Iran rations gasoline!

It seems to me that Iran can't be much of a problem for the US - it doesn't have and can't get enough gasoline in order to fight a war or even supply its people!

The Iranian people have been miserably spoiled with virtually free gasoline at a mere 42 cents per gallon and less. Now, because the nation lacks refining capabilities and therefore can't afford to continue importing gasoline at world market prices, they've resorted to rationing - like 26 gallons per month for the average driver.

With a 17% inflation rate and these huge fuel subsidies, I can see where the average Iranian is unhappy with his government and on the verge of revolution. Thus the Iranian government has its own problems without having to take on the rest of the world or mess with Israel, its pet peeve.

Seems to me that if the U.S. could somehow revive its sense of diplomacy and re-establish a modicum of the international esteem lost by our present regressive administration, it could negotiate reasonable solutions to Iran's need for nuclear energy (they are running out of oil) and avoid that nation's need (and probable international right) to get into the nuclear weapons business along with France, China and Russia - which is certainly not a good idea.

I can see down the road that Iran has serious problems how the nation is going to support its population when it does run out of oil. After all, Tehran alone has 12 million citizens - they can't all revert to driving camels and selling rugs!

Reuter's article below.....

Iran fuel rations spark anger, pump stations burn
By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Angry Iranians torched pump stations and hurled abuse at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government after the world's fourth-largest oil exporter said it was imposing fuel rationing on Wednesday.

One Iranian news agency, ISNA, quoted an official as saying 19 gasoline stations were set ablaze overnight in Tehran after the government's announcement late on Tuesday that rationing would start from midnight.

Police detained 80 people in the capital over the unrest, the Fars News Agency quoted a judge as saying. "We are swimming in oil and all they do is just put pressure on people," said taxi driver Hasan Mohammadi, 44. "I'm using my last drop of gasoline."

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and must import about 40 percent of its gasoline, a sensitive issue when world powers have threatened new U.N. sanctions in a row with Tehran over its nuclear program.

Concerns Iranian imports would decline pushed down European gasoline paper prices on Wednesday, international traders said.

Some drivers scuffled while waiting to fill up their tanks before rationing began. Others chanted anti-government slogans and openly criticized Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago vowing to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.

"Last night, in addition to setting fire to and stealing property of 19 fuel stations in Tehran, people threw stones and damaged others," Bijan Haj Mohammadreza, head of an association representing gasoline stations, told ISNA.

Seeking to rein in soaring consumption and costly imports, the government on May 22 raised the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents) [42 cents/gal] - the cheapest in the world - but rationing was delayed. Drivers rushed to pump stations after the Oil Ministry said the scheme would finally go ahead after weeks of confusion.

Private cars will get 100 liters [26 gal] of gasoline a month but less if they also burn compressed natural gas, state TV said. All drivers need electronic "smart" cards to buy fuel.

One fuel station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, was set alight while another in eastern Tehran was partially burnt, two of its pumps destroyed by fire, witnesses said. Windows at the one in Pounak were smashed, six pumps wrecked and walls blackened. State radio blamed "opportunistic elements." Police could not be reached for comment.

Judge Ali Namazi said 80 people were detained in Tehran and transferred to jail. "These people have destroyed public property," he told Fars News Agency.

INFLATION FEARS
Motorists still faced long lines on Wednesday in a country where many see abundant and cheap fuel as a national right. Short of public transport, people rely on cars or taxis to get around in the capital of 12 million. Some taxi drivers raised their fares by 20-80 percent on Wednesday, media said.

"Last night's riots were an expression of the anger of people with lower incomes," said government employee Saeed Sameti, although he said he in principle backed rationing.

Parliament had argued for offering fuel above the rationed amount at market prices, a step opposed by the government which fears this would stoke inflation, already at 17 percent. No announcement was made about whether drivers could buy extra fuel, but analysts said inflation would rise anyway.

"Either they are going to offer (extra fuel) at a high price or there is going to be black market at a high price," said Hatef Haeri, head of business consultancy ICG. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, National Iranian Oil Company international affairs director, in New Delhi said Iran might review the amount allocated to drivers in two months. Haeri said Iran had no choice but to curb consumption because of the burden on state coffers. All fuel is sold at heavily subsidized prices, encouraging waste and smuggling.

The United States, which is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear plans, has said Iran's gasoline imports are a point of "leverage." Washington accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran and by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi)

Religious Bigotry????

Absolutely ridiculous! - "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place, ....There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today." --- really??? Stop and think, cousins! Religious bigotry is not the same as racial bigotry. The biological color of one's skin is not the same as the rational orientation of a candidate's mind! In fact, it is the latter which is what IT is all about! Do you think a Muslim or Atheist (like me) could ever be elected president? So what is so sacrosanct about being a Mormon, Catholic or Southern Baptist? Isn't a candidate's thinking and beliefs the paramount consideration we must make in determining who we wish to have lead us? We certainly don't need a religious zealot such as our present leader to continue to destroy our nation because of the demands of a religious minority - that would be to perpetuate a lesson we have already learned....? So why shouldn't we delve into the nooks and crannies of those who wish to lead us - including their religions? After all, we may have a constitutional right to the religion of our choice, but that doesn't in any way indicate or guarantee that any particular religion is good and right for all of us - or even good for its own membership - consider Jonestown for example. What one believes and to the extent that he/she will implement her own beliefs is of paramount importance for any voter to understand before they render their vote for a candidate. I am very much interested in whether Romney is a Mormon in spirit or deed, or Obama is a member of an evangelical version of Presbyterianism, or Hillery is a Methodist - what George Bush used to be, or why Brownback changed from being a Methodist to being a socially conservative evangelical Catholic!... or Rudy Giuliani being a socially liberal Catholic but fiscal conservative... With this in mind, read on.... Brownback aide chided on anti-Mormon bid By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 17 WASHINGTON - An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday. The e-mail requested help in fact-checking a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith" and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches." "Sen. Brownback completely disavows himself of this and any personal attacks on religion," said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the Kansas senator. Hart said the campaign apologized to Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, once they learned of the e-mail. "It was not originated by Ms. Nemecek and the purpose was to fact-check. But it was in violation of campaign policy and it won't happen again," he said. The controversy comes as Brownback and Romney are scrambling to attract socially conservative voters in advance of Iowa's Jan. 14, 2008, caucuses. Both candidates say they are ardently anti-abortion, although Brownback — a former Methodist who has become an evangelical Roman Catholic — has criticized Romney for supporting abortion rights as recently as two and a half years ago. A spokesman for Romney's Iowa campaign, Tim Albrecht, said the campaign accepted Brownback's apology but called the incident "unfortunate." "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place," Albrecht said. "Sen. Brownback has apologized and we are glad he has worked to minimize these repugnant attacks in his campaign. There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today."

