A new government report says there are now more than three quarters of a million names on the U.S. government's terrorist "watch list," raising concerns the list may be becoming too large.
This is what is wrong with keeping lists. They get too cumbersome to be any good.
And how did this list get so long anyway? Is someone sitting at a desk just picking random names and throwing them on this list to justify Homeland Security personnel?
Can there really be this many terrorists? What criteria is needed to get on this list? Or, rather, these lists?
One group, the Government Accountability Office said the list is 755,000 people. Another group, the Terrorist Screening Center said the list is 300,000 people. Senate Homeland Security Committee says the number is 860,000. That is quite a discrepancy in numbers.
Boy, the 300,000 people who are on all three lists must be really worried.
Doesn’t it seem there needs to be a better screening method in place before everyone decides to make up their own lists? I can’t help but think that with such a large number the government must be racial profiling. Once again, the different government offices don’t talk to each other, they overlap their duties, they all come to differing conclusions. What the hell is our tax dollars paying for? We already knew we wasn’t getting our monies worth but this is ridiculous.
Aren’t Republicans the guys that keeps spouting off about a centralized government and cutting back on waste? Well this is a clear indication that this is not the case.
This government is out of control with all of its security departments each with their own list.
It seems the terrorists who stuck the Twin Towers achieved one goal, they got the U.S. so paranoid of another attack that we put everyone on a list and spend untold millions of dollars to watch them and create more bureaucratic departments to do so.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
White House paints rosy picture to protect us?
On October 23, 2007 Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC told a Senate hearing that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."
Her intention was to give the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee details of the effects that climate change could have on the spread of disease. But, the White House Office of Management and Budget severely edited her testimony removing specific scientific references to these potential health risks. The editing was so severe that her testimony was cut from 14 pages to just 4.
Why would the White House suppress findings from its own premier disease monitoring agency? What is the White House covering up? The very fact that the White House did remove finding from the report tells us that they are covering up something.
What was struck from the report was the broad range of health problems that could result from climate change which includes fatalities from heat stress and heart failure, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes; more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution; an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, and increases in vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus; and mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress.
She tried to paint a very depressing picture of the negative effects of global warming. She is trying to give us the worst case scenario without exaggerating. Finding out what we are facing is a very necessary factor in tackling a very serious problem. But George doesn’t want to face this problem. He would rather stick his head in the sand and pretend the problem is not real. He wants the problem to wait for the next president.
George has been denying the severity of climate change and he doesn’t want anyone to contradict him.
Doesn’t this sound like business as usual? If you are not going to tell him what he wants to hear then he doesn’t want anyone to hear it. He did the same thing with our military leadership, going through top generals until he found one who will mimic his rosy view of how the Iraq War is progressing. He reminds me of Nero fiddling away while Rome burns.
He is living in a fantasy world trying his best to ignore any and all negativity and surrounding himself with yes men who will tell him only what he wants to hear.
This choice of lifestyle is not healthy. In his position, this lifestyle choice is extremely unhealthy for the country.
I’ve written before about how Dubya doesn’t follow scientific studies because he doesn’t understand science speculating about how he was a failed science student in school. I now think the problem goes deeper and is much more sinister than this. In his mind he is an Emperor, a little Napoleon, if you will, who wants to decide what his public will hear and believe. He wants us to see only a rosy view of our world as long as it suits him. He will even go so far as to edit out scientific facts from a report that is attempting to prepare us for what our future holds so he doesn’t have to face the fact that it is taking place under his leadership.
Her intention was to give the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee details of the effects that climate change could have on the spread of disease. But, the White House Office of Management and Budget severely edited her testimony removing specific scientific references to these potential health risks. The editing was so severe that her testimony was cut from 14 pages to just 4.
Why would the White House suppress findings from its own premier disease monitoring agency? What is the White House covering up? The very fact that the White House did remove finding from the report tells us that they are covering up something.
What was struck from the report was the broad range of health problems that could result from climate change which includes fatalities from heat stress and heart failure, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes; more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution; an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, and increases in vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus; and mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress.
She tried to paint a very depressing picture of the negative effects of global warming. She is trying to give us the worst case scenario without exaggerating. Finding out what we are facing is a very necessary factor in tackling a very serious problem. But George doesn’t want to face this problem. He would rather stick his head in the sand and pretend the problem is not real. He wants the problem to wait for the next president.
George has been denying the severity of climate change and he doesn’t want anyone to contradict him.
Doesn’t this sound like business as usual? If you are not going to tell him what he wants to hear then he doesn’t want anyone to hear it. He did the same thing with our military leadership, going through top generals until he found one who will mimic his rosy view of how the Iraq War is progressing. He reminds me of Nero fiddling away while Rome burns.
He is living in a fantasy world trying his best to ignore any and all negativity and surrounding himself with yes men who will tell him only what he wants to hear.
This choice of lifestyle is not healthy. In his position, this lifestyle choice is extremely unhealthy for the country.
I’ve written before about how Dubya doesn’t follow scientific studies because he doesn’t understand science speculating about how he was a failed science student in school. I now think the problem goes deeper and is much more sinister than this. In his mind he is an Emperor, a little Napoleon, if you will, who wants to decide what his public will hear and believe. He wants us to see only a rosy view of our world as long as it suits him. He will even go so far as to edit out scientific facts from a report that is attempting to prepare us for what our future holds so he doesn’t have to face the fact that it is taking place under his leadership.
Please, take your job seriously
Nuclear submarine crew faked inspection records!?!?
Great! People in charge of a nuclear reactor inspection deem it too bothersome to actually inspect the reactor. Once again, the safety and welfare of fellow humans is not enough for someone to actually do their job. Click here for details of another, recent, example of job carelessness, this time involving nuclear weapons. How many more times will one of these ‘lackadaisical’ acts (a ‘whimsical’ term that a military officer used to describe the criminal act of dereliction of duty) be tolerated before one of the most devastating accidents imaginable happens and countless Americans lose their lives?
The worst case scenario is easy to imagine if you think about it long enough. Clue: it is a nuclear reactor!! But, these guys did not trouble themselves to think any further than beyond their own possible punishment for not doing their job. Perhaps they do realize what could happen if a nuclear accident occurred. Maybe they realize they could very likely be dead as the result of a missed inspection. But they were too deeply concerned with covering their own asses.
Does anyone know when a leak might happen? Does anyone know when something could wrong resulting in a nuclear meltdown? The answer to these questions of course is no!
But these guys were convinced enough that it could not, indeed, would not happen on their shift. Then they had the low moral and ethical character to forge the inspection record instead of informing someone that the reactor was not inspected just in the ‘off chance’ that something was wrong.
Once again it is more important to cover your own ass and to hell with everyone else. Why is this becoming business as usual?
What would happen if everyone just decided that since a nuclear accident has never happened we don’t ever have to perform another inspection? How would that be? Then we could all go about our own personal business of pleasuring ourselves and not have to be bothered with the time-consuming, unnecessary, busy-work of a job.
These individuals who did not perform their integral function as a part of this crew and then forged these records have basically said they don’t give a damn about the safety of this equipment or its crew.
They were responsible for the safety of 166 enlisted personnel and 13 officers on board that $900 million submarine. They were responsible for the environment that a nuclear meltdown would have damaged, possibly irreversibly, for countless years, plus any other ancillary damage that only a nuclear accident would have effected.
But, hey, nothing happened, right? Why take it so hard and demand punishment? Because, no one does know when something will go wrong.
No one should say “well, nothing did happen, so lighten up.” This attitude completely negates the importance of people doing their #*$&%^* job!
How many times is this self-centered, lazy lack of attention to detail going to continue before a serious accident does happen? Rhetorical question, because, by the way, no on can predict that either. But these guys decided their own personal time was too important to do their job.
The Navy will probably just give them a slap on the wrist, thereby telling the next crew that these inspections are not really that serious and that dereliction of duty falls within acceptable ‘guidelines’. After all, we are just human, right? We all make mistakes.
Now, let’s take the nuclear reactor out of the equation and look at everyday life. Police officers recently did not look for two possible victims of an automobile crash and the father of one of the victims found his dead son’s body hours later, at the scene. This is a case of someone not doing his job.
There are instances like these everyday, surely not as life threatening or as dramatic as a nuclear meltdown, but when you are put out or inconvenienced because someone does not do their job does it matter to you? Of course it does.
Shirking your responsibility causes businesses to lose money which eventually costs the consumers money. Putting your job off onto someone else can lead to death and/or serious injury. This stuff is real.
What if firefighters decided they didn’t want to fight the raging fire at your neighbors house, or your house? Maybe they were too busy playing a video game or watching sports on TV.
How would you feel if those very same firefighters did not receive any punishment? Or those police officers who did not do their job were given a slap on the wrist and allowed to continue on the job? Would you feel safe knowing they were still out there when you called on them for help?
People who shun their responsibility put themselves ahead of everyone else, it’s the “me first” attitude that detrimentally affects everyone.
There are far too many instances where people turn from their responsibility in favor of something that is more fun to do. The more this happens the greater the chance that a disaster is going to result.
Great! People in charge of a nuclear reactor inspection deem it too bothersome to actually inspect the reactor. Once again, the safety and welfare of fellow humans is not enough for someone to actually do their job. Click here for details of another, recent, example of job carelessness, this time involving nuclear weapons. How many more times will one of these ‘lackadaisical’ acts (a ‘whimsical’ term that a military officer used to describe the criminal act of dereliction of duty) be tolerated before one of the most devastating accidents imaginable happens and countless Americans lose their lives?
The worst case scenario is easy to imagine if you think about it long enough. Clue: it is a nuclear reactor!! But, these guys did not trouble themselves to think any further than beyond their own possible punishment for not doing their job. Perhaps they do realize what could happen if a nuclear accident occurred. Maybe they realize they could very likely be dead as the result of a missed inspection. But they were too deeply concerned with covering their own asses.
Does anyone know when a leak might happen? Does anyone know when something could wrong resulting in a nuclear meltdown? The answer to these questions of course is no!
But these guys were convinced enough that it could not, indeed, would not happen on their shift. Then they had the low moral and ethical character to forge the inspection record instead of informing someone that the reactor was not inspected just in the ‘off chance’ that something was wrong.
Once again it is more important to cover your own ass and to hell with everyone else. Why is this becoming business as usual?
What would happen if everyone just decided that since a nuclear accident has never happened we don’t ever have to perform another inspection? How would that be? Then we could all go about our own personal business of pleasuring ourselves and not have to be bothered with the time-consuming, unnecessary, busy-work of a job.
These individuals who did not perform their integral function as a part of this crew and then forged these records have basically said they don’t give a damn about the safety of this equipment or its crew.
They were responsible for the safety of 166 enlisted personnel and 13 officers on board that $900 million submarine. They were responsible for the environment that a nuclear meltdown would have damaged, possibly irreversibly, for countless years, plus any other ancillary damage that only a nuclear accident would have effected.
But, hey, nothing happened, right? Why take it so hard and demand punishment? Because, no one does know when something will go wrong.
No one should say “well, nothing did happen, so lighten up.” This attitude completely negates the importance of people doing their #*$&%^* job!
How many times is this self-centered, lazy lack of attention to detail going to continue before a serious accident does happen? Rhetorical question, because, by the way, no on can predict that either. But these guys decided their own personal time was too important to do their job.
The Navy will probably just give them a slap on the wrist, thereby telling the next crew that these inspections are not really that serious and that dereliction of duty falls within acceptable ‘guidelines’. After all, we are just human, right? We all make mistakes.
Now, let’s take the nuclear reactor out of the equation and look at everyday life. Police officers recently did not look for two possible victims of an automobile crash and the father of one of the victims found his dead son’s body hours later, at the scene. This is a case of someone not doing his job.
There are instances like these everyday, surely not as life threatening or as dramatic as a nuclear meltdown, but when you are put out or inconvenienced because someone does not do their job does it matter to you? Of course it does.
Shirking your responsibility causes businesses to lose money which eventually costs the consumers money. Putting your job off onto someone else can lead to death and/or serious injury. This stuff is real.
What if firefighters decided they didn’t want to fight the raging fire at your neighbors house, or your house? Maybe they were too busy playing a video game or watching sports on TV.
How would you feel if those very same firefighters did not receive any punishment? Or those police officers who did not do their job were given a slap on the wrist and allowed to continue on the job? Would you feel safe knowing they were still out there when you called on them for help?
People who shun their responsibility put themselves ahead of everyone else, it’s the “me first” attitude that detrimentally affects everyone.
There are far too many instances where people turn from their responsibility in favor of something that is more fun to do. The more this happens the greater the chance that a disaster is going to result.
Monday, October 22, 2007
We are losing our common decency
Dad kills children’s mother in front of them.
Kid Rock arrested after Waffle House brawl
Teen shoots four, kills self at Cleveland high school
A sheriff's deputy kills six young people at a house party in Crandon, Wisconsin, because his ex-girlfriend wouldn't take him back.
Man kills self in front of City Council after vote.
Parents beat 5-year-old.
Police blast into building, kill 63-year-old man who shot 5 at law office because he felt unfairly treated during divorce settlement.
Ex husband sets wife afire in front of witnesses. They don’t even care that their brazen acts of violence are witnessed anymore.
Stories like these are repeated every day. People are either putting off responsibility onto others or they are taking the law into their own hands and using violence to 'solve' their problems.
Why is it that people are resorting to violence and giving up on more civilized methods?
Are we becoming a society that believes if you walk away from a confrontation instead of getting physical then you are a wimp? Is this how an adult is judged these days? Is this what is passing for being manly, grown-up, or mature? Have we really reverted to animalism as the only means to settle our differences?
People are willing to become criminals, facing jail time, over words! How ridiculous is that?
People are lowering themselves to animal behavior because someone says they don’t ‘love’ us anymore and then killing the person they vowed to ‘love, cherish and respect’. What the hell, people?
This is ludicrous. The threat of punishment does not stop these people any more.
Is it becoming more of a mental health problem or simply animal instinct coming out?
Where is this society headed when we think it is better to kill or beat someone than to just turn the other cheek? This used to be preached to us as children that what ever someone says to you is only words and you should never escalate it into violence. I went to church as a child and I was taught to treat others as you want to be treated. This important lesson is not being taught anymore. There simply are not enough people going to church anymore learning to respect other people.
This is the perfect time to bring up the proliferation of the number of handguns in our society. Without them there would not be as many dead. That point cannot be argued. Handguns are used to kill people. That stupid slogan about how guns don’t kill people, people kill people, well without guns it would not be so easy to kill someone. And there would not be as many dead.
Why are we so on edge all the time ready to flip out at the drop of an assumed slight?
This affinity to resort to rage is especially prevalent while driving a car. Road rage cases are up. People become infuriated at the slightest assumption of rudeness. Stress, anxiety, antagonism all fuel the fire of frustration with life’s every day pressures to result in taking out that frustration on unsuspecting people. Then those people who now feel wrongly attacked fight back. Then it devolves into violence. We need to learn anger management.
Even without anger management, the one thing that should help us all get along with each other is respect. Everyone deserves it until they show they don’t want it. Common decency should tell us that a human life is worth far more than the ego of any one person who feels he should exact retribution just because someone calls him something he doesn’t like or cuts him off in traffic, or refuses to be with him anymore.
Kid Rock arrested after Waffle House brawl
Teen shoots four, kills self at Cleveland high school
A sheriff's deputy kills six young people at a house party in Crandon, Wisconsin, because his ex-girlfriend wouldn't take him back.
Man kills self in front of City Council after vote.
Parents beat 5-year-old.
Police blast into building, kill 63-year-old man who shot 5 at law office because he felt unfairly treated during divorce settlement.
Ex husband sets wife afire in front of witnesses. They don’t even care that their brazen acts of violence are witnessed anymore.
Stories like these are repeated every day. People are either putting off responsibility onto others or they are taking the law into their own hands and using violence to 'solve' their problems.
Why is it that people are resorting to violence and giving up on more civilized methods?
Are we becoming a society that believes if you walk away from a confrontation instead of getting physical then you are a wimp? Is this how an adult is judged these days? Is this what is passing for being manly, grown-up, or mature? Have we really reverted to animalism as the only means to settle our differences?
People are willing to become criminals, facing jail time, over words! How ridiculous is that?
People are lowering themselves to animal behavior because someone says they don’t ‘love’ us anymore and then killing the person they vowed to ‘love, cherish and respect’. What the hell, people?
This is ludicrous. The threat of punishment does not stop these people any more.
Is it becoming more of a mental health problem or simply animal instinct coming out?
Where is this society headed when we think it is better to kill or beat someone than to just turn the other cheek? This used to be preached to us as children that what ever someone says to you is only words and you should never escalate it into violence. I went to church as a child and I was taught to treat others as you want to be treated. This important lesson is not being taught anymore. There simply are not enough people going to church anymore learning to respect other people.
