Pat's Reality

2008-11-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

President Obama

It is right and fitting that Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election. George W. Bush is the worst president we ever had, and he must be held responsible for bringing the country to ruin. He was aided and abetted all the way by the US Congress. It is now up to President Obama to return this country to living out the high ideals that made us the greatest country in our imperfect world. It is possible; it is on the outer edge of the art of the possible. I’m not optimistic that Obama can do it. If he can keep what is developing into a severe recession from plunging into a depression, he will have merited the building of a monument to commemorate his name and the people who helped him restore America as the world’s champion of freedom and democracy.

The rot set in with Jack Kennedy. He had the promise, he had the possibility, but he let it get away. Camelot was BS. Then Lyndon Johnson snatched the promise of civil rights out of the thin air Martin Luther King created and shoved it down the nation’s throat – Lincoln smiled and danced a back woods jig. But then Vietnam consumed him and the rest of the country for 10 years. Other than Roland Regan having the good sense not to start another war, we have been going down hill and accelerating. It’s not a case of a few bad apples; the whole bushel basket is rotten. We are almost broke. If we do go off the edge into depression, keep in mind the ignorant and dirt poor folks of the 1930’s are not the same crowd who is around today. Today’s society is quite capable of anarchy.

Obama’s first and most important task will be to contain the recession. Congress will have to go along, as what they have provided for the past 20-30 years has failed. They sold out to K-street quite some time ago. But notice what Obama begins to surround himself for advice; the same folks that created the mess to start with. They are mixing the Kool Aid and cranking up the printing presses – why, because they don’t know what else to do. Do you think Washington ever thought it would come down to Valley Forge, or Lincoln thought the bombardment at Fort Sumter would lead to Antietam and Gettysburg - I don’t think so? Maybe Obama should go into the desert to fast and pray until Jan 20 with the hope God will give him a sign or send him a prophet. Surely I jest. Let me assure you I do not jest. Better to have Obama clear of mind and clean of heart to deal with this great national crisis then full of the snakes and spiders of the past. Go to the Sermon on the Mount. All the elements of the test are there. The keys of the kingdom are laid bare. In the next few years you will stumble across one of these keys. Make no mistake, that stumble for you has been no mistake; it has been waiting for you since the beginning of history. Seize it immediately and march into your grave with it fastened to you forever. What does all that have to do with Obama and the mounting great national crisis? Pray God sends Obama men and women who have one of the keys to help him speak truth to power.

2006-05-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

A work in progress – from phone logs to Big Brother.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four is alive and well. In fact it is the American government’s largest growth business. And you know, at least half of the American people support this totalitarian power grab. It is the dream come true of the master computer database that I’ll call Big Brother (BB). The technology of computer hardware and software is completely in hand and its cost is very reasonable. The various databases that need to be consolidated into BB are readily available. All that remains to be done is for these various databases to be
brought under some central control and then used. Right now the National Security Agency (NSA) seems to be the lead government agency in the George Bush administration to assembly the various databases under BB. Once that is done, and it is a work in progress, with the mere punch of a few computer keystrokes, we have every bit of information ever recorded in your lifetime on a computer monitor screen. Never mind the assurances your government gives you that, that information will never be misused, history teaches that, that is a lie. Surely BB will be used, and it will be used against you. As to misuse, such a notion has no meaning when the rules for use are set in secret and changed in secret. Unless the Congress and the Courts step in to limit the Executive under the Constitution, BB is already a reality.
Stop for a moment and think about the various databases out there with you in them: federal, state, and county tax records; driver, automobile, birth, death, marriage, divorce, court proceedings, prison, school, military service, banks, investment services, property, medical, guns, social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment, welfare, credit, telephone, e-mail, passport, insurance, bankruptcy records, ad infinitum, etc.
And of course most think they are the proverbial honest man, and therefore have nothing to fear. The real honest man knows better. In those records mentioned above, there is enough rope to hang nine out of ten people living in America, honest or otherwise. As to the majority who seem to approve of President Bush’s NSA actions you got to conclude they are stupid, naive, mentally lazy, consumed with right wing religious notions that they are the elect; and believe George Bush is protecting them from terrorism, but in reality they are surrendering some of their liberty to Nineteen Eight-Four.

2006-05-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

Pat's Reality

2006-05-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

Ethanol

Rather than consider the USA, I’ll keep my numbers for CO only.

Gasoline Consumption: 5.7 million gallons per day (2002), in Co, ranked 26th in the nation. 2002 was the latest year I could find on the internet, so for 2006 I’ll estimate off the top of my head an increase of 10% and say we used 6.27 million gallons of gasoline per day for 2006 in CO.

The carmakers are now building and selling E85 cars and trucks. They cost about the same for a comparable gas only machine. The gas only vehicles get from 5% to 10% better gas mileage, but I’m told the E85 vehicles deliver slightly less power for a gallon of fuel at some standard conditions. So I’m going to say the gasoline only machine is 5% more efficient then the E85 machine on a per gallon burned basis.

So 5% more E85 will be needed per day or 6.5835 million gallons per day of E85 for 2006. E85 is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. For CO, we’ll need 5.595975 million gallons per day of ethanol for 2006.

Now I’ll wave my magic wand and create that ethanol right here in CO and turn all automotive engines into E85 burning engines. I can hear you laughing, I can still hear those laughing before the no alcohol amendment (18th) to the Constitution was passed. But figures lie and liars figure.

