News_&_Current_Events_issue

Since many reports herein are from other sources, a copyright would be of little use in those cases.
But, all reports herein, reprints are permitted if proper credit is given as to source - Rocky View
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Lately, there has been some talk about the U.S. and England raising the ante' in its desire to wage war against Iran. This is obviously part of the attempt to get the U.S. further entrenched in the Mid-East and start a massive war to obscure the fact that our economy is all but bankrupt and to, once again, do the bidding of America's favorite plutocrats--the Israelis.

The rationale now used to justify this ongoing madness, as we march towards a "war to end all wars," is that Iran is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--something which it never signed. However, if it is in violation of this treaty, then Israel too is most assuredly guilty of this crime, with some estimates having been put that Israel has well over 300 nuclear bombs.

Now, I'm not particularly fond of Iran in any case. If memory serves me correctly (and you'll have to forgive me if it doesn't), a couple decades ago, the Iranians kidnapped a bunch of Americans, causing John Denver's song, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the Old Oak Tree," to skyrocket to fame while Americans did just that--put ribbons all over their trees (which are now all over the bumpers of cars)--with the hope of their fellow citizens' return, in an effort born out of frustration under Carter's leadership.

When Reagan came to power, the Iranians quickly complied, freeing the Americans held hostage, if I'm not mistaken. And afterwards, we started to arm Saddam Hussein in his bid against the Iranians, if that makes any sense, not that much of anything does in the U.S. any more.

In any case, I don't particularly care too much for the Iranians' politics, given the U.S.'s bitter history with Iran. But I'd just as soon let bygones be bygones. After all, why should I care what they do over in their corner of the world, as long as it doesn't concern me or this nation? They can chop off as many hands as they please, and make all their women wear head scarves. It doesn't really bother me. Nor would it bother me if they attacked one of their neighbors; it's their problem, not ours. I'm not the world's police man, and shouldn't be expected to die for such nonsense. Nor should any other American.

More importantly, if I am to care about a country that has engaged in terrorist activities and is a threat to world peace--if there is any country in the Mid-East that fits the bill--Israel should be, first and foremost, stopped at all costs.

Now, Israel, as many of us who have at least half a brain realize, has bombed American interests in the past. The most well-known instances of such were the LaVon Affair and the USS Liberty, the latter-case being when the Israelis massacred over a hundred Navy men aboard a ship with an American flag flying high in the wind, using napalm and machine-gunning the U.S.'s life-rafts down in an act to frame Egypt, which will never be forgotten by those few Americans who still care about our country.

The U.S. President at the time, the traitor LBJ, allowed this to occur; in fact, a Russian ship came to the USS Liberty's aid long before any American saw them, despite U.S. fighter jets that could have stopped the massacre in process and saved at least 100 American lives.

And, of course, there have been many attacks against our allies too--such as when Israel bombed England's King David Hotel, etc.

More recently, Israel has continued this trend of deceit. It has been selling U.S. military secrets to China. The heads of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have been engaging in espionage. And, as some cognizant of Israel's activities are quick to point out, Jonathon Pollard stole the equivalent of a full room of military secrets for Israel, some of which caused the death of U.S. agents.

In any case, it goes without saying that Israel is no good. It has nuclear weapons. It has engaged in terrorism against the U.S. It steals stuff that it shouldn't. It uses its foreign-based political action committees through dual-citizens to shape American policy (and thereby get a recurring grant of at least $4 billion every year--often much more). If we are to believe that Apartheid is bad and so is racial hatred, then let's look at their massive Apartheid Wall, which they're building on the tops of Palestinians' homes, and their laws that prevent non-Jews from gaining full citizenship, from being allowed to live in certain areas, and from even marrying some Jews (their priestly sect). Oh, yeah, and the Israelis (or, at the least, a prominent Israeli who was cited by a major Israeli paper, with some others reportedly in agreement with said statements) have threatened to bomb parts of Europe, at one time, if anyone there dares to annoy their fragile little egos.

So, why the heck should we be focusing on Iraq and Iran, when there is no doubt that the Israelis have WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION and they might very well use them? Let's just get it over with, and attack that little rabid pit bull in the Mid-East, Israel.

Now, I understand that Israel's air force is one of the greatest on the earth; in fact, they've stolen the best technology from the U.S., Russia, England, Germany, Italy, etc., ad nauseam. So they should be. They've got a lot of good planes, and many good pilots.

It would be a war with many hazards, with all their Zionist traitors scattered throughout America, ready to put their true love of Israel-first to the test.

However, being a true patriot, I'm willing to take this risk; and promise to be the first on my block to enlist when Uncle Sam gets a spinal cord implant and decides to do something about that terrorist nation in the Mid-East, Israel.

Worried about Avian Flu? Don't be. As a physician and a scientist, I want to share the best news of this flu season: You can prevent or treat the Avian Flu (IF it develops the ability to infect humans) easily, simply, cheaply, safely and naturally. And I know that there are things you can do to make the problem much, much worse. The choices are yours. Please share what you are about to read with everyone you know. This information could save huge numbers of lives.

Please remember, though, that this information is not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. It is educational material intended to help you develop your own personalized disease prevention or treatment strategy. You might want to consult a nutritional professional or natural physician to help you personalize it for you and your family.

How does the Avian Flu do its damage? Birds (or humans if the virus mutates spontaneously - or is mutated in a lab) die because the H5N1 virus depletes Vitamin C stores so quickly that the cause of death is fulminate scurvy. Scurvy is the same disease that killed seamen on long voyages because unless we get enough Vitamin C from our diet or our supplements, we get sick or die. Humans cannot make Vitamin C but we need it for a great many vital processes including immune function and vascular integrity. This particular type of virus uses up Vitamin C stores so quickly that the immune system is overwhelmed and the blood vessels loose their structural integrity: they leak so badly that infected animals literally bleed to death through those damaged vessels.
Prevention? Vitamin C: lots and lots and lots of Vitamin C. Treatment? Lots and lots and lots of vitamin C.

Vitamin C is not toxic. Under stress (like a viral infection), your need for Vitamin C is increased. When your body has had enough, your body will tell you by soft stools or diarrhea. This is not a sign of toxicity: it is a sign that you have reached "Bowel Tolerance" (BT). Once you get there (and it can be at 1 gram or 20 grams: your body will tell you), cut back to 75% of the dose that represents BT for you and keep taking that dose EVERY DAY.

Write down each of the 4 daily doses of Vitamin C that you take each day because you will be increasing your intake gradually until you find the amount that you need for immune support. This dosage information is important enough that it could literally save your life so it is worth taking the time to record this information carefully and stick to the dosing schedule precisely. If you mess up, don't quit, but do make your best effort to stick to it.

You will start with 1 gram per dose so, for example, on Day 1, suppose that you take 1000 mg (= 1 gram) of Vitamin C every 4 hours for a total of 4 grams. On Day 2, increase the first dose to 2 grams and then take 1 gram for your other 3 doses. (You will take 4 doses per day). On day 3, take 2 grams for your first and second doses and 1 gram for the remaining two doses. On Day 3, you would take 2 grams for the first three doses and 1 gram for the next dose. You would continue increasing your dosage in that way until your body lets you know via your GI tract that you've reach the level you need. Now multiply that total daily dose by 0.75 and you've got your daily dose.

For example, suppose you reach Bowel Tolerance at 10 doses. Multiply by 0.75 and you now know that you need 7.5 grams of Vitamin C a day for immune system support. You would do well to take reasonable doses of Vitamins E and A along with Zinc and reduced L-Glutathione since they work together with Vitamin C. How much? That depends upon your weight, health, etc. I would also recommend that you take a good Multivitamin along with the preventive levels of Vitamin C described above. The Multivitamins I recommend have so much in them that a full adult dose requires 6 capsules or tablets to get all the nutrients in. A single multivitamin cap is just not potent enough to provide serious immune support, no matter what the company tells you.

And I hope it goes without saying that the more processed foods you eat, the more chemicals, flavors, preservatives, pesticides, sugar and artificial sweeteners, in short, the more junk you put into your body, the more acidic your body will be and the less resistant to viral infection it will be. So now would be a great time to switch over to a diet rich in fruits, dark and brightly colored veggies, free range animal protein and organic everything. Those are food choices that build your immune capacity, not bang it around.

Selenium blocks deadly mutations in the Avian Flu virus (J American College Nutrition 20: 384–88S, 2001; FASEB Journal 15: 1846–48, 2001; Journal Nutrition 133: 1463–67S, 2003) while elderberry syrup has been shown to be an effective flu remedy (J International Med Research 32:132–40, 2004; Israeli Medical Assoc Journal 4:919–22, 2002; European Cytokine Network 12:290–6, 2001; J Alternative Complement Medicine 1:361–9, 1995). Garlic is a highly effective anti viral substance which should be part of your diet (Planta Medica 58:417–23, 1992).

Children's doses should be titrated the same way taking the weight of the child into account.

That part is important: this part is even more important: at the very first indication of anything that might be viral disease, increase your Vitamin C immediately. DO NOT WAIT TO SEE IF THINGS GET WORSE! INCREASE YOUR VITAMIN C TO YOUR NEW BOWEL TOLERANCE LEVEL. That level might be very, very high. Vitamin C is not toxic. Unlike drugs, which poison enzymes and are thus capable of severe toxicity, nutrients, especially water soluble ones like Vitamin C, have no meaningful level of toxicity. Your body knows what you need. Pay close attention to it.

In the event that you think you may have the flu, take the amino acids l-lysine, l-proline and l-glycine. An average size adult can take up to 3 grams of each one 4 times a day since they help prevent the spread of the virus in your body.

My personal regimen for immune health includes high dose Vitamin C and Vitamins A and E along with zinc and L-Glutathione:

I travel with Olive Leaf Extract, Oil of Oregano (not to be taken by pregnant women since it can cause abortions), goldenseal, Echinacea, curcumin (from turmeric), probiotics, B complex, fish oil and alpha lipoic acid. I drink organic green tea and I do not eat any sugar whatsoever.

If you do become ill, the best thing you can do is contact a physician who practices natural and nutritional medicine and begin a regimen of Intravenous Vitamin C treatments (you may need between 100 and 200 grams (not milligrams) for a short time since the Avian Flu is so good at using up your urgently needed Vitamin C.
Here's what not to do:

Do not take Tamiflu (oseltamivir). The widely touted antiviral drug (like its cousin Relenza or zanamivir) produced drug resistant viruses in 18% of children treated with the drug and a drug resistant strain has been found in a Vietnamese girl treated with the drug. A drug resistant strain would be a far more dangerous virus than one which had not learned how to evade the drug's effect. Viruses can not become resistant to Vitamin C.
Do not take FluMist

FluMist is a live virus vaccine which introduces between 10 and 100 million viruses into the nose. Those viruses are not the same as the Avian Flu and therefore do not confer immunity against it since only the identical virus could do that. FluMist is based on last years viruses which were not effective against last year's viruses. They are certainly not effective against the Avian Flu virus which has not yet become infective to humans so no vaccine exists against it in its infective form.

However, once treated with FluMist, people shed live, infective viruses for up to 3 weeks which can give people flu In fact, immuno-compromised people, nursing babies, people with eczema, HIV, taking steroids, chemotherapy, radiation treatment (or the 60% of the American population which is chemically immuno-suppressed) are at significant danger if they come into contact with anyone who has been inoculated with FluMist.

FluMist is delivered into the nostrils by a forceful squirt. This puts infective viruses very close to the brain where they can pass through the thin cribiform plate at the top of the nostrils and enter the brain. It is not known if such treatment causes encephalitis. Only time will tell but the risk is a serious one considering the morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death) caused by encephalitis.

Each of the three viruses in FluMist can mutate and can cause mutations in the Avian Flu. Those mutations can supply the Avian Flu virus as it currently exists with the genetic sequences it needs to become a pandemic virus. The FluMist live virus nasal inoculation can assist the much feared Avian Flu virus to transform into the very pandemic we are being told to fear

Flu Vaccines for a pandemic version of the Avian Flu do not exist. The only way to make a vaccine against a particular virus is to have the virus available and then make a toxic brew filled with poisons (mercury, aluminum, squalene), foreign particles (egg, chick, and other proteins) and contaminants (stealth viruses, etc.)That flu virus does not yet exist, we are told. Assuming that it is not already manufactured and waiting for release in a lab somewhere, it would be 6 months before an Avian Flu vaccine could be ready. Vaccination with anything else would not help a bit with the Avian Flu strain which we are supposedly facing disaster from.

But, assuming that we already had a vaccine for the right flu strain, and assuming that vaccines were safe enough to use (which I do not believe they are since vaccines are very dangerous treatments which should be approached with the gravest reservations) the fact is that they do not produce immunity most of the time. We have been ballyhooed and mislead about the efficacy and safety of vaccination.

It is neither efficacious nor safe. And to ask the American people to submit to vaccinations which are infective (because they spread live vaccines), ineffective (because they are not vaccines against the real danger which does not exist yet and vaccines take 6 months to make) and dangerous (disease rises sharply with vaccination) and for which manufacturer liability is being removed is not good medicine, good policy or good sense.

Please safeguard your life and that of your loved ones. Pass this information to everyone you know so that they can delve further and make their own choices.

And please sign the new Citizen's Petition which contains the Revised Vitamin and Mineral Guideline which can make the US Codex Compliant and preserve your rights to optimal health through nutrition. If you have signed it before, you can sign it again since the original Citizen's Petition has been revised.

Yours in health and freedom, Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director, Natural Solutions Foundation

IRVING, Texas — Exxon Mobil Corp. had a quarter for the record books. The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said yesterday that high oil and natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge almost 75 percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company. It was the first to ring up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales.

Net income ballooned to $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, from $5.68 billion, or 88 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding certain items, earnings were $8.3 billion, or $1.32 per share, compared with $6.23 billion, or 96 cents per share, in the 2004 quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial predicted earnings, excluding special items, of $1.38 per share.

Howard Silverblatt, equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said the net-income and sales figures are records for publicly traded U.S. companies.

The hurricanes slashed Exxon Mobil’s U.S. production volumes by 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down nearly 5 percent year-over-year, costing the company $45 million before taxes. The company said total daily production slipped to 2.45 million barrels of oil equivalent from 2.51 million barrels.

"Following the hurricanes, Exxon Mobil maximized gasoline production from all of our refineries . . . and increased imports from overseas affiliates to meet U.S. demand," Chairman Lee R. Raymond said.

In the U.S. and abroad, income from the company’s chemicals segment declined by $537 million to $472 million, as raw-material costs squeezed profit margins.

A proposed law intended to unite Ohioans under one language could instead divide immigrants and native-born Americans, opponents of the legislation say.

The Ohio English Unity Act would declare English as the state’s official language and require state agencies to produce records only in English.

State Rep. Courtney Combs said he will introduce the bill in the House by the end of the year.

"I do not want to see the U.S. as a bilingual nation; it divides it," the Hamilton Republican said. "The business language of the world is English. If we go down the line and have different pockets of different people speaking different dialogues, it creates a problem."

Forms and pamphlets, such as crime victim’s information that is now printed in Spanish by the Ohio attorney general’s office, would be available only in English.

The legislation disrespects immigrants, said Julia Arbini Carbonell, president of the Ohio Hispanic Coalition. "It’s telling a certain group in Ohio that, ‘We simply don’t want you here.’

The legislation could conflict with an amendment of civilrights law that requires government agencies to ensure that people who don’t speak English well are receiving services, said Benson A. Wolman, chief executive and general counsel at the Equal Justice Foundation in Columbus.

"It’s of questionable legality and could prompt litigation," he said. "But I expect the common sense of the General Assembly will avoid that need."

The state law, Combs said, would apply only to state publications and would comply with federal law. He said he has the support of 21 other legislators and thinks the bill will pass.

The Ohio Department of Administrative Services spent $103,156 on translating documents into other languages from October of last year through this month, said Ben Piscitelli, spokesman for the department. That does not include translated materials printed by other state offices.

While Combs wants to eliminate state documents in languages other than English, the city of Columbus wants to increase the number of documents in Spanish, said Lillian Williams, the city’s new-Americans coordinator.

The Fire Division publishes publicinformation requests and forms about testing smoke-alarm systems in Spanish. The Police Division also publishes forms in Spanish.

"Our whole goal is to make sure our limited-English residents have full access to city service," Williams said. Documents also will be printed in Somali, she said.

When the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs learned of Combs’ bill, it conducted a survey to gauge Ohioans’ attitudes on language issues, said Ezra Escudero, executive director of the commission.

The survey, distributed to 724 people across the state, found that 89 percent think government offices should offer services in languages other than English. Twenty-six percent thought the proposed legislation would encourage immigrants to learn English.

The commission has been working with Combs to develop a bill that does not persecute people who are trying to learn English, Escudero said. Expanding language instruction, promoting multiple-language skills and bolstering funding to groups that help immigrants are better alternatives, he said.

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission ruled this month that a tavern in Mason named the Pleasure Inn engaged in discriminatory practices when it put a sign in its window stating: "For service, speak English."

State law prohibits denying access to public accommodations based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age or ancestry.

"That sign is the equivalent of a 1960s ‘whites only’ sign," said Christia Alou White, spokeswoman for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. "Language is an inherent characteristic of their national origin."

The Ohio English Unity Act could provoke other incidents like the Pleasure Inn case, Carbonell said.

"It gives the green light for those who are intolerant to be more aggressive about it."

1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why?

21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why?

21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1

3. Why are his gloves wet?

His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and if not, why not?

He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

5. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to?

For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5' 10" and 6' 2" tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30." Other requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror.

The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in ArlingtonNationalCemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis {the boxer} and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, {the most decorated soldier of WWII} of Hollywoodfame.

Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty.

6. How often are the guards changed?

Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington, DC, our USSenate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer, "No way, Sir!" Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a serviceperson. The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:
1. What would you do?
2. What would you do if you were black?

