Credit: Woody Guthrie (composed 1940; recorded 1944; published 1951)

Arizona is the new Alabama, c.1963. The racists “nativists” in AZ can’t get into a debate about the “brown-skinned” illegals. How do you say, “There’s a huge difference! The blacks in the South were born here! They were already legal citizens!” That’s contrary to their cultural behavior, back in the day.

The shouting has just begun, over a bill that won’t go into effect until August. But that didn’t stop one state trooper from demanding a birth certificate from an AZ truck driver. The driver wasn’t carrying it on his person; he called his wife and had her bring it to him so that he could be released from custody.  Iowa Independent (04.26.10):

The new birthers: Arizona truck driver arrested, forced to show birth certificate”

A Latino truck driver outside Phoenix was taken into custody by law enforcement at a weigh station. He pulled in to have the truck looked at, was apparently approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and asked for ID. He showed them his commercial driver’s license. They asked him for more ID. He told them his social security number. They cuffed him took him to the central office in Phoenix and called his wife to bring his social security card and birth certificate. The man is identifying himself to media only as “Abdon” and he is an American citizen born in the USA.

Governor Jan Brewer gave her Montblanc a real workout last week.  First, she signed the “birther” bill, making all future candidates for the presidency (of the United States, not of AZ) show “proof of citizenship eligibility”.  No word on whether President Obama will need to re-meet their standards in 2012.  However, I suspect that is their sole motive in passing this AZ legislation.

“This is a question that has been answered exhaustively,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told CNN. “I can’t imagine Arizona voters think their tax dollars are well served by a legislature that is less focused on their lives than in fringe right-wing radio conspiracy theories.”

By the way, the MSM ignored this.  But the UK didn’t.  Check here.

Second, she signed a bill that will allow AZ citizens to carry concealed weapons without the need for a permit, joining Vermont and Alaska.  USA-Today (04.16.10):

In Arizona, it’s now legal for (most) adults to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer just signed the legislation, putting her state in the same camp as Alaska and Vermont.

The state had issued 154,000 permits under the old law, which required background checks and instruction. Gun buyers still face federal background checks when purchasing weapons from a store.

And last, she signed into law a bill so “draconian” (the seeming consensus of opinion), it is unparalleled.  Police are allowed to shake-down any person who appears to be of Mexican heritage, if they have “cause” while performing their duties.  BUT police are required by law to do this, facing lawsuits by their local citizens if said citizens believe that their police force is not doing their job to the fullest extent.  One critic called it, “the crime of breathing while Hispanic”.

President Obama “on Tuesday warned of harassment against Hispanics under Arizona’s tough new immigration law, saying such “poorly conceived” measures can be halted if the federal government fixes the nation’s broken immigration system for good.”  AP, via HuffPost (04.27.10)

Obama’s comments came on the same day that Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were critical of Arizona’s new law, and Holder said the federal government may challenge it. The president sought to step up Washington’s will to get an immigration deal done.

“I will bring the majority of Democrats to the table in getting this done,” Obama said in response to a question at a town hall in south-central Iowa. “But I’ve got to have some help from the other side.”

The GOP is shameless but they may recognize that this is “their very own Waterloo”.  It would be a mistake on their part, if they treat this as just a “little dustup in Arizona”.

The passion on both sides is running red hot (think:  habanero pepper!).  John McCain has waffled back and forth.  On the other hand, his daughter, Meghan, was an early voice with clear and concise rhetoric.  (Meghan, your Dad looks and sounds like a doddering fool.  Have a doctor check him over; if he hasn’t had a stroke yet, doctors may be able to intervene.)

“One Man’s Family”:  “Look, our border is not secured. Our citizens are not safe.” But the Arizona senator did not provide any additional details to back up his assertion about cars carrying illegal immigrants “intentionally causing accidents.”  John McCain on April 20.

“I believe it gives the state police a license to discriminate, and also, in many ways, violates the civil rights of Arizona residents,” Meghan McCain wrote in her column, entitled “Hate the Law, Not Arizonans.” “Simply put, I think it is a bad law that is missing the bigger picture of what is really going on with illegal immigration.”  Meghan McCain on 04.26.10

“Well, I regret it. People are free to express their views but the fact is the Arizona legislature and governor acted for one reason and that is because the federal government didn’t — did not act and carry out its responsibilities to secure our borders.“  John McCain, on Feh…News, 04.28.10

But wait!  There’s more!  Reverend Jim Wallis hates the bill:

“Wallis calls the new law a “social sin” and just issued a press release, vowing the churches “will not comply.”

