WildBlueGyrl

Ah, but tommie, there's been no proof that he was hiding bin Laden. Granted, there's no proof saying he wasn't, either, but we went in there half-cocked and threw an entire country into basically a political sprial. They don't know what we're doing and half of us don't know what we're doing there either. I'm not saying that area should have been left alone, but I've asked a few of my friends who are on the front line if they even know what they're fighting for. The answer is some variation of "Well, I thought it was for democracy and freedom, but now, I'm not so sure". I'd love to believe we're fighting for democracy and the end of tyranny and fighting to free people from opression. But to think that would not only be terribly naive on my part, but incredibly stupid and disrespectful to my husband and what he stands for. Also, it would dishonor the memory of my brother, who was on the 97th floor of the southern tower. Maybe it's my own personal vendetta against bin Laden, but I have always believed that you finish one thing before you move on to something else. Maybe someone should remind Dubya of that before he pisses off someone else. Maybe he needs to be reminded of why he sent all of our soldiers over to the Middle East was not to kill Saddam... but to find and destroy the Taliban. It used to be that simple. It should have been quick and easy. Boom, we go in. Bam, we're out with Osama's head on the perverbial silver platter to serve a slight touch of revenge to the American public. Yes, removing Saddam from power earned us a lot of respect from a lot of other countries, but can someone please explain to me this: Is that feather (Saddam being dead by our hands) better than removing one of *if not THE* largest terrorist threat this world has ever seen? I'll leave you with that food for thought and go pester aforementioned husband into giving me a foot massage.

I'm probably about to open a giant can o' worms on this and I apologize in advance for anyone I offend. I'd just like to leave my own opinion on the matter. First of all, I was born in Alabama, USA. My parents have raised me in the Deep South all my life *I've never been to New York, don't plan to either *. Ask anyone from the Deep South and they'll tell you that we're about as patriotic as they get. However, though I love my country, I despise what we have come to stand for. Yes, we're over there trying to free up an entire country from opression and terror and tyrants, but at what cost? And when was it voted on that the US of A was to be the police of the entire world? Who died and made us the all-powerful and gave us authority to tell someone else that their views and the god they pray to is wrong? I was never given the chance to serve, though I tried my damnedest to get into the armed forces. My siblings and I are the only generation since we stepped off the boat in 17-whatever that have not served this country in one branch of the armed forces or another *mostly Navy, though*. My husband was in the Air Force. Even with the military background and understanding that if we didn't have a standing military, we'd've gotten our collective asses handed to us in WWI and WW2. But that doesn't give us the right to declare war on a nation who embarrassed our president's daddy over 12 years ago! We went over to the Middle East in search of one man. ONE MAN!!! The one who's got the blood from over 3000 on his hands. The one who's got thousands of other good men and women injured while searching for his chicken-$hit ass. We went over there for Osama bin Laden. No one else. Yet we haven't found him. Oh, sure. We've taken out a few of his higher-ranking officers and "freed" Iraq. But in the process, we had a man excecuted for WMD. Not weapons of mass destruction. WORDS of mass destruction. They never found the weapons. There was never any proof that he even had them, but we still hunted Saddam to the ground. Hey, I'll even admit it was for the good of the world that he be removed from power, but while we were running Saddam down, there have been more terrorist attacks on America's allies. The bombings in Spain and England that claimed more lives that I have the ability to count. I'm not talking about the death-toll. I'm talking about the ones that survived and are living not only in day-to-day pain, but day-to-day fear that someone will come back to finish the job. The same ones who won't ride the train because of this crippling fear. Bush is claiming that we're winning, but are we? Or is this going to be my generations version of Vietnam? My daughter will be 5 in January. Not once in her young life has she known peace. If we don't stop screwing with things that are none of our damn business, I fear she'll never know a day of her life that isn't over-shadowed by fear of attack or fear of retribution for what we are trying to do now. My daddy served in the Navy and he has, I think, the best phrase to sum this up. "Freedom is never free." I'd like to add to that "but it shouldn't cost us our future." Again, apologies to anyone I have offended; please don't kick me off the forum.

Like Sierra said, it differs from month to month, depending on your usage. For instance, let's say on day 4 of your service, you download 3 MB of information. That information counts against your allowed download amount until day 34. On day 35, that 3MB rolls off. However, if you go over your allowed amount of download *or upload -- it works the same way*, it will take 30 days from the day you went over to roll off and get your back to your regular speed, not when the bulk of your downloading rolls off. Hope that helps!!

Hope to see you on again, ca3le. By the way, I've been close to where you are with bike wrecks. It sucks, worse than a back-alley--well, you get the drift. Just know that the pain fades, as do (most of) the scars. But the memories of a brush with death will stick around for a while. Don't let them keep you from your bike and feeling the closest thing those of us without wings get to flying. tdawnaz, give him a hug from all of us and make sure he just rests. Sleep is over-rated anyway

Well, Roco, you just said hi yourself *he's a coworker and saw the post*. And he said hi back, and that he was 14 when he went across the big blue pond. And, no, tommie... not the new way of making OJ, though it is a bit of food for thought.....

