America, the world's next great big third world country
So, the corporate world has taken over the political process in order to make money for itself and for a very, stress that very, few people like the CEOs and the extremely rich. There are over 100 tax expenditures that have to be considered by Congress when figuring the budget, according to the Budget Office, which totals almost a trillion dollars a year. That's right. Those numbers are hard to believe, but they come from the Congressional offices themselves. These expenditures are basically tax breaks, or so called incentives or loopholes in the tax law, that take money away from the federal governments revenue. That's why they have to be called expenditures. The number this year is projected to be about 800 billion. If you take the 520 billion projected budget deficit plus the special appropriations for things like the war in Iraq and add in the 200 billion or more that will be taken from the social security trust fund, you have..... about 800 billion dollars.
The original research comes from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The report highlights new research that suggests the processing of senses in the brain can be affected by other sensory input.
America, the world's next great big third world country
So, a third world country is defined by 1% of the population having almost all of the wealth in the country, as well as most of the power, etc. There is also a lack of middle class and there are large amounts of poverty and other bad economic things that America hasn't had to deal with since the Great Depression. Oh yeah, there have been more jobs lost in this presidency, about 2 and a half million, than any since the beginning of the Great Depression. Then why is unemployment only at 6%? That's to sooth the souls of the great economic forecasters. It is really between 2.5 and 3.5 times higher than that in reality. Here's how the number is figured to make it look good. Anyone who has been looking for a job for more than a year is no longer counted as one of the unemployed. Anyone who doesn't file for that week is not counted as unemployed. Disabled are not unemployed. People who have never worked can not possibly be unemployed. The self employed are never unemployed. People who are going to school part time and are restricted as to when they can work are not unemployed, and the list goes on. So the real percentage of people looking for work who can find gainful employment is between 15 and 20%. That's right. It's just one more way to make us feel better about the state of the union.
Here's one thing I don't get. I know plenty of Republicans who are middle class based on their income. They don't make more money than me. They are more in debt than me with mortgages and such.
I'll point it out plainly, so you can follow why this is so indescribably pathetic. Of course, the Republican stance since the 80s has been cut taxes and the the money trickle down from the businesses and the rich to everybody else. Well, the 80s came and went, and what was left afterward was an economy with fundamental problems on a grand scale and trillions of dollars in debt that we still pay hundreds of billions of dollars in interest along every year to maintain.
On top of that, the tax cuts, well, have only been for the richest of America. 99% of America pay more of their income in taxes than they did in 1973 and the top 1% pay considerably less. This has happened while incomes for the lower 99% have remained flat or decreased and have increased by an average of 3 times for the upper 1%.
So here is the only logical conclusion. Tax cuts and the policies of tax cuts in recent years have only helped the richest of America and businesses in America (who haved reduced their taxes as well over the years from 17% to 6% average). That means that every politician that has said that tax cuts are for the middle class has lied. And things will continue to get worse without corrections to the problems in the American economy.
More tax cuts are not the answer, particularly not the ones proposed by Dumya. Capital Gains tax cuts will almost eliminate income taxes for the richest 1% in America. That's right. The richest incomes in America use capital gains as the majority of their income. To eliminate the capital gains tax is to allow the richest in America to not pay income tax.
That means Dumya is proposing that Congress pass a law saying he doesn't have to pay taxes. No wonder it is the foundation of his administration.
Meanwhile, back in the land of the middle class, someone has to pay for the tax evaders like Dumya and his friends in Congress. Middle class people are forced to take pay cuts, and work more and produce more while making less money and working more hours. This while Dumya whines that someone is questioning why he stopped going to National Guard duty in the 1970s.
Now do you understand why it is sado masachism for any middle class person to be a Republican?
Here is a tragic truth about our federal tax code and the elitist CEOs and congressional representatives that insist on producing unfair inequalities in the tax code that are ruining America.
When saving for the futue, I am required to declare how much money I put in my tax deferred IRA accounts. I am also limited to how much I can put in my IRA each year. So is every else. Well, almost everyone else. the richest of Americans are allowed to defer as much as they want for as long or as short as they want. They can defer millions of dollars for a few years or for a couple of decades. And while they are waiting to cash the money or stocks out, they are free to let the money earn more value or invest it tax free.
Sounds impossible doesn't it? This can't be real! Why are the richest people in America, the CEOs, athletes, movie stars and politicians allowed to do this, while the other 99% of America, like yours truly is limited to a few thousand dollars a year and can only touch it without penalty at retirement?
The answer is, there is no legitimate, moral answer to this. This is why there are CEO scandals, like ENRON with Bush's friend Skilling.
We are being f***** by our government and lied to by all our politicians!
Dumya is a redneck, hipocrit, deserting, prejudiciced, nought and paid for by friends with money kind of guy. If you can't admire those qualities in him then you just don't know how to respect people, I'm afraid to say.
He's doin this to control that immoral and sick population of people on this planet that are cursed with the mental disease and sin of HO MO SEX U AL I TY. We should thank him for our efforts and let him know how proud we are of him.
I understand that just the size of these companies is enough to damage the economy if there were to be a problem or a scandal with either company. The size of these assets are absurd, monopolistic even. This recommendation is just prudent.
I think Greenspan needs to be fired though for other reasons. His recommendations to fix the problem of the raping and exporting of American jobs is preposterous. That he suggested more education and training is the answer is out of touch. Americans are almost required to have college degrees to get gainful employment in today's world already. How much more training and education could you provide? In addition what do you do with people not inclined to go or incapable of going to college or tech school?
Greenspan is showing how he is bought by the corporate belief system as much as anyone else who is an elitist. Free trade is only free if it's fair for everybody, otherwise it's a crime.
Protectionism or Third world status, the corporation as killer? It's Criminal, Part 4
Let me just say that I am a reasonable person, not a radical by any means. However, I have been reading some frightening facts and statistics lately, and have seen some investigative reports, that have made me want to fire every single politician in Federal government and make it illegal for any business to lobby and make the profession of lobbyist illegal. Here's some of it. In the beginning years of the US, revenue was gathered by tariffs and other things like lotteries even. The tax code is relatively young, like just over a century or so. Apparently, it was thought immoral to tax the work or the ordinary man. The tax revenue came from the wealthiest, or those who could afford it, with estate taxes and things. Well, war happened a few times, and by the second half of the century there was an income tax for everyone, particularly when Eisenhower and the people of the time wanted to create a huge highway and public works infrastructure. Beginning in the '80s, increasing in the '90s, and with the current administration as the biggest friend of big business and the wealthy, tax laws have been changed to exactly reverse the original intention of the tax code. The working classes, the lower, and middle classes now pay the highest percentages of their incomes in taxes, and are unable to save and prosper due to certain low interest rates and stimulus features. This occurs while the richest, which is about 1%, have continually paid less and less of their income in taxes and have prospered and made more and more. From the book Perfectly Legal, by David Cay Johnston, here is a rough estimate of what transpired in the 1990s. The top 400 richest incomes in America tripled their incomes from 24 million to 82 million per year while decreasing the amount they paid in taxes.
