BeeVee
Guest
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 Posted:
Sat Nov 20, 2004 5:25 am Post subject:
Re: Damn tranny blew up in my E-350 |
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"AZGuy" <SPAMOUT@cox.net> wrote in message
news:412rp05nme3m9sb3mol2brgc4okk1fm832@4ax.com...
| Quote: | The damn tranny blew up in my E-350 at only 286,000 miles. Guess Ford
still can't build things to last. At least the V-10 in it was still
going strong.
--
Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the
establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . .
Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of
the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order
to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House
of Representatives, August 17, 1789
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Just as your poor choice of hero's ~ you made a poor choice of quality.<sic>
Buy a Semi if you demand more milage between rebuilds.
This hero of your's kinda sounds like our beloved Bush and Chaney rolled
into one.
Would you say the transmission was worth 1 cent per mile???Just 1 cent???
Do the math.
BWAHAHAHAHA
The Founding Fathers
Elbridge Gerry, Massachusetts
Gerry was born in 1744 at Marblehead, MA, the third of 12 children. His
mother was the daughter of a Boston merchant; his father, a wealthy and
politically active merchant-shipper who had once been a sea captain. Upon
graduating from Harvard in 1762, Gerry joined his father and two brothers in
the family business, exporting dried codfish to Barbados and Spain. He
entered the colonial legislature (1772-74), where he came under the
influence of Samuel Adams, and took part in the Marblehead and Massachusetts
committees of correspondence. When Parliament closed Boston harbor in June
1774, Marblehead became a major port of entry for supplies donated by
patriots throughout the colonies to relieve Bostonians, and Gerry helped
transport the goods.
Between 1774 and 1776 Gerry attended the first and second provincial
congresses. He served with Samuel Adams and John Hancock on the council of
safety and, as chairman of the committee of supply (a job for which his
merchant background ideally suited him) wherein he raised troops and dealt
with military logistics. On the night of April 18, 1775
Gerry attended a meeting of the council of safety at an inn in Menotomy
(Arlington), between Cambridge and Lexington, and barely escaped the British
troops marching on Lexington and Concord.
In 1776 Gerry entered the Continental Congress, where his congressional
specialities were military and financial matters. In Congress and throughout
his career his actions often appeared contradictory. He earned the nickname
"soldiers' friend" for his advocacy of better pay and equipment, yet he
vacillated on the issue of pensions. Despite his disapproval of standing
armies, he recommended long-term enlistments.
Until 1779 Gerry sat on and sometimes presided over the congressional board
that regulated Continental finances. After a quarrel over the price schedule
for suppliers, Gerry, himself a supplier, walked out of Congress. Although
nominally a member, he did not reappear for 3 years. During the interim, he
engaged in trade and privateering and served in the lower house of the
Massachusetts legislature.
As a representative in Congress in the years 1783-85, Gerry numbered among
those who had possessed talent as Revolutionary agitators and wartime
leaders but who could not effectually cope with the painstaking task of
stabilizing the national government. He was experienced and conscientious
but created many enemies with his lack of humor, suspicion of the motives of
others, and obsessive fear of political and military tyranny. In 1786, the
year after leaving Congress, he retired from business, married Ann Thompson,
and took a seat in the state legislature.
Gerry was one of the most vocal delegates at the Constitutional Convention
of 1787. He presided as chairman of the committee that produced the Great
Compromise but disliked the compromise itself. He antagonized nearly
everyone by his inconsistency and, according to a colleague, "objected to
everything he did not propose." At first an advocate of a strong central
government, Gerry ultimately rejected and refused to sign the Constitution
because it lacked a bill of rights and because he deemed it a threat to
republicanism. He led the drive against ratification in Massachusetts and
denounced the document as "full of vices." Among the vices, he listed
inadequate representation of the people, dangerously ambiguous legislative
powers, the blending of the executive and the legislative, and the danger of
an oppressive judiciary. Gerry did see some merit in the Constitution,
though, and believed that its flaws could be remedied through amendments. In
1789, after he announced his intention to support the Constitution, he was
elected to the First Congress where, to the chagrin of the Antifederalists,
he championed Federalist policies.
Gerry left Congress for the last time in 1793 and retired for 4 years.
During this period he came to mistrust the aims of the Federalists,
particularly their attempts to nurture an alliance with Britain, and sided
with the pro-French Democratic-Republicans. In 1797 President John Adams
appointed him as the only non-Federalist member of a three-man commission
charged with negotiating a reconciliation with France, which was on the
brink of war with the United States. During the ensuing XYZ affair
(1797-98), Gerry tarnished his reputation. Talleyrand, the French foreign
minister, led him to believe that his presence in France would prevent war,
and Gerry lingered on long after the departure of John Marshall and Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney, the two other commissioners. Finally, the embarrassed
Adams recalled him, and Gerry met severe censure from the Federalists upon
his return.
In 1800-1803 Gerry, never very popular among the Massachusetts electorate
because of his aristocratic haughtiness, met defeat in four bids for the
Massachusetts governorship but finally triumphed in 1810. Near the end of
his two terms, scarred by partisan controversy, the Democratic-Republicans
passed a redistricting measure to ensure their domination of the state
senate. In response, the Federalists heaped ridicule on Gerry and coined the
pun "gerrymander" to describe the salamander-like shape of one of the
redistricted areas.
Despite his advanced age, frail health, and the threat of poverty brought on
by neglect of personal affairs, Gerry served as James Madison's Vice
President in 1813. In the fall of 1814, the 70-year old politician collapsed
on his way to the Senate and died. He left his wife, who was to live until
1849, the last surviving widow of a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, as well as three sons and four daughters. Gerry is buried in
Congressional Cemetery at Washington, DC.
Image: Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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