You know, gt, these kind of statements lend you no credibility.

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Credibility can be judged from what someone wrote on the chat board. MT wrote that she will join the civilian corp in Iraq. Obviously, she was not credible in that comment. Now there is commentary that it doesn't matter, or that she didn't lie. Gawd, it is so much like this administration it's laughable, but somehow it makes me feel like crying instead of laughing. You say it won't matter in 100 years. Well, it might. The collective lies that got us into this war may matter to the relatives still alive of those killed in Iraq after 100 years. So in a very small but important way it does matter. It is symbolic of the web of lies bringing this whole country down.

By the way the civilian corps would include aid workers, truck drivers, engineers, etc. This was most certainly not a rhetorical question, yet another lie on the part of one of the posters worried about manners.

Wow, if my in-laws (in their 80s) knew that they were looked upon like that, I'd get a black eye (and deserve it) Incidentally, they could do it, too. They travel abroad, work out, all that stuff.

Maybe we should get a little sampling of how many fossilized 70YOs there are out there. I'm embarrassed for you.

It also seems to me that anyone who could endure the worst imaginable torture for 5 years must be made of something.

fact checking, research.....get the idea yet? Again, rumors started by a person who won't even identify themself is not fact the last time I checked.

Oh, and by the way, why is it okay for this person to stay anonymous and not okay for the source of the infamous tape you like to talk about so much?

He has lied to Americans and to the world so many times that if he actually made a mistake and told the TRUTH, nobody would be able to recognize it.

LOL at *pro-terrorist.* Is that the *talking point* word of the day that you studied at the table while drinking your daily dose of Kool-Aid? I'm not pro terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. I'm also not gullible. As far as bizarre, I think people who can't think for themselves, see the forest from the trees and continue to defend a known manipulative, deceitful liar until the end, regardless of facts to the contrary, are beyond bizarre.

And as far as J. C. Penney bills, check the date below. As I said, this is nothing new. I doubt you need to worry about your credit card bills, though. Bush only attacks those who disagree with him or catch him in lies. Ask Valerie Plame.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.

So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.

And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail.

He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.

What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that everything changed after 9/11 thing.

But not Walter.

We're a product of the '60s, he said. We believe government should be way away from us in that regard.

He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.

When you mess with my money, I want to know why, he said.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.

The more I'm on, the scarier it gets, he said. It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy.

Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.

But the experience has been a reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to others, he said.

(Bob Kerr is a columnist for The Providence Journal. E-mail bkerr@projo.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.