This is the perfect time to bring up the proliferation of the number of handguns in our society. Without them there would not be as many dead. That point cannot be argued. Handguns are used to kill people. That stupid slogan about how guns don’t kill people, people kill people, well without guns it would not be so easy to kill someone. And there would not be as many dead.
Why are we so on edge all the time ready to flip out at the drop of an assumed slight?
This affinity to resort to rage is especially prevalent while driving a car. Road rage cases are up. People become infuriated at the slightest assumption of rudeness. Stress, anxiety, antagonism all fuel the fire of frustration with life’s every day pressures to result in taking out that frustration on unsuspecting people. Then those people who now feel wrongly attacked fight back. Then it devolves into violence. We need to learn anger management.
Even without anger management, the one thing that should help us all get along with each other is respect. Everyone deserves it until they show they don’t want it. Common decency should tell us that a human life is worth far more than the ego of any one person who feels he should exact retribution just because someone calls him something he doesn’t like or cuts him off in traffic, or refuses to be with him anymore.
Cheney is ‘getting it up’ over war with Iran
This rhetoric and war speak is scaring the hell out of me. It should be scaring every peace loving human on this planet. I have called time and time again for this Bush/Cheney team to be censured and kicked out of office for the danger they present to this country and the world.
Dick Cheney continues his advocacy for “teaching Iran a lesson” for standing up against the United States attempts to put Iran firmly under its thumb.
His paranoia is barely containable as he seeks to spread his hate towards Iran with his remarks in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. "Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions."
He attempts to get the entire international community on his side to further bolster his belief that he is right.
Iran has stated repeatedly they do not want a nuclear weapon. How much plainer can they say it?
He said Iran's efforts to pursue technology that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that "the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time."
Dick, it is only ‘obvious’ to you, you paranoid freak. The only thing that is obvious to the rest of the world is that Iran is building nuclear power plants to provide clean nuclear power as they have said all along.
Cheney’s paranoia is a page out of McCarthyism. He refuses to allow him to believe Iran. His ‘attack first’ mind-set will allow him to kill innocent men, women and children in an attempt to find some little bit of evidence to prove his ill conceived justification for going to war. And his ego will take the whole world with him.
This is the same cowboy mentality that decimated the American Indian when the white man criminally declared this land as theirs.
Cheney is escalating U.S. rhetoric against Iran to support President Bush's warning, at a news conference Wednesday, that a nuclear Iran could lead to World War III. This is rhetoric that I am sure Cheney fed Bush in the first place.
Bush/Cheney paranoia is what is leading us towards World War III and to use a most foul and odious tactic as the threat of a world war is an obvious attempt to gain support for his blind ambition of world democratic dominance. They should both be severely chastised for implanting, in the world conscience, this most abhorrent possibility of a nuclear world war.
"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush said.
No! If you're interested in avoiding World War III, you keep communication lines open and talk out your fears and differences instead of threatening to kill innocent people unless you get your way. This diplomacy you uncouth red-neck.
Bush's spokeswoman later said the president was not making any war plans but rather "a rhetorical point." One part of this statement is true, Bush doesn’t make plans, Cheney does.
It is disgusting to Americas sense of dignity to have to employ a spokesperson to come along behind the president of the U.S. to ‘cleanup’ his words in order to make his thoughts more palpable. The image is already there, the seed for world war has been planted. These two, Bush/Cheney, are getting more dangerous every time someone listens to their poisoned thoughts. And we are only fooling ourselves if we believe their hype that it is Iran that is forcing a showdown because they won’t bow down to U.S. led international pressure. The world community needs to ‘slap these guys down’ and educate them on how to be more diplomatic and less confrontational.
Cheney states the ultimate goal of the Iranian leadership is to establish itself as the hegemonic force in the Middle East and undermine a free Shiite-majority Iraq as a rival for influence in the Muslim world.
No! It is the ultimate goal of the U.S. leadership to establish itself as the hegemonic force in the Middle East and undermine the ability of free nations to practice their own sovereignty, free of U.S. meddling.
Cheney believes Iran's government seeks "to keep Iraq in a state of weakness to ensure Baghdad does not pose a threat to Tehran."
No! U.S. government, Bush/Cheney, seeks to keep Iraq in a state of weakness to ensure Baghdad and Tehran do not pose a threat to U.S. oil interests.
Cheney accused Iran of having a direct role in the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and said the government has "solidified its grip on the country" since coming to power in 1979.
Iran has never had a grip on Iraq’s government. Mr. Cheney you are rewriting history. Another Cheney lie designed to get the American people and the entire international community to back him.
Iran is frightened of the prospect of U.S. military buildup in Iraq as a stepping stone to ‘democratize’ Iran. It is in their interest to keep the U.S. threat away from themselves. Get the hell out of Iraq and all of these problems go away!
Only after Iran has actually started the process of making nuclear weapons can anyone truthfully say they are making weapons. Until then it is only speculation and to attack them based solely on speculation will make the U.S. the true criminal.
Congress has debated Bush/Cheney’s intentions toward Iran but debate is all they will ever do, because Congress is nothing more than a ‘pit of spineless dogs’ that will ‘beg and rollover’ on White House command.
Last month the Senate approved a resolution urging the State Department to label Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Guess who planted this brilliant idea into Congress’s weak little minds.
On what grounds did they based this action on? On the word of a military whose top brass has been hand picked to allow only political ‘yes’ men who will eagerly bend over to do the White House bidding.
Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia said he feared the measure could be interpreted as authorizing a military strike in Iran, calling it Cheney's "fondest pipe dream."
Could not have said it any better myself.
Dick Cheney continues his advocacy for “teaching Iran a lesson” for standing up against the United States attempts to put Iran firmly under its thumb.
His paranoia is barely containable as he seeks to spread his hate towards Iran with his remarks in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. "Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions."
He attempts to get the entire international community on his side to further bolster his belief that he is right.
Iran has stated repeatedly they do not want a nuclear weapon. How much plainer can they say it?
He said Iran's efforts to pursue technology that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that "the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time."
Dick, it is only ‘obvious’ to you, you paranoid freak. The only thing that is obvious to the rest of the world is that Iran is building nuclear power plants to provide clean nuclear power as they have said all along.
Cheney’s paranoia is a page out of McCarthyism. He refuses to allow him to believe Iran. His ‘attack first’ mind-set will allow him to kill innocent men, women and children in an attempt to find some little bit of evidence to prove his ill conceived justification for going to war. And his ego will take the whole world with him.
This is the same cowboy mentality that decimated the American Indian when the white man criminally declared this land as theirs.
Cheney is escalating U.S. rhetoric against Iran to support President Bush's warning, at a news conference Wednesday, that a nuclear Iran could lead to World War III. This is rhetoric that I am sure Cheney fed Bush in the first place.
Bush/Cheney paranoia is what is leading us towards World War III and to use a most foul and odious tactic as the threat of a world war is an obvious attempt to gain support for his blind ambition of world democratic dominance. They should both be severely chastised for implanting, in the world conscience, this most abhorrent possibility of a nuclear world war.
"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush said.
No! If you're interested in avoiding World War III, you keep communication lines open and talk out your fears and differences instead of threatening to kill innocent people unless you get your way. This diplomacy you uncouth red-neck.
Bush's spokeswoman later said the president was not making any war plans but rather "a rhetorical point." One part of this statement is true, Bush doesn’t make plans, Cheney does.
It is disgusting to Americas sense of dignity to have to employ a spokesperson to come along behind the president of the U.S. to ‘cleanup’ his words in order to make his thoughts more palpable. The image is already there, the seed for world war has been planted. These two, Bush/Cheney, are getting more dangerous every time someone listens to their poisoned thoughts. And we are only fooling ourselves if we believe their hype that it is Iran that is forcing a showdown because they won’t bow down to U.S. led international pressure. The world community needs to ‘slap these guys down’ and educate them on how to be more diplomatic and less confrontational.
Cheney states the ultimate goal of the Iranian leadership is to establish itself as the hegemonic force in the Middle East and undermine a free Shiite-majority Iraq as a rival for influence in the Muslim world.
No! It is the ultimate goal of the U.S. leadership to establish itself as the hegemonic force in the Middle East and undermine the ability of free nations to practice their own sovereignty, free of U.S. meddling.
Cheney believes Iran's government seeks "to keep Iraq in a state of weakness to ensure Baghdad does not pose a threat to Tehran."
No! U.S. government, Bush/Cheney, seeks to keep Iraq in a state of weakness to ensure Baghdad and Tehran do not pose a threat to U.S. oil interests.
Cheney accused Iran of having a direct role in the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and said the government has "solidified its grip on the country" since coming to power in 1979.
Iran has never had a grip on Iraq’s government. Mr. Cheney you are rewriting history. Another Cheney lie designed to get the American people and the entire international community to back him.
Iran is frightened of the prospect of U.S. military buildup in Iraq as a stepping stone to ‘democratize’ Iran. It is in their interest to keep the U.S. threat away from themselves. Get the hell out of Iraq and all of these problems go away!
Only after Iran has actually started the process of making nuclear weapons can anyone truthfully say they are making weapons. Until then it is only speculation and to attack them based solely on speculation will make the U.S. the true criminal.
Congress has debated Bush/Cheney’s intentions toward Iran but debate is all they will ever do, because Congress is nothing more than a ‘pit of spineless dogs’ that will ‘beg and rollover’ on White House command.
Last month the Senate approved a resolution urging the State Department to label Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Guess who planted this brilliant idea into Congress’s weak little minds.
On what grounds did they based this action on? On the word of a military whose top brass has been hand picked to allow only political ‘yes’ men who will eagerly bend over to do the White House bidding.
Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia said he feared the measure could be interpreted as authorizing a military strike in Iran, calling it Cheney's "fondest pipe dream."
Could not have said it any better myself.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Is the wall working?
Is the Great Wall of Mexico working or has this become just another financial sinkhole into which our tax dollars are flushed away? Government loves to throw money at band-aid fixes to show the voters they know how to tackle a problem. The real problem is that they don’t know to ‘fix’ this problem.
This 700-mile-long joke of a wall that congress is convinced is the ‘only’ answer to the immigration problem is facilitating a multi-million dollar business in human smuggling. If it was effective then human smuggling and trafficking at this border would have stopped. That is not happening.
Police still raid drop houses in U.S. cities filled with illegals who pay $1,500 to $2,000 each to be smuggled here, usually 30-50 people are crammed in those houses. The accommodations for these illegals are atrocious. Conditions are inhumane. Men, women and children are beaten and tortured to extort extra money once the ‘product’ gets here, this is how these humans are viewed, as product. Plumbing usually doesn’t work because these houses are just shells to hide these people. There are no utilities. Toilets are filled with human waste and buckets are dispersed throughout the house as makeshift toilets. There is no food. There is no running water.
Then there are the even more despicable opportunists who are the very Americans paid to guard the border who smuggle humans in. Three members of the Texas National Guard helping patrol the Mexican border were charged with human smuggling. One Guardsman, in uniform, was stopped by federal agents driving a van crammed with 24 illegal immigrants north of Laredo, Texas.
Who are the losers here? The immigrant who pays outrageous sums to get around the wall. Police for having to deal with the mess. Taxpayers for paying police to deal with the mess. Homeowners in these neighborhoods from loss of property values because no one wants to live in areas where this is taking place. The relatives of those people working in the U.S. (illegal or otherwise) sending money back to them to be smuggled over here. The American taxpayer, again, who is paying for a wall that is worthless (a symbol of our comic attempt to stop the flow). Humanity suffers at the degradation these coyotes and snakeheads show their fellow humans. U.S. taxpayers, yet again, because money earned by illegals get sent back to their homes instead of feeding our economy, and that money gets paid to coyotes and the cycle continues. The IRS by not collecting the taxes that every legal employee in this country has to pay for the privilege of being a legal American. The American taxpayer again for having to pay transportation costs for deporting these illegals. Wage loss due to the influx of cheap labor.
The winners are coyotes who take the money for transporting illegals to these shit-holes and then run back for more. U.S. employers who get cheap labor by hiring illegals and pocketing the money that should have gone into federal, state and local coffers, along with Social Security, Medicare and Worker Comp funds. These same employers benefit from these funds even though they did not contribute to them.
Our government assures us that this wall is necessary to stop terrorists from ‘hiking’ into the country from the south. I am not convinced that terrorists are ‘hiking’ into the U.S. but if they are serious about this problem then why aren’t the hordes of illegals that are running across stopped? And why isn’t human and drug smuggling being stopped?
Is money being made by those people who say they want to stop it but don’t?
The wall is working, for some people.
Law enforcement officials are seeing a rise in the business of human smuggling. They also see money being made for Mexican drug cartels as well as U.S. gangs. Human smuggling is becoming more lucrative than drug smuggling. Human smugglers also use their cargo as a diversionary tactic to draw border agents away from where they are smuggling large quantities of drugs across the border. Smugglers who get caught get a free trip home, without punishment, at taxpayers expense.
Building this wall is the wrong way to address this problem. Law abiding U.S. citizen, trying to makes ends meet are tired of paying excess taxes so our political ‘representatives’ can throw it away at meaningless ‘fixes’ to a problem that won’t go away.
This 700-mile-long joke of a wall that congress is convinced is the ‘only’ answer to the immigration problem is facilitating a multi-million dollar business in human smuggling. If it was effective then human smuggling and trafficking at this border would have stopped. That is not happening.
Police still raid drop houses in U.S. cities filled with illegals who pay $1,500 to $2,000 each to be smuggled here, usually 30-50 people are crammed in those houses. The accommodations for these illegals are atrocious. Conditions are inhumane. Men, women and children are beaten and tortured to extort extra money once the ‘product’ gets here, this is how these humans are viewed, as product. Plumbing usually doesn’t work because these houses are just shells to hide these people. There are no utilities. Toilets are filled with human waste and buckets are dispersed throughout the house as makeshift toilets. There is no food. There is no running water.
Then there are the even more despicable opportunists who are the very Americans paid to guard the border who smuggle humans in. Three members of the Texas National Guard helping patrol the Mexican border were charged with human smuggling. One Guardsman, in uniform, was stopped by federal agents driving a van crammed with 24 illegal immigrants north of Laredo, Texas.
Who are the losers here? The immigrant who pays outrageous sums to get around the wall. Police for having to deal with the mess. Taxpayers for paying police to deal with the mess. Homeowners in these neighborhoods from loss of property values because no one wants to live in areas where this is taking place. The relatives of those people working in the U.S. (illegal or otherwise) sending money back to them to be smuggled over here. The American taxpayer, again, who is paying for a wall that is worthless (a symbol of our comic attempt to stop the flow). Humanity suffers at the degradation these coyotes and snakeheads show their fellow humans. U.S. taxpayers, yet again, because money earned by illegals get sent back to their homes instead of feeding our economy, and that money gets paid to coyotes and the cycle continues. The IRS by not collecting the taxes that every legal employee in this country has to pay for the privilege of being a legal American. The American taxpayer again for having to pay transportation costs for deporting these illegals. Wage loss due to the influx of cheap labor.
The winners are coyotes who take the money for transporting illegals to these shit-holes and then run back for more. U.S. employers who get cheap labor by hiring illegals and pocketing the money that should have gone into federal, state and local coffers, along with Social Security, Medicare and Worker Comp funds. These same employers benefit from these funds even though they did not contribute to them.
Our government assures us that this wall is necessary to stop terrorists from ‘hiking’ into the country from the south. I am not convinced that terrorists are ‘hiking’ into the U.S. but if they are serious about this problem then why aren’t the hordes of illegals that are running across stopped? And why isn’t human and drug smuggling being stopped?
Is money being made by those people who say they want to stop it but don’t?
The wall is working, for some people.
Law enforcement officials are seeing a rise in the business of human smuggling. They also see money being made for Mexican drug cartels as well as U.S. gangs. Human smuggling is becoming more lucrative than drug smuggling. Human smugglers also use their cargo as a diversionary tactic to draw border agents away from where they are smuggling large quantities of drugs across the border. Smugglers who get caught get a free trip home, without punishment, at taxpayers expense.
Building this wall is the wrong way to address this problem. Law abiding U.S. citizen, trying to makes ends meet are tired of paying excess taxes so our political ‘representatives’ can throw it away at meaningless ‘fixes’ to a problem that won’t go away.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Why give away our right to privacy?
Verizon has allowed Bush/Cheney access to its customers telecommunications records.
For more detail go here. The article written by John Dean of AlterNet.com.
