A year or more ago, I had started a Sunday feature called "New Neighbors." Each Sunday I would go down the blogroll over on the right (on the main page) started by Joe Carter of The Evangelical Outpost listed as "Evangelicals". In one of his posts, he suggested that those of us on the blogroll get to know one another. In that vein, I started reading and following various blogs, and added each one as I read it to my own blogroll (also on the right side of the main page) called "Introduced Neighbors."

I kept this up for almost a year -- from Neighbor #1 to #41. However, if you check that blogroll now, you will find that there's only 28 neighbors on the list. That's because when I did my blogroll cleaning last week, I found a lot of them had stopped posting for one reason or another. I had stopped doing the neighbors feature on Sundays because I had started putting a different value on Sundays and had other plans.

With the new layout and the new year come changes. And one of those changes will be to re-start the neighbor feature on Sundays. I won't be going in any particular order, nor will I only highlight "big" blogs. Instead, each week I'll just pick a random blog from that list and check it out and highlight it here. Those of you looking for some Sunday afternoon easy reading can be sure to check in here each week, as the posts will go up between noon and 1pm EST each week starting, well, now!

New Neighbor #42 is:

All Things 2 All

Now this blog isn't one of those like Ogre's that is updated many times a day. Instead, All Things 2 All appears to be updated about once a week (sometimes less often). But the posts that do appear seem to be rather interesting and informative.

There is one post that looks at the life of Leslie Van Houten. Do you recognize that name? I know I knew the name, but couldn't remember why. As soon as I started reading the post, I remembered why that name was familiar. I bet you will, too.

To show the wide variety of posts, the next post after Ms. Van Houten's was a rather long and detailed review of The Nativity Story move. I hadn't seen the movie and if you haven't, this review might help make you decide if you want to see it or not.

And while many blogs have "tip jars" or other ways that you can contribute to the author, this blog is a bit more interesting. Instead of having a "tip jar" for the author of the blog, she instead asks you to send your donations to help the people of Darfur, Sudan.

That's a neat idea, I think I shall have to add something like that. But I think I will direct my donations to either the Samaritan's Purse, a group I know does extremely good works; or to a charity suggested by good friend, Heifer International. I did most of my Christmas shopping there this year.

So if you've got some time this lazy Sunday afternoon, why not head over to All Things 2 All and say hello?

Posted by: Ogre at 05:08 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It is almost the end of the year and time for everyone to make those pesky "New Year's Resolutions." For those who want one a little different than your usual "lose weight," "drink less than a 6-pack a day." or other such trite resolutions, I'd like to suggest one to you.

I'd like to suggest a New Year's Resolution that will help everyone. It will help freedom and liberty. And it will help you be free. It will help you keep more of the money you work for and earn. It will unite you with a group of people who honestly want liberty and freedom. Would you make this New Year's Resolution with me?

I will move to New Hampshire by 12/31/2008 where I will work to bring about a society in which governmentÂ’s maximum role is protecting life, liberty, and property but only if 999 other liberty minded individuals will too.

Wherever you live, freedom is very likely retreating. Across the country, freedoms are being reduced all the time. People are being punished for success and governments are taking more and more from people. In the Free State, this is not the case.

However, this pledge ends in one more day. There's just one day left to attempt to collect the remaining names to be part of that "First 1000" people who agree to move and advance liberty and freedom for all. Won't you consider being a part of it?

Posted by: Ogre at 05:08 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Today marks the day in which a great evil was extinguished from this earth. This monster was personally responsible for over 100,000 deaths. He was a horrible creature -- one who fell into the trap of sinful ways and he continued his path of death and destruction until he was forcibly stopped by forces of good: The United States Military. Who will forget the day he was found hiding in a "spider hole?"

But strangely enough, this brutal dictator, this vicious killer of thousands, rates as less of a villain than United States President George Bush. Amazingly, a full FORTY-THREE percent (43%) of Democrats actually believe that President George Bush, the person who is responsible for removing this brutal murderer from power, is actually WORSE of a villain than Saddam Hussein, or even Osama bin Laden.

Can there be any doubt of the utter insanity of the Democrat Party? Are there any of you good readers out there who actually believe that President George Bush is WORSE than Saddam Hussein? What possible reasoning could there be? How insane and disconnected from reality must one's mind be to actually honestly believe that a president of the United States is worse than Saddam? Sure, I really disliked Clinton as President, but there's no way I'd ever rate him as worse than a mass-murdering dictator!