To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.

For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.

No longer. When 75 percent of New Orleans residents had left the city, it was primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out. This, as we know, did not turn out good results.

Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect : Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.

Of course, if these two were really serious about laying blame on government, they should blame the local one. Responsibility to perform – legally and practically – fell first on the mayor of New Orleans. We are now all familiar with Mayor Ray Nagin – the black Democrat who likes to yell at President Bush for failing to do Nagin's job. The facts, unfortunately, do not support Nagin's wailing. As the Washington Times puts it, "recent reports show [Nagin] failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city."

One wonders how there was "no way" for these people to evacuate the city. We have photographic evidence telling us otherwise. You've probably seen it by now – the photo showing 200 parked school buses, unused and underwater. How much planning does it require to put people on a bus and leave town, Mayor Nagin?

Instead of doing the obvious, Mayor Nagin (with no positive contribution from Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the other major leader vested with responsibility to address the hurricane disaster) loaded remaining New Orleans residents into the Superdome and the city's convention center. We know how that plan turned out.

About five years ago, in a debate before the National Association of Black Journalists, I stated that if whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

All Americans must tell blacks this truth. It was blacks' moral poverty – not their material poverty – that cost them dearly in New Orleans. Farrakhan, Jackson, and other race hustlers are to be repudiated – they will only perpetuate this problem by stirring up hatred and applauding moral corruption. New Orleans, to the extent it is to be rebuilt, should be remade into a dependency-free, morally strong city where corruption is opposed and success is applauded. Blacks are obligated to help themselves and not depend on the government to care for them. We are all obligated to tell them so.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."

LET ME START by saying that if I had my life to live over a thousand times, the one thing I would not change would be my race. I am proud to be a black man. There are times however, when I wish that certain people and I did not share that trait.

For the past few days, the whole world ... well, at least those who have access to satellite and cable television, have been seeing pictures of the virtually total devastation of the cities of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 90 per cent of homes in New Orleans have been destroyed by flood waters and more than 100 people have been confirmed dead.

We see people standing on the roofs of their submerged homes desperate to be rescued, others being airlifted to safety, and we have heard tear-jerking stories of families losing their loved ones. But in all of this, we have also seen the really dark side of black people.

The day after the hurricane passed, there were reports of looting, but network reporters had been saying that people were looting out of desperation, in search of food and water. A lot they knew.

The pictures I have been seeing are of people - black people - stealing shoes, hair care products, jewelry, and television sets. Not basic food stuffs and definitely not bags of ice. Not unless the armfuls of clothing, shoes, and appliances I see people wading through the streets with count as food and water.

Now, if all the looters were looting out of desperation, how desperate were the guy and girls I saw toting several boxes of size 13 Nikes? How desperate was the fellow with the stack of diapers? What, is it that he has several babies at home suffering from loose bowels? What am I talking about, what home? Everything is under water and what isn't, has been totally destroyed.

And just what are those guys stealing the plasma television sets going to be watching when there is no power in the entire city?

Desperation? Yeah, right. I am beginning to believe that black people, no matter where in the world they are, are cursed with a genetic predisposition to steal, murder, and create mayhem.

The entire firearm department at a Wal-Mart department store, for example, was cleaned out and the looters used the stolen weapons to rob people. How low is that? Everybody is suffering and the black people would seek to rob people who are suffering just like themselves.

And it has nothing to do with poverty. Where are the white people in all this? I am sure there are poor white people living in New Orleans, Biloxi and the other towns affected by what has been going on. Is it that the media are not showing pictures of them looting and robbing? Or is it that they are too busy trying to stay alive, waiting to be rescued, and hiding from the blacks?

And you know what? Even if the poor whites were looting and robbing, wouldn't it be nice if the blacks could have made them the only ones doing it?

Just once, I would like for us blacks to take the high road in situations like this, where instead of showing our darkest side, we put our best foot forward.

But I guess that would be too much to ask, too much of a case of wishful thinking.

Sep 21, 2005, by Walter E. Williams - Professor, George Mason University and syndicated columnist.

Last week, President Bush promised the nation that the federal government will pay for most of the costs of repairing hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, adding, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again." There's no question that New Orleans and her sister Gulf Coast cities have been struck with a major disaster, but should our constitution become a part of the disaster? You say, "What do you mean, Williams?" Let's look at it.

In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, "I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."

President Cleveland added, "The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

President Cleveland vetoed hundreds of congressional spending measures during his two-term presidency, often saying, "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." But Cleveland wasn't the only president who failed to see charity as a function of the federal government. In 1854, after vetoing a popular appropriation to assist the mentally ill, President Franklin Pierce said, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity." To approve such spending, argued Pierce, "would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."

In 1796, Rep. William Giles of Virginia condemned a relief measure for fire victims, saying that Congress didn't have a right to "attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require." A couple of years earlier, James Madison, the father of our constitution, irate over a $15,000 congressional appropriation to assist some French refugees, said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Here's my question: Were the nation's founders, and some of their successors, callous and indifferent to human tragedy? Or, were they stupid and couldn't find the passages in the Constitution that authorized spending "on the objects of benevolence"?

Some people might say, "Aha! They forgot about the Constitution's general welfare clause!" Here's what James Madison said: "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

Thomas Jefferson explained, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." In 1828, South Carolina Sen. William Drayton said, "If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?"

Don't get me wrong about this. I'm not being too critical of President Bush or any other politician. There's such a broad ignorance or contempt for constitutional principles among the American people that any politician who bore truth faith and allegiance to the Constitution would commit political suicide.

Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980.

Last week, I wrote in this space that it was the lack of moral character and dependence on government that cost blacks when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, not President Bush or racism. Since then, I've been deluged by e-mails - overwhelmingly positive - repeatedly making the same point: I said what white Americans know to be true, but are afraid to say.

As it was put in one e-mail, "I thought along the same lines as your sentiments, but as a white I would never voice such words for fear of being called a racist and worse." Another wrote: "Even as I sit here writing to you I'm breaking out in a sweat for fear of being called a racist." Another said: "That was an excellent article, and unfortunately it could only be said by another African-American."

This confirmed what I've known for a long time: Everyone knows most of black America is screwed up - immoral, dependent, weak - but so few are able to say so. Unfortunate as that is, it is reassuring that we all know the truth. With this in mind, I would like to make the case that all Americans - black and white - should tell the truth when it comes to race and morality.

To do this, I'd like you to consider the recent controversy surrounding Bill Bennett. Last week, a caller to his national radio talk show suggested that abortion could be opposed on the grounds that it has hurt the solvency of Social Security (fewer taxpayers means less Gross National Product, he reasoned). Bennett took issue with this ends-justify-the-means form of argumentation, and challenged it with a hypothetical: (referencing statistics in the book "Freakonomics"):

I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Bennett was immediately attacked by Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists, and many others. His comments were labeled "racist."

Of course, no one on this list of elite whites and angry liberal blacks could possibly explain how Bennett's comments were racist. Nor could anyone show that the comments were false. The reason is simple: They weren't racist. They were true.

That is just the point: The truth doesn't matter to these people. That is why all should tell the truth to black America.

Bennett didn't say anything objectionable, yet he was attacked. He was attacked by people whose only purpose is to destroy, by people who don't care who they destroy. Whether you tell the truth or stay silent, they will go after you. They need no provocation.

Consider this analogy. There is a movie in theaters now called "Grizzly Man." It's about a man who spent several summers "making friends" with Alaskan grizzly bears. He gave the grizzlies names, sang to them, told them he loved them. Then the grizzlies ate him.

Not surprising, of course. Be as nice as you want; at the end of the day, grizzlies are grizzlies - wild animals that will kill you when it suits them.

Evil is the same way. No one needs to provoke Kennedy, Dean, Reid, or the NAACP. They serve the side of destruction. That's just what they do.

No matter what you do, no matter how nice you try to be, no matter how genuinely you try to have a dialogue, no matter how much money you give, evil will never cease to be evil. Liberals, black and white, will attack conservative white Republicans as racists regardless. Ask Bill Bennett.

Or ask President Bush. He's invested more government money in black America than Bill Clinton. He's put more black Americans in prominent leadership positions than Bill Clinton. He's been a fine moral example, unlike Bill Clinton. It doesn't matter. Evil people love Bill Clinton because he is one of them. Those who oppose President Bush hate him because he's good. They will forever oppose him for this reason. Just recently, Congressman Charles Rangel called President Bush the modern-day "Bull" Connor.

Do you think Charles Rangel and those like him will let you off the hook, whether you tell the truth or not? Guess again.

1. Tell black America the truth. Accept that it won't always be met pleasantly, but that you're standing for what's right, you are exposing lies, helping truth gain ground, and inspiring others to do the same. Or,

2. Stay silent. Let evil do what it wants. It will strike, of course, despite your silence. Only this way it goes unopposed, gains ground, and the good lose heart.

The remark in question occurred early in the three-way conversation, following a line of query directed at Mrs. Bush regarding whether she found herself studying her son for verbal or visual signs of how well he was holding up under the pressure. (Sawyer: "As a mother, do you watch for strain on him?") Mrs. Bush replied that she looked for such indications in all five of her children and remarked on the family's propensity for having hair that turns white earlier than is the norm. An additional query about whether the senior Bushes, who do not normally watch a great deal of television, found themselves watching more TV during this period than was their usual custom fetched from Mrs. Bush the quote that has since earned a measure of notoriety:

"I watch none. He [former President Bush] sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don't take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

Mexico Mulls Silver Lining Against Currency Crash
Pav Jordan - Reuters

An influential Mexican businessman wants to reintroduce silver coins as legal currency - as in Mexico's 16th century heyday - and, far-fetched as it may sound, the idea is winning support.

The Senate has already passed the initiative, and the lower house is expected to vote soon on the bill, which has struck a nerve in a country where decades of financial crisis have fomented a deep distrust of paper currency.

The central bank opposes the plan as anachronistic.

Hugo Salinas Price, founder of the specialty retailer Elektra, says silver could be the shield to protect Mexicans' savings from another currency collapse.

"The idea was born from the need to protect the currency," said Price, whose son, Ricardo Salinas, is chief executive of Mexico's No. 2 broadcaster, TV Azteca.

Mexico's peso is stable now, and has actually strengthened of late, but fear of currency collapse is etched deep in the Mexican psyche after previous financial crises.

Mexico was a top supplier of silver coins during the colonial era, when they were significant components of the Spanish and British treasuries. The minting of coins in the New World began in 1535 in Mexico City.

According to Price and advocate lawmakers interviewed by Reuters, the new coins would be valued according to the price of silver as a commodity, with the central bank, Banco de Mexico, managing coinage and charging a 10 percent seigniorage.

The 1-ounce silver coin, called the Libertad (Liberty), would have no nominal value engraved upon it, and would circulate alongside the conventional peso currency. Its worth would be stated daily in a central bank quote.

Silver traded at about $7.50 an ounce on Friday in New York. The peso was valued at about 11 per U.S. dollar.

Price said the Libertad would be protected from losing value because losses on commodity markets would be compensated for by central bank valuations.

Representatives of the central bank could not be reached to comment, but it has rejected the idea in arguments to legislators, citing concerns ranging from counterfeiting to minting costs.

Independent economists also argue against monetizing silver, saying it has no place in a modern world of interconnected and open economies.

Rafael Urquia, an analyst with Banamex Accival brokerage in Mexico City, said the plan would limit the flexibility of monetary policy.

"I am inclined to think that this will not pass (Congress)," Urquia said in a recent interview. "I would like to think that the legislators sitting on economic committees have some common sense."

Opponents also cite the costs of adapting the currency system to incorporate silver coins, and list the subsequent transaction costs and even minting costs as other concerns.

"This idea of a hybrid currency seeks the best of both worlds - and I think that would be difficult," Urquia said.

Still, the 1994-95 financial meltdown known as the "Tequila crisis" is just the most recent example of why some Mexicans are eager for an alternative safe haven for their money.

Despite recent advances, Mexico still has one of Latin America's lowest rates of savings and bank credit.

Most past crises have coincided with presidential elections, and the tight, three-way race for the 2006 vote has generated worries that the peso could be in for a steep decline.

Still, Mexico produced some 3 million ounces of silver in 2004 and state governors and legislators say the plan could give a boost to the economies of states producing silver.

"We see this as a viable initiative," said Fernando Guzman, a federal deputy with the governing National Action Party. "It would bring a new vitality to the state economies."

Proponents of silver money cite Gresham's law - named after the financial agent of England's Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579) - to support arguments that people tend to save currencies with intrinsic values when they are traded alongside fiduciary monies.

"I can tell you one thing for sure, I don't always stop to pick up a peso if I drop it," said Violeta de la Torre, an office administrator. "But I certainly wouldn't leave a silver ounce lying in the street."

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday against parents who sued their local school district after their elementary-age children were given a sexually charged survey, saying there is "no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children."

The three-judge panel of the full court further ruled that parents "have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."

Six parents sued the Palmdale, Calif., School District after finding out their kids had been asked a series of sexual questions in class. They included asking the children about the frequency of:

    Touching my private parts too much
    Thinking about having sex
    Thinking about touching other people's private parts
    Thinking about sex when I don't want to
    Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside
    Not trusting people because they might want sex
    Getting scared or upset when I think about sex
    Having sex feelings in my body
    Can't stop thinking about sex
    Getting upset when people talk about sex

Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote the unanimous opinion for the court [.pdf document]. Referring to the fact the parents lost their case at the district-court level, Reinhardt wrote:

We agree [with the previous ruling], and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students. Finally, we hold that the defendants' actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. [emphasis Reinhardt's].

Carrie Gordon Earll is director of issue analysis with Focus on the Family Action.

"Anyone who wonders why pro-family organizations like ours have been so concerned about activist courts only has to look at this case," Earll said in a statement. "The 9th Circuit did more than rule against parents who were upset that their elementary-school-aged children were being asked explicit questions about sex in class. They told all parents they have no right to protest what public schools tell their children."

Continued Earll: "What the court did here is declare parenthood unconstitutional. It's long been the liberal view that it takes a village to raise a child – but never before have the 'villagers' been elevated, as a matter of law, above mothers and fathers."

The controversy began in 2001 when a volunteer "mental health counselor" at Mesquite Elementary School set out to conduct a psychological assessment test of students in the first, third and fifth grades.

A letter to parents asked for their consent to conduct the study but did not indicate that questions of a sexual nature would be asked. The survey included 79 questions divided into four parts. Ten of those questions were of a sexual nature.

According to the court's opinion, the plaintiffs took action after their children participated in the survey and later told their parents about the sexual questions. Seeking damages and injunctive relief, the parents charged the district violated their federal constitutional right to privacy.

The lower court had ruled against the parents, saying the right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs" does not rise to the level of a fundamental right protected by substantive due process.

Wrote Reinhardt: "As with all constitutional rights, the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children is not without limitations. In Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), the Court recognized that parents' liberty interest in the custody, care and nurture of their children resides 'first' in the parents, but does not reside there exclusively, nor is it 'beyond regulation [by the state] in the public interest.' For example, the state 'as parens patriae' may restrict parents' interest in the custody, care and nurture of their children 'by requiring school attendance, regulating or prohibiting the child's labor and in many other ways.'"

Reinhardt also cited previous cases that upheld the right of schools to educate children about issues of sexuality.

In the old days, children were warned not to smoke because it would stunt their growth. Apparently the same warning can now be issued for Ritalin.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have analyzed 29 separate studies on the subject and have concluded that there is indication that some Ritalin users may experience slow or even stunted growth.

"Parents should expect their children to lose some weight and grow more slowly for a time after starting on stimulant medication, and this should be monitored, " says pediatrician Sally Poulton of the University.

Two of the studies reviewed by Poulton and colleagues suggest that children who experience nausea and vomiting as an early side effect of Ritalin may be uniquely vulnerable to slow growth. University of Iowa psychologist John R. Kramer, PhD, who led one of the research teams, said that this small sub-group of Ritalin users ended up more than 2 inches shorter than other Ritalin users.

Ritalin, of course, is the drug of choice given to children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The drug is now administered to over 10 million American children, beginning as early as four years old. Promoted by federal education policies, use of the drug increased more than 500% in the 1990s.

Yet, as usage continues to rise, Dr. Fred Baughman, a leading critic of ADHD theory, warns that there still is no valid research to prove that ADHD even exists. To date, according to Baughman, there has never been a single bit of physical evidence to confirm the disease exists.

So-called experts on the subject have refused to answer the simple question, "is ADD /ADHD a real disease?" Medical researchers charge that ADHD does not meet the definition of a disease or syndrome or anything organic or biologic.

Instead, Baughman charges, ADHD was literally invented by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

The explosion of new ADHD cases in the 1990s, which continues today, can be traced directly to a 1991 change in eligibility for federal education grants allowing schools to be paid $400 in annual grants for each child diagnosed with ADHD, after classifying it as a handicap.

Ritalin is known to cause cardiac arrythmia, tachycardia and hypertension. Research has proven that Ritalin can interfere with body phospholipid chemistry (body fat), causing the accumulation of abnormal membranes visible with an electronic microscope.

Ritalin is early training to introduce children to drug abuse. Today, a black market for obtaining Ritalin without a prescription has developed on some college campuses, where some students actually crush the pills and snort them like cocaine. In fact, research has shown that children on Ritalin are three times more likely to develop a taste for cocaine.

Yet, with the money pouring into school coffers, education officials, acting like local street pushers, keep forcing it on unsuspecting, worried parents and their innocent children.

Ritalin: it will stunt your child's growth; shrink their brains; cause violent mood swings and cause addiction, just to treat a disease that doesn't exist. And Americans wonder what's wrong with public education.

(Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Va.)

House Republicans are looking closely at ending birthright citizenship and building a barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border as they search for solutions to illegal immigration.