The following excerpt and [url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/...]link[/url] is from an article in USA Today, discussing budget and campaign issues. Ahh the political time of year. You know, I was trying really hard, and other than 9/11 I can't think of anything good that Dumya has done for us. Iraq was a good thing, but he lied about it too much. Can anyone think of anything?
In Congress, Democrats are contrasting the surging red ink with Bush's assurances in 2001 his first year in the White House that he could cut taxes, shrink the accumulated national debt and produce annual surpluses indefinitely.
Democrats also attack Bush's credibility by arguing that:
By writing only a five-year budget, Bush avoided showing worsening deficits later, when the baby boom generation retires and the costs of his plan to make his tax cuts permanent kick in. Congressional Republicans plan to do the same thing.
Bush's budget masks even larger deficits by omitting future costs of U.S. forces in Iraq, easing the alternative minimum tax before it hits more middle-income families, his planned manned mission to Mars and other expenses.
Backup documents to Bush's budget show that to reduce deficits, it assumes cuts in 2006 and beyond for child care, veterans, education and other programs reductions Democrats say will never happen. These proposals will be revisited every year, however.
Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, says fiscally conservative Democrats will offer a plan to balance in a decade. Spratt and other top House Democrats may produce a separate 10-year plan or write one with their conservative colleagues. The budgets will have smaller tax cuts and more spending for schools, veterans and other domestic areas than Bush wants.
Senate Democrats may produce their own, similar budget or offer amendments to the GOP plan.
The business class and the ultra rich have been reaping the rewards of paying little tax and of forging new frontiers in the realm of immoral tax shelters. Yet the current policy of free trade depends on these same groups of people to create trade surpluses to make free market agreements beneficial for all Americans, because the manufacturing, textile, technology, service, and many other industries are just being destroyed. And as far as I can see there is no chance of a rebound for any of these industries either. Each time an industry has suffered a major competition from an overseas market and a huge loss of jobs a few things have happened. Take for example the manufacturing industry. Due to the inability to lower wages, jobs were lost and never regained in America. However, fewer people now do the same or more amount of work than before because of technology. Yet, there are more people who need jobs now then when there were when the jobs were originally lost - more people, less positions. That's how company's are able to compete and retain any base in America. The same things happen every time a new sector falls to foreign competition. The result is more over trained people taking lower paying jobs. This has been happening for decades. It can mainly be seen in the statistics that reported the ability of households to survive on one income of a high school graduate just after WWII until now where families are in debt with two incomes and often each adult has a college degree. That is a huge difference in standard of living. I don't particularly advocate the need to return to ancient means of manufacturing as a base to our economy. But we do need to diversify and return to more stable foundations, strengthening different sectors of our economy, and stop relying on the national credit card - tax cuts and deficit spending.
Bush administration calls American teachers "Terrorists"
This story is hard to believe. I couldn't believe it at first, but as I read it, it sounded like every other conservative idiot, I mean Republican that I know. How dare they.
[b]Paige tells governors NEA is 'terrorist organization'[/b]
WASHINGTON (AP) Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year.
Paige's comments, made to the nation's governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats. Paige said he was sorry, and the White House said he was right to say so.
The education secretary's words were "pathetic and they are not a laughing matter," said Weaver, whose union has said it plans to sue the Bush administration over lack of funding for demands included in the "No Child Left Behind" schools law.....
Picking up where I left off in the last column, jobs are quickly being lost to overseas markets where labor is cheap. It seems to be the only way according to big business that they can continue to compete and make profits at the same rates, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. Greenspan's comments that Americans need more education miss the mark in a lot of ways. Firstly, it is almost a requirement to obtain a Bachelor's degree to get a good paying job in America today, a higher degree just puts you a head a little bit. More education requirements is almost unreasonable to ask. That's a minimum of 16+ years of school, finishing after the age of 22. This doesn't say anything about the people who don't want or aren't capable of going on to such a level of schooling. The possibility of gainful employment is completely out of reach for these people. That is an elitist and impractical philosophy. It also relies on the assumption that there will be technological or high level service jobs to fill. According to the latest job reports, these are exactly the latest jobs to be sold to overseas bidders. Greenspan is has now become senile.
It seems obvious to me that there are a lot of problems with protectionism, and I don't support protectionism, but Free markets as they are, are killing America and making it a third world country.
Here are some highlights that I see that make the current free market agreements deadly to America. America is at an overwhelming disadvantaged because of minimum wages. This is an obvious one that has caused the depletion of the manufacturing sector in America for decades. There are also costs for the price of environmental responsibility, and safety standards, and the cost of employee benefits. All of these that other countries don't have to worry about or that their government takes care of therefore eliminating huge amounts of overhead that American based companies have to pay for.
Not that other countries have to require 5 dollar an hour minimum wages, but how about something. How about demanding the formations of real labor unions in these countries that we have free trade with? How about demanding the same safety standards for workers and environmental regulations at least as stringent as hours? Not for the sake of some great humanitarian benevolence, because just to work in most other parts of the world is a huge step up and a god send, but out of a leveling of the business market playing field. I don't need everything to be 10 cents cheaper.
Protectionism or Third world status? Fire Greenspan
The other day Greenspan, chairman Alan, remarked how bad it would be to respond to the exporting, or "outsourcing of jobs in America overseas. This is a position that the administration embraces as something that is totally natural and just a part of the process of globalization and free trade. Greenspan said that the answer to the problem of outsourcing, I call it the transformation of America into a third world country, is more education and training. There are so many problems with these ideas I'll have to tackle them in a few separate columns. First let's look at globalization. Why is it good or bad? I think it is a good thing in some respects. It gives everyone in the world opportunity to partake in Capitalism which hopefully leads to Democracy and freedom. That's the good of it. The bad of it comes when an administration so corrupt as the Bush administration fails to look out for the American people and instead looks out for his own friends' wallets. Free trade helps global corporations, like the Bush family businesses, and the ultra rich the most.
