Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (211546)	1/2/2007 1:02:35 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

damn I can't figure out how I did that oh well back to the 5th grade for me :-) (and now to top it all off, I'm getting different numbers when I divide total deaths by total troops- not very different- but .0013 instead of .0011, etc.) .1337% 2004 .099062% 2003 .070% 2002 sigh of course this time I took my glasses off so I could see the teeny tiny calculator better, so I'm hoping the above are actually correct...

To: geode00 who wrote (211546)	1/2/2007 1:35:54 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Ford's Passing: The End of an Era huffingtonpost.com By Alec Baldwin* Two important deaths close out 2006. But I think Gerald Ford's is the more significant. While Hussein was the ostensible reason for a war that has killed 3000 Americans, his execution seems a dull afterthought. Like Joe Pesci's rubout in Goodfellas, you can just hear Ray Liotta say, "It's an Iraqi thing." From the moment Hussein was captured and held in US custody, you knew they (US or Iraq) would kill him one way or another. Oddly enough, I think Hussein could have done us more good alive than dead. In the case of Ford, it is the end of an era. The last man without a streak of self-importance as wide as the Beltway that held the office of the Presidency is dead. And we may never see his likes again. All men, and women for that matter, who seek the office spend every waking moment convincing the American public, the press and the world how smart they are. How cool under fire they are. How experienced, empathetic and tough they are. Understandably so, as the job becomes more out of touch with reality with every election cycle. We often elect Presidents, Democrat or Republican, without any real understanding of who they are as people. Without ever knowing what makes them tick and whether they are up to the job until it is too late and they are already sworn in. Ford never sought the office initially. When he did run, he lost. But Ford was the last President who never seemed the self-conscious, overbearing, word-of-God, self-seeking politico that we are treated to nearly exclusively now. He was a real person, a career Congressman. A public servant in the greatest tradition. An American in the best tradition. Differ with him on policy, and you weren't treated to the sociopathology of a Cheney, for example. And when he pardoned Nixon, well....what did you expect him to do? Ford paid for that decision, but he helped the country move forward in the process. Gerald Ford, the last man who remained true to who he was as an individual WHILE IN OFFICE to become US President. *Alec Baldwin has starred in several films, including The Hunt for Red October, Miami Blues, Prelude to a Kiss, Malice, The Shadow, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heaven's Prisoners, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Edge, Pearl Harbor, among others.