A Brief History of Disbelief

I realize that I'm writing to cousins who are Christians and truly believe there is a supreme being. In this country you are all part of the vast majority of citizens who actually find it hard to understand how anyone like me could believe otherwise. Every community has a plethora of churches which spread the word of the gospel, of Jesus or Mohamad or even Buddha - although the latter two have never been thought to be supernatural. There are many channels on TV which also give say to religious leaders from the Pope to the 700 Club to even Dr. Schuler, to say nothing of the international crusades of Billy Graham. And most certainly, I'm not attempting to change anyone's beliefs, but to share with you the personal wonderment of having a belief of mine which has at last been acknowledged by the mass media - not the mass-mass media, of course, but rather some select PBS stations across the country. Last night I was privileged to watch on our local (Flagstaff) PBS the show, "A Brief History of Disbelief" by Jonathan Miller. http://tinyurl.com/yq8rtn (when there, be sure and download the "press release" of the show to get a good perspective of how the topic is treated. The show itself was interesting, but to me it was much more important in that it was the first time in my 76 years that any form of the mass media ever presented my own religious beliefs to the public in a documentary/historical or any other form. It provided an authenticity to concepts I have which has been expressed only in books and written publications - or on the Internet. My own skepticism of God 'came to me' one beautiful summer Sunday after church while playing alone in the dirt with my toy cars and trucks. It was 1937, I was six. My paternal grandfather had died the year before in Wisconsin and we went from Montana by train to his funeral. That was my first view of human death. It was also the year my father decided after nine years, he didn't want to be married to my mother anymore and told her so after the funeral on the station platform as we were boarding to return to Montana - in my presence. My mother was blindsided and devastated! Our Presbyterian minister had sermonized against 'fallen' divorced women a few Sundays before my 'revelation'. His tirade not only angered me, but caused me to realize that neither he, my parents, nor anyone else I knew, except perhaps Grandpa, were to ever be believed without question - not because they were malicious, they weren't - they were simply ignorant! It was up to me to learn my own 'truths'. Perhaps I was too young to have been indoctrinated into having faith in a Faith, yet I was certainly old enough to learn through experience not to have faith in any human - sometimes, even myself... There has always been a large part of me wherein I have been an ‘island' in that I have always been on the outside looking in - not socially, but intellectually. But with the current contest between the separation of church and state - and now, with the PBS show, I feel the door opening to Dunne's view that: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." http://tinyurl.com/39cfgr

Mexican immigration - the bottom line....

Living in Arizona and before that, California, I'm well aware that we live in highly populated Indian lands which were either stolen from the indigenous Indians or bought from the Mexican government a century or so ago. (Texas was stolen, remember the Alamo?)

Our concern is not and should not be concerned with the indigenous peoples but what to do with their southern cousins who live impoverished lives in Mexico and wish to join their more affluent cousins to the north.

Mexico, with a Christian ‘go forth and multiply' culture without the European work ethic has become one of the most populous nations in the world unable to support its own citizens. Obviously even with sympathy and empathy, we can't permit that culture to over-ride our own where we actually have a negative native population growth except for immigration. And we all know that capitalism requires some population growth of constructive citizens.

Thus we do need tough new border security to prevent being overwhelmed with the Mexican poor and downtrodden.

Let me say at this time that I think the nonsense concerning terrorists which has been injected into this problem is simply a tactic our national ‘fear-mongers' are using to attract those few ‘chicken littles' who really are fearful of terrorist attacks. But terrorism is a different subject for another day.

Personally, I think a ‘super fence' for up to 2000 miles is excessive, infeasible, and frankly, politically stupid - and it will never be built! We can do better than that by making it virtually impossible for an ‘illegal' to get a job in the US at any level, with ultra severe penalties for anyone who violates such laws by hiring such ‘illegal's. It seems that we are already doing that to a limited extent.

My reasoning is that the only motive for Mexicans to cross the border is economic and thus the best solution is also economic through enforced legislation.

Many, mostly Republicans are upset that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants may be allowed to become US citizens. They call it "amnesty" which rewards illegal immigrants who broke U.S. laws. Well, yes, but who are they, how long have they been here, what status have they achieved since they arrived?

Let me suggest that as we become aware of them for one reason or another, rather than deport them, we evaluate them individually in a good old capitalistic profit-loss manner. If they are solid citizens and have contributed to our nation's well-being without undue expense to the system - we keep ‘em and provide them with citizenship! Lets call it "amnesty with a touch of good old capitalistic greed".

The statement has been made that "Each low-skilled immigrant household that gets amnesty costs the American taxpayers nearly $20,000 each year...." I certainly don't have the ability to refute that statement and agree that those ‘illegal's who can't benefit our economy or cause severe loss through health or crime should certainly be returned - not accepted into our nation.

After all, we, as a people have never embraced welfare nor even shown much compassion - despite what you and I were taught in grade school about our history. The truth is that even before we were a nation we used the English system of "warning-out" described as follows:

Between 1750 and 1800, towns warned out thousands of unwelcome transients. The warning out system, used throughout New England, provided the means whereby town officials ensured that transients did not become eligible for poor relief in whatever community they were passing through. The settlement laws determined who had the legal right of residence in a particular town and hence who would be supported by that town if they fell on hard times. This was a system the colonists had brought with them from England, and for the most part, it ensured that everyone, pauper and property-holder alike, had some place where he or she "belonged." But in the increasingly mobile society of the late eighteenth century, the system became overburdened with large numbers of transients moving around New England in search of work, family, or opportunity.

Town officials spent a considerable amount of time keeping track of transients, warning them out, and sending them back to their supposed hometowns should they appear likely to require poor relief.
[Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England. By RUTH WALLIS HERNDON. Early American Studies. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.)]

So let us admit that nothing is new in this respect.

It is for these reasons that the present bill in congress places limits on family-based immigration. It is certainly because of the increased concern that the immigrant family can't be self-supporting and would be a drain on the tax-paying economy.

Of a totally different nature is the dire need by primarily farmers to have a labor force to bring in the crops! Gringos, quite frankly are not only unwilling, but physically unable to do the stoop labor required in the hot fields to harvest our food - regardless of pay! Thus we desperately need a temporary worker program referred to as "the guest worker program" so that Mexicans who live in Mexico can come across the border to work in our fields, send their earnings back home to their families and return home at the end of the season. Some Mexican-Americans think that is de-humanizing, but I don't agree at all. How does that differ from some Americans going to Saudi Arabia to work in the oil fields at outrageous wages?

The problem with the old Braseros program was that there were labor camps run for the American farmers to house the migrant Mexicans. The problem with that program was that neither the farmers nor the labor camps were monitored by any level of government and capitalism was at its ugliest!

Certainly protections for guest workers in any new program should be guaranteed - perhaps with at least input if not oversight by the United Farm Workers union (UFW)!

It has been suggested that even these workers who wish should be offered some sort of path to citizenship. Those opposed to the program have chosen to severely limit the numbers of temporary workers - but in my opinion, that program should be need based.

As you can see, Mexican immigration is neither simple nor brown and white. We Americans have many faces ranging from those who feel sorry for anyone who lives a miserable existence to those who hate anyone who doesn't look just like they do, or work harder, or are richer or poorer or....

The bottom line is that we need some Mexicans, but certainly not all of them and we'd like to have the ones we get to become either productive American citizens or to go home to help raise the standards and welfare of their families and homes in Mexico.

