Public Apologies

I know this is not directly swimming related....but Since Connie posted her "I'm sorry" thread....I guess I feel I'm also entitled to post mine? First of all Sam, I was definitely out of line with the way I worded my response to your posting in the now closed thread about Amatuer vs Professional swimming and I do sincerely apologize for the bad tone I used in that posting.....I just meant that the proposed solutions that were mentioned in the article in question was what was so "obvious"....not the complexity involved in making those proposed solutions a reality....of course it's a very complex problem with lots of complex variables.......so that was my bad for poor phrasing.....The truth is that I agree with Mr. Mystek (sp??) 100% about political debates not belonging here on this discussion board and I made a very bad mistake initiating that last political based debate over there....I apologize to everyone else I also may have offended (so you to Paul)....One interesting phenomenon I've noticed about those kind of arguments is that when someone, as myself, already has strong passions about a particular political topic they almost never end up budging much from their original stance after a strong debate like the one we were getting into....instead people usually just get angry with one another and end up saying things they later regret (I certainly know that I regret insulting you Sam!).....I hope the moderators aren't going to get mad about this "apology" posting.... but I would hate for the result of that discussion to be losing whatever friendships I feel I've kindled here before that little fiasco?....It's just not worth it!....I like Sam and Paul and the rest of you guys way too much to let an argument like that cause bad feelings between us.....I am truely sorry for my part in the whole thing....I know this is a pretty weak excuse... but I had a really really bad day at work the day I posted that distasteful reply to Sam over there and so I was already in a dreadful mood....Hopefully we can all forgive eachother for whatever we may have said and simply move on with our friendships still in tact? Jim