Monday, August 30, 2004

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NEW YORK - Republicans portrayed President Bush as a strong wartime leader at their national convention Monday, adopting a platform endorsing his agenda and repeatedly recalling his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks just a few miles away.

You'd think they'd want us to forget his response.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

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Vice president calls gay marriage a state issue
I can't believe he is pulling this again! Mary, Mary,(shaking my head) Mary. Don't let them use you like this. And DON'T ANYONE FORGET where he stood on this WHEN IT MATTERED! Remember when Bush and his right wing fanatic base wanted to add Discrimination to the Constitution? Just a few months ago, for cryin out loud!!

Today, Daddy loves me.

February 26, 2004
He (Cheney) recently has said he would support Bush's decision on the matter.Cheney's office says that like Bush, the vice president is concerned that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman -- is under attack because of actions by officials in certain states.
The Human Rights Campaign, the leading gay rights lobbying group, issued an enthusiastic statement after Mr Cheney's remarks. "President Bush must be feeling the heat," the group's president, Cheryl Jacques, said. "Millions of Republican families, like the Cheneys, have gay friends and family members and are offended by President Bush's efforts to put discrimination in the constitution."



If any one of those families decides to vote for Bush based on Cheney's recent acknowledgement of his daughter's humanity, they deserve everything they get when he shoves her ass back in the closet.


Cheney's campaign press secretary, Anne Womack, said the vice president's position had not changed.
.
"That's been his position for the past four years - his position has been completely consistent," she said. "The idea that he broke new ground or broke with the president today, people are just ignoring the reality of his statements over the past three and a half years."

Jesus Christ!! These people will look right at you while they are lying and tell you if you don't believe it you are a moron. Do you hear that GOP Base? Anne Womack, speaking for Vice President Dick Cheney, just said you have been "ignoring reality"!!
Well I certainly believe that you have been ignoring reality but now that your dear Dick has said it, maybe you'll believe it.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

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The Flip Flopper in Chief

Moveon PAC should seriously consider this as it's next ad.
Thanks Daisy

Saturday, August 21, 2004

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Proof, that People Don't Change!

George Bush in 1968


John Kerry 1966-1970

Feb 1966
Formally enlists in U.S. Navy

Feb 1968
Deployed to Western Pacific aboard the USS Gridley and requests duty in Vietnam

Nov 1968
Reports for duty in Vietnam

Dec 1968
Experiences first intense combat and earns first Purple Heart

Feb 1969
Earns second Purple Heart & the Silver Star

Mar 1969
Earns the Bronze Star for saving the life of a fellow soldier

Mar 1970
Separated from active service
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ATHENS, Greece - Iraqi soccer players reacted angrily Friday after being told that their nation's Olympic participation was mentioned in TV commercial by the re-election campaign for President Bush.


The players called on Bush to stop using them to win votes in the United States.

“Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” midfielder Salih Sadir was quoted as saying. “He can find another way to advertise himself.”

“Our purpose is not to politicize the football team in any way,” Mark Clark, a consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee, said. “It seems the story was engineered.”
“It is a little naughty,” he said. “The players are not very sophisticated politically; they are a little naive. Whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative.

I'm guessing those soccer players just totally blew Clarks chance at getting an invite to the Ranch.
Another Iraqi player asked: “How will (Bush) meet his God having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes.”

Now that really is naive. Bush will meet his God with a bottle of bourbon and a ton of your oil money dude. And Mark Clark was going to to take you to the Ranch with him but no-o-o, you had to go and be naive.
“It is possible something was lost in translation. It’s a free, new Iraq, and the players are entitled to their opinions but we are disappointed.”

Iraq’s soccer players once lived in fear of Uday Hussein, son of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, who used to beat the soles of their feet or throw them in prison for slip-ups on the pitch.

Under current coach Adnan Hamd, they have defied the odds to reach the quarterfinals at the Athens Olympics, where they will play Australia on Saturday.

Hamd said, “The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?”

Abbas, the swimmer, finished his military service two weeks before the war began in March 2003. "Thanks to God," he said.

