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Ali Baba and the TSA

Ali Baba and the TSA :
TSA CLERK: What is your name?
TRAVELLER:Ron Smith.
TSA CLERK: Is Ron your first name?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: What is your last name?
TRAVELLER:Smith.
TSA CLERK: Have you been here before?
TRAVELLER:Yes, last week.
TSA CLERK: Have you ever used another name besides ‘Ron Smith’?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: We don’t have a Ron Smith going through here last week.
TRAVELLER:Maybe it’s under ‘Ronald Smith’.
TSA CLERK: I thought you never used another name besides ‘Ron Smith’.
TRAVELLER:Well, yes, but my full name is Ronald. Maybe they have it under Ronald instead of Ron.
TSA CLERK: Who is they?
TRAVELLER:They. Them. You. The lady that took my information last week when I was flying out of here.
TSA CLERK: Whoever took your information would only take the information you gave them. If you gave them Ronald they would type in Ronald. If you gave them Ron they would type in Ron. You just gave me Ron so I typed in Ron. If you gave them another name other than Ron I need to know what it is.
TRAVELLER:It might be under Ronald.
TSA CLERK: I’ll check Ronald. No, nothing under Ronald.
TRAVELLER:I don’t know what to say.
TSA CLERK: Do you have any identification on you?
TRAVELLER:I have these cards.
TSA CLERK: Anything with a photograph. Do you have something with your name on it and your photograph?
TRAVELLER:Yes, here is my driver’s license.
TSA CLERK: This says your name is Ronald. Is that you?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: I’ll have to change your name in the system then because I have you in as Ron. We’ll have to start again. This will just take a moment.
(Ten Minutes Pass)
TSA CLERK: Okay, so is this your picture?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is that you in the photo?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is this your name here? Ronald Smith?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Have you been through here before?
TRAVELLER:Yes, last week.
TSA CLERK: I can’t find you in here. Did you perhaps give them another name?
TRAVELLER:No. Ronald Smith or Ron Smith.
TSA CLERK: Which is it?
TRAVELLER:Ronald Smith.
TSA CLERK: Just like on the driver’s license?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Spelled the same way?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: I still can’t find you in here. Anyway, we’ll just start fresh. Do you have any carry on baggage?
TRAVELLER:No. It’s all been checked.
TSA CLERK: Would you like to check anything now?
TRAVELLER:No. I checked it already.
TSA CLERK: I still can’t find you in here from last week. Do you have another piece of identification with your picture on it?
TRAVELLER:Yes, here you go.
TSA CLERK: Is this your picture?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: Is this your name?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: This one says Ron Smith and the Driver’s License says, Ronald Smith. I’ll have to put in a variance for you.
(Five minutes pass)
TSA CLERK: You didn’t sign this card, sir.
TRAVELLER:Oh, I must have forgotten.
TSA CLERK: Please sign the card, sir.
TRAVELLER:Okay.
(Signs card)
TSA CLERK: Is this you, Ron Smith?
TRAVELLER:Yes.
TSA CLERK: You signed it Ronald Smith.
TRAVELLER:Oh, my, does that make a difference?
TSA CLERK: Well, not here, but someone might have a problem with that. They are sticklers for detail on the other end. I hope they let you off the plane.
TRAVELLER:I could resign it.
TSA CLERK: That wouldn’t be proper. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
TRAVELLER:I see.
TSA CLERK: Would you mind taking off your shoes?
TRAVELLER:Sure. Here you go.
TSA CLERK: Place them on the counter please.
TRAVELLER:Okay.
TSA CLERK: Did you buy these shoes here in the airport?
TRAVELLER:No. I bought them at the mall near my house.
TSA CLERK: Has anyone approached you and offered to give you money to wear shoes on this flight?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: Has anyone unknown to you asked you to wear shoes as a favor for them on this flight?
TRAVELLER:No.
TSA CLERK: Okay. We are just about done here. After you put your shoes on you can proceed over to the check-in screening booth and speak to Mr. Da'uud Mikha'iil Muusa standing over there next to Mrs. Faaima Ali Aa'isha for your final flight approval.

