Reality Shows

What do the rash of reality shows reveal about our values, our life in America.

Why is Mexico Poor

Answer: They are a struggling democracy. Vicente Fox is the first President that was not part of the PRI, their ruling autocratic party for the last century. Losing half their country to their war-like neighbor might also have some historical bearing.

And the reason we don’t want to help this struggling democracy?
Answer: There is not much in it for us, unless you think:

• It is important to have a strong healthy neighbor to our south.
• Unless you really believe in democracy and what’s left of our principles in the U.S.
• Unless you really want to make a dent in the drug war instead of playing patty-cake.
• Unless you want to have a labor pool to compete against the Chinese.

Do you think building the wall for Jehovah Bush and the kindred simple minds in Congress will help Mexico’s democracy, or us, for that matter? Good, then go support the simpletons that are proposing this solution. If you want to make money on these simpletons, find someone in Mexico that makes lightweight wood or aluminum ladders. If you need an engineer to design a ladder to get over a fence, please give me a call.

The average Mexican family living close to the U.S. border makes about $15K per year. Near Mexico’s southern boarder, the average family income is $5K. Which family poses a greater threat to America and is more likely to come across the border. Hint, only 50% of the million that cross the Mexican/U.S. border each year are Mexicans.

Why do they make more in the North. Duu. NAFTA + transportation costs. The difference in the standard of living and the social stability of the north and south comes down to one simple fact. It costs money to move goods from Southern Mexico through their old roads, through the Mexico City bottleneck, to the market (that would be us). Couple this with even cheaper labor of China and we can begin to grasp the challenge in helping this new democracy. But, the solution is conceptually simple.

Take the money earmarked for building a worthless fence between our country and build instead a four lane highway to southern Mexico. Texas should be smart enough to do this …. Or any other state who could control where the northern part of this highway ended. But, Texas has the Bush deity so there are ineligible.

Politically, of course, it is much too difficult for Jehovah Bush and gang. So, we have to wait and hope for a miracle next election day. And, we have to find a few people who care about a struggling democracy that only has a little bit of oil.

How do you sell this superhighway to Mexico. It can’t be perceived as charity, and it isn’t. It is an investment in mankind, in our brothers to the south. Make it part of an electronic system to get goods and services into the U.S. A truck on this super freeway will have an electronic pass and will be bonded. Put electronic surveillance along this road, whatever it takes to make the paranoid whole. We sell it on the grounds that we build the road, with their laborers, and then we get to set up factories in the south to get low cost laborers … a Maquilidora district similar to that near Ciudad Juarez.

The Great Wall of Mexico & the Iraq Civil War

The great wall of Mexico is in the news again. I have an idea. We need to get the Chinese to help us build it. They have experience building a wall, the Great Wall of China. I believe their wall is thousands of miles long, and our proposed wall is just 750 miles long. Next, the Chinese can hire illegal immigrants to build the wall -- we can look the other way. And just when the wall is almost done we can capture them and put them on the other side of the wall.

Then, we can make money by offering them bus rides to the end of the walls so they can come back in and keep our Border Patrol employed. No one has thought about the Border cops in all of this have they ....

Of course, all of this noise about the wall is just to keep our minds off of the terrible screw-up in Iraq. We have imposed our values and our will on a people with the result that hundreds are dying every day. They loose more people every month than we have lost throughout the entire war. Their country is on the verge of a complete breakdown, a civil war that will consume their lives for perhaps a generation. And we have no plan, now when one is the most needed. We screwed it up, and all we can say is "steady as she goes."

Plan B. Divide the country into three regions. Duh, yea along the religious borders. Divide the oil into three parts. Then let the independent states eventually, if they chose, decide how the states will join to make a country. Give everyone their space and everyone a cut of the oil pie. Of course, the transition from the present one central government that few believe in is the huge challenge. Getting them to change the course and switch to a Plan B, will require some very good diplomacy. Oh yea, I forgot, we in the great country of Jehovah Bush don't need diplomacy. We are smart enough and strong enough not to need the help of other countries. Of course, we are not the ones now laughing in Iraq. But, more likely than make such a radical transition and admit Plan A was flawed, Jehovah Bush will more than likely change Generals or something similar in Iraq. Or perhaps, support a draft. Anyway, nothing significant. We will delay going to Plan C until the next Presidential Election.

