quote:Originally posted by IWISHIHAD: Yes $3.10 a gallon for regular and rising. It must be nice to be at the right end of that business.
Takes a lot of manipulating and money. That's why they call them the Oil Cartel. Seems to be different cartels, ones that operate legally and ones that operate illegally. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
We'll take advantage of the current situation and trade in Oil futures as well as related ones like Natural gas etc. Also trade stocks related to oil. Oil companies, refineries, transportation/logistics. etc.. anyone here doing that out of curiosity? ...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by a surfer: My only point IWISh is that Bill was too cowardly to pull the trigger and try to get the enemy. He left that up to the next in line which thankfully was Bush.
Many innocent people lost their lives before we even sent troops overseas... which could have been prevented had Mr. Clinton had the cajones.
Wasn't Sadaam our staunch Allie during the Reagan years? (And didn't Bush Sr. leave him in power after the Persian Gulf War so in essence were cleaning up his mess that he left behind then?)
Wasn't Gen. Noriega as well when he was doing business with drug cartels from Colombia when he ruled Panama?
Didn't we give financial and military aid of sorts to Bin Laden and his Taliban cronies in the 80's when Afghanistan was Russian occupied?
Iran/Contra during the Reagan watch anyone?
And on and on. Before you point fingers at the Left, perhaps you should consider the Rights' own past and history and the messes they created years before that led to future messes like the drug epidemic, Bin Laden's rise to power in the terrorist world as well as Sadaam's own grip on his country and the Taliban's reign in Afghanistan etc.. etc...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Cowardly is hiding from the Viet Cong in the Guard then deserting because you are too scared to drive an airplane.
There has been no person that has lost their life in the Iraq war that lost it because of Bill, Clinton. But each life lost and each body maimed in duby's war in Iraq is a life destroyed by duby's lies and no one but dubya and the senseless far right-wing sheep that voted for him and his kind into power are to blame for the lost of a single one of thise lives.
Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before Bush invaded, is not there now, and won't be there in the future because the Iraq people don't want him there, not because of anything dubya has done.. The so called "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is not Al Qaeda and never was. Al Qaeda was and still is in Afganistan and nearby parts of northern Pakistan, where cowardly George, the deserter, Bush was afraid to face them.
Many innocent people lost their lives in Iraq because dubya sent our troups there....no one except George, the deserter, Bush could have stopped him from invading Iraq and all those lost lives are directly the result of his actions and no one else. No one but dubya is to blame, other than the Party liners that put dubya in power.
I was wrong to say you had a subminiscule mentality. I was too generous.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I guess a different way to look at it is to say the Iraq war would have been different if we had been there sooner.
I still look at this war as i have looked at it from the start, i never felt that sooner would have made any difference in this type of warfare in the long run or even the short run. Of course i might be blinded a little by history and Vietnam which kind of took a similiar path in my opinion.
Maybe there is some major point that i have missed that will make me see that the US staying in Iraq this long has been more of a benefit than a burden.(lives lost, money spent etc.)
Sometimes not pulling the trigger can be the best thing you ever do even though some might consider it cowardly.
Then again pulling the trigger might be the necessary thing to do and even pulling it more times than many Americans have the stomach for.
But bottom line for me is that i cannot see anything major accomplished in the long run by us invading Iraq. A lot of american lives have been torn apart by this war.
Did we really save more lives by going into Iraq or cost more lives in the short and long run? I would not have wanted to risk my own families lives for what i have seen and what we have accomplished so far... would you?
If so many people think this war is worth the loss of lives, money spent etc. I would think there would be plenty of enlistees. Instead we are having to send these same troops over to Iraq time and time again.
A Surfer, I would like you to convince me that President Bush made the correct call by going to war in Iraq and pulling the trigger. Just like i would like someone to convince me that going to war in Vietnam was worth all the lives.
I hope that the Iraq soldiers end up having something more to show for their efforts than a wall in Washington DC listing the names of their dead and MIA soldiers... doesn't seem to be enough for those lives.