What's been happening to the rest of America in the mean time is an equalization of our standard of living with that of China and India, the lowest bidder in the world's economy. American businesses can't pay us what we've been accustomed to being paid and still make money. So, they sell our jobs to countries where people only make 40 cents an hour or $2 an hour. Service and Tech jobs aren't safe any more either. What will be left are lower paying jobs. People in America will be forced to accept a lower wage in order to compete and will have to accept a lower standard of living as well. That is if there are any jobs left.
It's difficult to watch and even imagine. Tiger is playing some poor golf the the Riviera country club. IT's the Tiger's Bane. No wins at the tournament he's played 8 times. That's the most he's gone at a tournament without winning it. Sounds absurd to be talking this way though.
He's in 77th place. He needs to make up ground to make it to the weekend. 115 tournaments in a row he's made it to the weekend. That's one of his unprecedented records. Does it end tomorrow? Of course not.
He might be playing poorly to his standard, but he does now have a supermodel fiance to distract him. But I can think back to a tournament last year when Tiger was 3 shots away from making the cut and had just over half the round to play. Well his streak is still alive.
That's the difference in him and his play. That's what's fun to watch about him. When there is a challenge like that, he rises to the occasion almost always, and it often produces miraculous feats to accomplish.
My prediction then is that tomorrow will be another Tiger day, where he pulls it off, even if it's just on the number. It gets done. Of course the rest of his game is still too rusty for him to win.
Disarray and stupidity headline at the White House
The following article shows just how stupid our current president and his staff are. The administration has to make a retreat from a statement it made about how jobs will be created by this oh so great economy this year. 2.6 million is something like a 600,000 more than was lost in the Bush presidency so far. It would take about 450,000 new jobs per month. It's probably smart that they don't stick to that number. Don't you think?
...The jobs controversy came on the heels of White House economist N. Gregory Mankiw's assertion that "outsourcing" American jobs overseas was good for the U.S. economy in the long run. Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans quickly disavowed Mankiw's remarks, and the economist had to apologize for a "lack of clarity."
Jobs are a sensitive political issue for Bush as he fights to keep his own job in a second term. The economy has lost 2.2 million payroll jobs since Bush took office, the worst job-creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.....
Here's another story on the Bush administration distorting science reports for its own gain. Note that it had removed from the CDC webpage an information sheet about condoms. Also note one of the sources is a former EPA head from the Reagan administration. The bush administration is like the gestapo.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top scientists and environmentalists on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of suppressing and distorting scientific findings that run counter to its own policies.
They backed a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that said the administration had suppressed research on global warming, air quality, sexual health, cancer and other issues.
The report said there had been a systematic effort to manipulate the government's supposedly independent scientific advisory system "to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda."
"We are not ... taking issue with the administration's policies. We are taking issue with the administration's distortion of the process with which science enters into its decisions," Dr. Kurt Gottfried, a professor of physics at Cornell University and chairman of the UCS, told reporters.
Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) under former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said that during his tenure "I do not recall ever receiving a suggestion, let alone an order, from the White House as to how I should make a regulatory decision."
"How times have changed," Train added.
Neal Lane of Rice University in Houston and former science adviser to ex-president Bill Clinton (news - web sites) said scientific findings were being kept from decision-makers.
"I am afraid that our leading policymakers simply don't know what they don't know given the manipulation of the science advice process," Lane told reporters.
WHITE HOUSE DENIAL
The White House denied the accusations.
"I can assure you that this is an administration that makes decisions based on the best available science," President Bush (news - web sites)'s spokesman Scott McClellan said.
"I just don't think these incidents or issues add up to strong support for the accusation that this administration is deliberately acting to undermine the processes of science," John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters in a conference call.
Marburger noted that the group making the complaints included esteemed scientists and said the government obviously needed to do a better job of communicating its policies.
The UCS reviewed long-standing complaints that the federal government had deliberately disregarded a worldwide consensus that human industrial activity is to blame for much of the steady warming of the planet's climate over the past century.
It also cited what it called the suppression of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air Bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and would prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act would.
"This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather Service (news - web sites) to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone to think we have clear skies ahead," said UCS president Kevin Knobloch.
Public health groups have long complained that the White House changed advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) to support the administration's abstinence-only sex education policy.
They have said it removed from the CDC's Web site a CDC fact sheet on condom use.
"I don't know anything about that," Marburger said. (With additional reporting by Steve Holland)
As I see it, the American economy is doing better than it was. Growth is up, the markets are up (I put in when they were down, yeah me), home building and such are doing well and a few other things are going Ok. Things are also looking good for the next year forecast as well. Growth is expected as well as, finally, some new jobs.
But things aren't going superbly, and here's why. Well, this is what I think. I'm not a professional economist.
The Deficit, I almost don't need to say anymore. 7 tillion at the moment. Some people don't seem to worry that the last time there was massive deficit spending, what was left was a 7 trillion dollar deficit and problems with the economy that still weren't fixed. Now, this Republican Congress and administration has chosen to deficit spend again, but in an even more grand manner. Currently the US is creating more debt at a faster rate than ever. At the end of the current tax cuts as in place the debt will be something like 12 trillion dollars, more if the tax cuts are made permanent or increased. Let's think of the debt as a mortgage. A rough estimate to payback a debt like that would be 3 times the amount loaned. Now that's 36 trillion dollars. The yearly budget is only just over 2 trillion. All these numbers doesn't include the money that needs to be paid back to the social security trust fund, which we might as well forget about now.
Well, let's move on to jobs, which not only are being lost. They are being moved overseas. Now free trade agreements are good for American businesses that want to sell things in other countries, but it's turning out to hurt the people who are trying to work in America. There seems to be an equaliziation of standard of living going on. America has to lose its standard of living and send its money overseas in lage amounts until one day the other markets catch up and everybady can compete equally. Sounds like crap to me. How long will that take? What do we do in the mean time? Won't it only help the rich people now and hurt little people like us now? Why doesn't our government help us against China who artificially prices its money against the dollar to have an overwhelmingly large advantage? There are too many things wrong not to do anything, especially now.
On to interest rates, like the ones controlled by the Federal Reserve. The rates are about as low as they can go, right? what happens when the inevitably bad stuff happens? What if it happens too soon, before the rates are raised again? You see, all this good economic stuff has happened with extremely low interest rates, with a lot of people borrowing a lot of money. What's left to do? We as a nation are in a precarious position.
Heres a link to a time article on good 'ol Bush. This is a very good article detailing some of the very disapointing errors about Bush's service record that have remained unanswered. And all they say is. "It's unfortunate that anyone questions the president about his service at this time. It's obviously political". Well he obviously got away with things that would have sent the ordinary man, like you or I to Viet Nam, and he is lying about it. That it important to me.
