MaxedOutMama

Iran awarded Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez its highest state medal on Sunday for supporting Tehran in its nuclear standoff with the international community, while Chavez urged the world to rise up and defeat the U.S., state-run media in both countries reported.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented Chavez with the Islamic Republic Medal in a ceremony at Tehran University. The award was to show Iran's gratitude for his "support for Iran's stance on the international scene, especially its opposition to a resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency," Iranian state-run television said.

48. Quote
Spanish quote - "Si el imperio estadounidense tiene éxito en consolidar su dominio, entonces no habrá futuro para la Humanidad. Por lo tanto, debemos salvar a la Humanidad y poner fin al Imperio Americano", dijo Chávez a una multitud concentrada en la Universidad de Teherán."

That would be - "If the American empire succeeds in consolidating its power, then there is no future for humanity. Therefore, we must save humanity and put a stop to the American Empire." said Chavez to a crowd at the Univ. of Tehran."

21. How long until Chavez calls us the Great Satan? :shrug:

At 17 he enlisted in the Marine Corps, spurred by the memory of 9/11.

Now, 21-year-old Galen Wilson has 20 confirmed kills in four months in Iraq - and another 40 shots that probably killed insurgents. One afternoon the lance corporal downed a man hauling a grenade launcher five-and-a-half football fields away.

Wilson is the designated marksman in a company of Marines based in downtown Ramadi, watching over what Marines call the most dangerous neighborhood in the most dangerous city in the world.

8. And God help the citizens of Bradenton Florida, when the demons from his Iraq service haunts him, yet the local VA was shut down, he couldn't get his treatment, and all of the sudden, any Cuban, Puerto Rican, African American or other dark skiinned citizen becomes the "Haji"
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20. He's actually to be pitied.
Locked up so he can't harm another living soul first, but pitied nonetheless.

This guy's been steeped in the culture of killing since he was five, apparently. IMHO, that kind of upbringing is child-abuse, and maybe even criminal negligence - culpability in creating a killing machine.

I feel sorry for what this kid might have been, and wonder how many more of him will be created before humanity realizes this isn't the way to live in peace.
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14. What is the saying on DU
"we don't support the war but we support the troops". At least in this thread there are no hippocrates. If you don't support the war you can't support the troops. This marine is doing his job. At least it sounds like he isn't killing any unarmed civilians.
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30. I don't support thugs like this or the system that glorifies them
This guy will continue to kill one he is removed from Iraq-Nam
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39. Sadly, I think that's a definite possibility
And, even more sadly, by the time it's over, there will be scores of thousands of souless killbots just like him trying to "find their niche" in a society that has very limited uses for souless killbots.
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44. They will use truncheons to beat the black man to death On the streets of amerika

5. dehumanize much?
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12. Right...
They are supposed to just sit there while they are held with no charges for decades, right?
Those evil terrorists! They don't even deserve a fair trial or due process, after all they are not regular human beings like all of us, huh?
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8. Well, that is certainly well reasoned.
I'm impressed to be so quickly elevated in my understanding. I had NO IDEA that all "enemy combatants were such filthy and uncultured THEMS.

And I'm impressed you would not only be satisfied to be left a Bible and a rosary in the place of habeus corpus, the right to a speedy trial, and subject to violations of international law BUT also that you'd be able dropped into the elements and still have the strength to attack.

Wow. Just WOW! I sure as hell hope you aren't a pet owner.

Houk decided to pursue priesthood after listening to a speech by Fresen. Houk said she realizes she will face rejection for her choice, but she said she's prepared for that.

"I do not intend to start a church of my own," said Houk, a 66-year-old, married mother of six and grandmother of five. "I will not lead people away from the Catholic church but rather I hope to lead people to the church."

Assalamoalaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu (Only For the Muslims - specifically those who agree with me; curses upon the rest; along with curses for the non-Muslims; except those non-Muslims who do things that I would indirectly agree with or that indirectly assist me)
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I told you once that whenever my apostate cousin Eteraz could be disposed of, I would come upon this heathen blog, hosted by a heathen server, byproduct of the technology of the kafir, and speak about Eteraz with all the disrepute and anger that he deserves.
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Today my apostate cousin Eteraz is further expressing his idiocy by arguing that attacking Jews is a bad thing. This, after he argued that Jews aren’t apes and swine! He clearly does not want to be part of Hizbollah.

The man suspected in a fatal shooting rampage hid behind a potted plant in a Jewish charity's foyer and forced his way through a security door by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl's head, the police chief said Saturday.

Once inside, police say, Naveed Afzal Haq opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols. One woman, Pam Waechter, 58, of Seattle was killed at the scene. Five more women were wounded.
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According to a statement of probable cause, Haq told a 911 dispatcher: "These are Jews and I'm tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

Muhammad Ullah, a close family friend and a senior member of a mosque founded in part by Haq's father, described Haq as a quiet loner with few friends.

In a statement, the Islamic Center of the Tri-Cities offered condolences to the shooting victims and said "we disassociate this act from our Islamic teachings and beliefs."

[Nasrallah] Under all circumstances, what I heard is that the foreign minister of the enemy asked the German mediator to intervene with us to return the two prisoners without swapping along with some sweet. This cannot take place. At any rate, regarding the negotiations issue, even regarding the two prisoners, I want to relieve myself and Hezbollah from this issue. Anyone who wants to talk about this then let him talk with the state, and the state then talks with us....

[Bin-Jiddu] Do you still insist on the principle of swapping?

[Nasrallah] Certainly, this is an issue that we cannot tolerate. In fact, if the civilians who were martyred, the displaced who are suffering now the effects of displacement, and the steadfast people know that it is possible for me to extradite or return these two soldiers without closing this file they will accuse me of treason. I will also accuse myself of treason. This is completely out of question. In the first day, I said that if the entire universe comes, it will not be able to take back the two Israeli soldiers except through indirect negotiation and exchange of prisoners. ...

[Bin-Jiddu] Regarding the exchange [of prisoners], who will you exchange the two Israeli soldiers with? Are you going to exchange them with Lebanese prisoners or Palestinian prisoners?

[Nasrallah] This is an open process, and I will leave it to negotiations.

[Bin-Jiddu] You still believe that Samir al-Qintar will be in Lebanon?

[Nasrallah] God willing. In this exchange, Samir al-Qintar will be the first one. What is the use of this exchange if Samir al-Qintar is not included in the exchange and if all the Lebanese prisoners are not included in this exchange - of course, I am talking about an open process?

[Bin-Jiddu] Your Eminence, let's put the other parties aside. You have a memorandum of understanding with General Awn. Has what is currently taking place shaken the pillars of the memorandum of understanding and your cooperation with the Free Patriotic Movement?

[Nasrallah] No, not at all. First, the memorandum of understanding talked clearly about first releasing the prisoners and liberating the rest of the [occupied] Lebanese territories, and afterward discussing a strategy for national defence. This is what we began to discuss. Hezbollah has neither taken advantage of Lebanon to liberate Palestine, nor worked towards restoring the seven villages, which are Lebanese territories. It carried out an operation to capture [Israeli soldiers], because the government's policy statement stipulates the release of prisoners and the liberation of Lebanese territories. So, what we did is a national Lebanese action, even in the regional sense of the word. This [operation] was carried out within, not outside, the context of the memorandum of understanding signed between us and the Free Patriotic Movement.

Praise and thanks to God first and foremost for granting us this victory, jihad, and might, and for the results. First of all, I have to address the heroic mujahidin, who fulfilled the promise today. This is why their qualitative operation is called "Operation true promise." I thank them and kiss their foreheads and hands. With the blessing of these lofty foreheads and hands, the foreheads of us all will remain high and no shackle will remain in the hands of people in the occupation prisons. Today is the day of loyalty to Samir al-Qintar, Yahya Skaf, Nasim Nisr, and all brothers, detainees, and prisoners in the occupation jails.
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The second point is that I do not want to get into an argument about what happened today and say if this is our legal right and option or not. In plain terms, this is our natural right. This is the only and logical way that is available. Neither the international community, international organizations, regional organizations, governments, regimes – with due respect to them – nor political negotiations with empty hands will release the detainees.
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The resistance said its priority in 2006 would be capturing Israeli soldiers in order to close the file of prisoners for good. This is the priority. We have observed calm throughout that time in spite of all circumstances. I told some political leaders of the country in closed sessions that taking prisoners would be the only exception.

Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
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The next day, Abu Abbas announced from Beirut that the terrorist attack in Nahariya had been carried out "to protest the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty" at Camp David the previous year.

The situation in Ain Ebel is unbearable. Thousands of civilians have fled to the village from nearby villages and more than 1000 rockets have hit the village, there is no more food neither clean water and diseases r spreading.

Now here comes the most sickening part:
Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from the village and Hezbollah.
Urgent appeals have been done through phone calls from terrified people who wouldnt give out their name fearing Hezbollah might harm or even eliminate them.

This is the true image of our brave Islamic Resistance, putting the civilians and their homes as body shields to the Israeli bombardements.

Let the message spread and let those criminals move out of the village once and for all.

Six people were shot - one fatally - this afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by a man who told a witness he was upset about "what was going on in Israel."
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One witness, who declined to give her name, said a man walked into the Jewish Federation building with a gun, said he was upset about what was going on in Israel, then opened fire. After the shootings, the man said to call 911, the witness said. The witness said the man identified himself as an American Muslim.
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Metz said police officers throughout the city were being asked to step up patrols of Jewish synagogues and Jewish organizations.

For some reason, Hillary - who is an attractive woman - here looks like the love child of Jimmy Carter and Eleanor Roosevelt, but wearing the breastplate usually associated with Brunnhilda in Die Walkure!

To be honest, I spent much of the early years of my children's lives in a workaholic frenzy because the thought of spending time with them was more stressful than any journalistic assignment I could imagine.

Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?

*Must use Beazer Mortgage (Broker number 01223451). Available only on inventory homes that close on or before August 31, 2006 or at completion of home, whichever comes first. Must be owner occupied. Offer does not apply to all communities. Check with sales representative for further details. Offer subject to change or cancellation without notice. Example: Purchase price $288,601.00 First Mortgage Loan Amount $230,880.00 payment for year one $824.00 subsidized by seller $ 76.00, year two $886.66, year three $953.16, year four $1,024.65, year five $1,101.50 at 7.593 % adjustable interest rate APR 8.10%. Second mortgage $ 57,721.00 payment for first twelve months of $529.11 at 11.00 % Interest Only paid by Seller, remaining term fourteen years, interest only at prime plus 4.5 margin current APR 11.143%, maximum rate 11.143%, payments of $529.11. Estimated closing costs $ 8,658.03. Above total payments are loan payments only and do not include taxes ($ 288.60), insurance ($45.00) monthly assessment ($110.00). Example amounts based on home at Riverdale North Discovery Collection Lot # 3016. Minimum middle FICO scores 650, stated income underwriting, three months reserve required in bank at time of close of $7,805.34 in example above. Income limits apply. Negative Amortization of loan required to achieve advertised payment, required loan payments and other fees may vary by home sales price and community.

**Must use Beazer Mortgage (Broker number 01223451). Available only on inventory homes that close on or before August 31, 2006 or at completion of home, whichever comes first. Must be owner occupied. Offer does not apply to all communities. Check with sales representative for further details. Offer subject to change or cancellation without notice. Example: Purchase price $506,349.00, First Mortgage Loan Amount $405,079.00 payment for year one $1,447.12 subsidized by seller $447.12, year two $1,555.65, year three $1,672.33, year four $1,797.75, year five $1,932.58 at 7.593 % adjustable interest rate APR 8.10%. Second mortgage $101,270.00 payment for first twelve months of $928.31 at 11.00 % Interest Only paid by Seller, remaining term fourteen years, interest only at prime plus 4.5 margin current APR 11.143%, maximum rate 11.143%, payments of $928.31. Estimated closing costs $15,190.47. Above total payments are loan payments only and do not include taxes ($506.35), insurance ($70.00) monthly assessment ($73.00). Example amounts based on home at Fieldstone Meadows Lot # 30. Minimum middle FICO scores 650, stated income underwriting, three months reserve required in bank at time of close of $13,307.61 in example above. Income limits apply. Negative Amortization of loan required to achieve advertised payment, required loan payments and other fees may vary by home sales price and community.

