An apology long in coming...

[susanne]

Dear World:

 We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the

ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our

2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this

eight-year service outage has been located, and the software

responsible was replaced November 4.  Early tests of the newly

installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we

expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any

inconvenience caused by the outage.  We look forward to resuming full

service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your

patience and understanding,

 Sincerely,

 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

[horsefeather]

I hope Obama can do the things everyone seems to want. However, I fear there are going to be a LOT of people unhappy in the next four years. I like him, he seems nice, but the middle name still bothers me some

I sincerely hope that all of you who blew Bush off can say 'I told you Obama was Great" at the end of his term.

However, I thought it was downright disgracefull for Americans to boo Bush. Like him or not, he WAS our President, and as so deserved the respect that office calls for.

Pam

 

[Crabby-Chicken]

Horsefeather,,,

You are right. Obama has a LOT of people putting all their hopes on him. He can't fulfill everything. But he does have a good heart. I was proud of him when he called the leaders of other countries to tell them he wants to work with them to try and bring peace in any way he can.

I do not feel that George W Bush should receive my respect. He tortured people, making their testimonies invalid. Even if they are terrorists, we can't use what they got. He has let more people die in the war he started on a lie, that died in 9/11. He father has my respect. He knew how to get out of Iraq and not have us stuck there. He would not have let people drown in Katrina while he was at his ranch totally ignoring the problem. Giving tax cuts to his wealthy friends seemed to have helped the economy. Yes, and there are a lot of democrats that need to be voted out for that also. Bush also took the Constitution of the United States and ignored it. That is one reason we ask our people to risk their lives at war, to protect it. Not to use it for the presidents benefit. I don't care if people think it is okay to give up that right, people fought and died for that right to privacy.

 

[SweetOpal]

He can't fulfill everything.
But he does have a good heart.

Why can't he? Isn't those promises what got him elected?? The other presidents before him were expected to??

And unfortunately I don't think having a good heart is going to solve the problems of this world...it will take a bit more than that...

 

[Crabby-Chicken]

Your right. He probably will!!! Look at how much he did today. He gained even more respect from me.

 

[icspots]

I think Obama will fulfill his promises as much as he is able, but lets face it, it takes much longer to rebuild something than it does to smash it to bits! We have had our rights stripped from us, we, and the rest of the world have been lied to shamlessly while a handful of cronies prosper, our economy has been trashed, this is NOT going to be an easy fix. I do think that we finally have some intelligence in the white house, just the way he has started his administration gives me hope. His cabinet choices have been thoughtful and methodical, carefully choosing the right person for the right job, not just giving positions to unqualified cronies at random. Nobody started bashing Bush until his antics became sooo blatent, I just hope the country will give Obama the same courtesy.

 

[Matt73]

I think Obama will fulfill his promises as much as he is able, but lets face it, it takes much longer to rebuild something than it does to smash it to bits! We have had our rights stripped from us, we, and the rest of the world have been lied to shamlessly while a handful of cronies prosper, our economy has been trashed, this is NOT going to be an easy fix. I do think that we finally have some intelligence in the white house, just the way he has started his administration gives me hope. His cabinet choices have been thoughtful and methodical, carefully choosing the right person for the right job, not just giving positions to unqualified cronies at random. Nobody started bashing Bush until his antics became sooo blatent, I just hope the country will give Obama the same courtesy.

Exactly

 

[Sonya]

Why can't he? Isn't those promises what got him elected?? The other presidents before him were expected to??
And unfortunately I don't think having a good heart is going to solve the problems of this world...it will take a bit more than that...

Very Well said!

a good heart and left handed....the country is saved!

 

[susanne]

Dang, Sonya, you figured me out! I voted for Obama BECAUSE he is left-handed and nice! Duhhh!

Face it, any elected politician is something of a cr@p shoot...but hopefully they're not all full of cr@p like the previous administration.

It is good to see, however, that even if our country can grow and evolve, this forum stays the same!

 

[SilverDollar]

His cabinet choices have been thoughtful and methodical, carefully choosing the right person for the right job, not just giving positions to unqualified cronies at random.