Plan C. Walk away and let tens of thousands, perhaps even millions, die in a civil war before Iran slips in and occupies the oil rich Iraq territory. Or, even worse, watch all the surrounding countries go to war to get Iraq's oil. Then let a few of the big energy hungry countries, like the U.S. and China start taking sides. All I can say, we sure our lucky to have Jehovah Bush on our side. Of course, he will be out of office by then, but we can bring him back as our spiritual leader, so he can continue to help us achieve our great destiny.

Destroying The Roots of Military Industrial Complexing

There has been some ranting and raving on this blog, its the bloggly thing to do. However, now it is time to start presenting a plan of action.

Most people agree that our government is now owned by the milatary industrial complex. How do we change that? What are the roots of their power? How do we chop them off at the roots and start again. It has to be a bold plan, small changes are not going to get the job done. There has to be structural changes, but what?

If you have opinions, speak up. I will let you think a while and then give you my opinion.

Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Let's say that Iran is really trying to build a nuclear bomb. Who are we to tell them not to. What gives us the right? We have thousands of nuclear weapons. Was this ordained by God, or Jehovah Bush. I don't think so. What in our history makes anyone in the world believe that all those nuclear weapons are safe with us. How many nuclear weapons does Russia, India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, Britian, France and Isarael have.
Lets say that Iran gets Nuclear weapons. Is the world less safe? Give me a break. What makes you think it is safe now. Russia, China, and North Korea are certainly role models. And of course, we can justify having thousands of nuclear weapons. We set such a great example for the world. We don't have ten thousand nuclear weapons anymore. We could probably only knock out the plant a few hundred times. I wonder if even the cockroach would survive. So, our moral imperative is what again.
And as customary here, all praise to Jehovah Bush.

Who Do We Love

Subsidies to farmers, mostly large corporations, amount to about $20 billion per year. Guess what we spent on upper education. Half this amount. I guess keeping American farm corporations is more important than our children. Or, perhaps, our congressman don't care about what is good for America, all they care about is getting some pork belly for their district/state and getting re-elected.

Perhaps we should limit terms to eight years. Get in and do some good, or get out. Don't let them stay in long enough to buy their future satisfying special interest groups.

What can we do. Not much. The country is not run for us anymore. The only feeble thing we could do is to vote against the incumbents. All Praise to Jehovah Bush and His Noble Band.

Opportunities

When I reached college age, I had good grades and a so-so SAT. But, I never had any doubts about being able to go to college ... that's the way it used to be in America. If you could do the work, you could get into college. I didn't start to shine until graduate school. Now I have a Ph.D., but today, I probably wouldn't be able to get into college with my high school record .... or lack of one.

Is this what we want in America. Do you know where all the seats in college are going to ... foreigners who are willing to pay more for them. Now, I don't mind them taking the seats. But, let's make more seats and assure that all Americans that can do college level work get the chance.

Guess what, global competition is fixing to put the hurt on Americans. We need to start fighting back by addressing what matters .... the education of our children is on the top of this list. We either arm our children our watch them die ... not physically, just their standard of living and their general well being. Jehovah's Bush's concept of "no child left behind" is a good one. However, just saying the phrase does not make it so.

Do you care?

Just a Trip South and An Old House

Yesterday, I took a business trip two hours south. Traffic stopped at one point on the high way and I looked to my right at an old two story colonial house on a few acres in Maryland. Old is the key work. Not in great shape but okay. I thought to myself, wow, there has been a lot of living in that house. Lovers, children, heataches, crying, laughing, dying. All in those rooms. I could live there.

On the way home, four hours later, I looked at the same house. It had burned down. It was all black. It was still standing like a shadow of the lifes, dreams and stories that once had filled her rooms.

Lots of people, stopped in their cars and gathered on the street looked at that old house. But, me and that old house had lived a little together. We had taken a journey through time with each other. He had held hands and stared into each others eyes. We had dreamed and wanted more. The rest of the people gathered round, had only chased an ambulance, attended a funeral, but they had never even had a moment with her. Some how, she must of know that I cared. I cared about happened in her walls and in the craddle of her arms in the warmth of her wooden embrace.

I drove on wondering what good fortune had allowed the traffic to stop those long moments and allow me to spend a few minutes with her on her last day.

Just in Time Nuclear Bombs

Here is a concept to balance the budget, to end terrorism, and to reduce the probability of annihilating the world.