It is illegal, under federal statutes 18 U.S.C. 2511 and 18 U.S.C. 2702, for any “entity to provide an electronic communication service to the public" without a court order. Verizon, and other communications companies, obviously think that if the White House asks them to hand over these confidential records to them then the companies should be immune to any legal recourse.
Telecoms are not protected against legal recourse and Bush/Cheney is lobbying congress to alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to exclude liability against these companies that have helped the White House gain access to these communications. This immunity would be retroactive to cover the period that the telecoms colluded with the White House in its criminal activity.
The White House is also pushing congress to make permanent the Protect America Act which congress enacted to provide ‘temporary’ approval to electronically eavesdrop on anyone the president feels to be of interest. Don’t you just love the title of this act. As in you have to give up your right to privacy in order to save yourselves. Putting my privacy rights in the hands of the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is not my idea of protection. Their arrogance and paranoia scare the hell out of me.
Once again I say, “What is tolerated today will become commonly accepted tomorrow”. This is a very dangerous attack on the privacy of the citizens of the U.S.
Telecoms are becoming a de facto arm of the federal government at the beck and call of the executive branch.
The Bush/Cheney White House has proven time and again that they are far too paranoid and unbalanced in their judgment to have access to private records where their twisted thinking can manufacture plots anywhere they look.
The limiting of privacy is a tool of a fascist government. We have been sliding dangerously close towards fascism from the moment this lunatic duo took power. To give them this power, under the guise of National security, and using the seductive reasoning that if you have nothing to hide then it should not concern you, is simply criminal.
Do your homework people. Hitler started out in a very similar fashion.
What is to prevent the president from declaring any citizen a terrorist combatant? If Cheney follows true to form he will again strike out at any perceived threat before it has been proven to be real.
This ‘temporary’ eavesdropping power expires in February 2008, so congress is addressing the subject.
The potential loss of privacy, and the resulting erosion of freedom, that we face is unthinkable. Yet too many people are complacent in believing that the ‘only’ reason the eavesdropping is taking place is catch terrorists in our neighborhoods. And they all accept that this is a good enough reason to give away their privacy. One day it will be too late to get it back. One of our basic freedoms is being handed to the White House based on the lies from that White House.
We all feel the results of the lies Bush/Cheney have told us every time another soldier is sent to Iraq. We are reminded of their lies with every insurgent attack in Iraq, knowing the only reason they attack is because we are in their country. We see the results their lies every time we look at where the twin towers stood before 9/11.
You must know from their past performance that Bush/Cheney cannot be trusted with the power to eavesdrop on anyone they want to. We cannot afford to give up this freedom.
For more detail go here. The article written by John Dean of AlterNet.com.
It is illegal, under federal statutes 18 U.S.C. 2511 and 18 U.S.C. 2702, for any “entity to provide an electronic communication service to the public" without a court order. Verizon, and other communications companies, obviously think that if the White House asks them to hand over these confidential records to them then the companies should be immune to any legal recourse.
Telecoms are not protected against legal recourse and Bush/Cheney is lobbying congress to alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to exclude liability against these companies that have helped the White House gain access to these communications. This immunity would be retroactive to cover the period that the telecoms colluded with the White House in its criminal activity.
The White House is also pushing congress to make permanent the Protect America Act which congress enacted to provide ‘temporary’ approval to electronically eavesdrop on anyone the president feels to be of interest. Don’t you just love the title of this act. As in you have to give up your right to privacy in order to save yourselves. Putting my privacy rights in the hands of the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is not my idea of protection. Their arrogance and paranoia scare the hell out of me.
Once again I say, “What is tolerated today will become commonly accepted tomorrow”. This is a very dangerous attack on the privacy of the citizens of the U.S.
Telecoms are becoming a de facto arm of the federal government at the beck and call of the executive branch.
The Bush/Cheney White House has proven time and again that they are far too paranoid and unbalanced in their judgment to have access to private records where their twisted thinking can manufacture plots anywhere they look.
The limiting of privacy is a tool of a fascist government. We have been sliding dangerously close towards fascism from the moment this lunatic duo took power. To give them this power, under the guise of National security, and using the seductive reasoning that if you have nothing to hide then it should not concern you, is simply criminal.
Do your homework people. Hitler started out in a very similar fashion.
What is to prevent the president from declaring any citizen a terrorist combatant? If Cheney follows true to form he will again strike out at any perceived threat before it has been proven to be real.
This ‘temporary’ eavesdropping power expires in February 2008, so congress is addressing the subject.
The potential loss of privacy, and the resulting erosion of freedom, that we face is unthinkable. Yet too many people are complacent in believing that the ‘only’ reason the eavesdropping is taking place is catch terrorists in our neighborhoods. And they all accept that this is a good enough reason to give away their privacy. One day it will be too late to get it back. One of our basic freedoms is being handed to the White House based on the lies from that White House.
We all feel the results of the lies Bush/Cheney have told us every time another soldier is sent to Iraq. We are reminded of their lies with every insurgent attack in Iraq, knowing the only reason they attack is because we are in their country. We see the results their lies every time we look at where the twin towers stood before 9/11.
You must know from their past performance that Bush/Cheney cannot be trusted with the power to eavesdrop on anyone they want to. We cannot afford to give up this freedom.
Air Force officers relieved of duty over loose nukes
Here’s yet another case where routine became the enemy to safety protocol.
Air Force investigators found that a “lackadaisical” attention to detail in day-to-day operations allowed a B52 bomber armed with six nuclear warheads to fly across the U.S.
I understand how day-to-day routine can create a false sense of well-being, a sense that ‘nothing bad ever happens and therefore nothing bad ever will’. Policies are put in place so that, theoretically, nothing bad can happen. But they are only as good as the individuals assigned to follow them.
This one could have been extremely disastrous if that bomber had met with an accident. And everyone knows it can happen.
Policy is written for everyone’s safety, not just a routine that has become a nuisance and is interfering with your ‘free’ time. This happens every day in different jobs across this country. Countless manhours are lost due to someone somewhere ignoring a policy, or rule or law. Why do we think it is not necessary to follow them? Many hours have put applied by experts in their fields to write safety measures for our protection and yet we choose to ignore them. Are we stupid? Are we lazy? This is what I mean about how lazy we Americans have become. This laziness invites injury, death and destruction. Why do we ignore this?
Just because this incident did not result in disaster doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. Maybe personnel need to be rotated out of this job more often so that fresh eyes will follow procedure to the letter as it is designed to be.
Disregarding policies, rules, and laws endanger ourselves, our loved ones and strangers who do not deserve to die as a result of our carelessness.
Air Force investigators found that a “lackadaisical” attention to detail in day-to-day operations allowed a B52 bomber armed with six nuclear warheads to fly across the U.S.
I understand how day-to-day routine can create a false sense of well-being, a sense that ‘nothing bad ever happens and therefore nothing bad ever will’. Policies are put in place so that, theoretically, nothing bad can happen. But they are only as good as the individuals assigned to follow them.
This one could have been extremely disastrous if that bomber had met with an accident. And everyone knows it can happen.
Policy is written for everyone’s safety, not just a routine that has become a nuisance and is interfering with your ‘free’ time. This happens every day in different jobs across this country. Countless manhours are lost due to someone somewhere ignoring a policy, or rule or law. Why do we think it is not necessary to follow them? Many hours have put applied by experts in their fields to write safety measures for our protection and yet we choose to ignore them. Are we stupid? Are we lazy? This is what I mean about how lazy we Americans have become. This laziness invites injury, death and destruction. Why do we ignore this?
Just because this incident did not result in disaster doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. Maybe personnel need to be rotated out of this job more often so that fresh eyes will follow procedure to the letter as it is designed to be.
Disregarding policies, rules, and laws endanger ourselves, our loved ones and strangers who do not deserve to die as a result of our carelessness.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Driving needs to be taken more seriously
A van driver ran a stop sign at 7 AM where children were waiting for a school bus. The van was struck by a pickup truck with such force that the van was knocked onto the sidewalk where the children were standing. The van struck two children injuring them both.
A witness was so enraged at this van’s driver that he began beating the driver with a pipe. I say good for him for inflicting punishment on this van driver that the court system does not have the balls to.
I am not an advocate of this type of violence but the frustration that this guy showed that drove him to this violence is felt nationwide at the carelessness of our fellow drivers.
There are several things wrong with this picture, every one of them are preventable and should be paid a hell of a lot more attention than what we do.
Drive the speed limit. These speeds are posted with safety in mind., not to punish you for being late.
Obey stop signs. Where is the confusion here? You see the sign. Stop!! Look around for anything and everything before proceeding.
Pay attention!! You cannot predict anything! You don’t know when someone or something is going appear in your path. Now, because you are speeding you have complicated matters because there is an even less of a chance of stopping in time. Do not divert your attention to anything that takes your mind off of the road. Things outside of your control happen way too fast when you are watching and anticipating, you cut down your response time even more by not watching.
When children are around, slow down!!! You cannot predict what they are going to do. What does it matter if you are late, or what does it matter that you piss off the guy behind you for driving slower than they want to. You could actually save a life by slowing down. Which is more important to you?
Drive defensively!! We first heard this advice before we ever started driving and again when we first picked up a drivers manual. For most people it is probably the only time they ever picked one up. why do people have to be so damned aggressive on the road? Forget the car commercials that tell you how fast your car can go. Safety and arriving alive is the only thing that matters.
Never, never, never be in a hurry behind the wheel of any automobile!! You really do not save time by driving faster. There are always traffic lights and there is always traffic to slow you down. They all want to get to where they are going and you are only compounding the problem of driving safely by being an object they have to focus on due to your carelessness. You are not in a race with anyone.
Every one of these things I have mentioned here are just plain good common sense and yet every one of them becomes secondary when most people get behind the wheel. Why???
Why are we so convinced that nothing is ever going to happen to us? We see it on the news every day that someone was involved in a car accident. Do you suppose they thought nothing was every going to happen to them? Do you think the victim of that car crash was convinced that since they are such good drivers they will never be in an accident?
Not enough attention is being focused on drivers habits. These vehicles are not toys. Yet too many people are too careless behind the wheel. They think they don’t have to obey traffic laws. Too many people use their vehicles to intimidate others to get out of their way. Too many people change their demeanor once they get behind the wheel. They think they are invulnerable and that everyone else is in their way.
Why is there such a shortage of common sense?
We are all intelligent enough to know that we cannot predict what someone else is going to do yet I have seen a driver speed up when someone in front of them is going to turn with the anticipation that by the time they get there that vehicle will be already turned and out of the way.
We make foolish assumptions like this all the time. Why??
I’ll bet when this guy got into his van this morning, being involved in an accident was the farthest thing from his mind. He obviously choose to think about something else besides the most dangerous activity he was to be involved in that day, that being driving a vehicle.
Yes, it is the most dangerous thing we do everyday. Safety should be the first thing we think about. We are stepping into a vehicle weighing anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 pounds that can easily kill and we think it will never happen to me. We allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security in the fact that since I know I won’t be the cause of an accident then it cannot possibly happen to me.
Fools who choose to impair themselves and then get behind the wheel are on the road daily. This is a proven fact. You have to watch out for them. People do foolish, careless things all the time, you have to watch out for them.
Driving is not a sport. It can be dangerous and you never know when your full attention will be required to prevent an accident, so give it, 100%, all the time.
A witness was so enraged at this van’s driver that he began beating the driver with a pipe. I say good for him for inflicting punishment on this van driver that the court system does not have the balls to.
I am not an advocate of this type of violence but the frustration that this guy showed that drove him to this violence is felt nationwide at the carelessness of our fellow drivers.
There are several things wrong with this picture, every one of them are preventable and should be paid a hell of a lot more attention than what we do.
Drive the speed limit. These speeds are posted with safety in mind., not to punish you for being late.
Obey stop signs. Where is the confusion here? You see the sign. Stop!! Look around for anything and everything before proceeding.
Pay attention!! You cannot predict anything! You don’t know when someone or something is going appear in your path. Now, because you are speeding you have complicated matters because there is an even less of a chance of stopping in time. Do not divert your attention to anything that takes your mind off of the road. Things outside of your control happen way too fast when you are watching and anticipating, you cut down your response time even more by not watching.
When children are around, slow down!!! You cannot predict what they are going to do. What does it matter if you are late, or what does it matter that you piss off the guy behind you for driving slower than they want to. You could actually save a life by slowing down. Which is more important to you?
Drive defensively!! We first heard this advice before we ever started driving and again when we first picked up a drivers manual. For most people it is probably the only time they ever picked one up. why do people have to be so damned aggressive on the road? Forget the car commercials that tell you how fast your car can go. Safety and arriving alive is the only thing that matters.
Never, never, never be in a hurry behind the wheel of any automobile!! You really do not save time by driving faster. There are always traffic lights and there is always traffic to slow you down. They all want to get to where they are going and you are only compounding the problem of driving safely by being an object they have to focus on due to your carelessness. You are not in a race with anyone.
Every one of these things I have mentioned here are just plain good common sense and yet every one of them becomes secondary when most people get behind the wheel. Why???
Why are we so convinced that nothing is ever going to happen to us? We see it on the news every day that someone was involved in a car accident. Do you suppose they thought nothing was every going to happen to them? Do you think the victim of that car crash was convinced that since they are such good drivers they will never be in an accident?
Not enough attention is being focused on drivers habits. These vehicles are not toys. Yet too many people are too careless behind the wheel. They think they don’t have to obey traffic laws. Too many people use their vehicles to intimidate others to get out of their way. Too many people change their demeanor once they get behind the wheel. They think they are invulnerable and that everyone else is in their way.
Why is there such a shortage of common sense?
We are all intelligent enough to know that we cannot predict what someone else is going to do yet I have seen a driver speed up when someone in front of them is going to turn with the anticipation that by the time they get there that vehicle will be already turned and out of the way.
We make foolish assumptions like this all the time. Why??
I’ll bet when this guy got into his van this morning, being involved in an accident was the farthest thing from his mind. He obviously choose to think about something else besides the most dangerous activity he was to be involved in that day, that being driving a vehicle.
Yes, it is the most dangerous thing we do everyday. Safety should be the first thing we think about. We are stepping into a vehicle weighing anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 pounds that can easily kill and we think it will never happen to me. We allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security in the fact that since I know I won’t be the cause of an accident then it cannot possibly happen to me.
Fools who choose to impair themselves and then get behind the wheel are on the road daily. This is a proven fact. You have to watch out for them. People do foolish, careless things all the time, you have to watch out for them.
Driving is not a sport. It can be dangerous and you never know when your full attention will be required to prevent an accident, so give it, 100%, all the time.
Darius Moore follow-up 9-27-07
As previously reported on 9-27-07 … Darius Moore, 17, of Gary Indiana, was driving while intoxicated on the night of September 15, 2007 when, he claims, one of his tires blew out and he crashed his car.
Today, Oct 17, 2007, Gary Indiana police spokesman report they will ask prosecutors to press unspecified charges against the Darius Moore in last month's car crash that killed two 18-year-old passengers in Gary, Indiana.
Police who responded to the crash failed to find the victims' bodies. According to Moore, they never searched for them. The father of one of the victims found them himself when he visited the site hours later.
Moore said he and the other crash survivor, DeAndre Anderson, begged police to search for their friends who were missing after the crash. Police radio dispatch tapes released last month revealed officers discussed the possibility that Smith and Green, the two missing teens, might be at the scene.
The police obviously did not search or did such a half-assed job that they should be, at the very least, embarrassed for not finding them.
A blood alcohol test, taken at the scene, shows that Darius Moore and the one surviving passenger had alcohol in their bloodstream which only proves they had been drinking. One of the two registered .09 and the other registered .05. because of their ages the results could not be publicly attached to which one was over the state imposed limit of .08.
Moore denies that anyone in the car had been drinking before the accident. So I guess the test lied? Maybe Moore is attempting to indicate that the police faked this test and are lying about the results. Since police have been known to lie, just as every other human has, it is easy enough to believe, but I don’t think you can fake the results of a blood alcohol test. Darius Moore is evoking the typical behavior of someone who has been caught doing something illegal, putting the blame off onto someone else.
His mother is enabling him by claiming the accident was not his fault. It is no one’s fault but his. He was drinking, underage, and he was driving that vehicle. Wake up, both of you. Face reality. Stop taking the act of drinking and driving so lightly.
Ignoring the fact that he was drinking and driving is only perpetuating the idea that it is okay to do it. he cannot be made to look noble by lying against the results of a blood alcohol test. He needs to answer for his total disregard for safety by drinking, driving, speeding, and allowing his passengers to ride without their safety belts attached. These issues are nothing to take lightly.
He needs to be punished. Nothing else he has heard about drinking and driving has gotten through to him. We have all been told for years about wearing safety belts. Now that he is responsible for a car accident that destroyed four families lives is not the time to fantasize that it was not his fault.