A task force of party leaders and members active on immigration has met since the summer to try to figure out where consensus exists, and several participants said those two ideas have floated to the top of the list of possibilities to be included either in an immigration-enforcement bill later this year or in a later comprehensive immigration overhaul.

"There is a general agreement about the fact that citizenship in this country should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who come into this country illegally," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, who is participating in the "unity dinners," the group of Republicans trying to find consensus on immigration.

Birthright citizenship, or what critics call "anchor babies," means that any child born on U.S. soil is granted citizenship, with exceptions for foreign diplomats. That attracts illegal aliens, who have children in the United States; those children later can sponsor their parents for legal immigration.

Most lawmakers had avoided the issue, fearing that change would require a constitutional amendment -- the 14th Amendment reads in part: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

"There's been recent scholarship that says we can do it by statute, and we ought to try," said Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, who usually finds himself on the opposite side of immigration issues from Mr. Tancredo.

"How in the world can you explain that's a good policy to have? It simply doesn't promote respect for the rule of law," Mr. Flake said.

Several lawmakers said the U.S. and Mexico are the only major Western countries to have birthright citizenship. Most European countries have moved away from birthright citizenship in recent decades.

"I am as surprised as anyone that this thing has got legs," Mr. Tancredo said, adding that he views it as a major step forward for the immigration debate. "This is the issue that motivated me to deal with immigration."

While some members said it could be part of an immigration bill later this year, Rep. Dan Lungren, California Republican, said it will take longer to drum up public support for such a major change, though he backs ending the policy.

At this week's "unity dinner," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, said he supports a barrier system of fences in some places and electronic surveillance or vehicle barriers in others, one participant said.

Mr. Hastert's spokesman said the speaker would not talk about the private meetings.

Border barriers received a big boost yesterday when Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, announced a broad enforcement bill with a fence as its centerpiece.

"The fence works," Mr. Hunter said. He led the fight earlier in this Congress to complete a 14-mile section of fence near San Diego, and he and other members said the success there gives the idea momentum.

"Those who say the fence won't work, frankly, don't have experience with fences," said Rep. Geoff Davis, a Kentucky Republican who is supporting Mr. Hunter's bill.

But Mr. Flake and fellow Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe, who both support legalizing illegal aliens and raising legal immigration levels by 400,000 per year, said a fence would not work.

Mr. Flake said it would not affect those illegal aliens -- about half of the total immigrant population -- who came to the United States on legal temporary visas and have overstayed. He also said he does not want it to sap energy from a comprehensive solution.

"My fear is people will say let's build a fence and put off any guest-worker, border enforcement, interior enforcement for years," he said.

Rep. John Shadegg, the Arizona Republican who runs the dinners, said they are reaching some areas of consensus, though he would not specify and said committee chairmen would have to write the eventual bill.

But he said the effort has convinced the White House to do more to enforce the borders -- something he said was reflected both in President Bush's remarks upon signing the homeland security spending bill and in congressional testimony by the Homeland Security secretary.

Mr. Shadegg said the group has talked about border barriers and electronic surveillance, and said he is a fan of using unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the border, particularly because they can track criminal behavior, which is crucial in establishing a chain of evidence to convict drug or alien smugglers.

A few years ago, I was approached by a man who was dying of cancer. His doctors had written him off. They had told him there was nothing they could do; he was terminal. After we got to know each other, he decided for reasons of his own to confide in me the dark secrets that he knew as a result of his career in some very dark places. He knew the dark truth about our worst nightmare, he said: The AIDS virus was created by man. Intentionally. The AIDS epidemic was designed with specific goals in mind and carried out according to plan.

Like everyone else, I'd heard that speculation. And I knew that anyone who indulged in it was likely to be dismissed as a nut case. How could anyone believe such a monstrous fantasy? It made no sense. It was beyond imagination. But this man was very sane. He was a solid professional, whose connections were at high levels in several countries. He was not indulging in speculation. He knew what he was talking about. He knew the names and the numbers. He knew where some of the work was done. He knew the answers to the questions: How? And why? He knew many of the details. He knew where to look for the rest.

I've spent the years since then pursuing the truth about the AIDS epidemic. It was not a pleasant experience. This is a truth that we were never supposed to know. It was supposed to remain a secret. Forever. To my surprise, I discovered that a lot of people—scientists, doctors, government intelligence agents, even some politicians—know parts of the story and are willing to talk about it, if their anonymity is protected.

A few of them have gone public, most notably, Dr. John Seale in England, but the press has generally ignored them—or ridiculed them. The press, after all, has its reputation to uphold. It would not want to risk dismissal as a nut case by flirting with dangerous truths. Better to accept the conventional wisdom as passed down by government officials who are, in the words of one observer, "paid a salary to tell lies to the American people."

That's part of the AIDS tragedy. Millions are dying around the world and millions more will probably die before the public even becomes aware of what has really happened to us in the last fifteen years—and why it has happened. Full Disclosure answers those questions: How? And why? I offer it in the cause of public awareness. I trust that it will inspire others to pursue the truth. Because the truth is our only hope.

For the sake of his conservative audience of British physicians, Dr. Seale was understating his own conclusion based on his research into the AIDS epidemic. What he was trying to tell them, in the gentlest way possible, was this: the deliberate introduction of the AIDS virus into mankind is exactly what has happened.

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! -- Tribble]

According to a printout from a computer controlled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, I am an enemy of the state.

The printout, shown to me recently by a friend who works for Justice, identifies me by a long, multi-digit number, lists my date of birth, place of birth, social security number and contains more than 100 pages documenting what the Bureau and the Bush Administration consider to be my threats to the security of the United States of America.

It lists where I sent to school, the name and address of the first wife that I had been told was dead but who is alive and well and living in Montana, background information on my current wife and details on my service to my country that I haven’t even revealed to my wife or my family.

Although the file finds no criminal activity by me or members of my immediate family, it remains open because I am a “person of interest” who has “written and promoted opinions that are contrary to the government of the United States of America.”

And it will remain active because the government of the United States, under the far-reaching provisions of the USA Patriot Act, can compile and retain such information on any American citizen. That act gives the FBI the authority to collect intimate details about anyone, even those not suspected of any wrongdoing.

My file begins on September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. A Marine guard standing post at the Navy Yard in Washington jotted down the license number of my Jeep Wrangler after I was spotted taking pictures of armed guards at the locked-down military facility.

That night, I found a card stuffed under my door from Agent John Ryan of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. I chuckled at the time because the lead character in Tom Clancy’s novels is named John P. Ryan.

I called Agent Ryan the next day. He wanted to know what the hell I was doing taking photos of a military facility. I explained that I was a journalist and taking pictures was what I did for a living. I directed him to a web site where he could find some of the photos I shot of the Navy Yard’s side gate on that day. He asked for additional information, including date of birth and social security number, which I provided, and then hung up.

I thought the matter was dead until a few weeks ago when an old friend from Washington called, said he was in the area, and suggested lunch. At lunch, he showed me the 100-plus pages of the file on me that grew out of that first encounter with Agent Ryan of NCIS.

“Much of this information was gathered through what we call ‘national security letters,’” he said. “It allows us to gather information from a variety of sources.”

A “national security letter” it turns out, can be issued by any FBI supervisor, without court order or judicial review, to compel libraries, banks, employers and other sources to turn over any and all information they have on American citizens.

The FBI issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year. When one is delivered to a bank, library, employer or other entity, the same federal law that authorizes such letters also prohibits your bank, employer or anyone else from telling you that they received such a letter and were forced to turn over all information on you.

According to my file, the banks where I have both business and checking accounts have been forced to turn over all records of my transactions, as have every company where I have a charge account or credit card. They’ve perused my book borrowing habits from libraries in Arlington and Floyd Counties as well as studied what television shows I watch on the Tivos in my house. They know I belong to the National Rifle Association, the National Press Photographers Association and other professional groups. They know I attend meetings of Alcoholic Anonymous on a regular basis and the file notes that my “pattern of spending” shows no purchase of “alcohol-related products” since the file was opened in 2001.

In the past, when information collected on an American citizen failed to turn up any criminal activity, FBI policy called for such information to be destroyed.

But President George W. Bush in 2003 reversed that long-standing policy and ordered the bureau and other federal agencies to not only keep that information but place it in government databases that can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

In October, Bush also signed Executive Order 13388 which expands access to those databases to “appropriate private sector entities” although the order does not explain what those entities might be. In addition, the Bush Administration has successfully blocked legislation and legal actions that have tried to stop the expansion of spying and gathering of information on Americans.

FBI spokesmen defend the national security letters as a “necessary tool” on the so-called “war on terror.”

"Congress has given us this tool to obtain basic telephone data, basic banking data, basic credit reports," Valarie E. Caproni, the FBI general counsel, told The Washington Post. "The fact that a national security letter is a routine tool used, that doesn't bother me."

Obviously it doesn’t. Carponi signed at least one of the letters used to gather information for my file.

When I asked to keep the copy of the file, my friend said “no.” I promised to keep it and the source confidential.

“You can’t,” he said. “You can’t keep anything hidden. Your life is an open book with us and it will be to the day you die.”

After we left lunch and went our separate ways, I wondered how, if my life was under such scrutiny from Uncle Sam, he could meet me for lunch in a public restaurant and not be discovered? So the next day I went to a public phone in an out-of-the-way location and dialed his direct number.

It was disconnected. So I called the central number and asked to speak to him. The woman who answered the phone wanted my name and phone number so he could return the call. I hung up.

Then I drove home with one eye glued to the rearview mirror. Didn’t see anything suspicious but if I turn up missing one day, just forward my mail to General Delivery, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid the terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends"
-- Former Attorney General, John Ashcroft

Did you know that under the terms of the new Patriot Act prosecutors will be able to seek the death penalty in cases where "defendants gave financial support to umbrella organizations without realizing that some of its adherents might eventually commit violence"? (NY Times; editorial 10-30-05) So, if someone unknowingly gave money to a charity that was connected to a terrorist group, he could be executed.

Or, that the Senate Intelligence Committee is fine-tuning the details of a bill that will allow the FBI to secretly procure any of your personal records without "probable cause" or a court order giving them "unchecked authority to pry into personal and business matters"? (New York Times, "Republicans seek to widen FBI Powers, 10-19-05)

Or, that on June 29, President Bush put "a broad swath of the FBI"
under his direct control by creating the National Security Service (aka; the "New SS")? This is the first time we've had a "secret police" in our 200 year history. It will be run exclusively by the president and beyond the range of congressional oversight.

Or, that on October 27, 2005 president Bush created the National Clandestine Service, which will be headed by CIA Director Porter Goss and will "expand reporting of information and intelligence value from state, local and tribal law enforcement entities and private sector stakeholders"? This executive order gives the CIA the power to carry out covert operations, spying, propaganda, and "dirty tricks" within the United States and on the American public. ("The New National Intelligence Strategy of the US" by Larry Chin, Global Research)

Or, that Pentagon intelligence operatives are now permitted to collect information from US citizens without revealing their status as government spies? ("Bill would give Cover to Pentagon Spies", Greg Miller, Times Staff writer, "The Nation")

Or, that within 2 years every American license and passport will be made according to federal uniform standards including microchips (with biometric information) that will allow the government to trace every movement of its citizens?

Or, that recent rulings, the DC District Court unanimously decided in two different cases that foreign prisoners have no rights under international law to challenge their indefinite imprisonment by the United States and, (in Rumsfeld vs. Padilla) that the president can lock up an American citizen "without charges" if he believes he may be an "enemy combatant"? Both verdicts overturn the fundamental principles of "inalienable rights", habeas corpus, and the presumption of innocence; replacing them with the arbitrary authority of the executive.

The American people have no idea of the amount of energy that has been devoted to stripping them of their constitutional protections and how stealthily that plan has been carried out. It has required the concerted efforts of the political establishment, the corporate elite, and the collaborative media. For all practical purposes, the government is no longer constrained in its conduct towards its citizens; it can do as it pleases.

The campaign to dismantle the Bill of Rights has focused primarily on the key amendments; the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th. These are the cornerstones of American liberty and they encompass everything from due process to equal protection to free speech to a ban on the "cruel and unusual" treatment of prisoners. Freedom has little tangible meaning apart from the safety provided by these amendments.

At present, there's no reason for the administration to assert its new powers. That would only dispel the widely-held illusion of personal freedom. But, the existing climate of "well being" will not last forever. The poisonous effects of war, tax cuts, burgeoning budget deficits, and inflation indicate that darker days lie ahead. The middle class is stretched paper-thin and disaster could be as close as a hike in interest rates. The new repressive legislation anticipates the massive political unrest that naturally follows a tenuous and volatile economic situation.

Is this why Congress has rubber stamped so many of the administration's autocratic laws, or does Bush simply "hate our freedoms"?

The members of America's ruling elite carefully follow the shifting of policy in Washington. They have the power to access the mainstream media and dispute the changes in the law that they oppose. Regrettably, there's been no sign of protest from the bastions of the corporate, financial and political oligarchy; just an ominous silence.

Does this mean that American Brahmins have abandoned their support for personal liberty and the rights of man?

America is undergoing its greatest metamorphosis. It has been severed from its constitutional moorings and is drifting towards a police state. If Samuel Alito is appointed to the Supreme Court then Bush will be able to solidify his "unchecked" power as executive and 50 years of progressive legislation will be up for review. Everything from abortion to Miranda will be reconsidered through the hard-right lens of the new majority.

Americans still seem blissfully unaware of the fundamental changes to the political system. The cloak of disinformation and diversion has successfully obscured the perils of our present course. Freedom is no longer guaranteed in Bush's America nor is liberty everyman's birthright. The rickety scaffolding that supports the rule of law has been replaced by the unbridled authority of the supreme presidency. The country is slipping inexorably towards the Orwellian nightmare; the National Security State.

Cooper continued by saying, "Mr. Bush is the first US president since James Garfield in 1881 to accept every bill that Congress sends him as if it were perfect. And Garfield only served six months in office."

Again, Cooper wrote, "Most of the strong presidents in American history vetoed dozens, sometimes hundreds, of bills. Mr. Bush has vetoed none."

Beyond that, according to Stephen Slivinski of the libertarian Cato Institute, "[President] Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Mr. Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years." However, the story is even worse than that.

Jim Cooper notes that "Not only has Mr. Bush failed to veto any legislation, he has not rescinded any outlays. This lesser-known power has been used by every president since Richard Nixon except, again, for George W. Bush. Rescissions allow presidents to cut any spending programmes within larger bills as long as simple majorities in both Houses of Congress agree.

"Although this White House pretends it is powerless, former president Bill Clinton sought to rescind 163 spending items totaling $6.6 billion, and won 111 from a divided Congress, saving $3.6 billion. Mr. Bush's father tried to rescind 169 items totaling $13.3 billion, winning 34 from a divided Congress, saving $2.3 billion. The champion is Ronald Reagan, who tried to cut 602 spending items costing $43.4 billion and won 214, again from a divided Congress, thus saving $15.6 billion."

Cooper summarized by saying, "Mr. Bush has rescinded no programmes, saving no dollars, despite complete Republican control of Congress. The fiscal consequences of one-party government are dire. Today, there is no adult supervision of Congress. No wonder congressional 'earmarks'-pork-barrel spending in a member's own state or district-have multiplied to almost $24 billion annually. Mr. Bush is aiding and abetting the most expensive political logrolling in American history."

There can now be no argument on the subject. Anyone attempting to claim that G.W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress believe in limiting government spending is pixilated! George Bush consumes tax dollars the way he once consumed booze! And, on the whole, his Republican buddies in Congress are perhaps even bigger spending sops than he is! They don't belong in Washington; they belong in SA (Spenders Anonymous).

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old University of Notre Dame lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said : "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change."

"Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

SAN FRANCISCO -- The National Rifle Association sued Wednesday to overturn an ordinance voters here overwhelmingly approved a day earlier that bans handgun possession and sales of firearms in the city.

A state appeals court in 1982 nullified a similar gun ban largely on grounds that the city cannot enact an ordinance that conflicts with state law, which allows for the sale and possession of handguns and ammunition.

The NRA filed its lawsuit Wednesday asking the same court, the 1st District Court of Appeal, to nullify the ordinance, which demands that city residents surrender their handguns by April.

"Cities do not have the authority under the state law to ban the possession of handguns," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA president.

The NRA also contends the new ordinance unfairly puts San Francisco residents at a disadvantage by denying them the means to protect themselves. The measure does not bar nonresidents from possessing handguns within city limits.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera said his office will vigorously defend the ordinance, which was approved by 58 percent of voters.

"The electorate sent a strong message that local governments have a strong role in curbing violence in our streets," Herrera said.

He said the 1982 measure was overturned because it applied to all people within city limits, regardless of whether they lived there.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has said the measure probably won't withstand legal scrutiny, but has symbolic value.

The NRA is not alleging the ordinance violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but it would in federal court if it loses the state case, LaPierre said.

Have you been paying attention? I suppose that if I have to ask the question, then you probably have NOT.

Listen to what the numerous political agents are saying. Of course that is a good thing to do at all times. But, for several years now, they have been referring to the people of the nation as "civilians". When did we go from being CITIZENS to being Civilians? While this has been a tactic for many years, it really took hold with the disasters of 09/11/2001. From that day forward, there has been almost no mention of the people as CITIZENS.

Why do the political agents make that distinction? Simple, it is them against us. A civilian is what the people are viewed from a military perspective. CITIZENS are what the people are viewed from a servant perspective.

Citizen - 1 : an inhabitant of a city or town; especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman
2 a : a member of a state b : a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it
3 : a civilian as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state

Civilian - one not on active duty in a military, police, or fire-fighting force

NEW YORK - Institutionalized Christianity in the U.S. has grown so extremist that it poses a tangible danger to the principle of separation of church and state and threatens to undermine the religious tolerance that characterizes the country, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, warned in his address to the League's national commission, meeting in New York City over the weekend.

"Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!" he said.

Foxman proceeded to describe the process and to name names: "Major players include Focus On Family. Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, Family Research Council and more. They and other groups have established new organizations and church-based networks, and built infrastructure throughout the country designed to promote traditional Christian values."

The ADL, considered the largest Jewish organization in America, has in the past spearheaded campaigns against religious preachers and Christian elements deemed unusually extreme. But this is the first all-out media assault by an ADL head on the U.S. Christian establishment.

"In 2002, leaders from 10 conservative Christian organizations formed the `Arlington Group,' an alliance of over 50 of the most prominent Christian leaders and organizations. Their Web site documented in considerable details the agenda of a wide range of issues, including judicial nominees, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, abortion restrictions and the faith-based initiative - and their expectation of success on these issues [was high] because of their perceived political strength," Foxman said.

He noted that churches and organizations of this sort have always been active in America, but they had never before been so aggressive and determined. "They intend to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports; from the military to SpongeBob SquarePants," Foxman charged. "No effort is made to hide their goals or their ambitions, and their vision of America is far different from ours."

Foxman traced the growing spread of Christian extremism to a crisis in values among large segments of the American population and a corresponding yearning for religious content, along with the presence of President George Bush as an encouraging ally. However, Foxman identified the central cause as a sense of persecution and the perception that religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, are under attack from the liberals in the U.S.

In his speech, Foxman presented the as yet unpublished results of an opinion poll commissioned by the ADL. The survey found that an overwhelming 75 percent of Americans who attend church once a week believe that religion is under attack in America. Among evangelicals, that figure rises to 80 percent. Among those who attend church regularly, 70 percent think that Christianity is particularly threatened; 76 percent of evangelicals agree.

The poll also revealed that 60 percent of church members, and 69 percent of evangelical favor instituting organized prayer in America's public schools.

LOS ANGELES - The Internal Revenue Service has warned a prominent liberal church that it could lose it's tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon a guest preacher gave on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, according to church officials.

The Rev. George F. Regas did not urge parishioners at All Saints Episcopal Church to support either President Bush or John Kerry, but he was critical of the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts.

The IRS warned the church in June that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy because such organizations are prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

The church's rector, J. Edwin Bacon, told his congregation about the problem Sunday.

"It's important for everyone to understand that the IRS concerns are not supported by the facts," Bacon said.

Bacon later said he chose Sunday to inform the congregation because Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in attendance and because he believes a decision from the IRS is imminent. He called the IRS threat "a direct assault on freedom of speech and freedom of religion."

An IRS spokesman in Washington declined to comment Monday, saying he could not discuss particular cases.

Some All Saints members said they feared the 3,500-member church was being singled out for its political views.

All Saints has long been vocal about its positions. Its Web site mentions the upcoming special election in California and says three Republican-backed propositions would "alter the very fabric of our lives as a democracy by limiting the right to representation and the right to express a political point of view." Regas, who gave the 2004 sermon, retired 10 years ago as the church's rector.

Marcus Owens, the church's tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said the agency offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said.

The IRS has revoked a church's charitable designation at least once. A church in Binghamton, N.Y., lost its status after running advertisements against Bill Clinton's candidacy before the 1992 presidential election.

Chicago schools are leading the way, trying to prepare students for an increasingly globalized world.
By Amanda Paulson

The fourth-graders at Chicago's McCormick Elementary School don't know Mandarin is supposed to be hard to learn.

For most, who speak Spanish at home, it's becoming their third language. They've been hearing and using Chinese words since kindergarten, and it's now second nature to give a hearty ni hao when strangers enter the classroom.

"It's really fun!" says Miranda Lucas, taking a break from a lesson that includes a Chinese interview with Jackie Chan. "I'm teaching my mom to speak Chinese."

The classroom scene at McCormick is unusual, but it may soon be a common fixture in American schools, where Chinese is rapidly becoming the hot new language. Government officials have long wanted more focus on security-useful languages like Chinese, and pressure from them - as well as from business leaders, politicians, and parents - has prompted a quick growth in the number of programs.

Chicago itself is home to the largest effort to include Chinese in US public schools. The program here has grown to include 3,000 students in 20 schools, with more schools on a waiting list. Programs have also spread to places like Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and North Carolina.

Proponents see knowledge of the Chinese language and culture as a leg up in a global economy where China is growing in importance. "This is beginning to bubble up as, 'This is an interesting way to begin to engage with the world's next superpower,' " says Michael Levine, director of education at the Asia Society, which has started five new public high schools that offer Chinese. "Globalization has already changed the arrangements in terms of how children today are going to need to think about their careers…. The question is when, not whether, the schools are going to adjust."

The number of students learning Chinese is tiny compared with how many study Spanish or French. But one report shows that precollegiate enrollment nearly quadrupled between 1992 and 2002, from 6,000 to 24,000.

When the College Board polled schools last year about offering an Advanced Placement program for Chinese, it expected perhaps a few hundred to say they were interested. Instead, 2,400 high schools said they wanted to offer the class, which will be ready by next year.

"It was off the charts in terms of our expectation," says Tom Matts, director of the World Languages Initiative for the College Board's AP program.

Despite the demand, though, developing programs isn't easy. And the No. 1 obstacle, everyone agrees, is having enough teachers.

Finding teachers "is the challenge," says Scott McGinnis, an academic adviser for the Defense Language Institute's Washington office and a Chinese teacher for 15 years at the collegiate level. "Materials are easy in comparison. Or getting schools funded."

Just finding Chinese speakers isn't enough, Dr. McGinnis emphasizes, since often there is a large culture gap, or little knowledge of how to teach a language. Certification requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act makes it even tougher. He and Mr. Levine say what is needed is a mix of short-term solutions - like alternative certification and teacher exchanges with China - as well as long-term ones, such as developing certification programs at universities. Only two currently have such fully developed programs in place.

The language itself offers some challenges, too: Chinese is considered one of the most time-intensive languages to learn. For a typical person, it takes 63 weeks of 30-hours-a-week instruction to reach a working proficiency, says McGinnis - nearly three times the amount needed for a similar proficiency in Spanish or German.

Those arguing for more Chinese classes say learning the language is just part of a larger issue: the need for an expanded awareness of the world. "Language is a look in," says Levine. "One doesn't need to be proficient in Chinese languages in order to do business in China. But the exposure and the motivation to show that one understands and respects the Chinese culture is really half the battle won."

Indeed, business leaders are also starting to encourage more global curricula, particularly Chinese. "The more our young people know about cultural context in which they're operating, the better their competence as business leaders," says Charlie Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development, a nonpartisan think tank that is working on a report about the need for global studies and more diverse languages, including Chinese.

In Chicago, the trend extends beyond magnet schools or those with high numbers of Asian students. "The fact that my students are 98 percent low-income and 99 percent Latino, and they are succeeding at this, tells me everyone should have a shot at learning languages," says Virginia Rivera, principal at McCormick.

The program began six years ago and got a big boost when Mayor Richard Daley visited China. Languages are "greatly needed to compete in this world-is-flat society," says Mayor Daley. "We want to give our young people opportunities to advance … and [Chinese] is a great opportunity to survive in today's economy."

[Is it privacy or secrecy? When visiting or at a party, do you close the door when using the bathroom (I ask the question the way I did because at home your might not)? Why do you close the door? What do you have to hide? It is not secrecy (something to hide), it is privacy. -- Tribble]

In 2004, Raymon McGill, an Albany man with a history of convictions for lesser crimes dating back years, was required for the first time to surrender a DNA sample to authorities after he was convicted of robbery.

The conviction itself was not significant. But what it - and the resulting DNA matches - revealed put McGill at the scenes of two murders and the rape of a 77-year-old woman in 2000.

McGill was arrested for those crimes in July, giving Gov. George Pataki and a number of other advocates a new success story to help their push for a DNA database that would be expanded to include samples not only from convicted felons, but misdemeanor offenders as well.

In a state where 15,000 DNA profiles have been extracted from unsolved crimes and where cold cases are reopened daily on the basis of DNA evidence, proponents say a database including all offenders will give police the tool they need to track down thousands of attackers, rapists and murderers.

Or, as Pataki put it in a statement the day after McGill was arrested, it would "convict the guilty, exonerate the innocent and bring justice to victims."

State law mandates DNA samples be collected from all convicted violent felons - and some convicted of non-violent felonies - within 30 days of conviction, according to the state Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives.

Under a proposal from the governor, all criminals convicted of felonies or misdemeanors would have their DNA samples collected and stored. And some have gone even further, demanding DNA samples be taken from people who are arrested, regardless of whether they are ultimately convicted.

Civil libertarians strongly oppose the proposals. They say DNA contains more than only a unique identifier and worry about the potential for abuse or mishandling of DNA samples.

In a legislative memo, the New York Civil Liberties Union argued even people convicted of non-violent misdemeanor crimes - such as stealing cable service or ignoring police during non-violent protests - would have their DNA stored in the database.

The union said it's alarmed because lawmakers assured citizens such a database would have a limited scope when it was first introduced.

"What will be next, a parking ticket?" asked Linda Berns, executive director of the Lower Hudson Chapter of the civil liberties union.

Although it sounds absurd for the state to collect DNA samples from drivers who get parking or speeding tickets, Berns said it's not far-fetched because the government has been seeking more ways to collect DNA in incremental proposals over the years.

The union also fears DNA samples can be used for other purposes besides criminal matches. One example would be extracting health information from genetic profiles, which could have consequences for insurance and employment.

That's an issue addressed when the first databases were created, said Larry Kobilinsky, a DNA expert and professor of forensic science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

"The areas that are used for databasing information have no relationship whatsoever to those genes that are responsible for disease, and furthermore the database has been examined and safeguards are in place against abuse so that it's virtually impossible for someone to extract information about disease potential," Kobilinsky said.

In his statement extolling the virtues of an expanded DNA database, Pataki said DNA samples have helped authorities link offenders to more than 3,000 crimes since 2000.

Ultimately, allies of the proposal will point to its results. Noting "the database is only as good as the size of it," Kobilinsky said he favors the expansion.

"We've seen how many cold cases have been solved, especially rape cases, through the use of the database," he said.

For those concerned about civil liberties, they'll have opportunities to speak at a number of upcoming hearings on the subject.

"You're always going to have those people who are going to object," Kobilinsky said. "I think if people are not committing crime, they have nothing to fear."

An woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled with bright freckles, spent the day at the zoo. Lots of children were waiting in line to get their cheeks painted by a local artist who was decorating them with tiger paws.

"You've got so many freckles, there's no place to paint!" a girl in the line said to the little fella. Embarrassed, the little boy dropped his head.

His grandmother knelt down next to him "I love your freckles. When I was a little girl I always wanted freckles, she said, while tracing her finger across the child's cheek. "Freckles are beautiful!"

"Of course," said the grandmother. "Why, just name me one thing that's prettier than freckles."

The little boy thought for a moment, peered intensely into his grandma's face, and softly whispered, "Wrinkles."

**************************************
A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like. "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods."

The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

**************************************
My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?"

*********************************
When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied "I'm not sure."

***********************************
A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted, "Thou shall not take the covers off thy neighbor's wife."

***********************************
Our five-year-old son Mark couldn't wait to tell his friend about the movie we had watched on television, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." The scenes with the submarine and the giant octopus had kept him wide-eyed.

In the middle of the telling, my husband interrupted Mark, "What caused the submarine to sink?"

***************************************
A second grader came home from school and said to her mother, "Mom, guess what? We learned how to make babies today."

The mother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting," she said. "How do you make babies?"

****************************************
"Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher.

The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked.

********************************************
A grandmother was surprised by her 7 year old grandson one morning. He had made her coffee. She drank what was the worst cup of coffee in her life. When she got to the bottom, there were three of those little green Army men in the cup. She said "Honey, what are these army men doing in my coffee?"

Her grandson said, "Grandma, it says on TV, 'The best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup!' "

***********************************
A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties.

A third child brought the argument to a close..."They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrant!"

What do you say you're caught red-handed planning to track people with RFID when you've promised you never would? If you're a global corporation with millions of dollars invested in the technology, you call in your chips -- er, favors. RFID industry mouthpieces AIM Global and RFID Journal have both heeded the call of their advertisers and supporters, nipping at the heels of the new book Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Even start-up companies have tried to join the pack with critiques of their own.

"The companies behind the RFID industry must have thought they were calling out their attack dogs, but they apparently called their lap dogs by mistake" says Spychips co-author Katherine Albrecht. "Their attempts to criticize our book are toothless and feeble. In fact, they're using half-truths and outright lies to try to deflect from the real issues."

She points to several statements by RFID Journal's Mark Roberti as examples. In his review of the book he claims the authors "want a complete and total ban on the use of RFID for all consumer applications."

"That's absolute nonsense," says Albrecht, "Perhaps Mr. Roberti didn't read our book. We make it very clear that the only appropriate role for RFID legislation is to require companies to tell us when products contain RFID tags so we can make our own decisions about whether or not to buy them. We have never called for a ban on RFID."

Spychips co-author Liz McIntyre takes on AIM Global's review of the book. "AIM Global sinks its gums into Spychips, shaking it almost imperceptibly from side to side before collapsing into agreement with us," she writes.

AIM admits the patents revealed in the book are "more than a little disquieting," and that "the book does contain some valid concerns and highlights some of the more outlandish claims made by RFID proponents." However, AIM's anonymous reviewer deflects the blame for these worrisome ideas away from IBM, Procter & Gamble, and NCR where they belong and attributes them to unnamed "marketers."

Among these more "outlandish claims" and "disquieting proposals" are IBM's patent pending "Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items," Procter & Gamble's patent pending "Systems and Methods for Tracking Consumers in a Store Environment," and NCR's patented "Automated Monitoring of Activity of Shoppers in a Market," McIntyre notes.

"People can see through the industry's attempts at damage control and recognize them as spin," McIntyre observes. "When the industry expends this much energy trying to squelch a book, it's clear they're afraid, and, frankly, they should be. They can't squirm out of the truth this time. We've caught them with their own words, and it's all footnoted and documented."

When asked whether they'll be entertaining other rebuttal opportunities, the authors laugh, "We hate to turn down any opportunity to shame the opposition, but our editors remind us that we have more important tasks at hand. Besides, we've already done a thorough job addressing just about every issue the industry could lob our way."

Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID is the winner of the Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty. Authored by Harvard doctoral researcher Katherine Albrecht and former bank examiner Liz McIntyre, the book is meticulously researched, drawing on patent documents, corporate source materials, conference proceedings, and firsthand interviews to paint a convincing -- and frightening -- picture of the threat posed by RFID.

Despite its hundreds of footnotes and academic-level accuracy, the book remains lively and readable, according to critics, who have called it a "techno-thriller" and "a masterpiece of technocriticism."

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CASPIAN: Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering Opposing supermarket "loyalty" cards and other retail surveillance schemes since 1999

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Look at the new law that the USDA is going to force on everyone that has live stock, even if you raise it just for yourself. And it is going to include everyone who has even 1 horse that they use for transportation (Amish).

I have been raising animals for most of my life. Always trying to live a better life through natural foods and always helping out whoever needs help. I was very upset to read that I may not be able to do that anymore. Please support and boycot this new law. Tell EVERONE! This is still our country, but only if we fight for it. Don't just sit back and let things like this happen.

By Mary Zanoni, Ph.D. (Cornell), J.D. (yale), Executive Director of Farm for Life~ P.O. Box 501 · Canton, New York 13617 .' 315-265-2800 · mlz@slic.com

For several years,' the USDA has been working with the largest-scale animal industry organizations (for example, the National Pork Producers, Monsanto Company, and Cargill Meat) to develop a mandatory "National Animal Identification System" ("NAIS").

However, most small scale livestock producers, people who raise animals for their own food, and people who keep horses or livestock as companion animals do not know about the USDA's plans.

The NAIS will drive small producers out of the market, will make people abandon raising animals for their own food, will invade Americans' personal privacy to a degree never before tolerated, will violate the religious freedom of Americans whose beliefs make it impossible for them to comply, and will erase the last vestiges of animal welfare from the production of animal foods.

The Problem On April 25, 2005, the USDA released "Draft Program Standards" ("St.") and a "Draft Strategic Plan" ("Plan") concerning the NAI8. If you think the description below sounds too bizarre to be true, please go to usda.gov/nais, read the Standards and Plan, ana check the citations.

By January 1, 2008, the NAIS will be mandatory. (Plan, pp. 2, 10, 17.) Every person who owns even one horse, cow, P.ig, chicken, sheep, pigeon, or'virtually any livestock animal, will be forced to register their home, including owner's name, address, and telephone number, and keyed to Global Positioning System coordinates for satellite monitoring, in a giant federal database under a 7 -digit "premises 10 number." (St., pp. 3-4, 10-12; Plan, p. 5.) Every animal will have to be assigned a 15-digit 10 number, also to be kept in a giant federal database.

The form of 10 will most likely be a tag or microchip containing a Radio Frequency Identification Device, designed to be read from a distance. (Plan, p. 10; St., pp. 6, 12, 20, 27-28.) The plan may also include collecting the DNA of every animal and/or a retinal scan of every animal. (Plan, p.13.)

The owner will be required to report: the birthdate of an animal, the application of every animal's 10 tag, every time an animal leaves or enters the property, every time an animal loses a tag, every time a tag is replaced, the slaughter or death of an animal, or if any animal is missing. Such events must be reported within 24 hours. (St., pp. 12-13, 17-21.)

Third parties, such as veterinarians, will be required to report "sightings" of animals. (St., p. 25.) In other words, if you call a vet to your property to treat your horse, cow, or any other animal, and the vet finds any animal without the mandatory 15digit computer-readable 10, the vet may be required to report you.

If you do not comply, the USDA will exercise "enforcement" against you. (St., p. 7;
Plan, p. 17.) The USDA has not yet specified the nature of "enforcement," but presumably it will include imposing fines and/or seizing your animals.

