Month: November 2003

What was originally suppose to be the PATRIOT Act II was recently put into an intelligence spending bill, and passed by Congress. Why put the PATRIOT Act II in such a bill. Mainly because there was so much public outcry over the provisions in the son of the PATRIOT Act, that our Congress People were so kind as to put it into an intelligence spending bill because there isn’t as much public oversight. Read the article over at Wired.

Author: jonathan

A member of Slashdot.org put this in the comment on a story. I thought it was too good not to post. I realize not all Republicans believe this, and I am sure that someone could make a similar list for Democrats. Anyway, read below for what Republicans believe:o Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

o The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

o Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

o “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

o A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

o Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

o The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

o Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

o If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

o A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

o HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

o Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

o Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

o Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

o A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

o Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

o The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

o You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

o What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the ’80s is irrelevant.

o Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
Author: jonathan

Calvinists believe the game is fixed. Lutherans believe they can’t win, but trust the Scorekeeper. Quakers won’t swing. Unitarians can catch anything. Amish walk a lot. Pagans sacrifice. Jehovah’s Witnesses are thrown out often. Televangelists get caught stealing. Episcopalians pass the plate. Evangelicals make effective pitches.

More in Extended textFundamentalists balk. Adventists have a seventh-inning stretch. Atheists refuse to have an Umpire. Baptists want to play hardball. Premillenialists expect the game to be called soon on account of darkness. The Pope claims never to have committed an error.Daily e-mail from
Beliefnet Religious Jokes
Author: harold

Yes, I imagine Shelia is the first and only Ard
female to participate in the sport of hunting, but not
the only Ard who has enjoyed the sport of hunting..

When James was younger, he had rather hunt than eat and if you were ever around a
Ard male, you know that was quite a sacrifice.

I have seen him go hunting when it was raining, snowing, so cold most people would think you were crazy .

He still has the shot gun he bought thefirst year
after he was discharged from the military in 1956.
That fall he would hunt for quail. I think his total
for that season was over a 100 quail.

The question if it is right or wrong to kill a deer,
or any other wild animal is in one’s own heart.

Doline Ard

Author: DolineArd

The following post is by Sheila. Sheila is both member of this site and a member of my family with the same surname. Most may not engage in the sport that Sheila is describing. I am positive you will enjoy the spiritual nature of her piece.

Story in Extended Text

Well just let me brag just a little and tell you a story.  We hunt just down the road from my parents on HWY 728 going to Bonnieville.  It was opening morning of the season Nov. 8th just after the sun came up.   See I love to hunt, just being in the woods away from all the phones, people, and work.   This is when I feel that I find myself the most relaxed and amazed at God’s beauty.   To me hunting is relaxing and I love to watch the deer as much as hunt them.  After I killed my buck I went back to my stand several times just to video them.  I have never killed a deer bigger than my husband but this time, I out did him  I realize we have much larger deer on our walls, but to kill a nine point that weighed 165 lbs was a first for me.  I’m sure I’m one of the very few Ard’s that hunts.  I know it shocked my Aunt  the other day when I saw her in Bonnieville and told her.  She acted shocked and asked how I could kill such a pretty animal.  I told her it was supper, then she really got upset, HA HA!

   

 I really got into hunting about five years ago I had been going along time before that, but five years ago I had a fall unlike any other and I hope to never have again.  That year I lost Mamma, then one week to a day I lost my Papaw and one week and two days I lost my Granny Eula Highbaugh.  That year when I went hunting I felt like I was lost in the world and nothing anybody said made it better, I think the more people talked to me the worse it was.  That deer season I just sat in the woods and did allot of crying and searching inside myself. 

   

One morning I got up and Steven said he was going to go with me to my stand because the season was almost over and he thought he would film me if I got anything, of course he had already killed his the first weekend and yes it was a nice one.  I told him no he didn’t have to do that and he went anyway.  I think he knew and nor was he going to leave me alone after everything that had happened.  But that morning in the stand before the sun came up I felt a warmth come over me all of a sudden  and I felt it was all going to be okay.  About an hour later I killed a nice five point buck, until then I had never really killed anything to talk about.