Mexican immigration off track

All along I have assumed that, aside from the "big fence" fruitcakes, the thrust of the immigration problem with Mexico should and would be aimed toward seasonal, temporary workers who would live in Mexico and work in the US.

However, as stated by AP news: "Many in Mexico — and U.S. employers who say they need workers for low-skilled jobs — had hoped Congress would expand the guestworker program and allow more to cross legally, work a few months and then return home with their savings to build homes and businesses."

It seems that most Americans including politicians think of Mexican immigration with the idea that Mexicans are no different than the Jews, Poles, Italians, Irish, etc. who preceded them and immigrated in the last century from the horrors of their European ghettos to live here permanently. I think that is the wrong mindset.

Sure, there may be many Mexicans who want to live the US rat race permanently, just as there are a large number of ‘white' Americans who find they can retire almost lavishly in Mexico on little more than their American Social Security. That kind of immigration reform along with the stupid 2,000 mile wall can and should take its time in congress. It certainly doesn't deserve the urgency of the guest worker program which it seems, is being ignored by everyone except George Bush.

The main thrust of the immigration bill should be aimed toward the seasonal, primarily agricultural, Mexican laborer. The ability to speak English is certainly not necessary and very few if any ‘taxpayer services' would be required. Of course their medical costs and temporary housing would have to be mandated by law (with enforced standards) and covered by their American employers.

Near the shores of Tripoli......

One wonders why under the circumstances of the international posturing between the U.S. and Iran that any American would ‘visit' that country or even be allowed to go there by our government. If you can't go to Cuba, then why can you still go to Iran, since they tend to enjoy detaining Americans.

It would seem to me that a simple naval blockade of any and all oil shipments out of Iran to anywhere in the world would cause them to change their attitudes quite quickly. It would certainly not result in war and would impress on a lot of people that there is a world-wide economic interest in solving these otherwise religious Christian/Muslim problems.

I suspect that the Europeans, Asians and American car-buffs enjoy Iranian oil and I'm equally certain that the Iranians don't want to have to become bedouins again without a pot to pee in!

Academic from U.S. center arrested in Iran

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Washington-based academic with dual Iranian and U.S. citizenship has been arrested in Tehran after meeting with officials at the Ministry of Intelligence, her U.S. institution said on Wednesday.

Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Middle East program, was arrested on Tuesday and taken to Tehran's Evin prison, according to a statement issued by the center and her family.

The statement also said she needed medical attention but did not say why. She was allowed one phone call from the prison, it said. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the arrest and said Esfandiari was among a number U.S.-Iranians being detained by Tehran.

Iran has also confiscated the passport of Parnaz Azima, a reporter based in Prague for U.S. funded Radio, Farda, which broadcasts programs about Iran. Azima went to visit her ailing mother in Iran in January and has been prevented from leaving.

"We want to see them returned back to their families," said McCormack. "These two women are an academic on the one hand, a journalist on the other. They are both grandmothers and so I am not sure what it is the Iranian government has to fear from these ladies," he added.

"It is an insight into the nature of this regime," McCormack said of the case of the two women.

Esfandiari flew to Tehran in December to visit her mother. As she drove to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington she was robbed of her belongings, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the statement said.

INTERROGATION
She applied for replacement Iranian travel documents and was interviewed by a representative of Iran's intelligence ministry, which was then followed by weeks of interrogations focusing on her work for the center, it said.

The center's president, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, sent a letter in February to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explaining the work of the organization and seeking his help in securing Esfandiari's return to the United States.

"The president has yet to acknowledge or reply to it," the center said in the statement. "Attempts to resolve this issue through various channels and without publicity were also not successful."

Hamilton was the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group which last year issued recommendations for ending the violence in Iraq, including engaging with long time U.S. foe Iran.

The center's Middle East program focuses on the political, social and economic developments in the Middle East and examines American interests in the region and the threat of terrorism.

U.S. officials believe Tehran may also be holding former FBI official Robert Levinson who went missing early in March while on a visit to the Iranian island of Kish.

Levinson's wife was due to meet State Department officials in Washington on Wednesday to seek more information about her husband, McCormack said.

He said the United States still had no details on Levinson's whereabouts but believed the Florida resident was still alive. Iran has denied it is holding him.

Economics and Power

[Not sure who is reading my tirades any more, but what the heck.

I had always thought that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were altruistic functions of the wealthy nations of the world to make life better in the lesser successful peoples of the world.

However, I really started to wonder about that when Bush appointed Wolfowitz of all people, to head up the World Bank partly because I didn't know that the administration controlled the World Bank and partly because I didn't believe that even they'd install a person of such questionable character as its CEO!

(Latest news indicates: "World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz attempted to fight his way out of trouble last night – but hinted that he may be prepared to resign if the charges ...)

But now, I see below, that our southern neighbors are alive and prospering and don't need our questionable charity! It seems that for most people, socialism* actually works! Our nation was originally based upon socialism as opposed to royal tyranny but we quickly forgot as we succumbed to the lure of capitalistic greed - screw the other guy before he screws you....

*I should add that our first colony, Jamestown, started out communistic but slavery (and cotton) very quickly changed that! And after the market crash in 1929 when people lost everything, there were many communes established for people to work, contribute and survive. My conclusion here is that communism works when you're hungry. ...AG]

Venezuela pulling out of IMF, World Bank
By JORGE RUEDA, Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

Chavez wants to set up a new lender run by Latin American nations and has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. The regional lender, which he has called "Bank of the South," would dole out financing for state projects across Latin America.

Chavez has criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing agreements with the IMF to restructure the economy — plans blamed for contributing to racing inflation.

Under former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1989, violent protests broke out in Caracas in response to IMF austerity measures that brought a hike in subsidized gasoline prices and public transport fares.

Enraged people took the streets in violence that killed at least 300 people — and possibly many more. The riots came to be known as the "Caracazo," and Chavez often refers to it as a rebellion against the status quo.

During Sunday's talks with leaders from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, Chavez predicted that "sooner or later, those institutions will fall due to their own weight."

"They will wear away — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and all those institutions," Chavez said.

Bolivian President Evo Morales raised complaints about a World Bank body that mediates disputes between governments and foreign investors. He said governments never seem to win their disputes against transnational companies at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Chavez suggested that Latin countries could instead create their own arbitration body for disputes with big companies.

Venezuela is not the only country in the region distancing itself from international lenders.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Sunday that he hopes to "get out of that prison" of IMF debt and that "we are negotiating with the Fund to leave the Fund."

Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, recently asked the World Bank's representative there to leave and said the country paid off its debt to the IMF. Argentina also has paid back billions of dollars to the IMF.

Of mice and men....

I read an article in the Times which was, I think, overly long but is available in their achieves at the tinyurl below:
New York Times March 20, 2007
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://tinyurl.com/27hbvx

My problem with the article has been one of my pet peeves for many years. It seems to me that humans in their fanatic desire (insecurity) to prove that they're superior to all beasties on this planet aren't willing to give the critters any credit for having thinking brains or even emotions similar to those we experience. This, of course, allows us to hunt and joyously kill them as we wish without remorse....