What does it cost, hundreds to billions of dollars to maintain our 10,000 nuclear weapons. What does it take, 100 nuclear bombs to terminate or at least severely cripple our planet.

Let's get rid of most of our nuclear weapons, like 99%. We keep 10 and build the infrastructure to build 12 bombs a year (20% excess capacity). We then sell them one at a time to terrorists, undercover of course disguised as a Russian nuclear bomb salesman. And, of course, its wired to explode remotely after the terrorists take possession. Admittedly, a few million people may perish, but we get the terrorist and perhaps a few million dollars that we can pump back into our economy.

And, as soon as that one goes up we have another in the pipeline to take its place. We can even use them on other countries, and with good planning wiping out billions of people without ever really running out of weapons in our just in time system. Talk about a deterrent to attacking us, we can have a bomb of the month club. Of course, there are a few key players, like Russia that has thousands of nuclear weapons. We probably have to let them in on the action. That's ok, there will be plenty of terrorists to go around after we get this program in full gear. Heck, we may even have to take out a few states that didn't vote for Jehovah Bush.

The big savings comes of course from not maintaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons a 1000 times bigger than we need. Yea, I hear the Republicans want to keep all 10,000, but the Democrats only want 9,900. Its good as Americans that we have the right to choose. Obviously, most Americans, in "America Was Great" want all these weapons since we elect the Republicans and Democrats. Oh yea, that's the only two we have. My dog, Ashton, tells me that he favors fox hunting, its more civilized that build nuclear weapons. But, what does he know, he's a Jack Russell Terrier and we all know their aggressive tendencies.

Nuclear Weapons

Let's say we keep 10 nuclear weapons. Let's say, China, attacks us. We drop the ten nuclear weapons on their ten biggest cities. We wipe out one billion people. Do you think that would deter them. That’s the idea isn’t it, to deter our enemies with our arsenal. At that point, the entire planet may be on the edge of annihilation, a minor detail.

Is that enough of a deterrent to stop their attack. Yes, good its worked. NO, then the next option is to finish off the planet with more nuclear weapons. That will stop those bastards. And, us too, of course. But, we have stopped those bastards. No messing with us. We are ready and able to wipe out the planet if you mess with us, sayuth Jehovah Bush.

Our nuclear policy, now governed by Jehovah Bush, assumes that we are the sacred, the blessed, capable of dealing with a power to destroy the world as we know it. Image if the Incas had had such power when the Spanish came and destroyed their way of life, their culture, their world. They could have just wiped out Madrid and the rest of Spain, and throw in Europe, and it would have saved the Incas. Perhaps, destroyed our planets, but saved their culture.

Is our culture really worth saving. A culture that won’t shelter the homeless, won’t feed the poor, won’t educate its children, is it really worth saving. Won’t not can’t. Let’s protect the wealthy with nuclear bombs. What a plan! Send people to the moon again and then to Mars. But, keep the homeless and prostitutes from working in front of the White House, and Nuc anyone who opposes us.

If we could just find those terrorists, we could nuc them. We could wipe out the entire area, except for the fact that all that oil we need is under their feet. Perhaps, we could just Nuc the Palestinians, that would show them. Perhaps we could nuc the Iranians. That would make Christians of them all.

We have 10,000 nuclear weapons. Our entire way of life will perish to support this nuclear arsenal, but as Americans were are too stupid, too timid, too trusting, too idoitic, to do anything about it. We deserve our fate.

Middle East Country buys Port Management Company

First, what makes you think we are safe now from Terrorism at our Ports? Do you really think it will be more or less safe if the United Arab Emirates takes over?

And second, with our energy hogging ways coupled with our gutless energy policy, where do you think all the money is going? What do you think they are going to do with all that money? We are selling America one tank of gas at a time. We are selling out children's future. All because we won't face the basics with regard to energy.

Guantomino Bay

Guantomino Bay
What’s the plan in Guantomino Bay. Is the plan to keep the prisoners there without due process of law until they die or until Jehovah Bush dies? Which is it? Doesn’t anyone in America, the once noble republic, care about due process of law?

Don’t give me the crap about it only applying to American Citizens. It’s a concept that applies to every human on the planet. Unless, of course, that you believe Americans are a super people, the basic Nazis approach. To say that our concepts do not apply to all mankind is to make a mockery of all of our noble beliefs. It proves Big Bin’s statement that we are tyrants that make up the rules as we do along. We are self-serving and really believe in nothing. Look’s like Bin has us on this one.

