This is yet another example of how you tend to use HALF of a truth to make your point. I suppose that is because your point is probably otherwise unsupportable on its face.

You left out some important and significant information with this cheap shot. That information is highly significant if one is to understand the assininity of this post that attempts to prove a point that does not exist.

First: You left out the part of her message that precedes her comment about her prior post there and one by Kandi. Here is the part of the truth you attempted to conceal:

FROM SHEILA: "Well, Lion....looks like I won't be arguing details with you. Where is Diane....she is the politcal person."

That comment, that you seem to have purposefully left out to make it appear I had done something wrong when I had not changes everything, especially when one reads the preceding message from Kandi:

FROM KANDI: "WOW what a mouthful. Your writing skills are incredible, and if it means anything to you, I am impressed. I have to say that I had to pull out the dictionary for a few of the words. I am also politically ignorant (by choice unfortunately) so I only followed bits and pieces of what you wrote...sorry! I could kick myself in the butt for not knowing more of what our Government is doing. However trying to follow politics is like watching Charlie Brown, I usually hear...wah wah wah and then bend over cause here it comes. Before I can understand advanced politics 101, I think I should read politics for dummies. Joe has been trying to educate me for the last 20 years, but he hasn't been very successful.
I liked Reagan too, I thought he had...well for lack of a better word, balls. I think Bush talks too much about bringing the (evil do-ers) to justice, and I can't see where he has done anything. With all of the advanced high dollar technology this country has, you would think they could catch one cave dwelling dothead. But hey that's just me.
Kandi"

Secondly, the entire thread was about your problems with the snow in your area and almost getting snowed in. The thread rambled through that minefield into other comments by other posters regarding weather - while you were snowbound, we were in the 60s here (as was Sheila) - and about politics and our frequent clashes (brought up by Kandi) over political and social matters.

Thirdly, Sheila and I have discussed my New Orleans roots previously on your forum. She lives there now. I no longer do.

I don't normally make any comments when someone says they are depressed... especially if I don't know them all that well. It has been my experience that such comments can be more harmful than helpful. Also, the comments were about missing Mardi Gras because her husband has an injured leg. My take on that was the depression was simple disappointment over missing the party, not deep-seated depression. Hence I made no mention of that.

No, I did not wish her a happy birthday, but then...

NEITHER DID YOU (or anyone else there)!

For that matter, if you will scroll down here, you will discover that you did not mention anything about your own failure to post anything about Hobbsie's or Bunny's birthdays in response to our posts on those events. And, if you check your own forum today, you will discover that I went in before coming here and piggybacked onto your own belated birthday wish to her with a message that was personal and specific to THAT thread of thinking. I did that before even reading your post here to which I now reply. Get the black off your pot ass before you dare say a word about the color of my kettle backside, sir.

Once again, you wiggle, squirm and weasel in your efforts to deflect the undeniable truths that I present in response to your emotional claptrap arguments. You try to turn attention from the fact that the meat of your comments are rancid and lacking in substance or intellectual nutrative value by calling attention to the color of the napkins with the serving by attacking non-essential points. You dare call me "rude" when you are the one making unsubstantiated and patently false claims about someone else. You get bent when I call your hand on these "slash, burn and be obnoxious" debate techniques.

I don't back down one iota,Z-dr. Your invectives against George W. Bush are mindless hate speech and they are insupportable examples of a so-called adult acting like a preschooler on a playground. The only thing missing is your tongue protruding from between your lips as your standard intellectual coup de grace when soundly bested on the matter being discussed. When you have no valid argument on the original matter, you simply attack other, not truly germaine, points with ignorant statements that serve no purpose other than to cause strife - as you have done in this thread. And, I am not the only one who sees it that way. I have politely turned down several offers by more than one person here to help me "educate that ignorant fool!"

Your claim to be a "student of history and current events" rings hollowly for you are blinded by your own mindless, partisan, self-consuming hatred and ugliness of spirit. A true "student" is willing to follow all of the factual evidence, not just those that support his or her preconceived assumptions. You may try to masquarade it as anything you wish, but it is, and remains, nothing more than bigotry and senseless prejudice. Look up those words in any dictionary. They fit what you have demonstrated here perfectly. Both indicate an UNTHINKING dislike of something, or someone, based entirely on a personal intellectually unsuported bias that is unfounded in reality.

Sit before your keyboard, Joe and try to do one thing and one thing only. Present any PROOF and FACTUAL DATA you may have, or can access from any reliable source, other than opinion-based commentaries, that PROVES ANY of the following senseless statements you have made here about George W. Bush. I won't limit your source material as you demand of others. I'll accept anything that is factual from any source... so long as the facts are provable. If you cannot manage that simple feat, then don't bother replying. If you can, then help all of us learn. We would be grateful.

You stated here that George W. Bush is a, "...coattail riding playboy greedy out of touch with reality war mongoring baffoon..." Here's your last chance to support EVEN ONE of these spiteful remarks with FACTUAL supportive information, sir.

"...coattail riding..." Where is your proof of this, not just your biased opinion? Whose coattails? How?

a "playboy..." Again, present proof, apologize for lying or just admit that you are hate-filled when it comes to this man. Unfortunately for your view of men, George W. and George H. W. Bush are not like Clinton. Few real men are. Most of us have morals higher than his total lack of them. Hell, my tomcat had more morals than Clinton does before I got him "fixed." Perhaps Hilalry should have had that done to Bill long ago.