   

Until that day I had always went because I liked it, but now I go because I enjoy it.  But I also get this insight each day I’m out there that God is amazing and no matter what he is watching out for us just seeing his amazing work really puts me  back into a spiritual zone.  I so needed something at that time and if you stop and think we all need that one thing that we can escape in and just be.

   

So, yes I’m most likely the only Women Ard that hunts and one of the very few Ard’s all together that hunts.  I really enjoy it! Greg my brother likes to hunt but he doesn’t have the time anymore much.  Arthur lee use to hunt but the last time I talked to him, he said he is to busy too anymore. 

   

The funny part of my hunt this year is I saw the deer coming through a thicket and he never gave me a broad side shot nor was he even a close shot.  I felt I had to take the bad shot because of his size, I have some friends that we bet with and I never have won and saw this as my chance to have the bragging rights for the year and get a free steak dinner.  I took the shot through the thick brush.  Let me remind you I had to turn to toward the back of my stand to shoot him standing at a angel; after I shot he ran about 20 yards and he fell!  I got so excited  I couldn’t wait the 15 min. that I should have waited to let him die. 

   

I climbed down about three minutes after he fell, so when I got up real close to him thinking I had done it,then he jumped up and ran off!  I got so upset with myself for taking a bad shot.  I knew better than that, but allot of bragging rights was on the line and being a women among the group I had to prove I could do this better.   All I could do at this point was track him by his blood trail, but I couldn’t find one I knew I had hit him because he fell but I also knew it was a real bad shot if I couldn’t find any blood.  So I went in the direction he went.  I knew that there was an open field over the ridge, I went over the ridge and was almost in tears.  I came to the edge of the woods over the ridge and there is an opening into the field.  I saw Steven coming I thought, here he comes to help me with my deer and I can’t even find him!  I went to him and he asked did you get him, I told him it was a bad shot doing all I could so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.  As usual Steven being as supportive as he usually is to me said, well that’s sometimes the way it goes and  by the way he’s over in my food plot dead!  I got so excited!    See that is the funny part to.  He was going to shot him himself just before he fell dead in front of him! 

 

So the next time your in Glasgow you can come by and I will show you my buck because he is going on my wall has soon has he gets back from the taxidermist!

Author: harold

Check out this very good story over at Security Focus. This is the story of how some White Hat Hackers tracked down some spammers that are trying to con people into giving up their banking information. Basically, the spam appears to come from CitiBank, and it asks people to go to a web page that appears to be a CitiBank web page, but the pop-up that comes up and asks you to verify your information actually goes to a server in Russia that has nothing to do with CitiBank.

This story shows how spammers and criminals are getting more and more cunning. And it shows how you have to be careful in determining where emails are really coming from. This scam affects CitiBank, but even if you don’t use them, someone in the future could do the same with any other bank (or with something like PayPal as we see in the previous article about the new Worm going around). Read the article and be careful with email claiming to be from your bank and asking you for personal information.
Author: jonathan

Be careful with any email claiming to be from PayPal and saying that your account is about to expire. A new worm is running around that cunningly tries to con people out of their PayPal information. I believe the worm is based on Microsoft software flaws, but the email could be sent to any Operating System. Check out the details here . More information can also be found at sophos.com. They give some very good advice on this page:

“Note: do not act on web links or attachments sent to you in emails which claim to come from banks or financial companies. The apparent source of an email is too easily forged.”
Author: jonathan

By Mike Walters

Every now and then, a story leaks out from the borders of some despot’s police state about a commando-style raid on an innocent household, police violently tearing through belongings, shouting and throwing children to the ground while waving loaded firearms. It was a blow to Americans, who count themselves lucky not to have to live in a land of insanity and sadistic abuses of police power, to hear that all of this happened on American soil, when police burst into Stratford High School in Goose Creek, S.C., weapons drawn and eager to rough up a few drug dealers. They left that day empty-handed, but what they left behind among hallways littered with emptied lockers and scared students was an injustice that is inexcusable in a country that values freedom, justice and the concept of one being”innocent until proven guilty.”