There are no exceptions under the USDA plan, you will be forced to register and report even if you raise animals only for your own food or keep horses for draft or for transportation.

The Negative Effects Eradication of Small FarmsPeople with just a few meat animals or 40-cow dairies are already living on the edge financially. The USDA plan will force many of them to give up farming. Loss of the True Security of Organic and Local Foods - The NAIS is touted by the USDA and agricorporations as a way to make our food supply "secure" against diseases or terrorism. However, most people instinctively understand that real food security comes from raising food yourself or buying from a local farmer you actually know.

The USDA plan will only kill off more local sources of production and further promote the giant industrial methods which cause many food safety and disease problems;

Extreme Damage to Personal Privacy - Legally, livestock animals are a form of personal property. It is unprecedented for the United States government to conduct large-scale computeraided surveillance of its citizens simply because they own a common type of property. (The only exceptions are registration of motor vehicles and guns, due to their clear inherent dangers but they are registered at the state level, not by the federal govemment.) The NAIS would actually subject the owner of a chicken to far more surveillance than the owner of a gun. Surveillance of small-scale livestock owners is like the government subjecting people to surveillance for owning a couch, a tv, a lawn-mower.

What about non-livestock animals? Will the government next want to register all cats, dogs, and parakeets, and demand the' global positioning coordinates of their owners' houses and apartments?

Insult to Animal Welfare - The NAIS is the ultimate objectification of higher, sensitive living creatures, treating individual animals as if they were cans of peas with a bar code. Many people who raise their own animals or buy from small, local producers do so beca.use they are very troubled by industrial-scale. pro" duction of chickens, cattle,' and pigs. These people will be forced either to sacrifice their personl privacy to government surveillance, or to stop raising their own food by humane standards.

Burden on Religious Freedom .;... Many adherents of plain (and other) faiths raise their own food animals and use animals in farming and transportation because their beliefs require them to live this way. Such people obviously cannot comply with the USDA's computerized, technology-dependent system. The NAIS will force these people to violate their religious beliefs.

What You Can Do Do not participate in any ''voluntary" state or federal program to register your farm or animals-the USDA is using. farmers' supposed willingness to enter a ''voluntary'' program as a justification for making the program mandatory. (See Plan, "Executive Summary" and pp. 7-8.) Help Inform and Organize other concerned citizens. The USDA presently does not plan to finalize its rules for mandatory ID until the summer of 2006. There is still time to oppose this plan.

We have formed FARM for LlFETM, a public-interest organization to support the rights of small and subsistence farmers and consumer.s of organic, natural, and local foods. Our first project is to stop the USDA plan for mandatory animallD.

FARM for LlFETM will publish a newsletter three times a year (first publication scheduled for 7 November 2005), to inform you of developments concerning animal ID and other issues vital to the small farming and natural/organic food communities.. FARM for LlFETM will send you information at appropriate times on how to contact lawmakers and the USDA to oppose animal lD.

The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had "covertly" funded a project with the U.S. automakers for the past 5 years, whereby the automakers were installing black-box voice recorders in 4-wheel drive pickup trucks and SUV's in an effort to determine in fatal accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.

They were surprised to find in 38 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, "Oh S*** !"

Only the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Lousiana and Texas were different, where 89.3 percent of the final words were: "Hold my beer, I'm gonna try somethin."

“It’s about the only way we can ensure any privacy,” one bitter White House staffer told me this week. “Our office and home calls are monitored along with our normal cell phones.”

Enterprising White House staffers have pooled their resources and use third parties to purchase the phones in bulk from retailers like WalMart in small towns outside the National Capital Region. When one phone’s minutes are used up, they toss the handset and activate a new one.

Drug dealers and organized gangs use such phones to avoid wiretaps and call monitoring by law enforcement agencies. That White House aides have turned to the same techniques indicates just how tense life in the West Wing has become.

“Every time a new story emerges in the press, everyone here comes under suspicion,” says one aide. “We spend most of our time covering our asses instead of tending to the nation’s business.”

White House sources tell us that even senior aides like embattled Presidential advisor Karl Rove uses the prepaid phones to avoid having certain calls show up on call logs or other records that might be subpoenaed.

Other techniques employed by administration officials to avoid detection include:

--Free email accounts through services like Hotmail, Lycos, Yahoo and Gmail. Staff members create multiple accounts and create new ones often.

--Increased use of cash instead of credit or debit cards. “Gas receipts can show where you’ve been. When you pay cash there’s less of a trail to follow,” says one staff member.

--Use of cars belonging to friends or increased use of public transportation like the Washington metro system because “it’s easier to get lost in a crowd.”

“I know this all sounds like a dime store novel but that’s the depth we’ve all sunk to around here,” says an aide who has worked in previous administrations as well as on the current White House staff.

One female staffer says working at the White House has gone from “the most exciting time of my life to a daily hell. You’re always being watched, always under suspicion, always second-guessed. I hate it now. I just want it to be over.”

By example, most modern christians are taught to ignore the old text (oft called old testament), hence they know little or nothing about Abraham or Jacob. Therefore, they do not understand the possible ancestral connections with Muslims or Judites or anyone else. But, most of those others know better of their heritage than do modern christians. Those others know that most modern christians are full of &*$%.

I say all this, as this discovery reveals the Judite origins of what today passes for "christianity". It must be mentioned here that Judites (Jews, not to be confused with modern jews) are only 1/12th of the whole house of Israel, and any chance for a modern christian to lay claim to a 3rd century religious cult requires them to know their Israelite heritage, including (but not limited to) those through Judah. -- Tribble]

In the coming weeks, Israeli archaeology and prison officials will determine what to do with the site, now at the center of a very unwelcoming location for tourists. The options include digging up the area and moving it -- an expensive prospect -- or separating it from the rest of the prison and making it the centerpiece of a small museum.

"It's a very important place," said Ofer Lefler, spokesman for the Israel Prison Service. "Important to Israel and the rest of the world."

An Israeli researcher said he has made a Goliath of a find — the first archaeological evidence suggesting the biblical story of David slaying the Philistine giant actually took place.

A shard of pottery unearthed in a decade-old dig in southern Israel carried an inscription in early Semitic style spelling “Alwat and “Wlt”, likely Philistine renderings of the name Goliath, said Aren Maeir, who directed the excavation. “This is a groundbreaking find,” he said of the rust-coloured ceramic. “Here we have very nice evidence the name Goliath appearing in the Bible in the context of the story of David and Goliath ... is not some later literary creation.”

Maeir, head of the archaeology department at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, told Reuters that his excavators found the shard, possibly part of a bowl, about two metres (6.5 ft) underground at Tell es-Shafi. The mound where the dig took place is widely believed to be the site of the ancient city of Gath, which the Bible calls Goliath’s hometown.

The biblical story of the epic Philistine giant’s defeat at the hands of a much smaller David, who went on to become king of Israel, has long been a popular metaphor for the triumph of good over evil against all odds.

The specimen, from about 900 BC, isn’t old enough to have belonged to Goliath, himself — believed to have lived around 1,000 BC, Maeir said. But he added: “It is the first time in the land of Israel that we have (found) the name Goliath, or a name like Goliath”. “I haven’t found Goliath’s skeleton with the hole in the centre of his forehead, but it’s the first archaeological evidence from a Philistine site which lends strong credibility” to the story, the US-born researcher said..

The Book of Samuel I 17:4-10 spoke of “a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath”, a heavily armed giant who challenged an Israelite soldier to a duel. David, at the time a shepherd, took up Goliath’s challenge and “prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone” (Samuel I 17:50). Maeir said the shard is also the oldest Philistine inscription ever found in Israel. “Up until now most of what we know about the Philistines is from the Bible’s point of view. ... We get a very, very subjective view. They’re the bad people, the barbarians, we don’t get anything nice about them,” he said. “When we look at the Philistines from an archaeological point of view we get evidence of a very rich, dynamic, fascinating and advanced culture.” Maier said he spent several months verifying his find with other experts and planned to discuss it at a conference in the United States later this month. reuters

MEGIDDO, Israel, Nov. 6 -- Israeli state archaeologists have discovered mosaics, pottery and other remains of a Roman-era Christian building on the grounds of a high-security prison here. They say the site could be the oldest public place of Christian worship ever uncovered in Israel and perhaps one of the earliest such sites in the world.

The mosaic floor of the structure, buried beneath rock, soil and asphalt, was discovered Oct. 30 by an Israeli prisoner working on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The agency has been excavating the compound for more than a year to ensure that nothing of historic value is lost during an ongoing renovation project. At a news conference Sunday, Yardena Alexandre, a spokeswoman for the authority, called the discovery "one of the most important finds for the history of early Christianity."

Israeli state archaeologists have discovered mosaics, pottery and other remains of a Roman-era Christian building on the grounds of a high-security prison in Megiddo. They say the site could be the oldest public place of Christian worship ever uncovered in Israel and perhaps one of the earliest such sites in the world.

Discovery Made at Israeli Prison
Israeli state archaeologists have discovered mosaics, pottery and other remains of a Roman-era Christian building on the grounds of a high-security prison in Megiddo.

Judging by the age of broken pottery discovered on the floor, the distinctive mosaic style, inscriptions citing Jesus and the apparent pre-Byzantine design of the building, state archaeologists said the structure was most likely a public place of Christian worship that dates to the mid-3rd or early 4th century. If true, the find would join the early 3rd-century Christian gathering place at Dura Europus in Syria as one of the oldest of its kind.

At that time, near the end of the Roman Empire, Christianity was an outlawed religion practiced in the Holy Land in the clandestine chapels of private homes. Archaeologists involved in the excavation were reluctant to describe the remains as a church because the term was not used during that period.

But they said its inscribed dedications to community figures, mosaics of fish and specific mention of "the God Jesus Christ" were proof it was a public building used in Christian worship -- the sort of structure archaeologists here had read about in historical texts but had never uncovered.

"The most important thing about this is that it is the oldest Christian building we have found in archaeological form," said Yotam Tepper, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation. "The problem is that we didn't have churches at that time."

Some archaeologists not involved in the project said the conclusions, while tantalizing, might be premature given that only 10 percent of the site has been excavated. Workers have yet to turn up a dated inscription or other evidence that firmly establishes the year the structure was built.

Zeev Weiss, an archaeology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who runs the largest excavation project here in the Galilee region, said: "There is no question that what they have found is connected to Christianity. The only questions concern the design of the structure, the use of the structure and the date.

"To my mind, they don't really know what they have," said Weiss, who nonetheless called the discovery "very interesting." "That's probably why they are hesitating to call it a church."

On the cypress-studded plain of Megiddo, the biblical site of the Battle of Armageddon, a Jewish village thrived during the 1st century. On fields that stretch northeast toward Nazareth, a smudge of white frosting on distant hills, Roman soldiers made camp over centuries and swelled the village population. By the 4th century, it was a city of some size known as Maximianopolis.

Before the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the year 313, Christians were persecuted here in sporadic waves of violence. But archaeologists say the second half of the 3rd century, when the building might have been erected, was probably a relatively open time to be Christian. The Byzantine period that followed Christianity's legalization featured a boom in church construction.

The Israeli army built the Megiddo prison in 1982 and the compound now holds 1,200 high-security Palestinian inmates. Earlier this year, the army turned over the makeshift collection of tent encampments to the national prison authority, which has since been replacing the tents with hardened cellblocks.

Because the area is known for its rich history, archaeological excavation has preceded each phase of the prison's expansion. Israeli prisoners -- the only inmates allowed to work inside the grounds -- began about six weeks ago surveying the area where the mosaic floor was found. It was scheduled to be cleared for construction two days after the discovery was made.

Covered by scaffolding and a black tarp to protect against rain during the approaching winter months, the site is roughly the size of a tennis court, with the fragile mosaics covering approximately half of it. Tepper said the building does not follow the basilica plan, characterized by colonnades along a central nave leading to a rounded apse. He said the simple design suggests it predates Christianity's legalization.

The oldest definitively dated church in Israel is in Ramle, where inscriptions say the structure was built in 376. But some archaeologists believe the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which tradition says marks the spot where Jesus was crucified and entombed, was built in 330 by Constantine's mother. This site would predate those by decades.

The base of a column is visible along the low ruins of one wall. Archaeologists say it arched over the floor to support a stone roof, indicating that the building was probably among the grandest in the area. The intricacy of the mosaic floors also suggests it was more than a private home, archaeologists say, although some of the region's wealthy residents may have had such design flourishes in their houses.

"They say it's not a basilica, but they don't say what it is," said Weiss, the archaeology professor. "They haven't finished the excavation, so this could be a courtyard or a room inside of a larger building."

Tepper said the most important evidence comes from three inscriptions found in the mosaics. Along the edge of the largest mosaic, featuring at its center the early Christian symbol of two fish, an ancient Greek inscription, roughly translated, reads: "Gaianos, also called Porphyrio, centurion, our brother, having sought honor with his own money, has made this mosaic. Brouti has carried out the work." Tepper said the inscription refers to a Roman officer -- many officers were early converts to Christianity -- who financed the structure's construction.

An inscription on a second mosaic, closer to the base of a pedestal whose use archaeologists have not determined, recalls by name four women from the community.

Tepper said the third inscription is the most archaeologically valuable. It reads: "The God-loving Aketous has offered this table to the God Jesus Christ, as a memorial."

The table might have been an altar or a place where local Christians gathered for meals on holy days, recalling the Last Supper. Tepper said the pottery found on the floor included a wine jug and cooking pot. But Weiss and other archaeologists said it was possible for older pottery to be found on a floor built more recently. He said excavation should take place under the mosaics to determine what is there and to better determine the timeline.

A delegation of Italian academics is due to arrive this week to begin studying the site and comparing it with other early Christian finds. In the meantime, Tepper and his team plan to research the names on the inscriptions for evidence about when those mentioned might have lived.

"It's a very important place," said Ofer Lefler, spokesman for the Israel Prison Service. "Important to Israel and the rest of the world."

A Hebrew Israeli radio station, Kol Yisrael, on October 3rd [2001] reported that during an argument in an Israeli cabinet meeting, Shimon Peres warned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that unless he would heed American requests for a cease fire with the Palestinians, he could cause America to turn against Israel.

In a fit of anger, Sharon responded to Peres: "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

Well, there it is, folks — and you couldn’t have it from a better source! Now, if I had said something like that, well, you know what the response would be. But now that the cat is out of the bag, we can take up the implications of that statement free of worry that we can be accused of making it all up or hating anybody because of their religion.

First, it does explain rather handily how the Israelis could have ruthlessly and repeatedly attacked an unarmed US Intelligence ship and felt assured that not only would McNamara call off a defense of the vessel, but Lyndon Johnson would back him up saying: "We will not embarrass an ally." The guns of Dallas must have still been ringing in his ears.

As two Liberty crew members put it: “During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 174 were wounded.

The attack, which was a war crime, has been a matter of controversy ever since. Survivors and many key government officials including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former JCS Chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer, and nearly every senior American intelligence professional say it was no accident. Israel and its supporters insist it was a "tragic case of misidentification" and charge that the survivors are either lying or too emotionally involved to see the truth.”

Why would Israel attack an American ship in broad daylight in the first place, I can hear you ask. Glad you did. You see, Israel has a long history of what are called in the trade “false flag” attacks. One of the most famous was the July 22, 1946 Jewish terrorist attack on the King David Hotel, killing 91 British soldiers, blaming the atrocity on Arabs. When later caught, the Israelis said the British had a list of their Arab spies and were going to turn them over to the Palestinians. In this case, the goal of the false flag was to pit the British against the Palestinians.

Then there was the notorious Lavon affair, when Israeli agents bombed a series of Western targets in Egypt in order to discredit the Egyptian Government. The goal of those attacks was to prevent the British and French from returning the Suez Canal to Egypt. Which brings us back to the USS Liberty, which was also intended to point to Egypt as the culprit. The Israelis did their best to sink the ship using rockets, torpedoes and even Napalm, and to kill everyone on board. If they had succeeded, it is likely the US would have attacked the false flag, and we would have never known the degree of brutality that the Israelis are capable of. Yet they didn’t even get their hand spanked.

Then there is the Jonathan Pollard case. In 1985, Mr. Pollard was apprehended by the FBI and charged with delivering massive quantities of top secret material to the Israelis, many of which had nothing to do with them, but were documents that the Soviets relished. Israel was trying to hasten the mass emigration of Russian Jews and was thought to use the documents in trade for higher quotas. While his fervid supporters declare that he only took secrets that involved Israel’s defense and he was not paid for his actions, it turns out Mr. Pollard had a bad drug and alcohol problem and was in fact paid $2,500 per month for his efforts. They also claim there weren’t that many documents involved. Yet Mr. Pollard “himself has estimated that the documents would create a stack six feet wide, six feet long, and ten feet high”.1 Hmmm.

And now we have an ongoing case that is scheduled to go to trial in April that should prove most entertaining. The FBI had been keeping tabs on Steve Rosen and Weissman of the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and they were observing them when in walked a noted neocon and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin. After getting the goods on Franklin, the FBI flipped him, and got him to wear a wire to several meetings, but he flipped back, and the Justice Department laid indictments at the door of all three. While Franklin was serving up some useful secrets, it appears his real value was to take bogus information provided by the Israelis and insert it deep into the system. This almost assuredly will turn out to be the way the Niger forgeries were routed around the CIA and placed on the desk of Dick Cheney. After all, Franklin was at the meeting in Rome that is believed to be a key milestone in the provenance of the phony documents.

There is a detail regarding these forgeries that has escaped notice, so far. It is assumed that the letterhead and seals that were used to add authenticity to the otherwise crude forgeries were stolen from the Niger Embassy in Rome in January 2001. This was obviously ten months before the events of 9/11, yet someone already knew there would be a crucial use for the stolen items. If the Israelis used Franklin as the mule, that means they were involved in creating the forgeries, which means they knew that the Project for a New American Century dream of a new “Pearl Harbor” was in the pipeline, and were ready to take advantage of it to make sure the US would invade Iraq.