Even (possible pederast) Cardinal Mahoney hates the bill:

The head of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese has condemned a proposed Arizona crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying it encourages people to turn on each other in Nazi- and Soviet-style repression.

The measure wrongly assumes that Arizonans “will now shift their total attention to guessing which Latino-looking or foreign-looking person may or may not have proper documents,” Cardinal Roger Mahony said in his blog Sunday – a day before Arizona’s Legislature sent the immigration enforcement measure to the Republican governor.

We’re not done yet!  The boycotts are coming!

A sports correspondent for The Nation says:  No One is Illegal:  Boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks. His motivation rests on this:   “‘The D-backs organization is a primary funder of the state Republican Party, which has been driving the measure through the legislature.”

While San Francisco’s municipal government may boycott Arizona as a conference destination,  SFGate’s Phil Bronstein says:  not so fast. Boycotting Arizona a bad idea on 04.27.10

“In our great rush to protest potential discrimination, we should be careful that we don’t discriminate ourselves. Since Arizona is about 58 percent white, could we be guilty of reverse discrimination if our boycott affects some of those people who may not support their new law? Or how about the 30 percent of Arizonans who are Hispanic? It seems likely that banning SF-to-Arizona business and the reverse could end up hurting not Gov. Brewer – the evil signatory – but, instead, innocent folks just trying to get by.”

Boycotts to the North, followed by Travel Advisories from the South.

It says that the law’s passage shows “an adverse political atmosphere for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors.”

Weaponized Frijoles Refritos:  vandals smeared refried beans in the shape of swastikas on the state Capitol’s windows.

Let’s wrap this up quickly.  Dr. Boyce Watkins says: “Immigration fight could pit blacks against brown.”  Tom Tancredo says “Arizona Immigration Law Goes Too Far, [but I] Still Support It.”

Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and KARL ROVE spoke out against it!

Finally, on a surreal note, GOP contender in Iowa:  Microchip Illegals Like Dogs

However the most heinous suggestion came from the mouth of physician Pat Bertroche who said,

I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going…I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal? That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under.

UPDATE:  And then there is this from Greg Palast, who concludes the hysteria is misplaced because the GOP is secretly using this for voter suppression.

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote — and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

In 2008, working for Rolling Stone with civil rights attorney Bobby Kennedy, our team flew to Arizona to investigate what smelled like an electoral pogrom against Chicano voters … directed by one Jan Brewer.

In the category of asshattery and/or meanness, with few exceptions, the GOP takes the cake.

Evangelical archaeologists claim to have found the remains of Noah’s Ark in Turkey.

I will pause for a moment until you finish laughing your ass off at the combined use of the words “evangelical” and “archaeologists.”

According to an article in the UK Sun, Yeung Wing-Cheung from Noah’s Ark Ministries International says, “It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.”

I had never heard of Noah’s Ark Ministries International before and wanted to learn more.  All I could find was this, and I can’t read it.

From the Sun:  “He said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.”

No evidence is given to support the claim that these compartments “were used to house animals” – unless, of course, the fact that some of them had “wooden beams” is intended as evidence.  However, it’s pointed out that the “evangelical archaeologists” believe they were used to house animals.

Here is Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word “archaeology”:  “The scientific study of material remains (as fossil relics, artifacts, and monuments) of past human life and activities.”  I think the use of the word “scientific” in this definition is significant.  Where does “belief” come into “scientific study?”  Well … it doesn’t.

Here’s my favorite passage from the Sun article:  “The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000ft in the vicinity, Yeung said.”

Where does the attitude, “Well, we’ve never encountered it before, so that can’t be it!” come into “scientific study?”  Well … it doesn’t.

So how is it that these “evangelical archaeologists” are so sure they’ve found the ark in which Noah saved two of every animal on the face of the earth from the flood sent by a loving, merciful god to destroy everyone on the planet?  Well, according to the Sun, “They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.”

What?  Wait a second, hold it, just hold it!  Carbon dating?  Are we talking about the same carbon dating used by scientists to determine the age of things like bones and fossils and the earth?  Are we talking about the same carbon dating that Christians routinely REJECT?  That carbon dating?

The website ChristianAnswers.net has a few things to say about carbon dating from a Christian perspective:

“People wonder how millions of years could be squeezed into the biblical account of history.  Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without compromising what the Bible says about the goodness of God and the origin of sin, death and suffering—the reason Jesus came into the world.  Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously. He said, ‘But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.’ (Mark 10:6).  This only makes sense with a time-line beginning with the creation week thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all if man appeared at the end of billions of years.”

