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Things about America and Growing up in America
 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
The Preamble of our Constution;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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God Bless You Charleton Heston,
Who knows why anyone gets alshimers?
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FROM ROMANIA: RECOGNITION (AND ENVY) OF THE AMERICAN ETHOS AND
ÉLAN!!
Subject: Editorial from a Romanian newspaper
An ode to America
Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you
paint them!
They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing
mixture of civilizations.
Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another,
and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are.
Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a
hand put on the heart.
Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret
services that they are only a bunch of losers.
Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts.
Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about.
The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.
After the first momentsof panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins,
putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag.
They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car
a minister or the president was passing.
On every occasion they started singing their traditional song:
"God Bless America!".
Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday
once, twice, three times, on different TV channels.
There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts,
Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Silvester Stalone,
James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together.
The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word.
What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul.
What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say
without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert.
I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America
didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious!
It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country
without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous,
or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests.
I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours
listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a
wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player,
who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that
would have killed other hundreds or thousands of people. How on earth were
they able to bow before a fellow human?
Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some
turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions
and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man
or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.
What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their
galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find
an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like
commonplaces.
I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.
Only freedom can work such miracles!
<>
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Number of physicians in the US: 700,000.
Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000 Accidental deaths
per physician: 0.171 (U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services)
Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000.
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups): 1,500
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188 Statistically,
doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than
gun owners.
FACT: Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one Doctor. Please alert your friends to this alarming threat.
We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand.
Remember guns don't kill people, doctors do. Oh, and you might
want to remember that half of all doctors graduate in the bottom
50% of their class in Medical School!
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Gen Schwartzkopf on Forgiveness
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked,
if he didn't think there was room for forgiveness,
toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists
who perpetrated the Sept 11 attacks on America.
His answer was classic Schwartzkopf.
He said, "I believe that forgiving them is God's function.
Our job is simply to arrange the meeting."
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Comentary........
Being brought up during the McCarthyism days, Cubian Missle Crisis, Civil Unrest on our streets, Presidential and Leadership Assassins, Presidential Misuse of office (Nixon), Vietnamn War, Patroits marching against this war, The use of chemical warfare (by the use of drugs) on the marchers against that war, (and the testing of airborn LSD in the air over San Francisco in the late 60's, see US army records, L.A. Times 1974,75), Arab oil embargos, The world trade-, The World Banks .
Even after knowing all this,
We must take care of the root problem of terrorism, the country of Iraq.
and P.S...... We owe Somilia a return visit.
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Riddle me this batman, if the non christian faith based countries are the answer, how come, in these countries, these people live in sqular, leaders are dictators, no freedom of assembly, no general elections, no dissenting political parties, no health care, no freedom, the schools are hate factories, and women are treated as cattle,
an even superficial look at this, will show,,, even the novice can understand, this simple fact.
They are not what they appear to be.
If you love all people, If you claim to possess any religion, you can not accept the treatment of women , children, and the poor. The way these countries do.
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There is no other country, I would even dream of living in. This one is the best. We have some idiots, but, I love every one of them, .____BTerry
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And on 
growing up in America, I found this---
Enjoy my friends:
If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special
treat.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We
had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when
we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
(Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode
down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a
few times we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were
back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.
No cell phones. Unthinkable.
We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.
We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and
there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No
one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned
to get over it.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were
never overweight...we were always outside playing.
We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle
and no one died from this.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all,
99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones,
Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms ... we had friends!
We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home
and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in
and talked to them. We didn't have In-line skates, our skates clamped
on to our shoes. And the only key you hung around your neck was your
"skate key."
Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out
there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and
although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes,
nor did the worms live inside us forever.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who
didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment.....
Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were
held back to repeat the same grade.....Horrors.
Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide
behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was!
Unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of
innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them.
Congratulations!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids,
before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
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This came to my email box so I thought you might like to see it.
Subject: The Feminine Side of US Marines
True Story from a Marine in Bosnia.
(Note the signature, but read it last)
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia): A French
army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought we
(Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war.
He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count on the
support of France.