The article presents a clash between academic philosophers aided and abetted by some bookworm psychologists against academic biologists who work with non-human primates and have been surprisingly surprised that they exhibit some ‘human' qualities. Wow! Where is the Pulitzer committee?

Obviously the difference between philosophers and biologists is the fact that biologists have an infinitely better knowledge of animals while philosophers love to sit in their recliners by a cosy fire, late at night with a glass of wine and... ruminate about "the meaning of life"! Been there and done that but although very pleasant, not very productive.

Academics do provide some sense of organization to the study of man and to a limited extent, the rest of the animal kingdom such as in the article: "These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality."

I think anyone who actually ‘knows' animals rather than knows about them and has had many as personal ‘friends' is well aware that even cats and horses (pretty much the boundary of my own personal experience) posses at least simplistically, those four kinds of behavior. I'd even add a fifth behavior which is more subtle, complex, and not universal - but obvious when found, - a sense of humor, which often is not found even in many humans. But humor is often observable in cats and horses and maybe even Meercats! Perhaps, as with wives, one has to own one to love and understand them.

I agree with Dr. de Waal's (the biologist) assessment of religion being an exclusive human invention. He implied rather than stated (but I state) that religion is a means of social control (power) of individuals by the group to the group's advantage - pure and simple. Of course the philosophical community considers religion to be one of humanity's highest evolutionary attributes - especially since apes are apparently atheists!

Sometimes the best proof of something is through observations made when that something is missing. This is painfully true in the case of empathy. I understand that about one percent of the human population is incapable of such feelings. It has also been established that the lack of empathy is a physiological (brain) disorder and not resulting from societal training as in the military or the lack of proper parental indoctrination in childhood.

It appears that an absence of empathy is evident by the noted absence of remorse by psychopathic serial killers. These people are incapable of translating how others might feel to their own feelings. They know the difference between right and wrong intellectually, but not emotionally. They enjoy pulling the legs off bugs or murdering people - it doesn't make any difference to them.

All too often while play fighting with my kitties, they get excited and scratch me causing me to suddenly pull back and voice my pain. When they realize that they hurt me, they immediately change their behavior to being solicitous and often try to lap the wound or otherwise indicate that it was not their intent to cause me injury.

Granted, the intellectual abilities of animals other than humans is quite limited, but I submit that animals are as emotional as humans - not through facial expression but certainly in body language. Emotions are, of course, the most primitive function of a ‘thinking' brain and have been necessary in all animals to be able to make decisions concerning fight and flight, pecking orders and love.

After all, philosophers and mathematicians don't need to be human - they have their intellects and a box of wine to keep them warm!

Barack Obama

There are some people who actually consider Obama to be a black man! Yet, on CSPAN I watched a black caucus wherein the blacks were concerned whether Obama was "black enough"!

Of course there are bigots - even pundits on the LA Times who can't see anything beyond the color of a man's skin and who assume that all white's have some sort of guilt complex and are looking for a black messiah to follow to assuage their guilt.

I suppose it goes with the territory and Hillary will have the same problem with the women vote - is she "female enough"? And I'm certain there are some men who are insecure enough to resist giving any homage to a female president.

But these are very narrow people who can't see beyond their own indoctrinated (virtual religious) beliefs that the physiological differences between people define them more than the mental differences. That is why we can elect a stupid white man to the presidency and denigrate a very intelligent black man - or (even) woman! And, of course, it isn't just in the South.

I read a statement which rings with a certain appropriate truth - "If you see something wrong, try to change it with your hands. If you can't, then try to change it with your words. If you can't, remember in your mind that it is still wrong so you will never think it is right." [the prophet Mohammed] I was going to post the article on Footprints, but didn't want to clutter the site with other stuff while you post the New Orleans photos, Dee – it can wait.

Obama was on Larry King tonight for the full hour. He fielded King's questions to my satisfaction about current events, both domestic and foreign - despite the fact that he is a skinny semi-black Harvard man with a normal friendly voice and large white teeth - certainly not presidential in the George Washington sense (George didn't go to Harvard)! I'd be even more impressed if Barack had the deep melodic voice and robust black physiology of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"! But then, Barack's wife is pretty! And, I assume that Paul Robeson is dead by now....?

Rambling on about genealogy & DNA

I was still able to find my site on Cindy's list after at least seven years! It wasn't easy, but I eventually found me.... You wouldn't believe how hard I worked to get on her list, then - and also onto Google! You know, if you stop to think about it which at my age I do increasingly more, it may be Cindy's List and Google will be my eternal life! Perhaps even after I die which is pending, I'll still be found on Cindi's List and Google at Yahoo! At last! I have a vision of the only real Heaven! ...of course, I won't be able to answer the emails.... but perhaps then, I've said it all before somewhere anyway - and who cares anyway?.... I've noticed that if I Google my name I'll also find some argument or the other with others on the DNA List I participated in several years ago and which I think, is archived. Lots of theories and suppositions were argued during those early days of genealogical DNA - and as usual, I had a big mouth - so what else is new?! Before I go, I'd like to have the mitochondrial DNA of my granddaughter, Shannon, evaluated. I haven't had the chance to put it to her yet - and of course, I'd pay the couple of hundred for the test. The reason is that we all know that she is ½ Chippewa and, of course ½ Gleason. However, I suspect that her DNA (and that of her sister, Devin) would be European. I believe there would be no biological evidence that the girls are at all AmerIndians nor with any Asian ancestry! (Mitochondrial DNA determines maternal ancestry - not paternal). If interested, I'll tell you why. I'm still on Google, but very far down the list now. Google has changed (not because of that) and not for the better. It seems to have gotten more "commercial"... Has anyone noticed that? It still is the GREATEST source of things I want to know now! I suppose that Captialism destroys everything it touches sooner or later. I'm a semi-Capitalist, of sorts, since the other -ism's don't work well, but give me a better -ism and I'll certainly look into it. I rather hope for a form of SocioCapitalism which deals with such things as ‘level playing fields', avoidance of egregious wealth, leadership rather than the confrontational defiance of the six billion people on this planet who could have us for supper... and probably would still be hungry! Lets put it this way. Capitalism most certainly isn't the answer, but perhaps Capitalism can provide the answer through, maybe an evolution from facism and the demise of silly mysticisms, into what we might call Capitalistic-Humanism? I won't live to see it of course...

An alternative government....

Being a little bit snide, Viagra is for Republicans, Levitra is for Democrats and Cealis is for Libertarians. And since Ann Coulter thinks women should be armed but should not be allowed to vote, we can solve all of our national problems through four still awake senior citizens and disband Congress - especially since the Presidency was disbanded six years ago.

At least it shows that Howard Baker is not dismayed that the last commission he was in was totally ignored by his friend, Bush. I guess when you spend a career in politics you get used to bumping your head against stone walls to the point that it hurts when you stop.

BTW, since Cheney has pflebitis or.... whatever, perhaps they should send him to Walter Reed even though he doesn't qualify for such great treatment!

Ex-Senate leaders join bipartisan effort
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Four former Senate majority leaders are heading a new group aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation's biggest issues.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

"We've all been leaders and you know how difficult it is," said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. "We're all partisan in a way," Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that "compromise is not a bad word."

Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, "If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect."

Congress, evenly divided and sharply partisan, in recent years has turned to outside commissions for advice on politically sensitive topics. Two of those nonpartisan groups, the Sept. 11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, have had considerable influence on policy.

The former senators believe the new group "can help create common sense solutions to key national challenges and can help foster a return to more civil political debate," Baker, the Senate leader from 1981 to 1985, said in a statement.

The center has a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million for 2007, funded by several philanthropic groups. At first, it plans to concentrate on projects dealing with agriculture, energy and national security policy.

Daschle and Dole currently head a study into 21st century agriculture and the opportunities for farmers in energy production, conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Dole said he hoped to have that report finished in the next 30 days.

The former senators also will advise a commission on energy policy and a national security initiative led by NATO's former supreme allied commander, retired Gen. James L. Jones.

Mitchell said he was interested in health care issues and hoped to contribute to the debate over port security. Dole said he would like to work on penal system reform and disability issues involving veterans.

On the Net: Bipartisan Policy Center: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/

Dick Cavett - commentary

I know that this is copywrited and I really have nothing to say about Dick Cavett's opinion other than that I, too agree with what he has written and hope that everyone gets to read and understand what he says below - especially his story below the **********'s when he tells about Uncle Bill and war:

New York Times
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Opinion
Dick Cavett

February 28, 2007, 6:03 pm

What My Uncle Knew About War

Tell me, are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war? Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the Titanic is still afloat.

And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating? I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I right? And don't you adore me?"

As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.

Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)

I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur" president would injure that word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said, they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound preposterous? And yet there was such a time.

**********

I have a statement: Anybody who gives his life in war is an idiot.

I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect. They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.

He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess is that your uncle is unique."

Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last, the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be killed instantly.

The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."

"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."

Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.

By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at first, he looked so much older.

I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.

You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will be deducted from our shares in paradise.

Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition, both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning group. They looked more like fathers than sons.

It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess, has "done a heckuva job"?

The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.

What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?"

I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a possible good? I guess not.

For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose, from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, ‘We died at such a place,' … their wives left poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it."

Gay Marriage, Lite....

Hmmmm.... my question is whether same-sex teaching was a good complaint to bring before a federal judge. Of course, in Massachusetts and a couple of other states gay marriage and/or other types of co-habitation are legal and probably should and will be legal everywhere eventually, so it is reasonable to assume that the judge had the responsibility to rule as he did. And certainly using the argument of such teaching being a violation of "religious rights" is simply ridiculous! I do wonder who their lawyer was! The only religious "rights" a person has is in the 1st Amendment, ["Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"]. It doesn't say that others must cow-tow to an individual's (or church's) beliefs, but simply that one may have whatever beliefs one wants for himself! It doesn't even say that a parent may bring up her children with certain beliefs! Of course, I guess the Constitution doesn't say a lot of things. So, I think that if the parent(s) really wanted to change the policy rather than make a big political show of it, that it would have been much wiser to protest to the school board! After all, schools are still under local control and school boards can be easily replaced if they don't cater to the will of the local citizenry. I'm certainly not anti-gay, but ‘they' are most certainly a biological anomaly and usually not all that obvious unless one goes out of one's way look for them. Their behavior in society, I think, should be quiet and unobtrusive just as should be the more common heterosexual lifestyle. Personally, I don't like conspicuous sex from anyone, on stage, on a screen or on the street - but I guess I'm not typical, judging by our media which caters to the perverted interests of the masses in order to sell almost anything. For example, I was disappointed when Ellen De Generes announced her homosexuality on the tube several years ago because it had nothing to do with her TV personality - it had to do with her private life, which was her business, not ours. In effect she did it to show off and shock everyone. It was the adult version of sticking your thumbs in your ears, waggling your fingers and sticking out your tongue at someone. She was and is a quick wit and very funny comedienne - just not as, because she showed the world a flaw in her personality which diminished her as a person. I won't comment on Rosie because I had no interest in her stage character to begin with and it wasn't her name or her size because I liked Rosey Greer - the 300 lb linebacker who made needlepoint doilies! Neither she nor 'the Donald' come across as nice people you'd want to know. Anyway, back on topic. I don't think it is necessary to teach small children about sexuality or its social aspects. After all, by the age of seven, I had already learned all about sex from my friends - and they were amazingly accurate. Perhaps sex is better kept in its place through the mysterious silence of grown-ups and teachers. There's plenty of schooltime later on to teach the scary details about diseases associated with sexual malpractice. It doesn't hurt to believe in Santa Claus for a few years. Years ago, I recall when going over my college transcripts that ‘they' determined that I had to take a course called "Family Relations" in order to be mailed an AA degree! I pointed out (to 'they') that I was already married and had two children - to no avail, I had to take the dumb course which taught me that statistically, I'd marry a brown-eyed, raven-haired woman like my mother! My petite blonde blue-eyed wife got a kick out of that! Hmmm... wonder if I'd mentioned that marriage was against my religious beliefs, I could have gotten out of taking the course? U.S. court upholds same-sex teaching to children - Sat Feb 24 BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a suit by two families who wanted to stop a Massachusetts town and its public school system from teaching their children about gay marriage, court documents show. The families last year filed the suit asserting that the reading of a gay-themed book and handing out to elementary school students of other children's books that discussed homosexuality without first notifying parents was a violation of their religious rights. Federal Judge Mark Wolf ruled on Friday that public schools are "entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy." "Diversity is a hallmark of our nation. It is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation," he said. He said the courts had decided in other cases that parents' rights to exercise their religious beliefs were not violated when their children were exposed to contrary ideas in school. The complaint filed against the town of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, had said the school had "begun a process of intentionally indoctrinating very young children to affirm the notion that homosexuality is right and normal in direct denigration of the plaintiffs' deeply held faith." The book that sparked the case was "King & King" which tells the story of a crown prince who rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after. The Lexington school system had said reading the book was not intended as sex education but as a way to educate children about the world in which they live, especially in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed. A lawyer for the families said they would appeal the ruling, the Boston Globe reported on Saturday.

Children: US at bottom of list....

Well, we're at the bottom of the list for health care so it figures that we'd be at the bottom of the list for child care. I'll bet that we're also at the bottom of the list for average middle class affluence.

I think all of these problems stem from a system which is controlled by wealth, power and a lack of compassion for fellow humans. It harkens back to the outmoded ‘divine right of kings' which was particularly strong in our English ancestry and which evolved into a reverence for aristocracy right down to the Victorian era a mere hundred or so years ago. My grandmother and mother were Victorians who considered themselves a bit above the common herd.

As a youth, I recall that we deplored the tragic poverty of most people living in the cities of South America, for example, where a few families controlled the national economies and production facilities of each country. They lived with immense wealth while their workers lived in squalor.

Today, our national policy is to squelch any political efforts in South America aimed at improving the lot of the people because it is more profitable to deal with the rich and powerful. In the past we've used the CIA to perform these patriotic tasks.