In a way, Bin was a test. Bin is a test. A test to find out if we have any real principles left in America – or are we fat cats just living on our remaining wealth and military power. The end of America won’t come from a military defeat, it will come when there are not enough of us left that care about the principles that made this country great. America is dying, one day at a time, in Guantomino Bay.

Government Should Resale the Drugs

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Federal agents have seized nearly $5 million in illegal drugs this week on the border in the Nogales area, authorities said.

The above was the headlines this week. Now the question is, what should they do with the drugs. Destroy them?

Plan A. What is the effect of destroying the drugs. It removes them from the street, potentially putting upward pressure on the prices. Higher prices increases the incentive for others to enter the trade. The more drugs taken off the street, the more incentive for new drug entrepreneurs.

Plan B. The government should resale the drugs. Check them for safety, that they are good quality drugs. Put a seal on them verifying their quality. They could even mark them up some because of the seal. Putting the drug back on the street has several important effects: 1) it keeps the supply of drugs constant, 2) the police make money to fight drugs, and 3) it cuts the drug dealers out of their revenue. In short, apply this system effectively and it makes drug selling unprofitable.

Well, what about the people using the drugs. Well, for the most part, they just keep on using the drugs. Demand is inelastic meaning the demand is not altered much by price. In either case, whether the police put the drugs back on the street or not, the use of drugs is not altered. Temporarily there could be a lowering of inventories, but drug supplies will soon make more to fix the shortfall in inventory to make sure it doesn’t impact their customers.

Ok, Plan A is what we have been trying for 30 plus years. It’s called the Drug War. We have proven that it doesn’t work. Of course, the other half is that we treat people with a drug problem like criminals, unless they are alcoholics, in which case we name clinics after them.

Our Drug War is the Definition of Stupid

Stupid. What is the definition of stupid. When you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result; that is the definition of stupid. Drug Wars. Have you noticed that there are tunnels going from Mexico to the U.S. in the news. Have you noticed that billions of dollars are spent each year on pot dispite billions of dollars spent trying to stop it. Have you noticed that this has been going on for 40 plus years. We keep doing the same thing for 40 years and expecting a differnt result and somehow we are amazed that we get the same result.

Do you know what a proportional control is? Say you want to control the amount of water being pumped into a tank. You have a level control that reads the differnece between the tank being full, where you want it, and the actual level. the bigger the differnce, the more the value is opened to allow water into the tank. Drugs. Pot. People want them. when you disrupt the supply, the demand goes up. the proportional controller notices the gap between supply and demand and opens up the valve. Close down a tunnel, the price of drugs go up, and another 10 tunnels are dug. In reality, most drugs are just brought over on cars going across the border legally.

So, what is the drug war all about. More than half of American adults have tried pot. Should we put them all in prision, or continue to just put the poor and minorities in prison. The Great Wall of Mexico, perhaps that would fix it. Rememeber the proportional controller. Remember the definition of being stupid.

Our drup policy is stupid. We are stupid. We somehow are unable to stop the pattern. What amazes me is that we just keep doing the same thing year after year. I guess being amazed year after year, means that I am stupid -- it fits the definition. But, what about our system lets something continue that makes no sense. Is it the hypocritical nature of religion forcing itself upon our culture, our national vaules? Or, is it just plain dishonesty?

Guess how we end the insanity. We make pot legal. And the world ends, is that you think? Life as as we know it ends. No. Nothing happens. It is already happening. People already smoke pot. Dua. We smoke pots and we put blacks in jail for our sins. A sin that we create by our laws. Change the law, and it is no longer a sin. Perhaps a few less tunnels will be built. Perhaps less black will rot in prison. Perhaps the level of honesty in the Universe will increase. Probably not.

Stupidity, self righteousness as been around for a long time. It is probably too much to expect it to change.

Exxon the Great

Exxon just made the biggest profit of any company in the history of the known universe, something like 31 billion last quarter. I say great. They did their job, they optimized the return for their shareholders. I started buying shares of Exxon ten years ago and they have contributed to my oldest daughter’s college education and will contribute to my youngest daughter education soon. Thank you Exxon. Thank you BP. Thank you, Occidental. I love you.