One bushel corn will yield 2.8 gallon of ethanol. Consider a plant to produce 50 million gal of ethanol per year will need approximately 18 million bushels of corn. In 2004 USA corn crop average acre yield was 140 bushels or 128500 acres of corn to supply such a plant. That is 200.8 square miles, or 14.2 miles on each side.

Colorado seems to produce 150 million bushels of corn per year. I assume that corn is being used up in the current CO/USA market place. Right now an ethanol plant is being built in Weld County, CO to produce 140 million gal of ethanol from 50 million bushels of corn per year. Supposed to be online in 2007.

We need 5.595975 million gal of ethanol per day here in CO or 2042.530875 million gal per year or 14.6 of these 140 million gal ethanol-producing plants. We will have one such plant in 2007. That leaves 13.6 plants to yet build.

Well what about the corn to feed into these ethanol-producing plants? We got to import those 50 million bushels of corn or up our production 50 million bushels. If a 50 million gallon plant per year requires 200.8 square miles in corn, then we need 8203.1 square miles in corn to supply our 14.5 plants that each produces 140 million gal of ethanol per year. Start at Fort Morgan and draw line due east to the Nebraska line, then straight south to Hwy 40, then go west to Punkin Center on Hwy 94 and then north to Fort Morgan and you got 8203 square miles in corn. Yeah, 90 miles on each side. There is no bullshit in these numbers but others say they are wrong, terribly wrong. You can drink ethanol or smoke pot. But the numbers will change.

Now another gang of analysts steps forward and says – bullshit. You are way too optimistic on your claim gasoline is only 5% more efficient than ethanol. They say one gallon of ethanol equals 2/3 gallon of gasoline and it takes 1/2 gallon of gasoline to make one gallon of ethanol. The first part of that is for the engineers to argue while the second part concerns itself with producing the corn and running the ethanol plant (1 gallon of ethanol = 2/3 gallon of gasoline – ½ gallon gasoline). That says it takes 6 gallon of ethanol to equal one gallon of gasoline. Hoy Cow! If that claim is true, then to get the equivalent of 5.3295 million gallons per day of gasoline in ethanol at a ratio of 6 gallon of ethanol to equal one gallon of gasoline, we need 31.977 million gallons of ethanol per day. That calls for 83.4 of those 140 million gallon per year ethanol plants along with the 16740 square miles of CO planted in corn, that is a square 129.4 miles on a side or 16% of CO. Sorry, I know you want to have cow, but there is no room, all the farm land is in corn.

Internet numbers say a 40 million gallon of ethanol per year plant has a capital cost of $55 million. So my 83.4, 140 million gallon ethanol per year plants will cost $16 billion.

Cost of a gallon of ethanol on 4/25/2006 is $2.75 at pump. However there is $0.51 subsidy to the ethanol plant and $0.18 corn subsidy paid by US A for each gallon of ethanol, but its overtaxed on an energy basis of $0.13 per gallon. So the total coast is $3.31 for one gallon of ethanol, while the price for regular gasoline is $2.94. You can see we are almost at the break-even point with respect to sweet light crude prices versus ethanol for a limited volume.

How about a crop failure? No way, can’t happen here. No more grass (thank God) every lawn in CO is in corn and so are all golf courses.

2006-05-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Immigration Issue

Two parts to the problem:
1. The USA-Mexican Boarder.
2. What to do with the illegal immigrates already here.

Lets deal with the boarder: a no-brainer - simple, close the boarder. No entry unless you have a passport and a USA Visa. It can be done. It is legal and it is moral. Yes, it will cost money, and there will be consequences, both known and unintended. But it is well within the art of the possible and I think 75% of Americans would approve of doing that. No USA military, the mission belongs to the Immigration Service.

The illegal immigrates already here. Complex, lots of honest differences of opinion, will cost a lot of money to work out, will create a good size government bureau to carry out, will need extreme corporation between local law enforcement and the courts and this new federal bureau. No secret police, no Gestapo, no KGB or CIA. Everything gets done on the public record. Main points are:
1. If you are here five years or more you can stay and apply for citizenship, less than five years you are deported.
2. If you are born here you can stay and your parents can stay and apply for citizenship.
3. If you become a felon any time before you become a citizen, you will be deported.
4. It is not a felony to be an illegal immigrant and no citizen can be prosecuted for helping an illegal immigrant.
5. If you hire an illegal immigrant who is not in the citizenship program mention above, there will be stiff fines and jail sentences for repeat offenders.
I believe we can deal with the process of citizenship for those who have been here for five years or more and those born here and their parents. After all we have been in that business for over 200 years. The deport business is something we are going to have to learn about as we proceed to carry it out. There is something like 11 million illegal immigrants here. About 4.4 million have been here less than five years. That is a huge number of people to deport in a human way. It will not be pretty (Katrina should provide some insight). It will produce enough guilt that we may give up on it once it is started. There will be unintended consequences. Turkey has yet to own up to the Armenian genocide. No, I’m not saying any such thing as that will happen, but you can bet now many will say 50 years from now that the ‘Great Mexican Deport’ never happened.
Now we got to decide how we will go about determining who has been here five years or more and who has not as of a given date. There has to be a judicial due process established to deal with this huge problem. That means courts and lawyers, and there is no walking away from that and there will be tons of that. Are we as a people who believe due process is necessary in our free country prepared to pay for this huge expense? And what do we do about Mexico as the 4.4 million are sent back there. Do we speak like Marie Antoinette, or do we provide aid to help Mexico solve the vast new problem?