[b]How Well Did He Serve? Bush said he reported for duty in Alabama, but even with the new documents, the evidence is thin. TIME looks at four key questions[/b]
The Unfulfilled Promise In May, retired Gen. William Turnipseed, the former commander of the Alabama Guard unit, said Bush did not report to him, although the young airman was required to do so. His orders, dated Sept. 15, 1972, said: "Lieutenant Bush should report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training." "To my knowledge, he never showed up," Turnipseed said last month.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
wWith fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments: changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the union.
Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.
Became President after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as President:
Attacked and took over two countries.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders circumventing the Constitution than any president in US history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in us history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
In my first two years in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in us history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).
Had more states to simultaneously go bankrupt than any president in the history of the United States.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
Violence in America is now invading the workplace, putting at risk the safety, productivity and health of American workers, and this violence appears to be on the increase. Research clearly shows a significant increase in the amount of violence and conflict in the workplace in recent years. In 1992, the Centers for Disease Control declared workplace homicide a serious public health epidemic requiring priority attention by policy makers (Kinney & Johnson, 1993). Having tripled in the last decade, workplace homicide is the fastest-growing category of murder in the United States (Baron, 1993) and is the leading cause of workplace death for women (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1994). In fact, murder and other violent crimes have escalated in the workplace to the point that the U.S. Department of Justice recently proclaimed the workplace the most dangerous place to be in America (Anfuso, 1994).
Violence in the workplace is pervasive. Percent of employees in the past 12 months:
Threatened with physical harm, 22% Harassed, 19% Physically attacked, 14% Often worried about being a victim, 10% Most attackers are people that employees deal with on a daily basis. Percent of attacks from:
Customer or client, 44% Stranger, 24% Co-worker, 20% Boss, 7% Former employee, 3% Someone else, 3% Northwestern National Life Insurance Company Survey, 1993. According to the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics annual crime survey, nearly 1 million individuals become victims of violent crime in U.S. workplaces each year. An estimated 8% of rapes, 7% of robberies, and 16% of all assaults occurred while victims were working or on duty. Overall, one out of every six violent crimes experienced by U.S. residents age 12 or older happens at work. Over 30% of victims who were working during a violent victimization faced armed offenders (Bachman, 1994). Recent studies by Northwestern National Life Insurance and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have identified that the chances are one in four that a worker may be attacked, threatened or harassed on the job in the next year (Northwestern National Life Employee Benefits Division, 1993).
Six out of ten incidents of workplace violence occur in private companies (Bachman, 1994). These incidents cost companies $4.2 billion in lost work and legal expenses in 1992, according to the National Safe Workplace Institute. The Institute calculates that the average cost to employers of a single episode of workplace violence can amount to $250,000 in lost work time and legal expenses (Infausta, 1994).
For employees, crime victimizations occurring in the workplace cost about half a million workers 1,751,100 days of work each year, an average of 3.5 days per crime. This missed work resulted in over $55 million in lost wages annually, not including days covered by sick and annual leave (Bachman, 1994).
As the number of total work-related fatalities including accidents has declined over the past decade, intentional killings in the workplace have gained prominence. The Bureau of Labor Statistics census counted 1,063 work-related homicides in 1993 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1994). Over 80% of these homicide victims died as a result of gunshot wounds. Many of those murdered at work (24%) were either self-employed or working in the family business (Windau & Toscano, 1994). James Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist who tracks workplace violence throughout the country, says the number of workers killing their bosses has doubled in the past ten years (Allen, 1992).
Homicide was the leading manner of fatal injury for female workers, accounting for 40% of the fatal occupational injuries to women. Blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics incurred a disproportionate share of workplace homicides, compared with their share of total workplace fatalities and their employment share. Immigrants to the U.S. also had a high risk of homicide at work. This group comprised 25% of the workplace homicide victims, but only about 9% of the employed (Windau & Toscano, 1994).
Apparently researchers have discovered that domestic dogs and other primates have developed the ability to understand communication from human beings. Whereas other canines and animals don't have the ability and can't be taught with very few exceptions.
That makes ya think. And other animals have languages, like whales and dolphins. And other primates use facial expressions to communicate emotions or intentions and things. Homosexual behavior is common among plenty of animals on earth. There is a gay penguin couple in a New York zoo.
My point is that human behavior isn't really particular to humans exclusively. So much of what we do is just a step on the evolutionary chain that other animals are taking as well.
Now of course the last entry on this blog was titled smack. Smack is also a euphamism for heroin. So is horse, china white, manteca, and dope. It used to be up on the block if you said dope, there was only one thing you meant. Now I know you suburbanites know things a little differently. Manteca is actually a Spanish word for lard. I think that's amusing. Anwho, I wasn't talking about or linking to anything to do with heroin, just thought I'd share that little trivia with you.
So, I was watching TV the other night. Nothing new about that. But I did learn something. It was a show that covered the Reagan presidency and how inept it was at dealing with terrorists. Now I will let you know that I think Reagan was just about the second or third worst president we've had in the past 20 years. He obviously doesn't deserve to get credit for turning around the economy, because getting inflation under control probably had more to do with it than Reagn policy. Plus, Reaganomics only left us with 7 trillion dollars in debt and nothing to show for it except 500 billion dollar yearly deficits.
Here's another little secret too. He didn't have much to do with the fall of communism either. Don't let anyone lie to you about it. Gorbachev had more to do with it, and the falling of the Berlin wall, and the spirit of the people in those countries, and the failure of the system itself. Does anyone know what actually triggered the tearing down of the Berlin wall? It was a bureaucratic mistake by some paper pushers in east Berlin. They accidently announced something about not needing approval to cross the border to get to West Berlin, and when pressed during a press conference, the guy said it went into effect almost immediately instead of the far off date. So, things got way out of control, and the people tore down the wall shortly after that. There you go. It was a paperwork mistake. Not Ronald Reagan.
So anyway, Reagan didn't do anything to fight terrorists for years. Terrorists kept killing Americans and bombing embassies, and then highjacking planes. The US, contrary to public policy, negotiated for release of Palestinean prisoners from Israel, and sold arms to Iran. Now why Reagan wasn't removed from office for selling weapons to Iran, the enemy, to buy the release of prisoners from terrorist groups in the Middle East, not to mention all the dealing with the cocaine from the contras in South America. Now that's selling weapons to the number 2 enemy who sponsors terrorism, in order to buy the release and negotiate with terrorists which is against the policy of the American government, and also buy drugs to fund overt operations in South America. That was the complete antithesis o everything America stood for in the 1980s. Yet there was the Reagan administration conducting these operations. And the American people elected Bush the 1st to office after that.
