...and i'm not going to torure anyone.  friends and myself were waterboarded, along with other things, and i believe we've all come out of it fairly normal.  it was a f***ed up experience, but they were trying to teach us what possibilities were forth coming if we found ourselves in that place.  understand?  the guy in the video gave up in 10% of the time i witnessed my friends doing the same.  me, i don't know.  when you're under the gun, time elapses...

torture....

...but mc cain was trying to link himself to the release of prisoners in colombia today....

water boarding is cowardly. a fool's errand.

how wonderful that 15 hostages, their families and all of America can celebrate Independence Day thinking about what it really means. I may bash this administration, but I honor the freedoms we enjoy in this country. I have faith that a democrat in the WH and majorities in Congress will work to restore the freedoms and protections this admin has wiped it's butt with.

Burlington has it's fireworks on the waterfront tonight - always on July 3rd, so as not to interfere with the small town celebrations happening on the 4th. they have a lot of activities on the waterfront, by it's really crowded and you have to get a place to sit long before the 'works begin. another venue they offer is a beautiful sandy beach, less than a mile north, which offers a great view and plenty to do. that's where I'll be tonight - along with my sons and their families and friends. it's so much fun! we can just let the kids swim or play on the playground, we bring a picnic, play frisbee on the beach, there will be music... click and check out the little photo gallery of beautiful North Beach.

http://www.enjoyburlington.com/northbeach.cfm

off to work. hope you have a great day, HuJo.

Mike -

Good post about Colombia (ie. Columbia is the spelling of the space shuttle and the river out West).

Uribe is a conservative and thus McCain and him mixing it up is not unexpected.

As for Joe Lieberman, well he likes to pontificate, as if he has all the answers.

I'd put him in the far right category.

There's only one r in Barack...

Jo, hope your day is good. I enjoyed hearing about your 4th of July activities. I also wanted to say that I admire your clarity in writing. I don't know if your work entails writing, but you write so well. Compared to your writing, my writing is muddly and ambiguous. Just want you to know I appreciate it.

Phil, it sounds like a rotator cuff injury. I hope that it's a temporary thing. As we get older, it seems these weird accidents catch us, and we feel pain we've never felt before.

The week's edition of Newsweek: Jimmy Carter is the only President since 1945 not to use military forces in a war capacity. Even JFK didn't qualify because of the Bay of Pigs and sending advisers into South Vietnam. That startled me. It indicates that as a major power, we've used our military consistently for the last 50 years. It also tells me that a peace candidate like Jimmy Carter was maligned for not using military force in the hostage crisis.

Guess we have a long way to go if we want to call ourselves a peaceful nation.

Last thought, I wonder if Danny and headquarters might tell us of the plans for and problems of this blog. It's been a great forum, and a joy (if sometimes an exasperation) to get to know the thinking, experiences, feelings, and attitudes of people who blog, truly a unique community and one that won't be forgotten.

Have a beautiful day, folks.