Thank you for the info and link pofret (hope I spelled that right). My parents put us all in the car and headed south toward totality in Carolina for the one back in March 1970. Dad actually exceeded the speed limit to get us into the totality. We barely made it, if I remember the darkest part lasted less than a minute, but it's something I'll never forget.

I believe several sources published the lists of affected passengers at the time. There has also been publication of what have been said are the last phone calls of several of the passengers, specifically from the flight which crashed in Pennsylvania.

No, not British. Just educated by the old school system with a grandmother who insisted on proper English grammar. Also educated to use logic and reasoning in debate. Name calling has never persuaded anyone to change their mind on anything. It just tells the other person you aren't going to listen to anything they have to say on the topic of disagreement. Not worth the expenditure of energy.

The US government has a history of manufacturing "incidents" to justify banging the drums and inserting our military into various conflicts, not always with Congress signing on at the outset. These incidents involve alleged unprovoked attacks by foreign assailants from the area the military/industrial complex views as a profitable arena for activities. A few individuals and corporations make obscene profits while ensuring the balance of power in the world will allow them to continue the status quo which maintains their ability to overtly or clandestinely control the resources in that area.

The rush to conflict in Iraq following the 9/11 disasters shows all the hallmarks of a clandestine operation designed to have the citizenry of this country howling for someone's blood to avenge the deaths of the people killed at the sites of the attacks. Iraq and their alleged "weapons of mass destruction", with the president at the time feeling his father had somehow lost face in the last encounter with the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government making noises about who the oil in their country actually belonged to (not the international corporations extracting and making the profit on it) made the perfect scapegoat as the responsible perpetrator. And if you look back into our not-so-distant post, our government has a rather callous disregard for the lives and health of the citizenry. When you add to that our military people being regarded as disposable property when it comes to accomplishing the objectives of the powers-that-be, I am suspicious of any reports designed to quash things which might prove uncomfortable to the people who would have a motive to hide to facts of the incidents.

I am still waiting for the Warren Report on JFK's assassination to be published, including the parts which were sealed for 50 years. Who was actually involved and responsible? And what was their excuse? He wanted to change the country in ways some people were afraid of - things like ending the war in Vietnam, and enforcing racial equality. He was also (oh horrors in some opinions) our first Roman Catholic president. I'm glad Pres Obama didn't suffer the same fate. I was worried for quite a while.

It is also a bit puzzling that after Iraq was firmly under US control, Iraq suddenly was exonerated on the 9/11 attacks, and a Saudi son of a businessman the US has many entanglements with became the new scapegoat. One wonders what back channel deals were made to "bring him to justice".

And yet we are encouraged by the advertising to buy internet linked nodes which are always on and listening for our conversations, hooked up to our houses and security systems, etc. This is part of why I will continue to refuse to have one. That's the best security on an individual basis. And I just assume the 'net is full of holes and that I'm taking a risk every time I'm online.

For some time now, I've wished there was a site where topics of all sorts in politics and current affairs was being discussed. I believe we all have some version of innate B*S* detector, despite many people's first responses being knee-jerk based on their beliefs, or how they want things to be. I know our country, society, and the world at large have some problems which look pretty intractable. I have faith in us as one species to be able to set aside, or use to all our benefit, the differences between us, whether they be political, religious, social or economic, or any other superficial things, and work together to create a world where everyone reaps the benefits of the best of all our efforts. A world where it is unthinkable that someone would have no choice but to be hungry, would have no choice but to be sick with no medical care available, would have no choice but to find shelter from the weather under a bridge or on a vent releasing heat from a warm place they can't access.

I believe we can beat all those afflictions if we will only recognise that we all share the same limited planet and resources, that we are, ultimately all one family, though verrry large, and have responsibilities to ourselves and each other. We have gone, in only a few short years on a planetary scale, from bashing our food with the nearest heavy object to leaving our planet and venturing to other bodies in our solar system. Surely we can find a way for all of us to have at least basic and adequate food, shelter and medical care. We just have to think far enough outside the box to believe it can be done, and we will find a way to do it.

LOL to our flooring contractor.

And thanks for the compliment.

Those who cry "socialism" as an argument against universal or single-payer (government paid) health care for everyone in the country should also opt out of protection by tax payer funded fire protection, tax payer funded mandatory education, tax payer funded streets and highways, tax payer funded parks and recreational facilities, tax payer funded police protection - the list gets longer the more you look without a preconceived notion as to what constitutes "socialism" and base your observations on the one criterion of "if the government pays for it, and those of a lower socio-economic class than you benefit from it to an equal degree as their 'betters', it must be socialism". You must also judge cooperative civil actions as an expression of a social behavior to allow you to judge something done by the representative government for the good of those residing in the nation as " socialism ". I, personally, like having the services the body politic provides, and having first hand experience with "socialized medicine " in England, I believe it would be a great improvement over our current, very expensive, piecemeal system of medical care. And for those who claim the English system is inferior - tiled and other hard surfaced floors which are much more easily kept sanitary than the carpets expected in American medical institutions was the biggest difference I noticed, other than their lack of paranoia when it comes to pain relief. Their cross-infection rates demonstrate their superior sanitation. They value the medical effects of the environment over a need to prove their facilities' supposed superiority over others by installing a more posh environment. There's a reason surgical suites are all hard bare surfaces other than those specific to a particular individual. With surgeons on their feet all day, you can bet they'd prefer soft carpets if it was safe.