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Blog
THE TERROR ALERT LEVEL
| EXPAND YOUR MIND - END CENSORSHIP! |
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| Laws and sausages |
| 06.30.04 (6:18 pm) [edit] |
Otto von Bismarck said once, "The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night."
I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel like that is the case. I love sausages, but I don't want to know how they are made, and I recognize the need for government, but there are times I'd rather not know what the government is doing. I think that there are things a government needs to do that needs to remain a secret, but at the same time I do think that there needs to be a system of checks and balances, and that the government needs to be small, and elected by the people.
We don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic, and we elect representatives to represent us in congress. Democracy is the rule of mob, where the majority always gets its way. That is not how the Founding Fathers wanted it, and they knew that enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm, which is why they devised this brilliant system of checks and balances.
Laws are suppose to be difficult to create and implement, and pass through congress, which is why I am wondering how the US Patriot Act got passed so quickly and without much dissent. The US Patriot Act aims to protect Americans against terrorists, but it does so by granting new powers to law enforcement to snoop on criminals and terrorists, laws that could be used to spy on ordinary Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism.
I think we must be vigilant and not be pressured and scared into having our elected representatives pass bills that could ultimately take our away our freedoms and God-given rights. Keep an eye open and your mind sharp!
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| Good webpage |
| 06.30.04 (10:47 am) [edit] |
RedTigress and I was speaking last night about how Palestinians have received $5 billion dollars in development aid over the years, that staggering amount is more than the Marshall Plan that helped to rebuild Europe after World War II, yet the West Bank and Gaza look terrible and basic services are shot. With that much money you'd think that business and industry would have been created, schools would have been funded, and people would have jobs. Those places should be looking like the Paris of the Middle East, yet there is rampant unemployment and they are hot beds of terrorism and hatred against Israel and the United States.
The question is where did the money go? Is it any surprise that Arafat is one of the richest despots in the World?
Now I know everybody will jump on me and say that it's Israel's fault because Israel always bulldozes everything that they build, but Israel wouldn't be doing that if terrorists didn't live in those houses or if there were no attacks against Israel. I'd think with all of that money Palestinians would want to invest in peace and prosperity rather than giving it to mothers of martyrs. Here we have mothers against drunk driving and mothers against terrorism, yet there they have mothers for martyrs. There is something wrong with that picture, and that is an unbiased opinion, truthfully I don't think any mother would be proud if her son or daughter went out and killed innocent men, women, and children.
http://www.nycat.org/" title="http://www.nycat.org/" target="_blank"http://www.nycat.org/
That's a great webpage on some of the abuses going on with the Palestinian leadership and on terrorism in general.
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| CAT violating Palestinians' rights??? |
| 06.18.04 (9:02 am) [edit] |
Jean Ziegler, the United Nations special expert on the right to food sent a letter recently to Caterpillar CEO James Owens expressing concern "about the actions of the Israeli occupation forces in Rafah and in other locations in Gaza and the West Bank." According to Ziegler Caterpillar is helping to violate Palestinans' rights because their bulldozers are destroying agricultural farms, greenhouses, homes, etc. In response to the criticism Caterpillar stated that: "We have neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of that equipment."
This reminds me of the gun debate and the frivilous law suits that are brought against gun and ammunition manufacturers. Neither Caterpillar nor the manufacturer of guns or any other equipment can possibly put restrictions on how their tools or equipments are to be used. Does Israel use those D-9 and D-10 bulldozers to destroy houses of homicide bombers and terrorist sponsors? Yes, they probably do, but that is their problem and not Caterpillar's. If somebody wanted to buy a hammer and go out hitting people over the head with it, is that the hammer manufacturer's problem?
This is not the only thing that annoys me about this article I read, what annoys me the most is that the United Nations is once again picking sides, siding with the Palestinians. I always thought the UN, like the Red Cross, was suppose to be neutral and impartial, but I guess they are not. The UN is wanting to form a special committee under the Security Council that will deal specifically with the threat of terrorism and how to combat it, the problem is that the UN can't come up with a working definition of what constitutes a terrorist, and thus they are not getting anywhere. Many of the UN member countries don't consider Palestinian gunmen and homicide bombers as terrorists but rather as freedom fighters, and they don't want to distinguish between them. To me freedom fighters are people who rose up against the British crown and signed the Declaration of Independence, I don't recall them blowing themselves up or hurting innocent British settlers. As I think they just dumped tea into a harbor! And terrorists are people who deliberately target innocent people to induce mass panic and instill fear into the general population.
Sadly the problems in the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world, is the fact that people have hated each other for so long they don't remember what it was like to live in peace. The endless cycle of violence has to stop, but nobody knows how to do it, and it takes only one or two spoilers to wreck a peace train.
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| Palestinians |
| 06.15.04 (8:56 am) [edit] |
I watched the Discovery Times channel one evening, one of my favorite channels, and there was this special on Israel and Palestinians. Apparently some Palestinians want to abandon the whole concept of a separate Palestinian state in favor of one Israel where everybody has equal rights, the "one man, one vote," democracy. Here Palestinians live side by side with Israelis and have the same rights as Israelis, there are no walls because people are the same and can vote, etc. From what I gathered many Israelis opposed this idea since they are afraid that Palestinians will out-breed the Jews and then usurp democracy.
I think that Palestinians should be allowed to live as equal partners in Israel and be granted full legal, and voting rights. One man, one vote.