Take responsibility for your actions!!
Darius’s mother, Carmelita Evans said she wasn't surprised police were recommending charges against her son. "I figured the police would try to go after him in light of the lawsuits that are coming at them," she said. "Because the police are going down, I figured they would try to take my son with them."
I’m not surprised the police are going after him either. They should have arrested him on the night of the accident, on two charges at the very least. One, driving while intoxicated, two, drinking under the legal age. If police had actually followed through with their accident scene investigation heeding the possibility of others being involved and searched for the other two teens then those teens would either be alive or the police could charge the driver with vehicular homicide, too. They are not arresting him out of retaliation as she suggests, that is ludicrous.
Facing charges, Evans said, might put her son "over the edge -- that he could be liable for his friends' deaths. He's not sleeping, he's not eating properly. I hope this doesn't cause him to do something. I'm trying to seek counseling for him, but I'm a single mother and I don't have a lot of money."
The reason he is not sleeping or eating properly is due to a guilty conscience because he knows he is responsible for those boys deaths. He alone got behind the wheel and he alone was driving when that car went off the road. Again, face reality and make him suffer the consequences just as any person who drinks and drives should face the consequences.
It is unforgivable for police to ever leave a body behind for someone else to find, let alone a parent. Even though the police were given the possibility that the two missing teens were not in the car at the time of the accident is not a good enough reason not to search because there was indeed the possibility they were in the car.
It is equally unforgivable to allow drunken drivers to go unpunished. It sends the wrong message and we have seen it far too many times.
The family of one of the deceased teens is having an independent autopsy done, more for their own peace of mind, to see if the county coroner lied about their deaths being instantaneous. I understand why the family is doing this. The police are not above lying to protect themselves, anyone who thinks they would not lie is simply naïve and haven’t been paying attention. There are numerous cases where police have lied to protect themselves and their lies are backed up by every policeman and coroner in the country.
Drinking and driving is an intolerable activity that needs to be punished severely.
Why isn’t this country taking this responsibility more seriously?
Today, Oct 17, 2007, Gary Indiana police spokesman report they will ask prosecutors to press unspecified charges against the Darius Moore in last month's car crash that killed two 18-year-old passengers in Gary, Indiana.
Police who responded to the crash failed to find the victims' bodies. According to Moore, they never searched for them. The father of one of the victims found them himself when he visited the site hours later.
Moore said he and the other crash survivor, DeAndre Anderson, begged police to search for their friends who were missing after the crash. Police radio dispatch tapes released last month revealed officers discussed the possibility that Smith and Green, the two missing teens, might be at the scene.
The police obviously did not search or did such a half-assed job that they should be, at the very least, embarrassed for not finding them.
A blood alcohol test, taken at the scene, shows that Darius Moore and the one surviving passenger had alcohol in their bloodstream which only proves they had been drinking. One of the two registered .09 and the other registered .05. because of their ages the results could not be publicly attached to which one was over the state imposed limit of .08.
Moore denies that anyone in the car had been drinking before the accident. So I guess the test lied? Maybe Moore is attempting to indicate that the police faked this test and are lying about the results. Since police have been known to lie, just as every other human has, it is easy enough to believe, but I don’t think you can fake the results of a blood alcohol test. Darius Moore is evoking the typical behavior of someone who has been caught doing something illegal, putting the blame off onto someone else.
His mother is enabling him by claiming the accident was not his fault. It is no one’s fault but his. He was drinking, underage, and he was driving that vehicle. Wake up, both of you. Face reality. Stop taking the act of drinking and driving so lightly.
Ignoring the fact that he was drinking and driving is only perpetuating the idea that it is okay to do it. he cannot be made to look noble by lying against the results of a blood alcohol test. He needs to answer for his total disregard for safety by drinking, driving, speeding, and allowing his passengers to ride without their safety belts attached. These issues are nothing to take lightly.
He needs to be punished. Nothing else he has heard about drinking and driving has gotten through to him. We have all been told for years about wearing safety belts. Now that he is responsible for a car accident that destroyed four families lives is not the time to fantasize that it was not his fault.
Take responsibility for your actions!!
Darius’s mother, Carmelita Evans said she wasn't surprised police were recommending charges against her son. "I figured the police would try to go after him in light of the lawsuits that are coming at them," she said. "Because the police are going down, I figured they would try to take my son with them."
I’m not surprised the police are going after him either. They should have arrested him on the night of the accident, on two charges at the very least. One, driving while intoxicated, two, drinking under the legal age. If police had actually followed through with their accident scene investigation heeding the possibility of others being involved and searched for the other two teens then those teens would either be alive or the police could charge the driver with vehicular homicide, too. They are not arresting him out of retaliation as she suggests, that is ludicrous.
Facing charges, Evans said, might put her son "over the edge -- that he could be liable for his friends' deaths. He's not sleeping, he's not eating properly. I hope this doesn't cause him to do something. I'm trying to seek counseling for him, but I'm a single mother and I don't have a lot of money."
The reason he is not sleeping or eating properly is due to a guilty conscience because he knows he is responsible for those boys deaths. He alone got behind the wheel and he alone was driving when that car went off the road. Again, face reality and make him suffer the consequences just as any person who drinks and drives should face the consequences.
It is unforgivable for police to ever leave a body behind for someone else to find, let alone a parent. Even though the police were given the possibility that the two missing teens were not in the car at the time of the accident is not a good enough reason not to search because there was indeed the possibility they were in the car.
It is equally unforgivable to allow drunken drivers to go unpunished. It sends the wrong message and we have seen it far too many times.
The family of one of the deceased teens is having an independent autopsy done, more for their own peace of mind, to see if the county coroner lied about their deaths being instantaneous. I understand why the family is doing this. The police are not above lying to protect themselves, anyone who thinks they would not lie is simply naïve and haven’t been paying attention. There are numerous cases where police have lied to protect themselves and their lies are backed up by every policeman and coroner in the country.
Drinking and driving is an intolerable activity that needs to be punished severely.
Why isn’t this country taking this responsibility more seriously?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Work for your own future
Gen-Yers say they are willing to make financial sacrifices to make the world a better place. How very ‘generous’ of you. How long can you really expect to work less, volunteer more--and count on your aging parents to push back their retirement?
Too many twenty-somethings are still living with Mom and Dad. Too many twenty-somethings think they can just quit their jobs because they are not having fun. Too many parents have instilled in their children that ‘you can be anything you want to be’ without instilling in them the fact that they have to actually work for it.
In a study released this summer, global employment agency Manpower found that across the developed world, under-30s would overwhelmingly rather "pursue their passions" than "make lots of money," with 73 percent of young Spaniards and two-thirds of Americans and Canadians backing that statement.
I think it is necessary for every person to pursue their passion, and I certainly do not advocate the very unhealthy, stroke-inducing, all-out drive to earn as much money as you can before you die mantra. You don’t have to push yourselves into an early grave to earn more than anyone else. What I am saying is get out there and earn something for your future. Earn enough for the basics and a little extra for vacations and, if you like, for charities. But for God’s sake put some in savings and stop living off of your parents. They are trying to survive too. They have worked long and hard for it and now that you are old enough to support yourselves they should spend it on themselves.
The main thing that these twenty-somethings have failed to realize is that inevitably they will be too old to work and they will need a ‘nest egg’ to help them survive because Mom and Dad are not going to always be there for them.
Another thing, it is very selfish for these twenty-somethings to drain Mom and Dad’s retirement savings because they don’t like their jobs. Well guess what, Mom and Dad most likely did not ‘like’ their jobs either but they had the work-ethic to stay with the job because they also were very aware that they alone would have to support themselves when they retire.
Now, that work-ethic is disappearing, or maybe it is being put off until later, I don’t know, but one thing I do know, the less you work the less money you have for retirement.
The Social Security Administration was created by the government because people were not saving enough money to fund their retirement. Now we are reverting back to that same inability to support ourselves in retirement due to lack of savings.
Why do you twenty-somethings think you don’t need to work towards a financially secure future of your own? Here is how the Social Security system is set up to work: Mom and Dad’s income feeds the fund with the promise of supporting them in their retirement. That money went to help fund their parents generation so they could retire. Your income goes to support your parents retirement. When you don’t work you are not putting anything into that fund and therefore your parents are not going to have any money for their retirement. This is extremely selfish of you. But you go ahead and have your fun, just keep putting off the inevitable collapse of your dream world until the day you suddenly realize you have no income because your ATM, your mom and dad, have passed on, or, more appropriately, spent it on themselves.
How much ‘fun’ is life going to be then?
Where is the stigma that used to drive ‘adults’ out from under their parents roof? Why has it become acceptable for ‘adults’ to continue to live with their parents and be supported by their parents long after they have reached the traditional age of maturity? Why has it become acceptable for you to continue to go out and play instead of work for your own future?
This may come as a shock to you but trust me when I say that your parents, who have worked steadily at their jobs (jobs that they did not always find ‘fun’) so they could afford vacations from that ‘boring’ job and so they could afford to retire in some relative comfort, was not planning on supporting you for the rest of their lives. And now that you are ‘forcing’ them to do so by not pulling your own weight, you are sucking them dry of every dream they have worked for. Can you not see that this must be a very difficult and depressing realization for them, that their hopes of retiring have gone away because you are too self-involved and narcissistic to support yourself?
What are you going to do when your world comes crashing down around your ears because you did not get that big inheritance from your parents when they die? What are you going to do when you find out that the family house that you thought was going to support you has been heavily mortgaged to help support you while your parents were alive because you refused to grow up?
Your parents likely feel an embarrassment that they did not do a good enough job at raising you to be an asset to this society instead of the money-pit you have become. Since they love you they will continue to sacrifice to help you, even when they know there is no prospect of you helping them, because how can you, you have not been earning any money to support yourself, how are you going to help your parents when they need it? Deep inside, they feel a resentment towards you for not taking it upon yourselves to support yourself and they also feel a disappointment in themselves for not being strong enough to teach you the importance of a good work ethic.
Parents who give their kids everything are not doing their kids any favors. In fact they are prolonging one of lifes most important lessons. That lesson being that the only way a person appreciates what they have is if they have to earn it for themselves with their own blood and sweat.
In May, Britain's HSBC banking group released a global study on the future of retirement, which found that in nearly all of the 21 countries they studied, senior citizens--those who in times past would have been cared for by their grown children--gave more money to their offspring than they received. What are they going to retire on? What is their prospect of earnings when they are too old for work?
This country, as a whole, does not respect their elders. This country does not respect to the wisdom of age. This country would rather hire young people and let the elders fend for themselves. And if the young aren’t going to help support them then their future is pretty dismal.
Is any of this getting through to you selfish, lazy, narcissistic heathens? Sure, most of the blame begins with your parents for not instilling in you a strong work ethic. Sure you could blame a lack of ‘fun’ jobs to keep your interest. Sure you could again blame your parents for always giving you what you want instead making you work for it. But, sooner or later, you are going to have to realize that your future is your own responsibility, not your parents, and not anyone else’s.
Too many twenty-somethings are still living with Mom and Dad. Too many twenty-somethings think they can just quit their jobs because they are not having fun. Too many parents have instilled in their children that ‘you can be anything you want to be’ without instilling in them the fact that they have to actually work for it.
In a study released this summer, global employment agency Manpower found that across the developed world, under-30s would overwhelmingly rather "pursue their passions" than "make lots of money," with 73 percent of young Spaniards and two-thirds of Americans and Canadians backing that statement.
I think it is necessary for every person to pursue their passion, and I certainly do not advocate the very unhealthy, stroke-inducing, all-out drive to earn as much money as you can before you die mantra. You don’t have to push yourselves into an early grave to earn more than anyone else. What I am saying is get out there and earn something for your future. Earn enough for the basics and a little extra for vacations and, if you like, for charities. But for God’s sake put some in savings and stop living off of your parents. They are trying to survive too. They have worked long and hard for it and now that you are old enough to support yourselves they should spend it on themselves.
The main thing that these twenty-somethings have failed to realize is that inevitably they will be too old to work and they will need a ‘nest egg’ to help them survive because Mom and Dad are not going to always be there for them.
Another thing, it is very selfish for these twenty-somethings to drain Mom and Dad’s retirement savings because they don’t like their jobs. Well guess what, Mom and Dad most likely did not ‘like’ their jobs either but they had the work-ethic to stay with the job because they also were very aware that they alone would have to support themselves when they retire.
Now, that work-ethic is disappearing, or maybe it is being put off until later, I don’t know, but one thing I do know, the less you work the less money you have for retirement.
The Social Security Administration was created by the government because people were not saving enough money to fund their retirement. Now we are reverting back to that same inability to support ourselves in retirement due to lack of savings.
Why do you twenty-somethings think you don’t need to work towards a financially secure future of your own? Here is how the Social Security system is set up to work: Mom and Dad’s income feeds the fund with the promise of supporting them in their retirement. That money went to help fund their parents generation so they could retire. Your income goes to support your parents retirement. When you don’t work you are not putting anything into that fund and therefore your parents are not going to have any money for their retirement. This is extremely selfish of you. But you go ahead and have your fun, just keep putting off the inevitable collapse of your dream world until the day you suddenly realize you have no income because your ATM, your mom and dad, have passed on, or, more appropriately, spent it on themselves.
How much ‘fun’ is life going to be then?
Where is the stigma that used to drive ‘adults’ out from under their parents roof? Why has it become acceptable for ‘adults’ to continue to live with their parents and be supported by their parents long after they have reached the traditional age of maturity? Why has it become acceptable for you to continue to go out and play instead of work for your own future?
This may come as a shock to you but trust me when I say that your parents, who have worked steadily at their jobs (jobs that they did not always find ‘fun’) so they could afford vacations from that ‘boring’ job and so they could afford to retire in some relative comfort, was not planning on supporting you for the rest of their lives. And now that you are ‘forcing’ them to do so by not pulling your own weight, you are sucking them dry of every dream they have worked for. Can you not see that this must be a very difficult and depressing realization for them, that their hopes of retiring have gone away because you are too self-involved and narcissistic to support yourself?
What are you going to do when your world comes crashing down around your ears because you did not get that big inheritance from your parents when they die? What are you going to do when you find out that the family house that you thought was going to support you has been heavily mortgaged to help support you while your parents were alive because you refused to grow up?
Your parents likely feel an embarrassment that they did not do a good enough job at raising you to be an asset to this society instead of the money-pit you have become. Since they love you they will continue to sacrifice to help you, even when they know there is no prospect of you helping them, because how can you, you have not been earning any money to support yourself, how are you going to help your parents when they need it? Deep inside, they feel a resentment towards you for not taking it upon yourselves to support yourself and they also feel a disappointment in themselves for not being strong enough to teach you the importance of a good work ethic.
Parents who give their kids everything are not doing their kids any favors. In fact they are prolonging one of lifes most important lessons. That lesson being that the only way a person appreciates what they have is if they have to earn it for themselves with their own blood and sweat.
In May, Britain's HSBC banking group released a global study on the future of retirement, which found that in nearly all of the 21 countries they studied, senior citizens--those who in times past would have been cared for by their grown children--gave more money to their offspring than they received. What are they going to retire on? What is their prospect of earnings when they are too old for work?
This country, as a whole, does not respect their elders. This country does not respect to the wisdom of age. This country would rather hire young people and let the elders fend for themselves. And if the young aren’t going to help support them then their future is pretty dismal.
Is any of this getting through to you selfish, lazy, narcissistic heathens? Sure, most of the blame begins with your parents for not instilling in you a strong work ethic. Sure you could blame a lack of ‘fun’ jobs to keep your interest. Sure you could again blame your parents for always giving you what you want instead making you work for it. But, sooner or later, you are going to have to realize that your future is your own responsibility, not your parents, and not anyone else’s.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Krystle Leigh Weber, today’s worst mother in the world
The mother of a two-year-old Wisconsin boy shared a marijuana blunt with her child as friends laughed, filmed the child smoking, and asked, "Hey buddy, are you stoned?" Krystle Leigh Weber, 20, was charged yesterday along with two male friends with pot possession and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
She was also hit with a child neglect rap, also a misdemeanor. (can you believe child neglect is only a misdemeanor?) According to a Circuit Court complaint, after a confidential source told police about the smoking incident, cops seized a cell phone from defendant Sean Held, 19, and discovered three videos of the August incident.
At least someone associated with this group showed some moral integrity.
On the clips, the boy is seen holding and apparently puffing on a blunt, and "staggering around a bedroom in what appears to be a confused and altered state."
In a police interview, Weber, who is pictured here in a Menomonee Falls Police Department mug shot, said that she initially rejected Held's suggestion to have her son "hit it," but eventually relented and agreed to let the two-year-old take a "small one."
