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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (14880)	11/2/2003 11:21:49 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793743

Dennis Miller is going to give us some weekly political humor on the FOX channel. Will it be "Senator Miller from California?" Hmmm. _____________________________________________ ACLU Hasn't A-C-L-U-E Saturday, November 01, 2003 By Dennis Miller Hey, get this...I want to talk about the ACLU, which, quite frankly, doesn’t have an A-C-L-U-E anymore. The ACLU worked to postpone the California Recall, is fighting to get rid of public displays of the Ten Commandments, fighting against the Boy Scouts and for NAMBLA (search), the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Working to defend their rights! In short, on the wrong side of almost every issue. The American Civil Liberties Union is imploding and the wide array of life options it endorses seems to no longer include a belief in the traditional American way. They have no use for common sense; they think it’s common. The big ACLU push during the holidays now is to get rid of public depictions of the Nativity Scene during Christmas. Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with the country, plastic depictions of Christ's birth. The ACLU has now degenerated to the point where they’ll fight against your right to erect a Nativity Scene but they’ll fight for the right of the local freak who stumbles into the scene and fondles one of the sheep. Not that they’re always wrong. The ACLU is now helping to overturn a Mississippi state law that prohibits homosexual couples in that state from adopting children and I believe that is a fair-minded cause. But you know folks, while I’m not an expert on the subject, if you’re gay and you’ve chosen to set up shop in Mississippi, well even I’m reasonably sure that you’re not equipped to adopt children. ACLU lawyers love to lounge around in the self-righteous ether until the 'atrocity alarm' goes off and then it’s down the fire pole, into their Bass Weejuns and right out the door to provide immediate succor and aid to the worst humanity has to offer, gallingly, all in the name of humanity. And they always bring up our forefathers and say they were civil libertarians. C’mon, our forefathers would have never tolerated any of this current-day crap. For God’s sake, they were blowin’ guys' heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage! And it wasn’t even coffee! Imagine how nuts they would have been on a 4-shot espresso. Let me get this straight. We don’t hate people who prey on children anymore? Did I miss a meeting? Well, if we’re not gonna go sling blade on predators just tell me cause if that’s the case I’m gonna go live in Alec Baldwinia. Got that? foxnews.com

To: KyrosL who wrote (14880)	11/10/2003 7:06:52 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793743

Here ya go, KL. Just what you have been saying! ________________________________ Success, Traced in Cement Iraqis Rebuild Factory at a Fraction of Estimate By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 10, 2003; Page A01 SINJAR, Iraq -- The rumbling, rust-colored cement factory tucked into a valley in the northwest corner of the country here stands as a monument to the success of the reconstruction effort. Burned and looted in the aftermath of the war, it was up and running again by mid-September. But it was not put back together by the U.S.-led interim government and the fleets of contractors being paid billions of dollars to fix the country. In fact, had the plant managers gone the "American way," the factory might still be in pieces. U.S. Army engineers who came to survey the damage proposed rebuilding the plant into a shining showcase for the best in modern technology. They suggested buying a fleet of earth-moving equipment and importing machinery from Europe, estimating it would take $23 million and up to a year to complete the job. The Iraqis had more modest ambitions -- they just wanted to get the factory running again, even at minimal capacity. With the help of $10,000 from the U.S. military, and $240,000 left over in factory bank accounts, they used scrap electronics, tore up one production line to get parts for the other, and fixed the plant in three months. It was not the state-of-the-art facility that the Americans envisioned, but it got the job done. The difference between the "American way" and the "Iraqi way" of building things is at the heart of an ongoing debate about how much reconstruction money is really needed and how it should be doled out. As Congress debated $18 billion to rebuild Iraq, the cement factory became a symbol of the tension between the two approaches. "The Americans are trying to deal with us at an American level. But our businesses here, they work differently," said Mardeen M. Jazny, an entrepreneur from Baghdad who owns a small computer sales and service company. U.S. government officials say they must follow rules about how the money is to be spent so that what is built meets high standards, the bidding process is fair and taxpayer dollars are being used in the most efficient way possible. They say they intend to give Iraqi officials increasing authority over how the funds are disbursed. But members of the Iraqi Governing Council and other local leaders argue that the bureaucratic American process wastes money and time and that the country would be in much better shape if they were given a stronger voice in the process as soon as possible. Baghdad is not Bethesda, they say, and they question whether the grand plans of American contractors are necessarily the best thing for a country that is still struggling to get basic services up to prewar levels. The American way is one of surveys, blueprints, procurement orders, goggles and helmets. The companies file paperwork for practically every nail put in the walls and every piece of wood that is bought. The Iraqi way is more seat-of-the-pants. It is a world where deals are made on a handshake, where a rope and a piece of wood work just fine as a scaffold, and where most construction companies are groups of brothers and cousins and friends who decided to get together for a particular job. REST AT washingtonpost.com