2006-04-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Iran and the Bomb

As soon as we got the Atomic Bomb we dropped it on Hiroshima. Four days later we dropped a second one on Nagasaki. We had a third one ready to go, but the Jap’s surrendered before we could drop that one. Then the Russians got one, and along tagged the British and the French. Some how the Russian’s and we managed not to blow up the world over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) became a fact. Then China, India, Pakistani, and Israel joined the club. South Africa joined, but folded early. North Korea recently crashed the party. Now Iran wants in. Why – so they can tell the USA to back off, and back it up. I suppose Iran has problems with the other members of the Bomb club, but it is the USA that has them up tight. Does anyone think that President G. Bush would have invaded Iraq if Iraq had the Bomb? Like, is the Pope catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Some things in life are so obvious, only the clinically insane can avoid them. G. Bush says Iran cannot be permitted to get the Bomb and he has the means to blow up most of Iran to destroy their nuclear capabilities. Would he use nuclear weapons to do this? Of course he would, that is our way of war, and the potential targets in Iran are made to measure for nuclear weapons.
Everything said above is a given. So only one question remains. What will Iran do if they get the Bomb? Each answer demands a why and the accompanying consequences. When we first got the Bomb we justified its use by saying it would force the Jap’s to surrender immediately and therefore save a million American casualties to invade the Japanese home islands. Consequences, there were none. After the other nations got the Bomb, the consequences always outweighed the rational for use for both them, and us, i.e., the other side will bomb back (MAD). So, Iran’s first option has to be, “Hey guys, we got the Bomb too, so don’t mess with us. Yeah, we dig MAD, we’ll blow off a little steam, but settle down and be good nuclear club mates.” That is what history, not ancient history, but the history most of us have lived through teaches and common sense validates. On to other realities. Iran gets the Bomb and gives it to al Qaeda who promptly set it up on Manhattan Island or Washington, D. C. and pulls the pin. What ever is left of our leadership talks around to the other members of the Club; it s unanimous – Iran. Fifteen minutes later, we return Iran to the Stone Age and whatever other country we think al Qaeda is holed up in. Variation on this is Iran drops it directly on USA. No middleman needed. Same consequences, except we don’t have to obliterate the country where al Qaeda is holed up. This is Iranian national suicide option No. 1. And then what happens – nobody knows. If you believe in this scenario, then by all means start bombing Iran now. Moving on: Iran gets the Bomb and destroys Israel. Israel complies with the dictates of MAD and now both Iran and Israel (and probably most of Palestine) reenter the Stone Age. This is Iranian national suicide option No. 2. And then what happens – nobody knows. If you are Israeli and believe in this scenario, then by all means start bombing Iran now. If you are USA and believe in this scenario, then you have a number of very serious problems to deal with.
Back in the time of Harry Truman when the Zionist cause succeeded and the State Of Israel became a reality, the USA took on the role of guarantying the ultimate security of Israel. This pledge has never been put to the test because Israel has won all its wars with the surrounding Arab States. Oh, we have given them tons of aid, but they did their own fighting. Nevertheless, had we been required to intervene, our own basic security would never have been threatened.
Our pledge was on the margin of our surplus, never our need. Once Israel joined the Bomb club, like it or not, they became members of the MAD clique. As long as there was little possibility that Israel could become involved in a dispute with another member of the MAD clique, the USA has shown little or no concern with their pledge to Israel. Now Iran appears to be hell bent on joining the Bomb club and may be setting itself on what I just called, Iranian national suicide option No. 2. I maintain no MAD state has the right to guaranty the security of another MAD state that is in a dispute with another MAD state. No state has the right to take the risk of suicide on the behalf of another state that has decided to engage in MAD.
If the President believes Iran’s goal in joining the Bomb Club is to drop it on the USA or give it to al Qaeda to plant here, then he has to convince the American people that, that is a reality if he wants to bomb out Iran’s nuclear capabilities. For him to bomb Iran without a clear declaration of war would make him a dictator. The USA military will carry out such orders. If the President believes Iran’s goal in joining the Bomb Club is to destroy Israel, then he should stay out of Israel’s way and leave them to their own devices. Once Israel joined the Bomb Club they took on MAD and no other state can stand in as surrogate for them and risk MAD themselves. I believe Israel will nuke Iran’s nuclear capabilities if they believe Iran will nuke them as soon as they get a few nuclear bombs. Only Israel knows what they really believe and only time will tell. If Iran keeps going for the Bomb, and Israel does not nuke them first, then you got to believe Israel and Iran have struck a bargain, yes a bargain that establishes Israel’s right to exist. Possible, the art of the possible, yes: probable, no.
In any event, the American public should think long and hard if they are willing to believe that 65 million Iranian’s are building a Bomb so they can drop it on USA and thus commit national suicide or to engage Israel with MAD and thus end the existence of both Israel and Iran.
The consequences of having the Bomb are to be subject to the fate of MAD. The consequences of not having the Bomb is being pushed around by those who have the Bomb, so you go get a Bomb and go MAD. So far so good, the Cuban Missile Chris was a long time ago, and most have kept their cool since then. But some day, unless mutual nuclear disarmament takes place, the world will go bang.