If you're thinking that Bush is worse, check out INDC Journal's pictures from a museum in Kuwuit designed to let people not forget this monster of a man. Feel free to check out Rick Moran's rather serious take and review on the demon that was Saddam Hussein. Michelle Malkin also has a huge link round-up of blogger reaction.

But the bottom line is that this monster will no longer exist on this world. He might claim that's he going to see 72 virgins, but he's going to be quite surprised by the reception he receives in hell. Should we rejoice at his death? Why not? He was indeed horribly evil. How is this world without him? Only better. He brutally murdered a hundred thousand people. It is justice that he should die as well.

Let's celebrate with some music videos, shall we?

Bomb Saddam
Die Terrorists, Die

Posted by: Ogre at 03:01 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Good people of North Carolina, please take note of the current actions and movements in politics, even while the Democrat legislature is not even in session.

Up until now, North Carolina has had it's power very centrally located. The General Assembly basically has to power to do quite literally anything -- and yes, that's literally anything because they honestly do not care about minor inconveniences like the Constitution. The towns, cities, and counties have been very, very limited in their power. In fact, in order for a city to do just about anything, they have to ask the Democrat General Assembly for permission.

Of course this works very well to allow Democrats in NC to retain power and exercise absolute authority over all the subjects of North Carolina -- if a county happens to be Republican and ask for freedom, the General Assembly is quick to turn them down. If a county is Democrat and asks for things like more power for regulation or more taxes, the Democrat General Assembly (Democrat due ONLY to gerrymandering) is more than happy to advance their socialist agenda throughout the state using their proxies, "elected" officials across the state.

There's a bill, HB1142, that was introduced in 2005 that is likely to appear again now that Democrats have a larger majority (due to blatant gerrymandering) in the legislature. That bill will raise taxes in any county that wants to -- a 1% increase in sales taxes. And oh, if your county doesn't want those taxes, they will get punished by getting less money from the lottery proceeds, and for reimbursements from the state. In other words, this bill will strong-arm counties into raising the sales tax 1%.

At the same time, there's another bill, HB1062, that will give counties the "authority" to levy a "transfer tax." For those of you not familiar with this type of tax, it is you being forced to ask permission from the government to sell your house -- or any other property that they want to apply this tax to. And it won't matter how much your house is worth, nor how much you paid for it. So if, for example, you're in trouble and need to sell your house. If you can just pay off the mortgage and the Realtor fees now, you're in for a surprise. You might have to pay an additional few thousand dollars to the government -- EVEN IF YOU'RE LOSING MONEY. That's right, if you paid $150,000 for your house and you're selling it for $125,000, you'd STILL get stuck with a tax of up to $3,750 that you'd have to pay.

And the counties would be free to raise that tax any time they wanted. If you wanted to leave your house to your children, you'd pay the tax. If you wanted to gift a house to a relative, you'd pay the tax. It's also referred to as a "land transfer tax" -- and it's horrible because it's relatively hidden. You won't see it until you sell the house. You can be sure Charlotte is watching this one closely, because if one county gets that ability, Charlotte will absolutely do ANYTHING to get that tax -- the Lords over Charlotte simply cannot stand that people are free to move about (and out of) their county without asking permission.

And yes, the poor will be the hardest hit. They would be forced to pay that tax as well any time they wanted to buy or sell a house. It would make it MORE difficult for the "poor" to move up into the middle class because ALL houses would be just that much more expensive. So much for the Democrats being for the "poor."

Some of you may be wondering the source behind this recent push for total crushing of freedom, raising taxes, and trying to keep the poor in their place. That would be the socialist from Chatham County, the "Chatham Coalition," led by Jeffery Starkweather. And he's got the support of the Chatham County commissioners and their representative, Joe Hackney, who wants to be Speaker of the (Corrupt) House.

Now, look, I believe in freedom. I want people to make their own choices. Currently in the North Carolina Legislature, that's NOT possible. This isn't whining about election results, this is stating facts: more than half of people who voted in November voted for Republicans in both the NC House and NC Senate. However, both houses are Democrat majorities. That's gerrymandering, plain and simple. But the Democrats do not care, as long as they're in power.

If the people of Chatham County want massive tax increases, they should be able to have them. But they shouldn't force ME to have tax increases, because I don't want them. And if Chatham County wants to be socialist, let them do it with their OWN money, not mine, and not the state of North Carolina's.

But Socialism fails everywhere it's tried and every time it's tried. The only way the Democrats of Chatham County and North Carolina can continue to succeed is to keep taking from those who produce and ram socialism down the throats of people who don't want it and continue to vote against it.

No, there's currently no hope for freedom in North Carolina. Not as long as Democrats continue to cheat, steal, and gerrymander their way into power.