I told him that it didn't surprise me. Since we had come to France's
rescue in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War, their
ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface at some point in the
near future anyway. That is why France is a third-rate military power
with a socialist economy and a bunch of faggots for soldiers.
I additionally told him that America, being a nation of deeds and
action, not words, would do whatever it had to do, and France's
support was only for show anyway. Just like in ALL NATO exercises,
the US would shoulder 85% of the burden, as evidenced by the fact
that the French officer was shopping in the American PX, and not
the other way around.
He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if he
would like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger
King and beat his ass in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade
East, thus demonstrating that even the smallest American had more
fight in him than the average Frenchman.
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Mary Beth Johnson LtCol, USMC
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IM putting this here on jan 05,02. I think history will prove its correctness(if that is indead a word).
CRAWFORD, Texas (Jan. 4) - As President Bush put the finishing touches on an economic growth package that could cost $600 billion over 10 years, Democrats who want his job pledged to scuttle what they characterize as a plan that would help the wealthy without reviving the economy.
The jockeying Saturday came three days before Bush unveils his plan in Chicago and 22 months before the next presidential election. But it previewed the coming political battle over how to spur the economy.
Bush's growth package probably will include an acceleration of tax cuts Congress approved in 2001; a cut in dividend taxes; tax incentives to prompt more spending by businesses; aid to financially strapped states; and extended unemployment benefits.
He signed off on key portions of the plan Friday after meeting with senior political adviser Karl Rove, and has steadily consulted other aides by telephone since starting a vacation at his ranch here Dec. 26.
The growing flock of Democrats vying for the right to challenge Bush in 2004 pounced on leaked details of Bush's stimulus package.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts called Bush's emerging package ''a stimulus mirage, not a plan for economic growth.''
''They won't propose major investments in infrastructure, or provide help to small businesses, and instead cling to ineffective and unaffordable new tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans,'' Kerry told The Associated Press. ''I don't think we've ever witnessed an administration more out of touch with the economic needs of average Americans and small businesses.''
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri said of the plan: ''President Bush must accept that his economic plan is flawed and start from scratch instead of compounding our economic challenges with this deeply flawed proposal.''
''Simply accelerating a wrong-headed economic plan is not a solution to our economic ills,'' Gephardt told the AP. ''We need a fiscally responsible economic stimulus that puts money in the consumer's pocket in the short term and puts us back on track to economic growth in the long term.''
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina said the White House is ''trying to use the Bush recession to put money in the pockets of the richest Americans over a long period of time while providing very little help for regular people.''
''If this is what he thinks is going to help regular people in times of an economic downturn, it just shows how out of touch he is,'' Edwards said in remarks his campaign staff said were taped for broadcast Sunday on ABC's ''This Week.''
Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, on the brink of announcing his candidacy, used his party's weekly radio address Saturday to slam the president's tax-break plan, saying it's ''the wrong idea at the wrong time to help the wrong people.''
The plan, Daschle argued, would almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest Americans, while ignoring middle-income families.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Bush was assembling a plan to strengthen growth, create jobs and help people who are hurting.
''Given that Senator Daschle has already found fault with a proposal he hasn't even seen, it's clear he's more interested in politics than helping people,'' Buchan said. ''The president looks forward to helping Republicans and Democrats alike who want to create jobs and accelerate growth.
Daschle said he planned to ''do everything I can to replace this misguided plan with a proposal for immediate tax relief for middle class families - tax relief that will actually spur economic growth.''
Officials in states with heavy deficits said they were eager to see Bush's plans for aid to the capitals.
''There is always a certain amount of federal funds, but I know we are looking for more, like on homeland security and unemployment insurance,'' said Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for California Gov. Gray Davis. California faces an unprecedented $35 billion budget shortfall, and Davis is scrambling to fill in the gaps.
A senior White House official said it was unlikely Bush would earmark the new aid for states specifically for homeland security.
(Thanks for the email--BT)
(A growing ''surveillance monster'' is emerging, it argues, in which the private and the public sector are monitoring Americans with video cameras to the extent that it is becoming almost impossible to walk the streets of major cities without being filmed. Yet there are virtually no rules governing what can be done with those tapes.)
Things about America and Growing up in America
