Patriot Act

If you are truly a patriot and American Citizen, then you should fight with every ounce of your energy to eliminate this obscene degradation of our constitutional rights. There are other ways to fight terrorism, and if our government did not ignore intelligence reports about the 9/11 incident, the tragedy could have been avoided. Don't buy the snow-job.

Patriot Act II

Who will be the first government official to charge our American troops with terroristic thoughts and undermining morale of the troops?

According to a recent Zogby poll, 72% of our troops on the ground in Iraq, say we should leave within the year – and nearly 22% say we should pack-up and leave immediately.

Troops Thanked for their Service

Former Army Lt. William Redbrook, was told that he had to pay back the Army $700 for the destroyed body armor he wore when he was seriously injured by a roadside bomb.

"They said that I owed them $700. It was like, 'Thank you for your service, now here's the bill.' I had to pay for it if I wanted to get on with my life."

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Three Billion Dollars Later

Plan Columbia, which was supposed to stop the flow of cocaine into the United States, has failed to work. In fact, studies have shown that quantities have failed to diminish since its implementation. Now, our government wants to extend the plan for another five years. I think we need a new plan, don't you?

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How Government can save Money

Cutting the following positions will save millions of dollars:

* Deputy to the Deputy Undersecretary
* Assistant Chief of Staff to the Assistant Administrator
* Principal Associate Deputy Undersecretary
* Deputy Associate Deputy Undersecretary
* Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
* Assistant to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary

By the way, Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the state for Near Eastern affairs.

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Misguided Feminism Killing Boys

By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy."

The problem won't be solved overnight. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, these experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girls—and teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one.

Some scholars, notably Christina Hoff Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, charge that misguided feminism is what's been hurting boys. In the 1990s, she says, girls were making strong, steady progress toward parity in schools, but feminist educators portrayed them as disadvantaged and lavished them with support and attention. Boys, meanwhile, whose rates of achievement had begun to falter, were ignored and their problems allowed to fester.

Boys have always been boys, but the expectations for how they're supposed to act and learn in school have changed. In the last 10 years, thanks in part to activist parents concerned about their children's success, school performance has been measured in two simple ways: how many students are enrolled in accelerated courses and whether test scores stay high. Standardized assessments have become commonplace for kids as young as 6. Curricula have become more rigid. Instead of allowing teachers to instruct kids in the manner and pace that suit each class, some states now tell teachers what, when and how to teach. Physical education and sports programs have been cut and recess is a distant memory. These new pressures are undermining the strengths and underscoring the limitations of what psychologists call the "boy brain"—the kinetic, disorganized, maddening, and sometimes brilliant behaviors that scientists now believe are not learned but hard-wired.

Thirty years ago feminists argued that classic "boy" behaviors were a result of socialization, but these days scientists believe they are an expression of male brain chemistry. Sometime in the first trimester, a boy fetus begins producing male sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone for the rest of his gestation. "That exposure wires the male brain differently," says Arthur Arnold, professor of physiological science at UCLA. How? Scientists aren't exactly sure. New studies show that prenatal exposure to male sex hormones directly affects the way children play. Girls whose mothers have high levels of testosterone during pregnancy are more likely to prefer playing with trucks to playing with dolls. There are also clues that hormones influence the way we learn all through life. In a Dutch study published in 1994, doctors found that when males were given female hormones, their spatial skills dropped but their verbal skills improved.

In elementary-school classrooms—where teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turn—the mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls."

"Boys measure everything they do or say by a single yardstick: does this make me look weak?" says Thompson. "And if it does, he isn't going to do it." That's part of the reason that videogames have such a powerful hold on boys: the action is constant, they can calibrate just how hard the challenges will be and, when they lose, the defeat is private.

If our education standards and systems do not change quickly, boys will left to eat dirt.

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Shedding light on Referendums
Chris Bailey

If the endless gray days haven’t already sent folks into a mid-winter funk, they should have no fear. Despair is just around the corner. The darkest hour for any taxpayer — referendum time — is upon us.

For the most part, the primary election on March 21 will be ignored by all but the most party-oriented or habitual voters, of which there are very few. The exceptions, of course, will be where voters are being asked to approve tax hike or bond sale requests for their school, fire, park or library districts.

That’s because most voters know they’re being asked to give more money to public servants who, by and large, already have it better than they do in terms of pay, pensions and health care benefits. And those who pay any attention to the numbers also recognize that such requests are coming from people proposing budgets and long-range plans that are not financially sustainable — unless taxpayers ante up again later.

If you think this is “all about the kids” or “all about public safety,” ask yourself who benefits from passage. And then ask who will be paying if the tax hike rejected.
The answer to the first question is “public servants.” The answer to the second is “students” or “consumers.” None of these proposed tax hikes will be accompanied by plans that freeze or control wages in any significant way or bring to an end the belief that the expense side of the ledger can grow forever without consequence. Few will be accompanied by serious attempts to control the growing health care or pension costs that are bankrupting governments everywhere. Some will actually ask to put more people on the government pension dole.
You will hear many heartfelt arguments about the need to remain “competitive” in the employment marketplace, but no one will be able to explain why community colleges require more and more students who come from those so-called competitive marketplaces to take remedial classes.

And then look at the consequences for non-approval of referendums. I am not among those who consider those explanations “threats,” but they do tell me who is serious and who isn’t. Athletics and extracurricular activities and gifted programs are drops in school budget buckets, for example. If they are at the top of the cut list, attempts to rein in spending aren’t serious, but simply dabbling in emotion.

Without wage controls, any serious attempt to restrain school expenditures must look seriously at the big, often bloated programs like special and bilingual education. Because of parental and political pressure, they are often far out of line with expenditures on other students and legal requirements. I’m guessing most upcoming referendums will fail for one of three reasons. Taxpayers will feel they can’t afford them. Taxpayers won’t trust those who’ve said one thing and done another. Or they will resent that increasing the revenue side of the ledger remains the first resort while little serious effort is expended to reduce the cost side. Anyone expecting the sun to be shining March 22 had better be prepared to address all three. http://www.dailyherald.com/search/searchstory.asp?id=143447


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Stupid Educators in America

Some nasty things are going on in America's public schools and it's about time we face up to it. Kids at New York's Abraham Lincoln High School said their teachers are so dull students fall asleep in class. One student said, "You see kids all the time walking in the school smoking weed, you know. It's a normal thing here."

At Woodrow Wilson High, one of the best schools in America, one teacher didn't have control over the kids, another videotaped a boy dancing wildly with his shirt off, in front of his teacher.
A Gallup Poll survey showed 76 percent of Americans were completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids' public school. Education reformers have a message for these parents: If you only knew.

Many education professionals say Americans don't know that their public schools, on the whole, just aren't that good. Because without competition, parents don't know what their kids might have had, and while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement. Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved … We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better." He's absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn't helped American kids.

Schools do not need more money, people! Regardless of how much they scream, or how many threats they hurl at you, more money will not help your children.
Ben Chavis is a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., and spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools. He laughs at the public schools' complaints about money. "That is the biggest lie in America. They waste money," he said.

How do U.S. students perform compared with their European counterparts?
Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks, and called them "stupid." We didn't pick smart kids to test in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey's kids have test scores that are above average for America.

Lov Patel, the boy who got the highest score among the American students, told me, "I'm shocked, because it just shows how advanced they are compared to us." The Belgian students didn't perform better because they're smarter than American students. They performed better because their schools are better.

