which I mean people (I'm not talking the 30% of
Americans who are liberals, I am talking middle America) don't hate him
personally although there are questions re his competence*. To the
extent that James Baker and others can be brought back into the fold,
they may be able to rescue him.

I have an uncanny feeling that this is what, for the right, a Teddy
Kennedy Presidency would have been like for the left. ie a standard
bearer, who then comes ashore shipwrecked on reality.

GWB I think will bounce back at the next clear crisis: eg a terrorist
attack on the US mainland. Already his latest Supreme Court
appointment is shrewd.

History is full of politicians who seemed unpopular because the
intelligentsia and opinion formers couldn't 'get' him (I am thinking eg
Herr Kohl of Germany and Schroeder more recently) but who keep bouncing
back and winning because the marginal voter, the guy in the street,
thinks their heart is in the right place and he is 'one of them'.
This is the sort of test that defines a successful politician, that
ability to reach over the talking heads of media, politics and into the
heads of the voters.

I don't think anyone personally implicates him in Plamegate. I doubt
the public even understands the issues (Watergate had a break-in and
easy to understand wrongdoing). And I doubt Rove will take the fall.

>
> The struggle between Congress and the President for supremacy is designed
> into the system with the people acting as the referee. Politicians here can
> be counted upon to do whatever it takes to get them reelected.

As in all countries ;-).

>
> -herb

* one very odd thing, though. The National Enquirer says he has
started drinking again. I have talked to friends who are in AA, they
say it is almost impossible for someone who has not sought the help of
an organisation like AA to stay dry and AFAIK Bush has not.

Re: NoEd

"darkness39" <> wrote in message
news:

> * one very odd thing, though. The National Enquirer says he has
> started drinking again. I have talked to friends who are in AA, they
> say it is almost impossible for someone who has not sought the help of
> an organisation like AA to stay dry and AFAIK Bush has not.
>

The National Enquirer also says that people have had aliens' babies and that
Bigfoot is real. That said, I have often thought the same things as your
friends. AA has about a 40% success rate (most other programs are closer to
20%). It is hard to imagine someone just curing themselves with no support,
whatever.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of an unpopular war to erode the personal
popularity of the President who got us into it.

-herb

Re: NoEd

Herb wrote:
> "darkness39" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
> > * one very odd thing, though. The National Enquirer says he has
> > started drinking again. I have talked to friends who are in AA, they
> > say it is almost impossible for someone who has not sought the help of
> > an organisation like AA to stay dry and AFAIK Bush has not.
> >
>
> The National Enquirer also says that people have had aliens' babies and that
> Bigfoot is real.

AFAICR it was the tabloids which said that Clinton had had an affair
with a staff member, and she was about to go public. It was dismissed
at the time.

The tabloids also did a better job on OJ Simpson than the Broadsheets
(there was a very good 'Frontline' recently on the OJ trial) and on
that missing intern (Chandra something and Gary Condit?).

They are the odd mix of the fantastical, and a kind of digging, gutter
journalism that the mainstream press no longer sullies itself with.
Better to be Judith Miller and rely on your 'high level sources'.

That said, I have often thought the same things as your
> friends. AA has about a 40% success rate (most other programs are closer to
> 20%). It is hard to imagine someone just curing themselves with no support,
> whatever.

GWB did have the personal intervention of Billy Graham. He is not
lying when he says that faith saved him (and Laura).

www.markarkleiman.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2005/ 09/should_we_care_if_bush_is_drinking_again.php

(for some reason, the posting doesn't appear properly in my browser.
Kleiman's site I have to read with Firefox rather than MS Internet
Explorer).

Kleiman is a Clinton Democrat, but not a wishy washy one (he reminds me
of some of the neocons before they became Republicans) eg he is anti
gun control (his analysis of the data says it will make no difference
to crime). His stuff on drug policy is very sensible.

If the story is true, it is the first time I ever felt real sympathy
for GWB. It gives credence to a view of the man that I have argued
vociferously against: ie as a guy who is just out of his depth. I have
always argued that he is a shrewd politician who has known *exactly*
what he was doing and that liberals do themselves a disservice by
sneering at him: I remember too well the Reagan era, when it was
fashionable to sneer at Ronnie, too, but he outsmarted just about
everyone. And based on personal experience it seems to be a Texan
thing to act folksy, but play hardball smart.

I remember too well what Nixon was like at the end of his days.
Defence Secretary Schlesinger went so far as to make special
arrangements with the carrier of the 'Football' nuclear switch, so that
Schlesinger would be consulted if Nixon tried to launch nuclear war on
his own.

>
> I wouldn't underestimate the power of an unpopular war to erode the personal
> popularity of the President who got us into it.

GWB has exit options, but none palatable. He seems more and more like
LBJ every day, although of course the agony is only a fraction of the
size. I don't remember where we were, though, in terms of Americans
dead at this point in Vietnam -- middle of 1966? The only good news is
the insurgents are not the VC.

I doubt his 'opposition' (if the Democrats really function in that role
any more) will be able to make political hay out of it.

Re: NoEd

Herb wrote:
> "darkness39" <> wrote in message
> news:
>
> > * one very odd thing, though. The National Enquirer says he has
> > started drinking again.

> The National Enquirer also says that people have had aliens' babies and that
> Bigfoot is real.

You have lost all credibility with that statement because everybody
knows it's not the National Enquirer but the Weekly World news that
runs stories about alien babies and Bigfoot. The Enquirer concentrates
on celebrity scandals, although a few years ago its cover story was
about Enron; this was during the week when the far more dignified Wall
Street Journal printed a front page story about transvestite
prostitutes.

Re: NoEd

"Norm De Plume" <> wrote in message
news:
>
> Herb wrote:
> > "darkness39" <> wrote in message
> > news:
> >
> > > * one very odd thing, though. The National Enquirer says he has
> > > started drinking again.
>
> > The National Enquirer also says that people have had aliens' babies and
that
> > Bigfoot is real.
>
> You have lost all credibility with that statement because everybody
> knows it's not the National Enquirer but the Weekly World news that
> runs stories about alien babies and Bigfoot. The Enquirer concentrates
> on celebrity scandals, although a few years ago its cover story was
> about Enron; this was during the week when the far more dignified Wall
> Street Journal printed a front page story about transvestite
> prostitutes.

It's true that I haven't read the Enquirer in many years. It has apparently
come a ways.

-herb