If your going to base your vote on persons gender or the color of their skin then you are just plain old STUPID.

It all gives new meaning to "shit or get off the pot".

After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in recent years on encouraging sexual abstinence, according to new analyses of data from a large federal survey.

The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, several experts noted. Congress is currently debating funding for such efforts, which receive about $175 million a year in federal money and have come under fire from some quarters for being ineffective.

Oh boy I wish our gas was only $4 a gallon.......... we are at around $9 and rising in the UK!

2. What does it mean in the Constitution when it says "natural born Citizen?"

From Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition: "Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad."

3. I am in the U.S. Army, a natural born citizen, and my wife is a U.S. Citizen, natural born. If my son is born in Germany (Military hospital or not), and has a U.S. Consular Report of Birth Abroad, and a German birth certificate can he become President of the United States?

Yes, since your son was born of citizens temporarily residing abroad, as in the military service, then he may become eligible to be president. Of course he must still "have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Two cases in point: (1) George Romney of Michigan who ran for president in 1968. Mr. Romney was born in a Mormon community in Chihuahua, Mexico. His parents were U.S. citizens so he was a natural born citizen. (2) John McCain of Arizona was a candidate in 2000. McCain was born in Panama where his father was stationed in the service, so he would also be "natural born."

Good-bye, habeas corpus
The Military Commissions Act, passed in September 2006 as a last gasp of the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Bush that Oct. 17, made significant changes to the nation’s judicial system.

The law allows the president to designate any person an “alien unlawful enemy combatant,” shunting that individual into an alternative court system in which the writ of habeas corpus no longer applies, the right to a speedy trial is gone, and justice is meted out by a military tribunal that can admit evidence obtained through coercion and presented without the accused in the courtroom, all under the guise of preserving national security.

Habeas corpus, a constitutional right cribbed from the Magna Carta, protects against arbitrary imprisonment. Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, called it the greatest defense against “the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.”

The Military Commissions Act has been seen mostly as a method for dealing with Guantánamo Bay detainees, and most journalists have reported that it doesn’t have any impact on Americans. On Oct. 19, 2006, editors at The New York Times wrote, in quite definitive language, “This law does not apply to American citizens.”

Investigative journalist Robert Parry disagrees. The right of habeas corpus no longer exists for any residents of the U.S., he wrote in the online journal Consortium. Deep down in the lower sections of the act, the language shifts from the very specific “alien unlawful enemy combatant” to the vague “any person subject to this chapter.”

“Why does it contain language referring to ‘any person’ and then adding in an adjacent context a reference to people acting ‘in breach of allegiance or duty to the United States’?” Parry wrote. “Who has ‘an allegiance or duty to the United States’ if not an American citizen?”

Reached by phone, Parry told The Guardian, “This loose phraseology could be interpreted very narrowly or very broadly.” He said he’s consulted with lawyers who are experienced in drafting federal security legislation, and they agreed that the “any person” terminology is troubling. “It could be fixed very simply, but the Bush administration put through this very vaguely worded law, and now there are a lot of differences of opinion on how it could be interpreted,” Parry said.

Though U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) moved quickly to remedy the situation with the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, that legislation has yet to pass Congress, which some suspect is because too many Democrats don’t want to seem soft on terrorism. Until tested by time, exactly how much the language of the Military Commissions Act may be manipulated will remain to be seen.

Sources: “Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right,” Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams website, www.commondreams.org/views07/0212-24.htm, Feb. 2, 2007; “Still No Habeas Rights for You,” Robert Parry, Consortium, consortiumnews.com/2007/020307.html, Feb. 3, 2007; “Who Is ‘Any Person’ in Tribunal Law?” Robert Parry, Consortium, consortiumnews.com/2006/101906.html, Oct. 19, 2006.

The privatization of America’s infrastructure
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ushered through legislation for the greatest public-works project in human history — the interstate highway system, 41,000 miles of roads funded almost entirely by the federal government.

Fifty years later, many of those roads are in need of repair or replacement, but the federal government has not exactly risen to the challenge. Instead, more than 20 states have set up financial deals leasing the roads to private companies in exchange for repairs. Politicians are lauding these public-private partnerships as the only credible financial solution to providing the public with improved services.