The complaint notes that Weber told police that she "knew what she did was wrong, and she would do anything to keep her son." I’m calling bullshit.
She was also hit with a child neglect rap, also a misdemeanor. (can you believe child neglect is only a misdemeanor?) According to a Circuit Court complaint, after a confidential source told police about the smoking incident, cops seized a cell phone from defendant Sean Held, 19, and discovered three videos of the August incident.
At least someone associated with this group showed some moral integrity.
On the clips, the boy is seen holding and apparently puffing on a blunt, and "staggering around a bedroom in what appears to be a confused and altered state."
In a police interview, Weber, who is pictured here in a Menomonee Falls Police Department mug shot, said that she initially rejected Held's suggestion to have her son "hit it," but eventually relented and agreed to let the two-year-old take a "small one."
The complaint notes that Weber told police that she "knew what she did was wrong, and she would do anything to keep her son." I’m calling bullshit.
The hypocrisy of the White House shines again
Here’s a story that illustrates the hypocrisy that is the White House Administration.
Secretary Rice says the Russian Kremlin’s consolidated power endangers democracy.
How can we think we have the right to tell Russia to not do what Bush/Cheney has been doing to democracy in this country for the last six years?
"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.
Bush/Cheney undermined the independence of the Attorney Generals office by forcing their lapdog Alberto Gonzalez onto the American people so he could do their bidding. And the spineless weasel did it gratefully.
The mainstream media in the United States is clearly backing this administration by reporting only glowing reports of how the Iraq war is progressing and stumbles over itself in helping the lunatic team of Bush/Cheney force it down our throats.
Then she casts suspicion on the amount of power the Duma has after Bush has overridden constitution law by use of executive privilege, disregarded the Bill of Rights by using the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens and fires Generals until he gets one who says what Bush/Cheney want to hear.
She encourages activists in Russia to build institutions of democracy that would help combat arbitrary state power knowing that Bush/Cheney are completely isolated from activists in America by the Secret Service.
Does she have no clue to what is going on in this government? Is she really that blind or is she as evil and deranged as Bush/Cheney?
I was beginning to think that since she stood up to Cheney that maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. But I see I was wrong. She continues to wave the American flag of hypocrisy high.
Secretary Rice says the Russian Kremlin’s consolidated power endangers democracy.
How can we think we have the right to tell Russia to not do what Bush/Cheney has been doing to democracy in this country for the last six years?
"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.
Bush/Cheney undermined the independence of the Attorney Generals office by forcing their lapdog Alberto Gonzalez onto the American people so he could do their bidding. And the spineless weasel did it gratefully.
The mainstream media in the United States is clearly backing this administration by reporting only glowing reports of how the Iraq war is progressing and stumbles over itself in helping the lunatic team of Bush/Cheney force it down our throats.
Then she casts suspicion on the amount of power the Duma has after Bush has overridden constitution law by use of executive privilege, disregarded the Bill of Rights by using the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens and fires Generals until he gets one who says what Bush/Cheney want to hear.
She encourages activists in Russia to build institutions of democracy that would help combat arbitrary state power knowing that Bush/Cheney are completely isolated from activists in America by the Secret Service.
Does she have no clue to what is going on in this government? Is she really that blind or is she as evil and deranged as Bush/Cheney?
I was beginning to think that since she stood up to Cheney that maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. But I see I was wrong. She continues to wave the American flag of hypocrisy high.
Half-assed job performance can costs lives
50-year-old Air Force veteran Bob Shank was admitted to am Illinois Veterans Administration hospital in August of this year for gallstone-removal surgery. He bled to death the day after the surgery.
The surgeon, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, a Bolivian-trained physician with a thick accent, performed the surgery. Nine other surgical patients have died under Veizaga-Mendez's care in a six-month period ending in March 2007, during which time the hospital would have expected only two deaths.
Even before Veizaga-Mendez was hired at the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital, in January 2006, he had made payouts in two malpractice suits in Massachusetts and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths.
Even after the nine deaths he was still allowed to operate on another patient. How many deaths is acceptably attributable to one doctor? Why wasn’t nine deaths in six months enough reason to prevent this ‘doctor’ from practicing again?
Was he hired by the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital because someone did not follow through on the verification process with Massachusettes concerning past performance and job history?
Was his past performance in Massachusettes and the fact that he was under investigation for malpractice kept from personnel at the Illinois facility?
Veizaga-Mendez, 69, resigned three days after Shank's death, and the VA hospital suspended all surgery shortly after. The deaths involving Veizaga-Mendez are still under investigation, and details have not been released.
Someone at the Illinois facility finally decided that ten deaths, connected with this surgical doctor, was enough. Did his resignation have more to do with the fact that the media finally got wind of the deadly trend? Was hospital administration, through advise from their lawyers no doubt, perfectly willing to keep it all quiet until the story was leaked and they were now forced to do something? Instead of firing him they ‘allowed’ him to resign so he could keep his benefits package?
He had become a lousy, careless doctor responsible for the deaths and/or undue suffering of nineteen patients before being forced to resign. For him to be rewarded for his carelessness because he refuses to accept his responsibility to the families of those patients is beyond criminal. The hospital administration of both hospitals should share blame for him having access to those patients and should be punished for allowing him to continue his serial malpractice.
This is an extremely grave example of people, either singularly or collectively, not following guidelines that are in place to prevent this type of tragedy.
If guidelines are not in place to take action against a doctor whose death count is higher than statistically acceptable then the administration should be held accountable as well
If the Massachusettes hospital where Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez practiced was aware of his failures and failed to report that fact to the medical board, to insurance companies, to the next hospital who showed interest in hiring him, then they too should be held criminally liable.
Dr. Veizaga-Mendez had a valid, unrestricted medical license in Massachusetts and Illinois when he was hired in January 2006 and that background checks did not reveal any prior or pending disciplinary action. This background check should have revealed that he was under investigation for malpractice. Current law says that this information cannot be revealed and I think that policy is absolutely wrong for a person in this position. There should be a freeze on this man’s ability to practice until all investigations and lawsuits are completed or at the very least his license should be flagged due to pending investigation in order that everyone be put on alert. This responsibility lies with hospital administration and the state’s medical board. There should be no protection from the total scrutiny of a potential employer for a person in this field.
It turns out that at the time he was hired in Illinois, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine was investigating allegations of substandard care made against Veizaga-Mendez in 2004 and 2005, said board spokesman Russell Aims. The allegations involved seven patients, two of whom died.
There are a lot of people who have relatives receiving care at VA hospitals across this country and they all deserve the best care available in return for putting their lives on the line to protect us and those very same doctors and hospital staff.
Our veterans are placed under the care of doctors that we are forced to assume are qualified. They have no choice but to accept that every person who is responsible for that doctor being in charge of their care did everything humanly possible to ensure that the doctor is qualified and competent.
We have no choice but to have faith that if anyone has knowledge of a doctors shortcomings that the person will have the moral integrity to report that doctor to the proper authority and that the authority will not allow the doctor to practice.
Our veterans deserve to know that the hospital staff and administration are actually looking after the patients welfare above the liability of the hospital.
Bob Shank and his family should have every expectation that he would recover from this very common surgery.
Somehow we have decided that it is acceptable to hold back detrimental information concerning a job applicants past performance so we don’t have to appear to be the ‘bad guy’ by telling the truth. This misguided act of ‘helping’ the job applicant gain employment elsewhere is malicious and mean-spirited towards the new employer. And, as witnessed in this case, can lead to jeopardizing the health and well-being of a great many people and can even lead to death.
The surgeon, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, a Bolivian-trained physician with a thick accent, performed the surgery. Nine other surgical patients have died under Veizaga-Mendez's care in a six-month period ending in March 2007, during which time the hospital would have expected only two deaths.
Even before Veizaga-Mendez was hired at the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital, in January 2006, he had made payouts in two malpractice suits in Massachusetts and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths.
Even after the nine deaths he was still allowed to operate on another patient. How many deaths is acceptably attributable to one doctor? Why wasn’t nine deaths in six months enough reason to prevent this ‘doctor’ from practicing again?
Was he hired by the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital because someone did not follow through on the verification process with Massachusettes concerning past performance and job history?
Was his past performance in Massachusettes and the fact that he was under investigation for malpractice kept from personnel at the Illinois facility?
Veizaga-Mendez, 69, resigned three days after Shank's death, and the VA hospital suspended all surgery shortly after. The deaths involving Veizaga-Mendez are still under investigation, and details have not been released.
Someone at the Illinois facility finally decided that ten deaths, connected with this surgical doctor, was enough. Did his resignation have more to do with the fact that the media finally got wind of the deadly trend? Was hospital administration, through advise from their lawyers no doubt, perfectly willing to keep it all quiet until the story was leaked and they were now forced to do something? Instead of firing him they ‘allowed’ him to resign so he could keep his benefits package?
He had become a lousy, careless doctor responsible for the deaths and/or undue suffering of nineteen patients before being forced to resign. For him to be rewarded for his carelessness because he refuses to accept his responsibility to the families of those patients is beyond criminal. The hospital administration of both hospitals should share blame for him having access to those patients and should be punished for allowing him to continue his serial malpractice.
This is an extremely grave example of people, either singularly or collectively, not following guidelines that are in place to prevent this type of tragedy.
If guidelines are not in place to take action against a doctor whose death count is higher than statistically acceptable then the administration should be held accountable as well
If the Massachusettes hospital where Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez practiced was aware of his failures and failed to report that fact to the medical board, to insurance companies, to the next hospital who showed interest in hiring him, then they too should be held criminally liable.
Dr. Veizaga-Mendez had a valid, unrestricted medical license in Massachusetts and Illinois when he was hired in January 2006 and that background checks did not reveal any prior or pending disciplinary action. This background check should have revealed that he was under investigation for malpractice. Current law says that this information cannot be revealed and I think that policy is absolutely wrong for a person in this position. There should be a freeze on this man’s ability to practice until all investigations and lawsuits are completed or at the very least his license should be flagged due to pending investigation in order that everyone be put on alert. This responsibility lies with hospital administration and the state’s medical board. There should be no protection from the total scrutiny of a potential employer for a person in this field.
It turns out that at the time he was hired in Illinois, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine was investigating allegations of substandard care made against Veizaga-Mendez in 2004 and 2005, said board spokesman Russell Aims. The allegations involved seven patients, two of whom died.
There are a lot of people who have relatives receiving care at VA hospitals across this country and they all deserve the best care available in return for putting their lives on the line to protect us and those very same doctors and hospital staff.
Our veterans are placed under the care of doctors that we are forced to assume are qualified. They have no choice but to accept that every person who is responsible for that doctor being in charge of their care did everything humanly possible to ensure that the doctor is qualified and competent.
We have no choice but to have faith that if anyone has knowledge of a doctors shortcomings that the person will have the moral integrity to report that doctor to the proper authority and that the authority will not allow the doctor to practice.
Our veterans deserve to know that the hospital staff and administration are actually looking after the patients welfare above the liability of the hospital.
Bob Shank and his family should have every expectation that he would recover from this very common surgery.
Somehow we have decided that it is acceptable to hold back detrimental information concerning a job applicants past performance so we don’t have to appear to be the ‘bad guy’ by telling the truth. This misguided act of ‘helping’ the job applicant gain employment elsewhere is malicious and mean-spirited towards the new employer. And, as witnessed in this case, can lead to jeopardizing the health and well-being of a great many people and can even lead to death.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Ann Coulter: backwater, red-neck, hick
Why is this woman ever given the spotlight or a micrphone or any forum where she can once again show the world what an ass she really is?
Is this bimbo for real? She cannot possibly believe in what she says!
Every time this woman speaks it becomes more and more apparent that her plans for this country is to be ‘purified’ of anyone who is not white, of anyone who is not Christian, and that women should be forced back into the kitchen, without the right to vote, and allowed to speak only when spoken to.
She must be a card carrying 19th century Ku Klux Klan member.
I cannot understand why any media outlet who wishes to remain legitimate and not be dismissed as a comedy show would allow her be a guest.
Her latest disgrace to every free thinking person on this planet is her belief that the U.S. would be better off if it were all-Christian and it “would be a lot easier" for Jews if they were to become Christians.
The show that lowered its standards by allowing this hate-mongering, ignorant, poor excuse for an American to become a guest is “The Big Idea” hosted by Donny Deutsch.
The producers of this obviously low-level televised interview program should be ashamed of themselves.
This woman has me struggling with the notion of the right to freedom of speech.
When I argued that Ahmadinejad had the right to speak at Columbia University last month, I truly believed it is because as a head of state he holds the dignity of that position and therefore deserves the right to be heard, whether we agree with him or not. And since he is not an American, we can let him go back to his repressive, ignorant regime where, thankfully, we don’t have to endure him.
This bimbo is no politician and I pray to God that she does not have a following, because that is just truly scary. She amounts to no more than an laughingstock of backward thinking to be made fun of and I can understand a television show using her for that ‘entertainment’ value.
She has the right to speak her mind, I just don’t understand why anyone would allow themselves to be lowered to her level by being seen in public conversing with her.
In case you have missed her list of narrow-minded inflammatory beliefs, here are a few: she believes that President Bill Clinton and Al Gore are “fags”, she believes that the 9/11 widows are enjoying their husbands’ deaths.
She needs to crawl back into her time machine and go back to the 19th century where she would obviously feel more comfortable under some mans thumb, ordering her slaves around and we would not be subjected to her hateful garbage.
Is this bimbo for real? She cannot possibly believe in what she says!
Every time this woman speaks it becomes more and more apparent that her plans for this country is to be ‘purified’ of anyone who is not white, of anyone who is not Christian, and that women should be forced back into the kitchen, without the right to vote, and allowed to speak only when spoken to.
She must be a card carrying 19th century Ku Klux Klan member.
I cannot understand why any media outlet who wishes to remain legitimate and not be dismissed as a comedy show would allow her be a guest.
Her latest disgrace to every free thinking person on this planet is her belief that the U.S. would be better off if it were all-Christian and it “would be a lot easier" for Jews if they were to become Christians.
The show that lowered its standards by allowing this hate-mongering, ignorant, poor excuse for an American to become a guest is “The Big Idea” hosted by Donny Deutsch.
The producers of this obviously low-level televised interview program should be ashamed of themselves.
This woman has me struggling with the notion of the right to freedom of speech.
When I argued that Ahmadinejad had the right to speak at Columbia University last month, I truly believed it is because as a head of state he holds the dignity of that position and therefore deserves the right to be heard, whether we agree with him or not. And since he is not an American, we can let him go back to his repressive, ignorant regime where, thankfully, we don’t have to endure him.
This bimbo is no politician and I pray to God that she does not have a following, because that is just truly scary. She amounts to no more than an laughingstock of backward thinking to be made fun of and I can understand a television show using her for that ‘entertainment’ value.
She has the right to speak her mind, I just don’t understand why anyone would allow themselves to be lowered to her level by being seen in public conversing with her.
In case you have missed her list of narrow-minded inflammatory beliefs, here are a few: she believes that President Bill Clinton and Al Gore are “fags”, she believes that the 9/11 widows are enjoying their husbands’ deaths.
She needs to crawl back into her time machine and go back to the 19th century where she would obviously feel more comfortable under some mans thumb, ordering her slaves around and we would not be subjected to her hateful garbage.
We are our own worst enemy
New Orleans. Thoughts of that town once brought forth visions of jazz clubs, Mardi Gras, Creole cooking, and laid back southern living. A very eclectic atmosphere of an unhurried lifestyle that could be found only in the Big Easy. It also reminded me of mean streets that lurked behind the party atmosphere of the French Quarter.
Since the destructive winds and flood waters that is Katrina’s legacy, we only see the mean streets part, along with the ugliness of opportunistic greed that humans bear onto one another.
Federal and state governments have put in place a network of aid organizations to assist any member of our society who has befallen the ravages of nature. Americans, out of the goodness of their hearts, freely volunteer their time, money and themselves to help cleanup after natures blind rampages.
After the initial shock of natures fury has worn off, after the volunteers have gone back to their own lives (as they must), after all of the glorious, self-indulgent political speeches are given about how we always come together in our countries moment of need, New Orleans sits with its piles of putrid rubbish, it’s broken down homes and ruined lives. After all of this, the promises have all slowly diminished into memories. This is when we see the true worth and the true value of our government agencies and the private enterprises designed to be the safety nets after such disasters. This is when humans fail each other.
The biggest offenders, in the private arena, are insurance companies. They sell you policies that promise to help you put your life back together after a disaster has struck. They say so in every advertisement they put in front of the public. But when a disaster strikes, their lawyers step in and cite all of the loopholes for reasons to not help you put your life back together. They argue, the wording was there in black and white when you signed the contract. Of course, they word it all so you easily get confused trying to decipher it, but, it is true, the wording was there when you signed it.
