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Ah yes... pulling quotes out-of-context. The ultimate weapon of the clueless contrarian. One more time... (pay attention now)... "*apparently* severly deranged".

You see, that determination has to be made way of medical experts and the criminal justice system. If it is determined that she was anything less than severely deranged she should be executed post haste. From your posts it appears you may have been involved in the case.

OTOH, due to circumstances in my younger life, say 20-25 years ago I spent some time LIVING among the ghetto trash of America. As hard as it must be to comprehend this... there *IS* most definately a sub-set of people who actually...consciously... MAKE BABIES as an instrument to collect additional welfare money. I've seen it. I know the type. And the story of this welfare queen is 100% consistent with my own experiences.

Sorry, I know it is unpleasant.

Yeah.... ummm... Andrea Yates didn't continue to collect welfare subsidies nor did she hold out in interrogation for 2 days insisting the kids died naturally. Andrea Yates was apparently severely deranged in a manner that does not discriminate along racial boundries. She also didn't continue to shack up with a guy who kept her "little secret" for years after the act either.

I'm just sayin'

You are exactly correct!

I've seen my credit score tumble nearly 100 points in a year because I flipped a couple of balances to a "Zero-interest" deal.

BTW, I've NEVER been late on a payment.

I'm not sure I said he could play it... but that was a primary motivating factor in his decision to take strings.

What was truly hilarious was the time he printed the sheet music off the Internet and brought it to school so his Birkenstock wearing lefty-wacko music teacher could teach him how to play it.

I haven't been so proud of him since he did a book report on "The Savage Nation" back in the 3rd grade.

My 10 year old son took up violin lessons at school and worked hard all of last year towards two primary goals:
1. learn to play the theme to Star Wars and
2. learn to play "The devil went down to Georgia.

IDIOTS!

Well, these are indeed the pre-eminate pinheads of academia. Some people are simply educated FAR beyond their intellectual capacity.

You didn't read my post. My experiences STARTED in childhood and have continued, unabated right up to and including the thugish menacing incident I described from last night. Oh well. I will continue to do what I need to do to protect my family and to teach my children to ignore the PC sycophants and follow their gut. I want them to survive, even if someones feelings get hurt. BTW, the "gangsta / thug" types are NOT even close to being a minority. In my experience the decent ones are. It's a big problem.

I have spent an awful lot of time in your state recently, and both of the Carolinas too. If there is one state in the union that has completely bent over backwards and prostrated its collective self in atonement for sins of the past, it is the great state of Georgia. Take a cruise through the terminal walkway at ATL sometime. Yet the oppressed, victim mentality still prevails. Any change to that fact must come from within those who hold on so dearly to it. It isn't happening.

Nor is it happening here in California either. A very good friend of mine is a teacher here. He is a walking dichotomy. He was an Army combat para-trooper in Vietnam, yet he went on to graduate from UC Berkeley, of all places. He has actually sat and shown me many examples of downright fraud in the state testing that allows for special accomodations and exceptions that have been granted for black students, in a futile attempt to get the aggregated scores up.

Again... until it comes from within, it isn't going to happen. Bill Cosby's comments, and even some from comedian Chris Rock are a step in the right direction. Let us hope this is the start of something good.

Yes, you win the contest. Well, maybe a tie. If what you say is all true, and you still claim to be able to walk down a street past a group of black men and approach them with a completely open mind and un-jaded eye, then maybe you are a better person then I am...in an ethereal sense, but I hope you don't mind if I pray for your safety.

I know... there are exceptions to the rule, and that is great.

I too have seen Asian gangs who can be extremely vicious... but they don't seem to go out of their way to be aggressive and confrontational with everyone who crosses their path.

Heck, there is a white trash kid on my block who likes to come tearing up our cul-de-sac in excess of 40mph with kids playing... I'd LOVE the chance to put a 7.62mm round through his engine block.

But again, exceptions don't prove or disprove a rule. Hard facts and statistics do.

Also, this really is not a matter of me 'feeling' a certain way. I am a linear thinker, quite logical. I assess relative danger based upon past experience and probabilities, that's all. Right now... It just ain't looking too good for the brothers. I sincerely hope more of them start looking to the positive role models you have cited instead of the thug/gangster/rapper sect.

Sorry.. flame me if you must, but the first time I was mugged was on a Chicago street at age 9 with my little brother by a group of black thugs. There were multiple run-ins throughout High School, with occasional hospital visits compliments of a certain demographic. I'm now 37 and just last night a black thug noticed the painful wince on my face as he cruised past with his 1 billion bubba-watt bass boomer car, he jumped out and incoherently babbled something about doing something terrible to me and my 10 year old son at my side.

It's just the way it is and it is not my fault.

I won't sit here and say that "Some of my best friends are black..." because they aren't. Having said that I will say that *one* and only one of my very best friends of more than 15 years, is in fact a black man. We talk about these issues sometimes. There is little disagreement.

I do try and follow the civil-rights mantra of judging a man by the content of his character. But one can only be burned so many times before one develops an aversion to fire. And I will not deliberately put myself or my family in harms way just to 'prove' that we aren't racist.

Having grown up in the ultra-tolerant, liberal 70's I now find my tolerance at an all time historical low.

Go ahead... you can blast the newbie now.

I've done work on those types of coaches. They typically use air brakes that require compressed air to release, otherwise they slam shut and lock. I don't believe the coach could move at all if the brakes were set.

To your name... If you drive a conventional school bus you probably have this system. If you drive a short-bus or cutaway you probably have the traditional E-brake found on van chassis.

We saw it here, about 8 miles east of Ontario. It was SPECTACULAR! The hydrazine in the rocket fuel glows a strange red when the setting sun is defracted through it. We could actually see multiple stages ignite and it peeled off toward the southwest.

I flew right over that sucker last night from JAX to IAH (Bush International - I love saying that). At the time I left JAX the skies to the south and west were nearly BLACK. Light to moderate chop at FL340 starting arond NOLA all the way in.

This was freaky... From the air I could see outbound traffic at a dead standstill for more than 50 miles. It was amazing. Folks on the airplane were gasping in shock. Some folks who live there were sobbing.

Once at the airport it was like a ghost town. I fly into IAH a LOT and last nights traffic was maybe 25% of normal. I took the last seat on the IAH-ONT leg and we saw the same scenes on departure.

I pray for those folks.

I think it is to prevent mistaken identity, especially with such a common first/last name.