2006-02-04T18:38:00.000-08:00

Hurricane Katrina destroyed a good part of New Orleans, and other parts of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. This storm partially ruined almost all aspects of most people’s lives along the Gulf coast. I say we the people of the United States should finance the complete rebuilding of all the damaged and destroyed property in these areas to include the rebuilding of sound flood control projects. Yes, a complete bail out. Am I out of mind, maybe, but consider the following. Many economists fairly estimate about one third of our foreign aid since WW II has gone to Israel. Conservative estimates of that aid since 1947 to Israel is 100 billion. The economist Thomas Stauffer claims it’s 1.6 trillion. I will stick with the 100 billion number for the purposes of my illustration. Using reasonable average
Numbers spread over 58 years: that computes to $461 per capita USA as a gift of $22,700 per capita Israeli. Israel is not a poor country, and it is quite capable of defending itself from its enemies. In New Orleans we have at least 250,000 people who lost everything to Katrina, and another 100,000 in the surrounding states. I propose we take the 2.63 billon the US plans to give to Israel in 2006 and give it to the 350,000 Americans who lost it all to Katrina. Call it their seed money to get started again. That’s $7510 per capita Katrina victim. In the meanwhile USA should put up 75 cents of a dollar grant with the remaining 25 cents as an interest free loan of 30 years to all those who lost their property and want to rebuild. Assume they all do, with four persons per new unit, giving 87,500 new units at $150,000 unit, we got13.125 billion. USA puts up 75% of that, 9.84 billion and the new owners get 30-year interest free loans of 3.38 billion. If we could give Israel 100 bullion over 58 years, we certainly can help our own people. That computes to $41.50 per capita USA to help 350,000 Katrina victims rebuild their lives. When you say “God bless America” or hear others say it, this is what it means.

2006-01-31T15:29:00.000-08:00

Iran and the atomic bomb.
We invented the atomic bomb. As soon as we had it we dropped it on Hiroshima. A few days later we dropped another one on Nagasaki. Shortly after that the British and then the French sucked it out of us. Then Russian got their own. Some time later South Africa cranked out a few, but then thought twice about it and scraped their madness. China looked around and decided they needed one too, so they got a bunch. India and Pakistan shook in their sandals, looked at each other and shook some more, and developed their own. In the meanwhile, Israel with the memory of the Holocaust still fresh got some too. Needless to say the USA and Russia could have prevented India, Pakistan, and Israel from getting nuclear weapons. We probably helped Israel get its first atomic bomb. Now along comes the axis of evil. North Korea has some; Iraq fumbled around, but Israel blew up the reactor they were going to use to get their fissile material, and not withstanding the Bush administration lie told years later that Iraq had WMD (nuclear weapons), Iraq had no bomb; Iran is now going for the bomb. As soon as they get enough fissile material, they will have an atomic bomb. What then? Probably nothing. That is why they want one. If you got some, you may not qualify for the MAD club with the USA, Russia, and probably China; but having the ability to kill five million or so of your potential enemy is enough to keep him at bay. So who in the nuclear weapons club is so worried that they would be willing to go to all out war, including using nuclear weapons to prevent Iran from getting the nuclear bomb? Israel – because they think Iran would try to destroy them once Iran gets an operational nuclear capability. But Israel will do everything in its power to get the USA to take any and all actions against Iran to prevent them from getting the atomic bomb. If the USA refuses to do Israel’s bidding, then I believe they will attack Iran’s nuclear bomb building nuclear facilities with nuclear weapons. What would happen then, probably nothing? But what about unintended consequences? Your guess is good as anybody. Iran is hell bent on getting nuclear weapons. Israel is hell bent on preventing this. What to do? We cannot turn the clock back. The USA and Russia failed to act peacefully when China bulled their way into the MAD club. Now the handwriting was hanging from the Great China Wall. The three blind mice could not, would not, read it. What did it say – simple, the world cannot live with nuclear weapons proliferation. There is only one answer, the nuclear club members must rid themselves of all their nuclear weapons and enforce a worldwide ban on any and all future nuclear weapons. Pie in the sky, no, there is no pie in the sky, but nuclear weapons proliferation is providing the stuff to destroy enough of us, that if we had it to do over, we would have mutually accepted nuclear weapons disarmament.

2006-01-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

Bin Laden’s latest TV broadcast has him suggesting that a truce might be possible between al-Qaida and the USA. President Bush rejects this totally with calls the terrorist murders will be brought to justice and we will never give up or ever negotiate with terrorists. I believe this is a mistake. I think we should sit down with al-Qaida and talk. Let’s find out what they want and what they are willing to negotiate. Let the American public hear it from Bin Laden himself. This is not one of those foolish, what would Jesus do suggestions. Real politics asks that one know his enemy. Certainly talking with your enemy will help to know that enemy. We have nothing to loose. I doubt we have anything to gain, except I think it prudent we open and keep open a channel of communication. If months or even years from now, you find yourself or one of yours being killed in another al-Qaida 9/11 type attack, you might be disappointed if our country failed to do everything possible to end this conflict.