This is the real reason Christians reject carbon dating – it has nothing to do with accuracy or science or a search for the truth.  It can’t be “squeezed into the biblical account of history,” which they believe to be literally true and accurate.  If carbon dating works, then that biblical account is not true and accurate.  Therefore, it becomes necessary to discredit carbon dating – by any means necessary.  Here’s one attempt made on the website:

“The forms issued by radioisotope laboratories for submission with samples to be dated commonly ask how old the sample is expected to be. Why? If the techniques were absolutely objective and reliable, such information would not be necessary. Presumably, the laboratories know that anomalous dates are common, so they need some check on whether they have obtained a ‘good’ date.”

This is my favorite:

“Also, the Genesis flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total 12C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants regrowing after the flood absorb CO2, which is not replaced by the decay of the buried vegetation). Total 14C is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more 12C, 14C is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the 14C/12C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the flood had to be lower than what it is now.  Unless this effect (which is additional to the magnetic field issue just discussed) were corrected for, carbon dating of fossils formed in the flood would give ages much older than the true ages.”

Are your sides aching yet?  Essentially, what Christians are saying is this: “Your scientific dating method doesn’t work unless you include and correct for one of the myths in our unscientific superstitious belief system!  So there!”

The conclusion reached by the website about carbon dating?

“There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old Earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world.”

I think the operative word in the above paragraph is “lines.”

Now we have some “evangelical archaeologists” who claim to have found what they believe may — or may not — be Noah’s ark.  What do they use to determine its age?  CARBON DATING.

They’re like an angry child who shouts at a disagreeing friend, “You don’t agree with what I think, so I don’t like your toys!  Your toys are no good!  They don’t work!  They’re broken!”  Then, the next day, the angry child comes back and begins to play with the very toys he was denouncing the day before.  “These toys only work right when I play with them!”

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.  Fortunately, we have the Christians to make it up for us.

This story, brought to my attention by my friend Andrea, is by far one of the most horrible stories I have heard in awhile.

Five Hours of Trying to Rape a Lesbian Straight

Millicent Gaika’s story is heart-breaking. As is Eudy Simelane’s, Anelisa Mfo’s and the countless others who have been swept up in South Africa’s culture of rape. The crimes committed against them are horrible. Let’s make sure that their pain and suffering didn’t happen in vain.

And check out the video in the story link above for even more information on the phenomenon of corrective rape.

Here is another video I found on YouTube.

While attitudes towards homosexuality in the U.S. stem from Christian beliefs and teachings, machoism is the cause of the attitudes against homosexuality in South Africa, which causes violent attacks most often against lesbians.

INTERVIEW-SAfrica rapes linked to macho culture-study author

“Fundamentally, rape is a problem that stems from ideas of manhood in South Africa,” said Jewkes.

“The position of men is superior to women in a patriarchal society and legitimates men’s behaviours towards women, predicated on ideas of sexual entitlement and behaviours that demonstrate men being in control over women.”

South African President Jacob Zuma has promised to end abuses against women. A polygamist who has angered women’s rights groups, Zuma was acquitted in a rape trial in 2006, when he justified having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman by saying he had taken a shower afterwards.

The study, of men in all racial groups and from different socio-economic backgrounds, showed half of those interviewed were under 25 years of age and 70 percent were under 30.

Nearly 10 percent said they had raped a woman or girl for the first time when they were under 10 years old. The HIV prevalence among those who raped was 19.6 percent.

Appalling.

Address South Africa’s Culture of Rape
Please sign the petition today.

The whole world is watching South Africa. Will it be a country that is viewed as a success story, and a country that values human rights? Or will it be a country that proudly boasts the reputation of the rape capital of the world?

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ –Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.

I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll bring it up again:

I am both pro-life and pro-choice. Not necessarily in that order.

I admit freely and without qualms, that I am a speciesist. In that vein alone, I am bigoted. I am a bigot towards my own species. It is not that I consider lesser species to be our slaves, toys, or any other ridiculous thing. I simply value human beings above other animals. As such, I do lend value to human embryos, zygotes, blastocysts, or other variations of how a child comes to be.

Hold it right there.

This isn’t meant to be an insinuation, an inference, an implication, that any of these stages have attained the value of personhood, especially contrasted with person of the mother. The woman gets a choice. Simple enough?

My point here, is that through all these years of blogging, I’ve seen numerous EPIC FAIL arguments because of the intense polarization of the dispute. And as polarizing arguments go, both sides go too far. Ours as well as theirs. I’ll cite a few:

A. The growing child in the womb is a parasite.
This fails spectacularly, because actually, parasites don’t detach from the host, grow up, and end up taking care of the host in the host’s golden years.
B. Anybody who is pro-life is a practitioner of ‘sperm magic’
Again, fails. Sperm is only one component, so this is the logical fallacy of composition, not to mention a strawman. I find this particularly obnoxious, so do avoid this stupidity.
C. Accusations of ‘ensoulment’. I don’t need supernatural tendencies to value a child, or the beginnings of a child.