If Exxon played by the rules and won big, then more power to them. The excessive profits tax is just plain stupid. Popular, but stupid. I refuse to discuss it, its so stupid. One of the few times, I am glad that Jehovah Bush is the reigning King of Macho America.

What is stupid is our total disregard for the FACT that WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF CHEAP ENERGY. Our politicians have no guts for the truth. The only energy supply that is sufficient to keep us going for the next hundred years is Nuclear. Second choice is coal. Third choice is mass transit – go to the moon mass-transit, not lets build another monorail between Baltimore and Washington mass transit. We are out of easy answers, no-effort answers, no-consequence answers. But, even worse, the cost of doing nothing, i.e., the current policy, is a dramatic fall in our living standard as we all fight for declining oil production. China will win that fight. Look at their cash reserves, put a negative sign on it, and it equals our cash reserves. We are stupid and lack vision and leadership. We want easy answers and there are none. We lack the moral fiber to even address the issue honestly.

Oil reserves in Alaska. Stupid. It doesn’t matter. Spit in the air, that’s how much difference it will make if we drill in Alaska in the bigger picture of things. Oil supply is in decline, nothing we can do to change that. The supply is going down and the buyers are increasing – China, India, Asia, South America, Texans.

Hydrogen power. Again, somewhat stupid. Hydrogen is similar to electricity. It is a way of carrying power from point A to point B. But, you have to make the hydrogen using another energy supply. To have hydrogen as the primary focus of our energy policy is just plain stupid, or dishonest. We are all gutless idiots in this debate.

Does it mean things are hopeless. No, only as long as we remain stupid, gutless idiots. When we get some moral fiber behind us, the courage to be honest, the strength to standup for some unpopular choices, then we have prayer. Until then, we are toast, burnt toast.

Due Process

Due Process
When did we decide as a country that our principles only apply to American citizens.  We promote democracy and rule of law all over the globe, witness Iraq, at least with our tongues and guns.  But someone that is expected of terrorism, does not deserve Due Process of Law according to Jehovah Bush.  This applies to U.S. and British citizens, and of course, to all the secondary citizens in our holy empire that belong to countries of less importance, e.g., Pakistan for instance.  I pick Pakistan since I know someone from there that ended up in prison for two years without Due Process of Law.  He was never charged with any offense and was then released.  No sorry-we-did-that, we-ruined-your-life, but-it-was-for-a-noble-cause --excuse, or anything similar.   He WAS well off and could almost afford spending a few hundred thousand on lawyers that could do nothing, since he did nothing, and was charged with nothing, but simply held in prison, by Jehovah Bush who thought he was of the right color and ethnicity to be suspect.  All of his family had American citizenship, so of course, they were not suspect visa-vie our nobility and high principles.

Of course, we set the stage with the way we handle the drug-war and income taxes, where the Government has extraordinary powers to protect us from ourselves and condemn any mere mortal without due process.  Did you see that story on 60 Minutes this week where a guy was put in prison for using too many pain pills (and allegedly trafficking in drug sales) for a severe back injury?  The government decided, and convinced a jury, that he could not take as many pain pills as he bought although after three months of surveillance they could not find any evidence to support this assumption.   Now, in prison for 25 years, he gets morphine on demand from Jehovah Bush.  His wife and young children now love America.  

A government taking power is nothing new.  A people not fighting back when they are being destroyed (Jews) is nothing new.  Declaring others to be evil and then killing or punishing them (Salem Witches) as part of a noble cause is nothing new.  So why I am amazed that the American people do not get upset with the Patriot Act or Guantanamo Bay?  We have no values other that consumption (as in consumerism).  If it doesn’t impact the shopping mall, then who gives a shit.  I guess I am the last radical who believes in Due Process on the planet.  And, oh yea, the Democrats are taking a strong stand against these abuses and for Due Process of Law.  Oh yea, I forgot, they might lose a vote if they said a suspected terrorist should get Due Process of Law.  Standing up for something and losing their meal ticket is expecting too much.  And American, once was GREAT.

American Values

American Values
What is the number one American value?  I don’t want lip service here.  What do our actions say the number one value is in America.  How do we judge each other.  Nothing noble here.  Raw reality.  Some hints?

When we judge a career, what is the first thing we say about it?

What is the number one activity in America?

Where do teenagers spend their time?

What do teenagers want to wear?