This doesn't include the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury choice of Timothy Geithner. He "forgot" to pay his taxes? Come on...aren't there any other choices? After all, this is the man who will be collecting OUR taxes! I don't think the IRS would allow any of us to "forget" to pay our taxes. I know everyone can make mistakes, but this relates directly to this man's responsibilities for the office. Please, President Obama, choose someone else!!

 

[AppyLover2]

When I read the OP my first thought was "and some people trash others for not 'showing respect' to Obama". Seems to me to be a prime example of a double standard. One of those "I can say anything I want to but if you say something I disagree with be prepared to be belittled and criticized".

This is another of those times when I find myself thinking of the hundreds of thousands of service members who have given their lives throughout the years in order for us to have the right to put something like that on a public forum. God Bless them all!

As far as his campaign "promises" are concerned, it remains to be seen how many of them he can and will keep.

 

[jeanniecogan]

I love the apology, and you are right, it was a long time coming. Thanks for sharing it. jeannie

 

[Buckskin gal]

I want so very much for Obama to set things right for our country and I hold the hope that he will. However, if he accepts Tim Geithner for the poition he wanted him for, Obamas halo is going to start tilting right away. HE MUST NOT let that man get away with what he as done. I strongly feel that Obama must walk the walk and not just talk the talk of getting the bad guys out of Washington and Tim Geithner is definitely not a good guy, in my book. None of us would have gotten away with what he has and it will be a total mockery of our wanting change to have Geithner hold any position other than maybe a position of jailmate. Our country does need change and the changes need to be made in those who are responsible for

enforcing the laws for even the haughty politician. We all need to be writing a note to Obama letting him know we do not want people like Tim Geithne holding a position that especially needs honesty. WE are responsible for seeing that Obama does what he says he would do, and one of those things is holding him to the very highest standards for the good of our country. Mary

His cabinet choices have been thoughtful and methodical, carefully choosing the right person for the right job, not just giving positions to unqualified cronies at random.

[This doesn't include the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury choice of Timothy Geithner. He "forgot" to pay his taxes? Come on...aren't there any other choices? After all, this is the man who will be collecting OUR taxes! I don't think the IRS would allow any of us to "forget" to pay our taxes. I know everyone can make mistakes, but this relates directly to this man's responsibilities for the office. Please, President Obama, choose someone else!!

 

[susanne]

This is another of those times when I find myself thinking of the hundreds of thousands of service members who have given their lives throughout the years in order for us to have the right to put something like that on a public forum. God Bless them all!

I've heard many statements to this effect so many times, and I wonder...

Do you really mean that because others have died to guarantee us this right, that we should keep our mouths shut?

I feel just the opposite -- we have an obligation to honor these fallen soldiers by ALWAYS speaking out about what we believe to be right and wrong.

While on the topic of our military, I just hope that this administration will do a better job than the last in honoring and properly supporting ALL of our veterans. The last 8 years were spent giving lip service to the current troops while disgracefully treating our veterans as ne'er-do-wells seeking handouts. They deserve whatever we can possibly give them for what they were willing to do.

I will demand the same integrity and action of Obama as I would have anyone else elected. I have to agree with Buckskin Gal about Geithner -- this position above the rest of the cabinet demands a secretary who deserves the public trust. I assume Obama selected him without knowing about this misdeed, but if Geithner has any integrity, he should withdraw his name from consideration as did Bill Richardson.

 

[LowriseMinis]

Oh, man, Geithner. You'd think the camp would have learned something about VETTING a candidate after this last election.

But this post reminded me of something else.

US Democracy Server: Patch Day

Version 44.0

President

* Leadership: Will now scale properly to national crises. Intelligence was not being properly applied.

* A bug has been fixed that allowed the President to ignore the effects of debuffs applied by the Legislative classes.

* Drain Treasury: There appears to be a bug that allowed loot to be transferred from the treasury to anyone on the President's friends list, or in the President's party. We are investigating.

* Messages to and from the President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.

* Messages originating from the President were being misclassified as originating from The American People.

* A rendering error that frequently caused the President to appear wrapped in the American Flag texture has been addressed.

Vice President

* The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.

* No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.

* The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.

* Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.

* Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.

* A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President's visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Cabinet

* There was a bug in the last release that prevented the Cabinet from disagreeing with the President, which was the cause of a number of serious balance issues. This bug has been addressed, and we will continue to monitor the situation.

