July 4, 2003, 02:29
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#1
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Deity
Local Time: 00:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Underwater no one can hear sharks scream
Posts: 11,096
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Happy Birthday America!
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Quote:
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On July 3, 1776, after having severed America’s ties to the British crown, founding father John Adams sent a letter to his wife, Abigail, describing his vision for Fourth of July celebrations in the future. He wrote, “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. … It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
Americans did indeed carry out President Adams’ vision and the Fourth of July has become one of the most festive and beloved celebrations in our nation. No single occasion more clearly defines us as a free people than Independence Day.
Each year in the Lone Star State, Texans don their red, white and blue garb, string up patriotic garlands and celebrate the Fourth of July with picnics, parades and fireworks. From Dalhart to Falfurrias, festivities range from backyard barbecues to stadium-sized pageantry. Today’s celebrations continue a grand tradition.
In 1777, the city of Philadelphia, the veritable birthplace of our democracy where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were forged, held one of the most spectacular Fourth of July celebrations in recorded history. Armed ships lined the river, discharging thirteen cannons in honor of the thirteen United States; Congress, the president and military officers attended an elegant dinner with toasts to the patriots and soldiers who gave their lives in defense of freedom. A discharge of artillery and small arms followed, accompanied by live music; soldiers on horseback and on foot paraded through town and the evening closed with the chiming of bells and a grand exhibition of fireworks concluded with thirteen rockets illuminating the sky.
Throughout the years as our country expanded westward, celebrations continued, fashioned by local interests and regional flare. In 1848, the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4th. Forty years later a monument to Francis Scott Key was unveiled in San Francisco. In 1960 the 50-star American flag waved for the first time as Hawaii entered the union. Our bicentennial in 1976 rivaled the 1777 Philadelphia displays and lasted for a year. And in 2002, with the September 11th attacks still weighing on our minds, Americans gathered across the country amid heightened security to celebrate the Fourth of July with a new appreciation for the price of freedom.
Though early celebrations were quite spectacular, it was clear, even then, that our experiment with democracy would be challenging. President Adams closed the letter to his wife saying, “You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”
He knew too well that freedom isn’t free.
This year as we gather in celebration of our independence and enjoy our liberties, it is important to reflect on the challenges our young nation still faces today. Threats to our way of life abound. Terrorism is a reality we confront, and our troops are stationed around the globe in defense of our freedoms and placed in harms’ way to battle those who wish to destroy our democracy. They will never succeed.
This Fourth of July, on the 227th celebration of our nation’s independence, I hope you will take the opportunity to celebrate with family and friends the gift of liberty that is America and pay tribute to those heroes in the armed forces who keep the flame of liberty alive.
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http://hutchison.senate.gov/ccjuly4th.htm
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July 4, 2003, 02:32
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#2
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Emperor
Local Time: 23:03
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: of the Big Apple
Posts: 4,109
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__________________
If you don't like reality, change it! me
"Oh no! I am bested!" Drake :(
"it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
"Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw
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July 4, 2003, 02:35
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#3
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Emperor
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posts: 4,325
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We may be 227 years old, but we act like a teenager 
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July 4, 2003, 02:57
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#4
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King
Local Time: 17:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 2,709
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woohoo!!!
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July 4, 2003, 03:02
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#5
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Emperor
Local Time: 00:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: May 2001
Location: flying too low to the ground
Posts: 4,625
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__________________
"I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it. We have to leave this place, I am almost happy here."
- Ender, from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
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July 4, 2003, 03:04
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#6
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Emperor
Local Time: 07:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 8,278
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Congrats
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Banana
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July 4, 2003, 03:36
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#7
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Prince
Local Time: 23:03
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: UT, Austin - The live music capital of the world
Posts: 884
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Last edited by Kramerman; July 4, 2003 at 18:48.
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July 4, 2003, 03:41
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#8
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Deity
Local Time: 07:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Republic of Flanders
Posts: 10,747
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Do people from other countries celebrate their national holiday too? I usually forget all about it, if I can remember what day it is in the first place anyway...
Or is this, again, an american thing. ( hmm the French too I guess.)
__________________
#There’s a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right #
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July 4, 2003, 03:55
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#9
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Emperor
Local Time: 08:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: A pub.
Posts: 3,161
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Congratulations, guys! 
this is coming from a commie.
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July 4, 2003, 04:51
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#10
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Emperor
Local Time: 21:03
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Batallón de San Patricio, United States of America
Posts: 3,696
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USA! 
__________________
"Let the People know the facts and the country will be saved." Abraham Lincoln
Mis Novias
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July 4, 2003, 06:02
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#11
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Warlord
Local Time: 01:03
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Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: I eat my own poop
Posts: 216
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Also a big shout out to our fellow birthday boys/girls and co-combatints in the "War Against Terror", the Phillipines! Going on 57!
