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you purchase a new leather case for your Mac. I received a call from FedEx yesterday explaining that I would have to apply for an "Importer Number" from Homeland Security because the MacBook Pro case I ordered from Argentina was more than Homeland Security would allow without one. I tried to explain to FedEx that I am a consumer, not an "importer" and I bloody well didn't want to be entered into some Homeland Security database over a silly case which would protect my new computer. I've purchased products from this company for more than 5 years and never had...

I suppose a lot of people wonder why a loving God would keep Himself so hidden and unseen when so many people it seems are looking for Him. Some people I suppose wonder why God doesn’t just make Himself known to everyone and ‘just let them decide’ after His physical revelation is made clear? First off I want to point out that for God to make Himself physically known to us, God would have had to have been physically with everyone right from the beginning of creation, to the present, as people are born every single second, in great numbers,...

On Turning 50Okay, so I'm 50 years old today, and the only reason I bring it up is because, well, actually there are two reasons. The first is because for a person to have lived half a century is really an accomplishment, especially if you lived as dangerously as I chose to in my youth. I no longer do many of the things I was doing way back then, such as drinking beer and chasing women all night long, drag racing my Dad's Pontiac, and smoking enough wacky weed to deforest half of Colombia. So: thank you, dear Lord for...

Hello, I'm new here as a poster. If I am doing this wrong, let me know. but my flame suit probably was made in china, so hope you're aim isn't all that good:)

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency. The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama. Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy." "And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do,"...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton clashed Sunday in the slushy New Hampshire homestretch, deriding each others' claims to be the true candidate of change. Clinton told Democratic voters they should elect "a doer, not a talker." Obama countered that his critics are stuck in the politics of the past. At a raucous rally in a high school gymnasium in Nashua, Clinton skewered Obama for several votes he has cast in the Senate, such as his vote in favor of the Patriot Act and for energy legislation she described as "Dick Cheney's energy bill." She never mentioned...

    What more can I say, other than what a wonderful Christmas vacation!  I was surrounded by family, everyone had the Christmas spirit, and other than the fact it went by way too fast it was an exceptional visit.      So now here we are, it’s a new year, 2008.  Many people consider this a magical time of the year.  The time to start over, start fresh, and initiate the goals that we put off all of 2007, you know the ones where you kept saying “I think I’ll _______ (fill in the blank) next year”.  Well as of today, it is...

WASHINGTON - Bring on the grilled meat. Just don't plate it with certain vegetables. The presidential candidates seem more aligned in their food cravings than their politics. Indulgences include a hearty Southern breakfast, chocolate and Mexican spice. Bring them all together for a feast, and the host would want to pass on the beets, eggplant, mushrooms and carrots to avoid a turned up nose at the table. Since the spring, The Associated Press has been exploring the tastes, traits and backgrounds of the Democrats and Republicans running for their party's 2008 presidential nomination. AP asked them about their ideal jobs...

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) woke up at 2:30 on Tuesday morning to see the hillside behind his house glowing with fire and flames shooting as high as 50 feet in the air. He then watched as the fire ran to the top of the ridge of the hill and raced back down the other side. McKeon, who returned to Washington on Tuesday afternoon, said in a phone interview that 25 structures had been destroyed and maybe 15,000 people evacuated from his district. According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reported late Tuesday that 750 homes had been totally...

Army Mobility Relies on Personal Security Platoons Soldiers are exclusively selected to perform vital security role. By U.S. Army Sgt. Chris Keller U.S. Central Command Public Affairs CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, April 26, 2007 — Instant mobility gives commanders what they need to be successful in the fast-paced Global War on Terrorism. And that’s exactly what the Iraq Assistance Group’s (IAG) Personal Security Platoon (PSP) provides. When the IAG demands mobility, the PSP makes it happen. The PSP takes IAG personnel threw some of the most dangerous roads in Iraq to make sure transition teams and Iraqi forces get the...