He was sitting in his family's home in a quiet section of Baghdad when the bombing began. No one he knew was killed or injured. When the war ended, he trained for one week in Iraq's Olympic-size indoor pool. But then, he said, U.S. soldiers took over the pool and he no longer could swim there. He attended the world championships in Barcelona without training, he said, and didn't get a chance to swim again until this February, when he moved to Canada. Clearly, this was not the preferred way to prepare for the Games.

I think Clark is probably right about something being "lost in translation" I think what was actually said was "FUCK NO! That lying, murdering, weaselly thief, Bush may not use as a campaign tool!" Really, I wonder how "whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative."
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This made me laugh

Friday, August 13, 2004

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I went to Joe's funeral this morning. It was nice.
Joe would have been proud to have Coach Ogelsby speak
for him. He did a good job. I feel bad for all the
people that would have liked to have been there but,
due to the lack of information in the press, didn't
know when or where.
I feel sad and, angry and, guilty but, a new feeling has
joined in. I feel defeated.
I know we can still defeat Bush. I have made lists of
the damage he has caused that need to be reversed
by the next administration. Now I know that some
damage can't be reversed.
I always knew it but now I know it in my soul.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

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I started taking Joe to school when he was 6 years old. Circumstances separated us for a few years and then when he was 15 he started riding my bus again. He was still as sweet and gentle as he had been in 1st grade. Through high school, when his car was broke (which was most of the time), he would almost always sit up front and talk to me about what was going on and his plans. He didn't have it as easy as a lot of kids do but, I swear, he never complained and I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He worked hard and did everything he needed to do to make a good life. I had all the hope for him and I'm sure his family did too.


No. 747-04
IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 5, 2004
DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, 22, of Stevensville, Mont., died Aug. 2 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, of Milford, Mass., died Aug. 4 from injuries received from enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, 19, of Nicoma Park, Okla., died Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif.


19. He was 19. This is not right.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

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Entry in G.W. Bush's personal Blog
July 8, 2004: "Another long day of speeches and fundraisers. Met with all these phony media company execs. Had to promise them some bill next term and shake a lot of stupid hands, but they did bring in two or three million or so. Whatever. Karl keeps a list. I got big laughs during my speech, so I'm happy."


Leave it The Onion

Friday, August 06, 2004

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Mrs. Betty Bowers
America's Best Christian
explains Republican Paradoxes



The United States should get out of the United Nations because it is a useless institution that furthers anti-American policies. In the meantime, however, our national raison d'etre is spending thousands of lives and billions of dollars to enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

Support for our troops is best shown by bumper stickers, festooning trees with yellow, ridiculing people who are sticklers for a justification for getting Marines killed, and using aircraft carriers and the enlisted as photogenic backdrops for partisan political opportunities. Cold, unsentimental cash, such as for veterans' benefits and combat pay, cheapens our affection for our brave boys and gals in uniform.

It is the coming together (marriage), not the rending apart (divorce) that is most likely to undermine a marriage. After all, the biggest threat to marriage is allowing people to do it.

Christ told us that if an enemy strikes us, we are required to forgive them and turn the other cheek. This is why savvy Christian nations work around Jesus' girly-man approach by preemptively attacking first.

If you want to provide the people of Iraq with health care, police, roads, sewers, a new power grid and education, irrespective of cost, you are a fiscally sound conservative. If, on the other hand, you want these same things for Americans, you are a tax-and-spend liberal.


Read the rest and much more here.
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Thanks for this Daisy!

How to start your week with a positive outlook:

1. Open a new file in your PC
2. Name it "George W. Bush" *
3. Send it to the trash
4. Empty the trash
5. Your PC will ask you: "Do you really want to get rid of George W. Bush?"
6. Answer calmly, "Yes" and press the mouse button

* Replace with the politician/public servant/football manager/tv presenter of your choice.
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Bush Finally Speaks the TRUTH.
Aug 6, 2004

US President Bush has told a roomful of top Pentagon brass that his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said.
No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

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Job Fair 2023
Texas educators are debating what will be taught in new sexual education textbooks for its high school students. The 15-member Texas Board of Education is considering and will likely approve four books, all of which extol the virtues of abstinence. Three make no mention of contraceptives at all while one makes passing reference to condoms.