Before Al Qaeda, the biggest killers of Americans were terrorists from Hezballah, and Lybians. Hezballah is sponsored by Iran, and stationed in Syria and Lebanon and Palestine. The terrorist still runs Lybia. ANd the terrorists still run Iran, and won't let democracy take over, like the majority of the people there want to happen.
Now as stupid as Dumya is, liberating Iraq will accomplish a few things for the security of all of us. Pre Iraq war, Americans were fair game by any Arab or muslim terrorist, and you can see from that list just which countries openly supported them as a matter of governmental policy. Add to that every other Arab country as public sympathizers for extremists against Americans. When America bombed Lybia, airplane hijackings slowed down dramatically. As if the world learned that the US was reaching a breaking point. Prior to that nothing stopped anyone from killing Americans at anytime. Now after Iraq, there will be more lessons learned by these countries, as exhibited by Lybia, as it surrenders its WMD. As well, Iraq is centrally located and will certainly cause Iran, Syria, and groups like Hezballah, to consider their actions against Americans in the future with greater weight.
Of course Dumya had to lie about the intelligence and make everything about WMD instead of about liberation and security and legal issues and everything else that is justifiable. What an idiot, thank god.
Cremations on the Rise -- and So Are Protests SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- The protests rang shrill enough to wake the dead.After officials in this upscale Marin County town north of San Francisco approved a downtown mortuary's request to add an on-site crematory, denizens of a popular bakery next door weren't exactly pleased.'Bake Bread, Not Bodies!' fumed one sign at a raucous City Council meeting in May. Another read: 'Over My Dead Body.'Neighbors winced at the image of a 'cadaver incinerator' that would run year-round, 16 hours a day.
I can't Believe Ken and Barbie are breaking up!!!!!!
It would only happen under G Dumya's watch. I know it. It's that perverted idiot's plan to protect marriage as a sacred commitment. How can to dolls stay together for 40 years and not get married? forget about commitment. Ken must be gay. He has no rights. Ban ken!!!!! Where's Ken Starr when you need him? author a consititutional ammendment right now!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help me Dick!!!! come back from your undisclosed location at Haliburton HQ.
I felt like passing on this story. How naive was the Continent.
Feb. 12, 2004 EU unit confirms PA terror links Israel By HERB KEINON
European-Anti Fraud Office Photo: OLAF
The European Union's anti-fraud unit (OLAF) believes documents Israel provided showing Palestinian Authority financial support for terrorism are authentic, Israeli diplomatic officials said Thursday.
The German daily Die Welt reported last week that suspicion is growing that money from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's office was transferred to terrorist organizations.
This means that EU funds were used to help finance terrorism for the first two years of the current violence.
The EU budgeted some 10 million euros a month to the PA from the fall of 2000, when the current violence erupted, to the fall of 2002, when questions about usage of the funds forced the European Commission to stop payments.
The documents Israel provided were taken from Arafat's office during Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002 and transferred to the EU by the Defense Ministry.
OLAF representatives reportedly visited Israel recently and are in the midst of writing a report on the matter that will be submitted to the European Commission, and will also be presented to the European Parliament.
Israeli diplomatic officials discounted the possibility that this report will be buried, like a recent European Commission report from a think tank on a rise in anti-Semitism, because the OLAF report is akin to a state comptroller's report.
According to Die Welt, the documents indicate a link between Arafat and the Aksa Brigades, which is part of his Fatah movement.
OLAF responded to the report by issuing a statement saying it has "not finalized its investigation."
"Therefore, any conclusions attributed to OLAF are premature and are not confirmed by evidence."
The statement said that, while the investigation is continuing, "OLAF expects all the institutions with whom it holds briefings in camera to refrain from comments or speculation on the OLAF inquiry."
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, head of Shurat Hadin-Israel Law Center, has filed a NIS 100 million suit in Tel Aviv District Court against the EU on behalf of the Blumberg family, which was decimated by a terrorist attack in August 2001.
Palestinian policemen opened fire on the Blumberg car near their home in Karnei Shomron, murdering Tehiya Blumberg, the mother of five and five months' pregnant, and leaving her husband Stephen and daughter Tziporah seriously wounded.
The law suit alleges that the EU recklessly provided the PA with massive sums of financial aid, while knowing that the money was being diverted from its intended civilian purposes to Palestinian terrorist groups. The court papers assert that the EU was repeatedly warned by Israel that its aid was financing Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
The plaintiffs allege that the EU failed to undertake any steps to monitor or scrutinize how the PA was utilizing the donated money. Darshan-Leitner on Thursday called for the OLAF report to be released, and said its findings as reported in Die Welt support the plaintiffs' claims.
The writing below is from the AZJournal.com. I hope you have a good laugh. Oh, and I never made any of these mistakes.
[u][b]There's Nothing Like Big City Public Education. A Collection of Bloopers Found in High School Student Papers[/b][/u]
The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites. Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns -- Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also has myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in The Illiad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdoes of wedlock.
In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Ceasar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of march murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the riddle to them.
Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustared his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on this son's head.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals met the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donateilo's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he has an abess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the "Spanish Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of this plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long sililoquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. Hewrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porpoises on their back. Many of the Indian heros were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negros citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negros and other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law and odor. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving pictures show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the Revolution and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish forillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life was exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madam Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx beame one of the Marx brothers.
The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duke by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.
Have you ever walked into a house that smelled like really strong urine. Then when you walked into the house and across the carpet your feet stuck to the carpet. Then you started putting two and two together and realized that one had to do with the other.
He got drunk, fell down, went boom, and his wife left. Sometimes a drunk can get sooo emotional. What is a person to do, just ignore him? Or mess around with them? Maybe I should just leave people alone. But, he was acting like such a ____ put in any word you want there. It should fit, he was like a schizophrenic.
Ok so we stopped a man from driving drunk. That's a good thing. And he was drunk enough that he was tripping over the asphalt in the parking lot. So, imagine if he went driving? Just think back to decades ago when nobody cared about drunk driving. Boy, times have changed. Even G Dumya got away with drunk driving. Remember that scandal with the ticket somebody found during the last election? Wasn't that what that was about? Oh, and how about the cocaine that he snorted and wouldn't deny? What a man of integrity we have as president.
The other day my dad had a prototype of the first American rockets in space in his Explorer. No kidding. DuPont is big in Delaware, and a man he knows through a project he works on worked at DuPont back in the day. He was working on a way of developing and utilizing titanium for the space program, and he molded models for the first rockets.
I've felt plastic objects the same size that were heavier than that thing was. It was about a foot or so in diameter sphere and hollow inside, and the bottom was cut off to fit on to something round. There were also two brackets around its middle that I imaging were for its antenae.