DDT and United Nations

Doctor Arata Kochi was the head of the World Health Organization to eradicate tuberculosis.
It is widely reported that erratic behavior and domineering influence caused many problems in the organization before he was forced out.
He is now in charge of the project to eradicate malaria in Africa and is insisting on using massive amounts of DDT to kill mosquitoes.
Some people say that because while he was there the number of TB cases fell is evidence that he did a good job.
They do not give any weight to the increased effectiveness of new drugs, the improved distribution network and education. These same supporters never acknowledge the increased involvement of those most at risk, improved infrastructures and general rise in lifestyle resulting in the drop in TB cases.
They also do not recognize the fact that as the organization he led broke up correct statistics were no longer kept.
On paper it looks like everything is going well but who can say because there doesn’t seem to be anyone keep accurate track of what happened or what is happening with TB.
In a terrifying move Doctor Arata Kochi has shown up as head of the Malaria project that is being sponsored by the World Health Organization.
He is forcefully advocating the increased use of DDT in third world countries. Even though other pesticides would be more appropriate to control the mosquito populations Doctor Arata Kochi is determined to use DDT.
DDT is a very dangerous chemical.
It will kill all insects and impact the entire food chain.
Fish, birds and animals will lose a major part of their diet.
People that need game to live will starve.
It causes cancer in humans.
It causes mothers to have premature births and to spontaneously abort babies.
It causes babies to be born with horrible birth defects. It is know as a mutagen. The word mutagen means ‘monster-maker’.
DDT is manufactured in India, Communist China and though it is not used in the United States it can be and is manufactured there for sale elsewhere. It is cheap to make and is a very profitable product.
India, Communist China and the United States are in favor of Doctor Arata Kochi’s idea regarding DDT. They support the World Health Organization in forcing the idea on poor nations to use DDT.
Malaria kills a great many people each year. A common number given is that 800,000 African children die from it each year.
Doctor Arata Kachi has been quoted as saying that he does not want to fail.
It seems he is willing to spray a chemical that kills insects, birds, animals and humans in order to fulfill his apparent destructive desire.
Many nations that are suffering from this scourge are also at war. They are using guns and ammunition that has been manufactured in Communist China, the United States, Russia and Europe. These wars are being fought over natural resources. The reason there is fighting over the natural resources is because Communist China, the United States, Russia and Europe are paying a lot of money to take the natural resources.
It has become impossible to hide the misery that these wars and this exploitation has caused.
There is a general hysteria to do something about it.
Stopping the sale of weapons from so-called rich nations to poor nations would alleviate much of the suffering. Paying honest prices for the natural resources that are being taken - like oil from Nigeria, gold from the Congo and other items - including fish and agricultural products - would also alleviate much of the suffering.
The local governments could then do more to ensure that the people are living in safe and clean environments.
Spraying DDT may bring short term relief but as was discovered in the United States and Italy it will bring long term misery.
The mosquitoes also will become resistant to the chemical.
They have already done so in many locations.
The mosquitoes that DDT is most effective against on an ongoing basis are not the ones that carry malaria. The ones that carry malaria in Sri Lanka have already obtained resistance. DDT is no longer used in Sri Lanka because the mosquitoes and other insects there have already mutated into forms that it will not effect.
DDT still attacks humans in Sri Lanka along with animals that live there - both domestic and wild.
Doctor Arata Kachi, from what I have read, acts in an erratic manner.
The United States has recently taken a stand against the United Nations and up to now has apparently resisted the activities of the World Health Organization. Now a man is in place who looks like he will destroy the reputation of the World Health Organization completely and possibly pollute large swaths of the earth.
The short term economic gain provided by spraying for DDT will cause a massive number of birth defects.
It is possible to eradicate mosquitoes using other chemicals.
The World Health Organization is giving unfair advantage to chemical companies that manufacture DDT and the DDT impregnated netting. Communist China and the United States stand to profit from this apparent rage of irresponsible behavior erupting from Doctor Arata Kachi.
Using DDT across Africa to try and eradicate malaria is like using the atomic bomb to eradicate cancer in Japan.
Anyone alive with cancer at the time of the explosion will die and cancer would be effectively wiped out - but 20 years down the line cancer from radiation will grow up and the people would be in the same state with a different disease.
If DDT is used to eradicate malaria across Africa without support of alternate chemicals and improved sanitation Doctor Arata Kachi’s solution may provide short term relief - but after he is dead and buried the monstrous results of his fevered activity will plague the world health community for decades and last for centuries.
The one thing more destructive than the mosquito in fighting malaria today is, in my opinion, Doctor Arata Kachi.
I hope you will think long and hard about allowing DDT to be used heavily in your nation without further studying the matter and doing everything you can to avoid it.
Look at a part of the ‘Policy Series’ at the World Health Organization.
See who funds it?
1. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2. David and Lucile Packard Foundation
3. Unrestricted educational support from Abbott Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and Pfizer Inc.
Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are international chemical companies specializing in agricultural chemicals and drugs.
+++++++++
ADDITIONAL
+++++++++
PFIZER AS SUGAR DADDY
Pfizer took over Pharmacia.
During the 2002 elections, Pfizer contributed $1.2 million to federal parties and candidates, more than two-thirds going to Republicans. Pharmacia contributed just under $1 million during 2001-02, mostly to Republicans.
Apparently an FDA medical officer was ordered to delete information on risks of antidepressant drugs.
The information to be concealed was in records being submitted to Congress. The FDA's Office of Chief Counsel urged him to delete the material.
Apparently they repeatedly prevented Mosholder from reporting his conclusions that the medications increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior among children.
Two FDA analyses have concluded that the drugs may double the risk of suicide among some children.
As far back as 1996, an FDA official had suggested an increased risk of suicide among children taking Zoloft.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) asked why the finding had not been followed up.
FDA officials stated that a letter sent at the time to Zoloft's manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., is no longer in the agency's files.
Joe Barton apparently received $10,000 dollars from Pfizer his 2004 campaign.
Pfizer has also showered cash on Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay and Senator Frist.
The FDA claims they were worried about frightening families away from buying the drugs. Many industry clinicians believe the drugs are effective.
Several studies have found that most of the drugs are no more effective than sugar pills.
The House Ethics Committee recently produced a 72-page report providing a "public admonishment" of both Representative DeLay of Texas and Representative Candice S. Miller of Michigan. (R-Mich.) concerning their improper behavior in pressuring Representative Nick Smith of Michigan to change his vote on the Medicare prescription drug benefit bill.

