Your experience was much different than mine. I was in college when Carter was President, and he stopped food stamp benefits for poor college kids. I often went hungry. I'd voted for him, voted against his reelection.

Under Reagan I worked for Disney. Reagan slashed the capital gains tax, which unleashed an orgy of hostile corporate takeovers, one of which was unleashed on my employer, who took a big financial hit from its defense and cut everyone's hours. I had trouble paying my bills for a while. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these hostile takeovers and takeover attempts. Of course, a recession followed this but none of the pundits connected the dots and they treated Reagan like a demigod.

We moved back to Illinois when Leila was born, and it took well over a year to find a job. Thanks for the recession, Ronnie.

I got a job finally, in 1987, but half the people I knew were looking for work until the nineties. That was Reagan's fault, but Bush did nothing to alleviate the situation.

There was something about Clinton I just didn't like; he came across as a sleaze and I think I voted Libertarian that election, I don't really remember, but it wasn't a vote for Clinton.

I was wrong about him; he put 100,000 new cops on the street, and my crime-ridden neighborhood got a neighborhood cop and crime plummeted. He signed PWORA which ended generational welfare. I voted for his reelection.

As to Bush II, can you name a single positive thing he accomplished? I can't.

As to Obama, my opinion of his mediocre President went up a little when he started opening Cuba; it's long overdue. We've had relations with China and Russia for years, it should have happened when the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR split up.

Are you joking? I thought it was well established that there were chemical weapons in Iraq we just only found weapons designed by us, built by Europeans in factories in Iraq. And therefore the US didn't trumpet their achievements. In the case of Iraqi chemical weapons, the US established that Iraq had chemical weapons not because they said so but because Western countries had all the receipts.

I usually vote Greenie or Libbie unless one of the two majors is particularly offensive or I think the incumbent has done a good job (voted against Clinton his first administration, but voted for his reelection).

Today's programmers suck. Why in the HELL should holding a mouse over a control for a few seconds activate it? The mouse shouldn't do anything but move the pointer unless I click. And when I click the "file" menu, that's the menu I want. Why does the "edit" menu open if the pointer strays off of "file" after I click "file"?

Is it stupidity of maliciousness? Are today's programmers just trying to piss us off or are they all idiots?

There's still some orchards I think, but small. And there is a fair amount of ag south of SV... but nothing compared to what it used to be. That said, the water issues first started back in the early 20th century when the crops and orchards changed to high-water-use crops like prunes. The area must have sure looked beautiful before sprawl + oak trees cut + orchards removed :)

IMO anyone who votes party and not candidate is an idiot.

Attacking Afghanistan was indeed necessary. When you're attacked, kick ass and take names. How was 911 any different than Pearl Harbor?

I need to get started on 2014: The Final Chapter

Under Bush, our country was attacked despite the fact that FBI agents tried unsuccessfully to warn about it; gasoline more than quadrupled in price (very suspicious; he's an oil man); got us into two wars, one of which was not only completely unnecessary but led to the rise of ISIS; took office in some of the best economic conditions I've seen in my life and left the economy in worse shape than any time since the great depression.

I never thought I'd see a worse President than Carter, who was far worse than Obama, but Bush proved me wrong.

Under Obama the wars are over, unemployment is half of what it was, gasoline is half what it cost under Bush. He's by no means a great President, but you have to remember that the Republicans' #1 agenda was to make his a failed Presidency.

The two best Presidents in my lifetime were, I think, Eisenhower and Clinton.

How else would you characterize this song from their third album?

"After Forever"

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope - do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
that God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes! I think it's too late.

You should *fight the hypocrites because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics*

Agreed.

Yes, which is why I installed Thunderbird. I now still have my old 10+ year old email address and a stable email client. My phone's email client works well with the yahoo email as well.

Just install a real email client and your problems vanish.

Cheney is an evil man who was Vice President during the worst administration I've seen in my 62 years and possibly the worst in history.

Yes, if you listen casually to early Black Sabbath music, it sounds like a celebration of evil, but if you listen carefully it's actually Christian music. Hell, Iron Maiden's two minutes to midnight is an anti-abortion song. Twisted Sister was hauled in front of Congress for the "bloody" song under the blade; the song is about undergoing surgery.