The number one value in America is the acquisition of wealth.  Look up “The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition” on the Internet.  They pretty much describe American actions, policies and inclinations.  How is the religion of acquisition practiced by the masses?  Consumerism.  It is what makes us tick.  We are what we acquire, and with that I agree, sadly.

The End of Easy Street

The End of Easy Street

Few people seem to have noticed that 2005 was a land mark year.  No, it wasn't something that Bush did.  It was the first time since oil became a major fuel that we did not discover more oil than we used.  Many believe that we are at the peak of world production of oil.  Most believe everyone is pumping all they have.  Oil production from a well follows a bell-shaped curve.  Sum all the curves for each well together and you have the world production also following a bell shaped curve (with a few bumps). 

But, guess what? It may be happening in other commodities.  Copper for instance.  Prices are at the $2/lb level, double the ten year average.  Ore quality is dropping and new projects are coming on slowly and are of general poorer quality than existing mines.  Yea, there are still some places like Zambia and Zaire that have it good deposits that are not being exploited.  But there are places like the Garfield Smelter in Utah where they are spending hundreds of millions to just get another ten years of life out of the mine. 

Add China to the equation.  If they keep growing like they have for the last ten years then there isn't enough oil and copper in the known Universe to make it happen.  So, what gives.  Couple that with the U.S. government and people borrowing money to feed their addictions, i.e., consumerism and the Chinese loosing control on their currency (albeit gradually) and diversifying to other currencies in their reserves .... duu?  Not enough hints?  Where is the U.S. dollar going?   The only thing keeping it a float at the moment is that it is the world currency. So, if it loses value everyone in the known Universe loses.  But, at some point, Bush and Congress will spend enough that even the Chinese will not be able to prop it up and simultaneously buy energy and copper, etc.

Where is all this leading.  The end of cheap energy and commodities will impact those that consume more than their share.... the U.S. with 5% of the world population consumes 25% of the world energy.  It is not a done deal that the U.S. can't respond, but we are at the back of the pack and twenty horses are rounding the final turn in front of us.  Seabiscuit would have had trouble coming back.  Yes, weare not in front anymore.  I ramble.

If any economy and any people in the world can  rally and change the outcome it's us.... greedy Americans.  But, at the moment we are diverted on killing children in Pakistan to get a terrorist and a million other worthless and even wrong endeavors while we are being blind sided by some serious changes in the world economy.  It may very well be that the U.S. life style has peaked, the lifestyle based on cheap energy and unlimited resources.

The Great Wall of Mexico

The Great Wall of Mexico
There is a lot of fuss about the security of the Mexican Border.  Why is there a problem?  Duu?  Because Mexican workers need jobs and we need Mexican workers.  And, because our policies don’t allow this to happen.

What about American workers losing their jobs.  There are two parts to this.  One is the last legitimate prejudice in the world.  You are allowed to be prejudice against someone because of where they are born.  You may support policies that embody this prejudice and still be an okay person.  Well, not in my book.  At best you can be misguided.  A child born in Mexico, on the south side of the Rio Grande, deserves a job just as much as one born on the north side of the river. Period.  The only question is how to make it happen.  Anything that moves away from this principal is being prejudice against someone because of his or her place of birth.  Nationalist is very close in principal to racism.

Second, U.S. workers are losing jobs.  But, it will happen whether or not the Mexicans are involved.  See China.  See India.  Wakeup, smell the competition.  If the U.S. wants to stay on top of the food chain, then learn one word: Education.  Mexico doesn’t matter much in the bigger picture.  It is called, watched my lips, G..L..O..B..A…L..A..Z..A..T…I…O…N.  Globalization, coming to a job near you.  Couple that with the upcoming End of Cheap Energy and mission control, “We have a problem.”  The Mexicans, the south-of-the-river people are as likely to be a part of this solution as north-of-the-river people.

What It's About

What made America great? Do our values reflect a great country or one in decline? Is the Patriot Act something we should be proud of? How about the Great Wall of Mexico? How about the bombs we drop on Pakistan? What about our airports, safer or just for show? Are the elected parties (Democrat and Republican) there for us or just to hold onto power? How are we responding to a Global Market Place? Globalization? Foreign Competition? What values are we passing on to our children? Commercialization? How are we going to respond to the end of cheap energy? What do the new reality shows say of our collective consciousness? What about the war on Drugs? What about racism? What about nationalism? Affirmative action? The death of religion? These are a few subjects that I have an opinion on, stay tuned.