Cotton Sleepwear

During the 1970’s a serious issue was tackled by our government legislators.
It was one of those problems that government - a good government - is good at solving.
The problem was children being burned while sleeping or while wearing cotton garments during regular play at home. The solution was to mandate that children’s sleepwear - especially that intended for infants should be flame resistant. As a result polyester became a popular material for children’s sleep and house wear rather than cotton which is highly flammable.
This result stood for a long a time and save many lives.
It also kept many children and adults from being needlessly burned and maimed from simple household and playtime accidents.
Well - those days are over.
About two years ago the Consumer Product Safety Commission quietly relaxed the regulations regarding this severe safety issue.
In spite of the evidence pointing out that this regulation reduced burn-related injuries and fatalities and was widely supported by fire and safety officials around the country this small commission with a big mouth undermined the safety of children, our families and our homes.
The new rules allow companies in Communist China to manufacture garments using nontreated cotton. This new rule allow companies in Communist China to directly compete with and destroy their competition in the United States.
The main problem is, however, what is happening to the children.
It’s a quiet way that these people have circumvented our laws in order to benefit Communist China. This quiet and sneaky change of rules has allowed cotton farmers to imagine they have gained a victory, when, in fact, the price of cotton has not changed much over the course of the last 30 years. That hasn’t stopped the National Cotton Council from butting their nose in.
Why would they do such a thing?
More than 70 percent of each year’s cotton crop is packed up into bales, loaded on ships and sent over to Communist China to feed their textile mills.
That is one reason they might do such a thing.
Seventy-five to eighty percent of the children’s sleepwear market is manufactured in places like Communist China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
This change was clearly made to please the cotton farming industry. It certainly wasn’t done to ensure that Americans companies, which for decades had obeyed the rule, kept any jobs in the United States.
Phillip Wakelyn a man identified as a scientist at the National Cotton Council called those who support the regulations "misguided" and attempted to say that the regulatory changes simply increased choices for shoppers to buy different kinds of cotton pajamas. He seems to believe that this can be done without putting children at risk.
The National Cotton Council collects money from each bale of cotton produced in the United States that is involved in United States Department of Agriculture programs. This money during some years is invested in stocks and bonds. They have often experienced considerable financial loss while doing this with someone else’s money. In my opinion it would be no surprise to me if they treated the lives of other people’s children with the same cavalier attitude they have toward other people’s money.
The original regulation which was hard fought for, originated as I mentioned in the 1970s. It required children's sleepwear to be flame resistant. The intention was to lessen burns and deaths for youngsters exposed to open flame originating from candles, gas stoves, matches, cigarette lighters, fireplaces and other fire sources.
The standard favored fabrics that did not ignite quickly and spread fast like cotton.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission quietly revised the regulation in 1996. They said that nontreated cotton clothing, as long as it is tight-fitting, may be labeled and sold as children's sleepwear.
The commission also supported selling nontreated cotton sleepwear for infant sizes 9 months or smaller as it does not pose a danger because babies of this age are insufficiently mobile to expose themselves to sources of fire.
The National Center for Health Statistics has reported that all clothing- related thermal burn fatalities declined sharply for all age groups after the federal regulation took effect in the early 1970s. Among children under age 15, there were 60 deaths in 1970; 15 in 1975; seven in 1980; six or fewer in each year from 1981 to 1992, and three or less each year from 1993 to 1996.
It was a law and regulation that worked and was good for the nation.
But not good for the folks on the Consumer Product Safety Commission or over at the National Cotton Council.
A representative of the cotton industry, Mr. Wakelyn, said, "Some say the cotton industry will be making a profit at the expense of children's lives. That is an absolute lie. "There is no data to show this change diminishes the effectiveness of the safety standard," he is quoted as saying "And the cotton industry would not do anything to increase its legal liability, and it would not support anything that would be harmful for children."
First of the cotton industry itself has no legal liability. It is a corporate non-entity. So, in my opinion, Mr. Wakelyn is making a misstatement to say the least about their financial liability.
As for his contention that no data shows this change increases danger to our children then he must not have seen the data or does not believe it. Before the standards were enacted, for example, about 1,000 children per year were burned seriously in clothing related fires.
As for me accepting Mr. Wakelyn’s word on this I want to tell a story about a spokesman for the tuna industry. He is so supportive of tuna and his job that he feeds tuna to his children every day. Morning, noon and night, apparently, if his wife lets him, in order to prove that Federal regulations regarding mercury poisoning are too strict.
That’s a little silly don’t you think?
I do. I also think that sort of behavior is dangerous.
I won’t be toasting any marshmallows with Mr. Wakelyn.
The commission claims it made the change because the old rules were difficult to enforce or unnecessary.
It is typical of this commission that they could not make up their mind why they bent the rules to please the cotton industry and put our children at risk.
Were the rules too difficult to enforce? They were successfully enforced for nearly 30 years before they were changed. The clothing industry - except for the cotton farmers - seemed to gladly enforce themselves in this matter and for a while children were safe in our nation because of good choices we made as citizens.
As for the rules being unnecessary that is beyond an insult and should not be allowed to stand as reasoning for abandoning this rule. In fact it smacks of child abuse.
So the commission believed that by putting a tag or label on the garments this would be enough.
You can go to any Walmart, Sears, Target, JC Penney, Lord & Taylor’s, Macy’s or other department store and see the tag in some of the garments manufactured for children.
It reads :
"WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT"
That label is supposed to direct parents to understand that loose fitting garments are dangerous and could cause serious injury. Children are being burned even today because they go to sleep or wear loose fitting cotton garments around the house.
Commission spokesman Russell Rader said there is concern for the 200 to 300 children a year who go to hospital emergency rooms for burns related to loose-fitting clothing.
"Our job and our mission is to save lives and prevent injuries, and injuries have been occurring when kids are dressed in loose-fitting T-shirts and sweatshirts as sleepwear," said Rader.
"The change in the sleepwear standard gives parents another safe choice. They can put kids in flame-resistant pajamas or they can put kids in cotton garments if they are snug fitting.", he is quoted as saying.
What Mr. Rader fails to mention is that cotton garments that are not sold as sleepwear do not carry the label. As for the idea that the garment should be snug fitting this is ridiculous considering that children are dressed in dress like garments when they are young. An argument can be made about what snug means as well. When you visit the mall you may find clothing with snug fitting bands at the writs and the neck or you may find garments with loose wrists and necks but snug around the body.
There is a problem with encouraging parents to dress their children in tight clothes but that is another issue entirely.
The commission actually argued on behalf of cotton farmers that pajamas that cling close to a child's body make it less likely for an accidental fire than pajamas with dangling sleeves.
The commission seems to have attempted a jump from being a responsible body to a body politic of fashion designers as well as fire and safety professionals.
A serious issue about this situation is that some of the clothes are not labeled as they should be.
There is supposed to be an additional yellow tag attached to the garment.
That tag is supposed to read :
"FOR CHILD’S SAFETY,
GARMENT SHOULD FIT SNUGLY.
THIS GARMENT IS NOT FLAME
RESISTANT. LOOSE-FITTING
GARMENT IS MORE LIKELY
TO CATCH FIRE. "
It is less likely you will see the yellow tag than you will see the tag inside the garment.
On recent trips to the mall I have seen on more than occasion garments of the same cut, size and make but of different colors side by side. Both one hundred percent cotton - but one labeled :
"WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT"
…while the other one was not labeled at all. It clearly identified itself as being one hundred percent cotton but the warning did not appear anywhere.
In many departments the yellow label did not accompany the garment.
I began to wonder why Carter’s, the children’s clothing company, seemed to rarely include the warning and even less rarely the yellow label while the Sesame Street brand seemed always to carry it.
I concluded that the Sesame Street brand being associated with Public Television needed to obey the law while Carter’s needed only to make money.
Their slogan is ‘If they would only stay small until their Carter’s wear out.’
Let us hope that they stay healthy before their Carter’s scorch their skin.
But to be fair I also found a majority of the Disney children’s clothing to be what I considered to be incorrectly labeled.
I have to say ‘what I consider to be’ because the Disney company might take offense that I am intimating that they are taking liberties with the safety of children. I am not going to go into a lengthy discussion about the children that have died on Disney rides at Disney Land and Disney World - I am merely talking about their attitude towards children in their textile products.
I saw clothing made by Disney for 9 month old babies and 6 month old babies. They were 100 percent cotton. They did not contain the warning nor carry the yellow label. They were loose fitting garments that had little booty feet on them. I imagined that Disney did not obey the law because they figured the 6 or 9 month old would use their booty suits for athletic gear and probably jog in them.
The fact is that many of the major manufacturers who are producing these items from American cotton shipped to foreign lands for processing and then returned to the United States for sale prices far above their relative worth are not obeying even the simplest of laws that has been left by the weak and undignified Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Rader is quoted as saying that a study of emergency-room burn accidents since 1993 involving children found no cases involving tight-fitting cotton pajamas. Notice he did not say sleep wear nor did he say t-shirts, body shirts, sweatshirts. He said tight-fitting cotton pajamas which could mean tight-fitting untreated cotton pajamas. My point here is that the National Cotton Council has a different vocabulary for their world and it only comes in contact with ours when they want money.
A review of the manner in which cotton is priced would shortly bring you in contact with just how disconnected they are from the real world not to mention real trade but that is another matter entirely.
Steve Lamar who is the director of government relations for the American Apparel Manufacturers Association, is quotes as saying that the change will "ensure the safest possible sleepwear choices for our children."
I wonder if any of these people have children. Then again, I should not wish these folks as parents on anyone lest they become victims of experimentation like the children of the tuna industry spokesman who stuffs his children full of potentially tainted tuna each day.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is the government agency responsible for protecting the American public from unreasonable risks of injury associated with products used in or around the home.
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission is clearly failing in its duties at the most basic level.
Infants (0 to 9 months)
All infant sleepwear in sizes to nine months may now be made from either flame resistant or non-flame resistant fabrics.
Children (9 months to size 14)
Children's sleepwear larger than size 9 months must either be flame resistant or worn snug-fitting.
Flame resistant sleepwear does not ignite easily and must self-extinguish quickly to meet the U.S. CPSC flammability requirements for children's sleepwear. Flame resistant garments may be worn either loose fitting or snug- fitting.
Snug-fitting sleepwear which meet CPSC sizing guidelines and are made from natural fabrics (such as cotton) which are non-flame resistant will not create an unreasonable risk of burn injuries to children.
What to look for when buying sleepwear:
All snug-fitting sleepwear garments manufactured or imported after
June 28, 2000 must have a permanent warning statement in the neck label:
WEAR SNUG-FITTING
NOT FLAME RESISTANT
Look for the yellow hang-tag or label on package with the following warning:
FOR CHILD’S SAFETY,
GARMENT SHOULD FIT SNUGLY.
THIS GARMENT IS NOT FLAME
RESISTANT. LOOSE-FITTING
GARMENT IS MORE LIKELY
TO CATCH FIRE.
Parents :
It is advised that you do not allow your children to sleep in loose-fitting or oversized garments such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, or other apparel items made from non-flame resistant fabrics especially cotton. These garments ignite more easily and may cause severe burn injuries.
Please be advised that :
"Certain industry groups, such as the National Cotton Council and the American Apparel Association, as well as individual companies, such as Carter's, have given assurances they will mount an information and education campaign, with CPSC guidance to force consumers to understand why the cotton sleepwear garments that are being allowed on the market must fit their children snugly; why certain types of sleepwear garments will remain polyester; and, why loose fitting cotton garments should not be used as sleepwear."
Please note that I have never seen any of this material in written, spoken or picture form and that it is my opinion that I, Alfred Brock, not the National Cotton Council, the American Apparel Association or company’s like Carter’s have brought these dangers and the cold and calculated actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to your attention.
I thought I should tell you about one person who has served on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Her name is Mary Gall.
During her bureaucratic career I learned she served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She was also counselor to the director of the Office of Personnel Management.
During the Reagan administration she was the deputy policy advisor to Vice President Bush and as such participated in the President's Cabinet Council meetings and contributed to the development and implementation of the President's domestic policy agenda.
She also was a consultant to the Reagan-Bush Presidential Campaign and as director of research in the George Bush for President Campaign.
The Present President Bush wanted to appoint her to be the director of the Commission. Her salary would have been about $134,000.00 a year.
She had been a critic of the previous Chairman’s style, accusing her of promoting a "federal Nanny State."
In one case concerning baby bath seats there were at least 67 deaths associated with the seats which were advertised as making it easier for parents to bathe infants 6 to 9 months old. Some babies slipped out of the seats and drowned when left unattended even for a short time.
The Chairman of the Commission wanted to ban the seats while Gall argued that it was the parents' responsibility to use the seats safely. To paraphrase it was the parents’ responsibility to use the dangerous product safely.
It was also reported that Gall voted against regulating certain baby walkers and said it is not the manufacturers' fault if parents fail to supervise their children and let them fall down a flight of stairs while using the walkers.
Gall was also instrumental in moving towards denying a ban on Chromated Copper Arsenate for use in Playground Equipment.
Gall’s replacement and now Acting Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is Nancy A. Nord.
President Bush nominated her for a term that would end in the year 2012. That is six years from now. That is quite a long time.
She is a lawyer.
She worked at the United States Chamber of Commerce which is a group dedicated to opposing Federal Regulation and letting businesses do pretty much whatever they want to.
She is married to James S. Halpern who is a judge on the U.S. Tax Court.
The attitude of the National Cotton Council, Cotton Incorporated, the Cotton Farmers of America, the Cotton Ginners of America and importers like JC Penney, Sears, Walmart, Kohl’s, K-Mart, Target, Lord & Taylor’s and Macy’s was summed up for me by a 100 percent cotton t-shirt I saw as I left the mall the other day.
It said, ‘It’s hard to act like I care, because I don’t.’
It seems they just don’t care.