Judiciary

* Many concerns have been raised regarding balance issues in the Supreme Court. This system is maintained on a different patch schedule, and will require longer to address.

* A large number of NPCs in the Judiciary were incorrectly flagged "ideological." We are trying to identify these cases and rectify this situation.

Homeland Security

* Homeland Security Advisory System: We have identified a bug in this system that prevents the threat level from dropping below Elevated (Yellow). The code for Guarded (Blue) and Low (Green) has been commented out. We are testing the fix and hope to have it in by the next patch.

* Torture: This debuff is being removed after a record number of complaints.

* Item: Large Bottle of Water is incorrectly generating threat with TSA Agents when held in inventory. We are looking into the issue.

* Asking questions about Homeland Security was incorrectly triggering the Chain-Jingoism debuff.

Economy

* Serious on-going issues with server economy are still being addressed. We expect further roll-backs, and appreciate your help identifying and fixing bugs. We can't make these fixes without your help.

PVP

* Reputation with various factions are being rebalanced. The gradated reputation scale was erroneously being overwritten by the binary For Us/ Against Us flag.

Quests

* The" Desert Storm" quest chain was displaying an erroneous "Mission Accomplished" message near the beginning of the chain.

* The quest chain that begins with "There's no Cake like Yellow Cake" and terminates with "W-M-Denied" has been identified as uncompletable, and has been removed.

Reagents

* Many recipes that currently call for Crude Oil can now be made with Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Ethanol reagents. We hope to roll out even more sweeping changes in the next patch.

Events

* The "Axis of Evil" event is drawing to a close. Look forward to the "Rebuilding Bridges" event starting in January.

 

[SaddleTrail]

I hope Obama can do the things everyone seems to want. However, I fear there are going to be a LOT of people unhappy in the next four years. I like him, he seems nice, but the middle name still bothers me some

I sincerely hope that all of you who blew Bush off can say 'I told you Obama was Great" at the end of his term.However, I thought it was downright disgracefull for Americans to boo Bush. Like him or not, he WAS our President, and as so deserved the respect that office calls for.

Pam

I feel the same way. It doesn't matter if he was a good or bad President, he was still our President and we as citizens of the USA should have stood behind him. By not standing up for him we showed the other countries just how greedy and self centered Americans can be at times.

My hubby and I fought over this so many times. I felt we should have stood behind him to support him, right or wrong. We should have shown a united front to all others. But that didn't happen. I felt sorry for the man. He is after all a human being and made mistakes just like the rest of us.

Now, we have a new president, lets see him make mistakes and how we as a United Nation support him.

 

[Jill]

 Sincerely,
 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One of the oddest things about the internet is that one typist can pretend to speak for 300 million people.

 

[AppyLover2]

This is another of those times when I find myself thinking of the hundreds of thousands of service members who have given their lives throughout the years in order for us to have the right to put something like that on a public forum. God Bless them all!

I've heard many statements to this effect so many times, and I wonder...

Do you really mean that because others have died to guarantee us this right, that we should keep our mouths shut?

I really meant exactly what I said. My thoughts quite often are that saying such things in other countries would cost a person their life, a hand, sight, imprisonment, banishment, etc.. When I say God Bless those who died to insure us the freedom to publicly criticize the former President of the United States that's exactly what I mean. Any time I might wish that people would "keep their mouths shut" all I have to do is remember those who fought and died to insure that people have the right to be as publicly disrespectful as they wish to be.

QUOTE (susanne @ Jan 22 2009, 07:49 PM) Sincerely,

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One of the oddest things about the internet is that one typist can pretend to speak for 300 million people.

VERY well said Jill.

 

[LindaL]

Heyyyy......I'm left handed and nice....

 

[susanne]

Appylover, I wasn't directing that so much at you as to many times I have seen it, usually with that intent, so I apologize if it came across as attacking you -- not my intent.

I never forget their sacrifice for a moment, and because of that I will always speak up for what is right and point out that which is wrong (such as my comment about neglected veterans)

What is truly strange about the internet is that people seem not to recognize satire, farce, or any other subtle form of humor when it is posted online.