American schools don't teach as well as schools in other countries because they are government monopolies, and monopolies don't have much incentive to compete. In Belgium, by contrast, the money is attached to the kids — it's a kind of voucher system. Government funds education — at many different kinds of schools — but if a school can't attract students, it goes out of business.
Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel said she works hard to impress parents. She said, "If we don't offer parents what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, saying, "You can't afford 10 teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the parents will know, and won't come to you again."
Statistics show that the longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from poorer countries that spend much less money on education, ranking behind not only Belgium but also Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. This should come as no surprise if you remember that public education in the United States is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Too bad. The school is terrible? So what. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their citizens. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.

Across the nation, it's virtually impossible to fire a bad teacher. Said one school executive, "We tolerate teacher mediocrity, because people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average or way below average." The executive also stated – "he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids," so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them.

Many people say education tax vouchers are a terrible idea, that they'll drain money from public schools and give it to private ones. In fact, a Florida court ruled against vouchers after teacher Ruth Holmes Cameron and union sponsored advocacy groups brought a suit to block the program. She argued that, "To say that competition is going to improve education? It's just not gonna work. You know competition is not for children. It's not for human beings. It's not for public education. It never has been, it never will be," Holmes said.

Now, ask yourself these very simple questions - Would you keep going back to a restaurant that served you a bad meal? Or a hair stylist that gave you a bad haircut? Or a Cell Phone provider that dropped 30% of your calls? What if the government assigned you to "your" grocery store. The store wouldn't have to compete for your business, and it would soon sell spoiled milk or stock only high profit items. Real estate agencies would sell houses advertising "neighborhood with a good grocery store." That's insane, and yet that's what America does with public schools.
Chavous, who has worked to get more school choice in Washington, D.C., said, "Choice to me is the only way. I believe that we can force the system from an external vantage point to change itself. It will never change itself from within. … Unless there is some competition infused in the equation, unless that occurs, then they know they have a captive monopoly that they can continue to dominate." Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do.

If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, science schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows what else. If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338

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Iraq Money

How are your tax dollars being spent in a war far far away?

Luxury cars, a $20,000 Harley Davidson motorcycle, $10,000 Breitling watches and mountains of cash were all part of an elaborate corruption scheme in Iraq that involves at least seven Americans, including five Army reserve officers.

Who is watching these folks?

A former Iraq reconstruction official, Robert Stein, a convicted felon who was inexplicably put in charge of $82 million in contracts, pleaded guilty Thursday to corruption, bribery, and weapons charges.

Who put this person in charge?

"He essentially funneled contracts to his cronies and received bribes," said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, in an interview with NBC News.

Who were his cronies?

"It shows the brazenness of the people who were around those sums of money and what they thought they could get away with," says Frank Willis, a former official with the Coalition Provisional Authority who has criticized the way the CPA handled cash.
E-mails cited in court records indicate that some unnamed U.S. officials even demanded specific cars: a white SUV and an electric blue sports car.

Who are these officials?

And what about the projects that were supposed to be built or refurbished in Iraq? A series of audits by Bowen's office found major problems. "There were millions of dollars in grants and contracts," he says, "that simply went for no work at all."
Bowen says cash was sloppily handled.

(This may be the understatement of the year)

"The management of cash was haphazard at best. We found that it was kept in footlockers of the trailers that people that lived there," he says. "There was a safe that wasn't locked in the bathroom of the office."

Some of the work that was done was shoddy, according to one audit. For example, a recently repaired elevator at Hilla General Hospital collapsed, killing three Iraqis.

The end result of it all on the ground in Iraq?

"The reconstruction efforts in the South Central Region, around Hilla, failed," says Bowen. "It failed because we had a person of significant responsibility, the person in charge of that money simply committed repeated criminal wrongdoing."
To place all this blame on one person is ludicrous. There is obviously going to be a major cover-up and the true culprits who enjoyed all the benefits will walk away without a blemish, and with some very nice parting gifts…

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I WANT MY PERKS

(MSNBC 2/3/06) Just two weeks after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pledged to pass far-reaching changes to the rules of lobbying on Capitol Hill, House Republican members pushed back hard against those proposals yesterday, charging that their leaders are overreacting to a growing corruption scandal. In a tense, 3 1/2 -hour closed-door session, many Republicans challenged virtually every element of the proposal, from a blanket ban on privately funded travel to stricter limits on gifts to an end to gym privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists.

Says Pesce, President of UCAnation.org “I’m a business professional and have been for over 23 years. I have managed many vendor/company relationships, and if you let vendors act like lobbyists, they will buy you all kinds of special things to get you to sign a deal with them. After all, paying $10,000 for a family trip for four to an exotic Island getaway is nothing if you as a vendor/lobbyist get that $15 million dollar deal. In the real world of business, any gift in excess of $25 dollars is unethical and frowned upon, and in most cases, grounds for immediate employment termination. It is time to start holding our elected officials to these same standards.”

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Rich vs. Poor

Two new studies find the rich are getting richer at a faster pace.A study released in late January, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, found that the gap between the highest- and lowest-income families is significantly wider than it was 25 years ago.An employee working full-time at the federal minimum wage makes $10,712 a year. About 7% (13.3 million people) of the workforce earns a minimum wage.“Growing income inequality harms this nation in a number of ways,” stated Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the income report. “When income growth is concentrated at the top of the income scale, the people at the bottom have a much harder time lifting themselves out of poverty and giving their children a decent start in life.”

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Fox Guarding the Hen House

Boehner, elected majority leader by his Republican colleagues last week, is involved in GOP efforts to reform lobbying rules.

House Majority Leader John Boehner rents a basement apartment from a lobbyist whose clients had an interest in legislation overseen or sponsored by Boehner, according to lobbying records.
Boehner, R-Ohio, pays $1,600 a month rent for the apartment owned by lobbyist John Milne and his wife, Debra Anderson, Boehner spokesman Don Seymour Jr. said.

“It is conceivable that John Milne may have lobbied Boehner on a few occasions over the years, but we are not aware of any specific instances of it, and we are certain no lobbying has taken place during the time in which John Boehner has been renting the property,” Seymour said.

Yeah, right!

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September 11

Terrorists funneled money through Dubai, and two terrorists came from the United Arab Emirates. Let them have our ports! This is an obscene abuse of political power.

States Mull Taxing Drivers
By MilePosted By: First Lady on 2/15/2005 1:22:12 PM in TAXES http://www.goofigure.com/UserGoofigureList.asp?forID= "(CBS) College student

Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just. So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW. And what kind of mileage does he get? "The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just. And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead...Tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road." (CBSNews.com 2/14/05)

Toilet Paper TaxPosted
By: TBird on 3/11/2005 10:43:12 AM in TAXES
http://www.goofigure.com/UserGoofigureList.asp?forID= "TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -

Florida's Legislature is flush with good ideas. Sen. Al Lawson's involves a 2 cent-per-roll tax on toilet paper to pay for wastewater treatment and help small towns upgrade their sewer systems.The Democratic lawmaker's pay-as-you-go bill has been the source of many jokes - bathroom humor you might say - but he says the issue is a serious one, especially in some of the fast-growing Panhandle coastal counties in his district." (David Royse/MyWayNews.com 3/10/05)

Still no Armor for Soldiers

WASHINGTON - Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.
Soldiers and their parents are still spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for armor they say the military won’t provide.

“Your expectation is that when you are sent to war, that our government does everything they can do to protect the lives of our people, and anything less than that is not good enough,” said a former Marine who spent nearly $1,000 two weeks ago to buy lower-body armor for his son, a Marine serving in Fallujah.