I’m sure numerous others will be brought up, and I’ll deal with those on a case-by-case basis. Here’s the point that grinds my gears:

It’s not a ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ situation. To clarify, the two sides of the issue go to ridiculous extremes. The pro-lifers holler that an embryo has full personhood value, the pro-choicers holler that it has zero. (This is also the fallacy of the false dichotomy.) As it is in real life, the actual answer lies somewhere in-between. As does my point. It’s natural, a part of the human condition, that we go to extremes. You, me, everybody, in some order, in some way, we all go overboard. And on polarizing issues, well, the extreme is almost cliché.

I can pretty much get an all around agreement that the majority of readers here love children. Why do we? Because of all the near-magical possibilities, the potentialities that can reach into the future. Most cultures are based on potentialities anyways, that foresight, looking to the future. And there are fewer more powerful symbols of that than children.

And while being pro-choice as well, I can haul out an extreme (but extremely possible) example: if say a woman who was two days away from giving birth went nutso, and decided that she was carrying the Antichrist, and wanted it cut out of her, there’s no way I could stand by and mumble that I was ‘pro-choice’, because obviously this lady’s brain has landed somewhere south of Pluto and obviously she isn’t fit to make a decision of that import.

And let’s face it: abortion is a no-win situation. Nobody’s in favor of it ‘just because’ – there’s long-term ramifications that have to be examined on a case-to-case basis. Tubular pregnancies, incestual rape (or any rape for that matter), drug addiction – it’s a necessary evil. Not a cause for celebration for anyone. The biggest concern is poverty – because being poor means a lack of education, lack of security, lack of everything that would be optimal for a child’s upbringing. Concerns such as birth control, religious folderol, and varied other variables put forth by the far right in their efforts to control the common woman.

So a wee bit o’ advice: the next time you (figuratively) inhale to bellow at some nimbulb who’s blattering on about abortion, take a bit of a breath, and think first. It’s natural to take the other side of the argument and go to extremes (I’ve done it too, guilty!) – but we promote ourselves as the rational ones, and it behooves us to walk the talk as such.

And that, dear readers, is my nickel’s worth. Spend it freely, or sock it away for a rainy day.

Till the next post, then.

LOL. An update to the post “Slutty Women Rockin the world

“

It seems like this just begs for us to promote something this nice and wholesome. Boobquake is slated to sart on Monday April 26. I personally hope it becomes a tradition.

Here’s the background: A Purdue University student is asking women around the world Monday to show a little cleavage, or some short shorts, as a humorous test to disprove an Iranian cleric’s theory that immodest dress has the power to make the Earth shake.

The article is here as well as other headlines and articles from around the world.

So be careful on monday everyone. Those immodest women are going to be out tempting us all and trying to shake the earth.

PSA over.

Imagine the dilemma:  A District Attorney is faced with the intransigence of parents who refuse to protect their children from harm.  What can he do?  He’s tried prosecution, and juries have found against the parents.  As a deterrent, punishment (ranging from fines to probation to prison) hasn’t improved the situation.  My guess is that the parents are subjected to a great deal of public shaming; and yet the parents show no remorse.

Children keep dying.  And it’s generational:  In February, a mother and father were found guilty and sentenced to 16 months in prison.  And in August, her daughter and husband were tried and found not guilty.  In the former case, their teenage son died of complications from an untreated urinary blockage.  The latter case involved a 15-month-old daughter who died of a blood infection; although they escaped a prison sentence, the father was convicted of :criminal mistreatment, a misdemeanor, for failing to provide adequate medical care.”

The state medical examiner’s office reported that during the past 30 years more than 20 children of church members had died from preventable or curable illnesses. The mortality rate for Followers of Christ children during that period is 26 times greater than the general population.

Yes, Followers of Christ Church.  You had already guessed that, I’m sure.

But how DO we protect the children from their lunatic parents?  After all, they have First Amendment protections.  And the children have their own rights.  If one should trump the other, the child’s welfare must be paramount.  The child doesn’t have the knowledge and experience it would take to manage his/her health crises.  That duty belongs to the parent/s.  But how do we get around the faith-based ignorance of zealots?

In a “for what it’s worth” gesture, the DA sent a letter to all 415 families of the fundamentalist sect.

“As a starting point towards a possible dialogue between the church and law enforcement, let me ask the following question: Is there an opportunity for us to agree under what circumstances parents should take their children to a doctor or hospital for appropriate medical care?” District Attorney John Foote wrote.

