The Whole World Is Suspect!

And we had better be watching for aliens from outer space!

USA Today reports that the government's terrorist watch list has now hit 1 million. That's a 32% increase since 2007! Now just how in the world do you keep track of that?

The FBI says 95% are foreigners. Terrific. People are put on it by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Like the local traffic cop after issuing a ticket. Did you know that can happen? There are various levels of offenses that will get you on the list but just what the offense may be is not divulged.

What makes the matter worse, when people seek redress, some 51,000 in the past two years, they find that they have been misidentified. Do you think? Some of those names include Senator Edward Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. There is also Robert Johnson. Now there's an uncommon name. I know a Robert Johnson. The only thing he's likely to terrorize is a bottle of Scotch! John Williams? Which one? I must not forget John Anderson. Age 6.

Long before 9/11 we lived in Seattle. We often went to Canada to camp or do the galleries. We also groused about how long it took to get back across the border. To come home! It's much worse now. What are they going to do during the Winter Olympics? It will be madness.

I haven't flown for several years. I resent being pawed by "security" guards for, as I was once told, "my own good". I resent the passengers who when interviewed repeat the mantra, "well, as long as they're keeping us safe". From who? The 9/11 hijackers were here legally!

There are some 12 million illegal aliens in this country. How many of those names are on the watch list? Is yours? Is mine? This is one more instance where a bloated bureauracy has run amok and in so doing become largely ineffectual. There are no specific rules for who goes on the list. There is no easy way to get off the list.

Some intent on doing us harm will slip through the cracks. Even with all that is now in place - or maybe because of what is now in place. We'd do well to learn a lesson from the Europeans who've learned to pick themselves up and move on.

One million names and growing. The more it grows the more liberties we lose. Will we ever again be free of fear? Will we ever again be able to cross our borders or fly or sail or take a train without being screened? Which one of our lost liberties will be the one where we finally say enough? Or will we always be like lemmings marching to the sea until there is nothing left?

Too Much Of A Good Thing

As the war in Afghanistan escalates I find myself wondering what we have learned about fighting a war this day and age.

The complaint reigned loud and long in Iraq that our troops were ill equipped for the type of warfare they were encountering. Their body armor was inferior as was the armor on their vehicles. Our uniformed troops stood out like sore thumbs for the enemy to pick off then disappear into the countryside indistinguishable from the civilian population.

So we improved their body armor and reinforced their vehicles. However, the roadside attacks continue, IEDs are in plentiful supply and still the insurgents fade into the population - unless they blow themselves up in a suicide mission.

Now we are increasing troop strength in Afghanistan and better protecting our troops but to what end? They continue to be visible as a uniformed force and their increased protection has weighed them down to the point of decreased mobility.

Believing those who feel the war in Afghanistan is not one we can win, maybe we would do well to withdraw. It's the same old argument. We can't change the world. This long after the 9/11 attack would seem to make the capture of bin Laden academic. One, we still don't know where he is. Two, we don't even know if he is. He has plenty of advocates who will continue what he began whether he is still alive and at the helm or not.

Needless to say, I am anti-war. Especially when we continue to employ that which works in conventional warfare when the wars we are now engaged in are anything but. The new and improved body armor along with other required gear necessitates lugging an additional 80 pounds into combat. To add insult to injury, soldiers are becoming prone to orthopedic injuries. That circumstance can take them out of action all together. That may be good for the soldier but not so good for winning a war!

I found it interesting that these loads are equivalent to those worn into battle by medieval knights. Which force is most likely to succeed? Our troops burdened like the knight in the illustration or the fleet footed Robin Hood from the BBC series outpacing him? This is how it should be, Robin Hood, the good guy, winning. In reality it's just the opposite.

New armor, lighter in weight, is in the works. The trouble is it doesn't cover as much of the torso. Plus it won't be available for several years. So what are we supposed to do here? Will the enemy be sure to fire at the area known to be covered by the vest? Whew. This is wearing me out.

I've got a better idea. Another Dogwalk theory. Let's not wage war in the first place!

The Pork Queen - Nancy Pelosi

All across America small towns have their celebrations complete with Queen and court. It would seem we have one on the national level too.

Politico reports that House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi is open to a second stimulus package. She criticized the media for being too critical about the first for expecting too much too soon. Was there not enough pork in the first? Was there not enough allocated to save her little marsh mouse or find out why pigs smell the way they do?

This from the woman, who if she were up for a cabinet position, would probably have some tax problems of her own. While the new members of Congress fly commercial with the rest of we peons, she is known for demanding high end military aircraft to shuttle her entourage, including family, around and letting her upset be known should they not be readily available. Does she reimburse the military for their use? Does she pay tax on those jaunts as additional income? I rather doubt it. If Sarah Palin has to reimburse Alaska for family sojourns, then too should Ms. Pelosi reimburse the military. Not just for a first class ticket, either, but the full freight for operating expenses.

I do have to find fault with the President for allowing as much pork to pass in the first stimulus bill as was done, but is it me or does Ms. Pelosi just not get it? Actually, I think she gets it just fine. It's just that no one has had the will to reign her in. I find that worrisome.

The good news of the day is the market is up and Citi actually showed a profit. The bad news is the Democrats hold the house with the Pork Queen as speaker. The reason people are getting impatient is because they don't see the stimulus. Where is the job creation?