The second biggest offenders are contractors. Humans have come up with ingenious ways of screwing disaster victims out of their money. When a person is down and desperately needs help is the perfect time for these low-life thieves to come knocking. And they do by the thousands. They demand contracts be signed, they demand money up front, they drag their feet getting the work done, if they do it at all. Some do very shoddy work with substandard materials and the home owner is once again left with an even bigger mess when their work inevitably falls apart.
That government network of aid organizations looks good on paper. But they are managed by humans. Once again we get to see petty jealousy and graft at work. Money that is promised at the top is whittled down on its way to the people who really need it. Money is stolen by people pretending to be in need. When what is left of the money does finally get to the needy, bureaucrats tie it up at the local level by fighting over how to best spend it.
This is not a very glowing treatise of humanity. It sickens me that we put up this flowery show of how much we care, because deep down we know we are supposed to, and when an opportunity presents itself to ‘misdirect’ the money or back out of the promise, we jump on it. We go through the motions of showing we care by setting up legal avenues of funneling financial help to where it is needed. But somewhere along the way we have begun to put ourselves ahead of all others. Suddenly, our humanity to our fellow man has taken a dreadful demoralizing downturn. We can justify our actions by rationalizing that we have been slighted in some way by our government and therefore, while there is a chance of not being caught, we take the money for ourselves. We begin buying into the rationalization that if someone is willing to trust me with their money then that is their fault, I’m going to take as much as I can because I deserve it.
New Orleans is trying to rebuild itself. It is trying to rebuild itself into the image that all of us remember New Orleans to be. The saying that comes to mind is ‘You can never go back’. That old, residential New Orleans is a memory, one that needs to be updated. The downtown New Orleans, the French Quarter was not damaged as badly and can be rebuilt.
The blueprint being released Friday by city Recovery Director Ed Blakely is not as grand as the plan that was issued in March. Our grandiose plans seldom ever work out once they meet the reality of expense. Under this new, downsized plan, work would begin in the next few years on green space, health clinics, community centers, housing and libraries. Shopping centers would be redeveloped and streetscapes and storefronts spruced up. Even this more modest plan requires a very large outlay of money. Money that was promised by the federal government. Money that should actually be given to New Orleans, since it was promised, and not used to line the pockets of every politician that gets near it. Money that should be wisely spent. Money that we all know will end up paying unscrupulous contractors outrageous fees.
Lets try to show the world that community pride truly does exist. Try to prove to people like me that you can work towards the grand goal of putting New Orleans back together without further ripping off the unfortunate victims of this natural disaster. Don’t follow in the footsteps of the insurance companies and the politicians.
Since the destructive winds and flood waters that is Katrina’s legacy, we only see the mean streets part, along with the ugliness of opportunistic greed that humans bear onto one another.
Federal and state governments have put in place a network of aid organizations to assist any member of our society who has befallen the ravages of nature. Americans, out of the goodness of their hearts, freely volunteer their time, money and themselves to help cleanup after natures blind rampages.
After the initial shock of natures fury has worn off, after the volunteers have gone back to their own lives (as they must), after all of the glorious, self-indulgent political speeches are given about how we always come together in our countries moment of need, New Orleans sits with its piles of putrid rubbish, it’s broken down homes and ruined lives. After all of this, the promises have all slowly diminished into memories. This is when we see the true worth and the true value of our government agencies and the private enterprises designed to be the safety nets after such disasters. This is when humans fail each other.
The biggest offenders, in the private arena, are insurance companies. They sell you policies that promise to help you put your life back together after a disaster has struck. They say so in every advertisement they put in front of the public. But when a disaster strikes, their lawyers step in and cite all of the loopholes for reasons to not help you put your life back together. They argue, the wording was there in black and white when you signed the contract. Of course, they word it all so you easily get confused trying to decipher it, but, it is true, the wording was there when you signed it.
The second biggest offenders are contractors. Humans have come up with ingenious ways of screwing disaster victims out of their money. When a person is down and desperately needs help is the perfect time for these low-life thieves to come knocking. And they do by the thousands. They demand contracts be signed, they demand money up front, they drag their feet getting the work done, if they do it at all. Some do very shoddy work with substandard materials and the home owner is once again left with an even bigger mess when their work inevitably falls apart.
That government network of aid organizations looks good on paper. But they are managed by humans. Once again we get to see petty jealousy and graft at work. Money that is promised at the top is whittled down on its way to the people who really need it. Money is stolen by people pretending to be in need. When what is left of the money does finally get to the needy, bureaucrats tie it up at the local level by fighting over how to best spend it.
This is not a very glowing treatise of humanity. It sickens me that we put up this flowery show of how much we care, because deep down we know we are supposed to, and when an opportunity presents itself to ‘misdirect’ the money or back out of the promise, we jump on it. We go through the motions of showing we care by setting up legal avenues of funneling financial help to where it is needed. But somewhere along the way we have begun to put ourselves ahead of all others. Suddenly, our humanity to our fellow man has taken a dreadful demoralizing downturn. We can justify our actions by rationalizing that we have been slighted in some way by our government and therefore, while there is a chance of not being caught, we take the money for ourselves. We begin buying into the rationalization that if someone is willing to trust me with their money then that is their fault, I’m going to take as much as I can because I deserve it.
New Orleans is trying to rebuild itself. It is trying to rebuild itself into the image that all of us remember New Orleans to be. The saying that comes to mind is ‘You can never go back’. That old, residential New Orleans is a memory, one that needs to be updated. The downtown New Orleans, the French Quarter was not damaged as badly and can be rebuilt.
The blueprint being released Friday by city Recovery Director Ed Blakely is not as grand as the plan that was issued in March. Our grandiose plans seldom ever work out once they meet the reality of expense. Under this new, downsized plan, work would begin in the next few years on green space, health clinics, community centers, housing and libraries. Shopping centers would be redeveloped and streetscapes and storefronts spruced up. Even this more modest plan requires a very large outlay of money. Money that was promised by the federal government. Money that should actually be given to New Orleans, since it was promised, and not used to line the pockets of every politician that gets near it. Money that should be wisely spent. Money that we all know will end up paying unscrupulous contractors outrageous fees.
Lets try to show the world that community pride truly does exist. Try to prove to people like me that you can work towards the grand goal of putting New Orleans back together without further ripping off the unfortunate victims of this natural disaster. Don’t follow in the footsteps of the insurance companies and the politicians.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Who benefits from car crash tests?
Crash tests are not real world tests. They are geared toward the automobile industry. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a private organization funded by auto insurers, determines how a vehicle will withstand a crash in respect to how it will protect the passengers of the vehicle.
Sounds like a noble organization who keeps the buying public’s best interest at heart, doesn’t it? But are we really being given the whole truth?
I’m not saying that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety fudges test results for the benefit of auto makers. Insurance companies use the results of these tests in determining how to insure these vehicles.
My biggest problem with these tests is they are not ‘real world’ enough to be of any real use to the average everyday driver.
Front end tests crashes are not full frontal, they are ‘offset impacts’, meaning the vehicle strikes a barrier with just one side of its front end. What is the result of a full frontal crash? Why not tell us those results? The test is performed at 40 mph. Why not 55 mph or the more realistic 65-75 mph (and higher) that people actually drive regardless of the posted speed limit of 55 or 65?
Side crashes are done at a slower speed of 31 mph. Why not 35-45 mph which is more realistic? Because, again, people travel at these speeds despite the posted 25-40 mph speed limit.
Rear end tests are performed at an even more ridiculously lower speed of 20 mph. Why not the 35-45 mph which is more realistic? Because, again, people travel at these speeds despite the posted 25-40 mph speed limit.
How about the results of a full front end into the rear of another vehicle at 40-55 mph? How would either vehicle fair from that crash?
The reason they don’t perform these test at ‘real world’ speeds under ‘real world’ conditions is because that would do far more damage to the vehicle than the public wants to see and would cut into vehicle sales.
Another problem I have with these tests is how the auto makers spin the results to sell their vehicles.
The auto industry gets to choose whichever result favors their vehicle and that is the result the public sees.
Chrysler said the government gave them 5-star ratings across the board even after the institute gave them less than five. A clear case of Chrysler lying to sell its product.
Who do we trust? The car makers only want to sell their vehicles so they don’t want the public to see all of the results. The only reason vehicles have airbags and other safety features is because auto makers are forced to build their vehicles this way by the government.
The auto industry takes these figures and spins them to their benefit and the consumer is not being informed as to the true results. The auto industry figures it is not their responsibility to inform the public of anything except how sleek their new vehicle looks, or how much fun you can have if you drive their vehicle, or how fast it will go (Why does it have to go fast??). Safety rarely gets mentioned unless it is to brag how their vehicle stood up against a competitor in a front end crash. They don’t tell you that that same vehicle failed miserably in side and rear crash tests or that the front end test was a low speed test and was not a full head-on crash.
After the test results are filtered through the automakers advertisers embellishing process, how accurate and helpful is this information?
If these test results were advertised as well as the automakers advertise their vehicles, we would be a much better informed public. Better informed as to which vehicle is truly safer and which automaker resorts to using half-truths to sell their product.
In light of this, Are we really being protected?
Presumably, these tests are to inform the consumer, but just who are these tests truly performed for?
These little white lies and concealed truths erode the integrity of sellers and destroys the trust consumers should feel when trying to decide who to give their hard earned dollars to when trying to determine which vehicle is the safest for their family. This commonly known truism is once again pushed aside in the pursuit of profit.
Sounds like a noble organization who keeps the buying public’s best interest at heart, doesn’t it? But are we really being given the whole truth?
I’m not saying that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety fudges test results for the benefit of auto makers. Insurance companies use the results of these tests in determining how to insure these vehicles.
My biggest problem with these tests is they are not ‘real world’ enough to be of any real use to the average everyday driver.
Front end tests crashes are not full frontal, they are ‘offset impacts’, meaning the vehicle strikes a barrier with just one side of its front end. What is the result of a full frontal crash? Why not tell us those results? The test is performed at 40 mph. Why not 55 mph or the more realistic 65-75 mph (and higher) that people actually drive regardless of the posted speed limit of 55 or 65?
Side crashes are done at a slower speed of 31 mph. Why not 35-45 mph which is more realistic? Because, again, people travel at these speeds despite the posted 25-40 mph speed limit.
Rear end tests are performed at an even more ridiculously lower speed of 20 mph. Why not the 35-45 mph which is more realistic? Because, again, people travel at these speeds despite the posted 25-40 mph speed limit.
How about the results of a full front end into the rear of another vehicle at 40-55 mph? How would either vehicle fair from that crash?
The reason they don’t perform these test at ‘real world’ speeds under ‘real world’ conditions is because that would do far more damage to the vehicle than the public wants to see and would cut into vehicle sales.
Another problem I have with these tests is how the auto makers spin the results to sell their vehicles.
The auto industry gets to choose whichever result favors their vehicle and that is the result the public sees.
Chrysler said the government gave them 5-star ratings across the board even after the institute gave them less than five. A clear case of Chrysler lying to sell its product.
Who do we trust? The car makers only want to sell their vehicles so they don’t want the public to see all of the results. The only reason vehicles have airbags and other safety features is because auto makers are forced to build their vehicles this way by the government.
The auto industry takes these figures and spins them to their benefit and the consumer is not being informed as to the true results. The auto industry figures it is not their responsibility to inform the public of anything except how sleek their new vehicle looks, or how much fun you can have if you drive their vehicle, or how fast it will go (Why does it have to go fast??). Safety rarely gets mentioned unless it is to brag how their vehicle stood up against a competitor in a front end crash. They don’t tell you that that same vehicle failed miserably in side and rear crash tests or that the front end test was a low speed test and was not a full head-on crash.
After the test results are filtered through the automakers advertisers embellishing process, how accurate and helpful is this information?
If these test results were advertised as well as the automakers advertise their vehicles, we would be a much better informed public. Better informed as to which vehicle is truly safer and which automaker resorts to using half-truths to sell their product.
In light of this, Are we really being protected?
Presumably, these tests are to inform the consumer, but just who are these tests truly performed for?
These little white lies and concealed truths erode the integrity of sellers and destroys the trust consumers should feel when trying to decide who to give their hard earned dollars to when trying to determine which vehicle is the safest for their family. This commonly known truism is once again pushed aside in the pursuit of profit.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
New oceanfront property
One of the worst effects of global warming is nearer than we think. The world’s coastlines are going to change in as little as a few years. We have been hearing this cry for so long that most of us have become numb to the warnings. We think this change will happen so far in the future, certainly not in our lifetimes, that we don’t need to take the warnings seriously. Chicken Little ran around crying ‘the sky is falling’ and no one believed. Scientists have been telling us that global warming is real and no one believes.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published predictions this year that sea level rise will drastically alter coastlines around the world. Their predictions, based on data that was two years old, said the sea rise could total 20 to 60 centimeters, and we want to believe it won’t happen in our lifetimes. This estimate has turned out to be conservative. The Bush administration dismisses scientific conclusions as the stuff of science fiction stories and ‘blue-sky’ voodoo. This way he doesn’t have to deal with it. These scientists know their stuff. They are not given to exaggeration and hysteria. The rest of us cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand any longer.
On a recent visit to the Greenland ice cap in September of this year, scientists were shocked to learn that ice is melting at a far faster rate than previously thought. It seems that what we have been told, that it would take centuries of ice melt to change the worlds coastlines, needs to be adjusted to taking only decades or years.
If you have ever witnessed a large sheet of ice melting in the sun, either on a lake or in your backyard, you undoubtedly have noticed that it doesn’t just melt around the edges. Holes also form across the surface of the ice that allows melted water to flow down through the ice to the ground below. As enough water flows down those holes and underneath the ice sheet it acts as a lubricant to allow the ice sheet to move. The Greenland ice sheet has already developed thousands of these holes and it is moving. With an ice sheet that large you can imagine that the amount of water flowing down those holes have become very large waterfalls. Several are as big as Niagara Falls.
The front of this glacier is five kilometers long and 1,500 meters deep. Robert Correll, chairman of the Artic Climate Impact Assessment, tries to put it into perspective this way, “That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one day to provide drinking water for a city the size of New York or London for a year." And this glacier is currently moving at three times the rate it did 10 years ago. This is very significant indeed.
As the glacier moves, chunks of ice, the size of small mountains, are breaking off and causing small earthquakes and creating waves that can sink small ships if they happen to wander too close.
Add the melting effects of this one glacier to all the other glaciers around the world such as Antarctic, the glaciers of Alaska, the Rockies, the Himalayas, or the ocean water itself expanding as it warms, and the magnitude should become clear. Hurricane surges, as we saw during Katrina, will be even more devastating as flood waters will reach even further inland. Whole cities and towns could be wiped from the face of the earth.
Bush can be decisive in using the military to take Iraq for his profit but he can’t use military might to stop climate change, therefore he is totally lost as to what to do. Too bad none of his cronies are scientists, then, maybe, he would believe them. Too bad there is no profit to be made for him to take global warming seriously, then we would stand a better chance at seeing some action taken to stop or slow down global warning.
All he has done so far is spout rhetoric in front of 16 of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in Washington last month about how, along with terrorism, climate change is the biggest threat to the earth. But when it comes down to demanding something be done about it, he would rather put it off onto the next president by suggesting voluntary cuts in emissions. Since when does any corporation or nation do anything voluntary that will cost them money even if it is to help save our species?
America is the biggest user of fossil fuel in the world and creates more greenhouse gas emissions than anyone else. Therefore, we need to lead the way in curbing these emissions. Bush will not demand anything be done, because implementing the necessary policies to force his cronies corporations to clean up their act would damage his political party’s standings. Again, it would not be profitable enough for him to do anything, even if it means the very survival of our species.
Science tells us we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% if we are to stave off catastrophic climate change, Bush doesn’t understand science and so he chooses not to give it any importance. This way, by his narrow, feeble minded thinking, if it isn’t real it can’t hurt him.
He puts more faith in creationism than in science and his narrow view-point is once again endangering us all. He cannot hide from facts behind his faith. This threat of dramatic sea level rise is as real as he is blind to it.
So all of you who are living on the coastlines better trade in your homes for what will certainly become the new oceanfront property.
To learn more about climate change click here.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published predictions this year that sea level rise will drastically alter coastlines around the world. Their predictions, based on data that was two years old, said the sea rise could total 20 to 60 centimeters, and we want to believe it won’t happen in our lifetimes. This estimate has turned out to be conservative. The Bush administration dismisses scientific conclusions as the stuff of science fiction stories and ‘blue-sky’ voodoo. This way he doesn’t have to deal with it. These scientists know their stuff. They are not given to exaggeration and hysteria. The rest of us cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand any longer.