Posts: 3875 | From: ca. | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
EXCELLENT post Mach !! both sides are turds
-------------------- "Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." Herbert Hoover 1930 Posts: 678 | From: currently in hiding due to investigation | Registered: Oct 2004
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"And on and on. Before you point fingers at the Left, perhaps you should consider the Rights' own past and history and the messes they created years before that led to future messes like the drug epidemic, Bin Laden's rise to power in the terrorist world as well as Sadaam's own grip on his country and the Taliban's reign in Afghanistan etc.. etc..."
Allies, foes and their character change with time. The "response time" at which you confront your enemy can change history.
Posts: 6410 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Sorry, surfer, but Mach is 100% correct and you have missed the boat again.
AND, as you point out, "The "response time" at which you confront your enemy can change history." and dubya sat on his "Star Wars" hype that the only dangers facing the United States were from missile attacks and only anti-missile shields and the like would receive funding to the point of, by Presidential dictate, ignoring Al Qaeda as a matter of political policy until it was too late. 9/11 lays purely at the foot of Bush the republican party.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: Sorry, surfer, but Mach is 100% correct and you have missed the boat again.
AND, as you point out, "The "response time" at which you confront your enemy can change history." and dubya sat on his "Star Wars" hype that the only dangers facing the United States were from missile attacks and only anti-missile shields and the like would receive funding to the point of, by Presidential dictate, ignoring Al Qaeda as a matter of political policy until it was too late. 9/11 lays purely at the foot of Bush the republican party.
Thats 100% B.S. and you know it bdgee. 9-11 was months after bush was inaugurated. They had been planning the attack for almost 10 years prior.
Nice try twistalot....
My posts are not attacking democrats they are attacking Clinton only.
He is a dirtbag who is best known for getting his **** sucked in the oval office period.
posted
Only a pea brained bigot and fool refuses to look at the facts and when poresented with them declares them to "100% B.S."
Yes, 9/11 was months after dubya was appointed long after he was responsible for the nation's safety and no one that served in that office earlier had authority or any further responsibility for what happened. dubya did absolutely nothing to even consider the possibility of any attack other than promoting star wars. He even bragged about it and claimed any other form of attack was impossible and he would not allow consideration of them. Bush didn't do his job, preferring instead to use the power of office to award huge contracts to his buddies and compatriots to chase up blind alleys that still, to this day, can not prevent evenb the type of attack he claimed was the only kind that was possible.
Your post are all a bunch of contrived Party line hype and lies. You are a sick party line member of a sick fascist movement.
So far as I can determine, there is no law, "period", stating it is illegal for the President to "get his **** sucked in the oval office" and it certainly, it having been a conscious and willing act, conducted in private, of the two fully adult persons involved, it is none of your damned business. Moreover, you are a dirtbag for constantly harping on something that is none of you concern. (If you actually imagine it is of your concern, then you are either a social disgusting fool or you are a psycho.)
9/11 is 100% at the feet of The Great prevaricator and NO ONE who held that office before is responsible. It happened on his watch. It happened after he promised us he was fully aware of any possible dangers to the Nation and had them fully in hand.
Don't pray for me, pray for your own soul, for the good lord never meant for sick weirdos to be afoot in the world, spreading hate, and disturbing the peace and tranquility of society and he does not tolerate them in Heaven. You're headed down.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Don't pray for me, pray for your own soul, for the good lord never meant for sick weirdos to be afoot in the world, spreading hate, and disturbing the peace and tranquility of society and he does not tolerate them in Heaven. You're headed down.
Headed down...?
Sounds like a threat to me.
Bigot? You can do better than that, your bdgee
I love you...........
Posts: 6410 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Veterans are denied mental health help By Philip Dine POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU 10/21/2007
Donald Schmidt
WASHINGTON After two combat tours in Iraq on a "quick reaction team" that picked up body parts after suicide bombings, Donald Schmidt began suffering from nightmares and paranoia. Then he had a nervous breakdown.