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2007 – When a soldier returns from war, is he the same person he was before deploying? No, he’s not, said Robert May, producer of “The War Tapes,” a documentary that shows Operation Iraqi Freedom through the eyes of several New Hampshire National Guardsmen who were supplied with digital video cameras and an endless supply of tape. “You hear about the people who die, you hear about the people injured,” May said. “What about the majority of the people who come home?” “The War Tapes,” which made its theatrical debut last year and won the 2006...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2006 -- Defense secretary nominee Robert M. Gates spoke today on how the war in Iraq has touched him personally -- 12 graduates of Texas A&M University, which he has led as president for the last four years, have been killed in Iraq. Sen. Edward Kennedy, left, listens as Sen. Carl Levin questions Robert M. Gates, defense secretary nominee, during a Senate Armed Services Commitee confirmation hearing, Dec. 5. Photo by Cherie A. Thurlby  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gates is President Bush's nominee to succeed Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. “I would...

Alan Fine, the south Minneapolis congressional candidate who had his 1995 criminal record of domestic violence expunged in 2004, demanded Saturday that the Star Tribune retract its story outlining his arrest and details of alleged attacks against his first ex-wife that are contained in the couple's divorce file. "...The newspaper obtained an expunged copy of a June 1995 Minneapolis police report that stated Fine was arrested and booked into Hennepin County jail after officers were called to his home following a domestic abuse call from his then-wife, Rebecca Wexler.

(New Haven-WTNH, Sept. 19, 2006 10:45 PM) _ A student's refusal to walk through a safety detector earns him a trip home. For some the installation of metal detectors in schools is to better protect those inside. One New Haven student is refusing to walk the walk, questioning whether his rights are being violated. The district says it is like the right to enter a courtroom or get on a plane. It's new policy to keep young people safe. For this New Haven student it's all about his fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Nick...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2006 – Detainee treatment and interrogation operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are fully compliant with the Detainee Treatment Act and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions -- at least as best as U.S. military leaders understand Common Article 3, the general with overall responsibility for operations there said yesterday. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command, said “outrages on personal dignity” -- outlawed by Common Article 3 -- is an overly ambiguous term that could lead to trouble for U.S. servicemembers trying to understand rules for interrogations. “In the military, we like ‘tasks,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2006 -- About 50 authors, including current and former servicemen and women as well as family members, gathered in the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building last evening to sign copies of a 377-page book of their observations and experiences in the global war on terrorism. Navy Reserve Cmdr. Kathleen Toomey Jabs, 40, whose Navy officer husband deployed to Iraq in 2004, autographs a copy of “Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.” For the book, Jabs wrote a fictional account about a military mother leaving her 4-year-old...

This time he wasn't here to save black Milwaukee from the demons that plague us. This time it was just another gig. But Bill Cosby still cares about the issues he's been talking about all over the country in a one-man campaign to send a message to African-Americans about personal responsibility, good parenting and the need for education. Even when Cosby's mainly in town to make people laugh, the plight of black America is never far from his mind.

TIKRIT, Iraq, Aug. 10, 2006 — Any war veteran can tell you how important personal time is and how it helps soldiers cope with the separation from home and family. Sgt. Otis C. Wells, base reaction force, 122nd Engineer Company, South Carolina Army National Guard, uses his personal time to grow a garden in the middle of a desert. “I used my time between missions to work on my garden,” Wells said. “That’s what I like to do … I do it every year back home.” The native of Wagener, S.C., had to create all the tools needed to work...

JERUSALEM - An Albert Einstein letter decrying the attentions of a Berlin socialite is among newly unsealed documents that promise to shed light on the private life of the 20th century's greatest physicist. Ethel Michanowski was involved with Einstein in the late 1920s and early 30s, going so far as to chase him to England, said Barbara Wolff of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, which on Monday unsealed more than 3,500 pages of correspondence written between 1912 and 1955, the year Einstein died at age 76. Wolff described their relationship as an affair, but disclosed little about Michanowski other...

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2006 – Veterans Affairs officials today announced the theft of personal information on up to 26.5 million veterans. However, VA Secretary R. James Nicholson stressed there's no indication the information is being used for purposes of fraud. "We at the VA have recently learned that an employee here, a data analyst, took home a considerable amount of electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do," Nicholson said. "His home was burglarized, and this data was stolen." The compromised data includes names, Social Security numbers and birthdates of veterans separating from the military...