Unfortunately, it appears from this study, as reported below, those who control our government don't seem to mind having cheap labor and its attendant poverty here at home. If our labor force which is now largely a ‘service force' is not sufficiently educated to do the job - well, we can always send those tasks to India or China where there is a rapidly growing population of well educated and trained workers. It certainly is cheaper to farm the jobs out than to train our own!

Among Rich Countries
U.S. Child Well-Being Poor
But Optimism Prevails
Caitlin G. Johnson, OneWorld US Tue Feb 20

NEW YORK, Feb 20 (OneWorld) - UNICEF is best known for its work on behalf of children in the developing world, but its latest report turns an eye to the well-being of children in 21 wealthy nations including the United States, which ranks second to the bottom overall.

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Center Report Card, "Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries," looks at six dimensions of child well-being: material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own perceptions of their well-being.

"[Child well-being] is a bell weather for where we'll end up in the global market 20 years from now--more than, say, how we're spending our money in other areas, and what we're doing in
Iraq and Afghanistan. It impacts our global security," says Laura Beavers, research associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which sponsors the Kids Count project to track child well-being in each U.S. state.

While none of the countries studied can claim "mission accomplished" in securing child well-being in every measurement, the United States fared particularly poorly. It ranked last in health and safety, primarily because of high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and deaths from accidents and injuries. The United States also showed significantly higher rates of obesity and overweight teenagers, and even the teen birth rate--which has declined dramatically in the past decade--remains higher than in other rich countries.

Few in the field are surprised by the findings, which are consistent with existing data on child well-being, educational attainment, and poverty. But some children's advocates are greeting the study with surprising optimism.

"It's very nice that it is coming out at this time," says Linda Spears, vice president of corporate communications and development at the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). "I'm more optimistic now than I've ever been that this may help galvanize energy on Capitol Hill and encourage advocates to pay attention."

The data are drawn from two large surveys--an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) international student assessment and a 2001 World Health Organization survey of health behavior in school-age children--and compare averages. The study's authors acknowledge that this creates complications in drawing conclusions for a country as large and stratified as the United States. Smaller, more homogenous countries like the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland received higher marks overall.

Within the United States, the picture is more complex. "It's clear that child well-being has been improving slowly since the 1990s, with a glitch during the recession in the early 2000s," says Harold Leibovitz, director of strategic communications with the Foundation for Child Development.

In particular, the United States is doing better in areas that reflect "cultural values," Leibovitz says, citing the declining teen birth rate, improvements in children's social and emotional health, and their sense of connection to religious groups and communities.

"But in areas that have to do with policy and the government's role in supporting development of children, we have not been doing as well," he says.

America's childhood obesity epidemic, increasing child poverty rates, and an average on-time high school graduation rate of only 70 percent (and as low as 50 percent in at least 11 urban areas) continue to drive down overall child well-being.

"If we had our resources directed in the right way, we wouldn't be where we are. We have the resources to do it, but we haven't had the political will to do it, especially over the last five years," says the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Laura Beavers.

This political climate may be changing. The report comes as states across the country are considering bipartisan approaches to extend health care coverage to more of the nearly 47 million Americans--including 8 million children--who are uninsured. Many are also considering universal pre-kindergarten [as in Arizona] and early learning initiatives.

In Washington, the 110th Congress is working to renew the effective but financially strapped State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and finalizing legislation to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour by 2009. This month, the U.S. Senate has begun to hold meetings to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind education reform act. [What good does it do if it is not funded?]

At the same time, lawmakers are drafting the fiscal year 2008 federal budget, which sets funding guidelines for programs including education, Head Start, child care assistance, juvenile justice programs, public assistance, and health insurance.

"Twenty years ago, we had good ideas and an intuitive sense of what works, but no data and no outcomes for children to say, 'This produces changes,'" says CWLA's Spears. "Now, there are real things for policymakers to latch on to."

The study's authors hope the report will spark discussion--both within and among these countries--about what works, and encourage each country to focus attention on their own children, as they do those in the developing world.

"What we don't want is for everyone to look at the summary ranking table and say, 'The United States is down at the very end, that can't be right' or, 'That's terrible," says David Parker, deputy director of the Innocenti Research Center, which released the study. "This is not about trying to find sensational bottom lines."

Later this year, UNICEF plans to release a comparison of early childhood development, education, and care across the world's wealthier democracies.

The United States is one of two countries that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international treaty that protects children's rights and access to services and under whose mandate the new study was produced. Somalia is the other country that has not ratified the treaty. [Well, we're in good company with a nation 99% Sunni Muslim!]

It does make one want to throw up! Read on..... Like after being unmercifully smeared in his campaign for President by Bush in 2000 * ! And then four years later, becoming Bush's campaign manager for re-election. And then, literally hugging the startled man on stage when Bush ‘won' again. And then, being a hawkish champion of Bush's war despite all of the administration's lies and unconstitutional behavior. Now, McCain comes out with a self-serving denunciation of Donald Rumsfeld as if he were the commander and chief and solely for not winning a war which should never have been fought in the first place! Where has he been? He certainly can't use the excuse of 20-20 vision and hindsight! Too many of us saw the truth very early on and have not been surprised by the result. The only time McCain has ever done anything right politically is when he went against his own party and joined with Senator Feingold to present a bill for campaign finance reform! He was almost excommunicated for that! The Republicans even tried to tie McCain to Soros, ** a hated socialist who got his vast wealth the same way that Republicans do, except that he is ‘giving it back' through ‘Soros philanthropies' that promote democracy and anti-poverty internationally! Isn't that what Bush is trying to do in Iraq? Hmmm - maybe not. McCain: Rumsfeld was one of the worst By BRUCE SMITH, Associated Press Writer BLUFFTON, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history. "We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement — that's the kindest word I can give you — of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, S.C. "The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously." McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained that Rumsfeld never put enough troops on the ground to succeed in Iraq. "I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history," McCain said to applause. The comments were in sharp contrast to McCain's statement when Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush is the commander in chief. "While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service," McCain said last year when Rumsfeld stepped down. On a two-day campaign swing in South Carolina, McCain fielded questions from the crowd for more than an hour and said the United States can succeed in Iraq with additional troops and a new strategy. McCain has been a strong proponent of using more troops and favors Bush's increase of some 21,500 U.S. forces in the nearly four-year-old war. "I have been saying for 3 1/2 years that we would be in this sad situation and this critical situation we are in today," he said. McCain's bid for president was sidetracked in South Carolina in 2000 after a victory in New Hampshire. George W. Bush won the primary here and went on to win the nomination and White House. "In life, one of the worst things you can do is hold a grudge," he said. "I felt the important thing for me to do with my life was to move forward after we lost our race. You have seen other people who have lost who mire themselves in bitterness and self pity. That's not what my life is all about." Some in the crowd were Bush supporters who have not yet decided on a 2008 candidate. "It's too early to say," said Paul Baker, a retiree from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who has lived in South Carolina about four years. "I'm just going to wait it out and see what happens." ////////////////////////////////////////////// * Bush smear of McCain in South Carolina in 2000... [Boston Globe: The anatomy of a smear campaign By Richard H. Davis | March 21, 2004] It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin. Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator. Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign. Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?" //////////////////////////////////////////////////// ** http://tinyurl.com/4q5an Wikipedia: George Soros Soros has been active as a liberal philanthropist since the 1970s, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa, and began funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain. Soros' philanthropic funding in Central and Eastern Europe mostly occurs through the Open Society Institute (OSI) and national Soros Foundations, which sometimes go under other names, e.g. the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland. As of 2003, PBS[14] estimated that he had given away a total of $4 billion. The OSI says it has spent about $400 million annually in recent years. Notable projects have included aid to scientists and universities throughout Central and Eastern Europe, help to civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, worldwide efforts to repeal drug prohibition laws, and Transparency International. Soros also pledged an endowment of €420 million to the Central European University (CEU). The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus and his microfinance bank Grameen Bank received support from the OSI. According to the National Review [15] the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart. She is a controversial lawyer who has defended terrorists in court, and was sentenced to 21/3 years in prison for "providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy" via a press conference for a client. An OSI spokeswoman said "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support." In September 2006, Soros departed from his characteristic sponsorship of democracy building programs, pledging $50 million to the Jeffrey Sachs-led Millennium Promise to help eradicate extreme poverty in Africa. Noting the connection between bad governance and poverty, he remarked on the humanitarian value of the project.[16] He received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research (New York), the University of Oxford in 1980, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University in 1991. Soros also received the Yale International Center for Finance Award from the Yale School of Management in 2000 as well as the Laurea Honoris Causa, the highest honor of the University of Bologna in 1995.

