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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22852)	2/15/2005 1:45:09 PM
From: jim_p	Respond to of 23153

A long time ago, Britain and France were at war. During one battle, the French captured an English major. Taking the major to their headquarters, the French general began to question him. The French general asked, "Why do you English officers all wear red coats? Don't you know the red material makes you easier targets for us to shoot at?" In his bland English way, the major informed the general that the reason English officers wear red coats is so that if they are shot, the blood won't show and the men they are leading won't panic. And that is why from that day to this, all French Army officers wear brown pants.

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22852)	2/16/2005 1:06:24 PM
From: aerosappy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

What the AARP doesn't want our kids to know ... Dear Mr. Bowen, As many look to The Heritage Foundation to provide solutions and shape the debates in Washington, we are answering the call and leading the charge on a variety of issues. One of the foremost being Social Security reform. Please see the attached op-ed from my colleague and Heritage vice president Stuart Butler that ran in the Washington Times and was distributed nationally by the Knight Ridder Tribune Information Service. In it, Stuart humorously sheds light on the AARP’s double standard and scare tactics when it comes to investing for retirement. Thank you for making this and all of our work possible. Sincerely, Ed Feulner ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schizophrenic over reform By Stuart Butler Published February 14, 2005 Dear AARP: I'm confused. I'm 57, and ever since you enticed me into AARP with those great discounts, I've been trying to figure out your position on Social Security reform. I'm trying to learn the party line and get with the AARP team playbook. Your recent full-page ads have told me in no uncertain terms that investing for my retirement is like playing the slots at Vegas -- risking everything on a giant stock market roulette wheel. Wow. I didn't realize how foolish I've been all these years, putting money into mutual funds and bonds. Guess I'd better cash out my IRA and 401(k) account while's there's still time and sock the cash away under the mattress -- and tell my Baby Boomer friends to do the same. But here's why I'm confused. I just looked at your AARP Bulletin online financial help. Your money guru tells me I should put money into my 401(k) as quickly as possible, not take it out before Vegas gets it. He is panicking me by saying we 50-somethings don't invest enough in retirement plans. Doesn't he know about that awful roulette wheel? Haven't you told him about those terrible slots? I guess he needs to be educated, or maybe fired, before he misleads anyone else. It's very confusing. In or out? Seems to depend on which page of the Bulletin I'm reading at the time. But that's not all. It turns out my beloved AARP is actually helping run the roulette wheel. AARP has its own investment program, with Scudder Investments. You even have a Web site showing me all the great mutual funds and stock index funds I can invest in. The guys who write the AARP ads equating investment with Vegas need to look into this. Seems there's sin taking place right in the chapel. With all that, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to read elsewhere that AARP isn't exactly against personal retirement accounts. We AARP members apparently can support personal accounts if working Americans just fund them with more of our own money, on top of paying Social Security taxes. Maybe we even can support helping people create such "add-on" accounts with some matching money from Uncle Sam (i.e., the taxpayer). We're just not supposed to support putting some of our own payroll taxes into them. So we actually should support personal retirement accounts after all, right? Now that's really confusing. Seems to me there are only two explanations for this curious position. One is that AARP actually wants its members to play the slots with our savings and risk blowing all that money. If so, AARP should shutter its investment advice Web sites and tell us that putting money into safe mutual funds and bonds is the financial equivalent of hang-gliding. The other explanation is that there's more politics in all this than meets the eye. If AARP's money advisers are right, then the ads are nothing more than scare tactics and should be withdrawn. Do you truly want us to unload all of our retirement investments as quickly as possible? I doubt it. So AARP's bottom line seems to be that it's wise for workers to put money aside and get the good returns they can receive from safe mutual funds, providing they still have extra money sitting around after they pay their taxes. But millions of lower-and modest-income Americans save nothing for their retirement because high payroll taxes mean there's nothing left to save and invest. And the return they get from traditional Social Security on their payroll dollars typically is far below the long-term return on safe mutual funds, and getting worse. Plus, Social Security doesn't give them a nest egg they can use during retirement or pass on to their heirs when they die, even it that's before retirement. So the add-on personal accounts AARP seems to support just mean more money for those well-off workers who already have money to invest. They do nothing for the poor guy who pays his taxes but has nothing left over. According to AARP, we must make sure he can't improve his retirement by asking to have some of his payroll tax put into a safe mutual fund... er, sorry. I meant "the slots." As the saying goes, "to those who have, it shall be given." You can see why I'm confused. Now, about those AARP travel discounts... Stuart Butler is vice president for domestic and economic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22852)	2/21/2005 5:37:22 PM
From: jim_p	Respond to of 23153

Happy Presidents Day!!! Subject: John Glenn & the Military This has been around a time or two, but is so enlightening to read that I am sending it just in case you have not seen it. ________ Take 3 minutes to read this it should get your blood pumping, Way to go Senator Glenn! Things that make you think........ There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during January.... In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in January. That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following .. FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year. Truman...finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year. John F. Kennedy. ..started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us. Johnson...turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year. Clinton...went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions. In the years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has.....liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation. We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records. It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chapaquiddick. It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!! Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts. Wait, there's more....................... JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13 Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for a living. This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of the military. Senator Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn: "How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?" Senator Glenn: "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank. I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job! You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn't hold a job. You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags. You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those people didn't have a job? I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME MEN - who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty - that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?" For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA. Now he's a Senator! If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English thank a Veteran. It might not be a bad idea to keep this circulating....