2005-12-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

Capital Punishment. The penalty of death for the commission of a crime. God drove Adam and Eve from the garden. He also condemned them and their offspring to die some day. Such are the ways of God. What of the ways of men? God wrote on the Tablets; Thou shall not kill. But God also installed in man’s very nature that one could kill in self-defense if necessary to preserve your own life. God’s prophets also wrote, “life for life, i.e., the law of retribution. Such are Gods works according to the Jews and Christians. The history of the world now parades before us. Many are executed. Now in post-modern times most countries have prisons where many are serving life sentences for various crimes. Many Christians have enlisted into one of the causes of the late Pope John Paul’s II theology; that complete union with Christ can only happen if we submit to the higher order of forgiveness and love as lived and preached by Christ according to the New Testament. Specifically, capital punishment offends against the higher order of forgiveness and love. Christ did not repudiate the laws of his Father. He taught that we could only join with the Father through his death, i.e., our redemption. The way to the Father is through the Christ. Christ demands total forgiveness and complete love. The threshold of our forgiveness for a criminal convicted of a capital crime has to be to spare them their life. That translates into life imprisonment for most of us. For the extraordinary case where society cannot provide for imprisonment, then the state is justified in execution in the name of public safety. Notice that none of the above has anything to do with the disposition of the convicted criminal or utilitarian economic arguments. As to the prosecutor who tells the jury the death penalty is a deterrent to capital crimes that others may commit someday, only a fool accepts this. The prosecution preaches vengeance through the death penalty. There is not much more to say. Remember man, only through the death of the Son has man been redeemed, and then no man ever enters the Kingdom without the total love and absolute mercy of God.

2005-11-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

Abortion

Think about yourself, whatever you are; the fetus is in the process of becoming another like you. But already it gets complicated, as there is something that is growing before many people are willing to call it a fetus. It started to grow when the male sperm fertilized the female egg. That is what science teaches. For me, from that moment it is another like me. When and where I grew up they called this phenomenon a baby. Never mind what the Catholic Church teaches or anybody else. This is what nature teaches if you’re willing to stop and take a good look at it. After it comes out of it’s mother’s womb, it has to be cared for a number of years or it will die.

Society forbids us to kill this little human being after it comes out of the womb. Yet American society permits us to kill this little human being before term, because it is not recognized as being a human being until it is born. And what is the primary overwhelming reason given for abortion; simply, the baby is not wanted. This ‘not wanted’ has been established by something called the right to privacy. Almost everyone understands, not wanted, but I think only a very few can reason this out of something called a ‘right to privacy’.

Go to some Internet site where the complete text of the majority opinion in Roe vs. Wade is available. Take the time to read it, and it will take some time. You will find its reasoning is not in science, its not in religion, there is nothing in the constitution that even remotely deals with abortion, and its not in case law or some statute. Well where does its rationale come from; this right to privacy that makes it legal to kill the unborn. It comes from the lobbying efforts of the pro-abortion political action groups.

Seven out of nine US Supreme Court Justices agreed to make abortion legal in 1973. Yet after 32 years and approximately 46 million abortions later, abortion is still the most divisive issue in America. President Bush is opposed to abortion. The anti-abortion forces hope Chief Justice Roberts and Bush’s latest appointee; Judge Alito (if confirmed) might move the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Maybe so? But would it not be better if the legislative branch of our federal government, take action to pass an amendment to the constitution returning the right to rule on abortion to the several states. Yes this would be messy. But real democracy is messy.

Five presidents appointed nine justices. Out of that we got legal abortion. The present court has the same make up. I would prefer the abortion issue be up to the 35 state senators and 65 representatives and governor from my state. Chaos, probably for a while, but each state will get much closer to the will of the people than what we got now. No, abortion is not going away in any event, but most state legislatures would put some fairly stiff restrictions on the abortion on demand culture of today created by Roe vs. Wade.

2005-11-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

Withdrawal from Iraq

The first thing to understand is the USA is a free and democratic country. To talk about keeping our army of occupation in Iraq or not is not to speak out against our country or is not evidence that person hates his/her country. A patriot is one who loves their country and is willing to make sacrifices for it. Being for or against various policies of one’s country does not make or unmake one a patriot. To be for or against our occupation of Iraq has nothing to do whether you support the members of our armed forces or you don’t. If you support President Bush and his administration in their attempt to turn Iraq into a free and democratic country, that does not mean you support our troops, it means you support Bush in trying by the force of arms of our occupation army to make Iraq into a free and democratic country. It is not working. But it is the centerpiece of our war against Terror. Again, it is not working. If we withdraw then we loose our war against Terror. No we do not. We discard something that was tried and failed in our war against Terror. We will continue, as we must to defeat the terrorists. We are now worse off in our fight against Terror than we were before we invaded Iraq.

Cut and run is sailor talk. Sailors talk about a ship or a flotilla. Suppose on that dreadful morning of 7 Dec. 1941, the USS Arizona would have had most of her crew aboard and had steam up, her Captain would have cast off and made a run for open sea. Old salts would have said he ‘cut and run’. But it does not mean that anymore, it means to surrender and leave our troops at the mercy of the enemy. Cut and run is now an expression of the propagandist. To withdraw from Iraq is not to surrender and our troops are not being left to the mercy of Iraq insurgents. Our troops conquered the Iraq armed forces and occupied the country. That is what they were trained to do.
They were not trained in any way to create and enforce a social revolution in Iraq, to turn Iraq into a free and democratic county. Bush tells us that is their mission, but it is Bush and his administration who has betrayed the troops by
assigning them a mission they were never trained to accomplish and a mission that always has been completely outside the reason the USA has armed forces from the first days of the founding of our country.