“Our goal would be to try and find ways to make sure that children of the church are safe and receive appropriate medical care. We would work with you to make that happen,” the letter said.

What to do?  We can’t police these people.  Nor can we visit them daily.  Do we take their children away?  Do we force them to leave, knowing they’ll likely go underground?  If the reasonable letter from a reasonable public servant accomplishes nothing, what then?

As a last resort, should we disguise a NursePractioner as a “faith healer”?

***

For those of you curious as to why this is titled “…part four”, here are links to the earlier posts:

Suffer the little children…, 05.19.07 (which may or may not be about hyper-fundi-ism)

Suffer the little children (genetically), 05.21.07

Suffer the little children (this is getting monotonous!), 06.01.07

Thanks to ChuckA for sending us this link to Austin Cline’s article about a 12-year-old Yemeni child bride who died of internal bleeding days after being married to a man more than twice her age.

Like a couple of other Middle Eastern Muslim nations, Yemen has a problem with little girls being married off to older men — and it’s a problem that just keeps getting worse. The latest incident involves a 12-year-old girl married to a man at least twice as old as her. Just three days after the wedding, she died of internal bleeding caused by intercourse with her “husband” (that should probably read “legally and religiously sanctioned rapist”).

While we would like to think that most Muslims do not condone this practice, we have to consider the fact that the Muslims’ main prophet Muhammed married and had sex with a girl just as young.

Cline writes:

Muhammad is supposed to have lived an exemplarily life — a life that all Muslims should strive to emulate if they can. Well, the men of Yemen are doing just that by having multiple wives and at least one child bride.

Like the Christians’ Bible, the Koran can be used to justify the most horrific of acts from blowing up skyscrapers, to raping young children. It’s all a matter of interpretation and what a person chooses to believe in accordance with his or her own desires.

What do officials in Yemen have to say about this tragic incident?

It’s not clear to what degree Yemeni officials are truly outraged over this and to what degree they are only outraged because of the international attention they are getting. Even if they were genuinely outraged, though, how easy would it be for them to change the religious culture of the people in their nation? A third of all girls in Yemen are married before they are 18 and most of them are married off to men who already have multiple wives. The parents are no help because they are happy to be rid of girls in a religious culture where females just aren’t valued — except perhaps for child-bearing and sex.

As we see from our own radical Christian groups here in this country, to rid a culture of dangerous superstition is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible. However, we have laws in this country which protect the innocent from these sorts of horrendous acts and the perpetrators brought to justice if they are found out (except for the Catholic church however, who have the ridiculous power to protect pedophile priests.)

While some may argue that this is a cultural thing and we should not interfere, Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa believes otherwise:

Her death is “a painful reminder of the risks girls face when they are married too soon,” Kaag said Thursday.

Amal Basha, chairwoman of the Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights, a Yemeni human rights group, identified the girl Friday as Elham Mahdi.

“Elham was married on March 29th and died three days later” and lived in Yemen’s Hajjah province, Basha said.

This isn’t the only story that has surfaced in Yemen the past couple of years:

In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl forced into marriage died during childbirth. Her baby also died, according to the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.

Fawziya Ammodi was in labor for three days before she died of severe bleeding, said Ahmed al-Qureshi, president of the organization.

While these things can happen to a fully-developed woman, what makes this different with these young brides is that they were forced into these marriages and pregnancies. It’s not their choice and they are the victims of their parents’ religious beliefs.

Suffer the little children . . . too often.

Hi, I’m Dan and I’m an atheist.

Ryan’s recent return, sans the Rockstar, got me thinking recently about my own relationship with atheism, who in my life knows of it, and why I’ve used a pseudonym on this site. On whatever social networking media I’ve used (facebook and the like), I’ve always openly declared myself an atheist as well as to any friends or relatives or strangers who ask me what I believe in. So why not on here? I don’t know, but I think it’s time to drop the nickname. Heck, there are probably plenty of other things I’m more stigmatized for than my lack of belief in a sky daddy, such as being a dirty liberal, an alcoholic (sober), an academic, etc. My point is, I’m not sure why I’ve hidden behind a nickname when posting on here. I study and teach at a public university in an incredibly liberal department, so I don’t have any fear of retaliation. New Mexico, while containing quite a lot of churches, is hardly the Bible Belt of America, and besides, I live in a college town. So, from now on, I’ll just be plain old Dan on here.

Of course, this is simply my personal choice. Besides, I can’t even remember why I chose the name King Retard, but I feel like I’ve outgrown it. Oh, and I hope to post on here a little more often. Thanks to Stardust et al for always leaving the door open for me.