The battle in Texas has national implications because the state is the second-biggest market for textbooks in the United States. Books approved by the state's school board are typically marketed nationally.
According to Centers for Disease Control figures, Texas has been among the top five states in the country for teen-age pregnancies for several years.
When he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush pushed for an abstinence-based sexual education curriculum. He raised his concerns to a national level when he said in this year's State of the Union address: ''We will double federal funding for abstinence programs, so schools can teach this fact of life: Abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.''

If approved, the texts are likely to appear in classrooms in August 2005 -- where they could be the standard text for about 10 years.
Local school districts are not required to use one of the new books but they receive state funding to buy them if they do.


Why bother? Let's save the money and don't teach any sex ed at all. While we're at it, let's have Good Shepherd Catholic School devise the curriculum for everyone. Look at it this way, with the baby boom that is sure to come, there'll be enough workers to support Social Security when we need it. Of course there will have to be jobs......
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(CBS) During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.

"It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.

(Well, it didn't officially happen.
Invoking executive privilege, Vice President Dick Cheney refuses to disclose details of meetings he held last year with Enron officials.)

"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's lawyers argued they merely prove "that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnacle Bill the Sailor."


I don't know about Barnacle Bill but they certainly speak the language of the vice-president. Not a sailor, a raping, thieving, murdering pirate.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

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In the race for the U.S. Senate the GOP runs one of it's
nuttiest cases in Oklahoma. Tom Coburn.
Tom doesn't believe in his own spirit and would have deprived his Grandmother of the right to choose after she was raped.


He was greatly helped by the television ads purchased by Club for Growth.(The Club for Growth is a self described extremist organization who have vowed to take on John Kerry's centrist message to create jobs, provide health care and protect America's national security.)
The 56-year-old Muskogee doctor set himself apart from other candidates. "My desire is not to be a U.S. senator. My desire is to change the Senate," he said.
On the death penalty, he said: "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life."

He said he performed two abortions to save the lives of mothers who had congenital heart disease, but opposes the procedure in cases of rape.

"Under the mores we live under today, my lineage wouldn't exist," Coburn said, explaining that his great-grandmother was raped by a territorial sheriff.

Coburn's plan to attack rising medical costs includes an emphasis on prevention.
Cutting down on diabetes by using less sugar and controlling weight could save billions of dollars in the next 20 years, he said.
I see National Weigh In Day coming.
He said more money could be saved if people took over-the-counter drugs that reduce the risk of getting colon cancer.

Besides bringing competition to the pharmaceutical marketplace, he supports creating a competitive environment in medicine.
"The guys who do the worst job in heart bypass get paid the same as the guys who do the best job. Why's that?"
I'm sure my insurance will only pay for the Walmart Price Cut Bypass.

Voice America issued a statement criticizing Coburn for saying in an Associated Press interview that he would favor the death penalty for abortionists.
“This is just one example of the length to which the far-right is willing to go to take away a woman’s right to choose and to criminalize a very personal, private decision between a woman and her doctor,” the acting president of the group said. “I am appalled that as a physician, Dr. Coburn would make such a statement about his colleagues.”

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

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CHICAGO, Aug. 3 — Laws passed by 18 states requiring guns to be safely stored away from children have reduced the rate of teenage suicides, researchers said Tuesday. The child access prevention laws implemented since 1989 may have prevented more than 300 suicides among 14- to 17-year-olds through 2001, according to the study by Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among American teenagers, accounting for 1,883 deaths in 2001.
''There were 63,954 suicides among youth aged 14 through 20 years during the 1976-2001 study period, 39,655 (62 percent) of which were committed with firearms,'' according to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Laws that raised the required age of gun buyers and owners, however, did not significantly reduce suicide rates, the study said.

Of 40,000 teenagers that wanted to shoot themselves in 12 years,
300 of them couldn't find the gun. The other 39,700 died. Or is it 20,000 and 19,700?
I don't know, this article is a little fuzzy to me but you can bet your ass that the only thing the NRA will see is that there is no good reason why 12 year olds should not be allowed to buy guns.
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As they start, Kerry has 14 states and the District of Columbia in his column for 193 electoral vote while Bush has 25 states for 217 votes, according to an Associated Press analysis of state polls as well as interviews with strategists across the country.

