government

I’m currently so filled with anger at what’s going on that I often don’t even write because I feel that the people that do read this page are already on the “right” side of things, excuse the pun. I’m just going to pretend that you don’t know about the fact that the main Telecommunications companies in the US, mainly AT&T haven taken our data and handed it over to the government. One of the only companies who resisted this was Qwest Communications, who’s CEO surprisingly got accused of insider training and where there is no apparent proof for this theory, many believe that this was some type of retaliation of the government.

Back when I was in college I used to expose myself to more talk radio than is recommended by the doctor. The main reason for this was the fact that I worked as a pizza delivery guy and of course spent a whole lot of time in the car. I remember there being a time slot where Glenn Beck was in way before he was given a show on CNN which to this day I cannot understand. He was one of the first people on radio or television to get behind the Terry Shiavo case and made it one of this biggest themes, and unfortunately it ended up getting so much national attention that at some point even politicians got involved.

I must tell you that I’ve always thought that the US approach towards drugs is almost childish. From the beginning of the “just say no” campaign put to life by former president Ronald Reagon’s wife Nancy Reagon I’ve always mocked anti drug programs. As you can see here she admits herself that “just saying no” to drugs seems like a rather simple message. Not only is it a simple message, it’s a naive message. Only in America could you have campaigns such as “DARE to keep kids off drugs”. It’s such a ludicrous message on a society as over medicated as ours. I’ll give you an example of how utterly stupid our system is. If I go down to dark parts of the city and acquire some crystal meth and get caught, I’m pretty sure I’m in rather deep trouble, depending on my skin color of course. However if I go to my Doctor and simply ask for some prescription speed, I’m OK. Now I’m sure you can’t get anything comparable to crystal meth from the Doctor, but the point is that both items are drugs.

Let’s take another example, pain killers. We all know that hypocritical idiots such as Rush Limbaugh have shown us, that there is a market for prescription drugs. The drugs he was discovered to have been taking, were heroin. You can all it Oxy-whatever, but the bottom line is that those type of pills are derivatives of heroin and nothing else. Is Rush Limbaugh still on the air? Of course he is. The funny part of course is that he said on the air that drug addicts were supposed to be “sent down the river” as far as he was concerned.

We have spent billions on the war on drugs and the bottom line is that it has failed, it’s a farce and it costs us man power that could easily be used for other more sensible things. Projects that would actually be of some type of value to society. I’m not saying drug trafficking and other things shouldn’t be controlled in some type of fashion, however there are much more effective ways of combating the problem. If the government was really interested in winning the drug war, they would stem it at its source. How do you squelch the problem of a black market? Get into the market yourself! Instead of fighting the problem, we could just try to get in on the business. Quite frankly I’m hoping that some businessman will come along one day and realize that our current policies are simply hampering economic development.

If the government controlled all sales of controlled substances, there wouldn’t be a need for fighting the war on drugs, because we would simply have all the drugs. Sure there would be a certain extent of drugs will being made on the black market but “consumers” but soon prefer the “clean” drugs, over the stuff on the streets - just like people by Johnny Walker from the liquor store, and not from some backstreet dealer.

Ok so here we are. Obama looks like he’s going to be the Democratic Presidential nominee and quite frankly I’m rather surprised. Months ago friends of mine in Europe asked me what was going on in the Presidential primaries and they mentioned Hillary and Barack at the time and pessimistically I said that I don’t think either one of them stood much of a chance against the Republican slime machine. As the months have gone by, it seems that what’s really happened at least to a certain extent is the fact that Republican Party is finally coming to complete ruin.

Rather than going on with such negativity as I have in the past I want to look forward and that’s where everything back fires again. If you look forward there are a lot of things on the horizon that each on their own, would qualify as a major disaster. Nobody’s mentioning the fact that if the truckers strike, our system might break down. Everything you touch during the day was most likely delivered to where you live by truck. I’m not sure whether you’ve noticed, but Diesel fuel is even more expensive than regular gas and that’s what trucks use to power their semi trailers. The other big issues is drinking water - yes drinking water. Nobody’s going to care how expensive gas is once usable fresh water becomes a rarity. When researching this topic I cam across this website which seems to deliver a lot of solid information. I haven’t verified the information nor do I really feel that I need to, because I’ve talked with various people myself that have supported this theory. As a matter of fact one of the people I talked with was an engineer who worked for the state and was responsible for water analysis in the state of Florida and he told me a while ago that the amount of fresh water in Florida is coming to an abrupt end. What’s worse, this information is readily available to the public but as with so many issues, politicians chose to focus on topics that get them elected, and not topics that could actually help the state.