Well, my dad had it, because he picked it up from a historical society who never used it, and he was returning it. Can you imagine having something like that and not doing something with it? You would have to be an idiot.
Here is a clip from Bushwatch website, describing how Dumya didn't show up for duty, was sent to a disciplinary unit where he didn't show up again, and was eventually discharged after years of not serving.
"ARF is a "paper unit" based in Denver that requires no drills and no attendance. For active guard members it is disciplinary because ARF members can theoretically be called up for active duty in the regular military, although this obviously never happened to George Bush.
To make a long story short, Bush apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred to ARF as a disciplinary measure....Bush's official records from Texas show no actual duty after May 1972, as his Form 712 Master Personnel Record from the Texas Air National Guard clearly indicates:...
Bush's record shows three years of service, followed by a fourth year in which he accumulated only a dismal 22 days of active service, followed by no service at all in his fifth and sixth years. This is because ARF duty isn't counted as official duty by the Texas guard.
So Bush may indeed have "fulfilled his obligation," as he says, but only because he had essentially been relieved of any further obligation after his transfer to ARF. It's pretty clear that no one in the Texas Air National Guard had much interest in pursuing anything more serious in the way of disciplinary action." --Calpundit, 02.08.04)
"Experts say that citation does not wipe away the questions. "An honorable discharge does not indicate a flawless record," says Grant Lattin, a military law attorney in Washington and a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who served as a judge advocate, or JAG officer. "Somebody could have missed a year's worth of Guard drills and still end up with an honorable discharge." That's because of the extraordinary leeway local commanders within the Guard are given over these types of issues. Lattin notes that the Guard "is obviously very political, even more so than other military institutions, and is subject to political influence."...
Lattin is more blunt. "The National Guard is extremely political in the sense of who you know," he says. "And it's true to this very day. One person is handled very strictly and the next person is not. If George Bush Jr. is in your unit, you're going to bend over backward not to offend that family. It all comes down to who you know."
As all intelligent American workers know, Dumya lied in the State of the Union speech about the economy creating new jobs. The previous month before the speech was the first month in many where there was a positive number. However, more people stopped looking for jobs by about 40,000 than were created. So here's a quote I just saw...
"As a good Republican, I've stopped looking for work to help Bush's economic numbers."
In case anyone else needed a reminder. Here's a list of benefits from exercise.
Help you lose weight, especially fat · Improve your physical appearance · Increase your level of muscular strength and endurance · Maintain your resting metabolic rate to prevent weight gain · Increase your stamina and ability to do continuous work · Improve fitness levels, or your body's ability to use oxygen · Provide protection against injury · Improve your balance and coordination · Increase bone mineral density to prevent osteoporosis · Lower resting heart rate and blood pressure · Lower Body Mass Index (BMI) -- your fat-to-height ratio · Reduce triglycerides, bad cholesterol (LDL), raises good cholesterol (HDL) · Enhance sexual desire and performance · Reduce heart disease risk and stroke · Reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer · Increase insulin sensitivity -- prevents type 2 diabetes · reduce your level of anxiety and help you manage stress · Improve function of the immune system · improve your self-esteem and restore confidence · Help you sleep better, relax, and improve mood
So Dumya's press secretary had his press conference today. I saw about two minutes of it, spread out over about 30 minutes. The only thing they talked about was how Dumya didn't show up for duty when he was in the Guard in 1972 and 1973. The administration released copies of payrolls that said Dumya was paid for that time by the guard. That means he's a fraud on top of everything else.
His commanding officers at the time wrote that they could not give him evaluations because Dumya never showed up for duty. That's pretty conclusive, I think. He also was suspended from flying because he didn't take his physical exam, because he wasn't around to take it. Interesting. Besides, since when does a soldier in the Guard get to work on a senator's re election campaign instead of working like everyone else?
Ok, so I asked this patient to try and hold still so we could get the ECG to work properly. He was shaking pretty bad. But the one thing I didn't realize is that he had Parkinson's Disease. Talk about feeling a little bit embarrassed. "Hold still for just a minute". "It's kinda hard to do. I have Parkinson's". Ooops.
Here's a did ya know. Did you know that there is a theory that Hitler had Parkinson's, which contributed to his death wish. The evidenced is based on a sudden change in his mannerisms when he is almost never seen using his left hand, a big change from when he would gesticulate wildly with both arms. A few film clips showed his left arm shaking with tremors like in Parkinson's. Back in the day, Parkinson's apparently was given a prognosis of death with a time to be arranged. Of course there were his other bad habits, like injecting methamphetamines a dozen times a day. That probably contributed to him being angry all the time. I'm just glad he's dead.
Check out this wonderful story of yet another Darwin award winner.
Yellow Snow Leads to Burglary Arrest
February 9, 2004 6:37 p.m. EST
ELKO, Nev. - He should have taken care of it before he left home.
Elko police arrested Roger Gray, 25, on the basis of yellow snow he left after relieving himself on the rooftop of a restaurant that had been burglarized.
Investigators said the evidence produced enough DNA to link Gray to the scene.
He subsequently admitted a jewelry store burglary, police said. Investigators were comparing his DNA and other evidence to determine whether he also might be implicated in burglaries at a pizza place and Elko's J.C. Penney store.
He was booked Friday night for investigation of burglary. Bail was set at $5,000.
How's your liver? mines doing fine. I had elevated enzymes for about a year, because I had put on too much weight, but all of that's gone now, and everything's back to normal, for my liver.
Now the liver is an amazing organ. It is responsible for so many things that keep us alive that it isn't even funny. Well it is kinda funny to joke around about livers. People do it all the time. Anyway,
If you want to feel your liver this is what you do. Take a hand, usually the right hand and place the fingers along the bottom of your lowest rib just above your abdomen and to the right of your sternum. Inhale and suck in your stomach, but relax your muscles. Make sure your fingers curl upwards underneath your ribs toward the direction of your lungs. Don't worry your liver is in the way. As you gently exhale you should feel the lower edge of your liver.
I tend to believe that most people are motivated by selfish drives most of the time. Some people a lot more than others, and some a lot more obviously than others. In this I mean some people ask outright for things all the time, and others do things for other people when they ask to please that person and in return be liked.
The latter used to be the way I was. Now I'm less that way, but still not like the former. I hate asking people for things. I prefer doing things for myself if I can, especially if there's no need to impose on someone. However, as I'm sure you know this has its own problem set to overcome, like not asking for help when you need to. I think I've done well to overcome that too.
But all this discussion is really to set up the next couple of ideas. Have you ever needed help in order to save your life? I know I have.