(to tommie) Yeah, oranges in a sweat sock. Regardless of how hard you hit, it never leaves a single mark. But it hurts like hell... (to Roco) I've got a friend who moved from a small town in Scotland to New York City and, when he was a child, his parents would offer him alcohol at pretty much any event. But after the move, he and his parents went out to dinner and he ordered a glass of wine. Needless to say, he got quite upset when he was told that he couldn't get any alcohol *his parents were pissed, too, because they wouldn't serve any to them for fear they would give it to the "underage" one*. The funny part is that he's got a better alcohol tolerance and knows how to pace himself better than most people I know who have lived in this country since birth.

I agree. Society has taught our youth that if we attempt to punish them, they can merely cry "child abuse" and get away with murder. Hell, I grew up just fine, with a healthy dose of fear of "Momma" put into me by my mother taking a switch to my hind-end on numerous occasions. She never beat me, but she did tan my hide. Then that stuipd "oooh, you can't punish your child with anything but a swat to the bottom and, by the way, if the mark lasts for more than 15 minutes, it's child abuse" crap came up and I got away with almost everything........ until my mom found out just how much my rear-end could take without leaving marks... On a side note, if your mother gets pissed off at you to the point she grabs two fresh oranges and your father's tube-sock.... run. Run like hell, don't stop, don't look back.

I'll agree with that, but downloading such materials eats up your bandwidth usage. And I know that several people use programs like BitTorrent to download massive amounts of that type of information. Hence, Fair Access Policy violations, decreased speeds, all sorts of nasties.

... Ok, I'll grant you the Native Americans one. I went back and re-read it... typo, my mistake. That'll show me why to ***NOT*** drink massive amounts of Jolt on only 3 hours of sleep. Just one question.... What does "afaik" stand for?????

Hope you're getting well, ca3le. I've had more concussions than years I've been alive, due in part to the non-motorized bikes.... and that one incident with a cannon. Long story. Moving on... Get well soon and just remember. You only need one thumb to hit the spacebar. Hope to see you around again soon.

A couple things I want to point out that weren't mentioned in the study. Out of those 11,000 children that were watched until they were age 30, how many of them had alcoholic parents? Or alcoholic grandparents? There have been studies about how people with some sort of substance abuse are more likely to abuse substances in their lives. Case in point, the Native Americans. That's the reason why so many of them drink. Through generations of alcohol abuse, they have essentially built up a type of tolerance to alcohol that most people in today's society wouldn't dream of trying to achieve. As far as from the horses mouth, though, let me point out that in Scotland *up until just recently*, you were able to go to the pub, sit at the bar and order whatever drink you wanted, as long as you were tall enough to see over the top of the bar. If anyone should be strung up by their heels, covered in honey and hung over a fire-ants' hill, it's those parents who allowed their babies to enjoy the taste of alcohol at such an early age. However, on the flip side of the coin, I do know that in several states in Southern America - not South America, folks. I'm talking about Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, etc - mothers are still using the old folk-remedy of rubbing a thumb wrapped in a cloth and dipped into home-grown wiskey *read "moonshine"* in order to help an infant who is having teething problems. And take it from a mother who had it done to her as a child and who did it to her own child... both of us hate the taste of alcohol. I hate it simply because I enjoy being in control of my own person, at all times of the day..... plus, I like my dignity. My daughter hates it because she was brought up on stories from friends of mine that were killed after going on a drinking binge and then not waking up the next morning because of alcohol poisoning. We know the horrors and dangers that certain substances can cause and we know to take them in VERY limited quantity. One more little tidbit of food for thought, though. How many of those 11,000 kids were brought up in less than privileged families? How many of them saw their own parents turn to the drink in order to deal with life's day-to-day horrors and then turned around and made it into "monkey-see-monkey-do"?

The only thing I want to point out about this is that there has been a federal mandate in place for years now to limit the amount of information that a customer can upload and download in a given amount of time. It's called the Fair Access Policy. Granted, individual ISPs are free to actually set the limitations for their own individual users, depending on packages and whatnot. But the point is, this is only another facet of the Fair Access Policy. If someone get's pissed off about the fact that they are having their download and upload usage throttled back, then they should stop with the dirty movies they are obsessed with and use the internet for more important things.

No, I was talking about the modem itself, not the Tx and Rx cables. You can't plug those into a surge protector, anyway. But the modem itself has a power block on it, so you'll need to bypass the surge protector and plug it into a wall.

Yeah, it might be beneficial to look over the threshold limits and where you are on the limits. For the Platinum package, it should be something around 17G download, which is kinda hard to reach *that's almost 1/3 of my entire hard-drive * and 5G upload. Also, what types of games do you and your kids play? If you're playingany type of MMORPG, like World of Warcraft or Everquest, then it's entirely possible you are going over. Due to the massive amounts of upload and download that needs to happen between your computer and the server, it's very easy to eat up your bandwidth usage.

Hello tommy and Siryak. Yeah, there are a million and one uses for an old dish, LOL