On a recent visit to the Greenland ice cap in September of this year, scientists were shocked to learn that ice is melting at a far faster rate than previously thought. It seems that what we have been told, that it would take centuries of ice melt to change the worlds coastlines, needs to be adjusted to taking only decades or years.
If you have ever witnessed a large sheet of ice melting in the sun, either on a lake or in your backyard, you undoubtedly have noticed that it doesn’t just melt around the edges. Holes also form across the surface of the ice that allows melted water to flow down through the ice to the ground below. As enough water flows down those holes and underneath the ice sheet it acts as a lubricant to allow the ice sheet to move. The Greenland ice sheet has already developed thousands of these holes and it is moving. With an ice sheet that large you can imagine that the amount of water flowing down those holes have become very large waterfalls. Several are as big as Niagara Falls.
The front of this glacier is five kilometers long and 1,500 meters deep. Robert Correll, chairman of the Artic Climate Impact Assessment, tries to put it into perspective this way, “That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one day to provide drinking water for a city the size of New York or London for a year." And this glacier is currently moving at three times the rate it did 10 years ago. This is very significant indeed.
As the glacier moves, chunks of ice, the size of small mountains, are breaking off and causing small earthquakes and creating waves that can sink small ships if they happen to wander too close.
Add the melting effects of this one glacier to all the other glaciers around the world such as Antarctic, the glaciers of Alaska, the Rockies, the Himalayas, or the ocean water itself expanding as it warms, and the magnitude should become clear. Hurricane surges, as we saw during Katrina, will be even more devastating as flood waters will reach even further inland. Whole cities and towns could be wiped from the face of the earth.
Bush can be decisive in using the military to take Iraq for his profit but he can’t use military might to stop climate change, therefore he is totally lost as to what to do. Too bad none of his cronies are scientists, then, maybe, he would believe them. Too bad there is no profit to be made for him to take global warming seriously, then we would stand a better chance at seeing some action taken to stop or slow down global warning.
All he has done so far is spout rhetoric in front of 16 of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in Washington last month about how, along with terrorism, climate change is the biggest threat to the earth. But when it comes down to demanding something be done about it, he would rather put it off onto the next president by suggesting voluntary cuts in emissions. Since when does any corporation or nation do anything voluntary that will cost them money even if it is to help save our species?
America is the biggest user of fossil fuel in the world and creates more greenhouse gas emissions than anyone else. Therefore, we need to lead the way in curbing these emissions. Bush will not demand anything be done, because implementing the necessary policies to force his cronies corporations to clean up their act would damage his political party’s standings. Again, it would not be profitable enough for him to do anything, even if it means the very survival of our species.
Science tells us we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% if we are to stave off catastrophic climate change, Bush doesn’t understand science and so he chooses not to give it any importance. This way, by his narrow, feeble minded thinking, if it isn’t real it can’t hurt him.
He puts more faith in creationism than in science and his narrow view-point is once again endangering us all. He cannot hide from facts behind his faith. This threat of dramatic sea level rise is as real as he is blind to it.
So all of you who are living on the coastlines better trade in your homes for what will certainly become the new oceanfront property.
To learn more about climate change click here.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Let the cops chase real criminals
Why are we continuing to arrest people for marijuana use?
FBI stats, just released in September 2007, show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006. Up by 43,000 from 2005.
The number of arrests for simple possession totaled 738,916. This is about 90% of all marijuana arrests and does not include trafficking, just possession.
By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.
This amounts to a lot of manpower and expense thrown at taking a natural herb off the streets that has never been shown to cause violent behavior in anyone. In fact, scientific studies have shown, long ago, that, compared to alcohol, marijuana is much safer. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive with only 9% becoming addicted as opposed to 15% for alcohol users. Marijuana use has never been shown to cause any permanent harm to the body whereas, it is well documented, alcohol damages the brain and liver to the point that it leads to death. Alcohol, also well documented, incites violence and aggression, marijuana does not.
Cops love to keep marijuana illegal because it keeps their arrest numbers up which ‘proves’ to our community that their services are needed. Also, marijuana users are more docile than alcoholics and therefore are easier to arrest, with less chance of fighting back. Whereas, violent criminals tend to endanger them and the citizenry by using weapons to prevent being arrested.
Where cops are really needed is on our roadways where their heightened presence is more likely to catch drunk drivers that tend to kill us. Their presence would help decrease the number of speeders who are more likely to lose control of their vehicles and kill us. Their presence is needed to prevent careless and reckless drivers from killing us. Their presence is needed to help prevent road rage that can kill us.
There has never been one documented case in which a marijuana user has caused the death of anyone.
Does this show that the priorities of law enforcement officers are misplaced? You bet it does.
With these arrest figures carried out to daily arrests, this means that every 38 seconds of every day a marijuana user is arrested.
Since most people don’t really take anything seriously until it affects their finances, let’s look at some numbers. It is estimated, by people who spend a lot of their time examining such mundane things, that if marijuana was a taxable commodity, the U.S. government could conceivably collect $31 billion from the estimated $113 billion annual marijuana business. Wow! How much healthcare could that figure cover?
The extra time that cops would have on their hands for not arresting these non-violent people could now be focused on catching the actual violent offenders who are still on their most wanted lists.
Taxes collected on marijuana sales could help fund cancer research since they are damaging their lungs through inhaling smoke. Because let’s face it, tobacco smoke has already been proven to cause death from lung cancer, why would you think marijuana smoke is any different. Personally, I think it is foolish for anyone to put such carcinogenic substances into your body. Everyone would condemn anyone who purposefully did this to another human being and call it torture and cruel and unusual punishment (true, it would take a long time to work and you would be happy along the way, but it still will kill you). But hey, it’s your body.
In case you are too high to pick up on it, I don’t think marijuana is a ‘crime’ that warrants this much time, effort and money pursuing. I think cops should spend their time on more worthwhile endeavors. I certainly do not think that marijuana users should be labeled as ‘hardened criminals’. And I don’t fall in step with our drug czar in the all too common belief, shared with other non-drug users, that smoking marijuana leads to harder drug use. This is just urban legend. True there are some smokers that will occasionally experiment with harder drugs but it is by no means the next ‘logical’ inevitable step. The number of those that do is no higher than for those who never smoked pot and went straight for the harder stuff.
I think marijuana users, and alcohol users, are wasting a lot of money that could be better spent on things like a savings plan for the future, either theirs or for their kids. That money could be better spent to improve your living conditions.
It has been proven through studies, and I am sure you have seen this yourselves, that smoking marijuana causes stupidity. If you smoke pot and are one of the lucky few to still have a job, don’t jeopardize it. Too many of you are smoking at work or getting stoned on your way to work. This is just stupid. One, because just having marijuana is still illegal, two, you could get fired if caught with it (let’s face it, if you are stoned at work, you cannot hide it for very long) and most importantly, your job performance suffers and you could cause injury to your self or someone else, depending on what you do for a living. Come on people, keep it strictly recreational if you are going to insist on continuing to use it.
If marijuana was legalized, following in the steps of alcohol legalization in the 1930’s, then there would not be any profit for gangs and other criminals to fund their other criminal, and more violent, enterprises. This is just a no-brainer. By leaving any involvement with marijuana illegal, the legal system has created, and is maintaining, a criminal underground that is more dangerous to this society only because it’s use is illegal. If you want to argue that marijuana impairs your driving and therefore that makes it a danger to society then I have to agree with you. But so is alcohol. And since they are both detrimental to safe drivers everywhere why is one illegal and the other not?
Also, our jails would not be so crowded, because, believe it or not, a large population of inmates, 44% in 2006 according to the FBI, are incarcerated for marijuana offenses. Arguably the least criminal characters in jail today. Is it really necessary to build more prisons to house these non-violent offenders?
America’s prison population totaled 2.1 million inmates as of mid-year 2006, according to Department of Justice Statistics.
The overwhelming majority of drug arrests are for possession of marijuana, and most persons in prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity.
Virtually all of these prisons are horrifically overcrowded. State prisons were operating at 99 to 113 percent of capacity, and the federal prison system was operating at 134 percent of capacity. This compounds the dangers and brutality of prison life. Inmates are exposed to physical and sexual assault, and put at risk for diseases such as HIV/AIDS or developing mental illness.
It does not take a excessive amount of brain power to figure out that by removing these non-violent ‘offenders’ from the equation, we could solve the over-crowding issue and not be faced with raising taxes to pay for more, even larger prisons.
FBI stats, just released in September 2007, show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006. Up by 43,000 from 2005.
The number of arrests for simple possession totaled 738,916. This is about 90% of all marijuana arrests and does not include trafficking, just possession.
By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.
This amounts to a lot of manpower and expense thrown at taking a natural herb off the streets that has never been shown to cause violent behavior in anyone. In fact, scientific studies have shown, long ago, that, compared to alcohol, marijuana is much safer. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive with only 9% becoming addicted as opposed to 15% for alcohol users. Marijuana use has never been shown to cause any permanent harm to the body whereas, it is well documented, alcohol damages the brain and liver to the point that it leads to death. Alcohol, also well documented, incites violence and aggression, marijuana does not.
Cops love to keep marijuana illegal because it keeps their arrest numbers up which ‘proves’ to our community that their services are needed. Also, marijuana users are more docile than alcoholics and therefore are easier to arrest, with less chance of fighting back. Whereas, violent criminals tend to endanger them and the citizenry by using weapons to prevent being arrested.
Where cops are really needed is on our roadways where their heightened presence is more likely to catch drunk drivers that tend to kill us. Their presence would help decrease the number of speeders who are more likely to lose control of their vehicles and kill us. Their presence is needed to prevent careless and reckless drivers from killing us. Their presence is needed to help prevent road rage that can kill us.
There has never been one documented case in which a marijuana user has caused the death of anyone.
Does this show that the priorities of law enforcement officers are misplaced? You bet it does.
With these arrest figures carried out to daily arrests, this means that every 38 seconds of every day a marijuana user is arrested.
Since most people don’t really take anything seriously until it affects their finances, let’s look at some numbers. It is estimated, by people who spend a lot of their time examining such mundane things, that if marijuana was a taxable commodity, the U.S. government could conceivably collect $31 billion from the estimated $113 billion annual marijuana business. Wow! How much healthcare could that figure cover?
The extra time that cops would have on their hands for not arresting these non-violent people could now be focused on catching the actual violent offenders who are still on their most wanted lists.
Taxes collected on marijuana sales could help fund cancer research since they are damaging their lungs through inhaling smoke. Because let’s face it, tobacco smoke has already been proven to cause death from lung cancer, why would you think marijuana smoke is any different. Personally, I think it is foolish for anyone to put such carcinogenic substances into your body. Everyone would condemn anyone who purposefully did this to another human being and call it torture and cruel and unusual punishment (true, it would take a long time to work and you would be happy along the way, but it still will kill you). But hey, it’s your body.
In case you are too high to pick up on it, I don’t think marijuana is a ‘crime’ that warrants this much time, effort and money pursuing. I think cops should spend their time on more worthwhile endeavors. I certainly do not think that marijuana users should be labeled as ‘hardened criminals’. And I don’t fall in step with our drug czar in the all too common belief, shared with other non-drug users, that smoking marijuana leads to harder drug use. This is just urban legend. True there are some smokers that will occasionally experiment with harder drugs but it is by no means the next ‘logical’ inevitable step. The number of those that do is no higher than for those who never smoked pot and went straight for the harder stuff.
I think marijuana users, and alcohol users, are wasting a lot of money that could be better spent on things like a savings plan for the future, either theirs or for their kids. That money could be better spent to improve your living conditions.
It has been proven through studies, and I am sure you have seen this yourselves, that smoking marijuana causes stupidity. If you smoke pot and are one of the lucky few to still have a job, don’t jeopardize it. Too many of you are smoking at work or getting stoned on your way to work. This is just stupid. One, because just having marijuana is still illegal, two, you could get fired if caught with it (let’s face it, if you are stoned at work, you cannot hide it for very long) and most importantly, your job performance suffers and you could cause injury to your self or someone else, depending on what you do for a living. Come on people, keep it strictly recreational if you are going to insist on continuing to use it.
If marijuana was legalized, following in the steps of alcohol legalization in the 1930’s, then there would not be any profit for gangs and other criminals to fund their other criminal, and more violent, enterprises. This is just a no-brainer. By leaving any involvement with marijuana illegal, the legal system has created, and is maintaining, a criminal underground that is more dangerous to this society only because it’s use is illegal. If you want to argue that marijuana impairs your driving and therefore that makes it a danger to society then I have to agree with you. But so is alcohol. And since they are both detrimental to safe drivers everywhere why is one illegal and the other not?
Also, our jails would not be so crowded, because, believe it or not, a large population of inmates, 44% in 2006 according to the FBI, are incarcerated for marijuana offenses. Arguably the least criminal characters in jail today. Is it really necessary to build more prisons to house these non-violent offenders?
America’s prison population totaled 2.1 million inmates as of mid-year 2006, according to Department of Justice Statistics.
The overwhelming majority of drug arrests are for possession of marijuana, and most persons in prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity.
Virtually all of these prisons are horrifically overcrowded. State prisons were operating at 99 to 113 percent of capacity, and the federal prison system was operating at 134 percent of capacity. This compounds the dangers and brutality of prison life. Inmates are exposed to physical and sexual assault, and put at risk for diseases such as HIV/AIDS or developing mental illness.
It does not take a excessive amount of brain power to figure out that by removing these non-violent ‘offenders’ from the equation, we could solve the over-crowding issue and not be faced with raising taxes to pay for more, even larger prisons.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Blackwater, the White House’s Corporate Army
Disband the armed thugs before Bush/Cheney get any more out of control. These two shameless, brazen, war-profiteers need to be neutered and have their powers taken away from them before their power hungry, blind-ambition for more corporate profits mires us in a war with Iran. They have already created a ‘military’ force that outnumbers the U.S. military by nearly 20,000 that has proven itself to be out of control.
Mercenaries are paid to do one thing, to enforce the will of whoever owns their contract. Blackwater is paid to do the bidding of the Bush/Cheney White House. They are not bound by our constitution, they do not fight to uphold our constitution. They are freelance killers. They do not feel the need to answer to the American public or American policies. By design, they are not governed by the same rules that a governments military is.
The White House has decided that since they cannot get the necessary approval to further their financial interests as they want in Iraq then they will circumvent Congress and hire their own corporate army. They are using U.S. tax dollars to buy the allegiance of these hired guns.
This administration has committed enough illegal and reprehensible acts, from making up lies in order to force our military to do pre-emptive strikes against sovereign nations to hiring a private militia to keep the citizenry of that nation in check and protect their own financial interests.
While their cronies are stuffing their bank accounts in the name of spreading democracy our young men and women are giving their lives, and the survivors are given substandard medical care, insufficient compensation, and worthless medals for their patriotism.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do not give one good damn about the number of military personnel it takes to keep their business interests in the black and they prove it by demanding more and more of our tax dollars to fund their latest corporate venture. They fire commanding generals until they find one who will step in line with their views to be used as a mouthpiece to tell the world that we cannot stop now or all will be lost.
What would be lost is this administration’s reason for being in Iraq. That is, to set up military bases to protect the oil and gas shipping lanes to the U.S. Any country that threatens that flow, such as Iran, is seen as a threat to their profits. This is where Bush/Cheney focus their attention. If the Iranian threat was lessened or, even better, in their view, eliminated, then Bush/Cheney and their cronies would almost certainly be guaranteed access, for years to come, to the wealth that these natural resources provide. Don’t think for a minute they would attack Iran to protect our troops. They will do it to protect their interests.
If they could get the American people behind an attack on Iran, then Bush/Cheney and their cohorts could have military bases on both sides of the Persian Gulf virtually guaranteeing and uninterruptible flow of their profits.
I have never heard of any corporation yet who will willingly give up a lucrative contract. Iraq has become more lucrative than even Bush/Cheney imagined. Now that the prospect of having protection from both sides of the Persian Gulf is within reach, well, their greed just simply will not allow them to back off now. If they have to fabricate a story about Iran supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents, then they will do so.
The overwhelming majority of this country wants us out of Iraq, we want us out of Afghanistan, we do not want to go to war with Iran, but Bush/Cheney has already proven they care very little what the American people want. This Congress, this group of spineless, manipulating, self-serving, cowards that we have empowered to be our voices to represent our will either refuse to do anything about it or are simply ineffective to do anything.
I do not understand the sway that this bumbling, amateur politician from Texas and this shifty, distrustful, trigger happy, corporate tyrant have over Congress.