"Dean himself moved from Episcopalian to Congregationalist "because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path." He does not hesitate to reveal this information or to declare that he seldom goes to church." -- Robert Novak
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"I think a library trustee is pretty important," Dean said, during "an administration that likes book burning more than reading books." -- Howard Dean as quoted by USA Today
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"The truth is the President of the United States used the same device that Slobodan Milosevic used in Serbia. When you appeal to homophobia, when you appeal to sexism, when you appeal to racism, that is extraordinarily damaging to the country."

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."
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"I don’t know. There are many theories about (9/11). The most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far—which is nothing more than a theory, it can’t be proved—is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is? But the trouble is, by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and eventually, they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the key information that needs to go to the Kean Commission."
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Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.

I've waffled before. I'll waffle again.
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I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like "Rush Limbaugh," and we don't have to put up with that.
Unless, of course, they're Democrats:
"I believe that the flag of the Confederate States of America is a painful symbol and reminder of racial injustice and slavery which (Abraham) Lincoln denounced from here over 150 years ago"
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I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.

"You know, the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party.''

Plaintiffs also rely on Goodridge, where the Massachusetts court rejected the argument that procreation justified limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court said that “[t]he ‘marriage is procreation’ argument singles out the one unbridgeable difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and transforms that difference into the essence of legal marriage.” Goodridge, 440 Mass. at 333. The court held that “it is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.” Goodridge, 440 Mass. at 332.

But as Skinner, Loving, and Zablocki indicate, marriage is traditionally linked to procreation and survival of the human race. Heterosexual couples are the only couples who can produce biological offspring of the couple. And the link between opposite-sex marriage and procreation is not defeated by the fact that the law allows opposite-sex marriage regardless of a couple’s willingness or ability to procreate.

Simply put, credit cycles are fluctuations in loan quality and quantity. They are often correlated with, but not always identical to, business cycles, which are based on fluctuations in the overall output of goods and services.
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So, is the credit cycle merely a reflection of the general business cycle, or is it a phenomenon unto itself? Clearly, looking at quantity and ex-post quality measures, such as charge-offs, the credit cycle in recent decades has tracked the economic cycle fairly closely. However, many observers of the credit cycle throughout history believed that credit extension and contraction drive business activity, rather than the other way around.

The economics profession has recently begun to reconsider the role of psychology and expectations in investment decisions. Recent research has found that underwriting standards, as measured by the Federal Reserve Board Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices, are a better determinant of future business lending than either GDP or the federal funds rate.23 Similarly, analysis of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation survey of underwriting standards finds that underwriting standards are an important determinant of future loan losses.24 A modern theoretical response to this finding might be that credit markets are efficient and that loan officers, having just as good access to GDP and interest rate numbers as anyone else, should make decisions that incorporate all available information in a rational, profit-maximizing way. Another interpretation from a 19th-century perspective might describe the easing and tightening of standards as the reflection of alternate swings between “greed and fear.”25

Was reading a link from someone elses post about some secondary markets to profit from in the housing bust. It got me thinking about some of my own experience with different suppliers to the housing market and the numbers do strongly support the end of the housing ATM.

I work with an Advertising Agency as a search engine marketer for several major national home improvement franchises (among several other companies). They span from driveway paving, to window coverings, to kitchen remodling, to floor coverings. Basically everything people have been sucking cash out of their homes to buy over the past 5 years with reckless abandon.