The guilt for our war dead, their widows and orphans, and our wounded; the dead and wounded Iraq enemy armed forces and civilians, belongs to President Bush and his war supporters. Many of those supporters are having a change of heart. The political act of the war on Iraq, regardless of how or why it was sold to the American public, or how its aims were modified once the occupation got under way, is now seen as a political disaster and mission impossible. Still the Bush propaganda machine attempts to convince people that to withdrawn from Iraq is to sever a sacred bond of trust between our men and women in the armed forces and civilian citizens of our nation. Bush tells us that our troops believe in his mission to transform Iraq into a free and democratic country. I do not believe our troops in Iraq believe in this. There are certain groups of officers in our armed forces who may subscribe to such political beliefs that Bush propounds, and attempt to politicalize their troops, but the vast majority of our armed forces understand their mission is to locate the enemy, engage him, and kill or capture him. If we withdraw, then it must mean we do not believe in the basic reason we have an armed force to begin with. This is false, most Americans and the men and women in our armed forces know why we have armed forces. Because the President is the Commander in Chief of those armed forces, he has no right to politicalize those forces into his notions of turning the world into a paradise of democracy. And then when some citizens challenge the President’s political ideas on what to use the armed forces for, those same people are breaking faith with our Army and Marine Corps. This is false. The other false guilt is that our war dead and wounded; died and were maimed for life was all in vain. To withdraw from Iraq is to trash their deaths and suffering and dishonor their service to our country. That is an absolute lie. They died and were wounded carrying out the orders of their superiors. We Americans honor our war dead and the great majority of us, who support our troops, look to the care of their widows and orphans, and our wounded.

Go to the Vietnam War Memorial, stare at those names, and also think about the millions of dead Vietnamese. It is now time to fight it out in the American political arena about what we are about in Iraq and where do we go from here. Let’s stop the bull shit talk of ‘Stay the course’, and ‘Cut and run’, and calling honest Americans traitors; because its time to call a spade a spade, before another generation of Americans are staring at the thousands of names on some Iraq War Memorial, and also thinking about a couple of hundred thousand dead Iraqis. The idea if we withdraw is that we lose. Well lose what? You have to say what win means in specific political terms in order to say that we lose if we withdraw. Furthermore you have to agree we can actually win those specific political terms if we stay and you have to tell the truth about estimated costs. Unless President Bush can spell out what win means in specific political terms and he can convince you we can achieve those goals and gives an honest estimate of what that will cost and you agree with those conditions, you should demand withdrawal now.

2005-11-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

Influenza Pandemic – Worldwide Problem

In the past few weeks I’ve done a lot of reading at the Internet sites of the World Health Organization (WHO), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Very, very little bullshit is on these sites when they are talking about the possibility of facing a worldwide influenza pandemic generated by Asian bird flu A (H5N1) if it mutates into a strain easily transferred from person to person. Can this happen – yes. Will it happen – there is a good probability. What is a good probability: the answer is that given a time span of 10-15 years, there will be a flu pandemic.
Why should a person be concerned? The models constructed from the flu pandemics of 1918, 1957, and 1968; and the vast database we have on influenza indicated that the death toll will be way beyond any thing any of us has ever experienced.
The standard defense against being infected with influenza is to get inoculated with the current seasonal flu vaccine. That will protect most people. If you get infected there is no cure. It runs its course in about a week and you get over it without ill effects. If you are young, have other illness, or old, it may kill you.
Right now there is no vaccine for A (H5N1). The experts say not to worry, because this strain does move from person to person. But it is deadly: out of 120 or so cases of people who became infected by handling infected birds, 60 of them died. A statistical drop in the bucket; but enough to scare the crap out of responsible public health officials. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry does not have the ability to produce enough vaccine to meet worldwide demand. In addition, the precise structure of the virus has to be known before the vaccine can be made, as the vaccine will only be effective against that specific virus.
If and when A (H5N1) mutates into a strain that passes easily from person to person, we have to develop the following: greatly increase our ability to produce huge amounts of vaccine, and produce this vaccine in a very short time span, and get people inoculated immediately.
In the meanwhile there are antiviral drug(s) that could and would be used to deal with a flu pandemic or seasonal influenza. I’m talking about Tamiflu and Relenza. The following is known about Tamiflu. Hoffmann – La Roche
owns the license and produces it outside the USA. HHS says it has about 5 million courses (10 75mg caps) in stockpile. Maker and public health officials say it would be effective in use against a person-to-person transferable strain of A (H5N1). First as a prophylactic if you start to take it before becoming infected. Second if you become infected, need to take it within one day of the infection. First and Second options are loaded with questions, but there are no answers yet. Big caution here, Tamiflu has never been tested on people with respect to A (H5N1). I don’t know about Relenza, but am trying to educate myself about this antiviral. To greatly increase the production of these antivirals is in the realm of politics as is the matter of a vaccine.
Suppose the flu pandemic arrives before we get loads more of a tested antiviral and or vaccine. We are now reduced to the simple, yet it will save many. Contain the spread of the infection. The basics here are quarantine, mandatory masks, hand washing and disinfecting, and rapid disposing of the dead. Each one of those elements will require public education, knowledgeable and honest local public health officials who can communicate, material wherewithal, and an understanding that failure to cooperate with these public health measures will bring death to those around you or maybe even yourself. For example, the mandatory masks require a certain material wherewithal. These masks are manufactured off shore. Considering the worldwide demand for them, should we set up factories in the USA to satisfy our needs? This is not trivia. It’s not the story of the ‘want of a nail’. If you or your loved one is in contact with an infected person and there is no mask, you or the loved one is now infected. Syringes are also manufactured off shore, but as we have no vaccine to put in them, we can deal with them later.
Let me leave you with a most depressing scenario. If you find it outrageous, do some research on the subject, you will find out it is authentic. City X, USA. A mutation of A (H5N1) has been identified and is spreading from person to person. It is extremely virulent. One out of four infected are dead within three days. The spreading is accelerating. No question, it is the feared pandemic. There is no vaccine. Tamiflu is only 25% effective of what it was predicted to be. Tamiflu supplies are almost exhausted. Complete quarantine is in effect and martial law has been declared. After two weeks half the health care work force are now infected. Thousands are attempt to breakout from the quarantine area as US Army and Marines seal off the area. I leave the rest to you.