George W. Bush’s approval rating is at an all time low at 31% as of today. Even members of his own party are breaking away from him. Yet he is still in office. What the hell does it take for him to get kicked out? President Clinton was impeached for a blow job! President Bush started an illegal war based on lies costing untold suffering and damages in deaths, injuries, and property not to mention the damage he has caused in foreign relations and he stays in! It is unfathomable how much and what the public will accept from its leaders. I hope all of you realize this is settings precedents for future administrations. Each new low that is tolerated becomes acceptable practice.
This is why this country’s morals and ethics have diminished into the low state it is currently in, because the population will not rise up and kick his ass out. We get the government we deserve by not voting, by not standing up for what we want. There are so many people out there who currently thinks that their vote doesn’t count that if they all did, by some miracle, get out and vote they would become the new majority. But you have to pay attention to what these candidates are saying, to what they have done in the past. Do your homework. It is your future too. This has become ‘the government of the few over the many’ because we have let it be.
We the people have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by elected officials who kowtow to the whims of an arrogant sociopath who surrounds himself with unethical lackeys who obediently change laws to further his blind ambitions.
We the people allow ourselves to become victims by not voicing our opinions at the voting booths.
I am from the small towns and countryside of America, I have no vested interest in political office and therefore am not blinded or muzzled in order to tow-the-party-line. I am much less suspect of the word of my working class peers in Iraq, and other countries, than I am of the ruling class. These people live the truth. They survive through their own cunning, despite the greed and lust for power of an endless stream of rulers who claim they are protecting them while stuffing their own pockets with the profits of the working peoples sweat and blood. Only when their voices are not filtered through our mass media can we see the everyday truth of what our leaders have brought down onto them.
Our mainstream media outlets are doing the American people a grave disservice for not exposing the Bush/Cheney White House for what it is and for sucking up to them just because of the office they hold. The media is allowing Bush/Cheney to perpetuate their lies by covering up, candy-coating or burying stories that are detrimental to the war or White House policy.
Any reporter who stands up to speak the truth while in employ of the main stream is banished to some small market where their voice cannot be heard and cannot, therefore, do damage to our leaders reputation, even though the leaders reputation is so ruined, as evidenced by popularity polls, as to have no honor.
Iraq’s citizenry is not any better off under the military rule we have imposed on them than they were under Saddam Hussein. It is just a different breed of madness through the use of hired goon squads. Because of their religious beliefs they are still fearful of stepping out of their homes, they are still fearful of walking the streets, there are whole sections of their city they cannot walk in or drive through without fear of being killed. They can only go to certain hospitals because of their religious practices (Sunni’s control some hospitals while Shiites control others).
How many more innocent citizens are going to be gunned down because they did not move quickly enough to satisfy a power hungry maniac with an automatic rifle? How many more U.S. soldiers are going to come home in body bags before we finally stand up against this administration and put a stop to this wanton misery? How much more resentment can the families of those same soldiers take?
Either hold the presidential election early or impeach and let the next in line take over in the interim. Nancy Pelosi cannot possibly do a worse job than these greedy liars. But I have been proven wrong before.
If we have to re-impose the draft until this madness is over then we should do so. This would be a much preferable arrangement than paying hired gunmen who answer only to the White House. While it is true the military can be called ‘hired guns’ they are under a much less cavalier set of guidelines on when and when not to fire upon the civilian population. I don’t believe we ever will invoke the draft because Bush/Cheney don’t want this war to end. It would cut into their profits.
With the current trend in outsourcing our responsibilities it is only a matter of time before our entire Department of Defense becomes outsourced to the highest bidder, all in the name of saving money. Hell, why not outsource the presidency? Then our government would not have to be accountable for anything and we can place the blame for wrongdoing on the board of directors.
Write your congressperson and senators to stop funding these mercenaries. A website has been setup to help you identify your congressperson and senator, by your zip code, and then forwards your comments to all of them with just one click is C-Span.org.
Mercenaries are paid to do one thing, to enforce the will of whoever owns their contract. Blackwater is paid to do the bidding of the Bush/Cheney White House. They are not bound by our constitution, they do not fight to uphold our constitution. They are freelance killers. They do not feel the need to answer to the American public or American policies. By design, they are not governed by the same rules that a governments military is.
The White House has decided that since they cannot get the necessary approval to further their financial interests as they want in Iraq then they will circumvent Congress and hire their own corporate army. They are using U.S. tax dollars to buy the allegiance of these hired guns.
This administration has committed enough illegal and reprehensible acts, from making up lies in order to force our military to do pre-emptive strikes against sovereign nations to hiring a private militia to keep the citizenry of that nation in check and protect their own financial interests.
While their cronies are stuffing their bank accounts in the name of spreading democracy our young men and women are giving their lives, and the survivors are given substandard medical care, insufficient compensation, and worthless medals for their patriotism.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do not give one good damn about the number of military personnel it takes to keep their business interests in the black and they prove it by demanding more and more of our tax dollars to fund their latest corporate venture. They fire commanding generals until they find one who will step in line with their views to be used as a mouthpiece to tell the world that we cannot stop now or all will be lost.
What would be lost is this administration’s reason for being in Iraq. That is, to set up military bases to protect the oil and gas shipping lanes to the U.S. Any country that threatens that flow, such as Iran, is seen as a threat to their profits. This is where Bush/Cheney focus their attention. If the Iranian threat was lessened or, even better, in their view, eliminated, then Bush/Cheney and their cronies would almost certainly be guaranteed access, for years to come, to the wealth that these natural resources provide. Don’t think for a minute they would attack Iran to protect our troops. They will do it to protect their interests.
If they could get the American people behind an attack on Iran, then Bush/Cheney and their cohorts could have military bases on both sides of the Persian Gulf virtually guaranteeing and uninterruptible flow of their profits.
I have never heard of any corporation yet who will willingly give up a lucrative contract. Iraq has become more lucrative than even Bush/Cheney imagined. Now that the prospect of having protection from both sides of the Persian Gulf is within reach, well, their greed just simply will not allow them to back off now. If they have to fabricate a story about Iran supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents, then they will do so.
The overwhelming majority of this country wants us out of Iraq, we want us out of Afghanistan, we do not want to go to war with Iran, but Bush/Cheney has already proven they care very little what the American people want. This Congress, this group of spineless, manipulating, self-serving, cowards that we have empowered to be our voices to represent our will either refuse to do anything about it or are simply ineffective to do anything.
I do not understand the sway that this bumbling, amateur politician from Texas and this shifty, distrustful, trigger happy, corporate tyrant have over Congress.
George W. Bush’s approval rating is at an all time low at 31% as of today. Even members of his own party are breaking away from him. Yet he is still in office. What the hell does it take for him to get kicked out? President Clinton was impeached for a blow job! President Bush started an illegal war based on lies costing untold suffering and damages in deaths, injuries, and property not to mention the damage he has caused in foreign relations and he stays in! It is unfathomable how much and what the public will accept from its leaders. I hope all of you realize this is settings precedents for future administrations. Each new low that is tolerated becomes acceptable practice.
This is why this country’s morals and ethics have diminished into the low state it is currently in, because the population will not rise up and kick his ass out. We get the government we deserve by not voting, by not standing up for what we want. There are so many people out there who currently thinks that their vote doesn’t count that if they all did, by some miracle, get out and vote they would become the new majority. But you have to pay attention to what these candidates are saying, to what they have done in the past. Do your homework. It is your future too. This has become ‘the government of the few over the many’ because we have let it be.
We the people have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by elected officials who kowtow to the whims of an arrogant sociopath who surrounds himself with unethical lackeys who obediently change laws to further his blind ambitions.
We the people allow ourselves to become victims by not voicing our opinions at the voting booths.
I am from the small towns and countryside of America, I have no vested interest in political office and therefore am not blinded or muzzled in order to tow-the-party-line. I am much less suspect of the word of my working class peers in Iraq, and other countries, than I am of the ruling class. These people live the truth. They survive through their own cunning, despite the greed and lust for power of an endless stream of rulers who claim they are protecting them while stuffing their own pockets with the profits of the working peoples sweat and blood. Only when their voices are not filtered through our mass media can we see the everyday truth of what our leaders have brought down onto them.
Our mainstream media outlets are doing the American people a grave disservice for not exposing the Bush/Cheney White House for what it is and for sucking up to them just because of the office they hold. The media is allowing Bush/Cheney to perpetuate their lies by covering up, candy-coating or burying stories that are detrimental to the war or White House policy.
Any reporter who stands up to speak the truth while in employ of the main stream is banished to some small market where their voice cannot be heard and cannot, therefore, do damage to our leaders reputation, even though the leaders reputation is so ruined, as evidenced by popularity polls, as to have no honor.
Iraq’s citizenry is not any better off under the military rule we have imposed on them than they were under Saddam Hussein. It is just a different breed of madness through the use of hired goon squads. Because of their religious beliefs they are still fearful of stepping out of their homes, they are still fearful of walking the streets, there are whole sections of their city they cannot walk in or drive through without fear of being killed. They can only go to certain hospitals because of their religious practices (Sunni’s control some hospitals while Shiites control others).
How many more innocent citizens are going to be gunned down because they did not move quickly enough to satisfy a power hungry maniac with an automatic rifle? How many more U.S. soldiers are going to come home in body bags before we finally stand up against this administration and put a stop to this wanton misery? How much more resentment can the families of those same soldiers take?
Either hold the presidential election early or impeach and let the next in line take over in the interim. Nancy Pelosi cannot possibly do a worse job than these greedy liars. But I have been proven wrong before.
If we have to re-impose the draft until this madness is over then we should do so. This would be a much preferable arrangement than paying hired gunmen who answer only to the White House. While it is true the military can be called ‘hired guns’ they are under a much less cavalier set of guidelines on when and when not to fire upon the civilian population. I don’t believe we ever will invoke the draft because Bush/Cheney don’t want this war to end. It would cut into their profits.
With the current trend in outsourcing our responsibilities it is only a matter of time before our entire Department of Defense becomes outsourced to the highest bidder, all in the name of saving money. Hell, why not outsource the presidency? Then our government would not have to be accountable for anything and we can place the blame for wrongdoing on the board of directors.
Write your congressperson and senators to stop funding these mercenaries. A website has been setup to help you identify your congressperson and senator, by your zip code, and then forwards your comments to all of them with just one click is C-Span.org.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
No double standard here
Drunken Blackwater guard who killed Iraqi is back in Iraq thanks to State Department.
Why not! Drunken drivers are allowed to drive our roadways everyday after being caught and given nothing more than a symbolic slap on the wrist.
This is just a simple case of naiveté in it’s purest form. Our ‘justice’ system believes that someone who is willing to go into public, drunk, with a deadly weapon, be it a rifle, a machine gun or a car, without any regard to the lives of innocent, unsuspecting citizens will not do it again just because the guilty person acts remorseful and says they won’t. This amounts to criminal enabling.
The fact that it has been proven many times over that these people have caused death, injury and untold millions of dollars in property damage, after saying they would not do it again, is not enough to get our law makers to put the safety of the rest of us first.
The fact that these people are willing to go back out into the public under the influence of a substance that has been proven to disrupt their thinking and common sense shows they cannot control themselves and therefore need to be more heavily monitored in order to keep the rest of us from paying for their diseased negligence.
Of course it is a disease. No one will argue that it is not. That doesn’t give them the right to be behind the steering wheel. It does not alleviate the responsibility of our justice system and lawmakers from doing more to keep these people off of the roads.
If money is the only thing lawmakers understand then look at the amount money spent every time an EMT and police officer is called to cleanup after these people. Add in the amount of money spent for hospital personnel to care for any survivors. Add in the amount of money spent by insurance companies to cover the cost of hospital stays, vehicle replacement costs, lost wages, etc. Look at the number of lives that are affected by this one persons irresponsible act of getting behind the wheel of an automobile while drunk.
Lawyers have work thrown their way, too, as a result of drunk drivers so maybe lawmakers are just looking after their ‘brothers’ welfare.
It is disgusting and unconscionable to repeatedly hear of a drunken driver killing another person after being arrested multiple times for drunk driving.
It is not unheard of to learn that people have been arrested 5, 6, 7, or even 10 times for drunk driving only to find them on the road again.
Yet our government, local, state and now federal, thinks its okay to subject law abiding citizens to these people’s behavior.
Why??? Why is this insanity allowed to continue?
We have MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), RADD (Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving), and even BADD (Boaters Against Drunk Driving) as well as BADD (Bikers Against Drunk Drivers) and the problem is not lessening.
So many groups against drunk drivers and yet there are still so many drunk drivers on the road. What is wrong with this picture?
Thanks to the efforts of these advocacy groups, as well as others, and the list is long, the penalties and consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs have gotten much stiffer.
Stiffer penalties is obviously not a good enough deterrent. It certainly is not keeping the ‘hard core’ drunk driver off the roads, the people who have been arrested multiple times and will continue to drink and drive until they themselves are killed.
It seems to me that death is the only thing that will stop these people because these groups are not effective enough by themselves.
These groups are not even deterring the first time drunk drivers. Those people who drink and then drive for the first time make it home without incident and are then foolishly emboldened to believe that they are not affected by alcohol become convinced that it must only be a problem for other people.
These groups are only convincing those of us who don’t drink and drive. We congratulate ourselves that we are doing something to stop drunk driving, usually in the name of a loved one who was killed by a drunk driver, and the problem continues with no end in sight.
So, now, it does not surprise me to hear that the federal government believes that a person who got drunk and killed someone with a government issued weapon is not a sign that this person is not responsible enough to have a weapon.
Apparently, no one really takes the problem of alcohol abuse seriously enough.
Why not! Drunken drivers are allowed to drive our roadways everyday after being caught and given nothing more than a symbolic slap on the wrist.
This is just a simple case of naiveté in it’s purest form. Our ‘justice’ system believes that someone who is willing to go into public, drunk, with a deadly weapon, be it a rifle, a machine gun or a car, without any regard to the lives of innocent, unsuspecting citizens will not do it again just because the guilty person acts remorseful and says they won’t. This amounts to criminal enabling.
The fact that it has been proven many times over that these people have caused death, injury and untold millions of dollars in property damage, after saying they would not do it again, is not enough to get our law makers to put the safety of the rest of us first.
The fact that these people are willing to go back out into the public under the influence of a substance that has been proven to disrupt their thinking and common sense shows they cannot control themselves and therefore need to be more heavily monitored in order to keep the rest of us from paying for their diseased negligence.
Of course it is a disease. No one will argue that it is not. That doesn’t give them the right to be behind the steering wheel. It does not alleviate the responsibility of our justice system and lawmakers from doing more to keep these people off of the roads.
If money is the only thing lawmakers understand then look at the amount money spent every time an EMT and police officer is called to cleanup after these people. Add in the amount of money spent for hospital personnel to care for any survivors. Add in the amount of money spent by insurance companies to cover the cost of hospital stays, vehicle replacement costs, lost wages, etc. Look at the number of lives that are affected by this one persons irresponsible act of getting behind the wheel of an automobile while drunk.
Lawyers have work thrown their way, too, as a result of drunk drivers so maybe lawmakers are just looking after their ‘brothers’ welfare.
It is disgusting and unconscionable to repeatedly hear of a drunken driver killing another person after being arrested multiple times for drunk driving.
It is not unheard of to learn that people have been arrested 5, 6, 7, or even 10 times for drunk driving only to find them on the road again.
Yet our government, local, state and now federal, thinks its okay to subject law abiding citizens to these people’s behavior.
Why??? Why is this insanity allowed to continue?
We have MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), RADD (Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving), and even BADD (Boaters Against Drunk Driving) as well as BADD (Bikers Against Drunk Drivers) and the problem is not lessening.
So many groups against drunk drivers and yet there are still so many drunk drivers on the road. What is wrong with this picture?
Thanks to the efforts of these advocacy groups, as well as others, and the list is long, the penalties and consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs have gotten much stiffer.
Stiffer penalties is obviously not a good enough deterrent. It certainly is not keeping the ‘hard core’ drunk driver off the roads, the people who have been arrested multiple times and will continue to drink and drive until they themselves are killed.
It seems to me that death is the only thing that will stop these people because these groups are not effective enough by themselves.
These groups are not even deterring the first time drunk drivers. Those people who drink and then drive for the first time make it home without incident and are then foolishly emboldened to believe that they are not affected by alcohol become convinced that it must only be a problem for other people.
These groups are only convincing those of us who don’t drink and drive. We congratulate ourselves that we are doing something to stop drunk driving, usually in the name of a loved one who was killed by a drunk driver, and the problem continues with no end in sight.
So, now, it does not surprise me to hear that the federal government believes that a person who got drunk and killed someone with a government issued weapon is not a sign that this person is not responsible enough to have a weapon.
Apparently, no one really takes the problem of alcohol abuse seriously enough.
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