I've had the ability to track exactly how much demand there is for these types of products and how often this traffic converts into actual business for the client. Without much exageration, I can report that the level of both interest and sales are crashing quickly. While the level of interest is a slower decline, sales conversions have declined quite quickly in the last 5-6 months.

From speaking directly with some of the clients, they have admitted that other online efforts have been declining just as quickly. It would seem that the pain of the slow reduction in "easy" credit along with flattening/dropping equity levels is already hitting these secondary home improvement companies.

SHILLING: The economy is slowing, and I suspect that by the end of the year it could very well be in recession. The basic reason is that housing activity is weakening, and that has been the mainstay of consumer spending, which in turn has been propelling the economy. During the past 17 quarters of expansion, spending growth has exceeded income growth by 2.5 percentage points on average, on an annualized basis. And housing is what has been supporting that, with people pulling money out of housing by home equity loans or refinancing.
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Once consumers see that housing price appreciation is no longer the order of the day, then they are going to curb their spending, as they basically have no alternative. Construction and mortgage brokerage and all of what is related to it has accounted for about a third of the job creation so far in this expansion.
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One is that business investment [in software and hardware] has already been quite strong. If you look at the last couple of years, it has been growing at about a 10.5-percent annual rate. That's not markedly different than the 12.5-percent growth rate back in the late 1990s, during what was clearly an overblown capital-spending boom. So the first point is that in investment spending, the growth hasn't been all that weak.

The second point is, what do you do for an encore? You still have a lot of excess capacity left over from the late 1990s boom. My favorite example is fiber optic capacity. At the bottom, 3 percent of the existing capacity that was put in place in the late 1990s was being used, and now the figure is only about 5 percent of capacity. This is admittedly an extreme case, but there's a lot of capacity left over. So how much can you expect investment to grow from here to really spur the economy? Moreover, to make up for the consumer spending component I cited earlier, investment would have to grow at a 30-percent annual rate, and that is just not in the cards. So this idea of capital spending rescuing the consumer is not realistic.
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When you look at capital spending, you have got to see the motivation for it. Profit growth is one motivator, no question about it.

Existing-home sales were down modestly in June, and home prices were up slightly from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
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David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the housing market is flattening-out. “Over the last three months home sales have held in a narrow range, easing to a level that is near our annual projection, which tells us the market is stabilizing,” he said. “At the same time, sellers have recognized that they need to be more competitive in their pricing given the rise in housing inventories. Home prices are only a little higher than a year ago.”
(But, as always at NAR):
NAR President Thomas M. Stevens from Vienna, Va., said opportunities have opened for home buyers. “People who were discouraged by the bidding wars that were so common over the last few years are finding more choices now,” said Stevens, senior vice president of NRT Inc. “Relative to the five-year housing boom, this year is a buyer’s market in much of the country with plentiful supply, along with interest rates which remain historically favorable, so it’s a good time to buy a home.”

If I sound bitter, its because I was on the receiving end of some of this...Some year ago I was named as the father of a child. I was the wrong race, I had gotten a vasectomy 10 years before and had the medical records to prove it. None of that mattered and a child support order was entered against me. I spoke the to social worker and showed her I could not have been the father. She said it was not her problem, even though she was setting up wage garnishment and had helped the mother file the court papers for child support. I got a lawyer and went to court. I was told I had to pay until it was decided. I refused and the garnishment was blocked (I was in the military at the time). I was refused access to "my child" even supervised visitation (we considered challenging the mother for custody). I was told if I did not pay I would be going to jail, so I paid. Finally got to court and the judge seemed unwilling to believe the evidence, including a fertility test from a local independent lab. He kept asking me if I had reconciled with the mother, a teenager I have never seen before, and was willing to do my social duty. My lawyer got a bit heated and all the state kept saying was they had the mother's word (who never showed up) that I was the father. 30 days later the order was vacated. I was out lawyer fees, was unable to recover the child support I paid, my name is still on the birth certificate, I am/was listed as a deadbeat dad, and it was on my credit report. Yes, I am bitter but with damn good cause.