The father asked that he be identified only by his first name — Gordon — because he is afraid of retribution against his son.

“I wouldn’t have cared if it cost us $10,000 to protect our son, I would do it,” said Gordon. “But I think the U.S. has an obligation to make sure they have this equipment and to reimburse for it. I just don’t support Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of going to war with what you have, not what you want. You go to war prepared, and you don’t go to war until you are prepared.”

Soldiers and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees, medical supplies and even global positioning devices.“The bottom line is that Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department are failing soldiers again,”

Crime Against the People

WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday indicted Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates on charges of conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post. A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a “partisan fanatic.”The indictment accused DeLay, 58, of a conspiracy to violate Texas election law, which prohibits the use of corporate donations to advocate the election or defeat of political candidates. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme worked in a roundabout way, with the donations going to a DeLay-founded political committee, then to the Republican National Committee and eventually to GOP candidates in Texas.

Education Myths
By Jay P. Greene

Much of what people believe about education policy is simply not true. An examination of the evidence reveals that many common claims about education are as mythological as anything found in Homer or Aesop.

For example, many people believe that schools are desperately under-funded. In fact, public K-12 spending is approaching $10,000 per pupil — double what it was three decades ago, adjusting for inflation. And total school spending is approaching $500 billion — more than we spend on national defense ($454 billion) and more than the entire GDP of Russia ($433 billion).

Many people believe that teachers are horribly underpaid. In fact, the average elementary-school teacher makes $30.75 per hour, more than architects ($26.64), mechanical engineers ($29.46), and chemists ($30.68).

Many people believe that student achievement has been deteriorating for decades. In fact, today's students perform about as well as their parents in terms of standardized test scores and high school graduation rates.

Why is education so prone to myths?

Part of the problem is that almost everyone imagines himself an expert about schools. Everyone has been through school, most people have had children in school, and many people have worked in schools or know someone who has. We tend to generalize from our direct experience even when our perspective may be narrow or distorted. In other policy areas less familiar to us we are more likely to rely on systematic evidence but in education we think we already have all of the evidence we need.

Another part of the problem is that education policy involves children and anything involving children evokes strong emotions. Those emotions ensure our attention to education issues but they can also cloud our reasoning. For example, because we really care about children, it is difficult to question claims that we need to spend more money to educate them. We wouldn't want others, or even ourselves, to think that we were stingy about providing children the services they need.

But the most important reason myths are so prevalent in education policy is that there are special interest groups promoting them. Unfortunately, teachers unions, school-board associations, and others with a financial stake in education policy take advantage of our vulnerability to myths about education. While most of us feel comfortable entrusting our children to their teachers at school each day, the special interest groups that represent them and their schools do not warrant our trust. Teacher unions and the rest of the education establishment, like other special interest groups, will support claims that advance their agendas regardless of whether those claims are based on facts or myths.

This special interest-group behavior is not unique to education policy. For example, everyone recognizes the role that interest groups play in promoting sugar price supports or in the construction of roads. The sugar industry and construction lobbyists, like teachers unions, are relatively indifferent to whether their arguments are supported by evidence as long as they further their interests.

We usually recognize these special interest groups for what they are and take their claims with a large grain of salt. But in education policy our emotional commitment to teachers and children blinds us to this self-interested behavior of education interest groups. We want to believe that education policy is not governed by the same crass political horse-trading that sets the government price for sugar or determines which congressional district will get a new bridge.

Our desire to believe that education policymaking is exceptional — that it is fueled by the love of children rather than the maneuvering of organized interests allows education myths to proliferate. These myths cause real harm. We can't improve public schools without a proper understanding of what ails them. We need to place less trust in our own experiences, our emotional impulses, and the organized-interests pretending to be advocates for children.

We need to put more trust in the evidence.

— Jay P. Greene is Head of the Department of Education Reform at the
University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of Education Myths, published by Rowman and Littlefield.

The Teacher-Pay MythSeptember 22, 2005

By Jay P. Greene and Marcus WintersFEW cliches permeate our culture more thoroughly than that of the underpaid schoolteacher. In fact, many people would say that if they know anything about public schools it is that teachers deserve far more money than they actually get. Thus, many will sympathize with this week's vote by the New York City teachers union to hold a strike vote in a few weeks if stalled contract talks continue to deny them a raise.But the idea that teachers are underpaid is a myth. When we discard our presuppositions and look at the evidence, it turns out that teachers actually are better paid than many people realize.As of 2002, the average salary for teachers nationwide was about $44,600. That does seem modest. But we need account for the relatively few hours that teachers actually spend working compared to other professionals.Teachers have long vacation periods, several personal and sick days and work a shorter day than most other professionals. We can only properly understand these hours away from work as a benefit of the teaching profession. That is, a teacher who earns $45,000 to work for nine months is clearly better paid than a nurse who gets the same salary for working 12 months.Since teachers' work schedule distorts direct salary comparisons with other jobs, we need to look at hourly pay.According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. The average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64) - pales in comparison.Indeed, teachers' hourly rate exceeds even those in professions that require far more training and expertise. Compare the schoolteacher's $30.75 to the average biologist's $28.07 an hour - or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.Whose hourly pay is competitive with that of teachers? Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51) and even nuclear engineers ($36.16).Note, too, that these hourly figures exclude benefits, such as health coverage and retirement accounts, which are typically more generous for government employees, such as teachers, than for private-sector workers.New York City's teachers are especially well paid. According to the state's school district profile, the median teacher in the city earns $53,017 a year. Unfortunately, information on the number of hours worked by the average teacher in the City is not readily available. But, if we make the generous assumption that the average teacher in New York works the maximum 6.6 hours a day allowed by the union contract for the full 181 school days, that works out to $44.38 an hour.So, if teachers are underpaid, then workers in other professions are badly underpaid, too. But there's no clamor to raise the pay of computer scientists, dentists or engineers.But don't teachers spend a great deal of time grading papers and creating lesson plans while away from school? Some do - but the comparisons here are still fair - because other professionals do work away from the office, too. Engineers and computer scientists are certainly no strangers to long nights working at home.Nor do teachers spend all of their time at school in the classroom. In fact, teachers spend fewer hours actually instructing students than many recognize. Stanford's Terry Moe worked with data straight from the nation's largest teacher union's own data - and found that the average teacher in a department setting (that is, where students have different teachers for different subjects) was in the classroom for fewer than 3.9 hours out of the 7.3 hours at school each day.With several hours set aside at school for course-planning and grading, it strains plausibility that on average teachers must spend more hours working at home than do other professionals.The myth that teachers are underpaid is a significant hurdle to educational reform because it helps prop up the falsehood that schools in general are underfunded. In fact, taxpayers spend more money on public K-12 schools than they do on national defense, even more than the Gross Domestic Product of Russia.Yet, despite this generous investment, student outcomes as measured by standardized tests and graduation rates have been stagnant since the Ford administration.If we are to improve public schools, we must understand that the facts don't always square with our impressions. The story that on average school teachers are underpaid compared to other professionals is as widely told as anything from Aesop, and is just as mythical.Jay P. Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of the book "Education Myths."

OIL Price Gouging

We – American Citizens that is – have been told that oil prices are high because there aren’t enough refineries available, and/or other such mumbo-jumbo. Now it seems to me that, if it cost more to pump oil (hence the higher prices), then there would not be such a huge profit available during the selling process. Yet, many are getting humungous profit margins from oil sales. I don’t know about you, but I smell something very fishy around here.