But opponents of all political stripes are criticizing the deals as theft of public property. They point out that the bulk of benefits is actually going to the private side of the equation — in many cases, to foreign companies with considerable experience building private roads in developing countries. In the United States, these companies are entering into long-term leases of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, for a low amount. They work out tax breaks to finance the repairs, raise tolls to cover the costs, and start realizing profits for their shareholders in as little as 10 years.

As Daniel Schulman and James Ridgeway report in Mother Jones, “The Federal Highway Administration estimates that it will cost $50 billion a year above current levels of federal, state and local highway funding to rehab existing bridges and roads over the next 16 years. Where to get that money, without raising taxes? Privatization promises a quick fix — and a way to outsource difficult decisions, like raising tolls, to entities that don’t have to worry about getting reelected.”

The Indiana Toll Road, the Chicago Skyway, Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway and many other stretches of the nation’s public pavement have succumbed to these private deals.

Cheerleaders for privatization are deeply embedded in the Bush administration (see story 7), where they’ve been secretly fostering plans for a North American Free Trade Agreement superhighway, a 10-lane route set to run through the heart of the country and connect the Mexican and Canadian borders. It’s specifically designed to plug into the Mexican port of Lázaro Cárdenas, taking advantage of cheap labor by avoiding the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, whose members are traditionally tasked with unloading cargo, and the Inter-national Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose members transport that cargo around the country.

Sources: “The Highwaymen” Daniel Schulman with James Ridgeway, Mother Jones, www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/highwaymen.html, Feb. 2007; “Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway,” Jerome R. Corsi, Human Events, www.humanevents.com/article.php, June 12, 2006.

Hmmmm, it seems to me that the skimpier the clothes the less chances they have to hide any explosive devices.....I mean really where would they put it?

Texan 'gave millions to Saddam'

Mr Wyatt insists he is innocent
A Texan oil billionaire has gone on trial in the US accused of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government.
Oscar Wyatt, 83, is said to have given the money to Baghdad officials to illegally buy extra Iraqi oil under the United Nations' oil-for-food programme.

This scheme ran from 1996 to 2003 and allowed Iraq to finance humanitarian goods purchases through sales of oil.

Mr Wyatt, who pleads his innocence, could be facing a 74-year sentence.

'Presidents' friend'

Assistant US Attorney Stephen Miller claimed in his opening statement to a Manhattan court that: "When the world imposed sanctions on Iraq, Oscar Wyatt stepped up to help them evade sanctions."

By contrast, Mr Wyatt's lawyers insist he "did not pay any surcharge to the Iraqis".

They instead claim the case against Mr Wyatt was "entwined" with his opposition to both US-led wars against Iraq.

Mr Wyatt's lawyers added that while the World War II veteran was "no friend or admirer" of either President Bush, he was a friend and confident to most other US presidents from John F Kennedy to Bill Clinton.

At the time of Mr Wyatt's alleged crimes, Iraq was under United Nations (UN) sanctions imposed as a result of its 1990 invasion of neighbouring Kuwait.

The sale of its oil during this period was supposed to have been extensively monitored by the UN, but Iraqi officials started to demand extra payments to win such contracts and gain extra oil above the allowed levels.

Self-made man

Iraq's post-Saddam Hussain government alleged in 2005 that as many as 2,000 Western businessmen, organisations and UN officials were involved in the scandal.

That same year, the US Senate concluded that corruption had allowed Saddam Hussein's government to pocket about $13.6bn (£6.7bn).

Mr Wyatt faces five charges including engaging in prohibited financial transactions with Iraq.

A self-made man, Mr Wyatt started his business life selling oil drill parts from the back of his car.

In 2000 and 2001 he sold his company Coastal to El Paso for $17bn in stock.

And to our 9/11 firefighter (and my sometime POF nemesis) in this thread, I say "Thank You" for the lives you saved and the people you helped that day and in the weeks that followed.

How can human beings resort to such barbaric behavior?

I think you don't give people enough credit, the one thing about Americans, most of us use our own judgment, rather than depending on the opinion of others. Allot of us have moral values, and decency, we know the difference between right and wrong, and have the will to stand our ground and not be dictated to, by the manufacturer of ugly little brat dolls.

is asking people out, trying to "pick up" (hetersoexually speaking), between man & woman, illegal, a crime., in all public places?

best shut down all the bars..?

does anybody else agree that we need to find a better way to hold these debates?