So if the Israelis are brazen enough to pull these, and many other stunts without fear of reprisal, how do “the Jewish people control America”? It just so happens that the private banks that own the Federal Reserve Bank are mostly controlled by Jewish bankers. If the Fed wants to serve up a depression in America, and it wouldn’t be the first one, they control the means to do just that. And this is why we Americans now live in the United States of Zion. Shalom, comrade.

[This quote has been circulated since first spoken, but not in the "major" government controlled media. -- Tribble]

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practised in past centuries."

-- David Rockefeller, closing speech of the Bilderberg Conference Baden-Baden 6 - 9 June 1991.

By Tom Barrett, October 31, 2005

I’ve experienced my share of hassles with incompetent, power-intoxicated airline screeners. But this experience really frightened me. It heralded the very real specter of a police state in America, something I would have thought impossible less than a year ago.

I am a white middle-aged American citizen, so I am used to my person and luggage being searched while young men named Mohammed and Abdullah are passed through with a polite smile. That is politically correct, and I have come to expect it. I have had to take my shoes off to check for bombs so often that I have seriously considered neglecting foot hygiene for a week or so prior to flying in order to exact a small measure of retribution for the inconvenience.

I have observed a wheelchair-bound woman in her eighties being searched as Mohammed and Abdullah strolled by. I watched a terrified eight or nine year old black girl separated from her mother to be searched. Mohammed and Abdullah smiled as they boarded the plane.

None of this prepared me for what I observed at the Atlanta airport this week. A thirty-something white woman was taken from the boarding line to be searched. I remarked to the man next to me (in the hearing of an IQ-impaired federal security guard), “She really looks like a terrorist.” He joked back to me, “I’m sure she’s a terrorist- just look at her.”

The security guard, full of his own importance and impressed with his new badge, shouted, “Now I’ll have to arrest her.” I stared at him, incredulous. “What did you say?” “I’m supposed to arrest her because of what that man said!” he told me.

“You can’t arrest someone for what someone else said!” I exclaimed. “I can do anything I want. This is an airport.” This former rent-a-cop, emboldened by his new status as a federal agent, thought he could trample on the civil liberties of anyone he pleased. Although he didn’t take any further action, he obviously enjoyed making the threat.

I must confess that when the concept of federalization of airport security personnel was first introduced, I came out in favor of it in this column. I assumed that the often rude, slovenly, under-educated security guards would be replaced by professional federal agents. In my ignorance, I imagined well-trained and disciplined retired military, police and intelligence personnel protecting our citizens.

Not a chance. Exhibiting its usual level of incompetence, the government made its first mistake by placing airport security under the Department of Transportation instead of a law enforcement oriented agency. Its second mistake was to hire the same inept guards that allowed 50% of weapons and explosives to get by them away from their former private security firms. Now that they are federal agents, guess what? In recent tests, 50% of weapons and explosives got by them.

But it’s not the incompetence that has me upset today. I’ve come to expect that from government. Our only hope is that the Arabs will be equally incompetent, and that our rent-a-cops turned federal agents will accidentally catch some real terrorists during breaks from harassing innocent citizens.

What has me upset about the incident I described is the potential for turning our free nation into a police state. There are forces in our government who are using the tragedy of 9/11 to advance an agenda that is anathema to most Americans. They want the federal government to have unlimited power over all of us. If they have their way, we can forget about our civil liberties.

My wife Ana lived in Cuba for the first eleven years of her life. In that Communist nation, any citizen with a grudge against a neighbor can simply tell the authorities that they heard the neighbor speak against Castro or the government. That’s all it takes in a police state. One citizen can be arrested on the word of another.

That was the threat that Bubba the security guard presented to the lady in Atlanta. He stated clearly that he was authorized to arrest her based on an uncorroborated statement by a bystander. Does that sound like the start of a police state to you?

While Bubba and his ilk threaten and harass innocent citizens, they are under orders not to “profile” Arabs or Muslims. I have personally observed well over 100 people detained for searches at airports since 9/11; not one of them looked Arabic. Never mind that 100% of the six terrorist attacks on Americans in recent years have been committed by Arabs or Muslims. Never mind that not one attack has been committed by a grandmother in a wheelchair, a nine-year-old black girl, or a middle-aged white man. We must be politically correct at all costs, even if the cost is another airliner full of innocents crashing into another skyscraper.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published one year after 9/11. Unfortunately, little of what was described in this piece has changed since then.)

My heartfelt appreciation goes out to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me "forwards" over the past 12 months.

Extra thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat crap in the glue on envelopes, because I now have to go get a wet towel every time I need to seal an envelope.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants, even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone might drug me with a cologne sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from, nor send packages by, UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone, because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer have to buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

I no longer worry about my soul because at last count I have 363,214 angels looking out for me.

Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer have any money because I gave them to a sick girl who is about to die in the hospital (for the 258th time) but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special email program.

Yes, I want to thank you so much for looking out for me that I will now return the favor!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 7 minutes, a large pigeon with a wicked case of diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. (PDT) this afternoon. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

According to researchers, Pillows your pillows may be home for millions of fungal spores, .

The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, which is the species most commonly found in pillows, is also the most likely to cause disease. The resulting syndrome, aspergillosis, has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukemia patients. Fungi can also worsen asthma

Both feather and synthetic pillows were examined for a study, and thousand of spores of fungus per gram of used pillow were discovered -- well over a million spores per pillow. The pillows studied were ones that had between 1.5 and 20 years of regular use.

Four to sixteen different species were identified in each sample looked at, with higher numbers found in synthetic pillows. Bread and vine molds, as well as fungi usually found on damp walls and in showers were found in addition to the Aspergillus.

Aspergillosis usually infects the lungs and sinuses, although it can spread to other organs such as the brain. It is very difficult to treat. Immuno-compromised patients can easily die of Aspergillus pneumonia or sinusitis.

Since Aspergillus can also worsen asthma and cause allergic sinusitis, constant exposure to fungus in bed could be problematic even for relatively healthy people.

A spore is structure of protein encapsulating bacterial DNA. It is formed by certain species of bacteria in conditions of low moisture, nutrients, temperature, etc.

They are metabolically inactive and are incredibly tough to destroy. Once a spore finds itself in a suitable environment (like your nose or throat), it can germinate into a single bacterium and attempt to multiply. They can cause many problems, including sinus trouble and dangerous infections.

So the answer is not to rush off and clean you pillows in your washing machine as hot, and even boiling water, will not kill spores. Spores require a temperature of about 121 degrees (Celsius) to be destroyed, and boiling water only reaches 100 degrees (Celsius).

Hospital supplies have to be autoclaved for 15 minutes to be sterilized. Basically, autoclaving involves superheated steam at high pressures to reach the required temperatures. Also, remember there are various levels of disinfectants. A cleaning agent doesn't kill spores unless it specifically says it's a sporicide, which is different from it being "antibacterial."

If you believe that spores are dangerous and you are determined to kill them bleach is a good sporicide. However the bleach solution should be about 1:5, or at least 1:10 (You want a minimum of 2,500 ppm of chlorine in your solution, and normal household bleach is 5 percent available chlorine).

So the question becomes what is more toxic, inhaling toxic chlorine fumes are fungal spores?

This is a no win question, similar to do you prefer getting hit in the head with a hammer or a baseball bat.

Before you bathe all your household pillows in bleach, though, you might want to take a look at the list of contributors to the Fungal Research Trust, the "charitable organization" that funded the research covered in the article:

Fujisawa Corp., Oxford Glycosciences, F2G Ltd, Chronic Granulomatous Disorder Research Trust, Aventis, Janssen Research Foundation, Roche, Schering Plough Corporation, The Liposome Company, Merck, Imedex, Bristol Myers Squibb, Aronex Ltd, Vestar Inc, Eli Lilly, BioMerieux, Alza Corporation, Pfizer Inc, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Phairson Ltd., GlaxoWellcome, The Gossett Trust, The Clear Group, British Medical Association, Basilea, Valeant and Orthobiotech.

Are the pharmaceutical companies funding this trust out of the kindness of their hearts, or is it a way of maximizing shareholder value? They want to frighten you so that you will purchase one of their expensive and toxic drug based solutions.

In the meantime rather than using toxic approaches, I believe there is a better solution. I recommend using a mechanical barrier and purchasing a high quality water, mold and spore proof pillow cover (not pillow case) that you can wash regularly (even with a bleach) to keep it clean. You can even purchase new pillows every year as they are relatively inexpensive.

This is the solution that I personally use and have found to be very effective. Call me obsessive but I even take my pillow cover with me when I travel and sleep in hotel rooms. Sure beats breathing in fungal spores and dust mites all night long.

You wouldn't think it would be possible but yes these dogs ravaged a crocodile. Sometimes nature is cruel but there is also a beauty in that cruelty.
The crocodile, as one of the ultimate predators, can fall victim to the kind of implemented 'team work' strategy which is possible due to the pack mentality and social structure of canines (3 of them to be exact). Click here to see the remarkable photograph - but not if you are squeamish! [Courtesy of Nature Magazine]

Gun Owners of America
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151
(703)321-8585
Thursday, November 17, 2005

Registration leads to confiscation. We all know that, and that is why GOA has vehemently opposed all attempts by government forces to compile or retain information pertaining to lawful firearms purchases.

But in the name of fighting terrorism, the United States Congress is getting ready to trample on the rights of law-abiding Americans, no matter what the Constitution (and current law) happens to say.

The House will be voting as early as this Friday (tomorrow) on the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill (H.R. 3199). Congressmen have been ironing out differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill for quite some time, as GOA -- along with other interested organizations -- has watched carefully to see what the House-Senate conferees would produce.

GOA alerted you in June to the potential dangers in this legislation. Unfortunately, the problems have remained in the bill, and it poses a very dangerous threat to gun owners.

This LATEST version of this bill has yet to be posted on Thomas (the legislative website for Congress) and, most likely, legislators won't even have this language in front of them before they vote on it. As has happened quite often, they MIGHT get a copy of the bill right before they vote, but they will certainly not have time to read it.

That's why it's so important that you contact your Representative and tell him that gun owners are VERY concerned with this legislation.

Capitol Hill sources have told GOA there is a provision in this bill (amending Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act) which would allow the FBI to get a secret court order to seize ANY business records it believes would be relevant to an anti-terrorism investigation... without having to make the case that the gun records they're confiscating have any connection to a suspected terrorist.

Hence, in the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI will be given a license for unbridled fishing expeditions.

Gun sales are business transactions, and FFL holders must retain copies of the 4473 forms (yellow sheets) filled out on every gun sale. Thus, an anti-gun administration could easily determine that such records would be useful in the fight against terrorism, and demand them all.

But that's not all. More than just your gun purchase records are at stake. Financial and medical records, library records and much more will now be open to FBI fishing expeditions. They won't have to get any prior court approval.

It gets worse. If the gun dealer, where you purchased firearms, is required to hand over your gun purchase records, he is BARRED from telling you about it under the PATRIOT Act.

So that dealer would be the ONLY person who could contest the action before your life is raked over the coals... and honestly, how many among us would risk everything rather than tell the feds who it was that stopped by to pick up a Glock a couple of months ago?

Once the FBI has used these secret court orders to collect all gun purchase records across the country, your friendly anti-gun but oh-so-patriotic government would have brought about the gun owner's second-worst-case scenario: a national firearms registration list.

This monstrosity must be stopped. Please take the action requested below, and urge all freedom-loving Americans you know to do the same.

ACTION: Contact your Representative. Politely but firmly demand that they oppose the conference version of the PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3199), and specifically, its provision to allow secret court orders to collect gun records.

You can use the pre-written message below and send it as an e-mail by visiting the GOA Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm (where phone and fax numbers are also available).

The parent companies of AOL / Time Warner / Compuserve, Sprint / Mindspring / Earthlink, and Southwestern Bell -- just to name a few -- have all given money in the past to Sarah Brady. Now, there is an ISP dedicated to gun rights and the sporting life. Plus a portion of your monthly fee will be donated to GOA. By switching to Outdoors Unlimited, you move money away from the Brady Bunch and to the fight for the Second Amendment. Check out http://www.outdoorsunlimited.net and consider switching your Internet service today.

The Environmental Protection Agency (search) is drafting a policy to once again allow the consideration of experimental tests on humans in the setting of chemical exposure limits.

It’s the right thing to do — as long as the Bush administration is prepared to defend the policy from the savage attacks that should be expected from environmental activists.

Under the new policy being developed, manufacturers that want to test pesticides and other chemical products on human volunteers would submit proposals to the EPA for review. The agency would approve studies unless they are deemed unethical or significantly deficient in design. The data could then be considered by the agency in the setting of permissible levels of exposure to chemicals.

The Clinton administration placed a moratorium on such voluntary human testing in 1998. Environmental activists and other Bush administration-haters will no doubt try to liken the return of voluntary human testing to past instances of criminal human experimentation — such as Nazi concentration camp experiments, the Tuskegee syphilis study (search) (in which the U.S. Public Health Service purposefully left African-American men with untreated syphilis) and the U.S. government’s secret human radiation experiments (search) (in which people were unknowingly injected with plutonium).

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations:

   1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.
   2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.
   3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.

OCA's focal concerns with this proposed rule specifically involve the following portions of text within the EPA document (Read the full EPA proposed rule here: PDF --- HTML):

70 FR 53865 26.408(a) "The IRB (Independent Review Board) shall determine that adequate provisions are made for soliciting the assent of the children, when in the judgment of the IRB the children are capable of providing assent...If the IRB determines that the capability of some or all of the children is so limited that they cannot reasonably be consulted, the assent of the children is not a necessary condition for proceeding with the research. Even where the IRB determines that the subjects are capable of assenting, the IRB may still waive the assent requirement..."

(OCA NOTE: Under this clause, a mentally handicapped child or infant orphan could be tested on without assent. This violates the Nuremberg Code, an international treaty that mandates assent of test subjects is "absolutely essential," and that the test subject must have "legal capacity to give consent" and must be "so situated as to exercise free power of choice." This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.)

70 FR 53865 26.408(c) "If the IRB determines that a research protocol is designed for conditions or for a subject population for which parental or guardian permission is not a reasonable requirement to protect the subjects (for example, neglected or abused children), it may waive the consent requirements..."

(OCA NOTE: Under the general rule, the EPA is saying it's okay to test chemicals on children if their parents or institutional guardians consent to it. This clause says that neglected or abused children have unfit guardians, so no consent would be required to test on those children. This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.)

70 FR 53864 26.401 (a)(2) "To What Do These Regulations Apply? It also includes research conducted or supported by EPA outside the United States, but in appropriate circumstances, the Administrator may, under § 26.101(e), waive the applicability of some or all of the requirements of these regulations for research..."

(OCA NOTE: This clause is stating that the Administrator of the EPA has the power to completely waive regulations on human testing, if the testing is done outside of the U.S. This will allow chemical companies to do human testing in other countries where these types of laws are less strict. This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.)

70 FR 53857 "EPA proposes an extraordinary procedure applicable if scientifically sound but ethically deficient human research is found to be crucial to EPA’s fulfilling its mission to protect public health. This procedure would also apply if a scientifically sound study covered by proposed § 26.221 or § 26.421--i.e., an intentional dosing study involving pregnant women or children as subjects..."

(OCA NOTE: This clause allows the EPA to accept or conduct "ethically deficient" studies of chemical tests on humans if the agency deems it necessary to fulfull its mission. Unfortunately, the EPA report sets up no criteria for making such an exception with any particular study. This ambiguity leaves a gaping loophole in the rule. Without specific and detailed criteria, it could be argued that any and every study of chemical testing on humans is "necessary." This loophole in the rule must be removed, based on this inadequacy of criteria and definition.)

Send an email to EPA here!
By mail: Send two copies of your comments to:
Public Information and Records Integrity Branch (PIRIB)
Office of Pesticide Programs
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Mail Code: 7502C
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC, 20460-0001
Attention: Docket ID Number OPP-2003-0132

The tactics and alleged message of Rick Warren is very much NOT scriptural and is clearly a money maker. -- Tribble]

If our readers absorb no more than this article from the whole of the June Despatch, then they would have done well!

We urge you to take especial note of the following material, as it contains info. Which is almost unbelievable! When we listened to the audio tapes from which we have gathered the material herein, I had a strong realization that we were listening to a description of the Antichrist system seeking to obliterate from the earth Biblical Christianity and the true Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ! This is something so innovative and efficient that one is immediately enlightened to the fact that brilliant brains have planned all this out, and that really no group of men could be so blasted clever! Behind this planning an ancient, evil conductor holds the baton to which tune these people are playing. What am I getting keyed up about here? RICK WARREN and the “Purpose-Driven Church” programs for church expansion!!! Also heavily interacting is BILL HYBELS and his church expansion programs. We will give our readers the following transcript, straight from the audios of RADIO LIBERTY, USA, with Dr Stanley Monteith interviewing Robert Klenck, tapes entitled, “Marketing Christianity” One and Two.

A business consultant, who has been working with the international bankers, has designed the Purpose-Driven Church programs. Robert Klenck reveals a sinister involvement with the Rockefellers. The robbing of the Gospel of such matters as awareness of sin, need to repent and become righteous in God’s enabling, the sacrifice of Christ’s Blood for remission of sin, separation from the evil world etc is what makes the “success” of the Purpose-Driven Church program possible. Therefore we Bible Christians are encountering a highly effective way of defeating Christianity by means of enticing churches to seek numbers, power, money (from tithes and donations etc), and very large buildings. The enticement includes the dialectic approach which makes “Christians” value “meeting the needs” of an ungodly society, instead of standing firm on the truths of God’s Word and obeying His commands - and knowingly preaching unpopular messages which lead to spiritual repentance. The “success” in the world’s eyes can be very great by giving way to these business programs, the masses are flocking to be in churches which bring a popular message, give them rock music, lovely buildings and accommodating, pleasant, worldly- wise preachers. These programs are here in Australia, believers. Already in the USA some 150,000 pastors have been trained up in these awesomely powerful brainwashing programs. The most alarming matter presented by Robert Klenck is the revealing of the PROFILING and DATA BASING of congregations for the political powers of the New World Order. Also the COVENANTS which people sign which bind them to the Purpose-Driven Church programs - they will refuse to turn against these Change-Agents because the naive congregations feel they will be denying Christ Jesus if they do so!