Path to 9/11

Walt Disney is a big company.
A big American company to be exact.
They own ABC.
ABC is the American Broadcasting Company.
They are going to put a bit of anti-American propaganda on television shortly.
The title of the show is ‘The Path to 9/11’.
They are not going to have any commercials with it. They are saying they are not having commercials because airing this two part fiction is a ‘public service announcement’.
During time of war it is inappropriate for a national television company to throw dirt on our country by turning the 9/11 assault into a two part soap opera - commercial free or not.
This five hour movie is scheduled to be broadcast this coming Sunday and Monday.
September 10th and September 11th.
That’s right - ‘The Path to 9/11’ will play on 9/11 as a product of the Disney Corporation.
Who is responsible for this travesty and insult to America?
Let’s take a look at one of the writers.
This 40 million dollar project was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh.
He wrote a scene where a high level government official slams down the phone on a concerned CIA agent.
He admits he made the scene up.
He admits he made most of the dialog, situations and action up.
The only thing that remains real is apparently the date, 9/11, and the tragedy that unfolded that day when the maniac terrorists flew airplanes loaded with innocent people into the World Trade Center in broad daylight in New York City.
“Sandy Berger did not slam down the phone,” Mr. Nowrasteh is widely quoted as saying, “That is not in the report. That was not scripted. But you know when you’re making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It’s the job of the filmmaker to say, ‘You know, maybe we can use that.’ ”
Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, who was head of the 9/11 commission that came to all those conclusions that were eventually ignored was apparently paid as a senior consultant to the mini-series.
Here is more about Cyrus Nowratesh - the writer that Disney is going to help make Osama Bin Laden a heroic figure for millions of Americans on 9/11/2006 after his murderous rampage on 9/11/2001.
Nowrasteh first broke into the entertainment business 1983 when he rewrote a project called ’Bikers’ for Universal.
He is quoted as saying that his first job was a disaster because he tried "to please everybody."
Well, ‘The Path to 9/11’ should be a success in the mind of Nowratesh who seems to have taken great pains to please Osama Bin Laden.
He wrote television series scripts for about 5 years and then started writing things like 'Murder At Nha Trang' which seems to have been about American soldiers murdering their officers in Vietnam.
He also wrote a screenplay called 'Norma Jean, Jack, And Me', about a bum who washes up on an island and finds Marilyn Monroe and JFK alive and well.
Not to stay out of American politics long, Cyrus Nowrasteh wrote and directed the Paramount/Showtime production The Day Reagan Was Shot.
He seems interested in the criminal, murderous mind and is said to be working on a four-hour mini-series on John Dillinger - noted bank robber and murderer - a terrorist himself from 1930’s rural America.
His wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, is also a well connected screenwriter.
Her contribution to modern cinema and literature is a movie called ‘Bad Day on the Block’.
It is about a decorated Los Angeles firefighter who saved a baby's life in a crack-house fire but left the baby's mother to die in the fire because he believed any mother who takes a baby into a crack-house is an unfit mother.
On 9/11 how many innocent victims were left to die by the firemen who rushed to their deaths in the World Trade Center inferno?
Mr. and Mrs. Nowratesh seem to be making a life out of feeding off of a certain type of American despair. Perhaps it is all part of the new Disney image that includes anti-American propaganda.