Rising oil prices are nothing short of a curse for most Americans. But they’ve been a blessing for Al Fraches, a Calgary, Alberta, florist.

While most U.S. consumers are scaling back, residents of Alberta, Alaska, Venezuela, Norway and other oil-fertile regions are enjoying an economic boom so rich that, in some cases, the government is sending checks to its citizens.

World crude oil prices, which averaged $22.74 a barrel in September 1999, are now at $58.20, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, as demand has swelled from the U.S. and China.

Government royalties from Alberta’s oil sands have already helped the province pay off its debt, lower corporate taxes, freeze tuition at universities and launch a three-year, $7 billion capital spending program to put in new roads, and expand medical centers and schools.

Venezuela, which produces 2.9 million barrels of oil a day, enough to make it the world’s sixth-largest producer. Under President Hugo Chavez’s leadership, the government has significantly boosted production and filled its coffers, extracting more money in taxes and royalties from foreign oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron operating in Venezuela.Surging revenues from Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA, also have helped Chavez subsidize fuel prices in his country and reduce the price of oil and gas for several of his Caribbean and Latin American neighbors.In August, the average gas price in Caracas was 12 cents a gallon, according to data firm AirInc.

Venezuela and Alberta aren’t the first lands to reward residents as the price of oil has gone up. For 23 years, Alaska has paid a dividend to each of its residents from a Permanent Fund. The fund was started with oil money, then diversified into other investments such as stocks and bonds.The fund has paid every eligible resident, including children, an average of more than $1,000 each September since 1982.

In the past two years, gushing oil prices have helped Alaska go from a billion-dollar deficit to a billion-dollar surplus, Knapp said.And now the state is looking for ways to spend its newfound wealth. Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski recently used money from the state’s Revenue Department to purchase a $2.6 million Westwind II corporate jet, complete with a cream leather interior and in-cabin stereo system.

With refining capacity down, especially after hurricanes Rita and Katrina, some analysts expect high gas prices to eventually usher in a new economic U.S. downturn.“We are going to have a massive recession, the worst since 1907," said Peter Beutel, president of New Canaan, Conn.-based energy consulting firm Cameron Hanover. ”Consumers are just hemorrhaging money for energy,” even with some of the largest oil reserves in the globe.

FEMA is not the only Miss-Managed Agency

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters.

FEMA's top three leaders arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. A former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative fills two other senior operational jobs.

Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But, inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

Many agencies, at almost every level of government, hire family, friends, and large donation contributors rather than experienced professionals to run key government institutions.

There is not a State, County, City, or Village exempt from this abominable behavior. How many other tragedies are lurking that unqualified people will try to manage?
My guess is; MANY...

The New Orleans fiasco was not an issue of race. It is an issue of mismanagement, incompetence, and leadership failure.

Would you like 5 million dollars ?

Which would you rather have? $900 billion dollars to go to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the year 2010, or $5 million dollars in your own pocket?

The Senate recently voted to give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. military efforts against terrorism, money that would push total spending for the operations beyond $350 billion. In a 97-0 vote, our Senate signed off on the money as part of a $445 billion military spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

None of this money is earmarked for newer and better equipment for our soldiers.

The Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers, says the Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month for Iraq and $1 billion for Afghanistan, and war costs could total $570 billion by the end of 2010. This is in addition to the already spent $311 billion. All told, by the end of the year twenty ten, over $900 billion dollars will be spent on these wars. A Trillion US Tax dollars spent on lies.

Think about this – Our government could have given each and every United States citizen $5 million dollars each, for what it is costing to run these ill-conceived wars.

Which would you rather have?

Teacher Pension Reform

The average teacher in Illinois and many other states, who retires after 34 years of working, retires with a pension worth well in excess of a million dollars cash. Geez, wouldn’t all we working stiffs love that?

Each Teacher’s 8-percent contribution over 34 working years compounded, at 6 percent, adds up to about 15 percent of their pension. The other 85 percent comes right out of our - the taxpayers’ pocket.

This means that we taxpayers are contributing about 40 percent of the teacher’s salary to their pension plan. How does that compare to your company’s 401(k) contribution?

Congressional Corruption

Before you read the following with shock and disgust, ask yourself this – Why do rich politicians spend millions of dollars running for public office when the position they are trying to win does not pay very much money?

Congressman Randy Duke Cunningham seemed to be laughing all the way to the bank. Now, there are new details on just how deep the man had his hand in the cookie jar. Look at some of the payoffs he took for steering defense contracts to his local cronies:

$200,000 condominium in Arlington
$140,000 for the yacht
$35,000 for antiques
$13,000 towards the purchase of a Rolls Royce
$2,000 for his daughter's graduation party.

This list goes on and on.
Duke Cunningham was caught, but the question many Americans are asking is, how deep is the congressional cesspool? Six members are currently under investigation for possible crimes and ethics violations, and some reports say the number could go as high as 60.

But it won’t stop there – what about Wives’ of these scumbags?

According to Zuckman: “Well, it's possible that contractors or lobbyists were either steering business to some of the congressional wives' own firms or just giving money to them on the side, as a way of influencing their spouses in Congress. There are all sorts of things.”

What in the heck is going on in the nation's capital?

Congressional representatives make the rules. They have this unique system so outsiders cannot complain. The rules of the body are that they are meant to police themselves. They do not follow the rules, because they don't have to, because nobody in their political club hardly ever gets called up on charges, because you have to be inside the political club to actually file charges against somebody else inside the political club.

When politicians have this much power, they start to believe that they are entitled to certain luxuries in life. After all, they paid their millions to get elected and now they get to make the rules. When you are a politician, you don’t have to buy your own meals – lobbyist will pay for your meals. Politicians never have to drive a car, limos ferry them around free of charge. And the saddest part, the longer politicians remain in office, the more they think they are owed. Rolls Royce’s, mansions, condos, yachts. What a deal? and if you play your cards right, you will never have to pay for a anything, because there's always a lobbyist or someone there who wants to buy you something in order to bend your ear a little bit on how they would like you to vote on a certain bill.

The lid is about to get blasted off of the crime and ethical abuses that many of our nations leaders have been participating within and encouraging, for many-many years. So, when you hear the stories and see the political figures heading to courthouses all across the country, don’t be shocked – instead get angry. And then start looking at political offices closer to home. If this abuse is occurring at our nation’s capitol, you can bet it is happening in your states, cities, villages, and school boards. Political crime against the people is rampant in our nation, and it is time for the people to put an end to it. These actions are treasonous to the citizens of our country, and the full weight of the Patriot Act should be applied to send these politicians to prison for the remainder of their natural lives.

United Citizens of America

Angelo Pesce, President of the United Citizens of America invites you to read his first written novel EARTH 2010. This is an unpublished version that will have limited availability once final publication rights are signed. It is sure to be a collector’s edition as time progresses. Get your copy while supplies last.

