Wiki Leaks

It has been awhile since I felt a need to scream aimlessly with no one hearing (or write on this blog). But hearing that Wiki Leaks is releasing yet more secret documents made me feel the need again.

My main problem with Wiki Leaks is that the argument for it is that the American public deserve to know what their government is doing, and the government should be willing to tell everyone what it is doing. Now I was just recently reading one of my favorite themes and that is secret activities to gain intelligence during the Cold War. Most of the stuff that I can find was released with in the last 5 to 10 years, this is stuff like sending subs into a harbor in Russia to take soundings so that they can get a idea if it is used as a sub port, and tapping a phone line off of the Russian coast that the head honchos in Russia used to communicate. Now if the government had been making all of this public as they went none of it would have succeeded. Like wise if the government were to tell us their candid opinions about how the talks with the Korea's are going, we would soon be at war. There are things that must remain within the government in order for them to do their job. We elected those men and women because we trusted that they could do the job. Now their job is becoming even harder because people do not understand that there is a need for secrecy. A diplomats job is to communicate with other diplomats in a formal almost rehearsed way. Often even during war the diplomats will speak to each other with utmost respect. Does this mean that when he calls his supervisor he maintains that respect for the other diplomat? More than likely he will tell the President or NSA flat out what he thinks the other guy was really thinking or what he thinks the other country is planning. Those conversations are what is going to be released by Wiki leaks, they are not hard facts and they are not even actions, they are simply conversations about foreign heads of states.

It is time for people who do not trust the government to quit trying to cut it down, this is the greatest country on Earth and our government, while it has its problems, is still working for the best of this country. It is time that they received some respect for this instead of the criticism that we are so glad to give.

Easy to Say...

In light of the "Official close of the combat mission in Iraq" I just had to make a few comments. One, Biden's response to claims that violence is on the rise there were shocking. He claimed that the reports were exagerated by the press. I can see from where I sit here in Liberal Oregon, that there will be a rise in violence. It is called testing the new system, I like to compare it to kids in a classroom. When a new teacher comes in the kids always throw their worst behavior at that teacher until the teacher proves they can control them. Hence the same is going to happen in Iraq. The police and security forces are going to have to prove that they have the strength then things will go back to the usual one car bombing a week.

Can we hurt it?

I was recently reading a Rush Limbaugh book (that tells you a little bit). In the book he made the claim that no matter what we do we can not possibly harm Earth short of a nuclear war. Now I would have to say in the case of carbon emissions and pollution, I do not believe that humans are powerful enough to harm this planet. My reasoning is that volcano's put far more CO2 into the atmosphere and far more toxic chemicals into the water than we will. And that has not changed anything too much. But what is making me wonder if I may have to revise my theory is the oil spill in the Gulf. Nobody seems to be willing to admit just how much oil has been leaked into the ocean so far, but with the spill threatening every coast in that region, and thoughts going on toward it crossing into Europe at some point, I would say that this could drastically change Earth. But then I may be wrong too, maybe I too am being arrogant as some others in my belief that we could ever cause a change in this planet. Maybe it will surprise us all and prove that we are very small and do not really understand this great planet as much as we wish.

Typical President

In with the new out with the old

I have been off the radar and just had to go back in time and read about the primaries. It is interesting to me that the Tea Party candidates, so far as I can tell, only won two of their primaries. That would be NV and of course Rand Paul in Kentucky. That is interesting to me because it seemed that they were the majority of the Republican votes, or so the press made them sound. But it seems that in many cases it did not matter what Tea Party wanted, all that mattered was getting the old faces and names out of office. And I believe that this is something that may carry over into November, the want for new, clean, unblemished names in office. The American people are sick and tired of being lied to, not just by those in office now but also the Bush administration and others prior to that. It seems that lies have become the way to advance your political clout. I am sure that nobody or at least very few take office because they want to pull the wool over the public's eyes. I believe they just do not see any other option, the people suck up those lies. So yes I am going to blame part of the corruption on the individual voter, we have been electing governors, presidents, party members ect. who have proven in their personal lives that they are not honest people. We have had a president who tried weed but did not inhale, and vice president nominee who can not seem to get her figures straight on her own state that she governs, several scandal cases have rocked governors. Their are judges whose motives are questionable, Congressmen that have their hands in mixed up in various money making schemes that no longer make them able to make decisions that the American people want. Now those are all over the last 25 years or so and now I think the people are finally realizing that to change the problem they need new people. They need people who can not be swayed to give in to whats "normal" instead they will stand up for own beliefs, the ones they were elected for. This is the hope of the American people as they begin to think about elections, it is no longer Rep. or Dem. but instead, will they stick to want they were elected for and will they bring a new age to America? I sincerely hope that no matter who ends up as the majority after elections, that in a year or two the polls will finally show that the people like who they elected.