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has licensed free anti-spyware software for all government employees and armed forces personnel for use on personal computer systems. According to the Federal Trade Commission’s Web site at www.ftc.gov, Spyware is software that monitors or controls the use of your computer. It could send pop-up ads, redirect browsers to certain Web sites, or even record your keystrokes. A pop-up ad could even try to trick someone into typing in bank account information, leading to identity theft. Users may also be able to get the software through their respective Automated Data...

SURVEY Should People Be Allowed To Have Pit Bulls At Pets? Yes No Results so far: Yes 57% No 43% Poll Link Here

McDermott: Taping Dispute Not Personal By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer Last update: April 01, 2006 – 4:28 AM WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Jim McDermott says his eight-year dispute with House Majority Leader John Boehner over an intercepted telephone call is not personal, but involves a crucial right of voters to know what their leaders are doing. "Unfortunately, it's portrayed in the paper as Boehner v. McDermott. It really is the government versus the people,'' McDermott, D-Wash., said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press. McDermott commented three days after a federal appeals court ruling against him in the...

"Do you think that veterans should salute - covered or uncovered - when the National Anthem, Honors, or Taps are played and when the American Flag passes? Currently, veterans place their hands over their hearts (still an option) as civilians do. 1024 Responses (871) Should salute 85% (153) Should not salute" 14%

Today, the Wisconsin State Assembly debates SB-403: "This bill creates a licensing system under which an individual is permitted to carry a concealed weapon under certain circumstances. The bill also makes certain changes in Wisconsin law to account for a federal law that requires the state to permit an individual who works as or who has retired from working as a federal, state, tribal, or local law enforcement officer in Wisconsin or in any other state to carry a concealed firearm under certain circumstances. In addition, the bill changes the law relating to background checks for handgun purchases to require...

MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Nov. 18, 2005) -- After a worried college student found his mother was in harm's way during a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, he contemplates the situation he chose to ignore and focuses his thoughts on joining the Marine Corps. Pvt. Phillip M. Oesterblad, Platoon 2130, Company E, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and never had any thoughts of joining the military while in high school. After attending college in Alaska and Arizona, he realized that he did not know enough about America's role in the situation in Iraq. "While I was in...

This is a personal perspective on the war against Al Qaeda and how it (soon will) affect(s) me. I am moved by what I experienced this morning... A Personal Perspective A Personal Perspective This weekend my son Matthew, a junior in high school had his first drill meet of the season. He has been a member of the high school RTOC drill team. He recently told me that one his best friends in high school, a senior, just joined the Marines ... (Excerpt) Read more at ,markbureau.us ...

I can't think of a better place with better people to start a discussion on recommendations for survival preparedness. A list of items that people here find necessary to survive during a disaster. As we've all seen this is our personal responsibility. I'm sure there are sites all over the internet with this information but Freepers are the best...so have at it.

Boys (and a girl) of Summer If a certain Senate Dem were as young as he acted, he might write something like this: How I Spent my Summer Vacation by: Charles 3. Schumer, Junior Seniter, 2nd term, New York I had a lot of fun this summer. I got to ride a lot of airplanes. I love New York in the summer time. But me and my friends, we had alot of fun at the Capital, too. We saw lots of pictures of our soldiers. They wasn't being very nice... My friend Dick said it reminded him of the Notsees....

Lawsuit in sledding tragedy Family of crash victim launches $255G action against City of Gatineau, claiming hill was unsafe THE FAMILY of a 12-year-old Gatineau boy who died in a sledding accident last winter has launched a lawsuit against the City of Gatineau in the hope that no one else will have to experience what they have lived through. "It hurts so much when the doctor is telling you that your son is dead following an activity like that, so I don't want no one else to live it," said Francois Lessard, whose son Simon died as a result of...

When I tell people the NEW Social Security will make the poor rich and in most cases millionaires, I get this blank stare followed by skeptical disbelief. The reason for this response is quite simple. A barrier has been ingrained in people’s psyche. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Another barrier is the belief that the combined intelligence of all Congressmen, Senators and Administrations for the last 70 years surely would have hit upon this bonanza if it were true. Well think again, my friends. Politicians are mostly lawyers and have little understanding of mathematics....