Iraq and the Bible

Fact : On September 11, 2001 a group of men who were mostly of Saudi Arabian citizenship flew airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon and destroyed one airplane over Pennsylvania.
Looking at George Bush at this time we can see a lot.
I used to wonder why he was doing the things he was doing. It sure was vexing. It never was clear what he up to. Add in Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and it just became a mess that just could not be cleaned up.
Then, on August 21, 2006 in the White House he said that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
That meant to me that Iraq is not part of the war on terror.
The next day, August 22, 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah, he reversed it and told a bunch of veterans that Iraq is the biggest part of the war on terror. He must think veterans can’t read.
Then I started to wonder if indeed George Bush weren’t the biggest liar I had ever heard.
Now I don’t wonder why, I just wonder what he’s going to do next.
I reckon it won’t be too surprising. For some reason - when there is something that he needs to do for the good of the country he won’t do it.
I am not worried about ‘why’ anymore.
I am pretty sure that we have got a Judas Priest on our hands. Some folks have called him a ‘Witch-King’ but I think that’s going a bit too far. After all - lots of nice folks voted for him. Of course - he seems to have deceived a lot of folks so it all balances out.
He seems so brave to some. Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice too all speak the brave talk.
When I hear them beating their chests I remember something from Job in the Holy Bible, “Job xli. There is no power on the earth which can be compared with him, who was created that he should fear no one.”
The Bible says that.
Another connection to the one who was created to fear no one spans back in recent American history.
To a man by the name of Billy Sunday. He was an evangelist who lived during the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a driving force behind Prohibition and influenced men like Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson and other modern evangelists and their preaching styles.
He started as a baseball player and there begins the link to President Bush. President Bush in his early career owned part of a professional baseball team in Texas. The company he was involved with arranged to have land condemned so that a new stadium for the Texas Rangers could be build. He made a pretty penny on the deal while he was still Governor of Texas.
That brings new meaning to the phrase ’Play Ball!’.
More like hard ball.
In any case, a close associate of Billy Sunday was a man by the name of Mister Peacock.
He was in charge of various duties for Billy Sunday’s Crusade and involved himself heavily in the area of communications. This was long before mass communication had become a big business commodity - Mister Peacock was well ahead of his time as he reached out to Americans everywhere while working through Billy Sunday.
Today there is a war in Iraq as we are all painfully aware of.
Islam - the religion of Muslims - is broken up into various sects. Just like Christianity is broken up into different sects and churches - like the Catholics, Baptists, Anglicans and others - Islam is broken up into Shiites, Sunnis and others. Shiites and Sunnis make up the larger population of active Muslims.
Shiites in Iraq lean towards Iran for leadership which is a Shia country.
Sunnis in Iraq look towards Saudi Arabia for leadership as Sadam Hussein, a Sunni leader, has been put in jail by the United States. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni nation. The men that flew their airplanes into the World Trade Center on 9/11 in New York City were Saudi Arabians of the Sunni religion.
The third major group in Iraq is not aligned to either the Sunnis or the Shiites. They are called Kurds. They want their own nation. They want to call it Kurdistan. Part of their nation lies in Iraq, part in Iran and part in Turkey. Irag, Iran and Turkey all want to keep the Kurds out of the way. The Shiites, Sunnis and even Christians and Jews have a religious reason to keep the Kurds from realizing their dream of national unity.
The Shiits, Sunnis, Christians and Jews are opposed to Kurdistan because of a central religious belief that the Kurds have. They believe in something called ‘The Peacock Angel’. The Peacock Angel to them will return one day and rule the world. To the Kurds he will be a new God. To Christians, Muslims and Jews the Peacock Angel is the devil. The Peacock Angel is supposed to be active in the world and working towards his own reconciliation with God at which time God will allow him to rule the world.
This brings us to the connection with Mister Peacock and modern evangelism and its association with President Bush.
The Peacock Angel seems to have power in this modern political world out of proportion to what people in general know about him.
One of the primary reasons if not the main reason given for invading Iraq (not including the lies about the Weapons of Mass Destruction) was to free the Kurds from the oppression of the Muslims.
Why would any God fearing agent like the President of the United States be intent on freeing devil worshippers unless there were some connection between them?
The connection between them, of course, is deeply rooted and flows through the evangelical speeches of men like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson like poison through the vine of life. From their mouths they spew not only hatred for specific persons that oppose them politically but they provide support for the worst among us. They seem to advocate that if you kill, maim and murder that if you merely think about Jesus Christ then you are saved.
What these men are doing is building an army for the devil and that army is now in the field.
Many good people believe that they are acting in the name of God when their very thoughts and actions are not only tainted with the evil of the Peacock Angel they are derived directly from that Satanic influence.
Look at how Pat Robertson tried to cover up the evil of the Sunni Saudi Arabians on September 11 by blaming America. Look at how he now supports the war in Iraq to free the Kurds and allow the worship of Lucifer, the Peacock Angel, to spread across the face of the earth like a plague.
Look how our President, the poor, pathetic man, one day claims that 9/11 and Iraq are not connected and the next claims that they are, and indeed, he claims Iraq is the number 1 priority of the United States.
Meanwhile the legacy of Mister Peacock lives on through the mass communication empires of Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and others.
When President Bush and Dick Cheney speak of evil being alive and well in the world today they are right but in pointing it out they are accidentally hiding its origin and its place among us. The evil is not only in the shadowy terrorists they point out but in the struggle of the Peacock Angel to gain control of this world through the actions of Saudi Arabians, the Sunnis, the Shiites and Kurds.
The evil in the world is being injected into our automobile gas tanks each day and showing up in our paychecks each week and in our taxes each year.
Jesus walked the earth and spoke about false preachers. The warnings are in the Bible. They are before us and the present actions of our so-called leaders have led to empowerment of devil worshippers, occupation of Iraq and militarism in Israel and Syria and Lebanon. They have led us here and told us we were going elsewhere.
We have war in the name of peace.
We have charity of the closed fist.
We have leaders who lie.
We are being told we have enemies we cannot see when in fact they are hiding in plain sight.
What are you going to do about it?
Will you work with the devil in the world or will you live up to your own ideals and learn about your enemies before it is too late?
They stand at the gates already. They are holding the door open.
President Bush and Dick Cheney are telling us we have to fight them in Iraq before they come to the United States - six years after 9/11 when the Saudi Arabians flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, USA.
Has your own fear paralyzed you so that you will stand aside and let them destroy us without a word in protest? Without a hand against the Peacock Angel?
Job :
7 ¶ Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?
8 Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
10 Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
12 They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
16 Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

NASA and the CIA

Northrop and Boeing were expected to win the contract to build the ‘Orion’ moon module because they ran the Apollo program in the 1960‘s. They have experience moon landing. The contract for the 8.1 billion dollar contract ended up with Lockheed-Martin on August 31, 2006.
We could probably chalk it all up to Mike Griffin. Who is he?
He walked into the White House on 9/15/2005 and presented his plan to replace the dangerous space shuttle. Two of the shuttles disintegrated and exploded killing their occupants.
Mike Griffin is a rocket scientist and has a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
That may be why his new plan is to use rockets to replace the poorly designed shuttles. It may also be why approval was given without any figures or information on how to pay for it.
Griffin’s new fleet of rockets will be a rework of rockets used during the moon shots in the 1960’s.
The rockets will draw on design information and experience the United States has had in building and deploying nuclear weapons.
Mike Griffin served as CEO of In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is described by it’s first CEO Gilman Louie as being formed "...to ensure that the CIA remains at the cutting edge of information technology advances and capabilities."
Mike Griffin is taking NASA ‘Back to the Past’.
Several board members of In-Q-Tel apparently have connections with Lockheed-Martin Corporation.
Why should we continue to pay these folks to do this? What happened to the NASA we used to know?

