Catherine

Do you mean a keyboard with integrated real-time printer?! :lol:

Thanks for the (somewhat frightening) laugh!

Can we _clone_ this guy?!?!?!

Or the fact that a very good friend of ours would be DEAD right now if he lived in Britain -- he had an aggressive form of kidney cancer. A type that, in the UK, the treatment is they pat you on the head and send you home to get your papers in order. Insurance didn't cover all his care -- but the family held fund-raisers, and, most importantly, HE IS ALIVE TODAY. If we get Obama care, you'd all better start growing your own medicinal herbs. We've seen this story, and it in the long run it doesn't end well. Ever.

I think it's terrific -- thanks, KC.

I got the email and responded -- there was an actual survey. Sometimes the oddball characters _in an email_ as due to ASCII character mismatch in the fonts used. Catherine

Hope you have a very :bday:

:bday: Hope you had a great day!

Sometimes the _best_ way to find the answer for yourself is to post a query. Then the item you've been hunting for leaps up off the page where it had been hiding, and you couldn't find it any of the last 14 times you read that very paragraph. Catherine :wub:

Thank you, KC, for a terrific morning chuckle!

:bday: and have a terrific day!

The Articles of Confederation were too loose and too close to anarchy -- the new country did not have enough central power to do crucial business successfully. The Constitution was meant to stay as close to anarchy as possible while still holding enough federal power to accomplish the essential items too large for individuals or individual states to accomplish. The founders had great reason to fear a strong central government -- they suck all power into themselves and, sooner or later, become tyrannies. They had just fought a long, nasty war to throw off the latest (in their time) iteration of this long pattern. They wanted people to be FREE to live their lives, without government jurisdiction of every move. The problem today is that, for close to a hundred years, BOTH major parties have moved us closer and closer to total government control of everything. I don't care whether you call it fascism, communism, dictatorship, absolute monarchy, oligarchy, or Uncle Sheldon. It's the same -- too much power in Washington, too little in the states, WAY too little leftover for the individual -- which is where MOST of it was intended to be held. Y'know, here in Massachusetts, there is LESS turnover of the state legislature than in the old USSR's Politburo. And we have the third in a row of former Speakers of the House under Federal indictment for criminal financial shenanigans. The rot goes very deep, and across the board, ALL the bums need to be thrown out of office. I was raised Democrat (in Massachusetts? like there's a choice?), am socially very liberal, and have become politically very conservative because I have had it ground into me, painfully, that government ruins all it touches (including, Jainen, the 'social programs" that have vastly INCREASED and FOSSILIZED poverty since they started in the 1960's), hurts those it professes to help -- and does it all at QUINTUPLE (at least!) the cost of the same projects done by private hands. I am conservative politically BECAUSE I am liberal socially -- I want the most good for the most people, and that means get it OUT of the government's filthy, power-mad claws.

I love it! The only quarrel I have is that the Republicans have been almost as bad for many years now.

Meant to post this earlier -- I was _very_ glad to hear that your biopsy came back fine. Congratulations on that, at least! And, for your amusement, a paraphrased quote from a book I read: "As long as one is breathing and the bowels move regularly, all other problems are but temporary and transient." Catherine

He had way more common sense, for sure. And always took personal responsibility for his actions. I'd take a congress (federal and all states) full of Forrest Gump's over the gaggle of jackals, thieves, and power-hungry self-serving scum in office now, in a heartbeat.

:bday: and have a great day!

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/0...ty-resolutions/ Eight states have passed state sovereignty resolutions and more are in the works.

If he can't, Gene, I'll dig out my old disk and copy it for you. Got tons of blank CD's here, so that's not an issue. Catherine

Have a VERY :bday:

I will recommend that everyone read the US Constitution. It's available free online, and is only about eight pages long. Add in all the amendments and it's another few pages. Well worth the time and trouble. One note: the first ten amendments should be looked at as a group; they are all specific limitations on Federal power in favor of states and individuals. Remember, one of the biggest hurdles the Constitution had to overcome was the fear on the part of the states that the Federal would "take over" sovereignty of the individual states. The Bill of Rights was designed to address those fears so the states would ratify the new Constitution.

:bday: and have a great day!

:bday: and have a terrific day!

:bday: and have a great day!

:bday: and have a terrific day!

:bday: sounds like you had a terrific time!