Shop the CafePress Market here http://www.cafepress.com/?pid=955189

In This Issue:
A Novel that will blow you away.
1. EARTH 2010
“A Fantasy Novel that plays the ‘What If?’ question beautifully.” "A Great Read, and a must have for any personal library. Truly mind opening." Synopsis: READ A CHAPTER HERE For the first time in its history, the United States of America is invaded and the country has no armies, technologies, or communications to counter. Medieval warfare strikes a nation that no longer has the means to fight such battles, and with the majority of America's soldiers fighting overseas in Iraq, the nation's citizenship is exposed to wanton slaughter against a trained and deadly foe.
In the winter 2009, political conspiracy led by the powerful Majority Leader, Senator Jefferson Ash endeavors to finish the war in Iraq and garner their oil supplies for personal enrichment. He along with other members of congress secretly tests a weapon that could revolutionize modern warfare without the consent of the nation’s leader. The preceding cataclysmic event turns the modern world inside out, and plunges the earth into unimaginable chaos.
Imagine you and your family enjoying a mild winter day as you shop and look forward to the quickly approaching holidays. Unaware to you, your government is testing a weapon in the cold tundra of the Alaskan wilderness. The test is an utter failure, and it results in a wave that sweeps over the entire earth. You are driving in your car, miles from home as this wave of shimmering air courses through every vein and muscle in your body. Your car stops violently as you and your children are jerked forward. Everyone else sharing the road with you experiences the same, and you all exit your vehicles and look around bewildered. You watch in horror as aircraft start falling from the skies, and then a bitterly cold wind rips at your skin. You grab your children and scramble to the nearest structure for safety, and pray to the heavens to see you through.
This is only the beginning of the horror that faces Earth 2010.
The test of the Pulse goes haywire, plunging the Earth into technological abyss. In its wake it unlocks an ancient peoples trapped away for its evil and deception. The Elvin race of the west was locked away for a reason. With the disruption of the earth's equilibrium, they break free of their magical bonds and reemerge on a cotenant that has been drastically altered by the race that was instrumental in their imprisonment, Humanity.
Ancient magic replaces technology, and forgotten myths are revived. Will it be enough to save the human race? Or will Twenty Ten be the end? Sold ONLY at CafePress.comLink: http://www.cafepress.com/earth2010

$50 billion more for Wars

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Friday to give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. military efforts against terrorism, money that would push total spending for the operations beyond $350 billion.
In a 97-0 vote, the GOP-controlled Senate signed off on the money as part of a $445 billion military spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
None of it is earmarked for newer
and better equipment for our soldiers.
The Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers, says the Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month for Iraq and $1 billion for Afghanistan, and war costs could total $570 billion by the end of 2010. This is in addition to the already spent $311 billion. All told, by the end of the year twenty ten, over $900 billion dollars will be spent. A Trillion US Tax dollars spent on lies.
Think about this – Our government could have given each and every United States citizen $5 million dollars each, for what it is costing to run these ill-conceived wars. Which would you rather have?

The Teacher-Pay Myth

By Jay P. Greene and Marcus Winters
FEW cliches permeate our culture more thoroughly than that of the underpaid schoolteacher. In fact, many people would say that if they know anything about public schools it is that teachers deserve far more money than they actually get. Thus, many will sympathize with this week's vote by the New York City teachers union to hold a strike vote in a few weeks if stalled contract talks continue to deny them a raise.But the idea that teachers are underpaid is a myth. When we discard our presuppositions and look at the evidence, it turns out that teachers actually are better paid than many people realize.As of 2002, the average salary for teachers nationwide was about $44,600. That does seem modest. But we need account for the relatively few hours that teachers actually spend working compared to other professionals.Teachers have long vacation periods, several personal and sick days and work a shorter day than most other professionals. We can only properly understand these hours away from work as a benefit of the teaching profession. That is, a teacher who earns $45,000 to work for nine months is clearly better paid than a nurse who gets the same salary for working 12 months.Since teachers' work schedule distorts direct salary comparisons with other jobs, we need to look at hourly pay.According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. The average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64) - pales in comparison.Indeed, teachers' hourly rate exceeds even those in professions that require far more training and expertise. Compare the schoolteacher's $30.75 to the average biologist's $28.07 an hour - or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.Whose hourly pay is competitive with that of teachers? Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51) and even nuclear engineers ($36.16).Note, too, that these hourly figures exclude benefits, such as health coverage and retirement accounts, which are typically more generous for government employees, such as teachers, than for private-sector workers.New York City's teachers are especially well paid. According to the state's school district profile, the median teacher in the city earns $53,017 a year. Unfortunately, information on the number of hours worked by the average teacher in the City is not readily available. But, if we make the generous assumption that the average teacher in New York works the maximum 6.6 hours a day allowed by the union contract for the full 181 school days, that works out to $44.38 an hour.So, if teachers are underpaid, then workers in other professions are badly underpaid, too. But there's no clamor to raise the pay of computer scientists, dentists or engineers.But don't teachers spend a great deal of time grading papers and creating lesson plans while away from school? Some do - but the comparisons here are still fair - because other professionals do work away from the office, too. Engineers and computer scientists are certainly no strangers to long nights working at home.Nor do teachers spend all of their time at school in the classroom. In fact, teachers spend fewer hours actually instructing students than many recognize. Stanford's Terry Moe worked with data straight from the nation's largest teacher union's own data - and found that the average teacher in a department setting (that is, where students have different teachers for different subjects) was in the classroom for fewer than 3.9 hours out of the 7.3 hours at school each day.With several hours set aside at school for course-planning and grading, it strains plausibility that on average teachers must spend more hours working at home than do other professionals.The myth that teachers are underpaid is a significant hurdle to educational reform because it helps prop up the falsehood that schools in general are underfunded. In fact, taxpayers spend more money on public K-12 schools than they do on national defense, even more than the Gross Domestic Product of Russia.Yet, despite this generous investment, student outcomes as measured by standardized tests and graduation rates have been stagnant since the Ford administration.If we are to improve public schools, we must understand that the facts don't always square with our impressions. The story that on average school teachers are underpaid compared to other professionals is as widely told as anything from Aesop, and is just as mythical.Jay P. Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of the book "Education Myths."


Crime Against the People

WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday indicted Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates on charges of conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post. A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a “partisan fanatic.”
The indictment accused DeLay, 58, of a conspiracy to violate Texas election law, which prohibits the use of corporate donations to advocate the election or defeat of political candidates. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme worked in a roundabout way, with the donations going to a DeLay-founded political committee, then to the Republican National Committee and eventually to GOP candidates in Texas.

Still no Armor for Soldiers

WASHINGTON - Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.
Soldiers and their parents are still spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for armor they say the military won’t provide.
“Your expectation is that when you are sent to war, that our government does everything they can do to protect the lives of our people, and anything less than that is not good enough,” said a former Marine who spent nearly $1,000 two weeks ago to buy lower-body armor for his son, a Marine serving in Fallujah.
The father asked that he be identified only by his first name — Gordon — because he is afraid of retribution against his son.
“I wouldn’t have cared if it cost us $10,000 to protect our son, I would do it,” said Gordon. “But I think the U.S. has an obligation to make sure they have this equipment and to reimburse for it. I just don’t support Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of going to war with what you have, not what you want. You go to war prepared, and you don’t go to war until you are prepared.”
Soldiers and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees, medical supplies and even global positioning devices.
“The bottom line is that Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department are failing soldiers again,”


FEMA is not the only Miss-Managed Agency

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters.
FEMA's top three leaders arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. A former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative fills two other senior operational jobs.
Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But, inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.
Most agencies, at almost every level of government, hire family, friends, and large donation contributors rather than experienced professionals to run key government institutions. There is not a State, County, City, or Village exempt from this abominable behavior. How many other tragedies are lurking that unqualified people will try to manage?
My guess is; MANY...
The New Orleans fiasco was not an issue of race. It is an issue of mismanagement, incompetence, and leadership failure.

Why New Orleans must be rebuilt

By George Friedman
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans. During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on. A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities. There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time. It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.


Education Myths

Much of what people believe about education policy is simply not true. An examination of the evidence reveals that many common claims about education are as mythological as anything found in Homer or Aesop.