Iraq and 9/11 NOT Connected

President Bush had a press conference on August 21, 2006.
I read something from it today that I think is very important.
The exchange between the President and a reporter went like this :
President Bush : “You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.” Reporter’s Question : “What did Iraq have to do with that?”President Bush : “What did Iraq have to do with what?”Reporter’s Question : “The attack on the World Trade Center?”
President Bush responded : “Nothing…”
He then went on in what reads like a fluster about how no one in his administration ever suggested that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.
He said something else that is cause for concern.
Talking about the recent invasion of Lebanon by Israel he said, “Today, I'm announcing that America will send more aid to support humanitarian and reconstruction work in Lebanon, for a total of more than $230 million.”
He said, “The funds will help the Lebanese people restore key bridges and roads.“
Those ‘key’ bridges and roads were the ones destroyed by the Israelis.
He is proposing $42 million to train and equip Lebanon's armed forces.
At the same he said, “…I'll also work closely with Congress to extend the availability of loan guarantees to help rebuild infrastructure in Israel, infrastructure damaged by Hezbollah's rockets.”
Israel and Lebanon have received billions in American funds already through many different channels. What did they do with that cash? The Israelis spent it on invading another country.
President Bush’s paying off both sides.
He is forgiving these peoples for hating and killing each other even though they do not forgive each other. He does not look like a big man when he does this. He does not make the United States look like a benevolent and wise country - he makes us look the fool.
What is happening here is like paying the murderer and the victim’s family.
It is like giving money to a rapist and the person who has been assaulted.
You can’t buy the world with money.
If you stand for everything you stand for nothing.
What will they do next? The answer is that after years of occupying Iraq no one can predict that.
They are undependable.
There is another issue at hand.
In this post cold war world - the weapons the Israelis were using were American made for the most part.
The weapons fired at them from Lebanon were primarily Russian made.
The United States and Russia should both be held responsible for the murders and deaths their weapons have caused. The makers of these weapons have sold them at a profit to people spending aid money and living in countries that are still living in the past.
These people were killing each other and innocent civilians in full knowledge and cold blood.
There is no excuse.
They should not get any money.
They should be punished.
They have not acted in a civilized manner and they spat at the world in general so that they could slake their thirst for blood.
Today I was talking with an acquaintance and I saw on her computer a picture of a city in Japan. I asked what city it was and she told me Hiroshima.
Hiroshima is where one of the atomic bombs was dropped by the United States on Japan in World War 2.
There was a gate in the water so I asked what that was. I think I might have been changing the subject but I could not escape the answer.
The gate in the water marked the entry way to a Shinto shrine on a sacred island just off the coast of mainland Japan.
I had seen photos of Hiroshima from the other side but never from the water - never from this holy island.
So I considered the enormity that was done and I pictured the fireball rising over the sleeping city and I wondered what the monks living on the holy island must have felt as hell was unleashed before their eyes. I wonder what they felt as they realized that this murder had been done directly before the eyes of God.
Then I considered the murder and rapine in the Middle East. I considered how the most holy Christian places are in Jerusalem and nearly every day the Jews and Moslems living there commit atrocities upon each other within sight of them. Even though they are descended from the same wandering tribes they tear at each other with a fury that is unholy.
Instead of calming this situation and demanding that they stop profaning our most holy places George Bush is giving them money so they can do it again.
The Republican Party has lost its head, its heart and its soul.
During the Civil War the Republicans could have taken money from the British and allowed the United States to slide down into anarchy and finally come to rest like the fat and lazy Canada to the north, but they did not. The Republicans of those days fought tooth and nail for freedom and the right to preserve our nation.
What would have happened if President Lincoln had taken a handout from Britain and stepped aside?
What would have happened if Britain supplied both the North and the South with arms and ammunition?
No sane person would consider a situation like that.
Yet our President has not only proposed it he is acting on it with the help of the Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Whatever happens in the next election is of no long term concern for me but I have an unnerving feeling that these actions are not going unnoticed by the highest power and that the wrath of God will be swift and sure to right these wrongs against humanity.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html

Global Trade

Global Trade isn’t that hard to figure out.
Maybe British Petroleum wouldn’t be pouring American oil all over the Alaskan tundra, blowing up workers in Texas or controlling more than 80 percent of the oil and gas reserves in the entire state of Wyoming.
How about a few suggestions?
Any company doing business in the United States should be charged a premium on their taxes equal to that of the loss to their American competitor.
Any company doing business in the United States that employs union workers in their home country will be required to provide union jobs and benefits to their American workers equal to that provided to their home country employees and adjusted to match the cost of living in the United States.
Any American company moving manufacturing off shore and them importing or moving finished goods back to the United States for sale will be charged a tax import fee equal to that amount to bring the product in line with prices provided by its nearest competitor based in the United States.
No foreign based company shall be allowed to own land in the United States. 7 year rental contracts may be provided to the owners of the land but no transfer of ownership will take place to a person, entity or corporation outside of the United States or with home offices in a foreign nation.
Any foreign based company will surrender all title and deeds to lands upon which their facilities are currently located and will pay all costs and fees for transferring the titles and deeds to local government and the rent collected from the land and for the real goods and manufacturing machinery will be used by the local government for off setting taxes of American citizens for a period of not less than and not more than 7 years. At the end of the 7 years the local government must surrender the lands in a closed auction that only American citizens will be allowed to participate in. At no time will these deeds and titles be transferable to an individual, entity or corporation outside of the United States.
No foreign company or American company owned all or in part by a foreign individual, entity or corporation shall be able to be engaged in real estate transactions in the United States nor shall they be able to conduct any commercial or home building businesses of any kind.
No foreign company or American company owned all or in part by a foreign individual, entity or corporation shall be able to own or operate farms in the United States for the purpose of growing and exporting from or selling within the United States.
Any American company hiring off shore workers to prepare work or goods to be used and sold in the United States shall pay a tax fee equal to 100 percent of the cost of hiring and paying the off shore worker.
Any foreign company importing materials or goods into the United States through a NAFTA or CAFTA partner shall pay a tax fee equal to 100 percent of the cost of manufacturing, shipping and selling the good in the United States of 1 and a half times the suggested retail price whichever is greater.

Amway Republicans

Who is the Republican Party putting in the field for 2006 and the Michigan Governor’s office?
Well – actually Dick (Dick) DeVos, President of Amway, has chosen the Republican Party to be his personal vehicle.
Dick is the son of Richard (Dick) DeVos and Helen Van Wesep.
In 1949, Richard (Dick) DeVos and Jay Van Andel formed the Ja-Ri Corporation and began distributing products on a direct sales basis. In 1959, he founded Amway Corporation with a man by the name of Van Andel.
Dick (Dick) DeVos worked for Daddy and inherited his position at Amway by working ‘hard’ as a salesman.
What is Dick (Dick) DeVos selling Michigan and what has the Republican Party bought? The Ada Christian school web site states that Richard (Dick) DeVos, Dick’s father produced "Selling America," a tape recorded talk he gives now and then, and that he has written three books: “BELIEVE!” , “Compassionate Capitalism”, and most recently “Hope From My Heart: Ten Lessons for Life” which he wrote after his heart transplant.
What his son, Dick, who is running for Governor has done, isn’t exactly clear. It appears he went to work for Dad, then worked for Dad and then pretty much took Dad’s place at Amway.
In the year of our Lord 2000 the Grand Rapids Christian Schools built the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Arts and Worship – so you can guess that the Christian Crowd will be pulling the lever for DeVos.
Clearly Michigan needs something more than an salesman.

Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof, ‘Sir Bob’ as he is known in some circles has been very active in raising money to feed the hunry.
Band Aid has become internationally famous.
Band Aid is the British and Irish charity founded by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in 1984 in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. The result of the charity drive was to collect millions of dollars in money and food that was sent to Ethiopia to help relieve the famine. It also extended the war in the region by helping to feed the soldiers who stepped up their attacks after securing food and supplies. The instability of the region continues to this day as a new war threatens to erupt because Ethiopia is invading neighboring, starving and poor Eritrea.
That is not really talked about.
Neither is that while Bob Geldof, who was apparently educated by Jesuits at a small school called Blackrock, near Dublin, is helping to feed the hungry an oil company by the name of Tullow Oil is helping to take that food out of their mouths.
The Company was founded in Dublin around 1985 and now has company headquarters registered in London. It is very much an Irish company.
Tullow began working in African market, not unlike Geldof. Like Geldof they soon found out that high profiles and large profits lie in the poorer regions of the world.
Aidan Heavey is the Group's Chief Executive. In 1986 Tullow signed a license to work in Senegal and began gas production and sales in 1987. At around the same time representatives from aid organizations that have loose ties with Bob Geldof’s project were entering the area. They were developing large scale irrigation projects to assist the local farmers bring their desert land back to life.
Within a short period of time OFADEC (Office for Development and Cooperation in Africa) and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) were providing money and technical assistance to build irrigation projects. The water came up from the ground and soon the people were growing their own food. Then they were encouraged to plant bananas. Nearly 30 percent of Senegal’s banana crop now grows on the regions that were irrigated by the aid agencies but the people that lived on the land were pushed off. In fact Senegal has widespread hunger and disease. At the same time is has a reliable banana market that not only feeds the capital of Senegal it is used to export as a cash crop.
In 1989 they were listed on the London and Irish Stock Exchanges and later that same year started UK development.
In 1990 Tullow again took strides in the third world by taking up its first license agreement with Pakistan.
The people of Pakistan in many regions live on a near starvation diet. Their lack of planning and brutal backward government had led to US sanctions for many years. Sanctions were recently lifted and grain began flowing into Pakistan from the United States. Excess grain was diverted to North Korea. North Korea has been using their currency to buy grain on the world market but with the grain from Pakistan they were able to transfer currency to buy missile and nuclear technology from Pakistan.
Today Pakistan is ruled by a dictator and its hinterland is controlled by religious and racist fanatics.
In 1994 Tullow discovered the Sara gas field in Pakistan and started exporting from it some time in 1999.
Fueled by success and seemingly walking in the footsteps of Bob Geldof in 1996
Tullow entered Bangladesh and Côte d'Ivoire and took over rich gas and oil fields.
Hunger and starvation are not new to Bangladesh. In 2003 a report from Dhaka, Bangladesh stated that because of the region's severe droughts came with a 400 percent increase in the prices of essential left about two million people in northwestern at starvation levels. The people were subsisting on boiled weeds or banana leaves.
What was Bob up to? In 2003 Bob Geldof appeared on the television show, ‘Grumpy Old Men’.
In the year 2000 Tullow began taking over gas fields and other items in the UK Southern North Sea from British Petroleum.
In 2004 Tullow grew again by acquiring Energy Africa for $570 million and now controls another source of production and cash that used to circulate in the African economy.
Tullow Oil is becoming a leader in gas in the UK Southern North Sea and oil in West Africa. They continue to press and expand their operations in South Asia.
They are active in 16 countries most of which have chronic starvation, poor education and high levels of corruption.
Bob Geldof has had nothing but nice things to say about the American administration of George Bush, "You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy."
George Bush had this to say about Africa, “To meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa...I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean." (State of the Union address, January 28, 2003)
Then :
"Next week, I will go to Africa to meet with leaders of African countries and with some of the heroic men and women who are caring for the sick and are saving lives...They deserve our help, without delay. And they will have our help." (White House news conference, July 7, 2003)
Apparently President Bush promised $15 billion over 5 years which works out to $3 billion a year to fight AIDS. It has been pointed out that in the 2004 budget request that he asked for less than half a billion dollars ($450 million) for 2005.
Instead of $3 billion per year most of the money will not be requested until 2005 and beyond. That is after President Bush has left office.
Unless Bob Geldof was making a sick joke about the fact that the United States sent a man to the moon 7 years after President Kennedy promised to do it (he had been dead those 7 years) I find it hard to understand what he was talking about.
Bob Geldof has likewise been effusive in his praise of Tony Blair and Chancellor Brown in their effort to relieve African debt by talking the poorest nations in the world to sell their debt (in bonds) on international markets in London and New York.
Bob Geldof has made some interesting music. He has brought together a wide variety of people and has brought light on starvation in suffering in many areas of the world. As soon as he has done that, however, his neighbors at Tullow have moved in and taken up their own positions – in Bangladesh, East Africa and other distressed areas of the world.
It would be right to ask what is going on when a man who is supposed to be dedicated to world hunger takes on the appearance of being an advance man for the very people he is reportedly opposing.
Geldof had three children with his first wife. They are Fifi Trixabelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Pixie. His ex-wife killed herself after a long and protracted custody battle.
Speaking of his ex-wife and her new husband Bob Geldof is quoted as saying, “They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact they were more like Tom and Jerry.”
If the result of Bob Geldof’s operations are only to move people off their land and turn it over to international oil and banana companies (and that certainly seems to be the case) I can only look at him as a modern Pied Piper leading the future of our humanity into a cold, dark void in the side of a mountain.

Abortion

Abortion.
Yuck!
Who wants to talk about it?
A lot of priests and ministers want to talk about it.
Then they shake their tambourine in your face.
On top of the money they get from their ‘flock’ and on top of the money they have as tax-free organizations.
Politicians talk about it too.
Yesterday I saw an 11 year old girl wearing an ‘Abortion Kills Kids’ t-shirt.
But what if the baby is already dead?
Abortions of fetuses that have expired in their mother’s womb are covered in their attacks as are pregnancies caused by rape, child abuse and incest.
In fact, under Mr. Bush’s laws this nation is expected to try and imprison rapists, child molesters and incest attackers, pay for their room and board, give them education and training AND raise their kids.
Does that make sense to you?
As I watched that 11 year old girl walk around in her t-shirt I wondered just what was going on in her life for her parents to use her as a human billboard.
Did she know about cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, birth defects, rubella, polio, incest, rape and prison?
What was this little girl being told? That the people most likely to attack her were protected by the people who made her t-shirt?
It’s not the popular topic anymore because abortion rates have been falling in the United States for nearly 20 years.
As the economy worsens however, this may reverse.
We should free our nation foreign trade dependence.