The Italians are upset with us....

Based upon the following article, it seems that the Italians are getting just about as anti-American as are the French! I understand that if we are going to police the world - for its own good, of course.... then we have to have bases located at various strategic locations whether most of the world likes it or not.

After all, as the Republicans keep on saying, "If we don't fight ‘em over there, then they'll fight us here at home!" Actually, in a guerilla war I don't see the logic since it can be fought anywhere at any time.

I do wonder why ‘they' (you pick the group) don't like us. I can't believe that it is simple jealousy because we Americans are so much smarter and wealthier than they are - unless they think perhaps that we stole their wealth through the invention of Capitalism rather than simply taking advantage of it before they could.

I can certainly understand the people of Vicenza who don't want an American megabase in their town! Hell, I wouldn't want one here in Kingman, either! The military all belong way out in the middle of some God-awful desert away from people (like the old movie depictions of the French Foreign Legion), you know, places like Texas or Nevada or maybe Colorado Springs, the west wing of the Pentagon.

When stationed in Burlington, VT, I recall that when the locals objected to our military presence, we were paid in cash - two dollar bills! Of course, the town was flooded with the bills so the greed of the local merchants overcame their rantings about GI's roaming their streets. As usual, of course, the parents of the town's virgins didn't have much of a voice at city hall - so we stayed. --- Real good lookin' girls, too! I married one of 'em.

In the case of the Italians, they should ask their government "Puo cambiarmi questa...?" It really ain't our problem - unless we would like to have a better international image...?

Italians protest over U.S. base expansion
By Lisa Jucca

VICENZA, Italy (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Italians under heavy police guard marched on Saturday through the city of Vicenza to protest against the expansion of a U.S. military base that has divided the center-left government

Leftists who last year voted for Prime Minister Romano Prodi, an Iraq war opponent, turned out in droves to decry his approval for U.S. plans to expand the military base in Vicenza, home to the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Pacifists waved rainbow-striped peace banners while some protesters carried anti-American slogans like "Yankees go Home" as they marched through the city and gathered in a main square.

"There is no reason to have this base here," said Antonio Faitta, a 25-year-old gardener who traveled from Genoa.

Prodi appealed to demonstrators to refrain from violence, following warnings from the interior minister that the protest march which began shortly after 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) could attract people "hostile to the forces of law and order."

The U.S. embassy had warned Americans to steer clear of the small northern Italian city of 115,000, where officials also shut schools normally open on Saturday as a precaution.

But the protests were peaceful. Police estimates pegged the crowd at more than 50,000 people. The leftist Communist Refoundation Party (Prc), part of the ruling coalition, boasted the number could top 100,000 and said Prodi should "listen up."

The base expansion is the latest headache for Prodi, who has faced revolts by his broad leftist coalition partners on everything from gay rights to the budget and the presence of Italian peacekeepers in Afghanistan.

"Today, Prodi has been given a vote of no confidence by his own majority. He should step down," said Isabella Bertolini of the center-right opposition Forza Italia party.

LIGHTNING ROD
The demonstration has served as a lightning rod for anti-U.S. sentiment in a country where judges have ordered CIA agents and a U.S. soldier to stand trial for kidnapping and murder.

A Milan judge charged the CIA agents on Friday with abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan in a covert operation and flying him to Egypt. The U.S. soldier was charged on February 7 with murdering an Italian secret agent in Iraq, although both governments have described the 2005 shooting as an accident.

All will almost certainly be tried in absentia, since Washington is not expected to hand them over.

"I don't want any more Americans here and I don't want a new base. They should just leave us alone," said Pucci Mori, a resident of Vicenza, who lives near the proposed base expansion.

"Wherever they go in the world, Americans cause trouble."

The Pentagon wants to double the size of the base to unite its 173rd Airborne Brigade and expand its 2,750 military personnel to 4,500.

At present, the rapid reaction unit is divided among the base at Vicenza, about 400 km (250 miles) north of Rome, and bases at Bamburg and Schweinfurt in Germany.

The new barracks would be on the other side of the city from the existing one. That has raised worries about new roads to handle military traffic linking the two parts, loss of green space and strains on public services.

Residents fear it could even put Vicenza in danger.

"The people of Vicenza are concerned. The base would be in the heart of the city and in the case of a military conflict it could become a target," said Nobel literature laureate Dario Fo.

A Woman for President?

A female cousin proclaimed she wouldn't vote for Hillary because she was too strident!......

Hmmmm... More strident than, for example, Senator Biden who is more than willing to call a spade a spade?

I think that the problem is that women by nature have screechy voices (I know, sister Dee - you don't screech) - especially if they get excited. I'm sure that it served them well when we all lived in caves - but they've had to live with it in modern society due to their physiology and it has been a hard thing for them to control - certainly not instinctive and very effective in handling children -- the alternative to using a club!

Now, I don't think I've ever heard Hillary screech on TV but I've read that she used to screech at Bill on occasion - maybe she should have screeched a bit louder!

But more seriously, as usual, we are now the most backward of the advanced nations on this planet. Our empire has peaked - as all empires have in history - it should be expected. We have become excessively Christian of the more advanced nations of the world which have become more pragmatic and have discarded ideologies and beliefs which are no longer believable nor practical. We've sold out to a rigid economic system which promotes greed at the expense of the welfare of citizens nor compassion for those less advanced in the world - we could bend a little, I think.

Thus even though the world elected a black to run the United Nations and his replacement is a Korean, we in the U.S. have yet to elect a nigger! (I use the term to show why we won't elect one). And we won't elect a woman because she is merely chattel in the Bible and thus no good Christian believes that a woman is capable of leading a ‘great nation'!