“I was frightened because they had guns in their hands,” student Maurice Harris told NBC. “I thought one of the guns was going to go off and shoot or kill somebody, so I just got down to my knees and covered my head for protection.”

With bomb threats, school killing sprees and acts of terrorism being real possibilities in the United States, it would be understandable if the police were called in to use extraordinary measures to save the lives of students by stopping a gun-toting student from going on a rampage or setting off a bomb. Instead, the police went in that day throwing students to the ground and handcuffing them because their principal reported a suspicion of drug activity. He based his suspicion on surveillance video of students entering bathrooms and talking secretively and an arrest made the week prior when a student was found with 300 prescription pills on him.

“I don’t think it was an overreaction,” said Lt. Dave Aarons from the Goose Creek police department. “Anytime you have qualified information regarding drugs and large amounts of money, there’s a reasonable assumption weapons are involved.”

In a raid against the Columbian drug cartel, yes, one could expect to arrest professional criminals who may defend themselves against the police with lethal force. But did they have to come in with their guns drawn looking for a 15-year-old with his mom’s bottle of Xanax?
“You absolutely cannot bring police with guns drawn into a school,” said Graham Boyd, director of the drug policy project for the American Civil Liberties Union. Calling the search illegal, he rightly suggested that if certain students were suspected of drug dealing, they should have been quietly called to the principal’s office to have their bags checked for illegal substances. Instead, the police used the excuse to pretend they were U.S. Special Forces, pushing students to the ground, yelling, rummaging through bags and lockers and watching students cower at the sight of guns and barking police dogs.

The fact is police officers work every day to stop crimes and protect the lives of civilians, often at the cost of their own. Like any other profession, they must be held accountable when their actions express incompetence or the use of poor judgment. Unlike other professions, however, they are trusted with the legal ability to use force against other citizens. As such, it is important that they do their jobs well and consistently. On Nov. 5, those members of the South Carolina Police Department failed to live up to that standard. Despite employing rough and invasive tactics against those teenagers, they discovered no evidence of illegal activity and acted upon a poor lead, another fact for which they should be ashamed.

Though students’ lockers are on the government property of a public school, there is no excuse for causelessly breaking into and rummaging through them. Just because an American citizen is under the age of 18, his constitutional rights are still valid, as the Constitution protects every citizen from illegal search and seizure of his private property, particularly the innocent ones. When parents entrust a child to the care of the government to receive an education paid for by their tax dollars, they should be able to expect their kids to be treated with a certain decency and safety by school officials who are supposed to be competent enough to provide these things.

If the United States is going to accuse countries on the other side of the world of ruling by unjust force and tyranny, it’s important that Americans never act like those they call their enemies, or Americans will be no better than those they fight against. From The Battalion
110 years serving Texas A & M University
Author: harold

CNN is reporting that Alabama Chief Justice has been removed from office by a judicial ethics panel for failing to remove the Ten Commandments monument when ordered to do so by the Federal Courts. Read the link for more and comment below.

Author: jonathan

Submitted via email to Weird Harold by another member, plez. Story self-explanatory.

A Fallen Hero Comes Home – Police Provide Escort

Thu, 01 May 2003 17:44:15 -0400

Please take the time to read the email below. It is a great, true
story. The letter was written by Senior Investigator Jack Graham of the New York State Police to fellow members of the NY State Police and to the Syracuse Police who, on April 17, 2003, participated in a hastily planned ceremonial escort for a soldier killed in Iraq. Feel free to pass this on. These are the kinds of stories that make us proud to be an American.
The abbreviation “SP”, means “State Police”, and it refers to a station. For instance, SP Loudonville, NY.

On Thursday, April 17, 2003 you participated in an escort detail for
GREGORY P. HUXLEY JR who was killed in action in Iraq on April 6, 2003. On behalf of the entire Huxley family and from me, personally, I want to say “Thank you very much.” Your professionalism, dedication and sincerity meant so much to the Huxley family, that words cannot describe their feelings at this time.