Posted by: Ogre at 01:05 PM | Comments (151) | Add Comment
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Do you think this will get me a fatwah?

Posted by: Ogre at 09:02 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Well, if Clue were made for Hollywood today...

Posted by: Ogre at 08:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Yet another Christmas gift that just wasn't as popular as some others...

Posted by: Ogre at 07:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Who doesn't just love lawn darts?

Posted by: Ogre at 06:05 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Well here it is, the new layout for the new year. It's been way too long since there's been a layout change, so here it is. Actually, there's not a huge amount of changes with the one big exception that you've already noticed -- no post text on the front page.

Now I know, some people will absolutely hate it because you have to click to read the story. If you're reading this on a web browser, you're clicking all the time, anyway! But I think Harvey drinks beer while he reads, so he doesn't like to click often or something.

Anyway, here it is, feel free to leave comments on what you like or don't like. I've been using it for a week now, and I'm starting to like it, so it's going to stay around at least for a little while.

As of this writing, it's not 100% complete, but it's almost there. I'm working on two other layouts that will automatically appear if you're using a narrow screen; and a different one if you're reading on a cell phone or PDA. Those should be ready by Jan 1st, as should an extra different layout in case some of you people want to print any of the pages.

I've also added Haloscan trackbacks (in case you didn't notice). The mu.nu server was really getting blasted by trackback spam, so those haven't been working for quite some time. So even though they're not inline, at least you can use them and I can see when others are writing about things I'm writing about. I promise to visit each and every site that leaves a (non-spam) trackback.

So, enjoy, and let me know what you think. As always, it's subject to change whenever I get tired of the same layout! And thank you for stopping by and reading.

Posted by: Ogre at 05:00 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Feel the love. Either that or no one can get to these comments to let me know that they can't get to them....

Posted by: Ogre at January 01, 2007 02:22 PM (EsWss)

2 Good guess - I'm not liking it at all. It makes enjoying your excellent content far less convenient. Have to admit I'm curious as to why you decided to go this way.

Posted by: Harvey at January 05, 2007 03:43 PM (L7a63)

3 Yeah, I was waiting for that comment from you. I'm not sure why I went this way. I guess I'm just experimenting with some different things because I really haven't changed anything in, well, a really long time. One reason was to speed up the load times -- if the actual posts don't load, it does speed up the page loading. And I think it does make things easier on the reader -- you can see quickly and easily if you want to read an article, and if you don't, you don't have to scroll down past it, you can quickly and easily see the next article. And I like making use of the post slug, too.

Posted by: Ogre at January 05, 2007 04:51 PM (EsWss)

4 Oh, and my posts are getting a little longer these days, so that makes the reader scroll down even further -- that, or use the extended entry -- which brings us back to this layout!

Posted by: Ogre at January 05, 2007 04:57 PM (EsWss)

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Oh dear. "New" research claims that

Far too many kids are fat by preschool, and Hispanic youngsters are most at risk

Gee, I wonder how many millions of dollars of taxpayer money was wasted on this research to come up with such brilliant conclusions:

Children were particularly at risk if their mothers were obese.

one of the most common causes of overweight in children is overfeeding

And I know the bleeding-heart liberals will be all over this one (it's custom-made for them). Go ahead and tell me how it's not the children's fault and that the children didn't make the bad decisions. Know what? It doesn't matter. If you claim that it's not the children's fault and therefore government has to take care of it, you honestly dislike freedom.

You are saying that we should punish those who make good healthy decisions to support those who make poor decisions. And again, it doesn't matter that the parents made the decisions -- you see, if people were held responsible for their actions, the parents would be the ones saddled with the medical bills, not the responsible people. It may be a harsh lesson, but it's fair. Government is not capable of being "compassionate."

If people make bad decisions, they should be held responsible. If they make bad decisions that affect other people, they should still be held responsible. People who make good healthy decisions should not be required to pay for the bad decisions of others -- it doesn't matter if there's children involved.

So what will happen to the "poor children" if government gets out of the way and people are held responsible for their own actions? The same thing that happened to them for hundreds of years before the liberal US government got in the way -- actual people would be compassionate and would give their own money of their own will to help people -- and there'd be more money for help and more people being helped than the government could ever dream of.

Freedom works every time it's tried. Oh how I yearn for freedom.

Posted by: Ogre at 04:32 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Yes, you read that correctly. A North Carolina "state task force" has decided it. But don't worry, government can solve the problem with cash. Since North Carolina is run by Democrats (due to massive, blatant gerrymandering), who is surprised that the solution to any problem is government? If you are, you've not been paying attention.