Dean Gotcher is mentioned in this transcript we have a video of his available taken from the NTSC format to our PAL version. ($10 including postage and handling within Aust.) Email: iardeangotcher@yahoo.com for enquiries of Dean Gotcher himself.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl rite n styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza.

Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

You may offer all the excuses you want, however, McIntyre’s approach cuts like a fish knife without any political correctness offered. He is a man watching the disintegration of an American city from a front row seat.

McIntyre repeated what President Jimmy Carter said in 1977, “In the last several years, millions of undocumented aliens have illegally immigrated to the United States. They have breached our nation’s immigration laws, displaced many American citizens from jobs and placed an increased financial burden on many state and local governments.”

“This statement, truthful nearly thirty years ago, is transparently obvious to anyone who has even one eye open to our disastrous border policy,” McIntyre said. “That we’re still discussing these same issues today answers how Congress reacted to Carter’s warning.”

McIntyre continued, “Broadcasting from Los Angeles, I have had a front row seat from which to witness the catastrophic impact our open border and sanctuary city policies have had on the South Western states and the country as a whole. The big picture is coming into focus for Americans far removed from the Rio Grande. New Englanders and Heart-Landers are awakening to a problem that has been maddeningly worsening in Los Angeles and other western metropolitan areas for a generation and a half.”

*Between 2000 and 2003, the population of Los Angeles County went up by one million. That’s like taking Boston and its suburbs and moving them to LA in three short years.

*The illiteracy rate among LA County workers ages 16-54 is a staggering 51 percent.

*The LA County Health Care System lost 14 hospitals, trauma units and ERs in the past year alone, with many others on the brink of collapse. A total of 86 E.R. and hospitals have bankrupted in the past six years.

*While nearly every other major city in America has seen a steep decline in violent crime, the murder rate is up in LA.

*The LA Unified School District (which is many things, but unified isn’t one of them) is a disaster. An astounding 78 percent of the students speak Spanish as their primary and/or only language. The San Fernando Valley’s Canoga Park High School has a sign over the door which reads, “Bienvenido.”

*The average price for a home in LA County is above $450,000. In the Valley, it’s almost $600,000. Apartment rents have sky rocketed, middle class families are moving farther and farther into the Antelope Valley, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in a futile attempt to find affordable housing. One hundred and twenty mile round trip commutes are commonplace, adding three and four hours to the average work day. In many neighborhoods, single unit housing is now home to multiple families. Ten cars in front of one house is a fixture in many neighborhoods. Illegal garage conversions result in blight and death by fire.

*The wages for working class Angelinos are going down at the very time costs for everything, including housing and gas for those long commutes, are going up.

*In a recent page one story, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on an only in LA phenomenon — Korean immigrants to LA are learning Spanish, not English. One Korean business owner defended the decision because his customers and employees speak Spanish. “This is America”, he said with a newcomer’s pride. “In America you don’t have to speak English.”

McIntyre enjoys a front row seat at the biggest game in town being played out in the streets of Los Angeles. He’s got a virtual reality seat at the destruction of an entire city by an invading force from another country. More disconcerting stems from the fact that congressmen and senators from the State of California aid and abet the invasion.

“From health care to housing, from schools to Homeland Security, there is not a single major urban problem facing Los Angeles that does not have illegal immigration as its root cause, or at the very least, as a contributing factor,” McIntyre said. “But unlike Las Vegas, what happens in LA doesn’t stay in LA. The problems we have been enduring for decades have been exported to virtually every corner of America.”

McIntyre brings home the sickening causes of our open borders with, “It’s a common misconception to think this is the result of a massive failure of government. That’s the great mistake so many bright, active, border reformers make again and again. Our open border policy is not governmental incompetence, it’s the culmination of intense lobbying efforts by two disparate groups-- two groups that under any other circumstances would have nothing to do with each other: the radical Left that wants to reshape America’s political culture through demographics, and the corporatist agenda that currently owns both political parties, with a special hold on the Republicans and the Bush Whitehouse in particular. Our border crisis is actually the result of something as rare as the mythical albino buffalo: an efficient, remarkably effective government policy that is very near to reaching its stealth objective-- the conversion of America from a nation-state to a marketplace.”

As troubling as the radical leftist race baiting Reconquistas are, they’re not nearly as competent as a multi-national with a business plan, an army of K street lobbyists, and a check book.

“A nation that doesn’t have control of its borders is a nation in name only,” McIntyre said. “That’s the objective of the multi-national corporation. The globalist business model views the nation state as an impediment to the movement of goods and services. They see cultural cornerstones; language, law, history, art, and tradition as vestigial holdovers of a bygone era. They view those of us who think that the United States of America has inherent and unique value, as Luddites-- as Jeffersonian Agrarians shaking a fist at the Hamiltonians, trying to sweep back the inexorable tide of change.”

The reason Wal-Mart has become a piñata for those of us paying attention, is they have created their own foreign policy. They tell their vendors to move their plants out of the country or Wal-Mart won’t buy from them. The result? Sears merges with K-Mart, not so they can have more retail outlets, so they can muscle their vendors to move out of the country. As so it goes. America loses jobs to outsourcing and we allow third world wages and working conditions to set the standard of living for Americans.

“It’s insourcing, stupid,” McIntyre said. “It’s the deliberate puncturing of America’s immigration laws for the benefit of major industry. This is the other side of the outsourcing coin. You can’t outsource the bellhop. The bellhop has to be in the lobby to carry the bag to the hotel room. You can’t outsource the plumber, or a haircut. Where labor and the customer collide, outsourcing fails. So we insource, we flood the market with cheap labor, driving down the price of labor for all Americans. This is Darwinian Capitalism. This is the leveling down of the American middle class. And we cheapen labor, psychologically. We turn Americans against Americans. Blue-collar workers become “union goons”, “Communists” or weaklings unable or unwilling to compete in the free market. We devalue sweat.”

“And it’s racist,” McIntyre said. “The Klan couldn’t design a more racist reality than the open border advocates, Left or Right. Who takes it in the shorts first and hardest? The working poor and the middle class. Mostly Black and legal Hispanic. In Los Angeles the drywall trade in construction was once dominated by African American workers. These were good jobs that supported families and put kids into college. Jobs that once paid $18 an hour fell to $14 an hour, then $10, and then vanished at any price.”

Doug McIntyre spotlights an American city in meltdown. Crime rules the nights and more crime rules the days. The brown toxic cloud strangling Los Angeles never lifts and grows thicker with every immigrant added. One can’t help appreciate the streets of Paris will soon become the streets of LA. However, Paris’ streets erupted while LA’s shall sink into a Third World quagmire much like Bombay or Calcutta, India. When you import THAT much crime, illiteracy, multiple languages and disease—Americans pick up stakes and move away. It’s an unlivable nightmare.

“The friction between the Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles is at an all time high, resulting in violent confrontations at Jefferson High School and many other campuses,” McIntyre said. “In the wealthier suburbs of Los Angeles, we are raising a generation of white kids who don’t know what it takes to pull the cord on a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine. Mexicans do that kind of work. We are teaching our kids that work is beneath them. This is the antithesis of everything that made this country great. We’re creating a permanent class system, nearly a feudal system that is toxic to the American ethos.”

"We are constantly told the illegal immigrant is only doing the work "American's won't do." Vicente Fox said, "Mexicans will do the work even blacks won't do." This is repeated with such frequency, you'd forget that thousands of fire fighters in Los Angeles cleared brush on hilltops, in full gear, in 95-degree heat, facing walls of thousand degree flames. No, we're told we're too fat indolent and lazy to lift a finger. Americans will work if they are paid fairly. Free market capitalism cannot only work for CEO's. Trickle down has to trickle down."

McIntyre added, "It sickens me to see politicians and corporate giants wrap themselves in the flag and sell America as a marketing concept, imagining their brand with the Red, White & Blue. Meanwhile, they enact policies and business models that destroy the fabric of America. If you ever feared One World Government, forget the UN. The UN is so incompetent they can't even get a Hooker sent to the right hotel room. The UN isn't the problem; it's the Harvard Business School, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and think tanks that preach profits allies."

McIntyre said, "Sometimes I think Vicente W. Bush or George W. Fox, (you chose), is a Manchurian Candidate created by multi-nationals to subvert everything I ever believed in. Homeland Security? You've got to be kidding me! We spend billions patting down grannies at the airport and wave in swarming hordes of illegal invaders, including countless thousand OTM's, (other than Mexicans) not to mention an army of drug and human smugglers and Mara Salvatrucia (MS-13) killers. But fear not! The Feds have aerial drones flying over the borders that take photos of the border crossers as they sneak in. To what purpose? Are we going to sell keepsake snapshots to the illegals, a little something to remember the day they broke into America? The Federal Government feeds the American people a steady diet of nonsense and lies."

"At the local level, it's even worse," McIntyre said. "There are now over five million Matricular Consular cards floating around America. Former LAPD Chief and current City Councilman, Bernard Parks told me the LAPD does not do a background check on these cards. The Counsel General of Mexico told the LA County Board of Supervisors the Mexican government doesn't do background checks. And the only constituent group for Matricular Consular cards is illegal immigrants. We have green cards and work and student visas for those here legitimately. Five million bogus cards that are now officially recognized forms of identification good for city services, including section eight housing, and accepted at banks in direct violation of banking laws."

What McIntyre describes is 'Third World Momentum'. It's a pernicious, methodical degradation of laws that degrade a society into Third World status. It's on the march across America like a cancer metastasizing at record rates of speed.

"The meat packing industry, the hotel and tourism industry, the poultry industry, and the banking industry have been among the most active lobbyists for an open border policy. In fact, Wells Fargo Bank openly advocates illegal immigration. They saw the 20 billion dollars in remittances going to Mexico via Western Union and said, "Where's our taste?" Mary Trigg, spokeswoman for Wells Fargo Bank, told The Los Angeles Times, "There was a need in the Latino community and we saw a market there." There's that word again. Market!"

On March 12, 2004, the day after Moroccan nationals bombed the Madrid train station killing 200 and injuring 1200 more, the Los Angeles City Council passed, unanimously, a resolution expanding the Matricular Consular card concept to any nation on Earth. That means Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, even France! Tell me that isn't a death wish for our country!

"When asked about consular cards and the LAPD's Special Order #40 (which prevents the LAPD from initiating a stop based on suspicion of immigration violations), Antonio Villaragosa, (now Mayor of Los Angeles) called my questions, "Inflammatory." The President of the United States called Jim Gilchrist and the Minutemen, "vigilantes". And of course, all who dare talk about the border crisis are racists, xenophobes, or radical nationalists and that's the good news! It's good because it means that they're feeling the heat," said McIntyre.

Privately, many elected officials will admit that we have an enormous border crisis, yet publicly, they do nothing to fix the problem, continue to pander to ethnic voting blocks, or surrender to the fear of being called a racist. At the local level, they continue to offer incentives to illegals to come to LA, making the nation's second largest city a magnet for poverty and the beach head of not only the Reconquista, but the laboratory for the Third Worlding of the First World.

"What do we do about it?" McIntyre asked. "First, we need more than think tanks, we need act tanks. Otherwise, we'll continue to meet in hotels and hand each other copies of our latest books until we're at the Manassas gun show signing petitions with the "No Fluoride in the Water" crowd. We need candidates to vote for. The two party system has flamed-out like a super-nova. We're just living off the reflected light of a star system that no longer exists. There is no place to vote for the vast majority of Americans. Republican, Democrat--it doesn't matter. Both parties are corrupted by the same funding sources."

"History teaches that grassroots movements rarely have a lasting impact. The anti-illegal immigration movement was safely quarantined in talk radio where it could be dismissed as the province of right wing nuts and flying saucer groupies," McIntyre said. "But a funny thing happened on the way to national oblivion-- CNN's Lou Dobbs stuck it in the corporatist's faces. Night after night, Dobbs reporting and linkage of outsourcing and broken borders connected the dots. He followed the money trail and relentlessly covered these issues on the Clinton News Network, making it harder for The New York Times/LA Times crowd to write off the issue as FOX News Channel propaganda."

The Minuteman Project humiliated the Bush administration making it politically viable, even desirable, for the Democratic New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson and Democratic Arizona Governor, Janet Napolitano to declare border emergencies in their states. Has Republican Rick Perry of Texas, or Arnold Schwarzenegger followed suit? Nope. Silence from the Republicans, who seem more interested in how they can saw the break cables of Tom Tancredo's car than protecting this country economically, culturally and from genuine Homeland Security threats. However, citizen petitioners in Colorado, led by activist Terry Graham, demanded Governor Owens declare a state of emergency in that beleaguered state.

"The big dumb beast of government is aware the unwashed masses have the pitchforks and flaming torches and we're coming up the hill to get them," McIntyre said. "So, like all wounded animals, this means they are more dangerous today than ever. The system will fight back with Trojan Horse bills to make it look like they are doing something about the border, when in reality they are still advancing their agenda. Congressman David Drier specializes in this work. He's the high priest of Free Trade deals, NAFTA, CAFTA and soon HAFTA, as in you'll 'hafta' move to China to get a job."

The issue of illegal immigration is not a partisan issue, it's a populist issue. The broken border is a disservice to this country and to Mexico. It allows the Mexican oligarch to continue to plunder the resources of their people and turn their population into a cash crop for corruption. Remember the quote, "Corruption becomes a mechanism by which a Third Society operates." That corruption accelerates into every sector of the United States today.

We cannot blame these immigrants. We blame the President of the United States, the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. We blame the corporatists. We blame the shortsighted homeowner who thinks he got a great deal on lawn care.

"I grew up in New York City and have lived for the past twenty years in LA," McIntyre said. "I love the tapestry of diversity. I like the energy and ideas of a multi-cultural society. I like the foods, the music, the healthy tide of ambitious people who, like my grandmother, gave up their families and friends, their language and all they knew to make a better life in America. But while we are constantly called to honor diversity and multi-culturalism, let's remember that America has her own spectacular culture. We produced George Washington and Thomas Edison. Louis Armstrong and Neil Armstrong. We created a country based on an idea, the idea of a self-governing people. A country where the government derives its power from the people not the other way around."

McIntyre's point about honoring America's culture must be stressed. We are the reason the world enjoys 'hope'. We are the shining light on the hill. It's our society that gives such incredible blossoming of individual freedom. You don't see it in China, India, Mexico, Africa and other Third World countries.

"America has made many mistakes and will make more," McIntyre said. "But God help this world if America vanishes as a force of moral authority in an increasingly relativistic age. The barbarians are always ready to fill the void. This isn't fear mongering; it's an immutable lesson of history. America must survive as America. It can withstand bombings and wars, depressions and hurricanes, what we cannot survive is cultural apathy. We can't allow a unilateral surrender of the Founding Father's divinely inspired gift to the world to venial political hacks, race baiters, and bottom line capitalists who'd sell their mother's crutch if the price was right."

McIntyre continued, "Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a contact sport. We need to put some lampblack under our eyes, tape our ankles, give some hits, take some hits, and fight for our country. We're either going to defend America from those who hate it or think it passé, or we might as well put salt around our borders and change our name to Margarittaville. The problem of illegal immigration is a global problem. The mass migration of populations is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the scope. What is new is the hidden agenda. While the vast majority of illegal immigrants want nothing more than a better life, the rule of law must rule or chaos is surely to result."

We need to take the think tank to the street. Fund candidates who will defend America. We need to drop party loyalties and remember our passports don't say Republican or Democrat-- they say The United States of America. We need a national convention, say in Philadelphia, where all the border activists can hammer out an "Immigration Bill of Rights", a platform of specific remedies and tenants of affirmation to the serenity of America that every candidate at every level of government will be asked to endorse or will face the wrath of true patriots.

"Like the old typing exercise says, now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."

I'd like to add one other aspect of this invasion that McIntyre omitted: Do you want your children living in America with an added 100, 200 or 300 million people? The immigration line never ends! Do you want the gridlock that defines Los Angeles to manifest in your city? Do you want America to fall into so many languages that we can't communicate with one another? Will we survive this modern day Tower of Babylon? Do you want the resource wars our children will have to fight? Do you want the diseases growing with each infected illegal and unscreened alien migrant? Do you want your schools collapsing as they have in Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, NYC and all other cities that suffer this alien invasion?

How long will you remain quiet? I've given ample organizations for you to join and have your friends join. I would have thought, after three years, instead of one million people having joined www.numbersusa.com there would be 10 million. How many reading these columns have petitioned your governor to declare a state of emergency in your state? How many have suffered everything McIntyre addressed? If you haven't-you soon will!

Fellow Americans, yes, this is a lengthy column. However, I must add one more aspect for your consideration.

"I was born an American. I live as an American. I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard to personal consequences. What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good and evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless, no man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and Constitution of his country." Daniel Webster

When she got home, what had happened on the bus began to bother her. 'This is not a police state or communist Russia', she thought. From her 8th grade Civics class she knew there is no law requiring her, as an American citizen, to carry ID or any papers, much less show them to anyone on a public bus.

For the next two weeks she said had no ID. The guards would then ask her if she was getting off on Denver Federal Center property. When she told them 'no', they
would let her alone: not once was she ever asked to get off the bus.