For example, many people believe that schools are desperately under-funded. In fact, public K-12 spending is approaching $10,000 per pupil — double what it was three decades ago, adjusting for inflation. And total school spending is approaching $500 billion — more than we spend on national defense ($454 billion) and more than the entire GDP
of Russia ($433 billion).

Many people believe that teachers are horribly underpaid. In fact, the average elementary-school teacher makes $30.75 per hour, more than architects ($26.64), mechanical engineers ($29.46), and chemists ($30.68).

Many people believe that student achievement has been deteriorating for decades. In fact, today's students perform about as well as their parents in terms of standardized test scores and high school graduation rates.

Why is education so prone to myths?

Part of the problem is that almost everyone imagines himself an expert about schools. Everyone has been through school, most people have had children in school, and many people have worked in schools or know someone who has. We tend to generalize from our direct experience even when our perspective may be narrow or distorted. In other policy areas less familiar to us we are more likely to rely on systematic evidence but in education we think we already have all of the evidence we need.

Another part of the problem is that education policy involves children and anything involving children evokes strong emotions. Those emotions ensure our attention to education issues but they can also cloud our reasoning. For example, because we really care about children, it is difficult to question claims that we need to spend more money to educate them. We wouldn't want others, or even ourselves, to think that we were stingy about providing children the services they need.

But the most important reason myths are so prevalent in education policy is that there are interest groups promoting them. Unfortunately, teachers unions, school-board associations, and others with a financial stake in education policy take advantage of our vulnerability to myths about education. While most of us feel comfortable entrusting our children to their teachers at school each day, the interest groups that represent them and their schools do not warrant our trust. Teacher unions and the rest of the education establishment, like other interest groups, will support claims that advance their agendas regardless of whether those claims are based on facts or myths.

This interest-group behavior is not unique to education policy. For example, everyone recognizes the role that interest groups play in promoting sugar price supports or in the construction of roads. The sugar industry and construction lobbyists, like teachers unions, are relatively indifferent to whether their arguments are supported by evidence as long as they further their interests.

We usually recognize these interest groups for what they are and take their claims with a large grain of salt. But in education policy our emotional commitment to teachers and children blinds us to this self-interested behavior of education interest groups. We want to believe that education policy is not governed by the same crass political horse-trading that sets the government price for sugar or determines which congressional district will get a new bridge.

Our desire to believe that education policymaking is exceptional — that it is fueled by the love of children rather than the maneuvering of organized interests allows education myths to proliferate. These myths cause real harm. We can't improve public schools without a proper understanding of what ails them. We need to place less trust in our own experiences, our emotional impulses, and the organized-interests pretending to be advocates for children.

We need to put more trust in the evidence.

— Jay P. Greene is Head of the Department of Education Reform at the
University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of Education Myths, published by Rowman and Littlefield.


A COMMENT
FROM Paul SchusterOn Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:20 , Paul Schuster
I disagree with the fixed rate, graduated flat tax that you propose.
The one important thing you leave out is the moral imperative of a citizen keeping all that he earns. The second thing your proposal leaves out is that it does not turn the continuously running money spigot in Washington, made possible only by the Federal tax on income, to the 'off' position.
We have pork and wasted revenue in the deficit budget precisely because the government has a continuous, uninterrupted stream of income, which consists mainly of the tax on income.
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign"' by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." - Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was right. But he was not talking in terms of taxation. He was talking in terms of 'the Money Power' a privately owned, for profit, central bank, like the Bank of England. The international money lenders were preying on America and this was what Lincoln saw.
You point out that Lou Dobbs says,werepoint out that Lou Dobbs says,
"Number 1, we're not creating jobs in the private sector in this country. That has never before happened in our history. Our economists and our politicians, our leaders, need to come up with answers, not dogma.Number 2, we haven't had a trade surplus in this country in more than two decades. And our trade deficit continues to soar to new record levels.Number 3, we have lost three million jobs in this country over the past three years and millions more American jobs are at risk of being outsourced to cheap overseas labor markets. "
Now that we live in the era of the ideas and political policies of "Globalism", the Bank and the political power it enjoys seek to expand profit opportunity and increase operating profits by spreading the wealth to "cheap overseas" and intra-regional, "labor markets". Although I don't agree with statement Number 1 above, Mr. Dobbs is probably correct in each of his other statements, but interestingly, in this analysis he does not appear to connect the globalist policies and political power of the Bank with any of the infirmities he mentions above. It is truly impressive what people with a microphone and a camera will say these days. It is the Bank's shrewd manipulation of the American economy, as well as the manipulation of other national economies, notably the G8, which provide the international money, trade, and labor manipulations we see.
It is the privately owned, for profit, central bank, the Federal Reserve, which controls the expansion or contraction of the American economy. Direct taxation of income was just a Bank prerequisite, to collateralize the government debt to the Bank. Notice that the Glass-Owen Act was proposed prior to the proposal of the 16th Amendment and then implemented being known as the Federal Reserve Act.
No, the correct solution to the problem you propose is the Fair Tax. It does two things well. First, it allows a producer to keep all of his produce (at least at the Federal level), Second, it turns off the revenue spigot in Washington which the Bank and the politicians are satiated with.
You will never properly control economic policy in America, or have America's economic resources be applied properly when you allow a privately owned, for profit, Central Bank control monetary and economic policy and manipulate political policy. That political power and economic power also controls politicians, who control taxation.
I do agree with you, however, they all should be thrown out of office.
Paul Schuster

IN REPLY
Hi Paul,
We are glad that taxation issues are rising to the top of peoples thinking and actions. This nation is nearing another revolution if something is not done soon. However, we do have a right to disagree over the best way to solve the issue. There are two prevalent issues that are major concerns for American citizens (whether they know it or not). First, political figures at all levels of government, which includes local village and school boards, have forgotten who they are supposed to work for. Second, corporations are forced to seek out the cheapest labor, including child and slave labor, in order to satisfy Wall Street. How does UACT solve some of these issues?First - Politicians only get your money if you have a job. There is no more homeowner’s tax, local tax, village fees, or any State, Federal, County fees and tax on any product sold. Offices get your money only if you have a job.So think about it.Politicians will be forced to ensure the people are happy and thriving in order for them to get more of our money (raises and bonuses). And the more we make, the more governments will have. This means that they will pass laws that make it beneficial for companies to keep jobs in our country, states, and villages, and ensure the citizenship keeps thriving within their career aspirations.Taxation on Corporations will be lowered in order to make companies come back to America, which, along with the elimination of Sales tax and other fees placed on items (gas, food, toiletries etc.) will drive profits upward and appease Wall Street. The result is happy citizens, corporations, and politicians (although less happy than the other two). A society needs all three in order to remain strong.The Fair Tax places too much of a burden on the lower classes, does not eliminate local taxation which is proven to be more abusive than the federal tax, and does not solve the issue of politicians working for the people. If you only have a sales tax system, the government will still get your money whether you have a job or not. They may not get as much, but they still get it. Even homeless people will be forced to pay a tax (and there are millions of them). You cannot appease the homeless with tax returns because they don't have a home for the returns to go to. The Fair Tax will drive luxury items out of reach for the ordinary person, and really, helps perpetuate the gap between the rich and poor. The United Citizens of America urges you to invest more research into your current thought process. The Fair Tax system may not be the best choice for American citizens.