2005-11-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

Remain dedicated to overcoming terrorism

The war in Iraq is not a war on terrorism. It is a war on Iraq that we have easily won and we are now the army of occupation. Our army of occupation is now trying to force the Iraqis to become a democratic country. We say this can be done and will result in an end of terror in Iraq and Iraq will become a peace loving country. When you try to think this whole matter through, you will come up will many questions, questions that are paramount to understanding what America is about in the world and specifically in Iraq. You will have to turn to many different sources in seeking answers, but unfortunately, there is no consensus among honest thinkers and people of experience on the foreign policy of the USA. There is of course no magic in consensus, as consensus is a concept that proves most useful to the elected representatives in a democratic state, and is basic to how the citizens of a democracy think about political matters.
Foreign policy is the interactions between states, as one state tries to influence another state. Well, what state is terrorism? The Talibin was the lawful government of Afghanistan when bin Laden’s Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. So the Talibin had to kick bin Laden out and join us or else. They choose or else and we conducted a half-baked proxy war on the Talibin, while bin Laden slipped away. Now we got 20,000 US troops occupying Afghanistan were they’re supposed to building a democracy. We also picked up 600 POW’s from our proxy warlords through CIA bribes that we have locked up in Guantanamo Bay. Overall, not too bad an operation; as we had to do something, and we did upset bin Laden’s training base, even if we did not get him and his primary operators. As to the 600 POW’s; I say we should indict them, put them on trail in a public court, and let the chips fall where they may.
Then President Bush invades Iraq. That’s it folks, that’s our war on terrorism. Sure, we created Homeland Security and passed the Patriot Act, had the 9/11 Commission pretty much explain how 9/11 came about which was painful, but most useful. Homeland Security fails completely to deal with our most fundamental concern in combating terrorism and the Patriot Act is nothing but an invasion of your civil liberties. Oh yes, the Congress was hand in hand with Bush on both of those measures.
So what is the answer? If there is an answer, it’s only partial and it’s far from perfect. Mine is two fold. First, know your enemy. Yes, even sit down and talk with them from time to time. No telling what you might learn, especially when you don’t know much to start with. You mean to actually have formal meetings with the evil powers of earth to find out who they are, how they think, and what might be open to negotiation. Yes, the more the better. You might find the root cause of our problem with the terrorist mindset. It may be possible to mitigate the cause. But we should know why these terrorists want to destroy us. Unfortunately, the second answer is one that we have often failed miserably at and is at odds with our basic freedoms, but not the cause for our failures. Its intelligence, the kind of intelligence that is all down and dirty; you get it by sleeping with the enemy and living with then, and praying, and drinking, and eating with them, and smelling like them. And if you slip once, you’re dead. And the few who can be bought, buy them. Let’s suppose you can do this. Now what do you do with the information? Thwart the planned attack or let it go ahead, because the risk of blowing your cover is high if you disrupt the attack, but to score big later, you can’t afford to blow the present cover. This is a dilemma for those in charge, e.g., the planned attack may produce 500 killed, but we also have some fuzzy information that a nuclear bomb might be exploded next year in some US city, so to thwart the planned attack will blow our cover, the cover we need to get more information on the dreaded nuclear bomb attack. Well, what do we do? The spy business is morally bankrupt from the get go. The people who operate these enterprises are corrupt. Like vampires, sunlight destroys them. To paraphrase Lord Acton, ‘Secrecy corrupts; absolute secrecy corrupts absolutely’. Democracy demands accountability for our actions and our money. Its citizens also demand their civil rights and sacred liberty. So there is the rub, how do we fight terror and still preserve our liberty. The possibility of loosing our liberty at home during the terror fight is very real.
I believe we can defeat the terrorists, if we can keep from becoming terrorists ourselves. To kidnap suspected terrorists, torture them, and then murder them is against the principles that made us a free country. That is what we are now doing and if we keep doing it, we will become terrorists ourselves. Besides it will not work. It will not stop them from being able to attack us. We have to know our enemy, and we have to get inside them. And we have to do this without surrendering our liberty.