On Monday, September 26th 2005, Deb Davis headed off to work on the route 100 bus. When the bus got to the gates of the Denver Federal Center, a guard got on and asked her if she had an ID. She answered in the affirmative. He asked if he could see it. She said no.

Welcome.

Visitors Welcome (to be arrested).
The entrance to the Denver Federal Center.

When the guard asked why she wouldn't show her ID, Deb told him that she didn't have to do so. The guard then ordered her off the bus. Deb refused, stating she was riding a public bus and just trying to get to work.

The guard then went to call his supervisor, and returned shortly with a federal policeman. The federal cop then demanded her ID. Deb politely explained once again that she would not show her ID, and she was simply commuting to work. He left, returning shortly thereafter with a second policeman in tow.

The Second Compliance Test

This second cop asked the same question and got the same answer: no showing of ID, no getting off the bus.

The cop was also annoyed with the fact that she was on the phone with a friend and didn't feel like hanging up, even when he 'ordered' her to do so.

The second cop said everyone had to show ID any time they were asked by the police, adding that if she were in a Wal-Mart and was asked by the police for ID, that she would have to show it there, too.

She explained that she didn't have to show him or any other policeman my ID on a public bus or in a Wal-Mart. She told him she was simply trying to go to work.

Suddenly, the second policeman shouted "Grab her!" and he grabbed the cell phone from her and threw it to the back of the bus. With each of the policemen wrenching one of her arms behind her back, she was jerked out of her seat, the contents of her purse and book bag flying everywhere. The cops shoved her out of the bus, handcuffed her, threw her into the back seat of a police cruiser, and drove her to a police station inside the confines of the Denver Federal Center.

Once inside, she was taken down a hall and told to sit in a chair, still handcuffed, while one of the policemen went through her purse, now retrieved from the bus.

The two policemen sat in front of their computers, typing and conferring, trying to figure out what they should charge her with. Eventually, they wrote up several tickets, took her outside and removed the handcuffs, returned her belongings, and pointed her toward the bus stop. She was told that if she ever entered the Denver Federal Center again, she would go to jail.

"Compassionate conservatism" reared its heartless head today (November 21, 2005) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto during a roundtable discussion about today's announcement that General Motors will cut 30,000 jobs and close 10 plants in the US and two in Canada.

Cavuto opened the segment with, "So, should you be worried?" Wayne Rogers, a very frequent guest on Fox's "business news" programs, seemed to think not. He said, "People have been guaranteed a certain standard of living and almost think it's their right to have that." "That is not guaranteed anymore and people are going to have to work it out differently."

Fox's Dagen McDowell said, "You can't count on Uncle Sam. The future of Social Security's clearly in question. You can't count on the company you're working for."

Jonathan Hoenig, another very frequent guest said, "It's terrible that 30,000 people are going to lose their jobs right before the holidays. I mean, it breaks your heart, but the truth is, ultimately, it's going to be better for everyone involved. People will rely on their own efforts to prepare for retirement and save, not hope that GM or Delta or United don't go bankrupt."

Comment: Here we see compassionate conservatism at work folks. Buck up America! Layoffs are "better for everyone involved." Hey, being laid off gives you an opportunity to be the master of your own fate.

(Author's note: The thoughts I have offered in these columns on where the conservative movement needs to go have generally looked long-term, toward the time after the end of President Bush's second term. But there is one issue that will not wait, and that issue is immigration. We need to do something about immigration now.)

Let me put this bluntly. On no issue have a Republican administration and a Republican House and Senate more blatantly or more cynically sold out the conservative movement and our country than on immigration.

Their inaction on this issue -- or worse, actions that would make the problem even worse, like the administration's proposed amnesty for illegals -- are a scandal and a disgrace.

Conservatives should be hopping mad about it, mad enough to tell Republicans that they will not have our votes unless they change. I would rather stay home on Election Day than vote for someone who believes in open borders.

There are many reasons why we need to halt illegal immigration and also restrict legal immigration. I want to focus here on just two, two issues that are central to the next conservatism. One is national security, and the other is preserving our traditional American culture.

The national security issue is simple. Our country is being invaded by millions of people from all over, some of whom are not our friends.

As my colleague Bill Lind has written, the invasion by immigration is part of Fourth Generation war. That is exactly correct. What we are doing today by leaving our borders open is importing Fourth Generation war, war that will be fought out on our own soil, with attacks like 9/11 only worse.

Frankly, it doesn't make any sense at all to be fighting terrorism in places like Iraq and Afghanistan while laying down a red carpet for terrorists of every variety who want to come and attack us here. That is what we are now doing with our current immigration policy.

Of course the Left wants open borders, because one way to destroy our traditional culture is to swamp us with tens of millions of immigrants from other cultures. The cultural Marxists preach "multiculturalism," which says that these immigrants should not adopt our culture but keep their own cultures. That is a prescription, once again, for Fourth Generation war on American soil.

My father was an immigrant. He came to America as a young man in the 1920s, from Germany. Like other immigrants in his time and before, he worked hard to become an American. We spoke English in the home I grew up in, not German. We lived just like other Americans who had been here for generations. My father would have regarded multiculturalism as both stupid and dangerous. He would have been right on both counts.

The next conservatism needs to recognize that when it comes to immigration policy, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are our friends (this may not be the only issue where this proves to be the case).

The Democrats want open borders because most of them are cultural Marxists. The Republicans agree because Wall Street wants cheap labor. The next conservatism should not be in Wall Street's pocket. Our country is more important than their profits.

Unfortunately, we cannot wait until President Bush leaves office to address this issue. The damage done by open borders is too great to wait any longer. This may be the first issue the next conservatism needs to take on, because we need to do something now.

As conservatives, we need to make it clear that we will not vote for any candidate who refuses to close our borders to illegal immigration and cut back on legal immigration, at least until we can acculturate the immigrants we already have. More, we will actively support candidates, including in primaries, who promise to take the actions necessary to control our borders. The Minutemen in Arizona showed it can be done.

We may have to go further on this issue. We may have to say that we will not support sending American troops to any other country until we have enough troops on our own borders to control them. Nor will we support $500 billion defense budgets so long as our country is left open to invasion by immigration.

Conservatives have the political muscle to change national policy on immigration. We need to use that muscle, and we need to use it now.

One Sunday morning during service, a 2,000 member congregation was surprised to see two men enter, both covered from head to toe in black and carrying submachine guns.

Immediately, the choir fled... the deacons fled... and most of the congregation fled....

He then looked at the preacher and said "Okay Pastor, I got rid of all the hypocrites...

Debbie Shank stocked shelves at a Wal-Mart store in Cape Girardeau, Mo., until five years ago, when her minivan was hit by a tractor-trailer. Her Wal-Mart health insurance paid the medical bills. Proceeds from a lawsuit helped finance her care in a nursing home.

Brain damage forces her to use a wheelchair and limits her upper body movement to one arm and two fingers. It stole her memory and her ability to talk to her husband and three sons.

"She'll ask about the boys, she'll ask about the cat," said her husband, Jim Shank. "Whenever I'm there, she thinks it must be a mealtime. We don't really hold a conversation."

Now the Shanks face a new obstacle. Her Wal-Mart health insurance plan wants the lawsuit money to repay its costs.

Last week, the health plan sued Debbie Shank in federal court in St. Louis, demanding the full $417,000 she got in the civil suit - plus at least $51,000 more from the share that already went to lawyers and costs.

A suit such as this is not uncommon, and is a way for self-financed health plans - employer and union-funded plans - to recoup medical expenses, say lawyers who handle health and insurance law.

A Wal-Mart spokesman said the health plan has made no decision on whether to pursue this case; the suit puts a legal foot in the door before the deadline to file it passes. "This is kind of a standard procedure, and it just preserves our options," Marty Hires said.

"I can't believe that they've done this," said Maurice Graham, one of her lawyers.

"The cost to care for her in the future is going to be literally millions," Graham said. "She is confined to a nursing home, has a normal life expectancy and requires full-time care."

Shank and her husband sued G.E.M. Transportation Inc. and Texas truck driver James David Shivers in federal court in September 2000 after Shank was hit by the tractor-trailer while making a U-turn on Highway 177 near Cape Girardeau, according to the original lawsuit.

Shank suffered injuries to her brain stem and other body parts and was in a coma after the accident, the suit says.

The Shanks settled in August 2002 for $900,000. After attorneys' fees and expenses, an irrevocable trust set up for Debbie Shank got $417,477 and her husband got $119,280, according to court documents.

Jim Shank, 52, who does maintenance and risk management work at Southeast Missouri State University and also is a real estate agent, is not named in the health plan's lawsuit.

Lawyers familiar with employment law said that while state law generally bars a health insurance company from trying to get a piece of a settlement, self-funded health plans are allowed under federal law to recover their costs.

Wal-Mart's health plan explicitly states that it gets reimbursed first out of any settlement or judgment, up to 100 percent of the total amount of the medical expenses, according to the lawsuit filed by the Administrative Committee of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Associates' Health and Welfare Plan. The plan also explicitly states that, "All attorney's fees and court costs are the responsibility of the participant, not the plan," the suit says.

For Shank, that would mean coming up with at least $51,000 more than she received.

The suit also seeks attorneys' fees, costs and interest for the expense of suing Shank to recover the money.

Graham said the settlement money was placed in a trust created by the federal court, "so this money never came into the hands of Debbie Shank or her husband ... and is only to be used for her support."

The health plan's suit says it was never notified of the settlement or the creation of the trust, and Shank and her lawyers were repeatedly told that the health plan expected "100 percent repayment."

An attorney for the plan, Christopher Hedican, said he was "not authorized" to talk about the case.

Wal-Mart spokesman Hires would not comment further, citing federal health privacy law and the lack of a final decision about whether to pursue the case.

St. Louis lawyer Sheldon Weinhaus, who has handled similar suits, said it is not unusual for employer-sponsored health plans to try to recover money from lawsuits.

"Wal-Mart has certainly been one of the more aggressive and assertive in doing this," he added.

He said courts are becoming more critical of suits filed by health plans. "They recognize the unfairness of this, and they're looking for reasons to stop Wal-Mart and others from doing this ... in my opinion," he said.

Jim Singer, who battled Weinhaus on a case involving a union-funded health plan, disagreed about a change of attitudes in the court system. "I don't know that that's true. I haven't seen that."

Singer said that using lawsuits prevents cuts in benefits or increases in worker contributions to the plan. "You need to put the money back in the trust so it will be available for other people," he said.

Jim Shank said his wife bounced from job to job until she found the night shift stocking shelves at Wal-Mart, which allowed her to be home for her sons during the day - to be a better mother, he said.

Now, although she knows her middle son is in the Army, she doesn't know that the 17-year-old is scheduled to head to Iraq next year, or even that there is a war.

Jim Shank has dreaded something like this since he got a letter two weeks after the accident, while his wife was still in intensive care, "clinging to life."

He recalls the letter saying he had to sign over any right to lawsuit proceeds or the health plan would not pay for his wife's care.

He said that if the Wal-Mart health plan pursues the case, and wins, his wife would likely lose the caretaker who "stays with her and works with her and helps her and tries to keep her in good spirits," he said. And they might have to sell the van they bought to accommodate her wheelchair.

He also said that a lawyer who specializes in elder law said several years ago that if the money runs out, he might have to divorce his wife to make her eligible for Medicaid.

If you recall, in the name of "national security" we got the patriot act, something that gave the government unprecedented powers to spy on and detain citizens of the united states. Meanwhile, nothing was actually done as far as improving security at our nuke plants, chemical plants, cargo terminals, railways, etc., and the feds won't reveal what information they have gathered even in statistical aggregate, even to the Congress which is supposed to provide oversight.

Now, the government, in the name of "fighting epidemics" wants to track the comings and goings of every single US citizen traveling.... more below the break.

Now, the government, in the name of "fighting epidemics" wants to track the comings and goings of every single US citizen traveling (remember they tried this after 9/11 and the backlash was so great), so now they're using the bird flu scare. Of course, they also want to track the health of everyone who is coming and going. Oh, and the authorities have broad power to detain anyone and quarantine anyone if there is any question that they may be carrying any sort of disease or are the victim of a bioterror attack.

There is, of course, ample opportunities for appeal if you are detained. Of course, it would be too simple for someone to be grabbed off a plane for exhibiting symptoms of a disease, taken to a "government quarantine center" for "treatment" where they then died mysteriously from this "bioterror attack" and the body had to be cremated to kill the pathogen.

And to think that this can be passed as a government regulation without any approval from congress (not that they would have trouble getting it).

What is the freeest country in the world? Is there any place where you can practice your religion in peace, where men and women are treated as equals, where gays have rights, where every citizen has health care, and where the tax rates are reasonable so that people who work hard can accumulate wealth (I have no problem with wealth accumulation so long as the working poor have health coverage, food, medicine, and a place to live so that they aren't so poor). Say a 50% tax rate maybe? -Fred

CDC Proposal Would Help U.S. Track Travelers
More Contact Information and Greater Ability to Quarantine Could Help Stem Spread of Disease

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a phone-book-thick proposed rule yesterday that would give the federal government new powers to track the comings and goings of individual travelers and expand the circumstances under which passengers exposed to a serious communicable disease could be isolated or quarantined.

The proposed changes are the latest in a series of preparatory moves aimed at solidifying federal health officials' legal authority to take actions aimed at slowing the spread of emerging contagious diseases, such as pandemic flu.

The new provisions -- the costs of which would fall mostly on the travel industry -- call for greater scrutiny of passengers for signs of illness and greater efforts by airlines and others to obtain personal contact information from travelers. They also broaden the list of symptoms that would make people subject to quarantine.

Although the rules strengthen federal authority to isolate passengers suspected of being infected, they also spell out in unprecedented detail key legal rights, including appeals processes, for citizens. The agency will accept public comment for 60 days before issuing a final regulation.

Officials said they are confident that the vast majority of Americans will support the changes so the government could better protect them from a major outbreak -- whether naturally occurring or from a bioterrorism attack.

"We're not talking about quarantining anybody for a sniffle or a cough," said Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine, in a conference call with reporters.

He added that although travelers would be asked to provide more personal information -- including phone numbers and e-mail addresses -- the goal is simply to be able to contact people if it becomes apparent they sat near an infected person while traveling.

"There are some very rigorous standards of privacy with which this information will be treated," Cetron said.

Many of the proposed changes are the result of lessons learned from the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, when federal and international health officials realized how hard it was to track down passengers who had shared flights or other transportation with an individual who had the contagious disease.

Flight manifests are sometimes destroyed within days, they found, and customs documents -- being on paper -- were not easily transmitted to health authorities and were often illegible.

The proposed regulation requires airlines operating out of major airports and international cruise operators to request detailed contact information from passengers; maintain that information -- along with the passenger's seat location -- electronically for at least 60 days; and transmit it to the CDC within 12 hours of a request.

As proposed, passengers could refuse to give personal contact information and still travel. The agency would destroy the information after a year, by which time it would no longer be useful for tracing disease.

The rule also demands that ship and airline captains report to the CDC any deaths or signs of significant illness on board, preferably before arriving at their destination. Existing requirements are less explicit and call for reporting to local health departments instead of federal officials.

The rule spells out a somewhat broadened array of circumstances or symptoms that can result in a passenger being held in quarantine or isolation upon arrival. (The term "quarantine" refers to the time a person is restricted because of suspicion of exposure to a disease but with no sign of illness; "isolation" refers to the time a person is restricted while ill and presumed able to spread the disease.) Practically speaking, the responsibility for detaining passengers falls largely on federal quarantine officers, who are eyeballing and questioning arriving passengers at a growing number of U.S. airports and other transport hubs.

Agency documents supporting the rule emphasize that the courts have long found that public health concerns can trump individual rights, including certain expectations of privacy, freedom of movement and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

A yellow fever epidemic in 1796 prompted Congress to pass the first federal quarantine legislation, and provisions have expanded since then. The government can now quarantine people "reasonably expected to be infected with or exposed to" any of nine diseases: cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers (including Ebola), SARS and pandemic flu.

Under the new proposal, the criteria used to presume infection are broadened to include a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher in conjunction with other symptoms, to make sure anyone with pandemic flu is included.

Although quarantine is generally seen as a last resort, the CDC documents state, it can be especially important in bioterrorism incidents in which the disease agent has been bioengineered to be especially contagious, drug-resistant or vaccine-resistant.

Federal courts have varied in their rulings on how long the government may hold someone before that person must be afforded an administrative hearing. The proposed rule would allow detention for three business days without a hearing, with an option to extend if medical tests confirm the need.

No one could be forcibly isolated for longer than the amount of time it takes for the suspected disease to be no longer communicable -- less than a month for most diseases.

The CDC estimated that the costs of implementing the new rule nationwide could be $185 million to $865 million per year. That would be a bargain, the agency calculated, given the potential direct and indirect costs of a major outbreak.

The proposed rule is to be published in the Federal Register today and can be viewed at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dq .

The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.

Take a GOOD look at the face of the enemy

Timoney said 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.

Under the program, both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.

"We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware," said Viverette, the police chief in Gaithersburg, Md.

At Monday's Heat game against the New York Knicks, season ticket holder Tony Gonzalez, 34, said he wasn't worried about any potential violation of civil liberties.

"When you enter an arena or stadium at full capacity you just don't know who is going through the turnstiles," said Gonzalez, an attorney. "Everything that helps our security, I'm for it."

** As the ‘Great And Powerful Oz' once said to Dorothy, "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!" because appearances can be deceiving. You HAVE TO look behind to curtain to learn the truth.
*** Red Herring. The name of this fallacy comes from the sport of fox hunting in which a dried, smoked herring, which is red in color, is dragged across the trail of the fox to throw the hounds off the scent. Thus, a "red herring" argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question through the introduction of some irrelevancy. This frequently occurs during debates when there is an at least implicit topic, yet it is easy to lose track of it. By extension, it applies to any argument in which the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.

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