Toilet Paper Tax

"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida's Legislature is flush with good ideas. Sen. Al Lawson's involves a 2 cent-per-roll tax on toilet paper to pay for wastewater treatment and help small towns upgrade their sewer systems.The Democratic lawmaker's pay-as-you-go bill has been the source of many jokes - bathroom humor you might say - but he says the issue is a serious one, especially in some of the fast-growing Panhandle coastal counties in his district."

States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile

College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just. So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW. And what kind of mileage does he get? "The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just. And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead...Tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road."

America's Wackiest Taxes

You might pay taxes on illegal drugs, Pepsi, playing cards, and being a star, and that's not all--"New York (CNN/Money) - History is littered with odd tax schemes. William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on windows in Britain. Peter the Great taxed souls, and Nero, urine. Let no man say that we here in America cannot compete for oddity of tax laws. We have some really weird assessments on the books. In certain states and cities, you'll pay special taxes for buying a deck of cards, possessing illegal drugs, and, possibly, buying things from naked people. Here are a dozen peculiar state and local taxes, as noted by tax information publisher CCH Inc. and the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax policy research group. Illegal drug tax: On Jan. 1, Tennessee became the latest of 23 states to institute a tax for possession of illegal drugs. Usually, you have to be in possession of a minimum quantity, say over 42.5 grams of marijuana in North Carolina, to be subject to the tax. In Tennessee, when you acquire an illegal drug (even "moonshine"), you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product. Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You need not provide identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out. Still, next door in North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 15 years, only 79 folks have voluntarily come forward since 1990, according to the Department of Revenue. Most were thought to be stamp collectors, or perhaps just high. Another 72,000 were taxed after they were already busted. North Carolina has collected $78.3 million thus far, almost all from those arrested and found without stamps. Flush tax: In 2004, Maryland began charging homeowners and businesses for producing wastewater. The funds will be used to help protect Chesapeake Bay waters. Maryland will add $2.50 a month to the sewer bills of residents hooked up to treatment systems. It will also assess an annual charge of $30 to homeowners with their own septic systems, even though many believe these residents add little to the stream of pollutants that have damaged the Chesapeake. Virginia appears poised to enact a similar flush tax of $1 a week per household. Sex sales tax: Sin got pricier in Utah last July, when owners of sexually explicit businesses where "nude or partially nude individuals perform any service" began paying a 10 percent sales and use tax on admission and user fees as well as the sales of merchandise, food, drink, and services. That would be on top of the 4.75 percent sales tax the state already imposes on most transactions, sexually explicit or not. Not that the measure will raise much money. So far only one or two businesses in staid Utah are actually wild enough to be subjected to the tax. Jock tax: This is a tax on income earned by athletes, entertainers (OK, not just jocks), and their various entourages, including non-athletic or non-performer employees. Generally, any money player or performer earns while playing in that particular city or state gets taxed. California levied the first jock tax in 1991, on athletes from Chicago, right after the Chicago Bulls beat the L.A. Lakers. (Chicago quickly responded in kind.) Today, most states with a professional sports team impose a jock tax. William Ahern, of the Tax Foundation, said a DC United soccer player received tax forms from 10 different states. The player was no Alex Rodriguez. "The guy makes $26,000 a year," says Ahearn. "The jock taxes he owed varied from $200 to $2." Sparkler and novelties tax: In West Virginia, businesses selling sparklers and novelties pay a special fee on top of the state's 6 percent sales tax. The novelties, according to the West Virginia State Tax Department's information sheet on sparklers and novelties, include: Explosive caps designed to be fired in toy pistols; snake and glow worms and; trick noisemakers which produce a small report designed to surprise the user. Playing card tax: If you want a deck of cards in Alabama, be prepared to shell out an extra dime. The state government has levied a 10-cent tax on the purchase of a playing deck that contains "no more than 54 cards," plus the retailer must pay an annual license tax of $3 and a fee of $1, according to the Alabama Department of Revenue. Blueberry tax: Like fresh, wild blueberries? If they come from Maine, you may be paying a bit of a premium. Anyone who grows, purchases, sells, handles or processes the fruit in the state is subject to a penny-and-a-half-per-pound tax. Wagering tax: Speaking of cards – and bets – most people know they have to pay tax on their gambling winnings. But some places, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Oklahoma, exact a wagering tax on casino or track owners, whether you gamble or not. It can get passed onto customers through the cost of casino amusements. Illinois forces casinos to charge a $2 admission price, which is essentially a tax since it must be remitted to the city and state. Fur clothing tax: Keeping comfy during Minnesota winters can cost you. Businesses in the state must pay a 6.5 percent tax on the total amount received for the sale, shipping, and finance charges associated with the purchase of clothing in which fur accounts for three times more of the garment than the next most valuable material. Most types of clothing in Minnesota are sales-tax-free, so if you want to keep warm switch to "leather, suede, or other animal skins where the hair, fleece or fur fiber is completely removed," as the Minnesota Department of Revenue Fur Clothing Tax instructions form puts it, Fountain soda drink tax: This one hails from Chicago. If you buy a "fountain soda drink," you'll pay a 9 percent tax. If you buy the same soda in a bottle or a can, you'll only pay 3 percent. Amusement tax: Ever wondered about the extra tax you pay on stadium seats? That's the amusement tax, often levied at both city and state levels. Most states, including Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland, and cities like New Orleans, have amusement taxes on tickets sold at any venue with more than 750 to 1,000 seats. Amusing, isn't it? Tattoo tax: As of last July, anyone in Arkansas wanting to get a eagle etched on their abs or a nose ring notched in their nostrils will have to pay an additional 6 percent, as the state included tattooing and body piercing in its list of services subject to sales taxes. Electrolysis treatments count, too. To make this a baker's dozen, we'll throw in a freebie: Tennessee imposes a litigation tax. The tax varies with the offense, with the cheapest being $1 for a metered parking violation. No sum is too small for the tax man."

An excerpt from EARTH 2010
Sold ONLY at CafePress.comLink: http://www.cafepress.com/earth2010