For many years, I have been a strong opponent of legalizing drugs. As you read this, remember that I am still against drug legalization, but I have more sympathy for the opposing argument. The reason I have been opposed to drug legalization is to protect children. I grew up in a home that was one step up from a crack house..at least we had heat and food. I know first hand what can happen when a child lives in those conditions. As a counter, I have always felt that use of tobacco and alcohol should be legal for those of...

The 20th Century’s energizing dynamic was totalitarian socialism. Leading that parade were proponents like Stalin and Communist Russia, Hitler and his National Socialist Party, China’s Chairman Mao and a host of lesser lights like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. All preached the equality of outcomes for their people despite their own personal power-hungry obsessions. All seduced the world with their “humanity” that no one should paid more for their work than any other. They all preached a socialism that elevated the group at the expense of the individual. Fortunately for America, their citizens continued their abiding devotion to individualism during the...

Employees of United Airlines recently got a frightening lesson in the “ownership society.” The lesson was: If you don’t own and control your retirement assets, they can be slashed or taken away at any time. A federal bankruptcy judge approved United’s request to dump its pension plan into the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., a federal agency that takes over insolvent retirement plans. More than 120,000 United employees and former employees — including many who are already retired — will see major cuts in their retirement benefits. For decades, United has promised its workers generous payments in retirement. As other industries...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Google Inc.'s 19 million daily users look up a long-lost classmate, send e-mail or bounce around the Web more quickly with its new Web Accelerator, records of that activity don't go away. In an era of increased government surveillance, privacy watchdogs worry that Google's vast archive of Internet activity could prove a tempting target for abuse. Like many other online businesses, Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) tracks how its search engine and other services are used, and who uses them. Unlike many other businesses, Google holds onto that information for years. Some privacy experts who otherwise...

A majority of likely voters (52-40%) favor proposals to allow younger workers the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute. Younger voters support the chance to invest by an enormous majority (66-23% among voters under 30). The poll also found that Americans believe that opponents of President Bush's Social Security reform proposals have an obligation to put forward an alternative plan to solve the financial crisis that is about to engulf the current system. By an overwhelming 70-22% margin, voters said...

May 16, 2005 - While we at TheRant.us freely admit that the story you are about to read may not reflect the events in every marriage between a Muslim man and a non-Muslim woman, the events as conveyed by "Ann" - her name changed at her request citing safety issues - are true and her first-hand story. All views expressed in this article are "Ann's." The following is the story of “Ann,” told in her own words, about life married to a Muslim. Well, gosh there is so much to say. I guess you could say when I met “Ahmed”...

Urges Lawmaker to Allow All Americans to Build Retirement Nest Eggs With Personal Accounts As the U.S. Senate Finance Committee met today for a hearing about Social Security reform, the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity named one of the committee's members, Sen. John F. Kerry, its inaugural "Investor of the Week" for his outstanding personal investment record and secure retirement future. The group also urged Sen. Kerry to back legislation creating personal accounts in Social Security, which would allow all Americans to build larger retirement nest eggs by investing some of their Social Security tax dollars in safe bond...

WASHINGTON -- MoveOn.org, the left-wing activist group leading the fight against Rep. Tom DeLay, has claimed there is a Republican clamor to replace him as House majority leader that does not actually exist. "Now," said an e-mail dispatched by MoveOn, "some Republicans in Congress are speaking out against DeLay." In fact, however, no Republican in Congress has criticized DeLay publicly, not even on an off-the-record basis. The e-mail also declares unequivocally that "DeLay illegally used corporate funds in support of his plan to redistrict Texas." Actually, DeLay has not been convicted, tried or even formally accused of breaking the law.

WASHINGTON - Download your "exclusive personal Constitution." And while you're at it, how about a few bucks for Senate Democrats. That is the thrust of an appeal from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued Thursday under the name of Sen. Robert C. Byrd (news, bio, voting record). "I carry a pocket-sized edition of the Constitution with me every where I go, whether I'm back home in West Virginia or speaking out on the Senate floor," it says. "Now you can, too. You can download and print the DSCC's exclusive personal Constitution." When printed, it runs eight pages. Each bears the...

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer dropped by our offices recently to talk about, among other things, Social Security. This was no dry, by-the-numbers discussion. Mr. Hoyer clearly feels passionate about the issue and fully understands that what's at stake is not how large grandma's check will be, but how the welfare state will be organized. In the process of making his arguments, he unwittingly demonstrated that the claim that Democrats have no reform ideas is flat wrong. By the end of the meeting it was clear that if Republicans fail to pass Social Security reform this year, they will deserve...