The reason I went into detail as to the Water situation is because I live in Florida. I knew it wasn’t the smartest idea to move down here from NY state, but the area I lived in up there had just about zero opportunities for people like me. The water situation in Florida is one of very many issues that are going to face who ever wins the Presidential election.

We’re engaged in a War that has caused us over 4,000 dead and the country we supposedly “liberated” has seen hundreds of thousands of people die, and it’s not over. Our economy is so screwed up that it won’t be long that we will be seeing major changes in people’s lives. We don’t have any alternatives to driving cars, as public transportation has never been regarded a necessity. Soon we will realize that what the Bush administration has set us up for, is sheer disaster.

I can only hope that we get a Democratic President but even if we do, considering the pile of crap they’re going to inherit I don’t see how they will be successful, no matter how much change they want to implement. The change we need has to be so drastic in order to have an effect, that I doubt very highly that any President will be able to accomplish that, unless he and everyone else in his cabinet truly realize what trouble we’re in.

It’s 3:03 am. I’m doing the graveyard shift again and I’m watching PBS Frontline’s “Bad Voodoo’s War”. I’ve done my share of hard work in my life. In my 20’s I was an iron worker in Germany and I know to some extent how it is to share a shitty situation with others. It of course doesn’t compare to the bond soldiers form, but I do emphasize very strongly with the men. I know how it is to be working in extreme conditions, whether it’s the extreme hot or cold - please don’t think I’m comparing myself to soldiers, I’m just saying I can feel for them - I know iron work doesn’t compare to the fear of being blown up daily. The headline of this article is a direct quote from one of the soldiers, SFC Jason Shaw. He had joined the army at age 18 and four years later he was on his third deployment. The crazy part is that he could have opted to stay home, but he volunteered to go back, to accompany his friends in the platoon.

Misery likes company they say, but I think this goes a bit deeper than that. These soldiers on a daily basis go through more crisis, fear and danger to their lives than most of us will ever experience in a life time. The soldier don’t want to go on the missions because they know that every day they leave their camp, death can be near. I can see in the look of the guys that they’re just hanging in there. Toby Nunn, the platoon leader shares his personal feelings and it’s saddening to see that we’re wasting men like him and others. Most of the documentary deals with this platoon doing security details for transport convoys. At some point Nunn describes the convoy and they called it “the lettuce and tomato” convoy. He finished his comment by saying “yeah these supplies are probably going to some private contractor” - that’s something you don’t even want to think about it. While these men are leaving families at home, seeing relationships fall apart, loosing friends in battle and of course getting killed and injured themselves, the men in Washington are saying the surge is working. Ask the soldiers that are on their third, fourth or fifth tour of duty whether they think it’s working. It doesn’t make any difference to them - I’m sure of that.

An argument many republicans will bring up is that “they signed up for this” - let’s be serious here. Nobody in the army currently wants to be at war. Yes of course you have certain people that joined beause they were gung ho for action - however most soldiers don’t see action. They’re in a situation where every one of their move requires careful thought, as to not cause any conflicts with the Iraqi security personell. This reason and others, make it very hard for soldiers to protect each other. I’m an extremely anti-military person but I’ve never had anything against soldiers. Soldiers are guys and gals just like you and I trying to make it in life and not a single one of them wants to be at war for several years at a time.

Of course the people in Washington don’t think about it - I know Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t and never looses any sleep over the fact how many men he will personally have ruined with so very little so show for. Accordnig to recent reports we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of returning service men that are injured physically and mentally. The republican don’t give two cents about you - that’s the sad part. They don’t care about your families, they don’t care how your quarters look like, and they could care less that you’re ill equipped. While our heroes are risking their lives protecting assets for private contractors, those same private contractors don’t adhere to any laws, they get paid 10x times more than our soldiers do and they don’t have to answer to anyone. You can’t even blame ex military men for joining companies such as Blackwater because after all you can make more money and you don’t have anyone to answer to.