Afraid of Government

There’s a wicked lie aflame in the world and it spreads from head to head as fire leaps from tree crown to tree crown in wild woods.
The lie is printed on bumper stickers, appears in pamphlets and on the tongues of men and women that normally are cool of temper and even in temperament.
It goes like this, ‘I love my country. It’s my government I fear.’
On the surface it sounds like a statement of truth, but like most lies its appeal is only skin deep. One bite into it reveals its rancid flesh and the acid juice of this fruit.
For consider – this is our country and our nation and it is ruled by our government – which is a government for the people and by the people.
This is our government – and so when someone tells me they are afraid of the government I can only feel they fear themselves and their relationship with me.
The people that mouth this misshapen logic are those among us most likely to worship a flag – no matter what colors are flying and to follow the commands of some monarch or tyrant no matter where he draws his so-called powers from.
I am not afraid of my government. I am part of my government and invite everyone to participate in it to make it stronger, so that the weakness of fear will not tear down what we have built up with courage.
There are better words for us – ‘We the people…’

Mitt Romney Big Death

I was horrified to see that a woman had been killed by falling tiles in the ‘Big Dig’ Tunnel under Boston.
I am troubled to see that Governor Mitt Romney is moving to gain control of inspections of the tunnel. I suppose for the State of Massachusetts.
It occurs to me that giving Mitt Romney’s office more control over the tunnel will be about as effective as Governor Bush’s control over the border in Texas. During Mr. Bush’s governorship in Texas over 5 million illegal immigrants entered Texas alone.
The tunnel is a Federal project. The tunnel problems cannot be adequately overseen by the office of the Governor of Massachusetts.
In light of the fact that Mr. Romney is considering a run for the presidency I look with doubt on his basic reasons for wishing to take over the inspections of the tunnel project. The results of any inspections will then be unavailable to the national audience.
Americans from coast to coast will be unable to fairly determine whether or not Governor Mitt Romney could have and should have done much more to ensure that the project was on time, within budget and most importantly - safe. It seems he didn’t do much of anything about it - until, finally, this woman was killed.
Predictably the Republicans in the Massachusetts House and Senate followed along.
A Federal level review of the project, I feel, is in order.
Romney’s apparently politically motivated investigation will, I believe, yield little and hide much.

Buffet and Gates

Well, he’s gone.
Or good as gone.
Bill Gates is out.
Mr. Buffett, the second richest man in the world, is giving him billions of dollars for his charity foundation.
That is probably the best thing that Mr. Buffett has done for the world.
By getting Bill Gates out of the corporate world and into charity Mr. Buffett has done great things for the world economy.
There is no guarantee that things will change at Microsoft.
Maybe the new CEO Steve Ballmer will run things the same.
My friends call him ‘that screaming, hopping, monkey-man’ - in an affectionate sort of way, of course.
Perhaps now we will begin to see real advances in software for business and scientific use.
Can we look forward to a flowering of software companies across the nation that will now be free of a company whose main product seems to have become litigation rather than innovation?
Mr. Buffett has given Mr. Gates a chance to correct what he wrought with his army of lawyers. He will dole out cash to hungry and starving men and women that might be doing well right now if his company hadn’t worked so hard to stifle competition and interfere with the operation of our court system.
The man with the golden touch is going to touch the poor.
Let us hope they do not wither and die under his attention like competition and fair trade have done.
‘Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch.’

Elvis and Japan

So why is Japan‘s economy slowing down?
Why are they so dependent upon the United States that they have actually been buying oil from us since the end of World War II instead of making their own energy arrangements?
Why haven’t they been able to convince the world they are reasonable enough to have their own army and navy again 60 years after World War II?
I think Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has shown us a good reason.
He played the fool for President Bush not only at the White House but in Tennessee. President Bush took the Prime Minister of Japan to the late Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland.
The Prime Minister of Japan sang Elvis songs in the White House and at Graceland.
President Bush and the Prime Minister visited and then the Prime Minister started acting a little nuts.
What are these guys getting paid for?
You can call it diplomacy or whatever you want but they were sidestepping the duties they have towards their people. I call it wasting time.
It’s not unusual for this Prime Minister of Japan. He seems intent on ending Japan’s economic miracle in the same wasteful manner in which Elvis ended his life. The Japanese have auto plants in San Antonio, Texas and Canton, Mississippi. Most of the Americans that live near them can’t work them because they have no skills and are getting pushed out.
The people of Japan should be ashamed at this adolescent behavior.
Elvis has been dishonored.

Citgo Republicans

Citgo was provided with 250,000 barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
That is, the Federal government lent them the oil to refine into other products so that you and I can go motoring around during the summer and ensure that there is plenty of business at places like Diamond Head in South Carolina and also to make sure that our pizza and hamburger industries are kept healthy and strong.
What’s good for Ronald McDonald is good for America.
Then Citgo spilled nearly 50,000 barrels of oil into the Calcasieu Ship Channel in Louisiana.
There was little wind and sunny weather allowed some of the spill to evaporate. The rest sank to the bottom of the water.
David McCollum, a spokesman for Citgo said this, "If you have to have a spill, this is the weather you want."
That’s what he said.
If you have to have a spill.
When was the last time you had to have a spill?
The oil came from storage tanks along the shipping channel. Rain seems to have caused a failure of the pumps Citgo uses to keep rain from causing a failure.
Louisiana isn’t bothering to sample the seafood from the area.
The state said, "The most prudent action is not to consume dead fish, fish with oily residue or a petroleum odor and fish harvested directly from the oil spill-affected waters."
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is intended for the defense of our nation.
The Republicans seem to have forgotten that.

Bloody Kansas

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas has been reluctant to act on Iraq.
He doesn’t see any reason why the United States should declare a date for withdrawal.
He intimated that announcing a withdrawal date would send the wrong message.
Apparently the wrong message would be sent to his home State of Kansas.
Kansas is at the heart of ethanol production. They also pump a lot of oil – oil they normally could not sell unless the price of oil were high – as it is today.
Don’t you see that the big wheels in Kansas are making a lot of money because of the continued instability and war in Iraq? Of course they don’t want the United States to pull out. Of course Senator Roberts would be making these bizarre statements.
I am still amazed that a man from a state that makes up less than 1 percent of the total population of the United States is sitting at the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Do you think that is intelligent?
The reason is obviously not political. It must be economic.
If politicians are pushing democracy internationally for economic reasons isn’t it time for Americans to start thinking of domestic politics economically?
How long will young Americans sit in Iraq defending the interests of Kansas corn farmers and oil men?
How many of our good girls and boys from Missiouri, Kentucky, New Hampshire or Nebraskao or any state must be maimed and killed before the people of Kansas have enough money?

Dual Citizenship

President Bush is trying when it comes to immigration.
He just appeared in Omaha, Nebraska in front of an invited audience of 400 people to hear him talk about immigration reform.
He is trying but I don’t think he has the right ideas to solve the ‘problem’.
First of all, I am surprised he found 400 Americans in Nebraska to show up as an audience. Nebraska is one state whose economy that without immigration – illegal or otherwise – would collapse overnight.
I used to be in favor of closing the border but I am not anymore. There is plenty of room in this nation as anyone can tell you.
Mexico and the United States are close. The border is imaginary. Our populations have met in the middle of the continent and we are mixing now. The reality is that rather than a system to integrate these folks it should be admitted they are integrated. Mexico is part of the United States just as the United States is a part of Mexico.
I believe that dual citizenship is the realistic solution to this manufactured problem.
Presidente Fox calling Mexicans that leave Mexico for the U.S. patriots is just as absurd as President Bush calling for immigration reform even though during the time Bush was governor of Texas over 5 million illegal aliens entered Texas.
Anyone in North or South America is an American already. We are living our lives that way and it is about time our governments catch up to reality.