Both candidates are short of the magic 270 electoral votes. The margin of victory will come from:


* Tossups: Bush and Kerry are running even in 11 states with a combined 128 electoral votes. Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia are the toughest battlegrounds. Two other tossups, Pennsylvania and Oregon, could soon move to Kerry’s column.
* Leaning to Kerry: Maine, Minnesota and Washington (a combined 25 electoral votes) favor Kerry over Bush by a few percentage points. Gore carried them in 2000.
* Leaning to Bush: North Carolina, Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, Virginia, Arkansas and Missouri (a combined 73 electoral votes) give Bush modest leads. He won all seven in 2000.Al total, 21 states are in play. Some will bounce between "lean" to "tossup" throughout the campaign.

Four years ago, Bush won 30 states and their 271 electoral votes — one more than needed. Gore, who won the popular vote, claimed 20 states plus the District of Columbia for 267 electoral votes.

Since then, reapportionment added electoral votes to states with population gains and took them from states losing people. The result: Bush’s states are now worth 278 electoral votes and Gore’s are worth just 260.
Reapportionment? Wasn't that called "redistricting" when we last heard of it? I guess the neocon press (I don't think they get irony, so I'm calling a spade a spade here) didn't want us to remember the GOP's, led by tom delay, big party power grab the last few years. Remember when the Texas democrats spent some time in Oklahoma In May 2003 to deprive the real evil-dooers (GOP members)a quarum in the Texas State House of Reps. It worked for a while then in August Texas became a true Banana Republic.
Eleven of the twelve Democrats in the state senate refused to attend the special session, convening instead in Albuquerque, New Mexico July 29, outside the jurisdiction of the Republican-controlled Texas state government. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has rebuffed requests that the legislators be extradited.

The Democrats refused to return, defying the fines, which took effect on Thursday, August 14, starting at $1,000 each, doubling to $2,000 on Friday, $4,000 on Saturday and $5,000 on Sunday and every day following until the special session ends August 26. The total fine for boycotting the entire special session would amount to $57,000, and the Republican senators specified that this be paid from personal and not party funds.

Several Republican senators suggested that Democrats who do not pay the fines would be deprived of their votes in the state Senate, an action that would deprive as many as 8 million people of representation (each Senate district has about 700,000 residents). Neither Governor Rick Perry nor state Attorney General Greg Abbott have yet taken a position on disenfranchisement of senators, which has no precedent under the state constitution.

The boycott by the Democratic state senators repeats the tactic employed by Democratic members of the lower house who left Texas as a group three months ago. They waited at a hotel in Oklahoma until the regular session of the legislature ended, frustrating the initial Republicans effort to push through the redistricting plan.

Governor Perry called a special session of the legislature and the redistricting plan was passed through the lower house, but the bill failed in the state Senate for lack of a two-thirds majority. Perry then called a second special session of the legislature, for which the Republicans imposed new rules ending the traditional two-thirds requirement for a bill to pass the Senate.



Kerry’s best prospects may be in the five tossup states won by Bush in 2000: Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia.

Winning either Ohio’s 20 electoral votes or Florida’s 27 would do the trick.

Come on Ellen, you can do it! Save the country. Get out the vote, call all your friends! Put notes on all the cars in the grocery store parking lot that say "bottleofblog.com". That should do it.

Monday, August 02, 2004

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Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - President Bush on Monday generally endorsed the two main recommendations of the 9/11 commission, saying he would support creation of a potentially powerful post, national intelligence director, and the establishment of a counterterrorism center to coordinate intelligence analysis and efforts to thwart attacks.

Maybe the new organization can be staffed with all the whistleblowers fired from the FBI.