This time, the cause of the end of the world is a "lack of doctors." And if we don't immediately raise taxes billions of dollars and bribe people to become doctors, there will be no doctors left in the state (so sayeth the "task force").

Gee, could this have anything to do with the new schools of medicine that the state-run government schools want?

Oh, and never forget to ask what caused the alleged problem. Of course, it's government. Government regulations and failure of government to enact simple tort lawsuit reform (NEVER going to happen in Democrat-run NC) is causing doctors to simply close up shop. It's becoming just plain too expensive and too risky to start a medical practice BECAUSE of government. Once again government is proposing to solve a problem THEY created with more taxes.

So, to solve the problem, government should get OUT OF THE WAY, not spend more. But even if it is an actual problem (and that cannot be confirmed because all scare-figures are based on "future estimates"), what business is it of the government? Can someone find me the line in the North Carolina Constitution that says, "Government shall be responsible for maintaining a ratio of doctors to people of less than 500:1? And no, you can't use the one that the Democrats in the legislature use to wipe their bottoms, either.

Freedom works everywhere it's tried. Get government out of the damn way and there will be plenty of doctors everywhere. And if there's not, it's STILL not government's job to provide them!

Posted by: Ogre at 02:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Once again, we see the bias apparent in the press if you only look. An article that doesn't appear on the opinion page, says

The gap in funding between North Carolina's richest and poorest school districts is among the widest in the nation, an advocacy group for low-income and minority students reports.

If you twist the numbers just right and hold your head the right way, it would appear that there's a tiny difference in spending between poor people and rich people -- rich people apparently spend more, a bunch of scum-sucking slimeballs that rely on greed and jealousy to steal their income from taxpayers and works full-time to take from those who work to line their own pockets report.

The most appropriate response, yet again, to these envious, lazy bastards is, "SO WHAT?" You know what? People who work hard and earn money actually spend more. I know that the "Education Trust" people actually seriously HATE that people who work hard earn more money. They despise that people work and earn money -- they sure don't do it, I'm sure they wouldn't know how. But they sure do work at taking money AWAY from those who earn it.

And more importantly, show me ONE STUDY, go ahead ANY study that actually shows ANY difference in the level of learning based on money. There isn't one. Every time a scholarly group actually tries to find a causal relationship between money and education, it simply CANNOT BE FOUND. Money DOES NOT equal education.

But these scum at "Education Trust" not only know that, they honestly don't care. They want money for their own pockets and they're perfectly willing to take it from those who produce it. Scum-sucking leeches, the lot of them.

Posted by: Ogre at 12:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Were there any leftover Christmas Toys at your house? Here's one I saw in the trash outside the neighbor's. I guess they didn't like it:

Posted by: Ogre at 10:11 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources person asked a young engineer fresh out of MIT what kind of a salary he was looking for.

"In the neighborhood of $140,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."

"Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years...say, a red Corvette?"

"Wow! Are you kidding?"

"Yeah, but you started it."

Posted by: Ogre at 08:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's nice to hear some good news now and again. And it's good news when guns are used for their purpose: to defend one's self. In New Mexico, three criminals were shot dead by homeowners defending themselves. The article also lists various other uses of guns across the country by law-abiding citizens who simply wanted to live.

In each case, a criminal was trying to either kill or deprive a citizen of their inalienable rights. Now if the citizens did as the anti-gun people suggest, run away and call the police, they would have lost their property and may have lost their lives. In no case would the police have actually been able to stop the criminal in the act because the police were not there! And that's not the purpose of police (to stop crimes) -- their job is to come in AFTER the crime.

In addition, if the citizens had fled, the criminals would not only have taken from those citizens, but would also still have been free to continue on and deprive others of their life, liberty, or property. These citizens should be heralded as heros and hailed as good for the community because they have done what the police and criminal justice system in this country cannot do any more: they have stopped criminals from repeating their crimes.

Posted by: Ogre at 05:41 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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If you're blogging and following the news, you're probably aware by now of the federal case about the slut woman who "blogged" details about her sex life. In case you're not aware, in brief, here's the details:

A whore woman slept around with a half-dozen or so slimes men and then wrote on her blog about them. One of the scum men decided to sue her for "revealing private details." And somehow he thinks he's got a case. Why in the world a judge hasn't thrown this one out, no one will ever know.

Folks, if you think you have any privacy of any kind today, you're really clueless. There's nothing that's private. I suppose something you do inside an interior room with no windows alone might be private, but that's about it. To claim that anything you do with someone else is private is completely insane. If a judge even considers this case, then gossip will suddenly be illegal!