It was that point in my life where I was on drugs and couldn't stop, and I had to admit I didn't have the answers. Yeah it was the day the car I was living in died, and I was woken up by I woman having some psychotic episode screaming, "Pull out his eyes!", apparently reliving some traumatic confrontation with an abuser. That was the day I had to stop relying on my self and start relying on a direction and a set of guidelines set up by someone else. The end result of which was a completely new me with a new belief system.
The belief in and reliance on self got me sick and almost killed. The belief in something better than me got me better and keeps me better, and gives me a full life.
The second idea I wanted to mention was helping someone whose life was in danger. I won't all it saving someone's life, because that really isn't what it is. I mean who has that power. Not any human being I know. I can't keep another person alive, but I can help them by giving them a chance.
It rarely happens that I get put in a situation where a person is about to die or is close to dying, and there are things I can do to help them. But when it does happen the last thing motivating me are thoughts of self. The survival rate when someone gets close to death is small, and the closer they get the smaller the chance gets. But it that's what we work for, their chance, their family's chance. Sometimes they even get it.
There's been a bit of a discussion about moral relativism lately. I think it's funny anyone would think morality is anything but relative, in the sense that it changes between people, cultures, religions, and time periods. Let's take an example to illustrate this.
To kill a human being will be the event. The first thing to come to mind might be murder. Now that would be immoral, almost universally. Now, say you killed a person in defense of your life or the life of your family or country. Now that's not immoral, almost universally. Yet, it is the same event. Now that is relativity.
You know, I have tried to extend my tolerance of Islam again and again, but the more I read about it the more I can not actually believe it is anything but a mantra for hate and war. On one hand there are some very good spiritual priciples in the religion, like helping the less fortunate, praying, etc. Nothing harmful there. However, I've read a whole lot of the Koran, and there is a whole lot of killin' goin' on in those prayers. There is a whole lot of revenge and lack of tolerance and slaying of the infidels and the Jews and those who aren't muslims and true believers. It is really a pretty petty and gory book. And it is supposed to be a book of prayers, and of only prayers. The only official prayers given by god directly to Mohammed.
That's a violent god, and a violent man. He did fight a lot. He didn't do the turn the other cheek and forgive your enemies, and I'll die for your sins. He was like I'll kill all your people then I'll spare your life so I look good.
In today's world, how many of the wars going on involve muslim "extremists"? I once heard a long time ago it was 80% of all the conflicts in the world involved muslims. Here's what I can think of. Southeast asia- muslims, Phillipines - muslims, Kashmir - muslims, Iraq -muslims, Middle East - muslims, Chechnya - muslims, Afghanistan - muslims, Africa both east and west - muslims. That doesn't include the war on terrorism and terrorist plots and cells and the like. That's just military conflicts of some kind.
I started studying arabic the summer before 9/11 happened. I had wanted to go to Egypt and Israel, and see everything historical and ancient, and see the holy sites in Israel. Do you know what terrorists usually say before they blow themselves and you up? They say, God is the greatest. Allah huwa akhbar. Yep, it's islamic.
Anywhoo, below is a link to a really scary site. At least it scared the bejeebies out of me. It has news on all sorts of terrorist plots and activities that have ocurred recently. The price of peace is eternal vigilance.
Does anyone else find it amazing how a person could kill a child? Scully mentioned an incident in her blog, and there's yet another story on the news about a murder kidnapping. I really favor the idea of population control by way of killing off people like that to start with. Then let everyone else who wants to die, die.
This link below is to a site on the brain. It lists the innate functions of the brain, exhibited by humans and other mammals and vertebrates as well. It's just an overview of the functions involved. There's obviously a whole lot more to it. Enjoy.
Tonight on Primetime on ABC, they interviewed the woman in Texas who was arrested for selling sex toys at private parties. Under Texas laws to sell anything for use as a sexual toy or aid is considered an obscene device. However, if you label it as a gag gift it is perfectly legal to sell.
That's right in Texas you can sell sex toys as gag gifts, but you can't sell them and be honest about it. Ok, my other point to bring up is this. This woman sells her products at private parties for women. Where women get together and talk about sex and sex toys, and from what she was saying have a great experience learning, and bonding, and freeing themselves.
Ok, this idea is foreign to me. I couldn't see sitting around with a bunch of men laughing about sex toys and feeling liberated and educated. In fact, I have no interest in sitting around with men to learn about sex, or to learn about sex toys, or anything of the sort. Now, having said that, I realize that that what this woman was talking about is a women's issue. I take this moment to realize how vastly different my issues seem to be at times and show respect for that.
So G Dumya might name David Kaye and John McCain to his special commission on the pre war Iraq intelligence commision. Now, let me be the one to say the obvious. Kay is already going around saying that it's the CIA's fault and not the fault of the president. That the president did the right thing because he was given the wrong intelligence after all. McCain is always critical of the CIA as well.
Tenet gave a speech today and let us know that the CIA didn't give the president anything but objective reports. Reports that did not in any way include the words "imminent threat". Reports that included caveats and assessments that sound much more accurate than what dumya and his administration had been saying before the war.
Now does anyone believe his commision will be anything but a joke?
So let's talk more about the brain and it's innate functions, like its capacity for spirituality and the need of the human being's absolute need for affection and love. Have you ever heard of the failure to thrive syndrome? It's when a human being no longer wants to live. It's an actual syndrome, and I have actually seen it first hand.
Here's my point for bringing it up. Since World War II there have been studies of orphans who have had someone to give them food and nourishment but weren't able to hold the children or give them affection. The children were all underweight and small in size and underdeveloped. Many died. This places the importance of affection and parental caring on a level just beneath that of the need of nutrition and well above innate abilities such as verbal communication and other things.
On the other end of the spectrum where I've personally seen the failure to thrive syndrome is with senior citizens. It looks like the person has just given up onlife. They often stop eating and caring for themselves in many ways. A lot of times you hear family members say the person has been talking about dying, or saying that they are going to die soon. And that's what happens. As well, how often does a spouse outlive their spouse who has died by a significant number of years. This is when the two have been together for a long time and both are older. It just doesn't happen. The last numbers I heard is that a person could expect to live less than 2 years after their spouse died. I think that suggests a lifetime need for companionship, affection, and love.
Now considering the ideas of love and the ideas of spiritual experience and the brain. The studies of the brain on deeply spiritual expereinces show several areas of the brain are involved. These areas show a heightened attention, intention, and a decreased sense of self. Now some of this to me sounds similar to the characteristics necessary for caring, or loving, another person. To pay attention to that person, and pay less attention to one self, certainly are characteristics typical of love.