"...out of touch with reality..." Present some form of PROOF other than your own wormpit of a mind to support this statement, please.

"... greedy..." And, the PROOF you offer to support this unwarranted ad hominem is...? Is it because he has more than you? His personal choices and accomplishments made it possible for him to have what he has. Your choices brought you to where you are. Don't attack him because his choices were wiser and more productive than yours. That's class envy, nothing more.

"... war mongoring (sic)..." Let me see. He has waited for several months now (mid-November, 2002, until now) for the United Nations to act in order to quieten the claims that he was only intent on acting unilaterally. He went to the United Nations because he wanted to just attack another nation? Yeah, right. He has allowed the U. N. to play stupid, mindless, diplomatic games with the safety of our citizens because he just wants to wage a war. Is that your contention? Gee, it sure seems to me and many others that he is giving Hussein a lot of chances - perhaps far too many some may argue with some degree of correctness - to prevent a war that HUSSEIN WILL FORCE ON US through HIS choices. President Bush, Colin Powell, Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice, and the President of Spain have forged a coalition of some SIXTY (60) nations who have publicly stated their support and willingness to contribute to the disarmament of Hussein and another 25 or so mainly Arab nations who don't want to go on record as supporting the ouster of Hussein for very understandable reasons. Provide us with some PROOF to the contrary if you can or, just admit that your mindless attacks are just that... mindless and mean-spirited sour grapes.

a "...baffoon (sic)..." It seems that even Slate's stable of editorial contributors (the self proclaimed flagship of liberal thought) have been forced over the past 20 plus months to acknowledge that President Bush has shocked and surprised many of his detractors... especially those Europeans and Americans who stupidly underestimated his mental acuity. I even heard no les than James Carville say recently ("Crossfire"- CNN) that anyone who takes on Bush with the idea that he is somehow mentally deficient is in for a huge shock. Carville said this on a recent Crossfire show dealing with the Bush administration's handling of the Afghanistan and Iraq situations: "The man has an intuitive grasp of many of these things that few of us gave him credit for having. They, and we, are learning now that we were wrong and very much so." Paul Begala said much the same thing as an afterthought to Carville's declaration of respect. How can YOU say that he is a buffoon when your thought providers disagree so strongly?

There you go. Here's your opportunity to dazzle me and teh rest of us with data rather than attempting to baffle everyone here with Bull Sh*t. Do you have any logical ammunition, any PROOF of any kind, to back up your spiteful remarks that represent what appears to only be your warped perceptions and perverted opinons?

As for my use of words - and many of them - to annihilate fuzzy thinking, spiteful remarks and ad hominems based on ignorance of facts, I refuse to dummy down for anyone. I have hard facts, cold logic and rational thought to back up my reasoning. I possess the ability to write well and present reasoned arguments to support my positions. Stop trying to make those capabilities into flaws only because you don't have the same skills. I don't accept the invitation to exchange cutesy two-line, school playground barbs and call it intelligent discourse. LAF LIONS and other examples of my writings show that I am also a master of brief, succinct and pithy comments. I don't do shorthand debate on matters of intellectual value just to please or placate those incapable of dealing with longer essays.

If your attention span is challenged by more than a two sentence conversation, then don't read what I write. Perhaps this is not the proper place for you to throw your hat into the ring. I will continue to thrive as I always have should you elect to ignore longer posts. If you are offended by such, you had best never open any thread in which Brother Herb and I get started on one of our now classic exchanges. He is extremely capable of presenting cogent thought and flinging the verbal barbs you consider to be "personal insults." He has given me a real run for the money with them and I have never considered any to be personally targetted insults. When the waterboy arrives on the field with empty buckets, Herb has no qualms about pointing it out in a comedic way. However, if I have offended you with any of these types of verbal jabs, then I am truly sorry that you are unable, unwilling or incapable of comprehending them for what they really are. If factual data offered in response and refutation to your irrational pontifications is offensive to you, then you should reconsider speaking up on matters about which you have little knowledge, only poorly formed opinions. The way I figure it is straight forward. If you are foolish enough to climb in the ring ill-prepared, then you have the ass whuppin' coming.

I am not ashamed of being educated or well read. I refuse to allow you to make it appear as if those traits are somehow bad things. I find anyone who attacks another for being either is normally just being defensive about his or her own lack of such capabilities. That is a shame for each of us has within ourselves the ability to make of ourselves a better informed, better educated and more well read person. Chopping the legs off a man much taller than you never makes you taller. It just makes you a small being with no idea of how to grow on your own. He will remain a tall man whose legs have been amputated. You will only remain a short man with no means of getting taller and no understanding of how to compete.

Now it is your turn. You may respond with factual rebutal to the specific points I have made here or you may elect to utilize more of your gobbledy-gook leftist debating techniques. Or, you may choose to wisely admit that you cannot factually reply as you have been challenged to do and simply not respond at all. If you choose to attempt to present any factual data, be prepared to support it. If your only response will be more unthinking verbal refuse, be prepared to be ignored. Should you choose to not reply, many of us will see that as a mark of your finally working on attaining some degree of wisdom rather than whatever it is you have been doing here recently.

You may begin typing. There is no time limit on this test and it is an open book challenge.

One last word of advice, sir. When you are in a cesspool up to your eyes, it is not wise to open your mouth, especially if you're the one using the Mix Master.