The military discharged Schmidt last Oct. 31 for problems they said resulted not from post-traumatic stress disorder but rather from a personality disorder that pre-dated his military service.
Schmidt's mother, Patrice Semtner-Myers, says her son was told that if he agreed to leave the Army he'd get full benefits. Earlier this month, however, they got a bill in the mail from a collection agency working for the government, demanding that he repay his re-enlistment bonus, plus interest $14,597.72.
Schmidt, 23, who lives near Peoria, Ill., is one of more than 22,000 service members the military has discharged in recent years for "pre-existing personality disorders" it says were missed when they signed up.
"They used these guys up, and now they're done with them and they're throwing them away," Semtner-Myers said.
Her frustration extends to Capitol Hill, where the stage is being set for a confrontation between Congress and the Pentagon.
Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, calls the treatment of these troops "disgraceful."
"If they have personality disorders, how did they get in the military in the first place?" Filner asks. "You either have taken a kid below the standards, in which case you've got obligations after you send him to war, or you're putting these kids' futures in danger with false diagnoses. Either way it's criminal."
The Pentagon defends its policy.
"No military in the history of the world has done more to identify, evaluate, prevent and treat the mental health needs and concerns of its personnel," Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said. All cases of personality disorder discharges are diagnosed by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, and troops receive some benefits including health care, life insurance and education, she said.
Filner isn't buying it.
"These young people are being lied to and manipulated," he said. "We deny them proper classification so they can't get benefits, then they get this bill for a prorated signing bonus."
In the Senate, Missouri Republican Christopher "Kit" Bond, along with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is leading an effort to force the Pentagon to change its practice. Bond says it appears worse than the scandal earlier this year over poor conditions at Walter Reed hospital.
"This is a very sad story," Bond says. "We are fortunate enough to bring many severely wounded soldiers and Marines home, but we're not dealing with their mental health problems. They need help, not a discharge because some phony pre-existing condition is brought up."
'I JUST CRACKED'
William Wooldridge, 37, of Blytheville, Ark., re-enlisted shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He says he made the grade by losing 44 pounds in eight weeks by a combination of running and dieting.
But intense fighting combined with family problems his wife left him while he was in Iraq sent him into a mental tailspin.
"We're doing 20-24 hour days, sleeping underneath our trucks, people trying to kill us and blow us up," Wooldridge said. "Then I got a letter saying I didn't have a reason to come home and I just cracked."
Back in the United States, he continued to have blackouts, hear voices and have nighttime hallucinations of terrorism and children dying. The Army discharged him, citing a pre-existing personality disorder, even though several doctors diagnosed him as having post-traumatic stress.
"They told me the best way to handle it was to go along with a personality disorder discharge, that the (Veterans Administration) would take care of me. So I signed it and went to the VA, and the VA said, 'You were discharged with a personality disorder; you don't get any benefits.'
"I was no longer of any use to them."
Wooldridge says the military recently decided it had overpaid him for a period of time and is deducting $137.85 a month from his Social Security payments. He says he's unable mentally to hold a job.
"This is not the way I want to be," he says, "but it's the way I am."
CLINICALLY VALID?
Col. Bob Ireland, an Air Force psychiatrist and flight surgeon, is the Pentagon's program director for mental health policy.
He says as many as 100,000 service members have been diagnosed with personality disorders in the past six years. Discharges take place only where the disorders "are genuinely interfering with the ability of the unit to function," he said.
Troops suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder get the same extensive coverage as retired military personnel who spent their career in uniform, Ireland said, including lifetime benefits and VA treatment in a military hospital if needed. Along with that come various privileges, such as use of military recreational facilities.
Those discharged with pre-existing disorders get a reduced set of benefits equivalent to those provided to uninjured troops who did their tour and got an honorable discharge, including six months of treatment for some ailments, then two years of priority VA benefits; and GI education loans.
Soldiers who think they were misdiagnosed can appeal to a review board, he says.