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Quite a few years ago I was flipping stations on the radio trying to find some Christmas music and something this preacher said made me stop and listen. It was something about boring people being the biggest sin he could commit. I listened to the whole sermon and was thinking "No way is this guy in Oklahoma, he's too good, too liberal." I never was the kind of person that could sit through church and take what I could and leave the rest. I felt like a hypocrite. I'm amazed that Rev. Meyers exists and the fact that he is here in Oklahoma makes me believe in miracles. And I don't have to feel like a hypocrite at church.



Commentary
Perhaps we prefer the lie?
Eight years ago, when I began writing for the Oklahoma Gazette, I named my column for the essential tension in life, as in any democracy: the difference between rhetoric and reality. I teach a class by the same name at Oklahoma City University because students need to learn the difference between spin and fact, between what Orwell called linguistic “insincerity” and the often painful truth. But this summer, there is no need to enroll in such a class to know the difference. All you have to do is pay attention.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by a Republican, says that not only were there no weapons of mass destruction, and no links to al-Qaida, but that Congress might also not have authorized the war against Iraq if they had known what they know now — which is the truth.

The so-called “defense of marriage” amendment failed, not because we are all of one mind about homosexuality, but because it has become abundantly clear that the whole thing has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage and everything to do with the politics of division — which is the truth.

When the British report exposed the big lie about the threat posed by Iraq, Tony Blair did what real leaders do and took “full personal responsibility.” Bush, on the other hand, in the words of syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd, “took full personal irresponsibility” and continues to press “the preposterous case that he has made America safer”— which is not the truth.
Facts are such pesky things to a true believer. Whether it’s global warming or the case for evolution, the true believer just winks at the evidence and claims that it’s all a test of faith. There are fundamentalists, for example, who believe that God placed ancient fossils in the earth to see whether we would choose science or Genesis. Meet God the trickster. And whatever you do, don’t let it slip that one can believe in both evolution and God — which is the truth.

We are all guilty of bias, of course, and prone to our prejudices and predispositions. But we are approaching a time when truth has absolutely nothing to do with anything. In other words, one can become a legend in one’s own mind and develop a complete immunity from either the truth or basic logic.

Bush continues to defend the extraordinary (and by the international standards we established, illegal) war against Iraq by saying, “So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America.” Any student in Critical Thinking 101 knows that this is a classic false dichotomy — and that’s the truth.

Once more comes the tired rhetoric of us against them: “We will confront them overseas so we do not have to confront them here at home.” That might fly if any reasonable person still believed that we were threatened by the mighty nation of Iraq. Remember the “elite Republican Guard,” which Bush called the fourth-most fearsome fighting force in the world? Turns out, they were pathetic — and that’s the truth.

It is possible, and this is the scary thing, to become flawless in one’s illogic. That is, it is sometimes a great comfort to believe the lie and to avoid the painful truth. This is true in politics, in religion and in the family — where all dysfunction is masked by the pretense of perfection.

On the day after you read this column, John Kerry and John Edwards will accept the nomination of the Democratic Party to oppose the policies and the record of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Immediately, the character assassination will begin, and we’ll be told it’s God and country over trial lawyers and Eastern liberals.

But that’s just one more lie in a long list of lies. The truth is a senator from Massachusetts with a lifetime of public service (and actual military service) will ask Americans to choose between four more years of what we have or a bloodless chance of direction at the ballot box — which is the genius of our democracy.

The debate should not be about whether you are “with us or against us,” “red or blue,” patriotic or peculiar. It should be about deficits, education, judges, women’s rights, gay rights, decent jobs, racism, help for the beleaguered middle class and America’s reputation around the world.

But we will not survive if we prefer the lie. And we will not survive if we don’t bother to vote.

And that’s the truth.

Meyers has been senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church since 1985 and is a professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.
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He's 4 months old now.
He has a little sideways smile he gives when he
1st see's me that makes me feel like his favorite
person in the world. He is utterly addictive.
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This is one of my favorite t-shirts to exercise in.
I probably picked it up at a base thrift shop somewhere.
I've been wearing it for years and years and have had to
steal it back from my son a couple of times. I never paid
attention to what it said and was surprised when I read
"PennState 86" on it last week.

I'm about ready for football season to start.
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Bivo. It's what's for dinner.

This was my freakin' vacation, by the way.