What most did not know was that the US Army had promised the family
members that they would be taken to Dover, Delaware to be present when
their son arrived from Iraq and there would be a full military ceremony
in Dover for GREGORY. Unfortunately, there was a communication problem
and they were not present during that ceremony.

Then they were informed that the body of their son was being flown to
Syracuse and that the funeral director could pick up the “fallen
soldier” at the cargo area of the airport and that somebody would help
them remove the casket from the cardboard shipping container for
transport to Boonville, NY.

The funeral director felt that unacceptable for a nineteen year old
young man that gave his life for this country and for the freedom of so
many others. As a family friend he contacted me to see if anything
could be done. We now had six hours before GREGORY arrived in Syracuse.

Phone calls were made to SP North Syracuse and SGT Nick Harmatiuk took
over from there. What you participated in and observed the rest of that
day was truly an outstanding display of what this agency can do in very
short time.

What happened was just visually and emotionally overwhelming.

The procession left SP North Syracuse led by eight Syracuse PD
motorcycles, followed by the hearse, four cars with family members and
followed by ten State Police and Syracuse PD cars. How ironic it was
that when the procession was traveling parallel to the runway, the plane
carrying GREGORY landed next to it. We were able to enter the planes
cargo area and remove the shipping crate from the casket and drape the
American flag over the casket. When the casket traveled down the
conveyor belt, fifteen New York State Troopers and the same amount of
Syracuse Policemen lined the path to the awaiting hearse – all at
attention. A hand salute was executed as six State Troopers proudly
bore the flag draped coffin to the hearse. After a short prayer, the
family was given some time to welcome their son home.

The entire airport was so quiet. I looked up at the concourse windows
and saw a hundred or more people. They were all standing, watching,
with their hands over their hearts, saluting a young man that they did
not know. Somehow they learned that a fallen soldier had come home and
they wanted to honor his sacrifice.

The casket was then placed in the hearse and the procession left the
airport in the same fashion as we arrived, only this time with a young
hero that our hearts will never forget.

The motorcade was escorted to the thruway entrance by the Syracuse
Police Department’s motorcycles. All traffic was stopped for the
procession and we headed east towards Boonville. After getting off the
thruway, we found that every intersection that the procession
encountered was controlled by State Troopers, allowing us a safe,
unimpeded passage. At each intersection, the State Trooper stood at
attention, saluting the fallen soldier and his family, giving him and
his family the respect that they deserved. How emotional that was to
see and now to reflect on.

When entering the Village of Boonville, the main street was decorated
with an infinite number of American Flags and yellow ribbons. As we
approached the center of town, all of the church bells began to peal at
once recognizing and saluting Gregory’s arrival. Hundreds of people
holding American flags lined the street, some with their hand over their
heart and some weeping for GREGORY for what he sacrificed, for us and
his country. As we drove by the village park, the National Anthem was
being played, for GREGORY, and I think, for all of us.

At the funeral home, eight veterans lifted the casket out of the hearse
and into the home with the family. GREGORY had returned home.

GREGORY’S family said to me later that the images I have just described
will always be etched in their hearts, forever. But the one memory that
will always be there first, was of the State Troopers at the airport,
standing at attention, saluting, with tears running down their cheeks
for their son, a fallen soldier. A hero whom those Troopers never
personally knew.

Our jobs take many different avenues in life. We hope that during our
day or shift that we have made a difference, a positive contribution.
On this occasion you did just that. An entire family knows that you
cared to do your very best to honor their son. Their words and
expressions told me just that. We made a difference yesterday, and we
did it well.

The rewards we receive for details like this one do not come from
anywhere but from the heart. Take pride in what you accomplished,
because it was distinct and without equal in this Trooper’s eye. I have
had so many good things happen since I have been a State Trooper, but in
those twenty fours years, I have never been more proud the New York
State Police as I was yesterday – A fallen soldier, a hero, a son, a
brother has finally come home, in grand deserving style, thanks to all
of you.

Jack Graham
Senior Investigator
New York State Police
Author: harold