Just look at South Africa, many whites were afraid that giving the black man the right to vote would lead to chaos and devastation, and that apartheid was the only way to ensure that the whites were not "conquered" by the blacks. With the ending of apartheid and the establishing of the one man, one vote, this hasn't happened. Racism still lingers of course, but the all-out race war that was predicted didn't happen.
Giving Palestinians respect and dignity, and making them feel part of the united state of Israel will end some of the bloodshed and violence I think. Of course there will be detractors on both sides, and this might not work, but I know that if you live in a country where you are considered a second rate citizen, nothing good will ever be accomplished. As for the fundamentalists, there will always be crazies and they won't like this idea either, but killing innocent people is not the way to go about things.
My 2 cents.
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| ***An African tale*** |
| 06.06.04 (7:17 am) [edit] |
When I was 18 years old I went to Tanzania in Africa. I climbed Mt. Meru, and was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro but unfortunately I didn't make it and had to stay behind. During that time I also went on safari into the Ngorongoro crater, rode a Land Rover across the Serengeti, and met a Danish man and his wife who made jam and relish in their garage! How random is that? It was BTW the best jam I've ever tasted in my entire life.
But my reason for going to Africa was not to have fun, but to do aid work. My school, the International School of Geneva, Switzerland, had an agreement with the International School of Moshi in Tanzania, and a student exchange program, so with a few teachers and students I went down there to do a community aid project. I went along because I'm a great humanitarian and I love helping people.
I visited patients at the local hospital, renovated regional schools, taught English, aided in the construction of a learning center and orphanage for street kids, and built a house for a man who had become a parapelegic after a fall.
My experience in Africa was an eye-opener, I learned not to take things for granted. Trust me, the first thing I did when I got home was flush the toilet. To have a flushing toilet was an amazing thing, and if you've ever been out in the "field," you know what the hell I'm talking about. In fact any type of running water is amazing.
When I built that school in Moshi, I saw all of these school children who walked miles to school, in make-shift flip-flops made out of old tires, and they were carrying not only their school books, but gallon jars of water on their heads because their school had no water! Imagine American kids doing that, walking miles and miles to school carrying their own water! And the most amazing thing is that none of the kids complained, they were so happy to be getting an education, and were eager to learn. It seemed no matter where I went, or how poor the people were that I met, they were always hospitable and happy to just be alive. They didn't have MTV or the lastest handbag from Louis Vuitton, but what they had was enough, because what they had was family and friends who loved them.
Of all of the experiences one of the most horrific was when I visited the local hospital. The stench of sweat and urine was overpowering, and I could almost smell and taste the infections. There were flies everywhere, and in some of the rooms the blood had not been mopped up off the floor. There were two patients per bed because there were not enough to go around, and they were sleeping on dirty sheets. Two patients per bed!!! Here in America people complain if they don't get a single room at the hospital! But in Africa nobody complained because they were just happy to see a doctor. And boy were those doctors busy, they made an ER in inner-city Chicago look like an afternoon spot of tea with the Queen. Talk about performing medicine without the medicine!
My visit to the hospital will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I can't help shaking my head at people who go have cosmetic surgery and face lifts, when there are people in the world who require real surgery but there aren't enough surgeons to go around. Those guys from Doctors Without Borders are heroes all of them, willing to take time off from their busy schedules and comfortable lives back in their home countries and travel to Africa to do good.
I sometimes wonderful how well we'd fare back here if we didn't have power or running water for a year. I don't think we'd last a day without going crazy. But humans are adaptable, and I think we'd survive, but I'm more worried about what we've become in this modern, "civilized" world.
I sometimes think we are less developed than our brothers and sisters in Africa. We are too busy driving to work, playing golf, or going to the mall, than to sit down with our families and share stories over a camp fire or something like that.
We take too many things for granted, and complain a lot, even though we really don't have a warranted claim to complain. We complain about the price of Starbucks coffee, yet a kid in Africa with no water doesn't complain. He's just happy to be alive. It seems here in America we've just become accustomed to being alive, and the things we take for granted, like running water and electricity, we forget how much effort it takes to keep such services running. Then we complain about how much those services cost, which is rather small if you consider the cost of the cables, the pipelines, the wiring, the transformers, the water purification plants, and all those things that are required for utilities.
Do I want us to stop what we are doing and scramble to save Africa? No, I'm a realist, and I too am comfortable with my own life here, but I do think that we can spare a thought or two to the hundreds of millions of people around the world who do not even have access to safe, and clean drinking water. In the future oil will not be the thing which is fought over, it will be water.
The little thing that you can do is to give money to the Measles Initiative, and I'm honking my own horn here, but the American Red Cross in cooperation with international aid agencies and the UN, are busy eradicating measles in Africa. The cost to vaccinate one child: 80 cents! That's right, for the cost of a Coke in a movie theater you can vaccinate almost three children in Africa. If you want to help contact your local Red Cross chapter and say that you wish to speak to the person who handles International Services, usually it is the Emergency Services director of your local chapter. Tell him or her that you want to help support the Measles Initiative in Africa. For more information you can look at this website: http://www.measlesinitiative....
80 cents is nothing, I bet you've got 80 cents in pocket change right now. That's a child's life you are holding there, you can save a life. Together we can save a life (the American Red Cross motto, I thank you hahaha)!
I guess the purpose of this blog was just to share some of my own thoughts and experiences, and to perhaps open your eyes a bit to things that are important. I thank you for taking the time out of your lives to read this, and hope that the next time you complain about a little thing, think about whether or not it was really worth your time to be upset about it in the first place. Save your energy for more important things, and stay happy!
Shark99 :D
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