2005-10-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

Priority of America’s basic problems.

End the Iraq War
Remain dedicated to overcoming terrorism.
Large reduction in DOD spending
Provide basic medical insurance to all Americans.
Overhaul the tax structure and establish progressive payments.
Balance the budget and pay for it now.
How to rebuild New Orleans and pay for it now.

I’m going to give you my take on each one of these major problems in America over the next few weeks. Here’s my thinking on the Iraq War.

The Iraq War was wrong from the start and is a failure. It was an immoral war in that Iraq never made any attempt to attack the USA and never had any capability to do so. It was sold to the American people based on three lies. Iraq possessed WMD (nuclear, biological, chemical), Iraq provided aid and comfort to Al-Qaeda, and Iraq was an imminent threat to America. After these falsehoods were exposed, and our conquest and occupation of Iraq went sour; we were told our real mission in Iraq was to help the Iraqis people establish a democracy which would end all terrorist activities in Iraq and establish a beacon of peace throughout the whole Arab world. It is not working, and IMO will not work. We are not safer, and we are in fact creating more new terrorists in Iraq than Al-Qaeda could have ever hoped for. We should withdraw 25,000 US troops every three months until the US military is completely out of Iraq. If Iraq wishes to be a friend of America, we should provide them foreign aid to at least equal what we give to Israel each year. If Iraq wants us to help them rebuild their military, bring a division or two over to the USA each year, and we will train them here. The militant Muslins want us out of the Middle East, so let us get out and stay out. So you might say that is playing into the hands of Al-Qaeda, in that one of Al-Qaedas objectives is to get us out of the mid-east. But it does not follow that Al-Qaeda will then take over Iraq and launch new 9/11s from there on America. We got 2000 dead US soldier’s plus their widows and orphans and 15,000 or so wounded and got ourselves into the torture business; we have killed 15,000 – 20,000 Iraqis, and the Iraqis have killed another 40,000-50,000 of their own kind. Nobody has any idea how may Iraqis have been wounded. Iraq has been destroyed. We don’t speak their language, we don’t know their culture, and their religion is alien to us. But President Bush tells us we are going to turn this into a freedom loving democracy. I say Bush is wrong. ‘Cut and run’ is a lie. Our armed forces totally defeated Iraq’s armies in short order with few US causalities and were most merciful to Saddam’s armed forces. There is nothing to ‘cut and run’ from. The US Army and Marine Corps did accomplish their mission (never mind that aircraft carrier PR job by Bush). The mission of our armed forces is not to rebuild a conquered nation into a democracy or any other kind of society or government. The longer we stay in Iraq, the longer our KIA and WIA lists will become, more and more dead Iraqis, Iraqis hate of us will burn for one hundred years, and in another half dozen years our guilt will force us to leave. Go and read Robert McNamara - In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. No, Iraq is not Vietnam. But take McNamara’s eleven principles on how we were wrong about Vietnam and think about Iraq. If you don’t get the message, then George Santayana wins again.

2005-10-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

Clever:
The mayor of New Orleans was asked about his position on Roe vs. Wade. He said he didn't really care how people got out of the city.

2005-10-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone knows bullshit when they hear it or read about it. Right now the media is consumed with it over the disclosure in the press that Valerie Plame, wife of a former Bush Administration diplomat Joseph Wilson, was an undercover employee of the CIA. Sometime after the CIA was created, a federal law made it a crime to disclose the name of a CIA undercover agent. An undercover agent is a long-winded name for a spy.
The history of the USA is such that most citizens are opposed to our government having domestic spies, but have no objection to having spies on foreign shores. No matter what you think about spies, most people agree with the law making it a crime to reveal our spies. So the USA Special Prosecutor is investigating this situation and will hopefully bring an indictment(s) to whoever outed Valerie Plame. Fairly straightforward story, but now comes loads of bullshit.
A few years ago the Bush Administration sent Mr. Wilson to Africa to produce new evidence that Niger was aiding Saddam Hussein in the development of a nuclear weapon. Wilson’s report came back negative. He found nothing old or new to support the administrations claims (yes that is still disputed by Vice Pres. Dick Cheney). After that, a journalist tells us that Wilson’s wife; Valerie Plame is a CIA undercover agent. Later it is alleged that the journalist got this information from source(s) high up in the Bush Administration to punish Joe Wilson for his failure to agree with President Bush that Niger was helping Saddam Hussein developing a nuclear weapon. Then it oozes out that Valerie Plame did work for the CIA, but she was never a spy. Well if she never was a spy, then why is she an undercover agent who works for the CIA in or about Washington, D.C. I will not take it any further, because to do so will only compound the basic elements of this bullshit story, namely: Saddam was not developing a nuclear weapon, and the CIA made a mockery out of federal law to protect our spies by saying Valerie Plame was an undercover agent when she was no such thing.

2005-10-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in Buffalo, NY in the 1940's, about 40%-50% of most of what you heard or read was bull shit (BS). Today about 80%-90% of most of what you hear or read is bull shit. Now you can say what I just said is also bull shit. If you do, then turn off. If you agree with me, or even kind of agree (maybe that's my 1940's , 40%-50% BS), then read on. So if I write something here you find interesting, "turn on, tune in," but don't drop out. Pat Crotty