This is despite the fact that many women in history have led nations very effectively throughout history! – such as Queen Elizabeth I who, for example, established the first national welfare system and required citizens to establish surnames! Seems she had a civilizing effect on the English barbarians!

The Holocaust in Perspective...

Hillary presented a speech to a large Jewish group in NY mentioning the Holocaust and problems with Iran.

The speech caused me to wonder a bit about genocide and war - especially the most terrible war in human history, WWII and how it compares with the Jewish genocide.

I am peeved at Jewish politics here in the U.S. and most certainly with the arrogance of Israel toward her only real friend in the world. But, unlike the bombastic President of Iran, I have no doubt that the ‘holocaust' happened and was a terrible thing during a terrible time in a terrible world and I certainly don't hate Jews!

So, not to put down the ‘holocaust' but rather to put it in perspective, I found a well done website containing graphs and statistics on wars the U.S. has participated in since the Revolution. http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/casualties_of_war.htm
OR: http://tinyurl.com/yow8xf

It does not address the ‘holocaust' directly but I'm sure the six million Jews irrationally murdered by Hitler's madness are included in the civilian statistics.

The bottom line is that World War II cost over twenty-three million military lives and thirty-one million civilian lives which comes to fifty-five million human beings for a war which should not have happened and achieved very littl. That number is approximately the entire population of England or France or Italy - take your choice.

Most noteworthy among civilian deaths during WWII, we find that 10 million Chinese civilians were killed in WWII by the Japanese. There were 7.7 million Russian civilians killed by the Germans during that war and 6 million Polish persons, about one in five, were annihilated - probably many of the latter were Jews.

To put those horrible numbers in greater perspective - if possible, ‘only' 62,000 civilians were killed in Great Britain despite the nightly rain of German "V" type rockets on cities during the blitz. And even Japan lost ‘only' 300,000 civilians as a result of our incendiary bombing of Tokyo and the atomic destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

As my favorite Civil War general, Sherman once said, "War is Hell!" So, I do wish that the Jews would put to rest their gnashing and flailing over something which happened almost seventy years ago over a war which is virtually forgotten by the rest of the world. They certainly weren't alone in misery. ...AG]

Yosemite National Park's future....

Having visited and even camped at Yosemite a number of times over the years, I have an opinion somewhere in between the government and the plaintifs in the suit reported below.

First we should understand that Yosemite Valley, the shear-walled canyon everyone sees in the photographs with the waterfalls and ‘half-dome', are actually a very small part of Yosemite NP. There are popular areas outside of the valley such as a large conference area where they hold a popular jazz festival every year north of the valley. The popular Badger Pass ski resort lies just south of the canyon. Further south there are several large campgrounds spotted all the way down to the southern entrance at Wawona. Behind the valley in the high country is a wonderful camping area called Tuolumne Meadows located off one of the few highways over the Sierra to relatively remote eastern California and Nevada. Between these features are large areas of wilderness and lakes - it truly is a beautiful park and should be preserved to the extent possible.

Yosemite isn't the only park in the Sierra mountains. The northern most park, Lassen NP with its volcano and cinder cone and lava flows is actually in the Cascade range of mountains, not the Sierra. The reason they are considered different is because the Cascades are of volcanic origin and the Sierra are tectonic plate uplifting as the Pacific plate runs into the Continental plate. That is why there is a short steep climb of perhaps fifteen or twenty miles to the top ridge of the Sierra from the East while the West slope from the foothills is over sixty miles!

South of Yosemite are two more parks, Kings Canyon on the Kings river and Sequoia famous for its grove of Redwoods. Kings Canyon is a wider canyon but otherwise similar to Yosemite. It is much less developed with most accommodations outside of the canyon itself. It is well known in California, but doesn't have the miseries of the international crowd that Yosemite has. Actually there are many groves of Redwoods in the Sierra including all three NP's.

There are large groups of California ‘environmentalists' I consider to be young backpackers, who advocate removing all man-made artifacts from the entire Sierra including roads and access so that they can have the entire five hundred mile long wilderness all to themselves. The other side of the coin are the business people who want to clear-cut, pave and industrialize the mountains just as they have everywhere else.

I find it difficult to side with either extreme. However, regarding Yosemite Valley, I do agree with the extremists that virtually all evidence of urbanization should be removed from the valley including the $1,000 per night hotel and all of the little touristy shopping malls, grocery stores and even the campgrounds. I would allow a few probably high volume restaurants and snackbars to accomodate day visitors but eliminate all overnight accommodations including the workforce which has its own city within the canyon.

Presently access to the dead end valley other than by tour bus is by car - and in the summertime, it is bumper to bumper! I advocate limiting auto access to at best the winter season and requiring automotive traffic to park outside the valley where there are millions of acres of parkland for parking lots and hotels, off any of its three access roads (north, west and south) to say nothing of neighboring communities who would love to care for visitors.

Everyone on Earth should have the opportunity to experience Yosemite Valley which is so unique. So the park should provide that access by greatly expanding and improving the park's free mini-bus services, and other facilities designed primarily for pedestrian and bicycle traffic rather than the congestion, glut and smell of gas and diesel engines!

In other words, get the unnecessary machines and buildings out of the canyon and provide access for many more people - not fewer! Actually, I wish they'd even bring back the free roaming black bears which were ubiquitous when I first visited the place many years ago - the customers would love 'em!

Yellostone NP used to have free roaming black bears also. Today, all you see are bison - it just ain't the same.

So, as you can see when you read the following article, that I don't agree with either extreme - and I'm not certain that Yosemite Valley's problems relate to other parks such as Yellowstone which is open and vast or most certainly the Grand Canyon near where I now live.

Yosemite suit could affect park access
By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - The plunging waterfalls and soaring crags chiseled by the Merced River draw millions of visitors each year, but the crowds are precisely what threatens the waterway and the park.

Efforts to safeguard the Merced have spawned a court battle over the future of development in Yosemite National Park's most popular stretch. The case may come down to the challenge facing all of America's parks: Should they remain open to everyone, or should access be limited in the interest of protecting them?

In November, a federal judge barred crews from finishing $60 million in construction projects in Yosemite Valley, siding with a small group of environmentalists who sued the federal government, saying further commercial development would bring greater numbers of visitors, thus threatening the Merced's fragile ecosystem.

"The park's plans for commercialization could damage Yosemite for future generations," said Bridget Kerr, a member of Friends of Yosemite Valley, one of two local environmental groups that filed the suit.

The government is appealing, fearing the ruling could force the National Park Service to limit the number of people allowed into Yosemite each day, a precedent it doesn't want to see echoed in other parks.

"I don't think we've ever had a ruling with these kind of implications," said Kerri Cahill, a Denver-based planner for the park service. "It's going to have a direct influence on the public who care about these places."

The case has Yosemite's most loyal advocates sharply divided over how to balance preservation with access to public lands. Even environmentalists can't agree on how to minimize the human footprint — some believe cars should be kept out entirely; others say visitors should have to make reservations in advance.