"We track their deployment experience, including exposure to trauma. We track, 'Did you see dead bodies? Was it so horrible you couldn't shake it?'"
Asked whether the softening of basic training in recent years might be failing to weed out some troops while not preparing others for combat conditions, Ireland says that's possible and that the matter is being studied.
Although the Pentagon's policies are sound, he said, they may not always be carried out perfectly. "You need to make sure people have time to do an assessment, to do an adequate mental status exam. We have to make sure this process is clinically valid."
Dr. Karen Pentella, assistant clinical professor of neurology at Washington University's medical school, doubts that thousands of young men and women entered the military with personality disorders and now have problems unrelated to their military experiences.
"At this point it's not possible for us to know whether these people really have these disorders, because having been in combat, a lot of these people suffer from PTSD and many from TBI (traumatic brain injury). From explosions, their brains literally have been shaken up ... which helps explain why their personalities may be changing.
"It's too late when they get back from Iraq to say, 'Whoops, we missed it. Thanks for fighting, but you have a pre-existing condition.'"
'HEARING BOMBS'
Patty Harvey's son, Nick Harvey, 26, of Costa Mesa, Calif., was discharged from the Army after fighting in Iraq and has spent time in a variety of hospitals and now at home, often in what his mother describes as "almost a catatonic state."
Military doctors said he had a pre-existing personality disorder, meaning reduced benefits, but his mother disagrees.
"It's obvious what happened he gets into a war zone, the bombs are flipping him out, and all of a sudden he's an entirely different person. Before, he partied with his friends, was a surfer, played guitar like you couldn't believe. Now he has fears about everything, he has fears about the food he eats, he has fears about people poisoning him.
"He stays home every day. ... If this kid doesn't have PTSD, I don't know who does. But they won't give him the diagnosis unless I continue to fight, and I'm running out of fight."
Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., of the veterans panel, says the Pentagon has yet to come to grips with the problem.
"They're in denial," Hare says. "There was a huge mistake here. We need to stop it, and then see how it happened, ... I can't think of a crueler thing to do to people who defend the nation."
Hare says by his calculations, the Pentagon stood to "save $12.5 billion by doing what they're doing."
Bond and Obama secured an amendment to the Senate defense bill that restricts use of personality-disorder discharges. The House bill lacks that provision, and the Senate-House conference committee will soon try to reconcile the two bills.
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., of the House Armed Services Committee, is on the conference panel. "My sense is if there's going to be any errors, it's on the side of making sure we're taking care of our troops properly," he says.
posted
"Bond and Obama secured an amendment to the Senate defense bill that restricts use of personality-disorder discharges. The House bill lacks that provision, and the Senate-House conference committee will soon try to reconcile the two bills".
Instead of adding more clauses to bills how about making sure the system is working right. Many of the adjudicators are not folowing the present laws as they stand anyhow.
Re- enlistment bonus repay + interest, i thought that was interesting. The same government that tries to get interest on its payments is the same government that does not allow interest to be added on when a veteran wins his disability case that might go on for 7+ years. I do not think you can get interest on your SS security disability claim either. Do you have to pay interest if you owe back taxes? I think you do. It sure looks like a one way street.
Scary how much these wars cost us. They figure by that not paying just these claims it will save 12.5 billion dollars. The government needs to print a little more money.
A 100% disibility award for a veteran is not that much money in many states it would be very hard to live on it.
Posts: 3875 | From: ca. | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I have been reading the post on allstocks for a good while now and I have seen many points of view. It seems like Mr. Bdgee usually backs up his statements with facts. Mr. Bdgee my hats off to you. You seem to be a well educated man. The Iraq mess is what it is. No matter how people want to spin it.....Bush is still responsible for many American deaths.
Posts: 29 | From: Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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No...I would not think so. My Friends call me Mike.
-------------------- Jesus died for your sins and the Soldier for your freedom...enough said. Posts: 29 | From: Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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-------------------- Jesus died for your sins and the Soldier for your freedom...enough said. Posts: 29 | From: Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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