Military personnel cleaning up the planes after a Pelosi flight certainly isn't a job saved or created. If that is the thinking, then I can assuredly explain why pigs stink. They are, after all, pork.

The Best Reason For Breaking Our Dependence On Foreign Oil

This is a Saudi woman after having been lashed 50 times for the mistake of being raped.

A streamer on CNN this morning tells us a 75 year old widow in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for having bread brought to her house. That in itself was not her crime, but the fact that it was delivered by two young men to whom she was not related. If her appeal is denied what are her chances of surviving?

I have never been an isolationist and I understand we do not understand many cultures other than those of the civilized western world, but to maintain relations with barbarians for the sake of - what? - is insane. Countries who employ "religious police" to enforce an ideology defy comprehension.

I'm sorry. This is the 21st century. There is no excuse, especially under the guise of "religion" or "Islamic law", to tolerate such behavior. We've found, over the past eight years, that not only do we not understand them, we cannot change them. It's time we stop trying.

Instead of trying to bring Islamic terror mongers to heel by bribing war lords, perhaps it's time to isolate them. Truly isolate them. Left to their own devices perhaps they will destroy one another. Without the West's money and trade they have little to sustain themselves. You can't grow enough food stuffs in the desert to feed entire nations. Western countries have oil reserves; Canada does - we have our own. We might consider mending bridges with the Venezuela's of the world. While their leadership is unsavory, it hasn't yet fallen to the depths of the Islamic countries.

If we still can't quell the urge to "change" the world, let's help the poor African nations that are being systematically starved and slain into oblivion. What? They don't have any oil?

We haven't been able to bring human rights to China, obviously not to the women in Islamic countries and for that I am truly sick because we can't get them out. Nor, however, do we have to enable those who oppress them and that is exactly what we are doing.

Perhaps our efforts would be better spent helping to overthrow two bit dictators like Mumgabi in Zimbabwe! What? They have no oil??

Seeing women being lashed for the sport of men is a deplorable reality. Seeing children with flies thick on open sores barely covering skeletal little bodies that are starving is an equally deplorable reality.

One is ethnic cleansing. One is called religion. If the latter be true it doesn't take much to see why so many are beginning to question if, indeed, there is a God.

Good Legislation/Bad Legislation

Two articles caught my attention this morning. One was a guest opinion in the Spokesman entitled We'll live to regret suicide initiative ; the other was a poll in the magazine section regarding whether the government should pass laws to fight obesity.

As to the first, Washington state has recently legalized physician assisted suicide similar to what has long been legal in Oregon. I prefer calling it death with dignity. It eases the more tawdry implications, while being a better indicator of it's true purpose.

The writer feels this is the first step toward a convenient way of killing one another when death may or may not be imminent even though the medical opinion may so state. He uses himself as a case in point. He had been given the six month prognosis back in November 2005 and has lived to write this column.

As I read his thoughts I was thinking of the power Hub and I are holding over our dog's life. One day, probably in the not too distant future, we will have to make the decision if it's time to let him go. We've done it five times before and it never gets any easier. You ask yourself if you have the right to make that decision and you agonize over the timing.

One of the writer's points is that this legislation will eliminate trusting in God to determine the course. I have some problems with that thinking. I will concede, not having read the legislation, that he may have some valid points in pointing out weaknesses in the details. I look at the issue from a broader perspective.

First, just because the legislation is in place does not mean anyone has to utilize it. If you'd rather take your chances, go for it!
On the other hand, when one is in such severe discomfort that it's being considered in the first place, I, at least would like to have the option.

Those of you who are long time readers know I had a friend in Oregon who exercised the option. She was not weak, nor was she coerced. She was just plain exhausted from fighting constant pain and no hope. What course would God have chosen for her? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Who's to know. She was at peace with her decision as was her family. Those of us left behind are the ones who struggled with it. The question foremost in our minds was could we make that decision for ourselves. There may well come a point where many of us might want that option.

We ask the same about Bacchus. We've already decided we will not take extraordinary measures again. We did it at the onset to keep him with us awhile longer, but he's an old dog who has had a good life. We'd choose not to have him suffer more extreme trauma for our own selfish desire to have him with us for what we know will be a short time at best.

If we can do this for a beloved pet, why not people? I'd like to think, and I believe statistics from Oregon would bear me out, abuse has been rare if at all. Fearing all the "what ifs" does little but upset for unsubstantiated reasons.

This ties into the point, too, that we are dealing with adult human beings here who should be allowed to make decisions for themselves to leave this world with dignity and without pain.

It also ties into the poll about government legislating the fight against obesity. While death with dignity, with the proper, enforceable safeguards in place, is good legislation, trying to legislate obesity is big brotherism several steps too far. Again, we're dealing with human beings here. We may make the wrong choices for ourselves but to legislate removal of that right could lead to an expansion of government in our lives that would strip us of everything that makes living livable.

The worst part about government intervention in our lives is the government itself - made up of humans that supposedly have the ability to think things through and make good decisions. Look at them at work today. Is there any one of them that can make the decision for you better than you can make it for yourself? I won't even ask you to look at how many of those law makers are obese by today's medical standards.

So there is good legislation and bad, too much government intrusion versus some long overdue. The safety net, I would suggest, is the people we put into office to make those decisions. There are times we do a pretty poor job of "vetting" them!