But the way judges make up the rules and base their decisions on other (less free) countries, there's no telling how this will turn out. If the hooker woman loses this case, then there will be no press because no one will be able to talk about anything that anyone tells them. And oh yes, if she wins the courts will be full of millions of lawsuits for cash for anytime anyone ever revealed anything I, personally, think is private information.

Posted by: Ogre at 03:28 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The North Carolina Biosciences Organization wants cash. Well, they claim that companies want cash. And they want free cash from the government. But that's not exactly how the news release reads. Instead, the headline is "Biotech companies like NC Business Climate."

First, a little background -- you realize the organization that put out this news release has one business -- to get taxpayer money from the legislature to private companies. I'm serious, that's the reason they exist. So naturally, they are never going to say ANYTHING bad about North Carolina -- because then they wouldn't get free gifts of taxpayer cash.

This is how government works in North Carolina. "Trade groups" like this one print nice things about how wonderful North Carolina is -- in this case for it's "business climate." Then the legislature can use these "news releases" to show what a wonderful job they're doing. Then they pay back the "trade groups" with cash for the companies -- cash that YOU the taxpayer worked for and earned that they took via taxes.

But wait, there's more! Do you know WHY so many groups rate North Carolina as a "good business climate?" It's not because of freedom, that's for sure. Two reasons: First, because the government gives away billions upon billions of dollars every year to business in various forms. Of COURSE a business will like that climate! Second, because businesses know that if they have an "in" with the legislature, they will be protected with the strong arm of government. Just ask the payday lenders who were run out of the state by the government officials who were paid by the big banks.

Remember this later this year when the Democrats that run North Carolina claim that they are "forced" to raise taxes billions of dollars "for the children." They're outright liars. That's how government works in North Carolina. It has nothing to do with freedom or people.

Posted by: Ogre at 12:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A beautiful young blonde woman boards a plane to LA with a ticket for the coach section. She looks at the seats in coach and then looks ahead to the first class seats. Seeing that the first class seats appear to be much larger and more comfortable, she moves forward to the last empty one. The flight attendant checks her ticket and tells the woman that her seat is in coach.

The blonde replies, "I'm young, blonde and beautiful, and I'm going to sit here all the way to LA."

Flustered, the flight attendant goes to the cockpit and informs the captain of the blonde problem. The captain goes back and tells the woman that her assigned seat is in coach.

Again, the blonde replies, "I'm young, blonde and beautiful, and I'm going to sit here all the way to LA."

The captain doesn't want to cause a commotion, and so returns to the cockpit to discuss the blonde with the co-pilot. The co-pilot says that he has a blonde girlfriend, and that he can take care of the problem. He then goes back and briefly whispers something into the blonde's ear.

She immediately gets up, says, "Thank you so much," hugs the co-pilot, and rushes back to her seat in the coach section. The pilot and flight attendant, who were watching with rapt attention, together ask the co-pilot what he had said to the woman.

He replies, "I just told her that the first class section isn't going to LA."

Posted by: Ogre at 10:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Note: If you see anything really odd in the layout of the blog today or tomorrow, I'm working on it. I'm making a few change to the layout of the blog and attempting to add Haloscan trackbacks back in. During this time, you may see some weird things show up on the main page or the permalink pages. I'll apologize in advance and hopefully have them all fixed in the next day or so.

On a related note, does anyone know how to handle Error 11 from Haloscan?

*Update: Trackbacks are working, but only if sent from Haloscan, due to the Error 11 above. I'd love to hear if anyone has found a way to fix that.

Posted by: Ogre at 06:03 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, it's official. Or at least almost official: Edwards is running for President. This is John Edwards, millionaire trail lawyer who made millions suing doctors for performing surgeries. Today, it's known that the doctors did absolutely nothing wrong at the time. But slick-talking Edwards managed to convince juries that the doctors did wrong, and in the process got millions and millions of dollars from working people and caused the price of medical insurance to skyrocket.

And now he wants to be president "for the little people." He's been running for president since about 2003, he's just now announcing it. He bought a Senator seat from NC once to build his resume. After he got that on his resume, he didn't actually do anything in the Senate, and he didn't run again because he knew that he'd have trouble winning the seat again.

In addition, this is the person who couldn't even win his own state when running for election for Vice President on the Kerry/Edwards ticket. But none of that matters. What qualifies him for the presidency? Well, he's got a "D" after his name, so he'll automatically win California, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, Washington, Oregon, and various other liberals states. That is, if he gets past sHillary in the primaries.

Posted by: Ogre at 04:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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