The shorthand version of the "ownership society" is a society of people who individually fund their own retirement, medicare insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, survivor insurance and long-term care and who only look to government to enforce withholding a portion of the of their wages and earnings during their working life and the caretaking of those funds in a real "lockbox" until needed. People own the funds in their account. People own nothing under the present program. The ownership society will get government out of people's lives. It will eliminate the need to redistribute income to the poor, it will...

One of the tactics frequently employed by left-leaning politicos and activists (including Teddy Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid, who represent the phalanx of the left wing of the Democrat Party in the U.S. Congress) is to introduce into the public debate a "MacGuffin," to use film director Alfred Hitchcock's term for a plot device that diverts viewers' attention from the real issues at hand. Under Hitchcock's not infrequently perverse direction, the MacGuffin became a means of manipulating the audience away from discovering in advance the ultimate resolution of a film's conflict. The Democrat Party has most recently employed this...

ATLANTA — She trembled with fear before the armed man who was wanted in the shooting deaths of a judge and three others. But Ashley Smith kept her head, even when Brian Gene Nichols pushed into her home by sticking a gun in her ribs, and bound her with masking tape, an extension cord and a curtain. "I didn't want to die," she said Sunday. "I didn't want him to hurt anybody else." The 26-year-old woman, credited by police for bringing a massive search for Nichols to a nonviolent end Saturday, resurfaced a day later with a harrowing account of...

A Letter From Iraq: (Timothy Lawton of Bridgewater is currently serving with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq. He will be writing occasional pieces for The Enterprise.) I want to thank The Enterprise for allowing me this opportunity to communicate from Iraq. Let me say how fortunate I feel to be an American citizen now that I've spent some time in both Kuwait and Iraq. I feel doubly blessed to be able to lead a platoon of brave and courageous men from Bravo Company of the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion, Seventh Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. My Brigade...

I am 54 years old, so I may be grandfathered into today's Social Security. Darn. Just return every penny I paid into it – and I keep what I contribute for the rest of my working life – and call it even. I won't ask for the interest. I know how much my employers and I put in. I figured out how long I must live to get that back, get it back with low interest, and when I start freeloading on younger workers. Change the law so I have what I paid into it – right now in a...

ATLANTA - ChoicePoint Inc., a leading data warehouser, says the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock sales by its top two executives and the embattled company has decided to stop giving personal information about consumers to small businesses. Its shares tumbled on the news. The dual announcements were made Friday by the Alpharetta, Ga.-based company in a news statement and a regulatory filing. The SEC probe involves sales of stock by chief executive Derek Smith and president Douglas Curling for a $16.6 million profit in the months after the company learned its massive database had been breached and before...

If the Minnesota Court of Appeals is having trouble deciding the fate of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, they should consider the story of Matthew Dirks. The 23-year-old East Side native served 15 months with the Army in Iraq at Baghdad International Airport and Camp Dogwood. Last week, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington denied him a carry permit. Dirks' primary job in Iraq was repairing the weapons systems on Bradley Fighting Vehicles. He also stood guard with the M249 light machine gun and .50-caliber heavy machine gun. He has fired the TOW anti-tank missile, the 25 mm cannon on...

I wanted an apology for comparing our troops to the terrorists. Here are two consecutive letters: Yes, the election in Iraq had a great turnout and it went well. A lot Of people there welcome the change, while others disagree with it. Perhaps they might not disagree so much if it were not so much under U.S. Control (do you really think that we would "allow" the Iraqi people to elect Someone that we do not want in office?). Perhaps they might not disagree so much if our U.S. military was not laying waste to their cities and training the...

NEW YORK (AP) -- An appeals court Tuesday revived part of a class-action lawsuit blaming McDonald's for making people fat, reinstating claims pertaining to deceptive advertising. A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court judge erred when he dismissed parts of the lawsuit brought on behalf of two New York children. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet dismissed the lawsuit in 2003 because he said it failed to link the children's alleged health problems directly to McDonald's products. But the appeals judges said New York's general business law requires a plaintiff to show only...