__________________
"Dave, if medicine tasted good, I'd be pouring cough syrup on my pancakes." -Jimmy James, Newsradio
"Your plans to find love, fortune, and happiness utterly ignore the Second Law Of Thermodynamics."-Horiscope from The Onion
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July 4, 2003, 06:13
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#12
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Emperor
Local Time: 15:03
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: You can be me when I'm gone
Posts: 3,640
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__________________
Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.
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July 4, 2003, 06:37
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#13
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Emperor
Local Time: 05:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Apolyton's Resident Law Enforcement Officer.
Posts: 4,811
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 arty:
USA!!!
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July 4, 2003, 07:11
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#14
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Warlord
Local Time: 06:03
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 217
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Happy Birthday USA. Many happry returns.
__________________
Some cry `Allah O Akbar` in the street. And some carry Allah in their heart.
"The CIA does nothing, says nothing, allows nothing, unless its own interests are served. They are the biggest assembly of liars and theives this country ever put under one roof and they are an abomination" Deputy COS (Intel) US Army 1981-84
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July 4, 2003, 07:17
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#15
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Emperor
Local Time: 22:03
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Location: Reno, Nevada
Posts: 3,554
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__________________
The cake is NOT a lie. It's so delicious and moist.
The Weighted Companion Cube is cheating on you, that slut.
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July 4, 2003, 09:43
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#16
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Deity
Local Time: 00:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Underwater no one can hear sharks scream
Posts: 11,096
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I'd also like to thank France for making this all possible.
__________________
Rosbifs are destructive scum- Spiffor
I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
If government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is also big enough to take everything you have. - Gerald Ford
Blackwidow24 and FemmeAdonis fan club
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July 4, 2003, 10:35
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#17
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Warlord
Local Time: 06:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: N/A
Posts: 237
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Happy birthday!
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July 4, 2003, 10:45
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#18
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King
Local Time: 06:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: AUERSTADT
Posts: 1,757
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Vive les Etats-Unis d'Amérique !
__________________
Statistical anomaly.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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July 4, 2003, 10:54
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#19
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Emperor
Local Time: 07:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Kokonino Kounty
Posts: 4,263
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Happy birthday guys and girls, on to the next 227 years 
__________________
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again...
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July 4, 2003, 10:58
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#20
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Deity
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 21,822
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__________________
[Obama] is either a troll or has no ****ing clue how government works - GePap
Later amendments to the Constitution don't supersede earlier amendments - GePap
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July 4, 2003, 11:03
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#21
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Emperor
Local Time: 02:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Brasil
Posts: 3,958
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congrats, I think.
__________________
'Yep, I've been drinking again.'
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July 4, 2003, 11:19
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#22
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Local Time: 07:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: jihadding against Danish Feta
Posts: 6,182
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227 years
Best wishes for you to finally grow up this year
__________________
"I have been reading up on the universe and have come to the conclusion that the universe is a good thing." -- Dissident
"I never had the need to have a boner." -- Dissident
"I have never cut off my penis when I was upset over a girl." -- Dis
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July 4, 2003, 11:25
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#23
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Deity
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 21,822
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Hey, we have the oldest constitution in the world
__________________
[Obama] is either a troll or has no ****ing clue how government works - GePap
Later amendments to the Constitution don't supersede earlier amendments - GePap
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July 4, 2003, 11:34
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#24
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Emperor
Local Time: 00:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: The Occupied South
Posts: 4,729
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__________________
Favorite Staff Quotes:
People are screeming for consistency, but it ain't gonna happen from me. -rah
God... I have to agree with Asher ;) -Ming - Asher gets it :b: -Ming
Troll on dope is like a moose on the loose - Grandpa Troll
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July 4, 2003, 12:43
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#25
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Deity
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Not your daddy's Benjamins
Posts: 10,737
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Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!
__________________
I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891
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July 4, 2003, 13:22
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#26
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Emperor
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Fort LOLderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Posts: 9,091
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__________________
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
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July 4, 2003, 13:24
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#27
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Emperor
Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Fort LOLderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Posts: 9,091
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Quote:
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Originally posted by skywalker
Hey, we have the oldest constitution in the world
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Technically, we have the oldest contiously used national Constitution. I think there were constitutions before ours.
__________________
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
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July 4, 2003, 13:24
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#28
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Local Time: 01:03
Local Date: November 2, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: on the corner of Peachtree and Peachtree
Posts: 30,698
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__________________
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
- John 13:34-35 (NRSV)
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July 4, 2003, 13:27
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#29
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
Local Time: 21:03
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Location: Fenway Pahk
Posts: 1,755
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__________________
Bush-Cheney 2008. What's another amendment between friends?
*******
When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all.
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July 4, 2003, 13:49
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#30
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King
Local Time: 23:03
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,394
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__________________
meet the new boss, same as the old boss
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