Pay Now, Pay Later

The European Union is in big trouble, with their debts taking up more of their GDP than most other countries, and the euros value plunging something like the U.S. housing market two years ago, it is clear that something has got to change. But are the people willing to change and willing to learn or will they just pull out of this spiral and wait for the next. It is obvious that with out change to the system Europe will continue to have recessions. They way that the investments and euro value works was explained to me as something akin to the security backed mortgages that brought so many banks to their knees. Now I will not get into those because I don't know enough about econ to explain even what a security backed mortgage is, but I do know that part of Europe's problem is that the government has too many responsibilities. Europe has a health care system and a standard of living that for years has been the model of what a government can do for its people, now we are seeing what happens when the government takes a burden like that on its shoulders. It can only stand for so long before one little thing brings the whole system crashing down. I compare it to a building, has a foundation that is rated for so much weight and height, as you add on to that building you start to push the boundaries of what that foundation can hold, eventually a wind comes through and suddenly that foundation begins to break and crack up. Now you have a couple choices, one you can put filler in the cracks and just keep doing that till it all crumbles down, or two you can restructure the building. Aka take some rooms out, make it smaller. So it is with a government, they are designed to help the people to keep everyone pointed in a common direction, but if you start giving them more responsibilities like health care and retirement and people begin to depend on them for a standard of living, suddenly it is like that house and the foundation begins to break up. Then when that wind, for Europe Greece's mis-use of the system and the euros sudden lose, comes through something has to be done quick. Europe choose the patch method, of throwing money into the cracks to heal it. This may have been their only option but now they need to begin scaling back, raising retirement age, cutting health benefits, raising taxes. For people who have been so dependent this is a terrifying spectacle, but to me I see it has a look in the right direction. People need to be more self sufficient, it is not the governments job to make sure that we have money to retire on or that we have health care. That is our own job.

Currently America is following Europe, even as their system fails we are trying to copy it. There needs to be a wake up call to the white house that our government is not able to take care of what it has on its plate. We boast a multi trillion dollar debt and technically we already did what Greece did. We hit our debt ceiling and should have had to default on our loans, but instead we just had the power to raise our debt limit. To me this means we need to follow Europe's example today, cut benefits, cut health care, cut social security. And in due time that will lower our taxes and the country will be able to remain self sustaining and with a manageable debt.

What is Proof of Residence?

This question has been the biggest one in my following of Arizona's immigration law.


F. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN FEDERAL LAW, OFFICIALS OR AGENCIES OF THIS
 STATE AND COUNTIES, CITIES, TOWNS AND OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THIS
 STATE MAY NOT BE PROHIBITED OR IN ANY WAY BE RESTRICTED FROM SENDING,
 RECEIVING OR MAINTAINING INFORMATION RELATING TO THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF ANY INDIVIDUAL OR EXCHANGING THAT INFORMATION WITH ANY OTHER FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY FOR THE FOLLOWING OFFICIAL PURPOSES

 1. DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY FOR ANY PUBLIC BENEFIT, SERVICE OR LICENSE
 PROVIDED BY ANY FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE.
 2. VERIFYING ANY CLAIM OF RESIDENCE OR DOMICILE IF DETERMINATION OF
 RESIDENCE OR DOMICILE IS REQUIRED UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS STATE OR A JUDICIAL ORDER ISSUED PURSUANT TO A CIVIL OR CRIMINAL PROCEEDING IN THIS STATE.
 3. CONFIRMING THE IDENTITY OF ANY PERSON WHO IS DETAINED.
 4. IF THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN, DETERMINING WHETHER THE PERSON IS IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE FEDERAL REGISTRATION LAWS PRESCRIBED BY TITLE II, CHAPTER 7 OF THE FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT.

So that is what the bill says about it. NO federal officer or state officer is to be hindered in any way from obtaining proof of residence. So now I just do not seem to be able to figure out if that means a drivers license or a green card. Or if it means a birth certificate, in which case does that mean that everyone should carry theirs with them? And if you are a domicile or somebody here on a work visa or student visa do you have to carry your passport and supporting documents with you?

I believe that this bill is a good step, something needs to be done to keep illegals out. If for no other reason than to applaud those who are willing to go through the system and become legal residents. But there are hundreds of security reasons as well, we have a border that is like a sieve, anyone who wants to can come and go, both between us and Mexico and Canada and us. How is that for security? Achmed could walk right into the US and no one would be the wiser. But I also think that Arizona has placed a little too much trust in their police officers. It seems to me that the bill kind of gave law enforcement a open season on picking up Mexican immigrants. We do not need to put another race under again, come on people does no one remember history? they used this same kind of strategy to discriminate against blacks. I can just see at the voting booths people of color being turned away because they forgot to bring their papers with them. Meanwhile I walk by unquestioned simply because I am white. That is where this could and will lead to if it is not put in check. But every change has to be drastic to catch the publics attention, so maybe this will catch everyones attention and then together the people can find a bill that: supports our immigration laws, and gives everyone that is a legal resident the same rights.