Now on to emotions. Often people say emotions are irrational. I think emotions are just emotional. What would more semantically correct to say would be, people acting emotionally often act irrationally, or not in their best interest. I don't think love or faith or belief is an emotion, but are tied to emotions, as the layout of these brain studies might suggest. The areas of the brain involved run all around the emotional areas of the brain. Yet, how many times can you feel pleasure, yet be in love, or pain, yet be in love, or doubt yet maintain your beliefs whatever they are.
Here's some things I thought I would update from some previous entries. First thing, I keep driving by the site where the crash (they aren't called accidents) was that killed two people on 1-18-04. It was cold and the edges of the roads were icy, but as I had noticed the lanes were not. I noticed from the direction the truck went off the road that the driver never turned with the road as it bent gently around to the right. Yep, was again alcohol and bad driver judgement kill.
On a more humorous note, just because a person has one leg doesn't mean they can't be a liar too. That's right my partner and I ran into a man who at first seemed to be having trouble breathing, but soon said his back hurt as he couldn't stop moving around like something really squirmy.
I've noticed that people don't like to make eye contact when they lie to me. They also don't have a complete story, like this guy. He couldn't answer any questions.
The link below is to an article that appeared in Newsweek back in 2001. It describes the research in a field called neurotheology. It describes events that occur in the brain during things like prayer, meditation, and rituals.
The events the scientists in the article are studying all have to do with deeply felt "spiritual" experiences. The subjects in the experiments, depending on their beliefs described the experiences as such according to their beliefs. It's also surmised that the same experience can occur to a person from a deeply moving experience with nature, or a ritual.
The deeply felt experiences all involved several areas of the brain. One area would be sort of behind and just above your eyes on both the right and left. This area creates intense focus and attention. The other area is almost shut down and it's sort of on top of your head toward the back. This area is responsible for your sense of orientation. Presumably the quieting of that area of the brain is what diminishes the sense and perception of self.
There are other less intense areas of the brain that get activated with just thoughts of faith, spirituality, religion or god. These areas lie along the sides of the brain inside the ears and temples. It seems the stronger the faith the greater the connection between those regions and the regions responsible for emotions, which are just toward the center of the brain from there.
So, the ridiculously obvious, and boringly mundane question is the chicken and the egg question. Well, rather than get into that, which has been done. Let me just point out that faith, belief, spirituality, or whatever anyone calls it, has been an essential part in human development throughout the millenia. It enables people to develop morality, for one reason or other, it connects people to one another through common experiences, it provided for so many basic human needs for so long that I don't think humans could have developed with the level of brain we have without it.
Here is a link to a discussion on staying alive although your body is frozen, or should be frozen. Well, humans don't do it, but insects, and some animals often do.
So, it seems you could avoid freezing by using antifreeze, literally, increasing blood sugar levels, and wearing a protective coat. The freezing solid method is pretty much the same with the antifreeze and high blood sugar levels, except in these cases the animals intentionally set themselves off on the path to being frozen. They also have a tolerance for being frozen and repairing themselves afterward, obviously.
Here are some updates of things I've been mentioning.
Regulation on cloning of human beings is controlled by the FDA. Based on its power to control research that affects, well basically anything associated with humans or drugs, it has the power to authorize or reject research that actually creates human clones. And for the time being, because of the overwhelming popular opinion against it, it says approval will not be forthcoming in any forseeable future. Let's hope.
On another front, the International Court has decided to hear arguments about the Israel defensive wall that protects them from thousands of terrorists bombimbs a year, dozens a day, and saves who knows how many lives on both sides of the conflict, and will free the Palestinians to move on, if they gather have a brain amongst themselves.
Now the Palestinians and the UN are apparently for the case in the court. The EU, Israel, the US, and any sane person is against it and realizes that the court is really just a bunch of lunatic europeans who hate to see powere slip out of European hands, whether it be American or anyone elses. Let's be honest here. If you want to discuss the morality of any country in the world, you would be hard pressed to find one higher up on the list than the US, honestly, as far as founding and guiding principles, historical actions, etc, etc. So screw the idiots, build the walls, force the Palestinians to live on their own, and move on.
Thanks everyone for helping me finally get out of featured waiting list limbo. Now get White out.
I wanted to discuss DNA tonight. Specifically I wanted to mention the use of genes in medical treatment. It certainly can be a scary topic. What if insurance companies with their lack of moral respect for individuals get a hold of an individuals genetic code? How quickly will that person be denied medical insurance for the rest of his or her life, just because of the information contained in that code? I do believe there has already been laws passed in Congress affording us protection against such things.
Now onto better topics. The treatment of people with previously untreatable diseases. The link below is to a PBS show about treating cancer with drugs designed based on the genetic information of the cancer. Cancer, if you weren't aware is the human body's cells reproducing at an uncontrolled rate and in a damaged manner. That's why they have specific genetic DNA markers to them. The show highlighted one drug which cured, that's right cured, it's first 100 test patients. That's unheard of in science in any field.
Of course all this research is only as good as there is money to invest in it. Which means, diseases like breast cancer are high on the priority list. This is obviously a good thing. There are already 30 or so gentic markers identified and over 6 different breast cancers associated with those markers. That's huge progress over years ago when it was just called breast cancer in the singular sense.
Also one particular group of researchers is able to study 1000 genes per year to find disease markers. Which means in a matter of a few years, with few exceptions, all the genetic markers for diseases in human DNA will be known.
Imagine in a couple of decades bringing your children or your children bringing you to a clinic, when you have cancer, where they take a tissue sample, figure out the gentic problems with it, match it to the exact drug and/or treatment regimen you need for that cancer, and later that day, you start being treated. Almost no one dies from cancer anymore.
Healthcare costs fall and everyone saves money. Well, maybe that's wishful thinking.
I'm not going to write a blog today. It's like not eating chocolate, or sugar, or drinking coffee for an hour or two. I think some of you guys know what I mean. How 'bout them Pats?
Does anyone have a website other than their blog? I was considering trying to create one forthe purpose of developing a source of income, eventually. I've been reading up on affiliate advertising and the likes. I was wondering if anyone has any advice getting started. I have some ideas for a site, and I've read about developing an Ezine and such for the site.
As far as blogs go, has anyone had any luck with devloping any audience outside tblog? I've gone through and listed with some directories, like DMOZ, blogwise, blogarama, bloghop, blogsnob, blogstreet, and a few others. I got a feeling, if people are like me, they only check out blogs at random, or blogs that are listed on the recent post, or hot blog list, when I'm on line posting or something. Of course writing a blog that people find interesting and want to read would help, instead of all the crap that I write. LMAO.