What this government has done, is completely demoralize our service men. Just like after Vietnam we’re seeing case after case where veterans are being denied proper care. To top it all off, John McCain the republican presidential hopeful rejects the new G.I. Bill. How do these people sleep at night?

You can check out SFC Toby Nunn’s Website Here: http://tobynunn.net/

Watch the PBS Frontline Documentary: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/badvoodoo/

I’m sure I’m not that only one that’s realizing this - except for the politicians of course since they don’t have to worry about their paycheck. As a matter of fact they’re not tied to any performance quotas, nor do they do piece work though they do like to pass this type of legislation to keep others from doing what they’re doing, which is slacking.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=ggBk3xI5km4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=GGiU658aSIw&feature=related[/youtube]

When I moved to this country in 1999 gas prices were at about $1.30 - for me, who was used to $6-8.00 /gal I thought that was a joke and I said at the time, there’s a lot of leeway here for the government in terms of pricing and taxes. In europe, in particular Germany, most of the money people spend at the pump is for taxes - the large part of the cost beyond the raw cost of oil goes towards taxes for infrastructures, etc. In this country however it seems slightly different. Since we’re a country that doesn’t believe too greatly in taxes, we instead have a system that gives oil companies the leeway for profit - instead of leaving some margin for the government. So instead of having a dollar per gallon go to environmental protection, the reconstruction of roads, repairs of bridges, it all goes to the oil companies. The truly amazing part is that the executives of the major Oil companies actually went to congress to tell them why they can’t stop subsidizing the oil industry due to the high exploration costs. Tell ya what - it costs me money to get to my job too and I’m not seeing any government grants flying my way paying for it - those are costs I have to absorb and the same should of course be the case for the oil companies, especially in the light of historical profits. A British newspaper goes as far as calling the profits obscene and I have to admit that I agree completely.

Now things are so bad that truckers are going on strike. When I came to this country I learned an expression which is “If you bought it, a trucker brought it”. If that’s true, I’d say it’s safe to say we’re in some deep shit. Not counting the fact that we’re at war that nobody wants to talk about, not mentioning the fact that our health care system is worse than that of Cuba, now we will soon all notice the change in this country. To me something very drastic has to happen, because the way things are going it seems the government is just going to ruin this country and then leave to Dubai to join Dick Cheney at his new corporate headquarter.

What’s very interesting is that those people who have the audacity of questioning other people’s patriotism, see no problem in taking the tax revenue of a company and moving it away. Behind closed doors the business men all know - patriotism is just a word that they can sell to the American people. While the common man/woman busts his/her ass to get by, the big companies are enjoying all the tax loop holes and incentives they can, maximizing their profit and stripping themselves from more and more pesty costs such as health care and other benefits.

Once again I have to say, I came to this country in 1999 and since then I can safely say that things have downhill at an extremely sharp angle. To all the people that aren’t paying attention to what the crooks in Washington are doing to us, I hope you will realize when you can’t afford to drive your SUV anymore, when you can’t take your kids to the make belief world called Disney World anymore and when all the luxuries you’ve come so accustomed to are gone, maybe then you will get up and raise your fist and say you’ve had enough.

Until then, I’ll be here.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=gDXd26hV59M[/youtube]

Before I lay into this topic let me say I barely know Williams. I didn’t grow up in this country and for the years I’ve been here I don’t waste my time with talk shows like his and others so I’m not 100% in the know when it comes to his repertoire. What I did find on the net about him was that he handed it to Fox news as shown in this video and for that alone he should be my hero, but he really isn’t.

Just heard about this on the news. I mean I guess we all make errors, but it’s rather alarming to find out about this article which describes how the US Air Force sent Taiwan Nuke Parts, although they had ordered batteries for helicopters. The more alarming part is the fact that we didn’t even realize we had done it, it was only after the Taiwanese government contacted us inquiring about the parts that we discovered the error. I’m glad that while we’ve bombed Iraq into oblivion and are worried about terrorists all around the world that we find these type of mistakes within our government.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=LyjemxaPW34[/youtube]

Let’s give it up for Keith Olberman who is tirelessly pointing out what really should be very obvious - We’re not winning and we’re ruining our Country economically with this war. World War II was over in 6 years and our involvement was even less than that. The invasion of Normandy which can be considered one of the large battles in modern times, was a logistical nightmare and cost thousands upon thousands of soldiers their lives.