INVASION

Lina was amazed at the things the humans were able to build; smaller dwellings within the big dwelling, clear walls to see outside the dwelling, fur to cover the dirt, cloth sitting devices, paintings; there was so much she would have to discover. The horseless wagons truly amazed her; humans have always tried to bring all their belongings with them when they traveled instead of living off the land, and their wagons of yore were barbaric compared to the wagons they now utilized. She still could not understand what the metal contraptions with avian devices were used for. Some had fowl appendages and yet there were some with flat sword-like devices fashioned to the top. Everything astounded her and again made her worry that she miscalculated her warrior needs. Elves could not be created magically, and their birthing requirements did not allow for swift procreations. She could have kept multiplying her Horde and this is where she might have erred, she now feared that her force was insufficient.
The human spears also worried her. A mere handful of human warriors caused a significant loss of Horde life, and the way things stood, she would need every spear she could muster. However, she was thankful that Dracon used the Horde as a first strike. If the human spears had hit her warriors, the loss would have been monumental. Lina was busy inspecting a marvelously crafted wooden dinning platform that was in one of the inner dwellings. The wood was oak and it encompassed the entire length of the area. Surrounding it were seating devices that could accommodate nearly eighty warriors. The humans must have used this as their primary inner dwelling based on all the packages containing garb. These also amazed her, and as she started to pick through some of the garments, Dracon entered carrying some of the human spears. "Gargon is bringing the human."
Lina nodded her head in understanding.
"You should come see this dwelling, Mother, there is water coming from a metal device."
"Show me," she replied in amazement. The inner dwelling that Dracon brought her to was no more than a five-foot square area with a seating device filled with water, and a metal tube dripping water. Lina was very perplexed. She also noticed the reflective shiny metal that was very similar to the large wall on the outer dwelling. "I look horrible, Dracon."
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Mother, and you are truly ravishing."
She smiled, "flattery will get you everything, dear."
Dracon laughed.
As they exited the inner dwelling, Gargon was approaching with the human. The creature looked pathetic, and it had no garments on its body.
Gargon anticipated her question, "its garments smelled horrific, Mother."
"Well, there are more in the large inner dwelling." She noticed how much the human was shaking and remembered that the humans did not draw upon the earth's warmth as do the Elves. She had forgotten about this fact. Lina placed her hand on the humans arm, and transferred warmth into its body. It was a repulsive act to perform on a human, but she needed answers and didn't want the human perishing of cold.
Senator Ash stiffened at this woman's touch and immediately felt warmth flow through his limbs. He let out a heavenly sigh. The one she called Gargon made him wash his body with snow, and with the temperature well below freezing, Ash thought he would turn into an icicle. Her touch, whoever she was, was wonderful and he felt like it was a cool summer day. These people spoke English, and Ash felt comfortable that he would be able to wield his influence with the British troops and save his hide. He had many connections in England and it was rumored that his family was descended from a royal line. However, something just did not seem right with these folks; for one, they didn't seem to need light to see. He was basically walking blind and relying on this Gargon fellow to lead him along; and two, although they spoke English, they had weird reflections in their voice that made their speech almost seem alien to him.
"What is this dwelling, Human?" Lina asked
Ash was confused by the question, and answered, "It is one of our Alaskan military bases. We have several in the area."
"What is a military base?"
Now Ash was really confused, who the hell were these people, "they are government bases for our soldiers." He responded.
"What is government and soldiers?" Lina asked.
"The government rules the country and our soldiers protect it." "Ah," she responded, "These soldiers are your warriors, yes?"
"You could say that, yes." Ash responded, "Why have you attacked our country?"
"What do you mean by, country?" Lina asked.
"Our land, our borders, I don't know, its just our country."
Ash felt an explosion hit his face and if Gargon was not holding him, he would have fell, "this is my land you human filth." Lina grabbed his hair and yanked his head into the dwelling with the water, "what is this dwelling?" She said angrily.
"I told you." Ash felt another blow, this time on his back. "Stop, please stop." He said.
"This dwelling in here," Lina yanked his head hard in emphasis.
"I can't see what you are talking about, Ash pleaded."
"Mother, I don't think the human can see in the darkness."
Of course, Lina thought, she forgot all about their shortcomings. She concentrated for a moment, and a small pebble in her hand started to glow. The light was not obnoxious enough to affect the superior Elvin sight, but should be enough for the human.
Ash immediately recognized the room this crazy woman was talking about, "It is a bathroom."
"What is a bathroom?" the woman asked, and Ash moaned in frustration, which earned him another punch on his back. Gargon could really deliver a blow.
Ash quickly demonstrated; he turned the faucet all the way and the water started flowing. The gasp from these people would have been humorous if it weren't for his current predicament. He then flushed the toilet, and again they let out a gasp. "We use the sink," Ash pointed to the faucet, "to clean-up. It is better than snow." He said sarcastically, but it was lost on these people. "The toilet," Ash pointed to it "is used to relieve waste."
"Waste?" The woman asked, and Ash couldn't take this basic questioning anymore. He turned toward the woman and was about to say so, when he glimpsed her features. His knees buckled, this was by far the most gorgeous woman he had ever had the pleasure to meet. An exotic beauty with ravens black hair and deep blue eyes; she was maybe five and a half feet tall, extremely petite, and feminine featured. He stumbled for words, but he forgot the question, and he was now very aware of his own nakedness.
An explosion rocked the right side of his face, "eyes down you swine, if I catch you looking at anything but the Mothers feet, I will carve your eyes from their sockets."
Lina asked again, "What is waste?"
Ash really had to go, so he shuffled to the toilet bowl, and relieved himself, "waste" he said as he pointed to his pee. He thought this would earn him another beating for relieving himself in front of the mother chic, but instead, she and the Gargon fellow just stared and cooed. This made him very uncomfortable. When he finished, he pointed to his rear-end and sat down, "you can do both into this same bowl, we use this," he pulled some toilet paper from a roll, "to wipe-up when we're done," Ash stood back up, "when you're all complete, you press this little knob, and the potty monsters take you're poopoo away," He finished as if he was talking to some small children, and again they did not seem to catch his sarcasm. Gargon reached out and touched the toilet paper, "it is soft, Mother, much better than leaves and dirt,"
Lina just grunted her understanding. She had a feeling that this human was toying with them, but there was so much that has changed that she felt very uninformed at the moment. "Bring the Human to the large inner dwelling, Gargon, I'll be along shortly." As Ash passed by her, she pressed the glow stone into his palm. "Thank you." He said, and Lina sniffed in reply. When Gargon and the human were out of sight, Lina used the cleaning room like the human demonstrated. She walked back to the inner dwelling with a smile on her face. She had learned something pleasantly new today.
~~~
Ash was led back to the main conference room at the front of the base. He was amused by their reference of it as "a large inner dwelling", but also confused by who these people were, and how did they get here? The Gargon fellow allowed him to find his suitcase and dress. He chose the warmest attire he could find, and he started feeling much more comfortable, although still sore from the punches he received. The warmth in his body remained but as time progressed, he could tell that he was getting colder, and noticing the steam coming from his breath, he knew it was very cold inside the base. Whatever the woman had done to him he was thankful, and would not mind having done again. He studied the little pebble that the woman had given him, but he could not tell where the light was emanating from. He was very thankful for the light, he felt so helpless stumbling around in the dark. He placed the pebble on the conference table, sat back in the chair, and reassessed his situation.
These people just murdered over one third of the nations leadership without breaking a sweat, but he was still alive and he would have to play his cards right. Ash studied this Gargon fellow; he was tall and sleek with the same colored raven hair as the woman and he noted how much they resembled each other. He had the same blue eyes and facial features, and the same length of hair except his was tied back from his face with what appeared to be a leather band. He was dressed in some type of medieval garb, with chain-link covering his body over what appeared to be a black leather jacket. He also had black leather pants and moccasins. Ash loved visiting the Resonance Fair whenever it was in town, and these people reminded him of the folks you would find there. Gargon was just as gorgeous as the woman except in a masculine-way; he is definitely powerful looking. He seems very confident in himself, and Ash knew that this was a very dangerous man.
Gargon stood between him and the rifles that were piled at the other end of the table, and the door. He kept his gaze squarely locked onto him; Ash tried to pretend that it had no affect on him, but the mans stare was becoming more and more annoying.
Another popped his head through the doorway, "have you seen Mother, Gar?"
This guy was nearly an exact replica, Ash thought.
"She will be here shortly, Brother, you may want to summon Rika. Mother may have need of our sister."
The duplicate left, and the Mother entered, but she somehow looked different.
"Mother is on her way, you may wish to stay" he gave Ash an evil stare, "for the show." he finished.
So this is the sister, Ash thought, and no less ravishing than the mother.
She bore a hole through him with her gorgeous eyes, "It shall be a pleasure, Brother," she said Her gaze was evil in its intensity.
After a few minutes, the mother entered and her beauty again struck Ash to his core. "Rika, dear, please summon your brothers. I want everyone gathered while I speak to the human."
Ash watched as the Rika beauty shut her eyes and seemed to sway from foot to foot. It seemed like she was dancing.
"My name is Jefferson," Ash stated, "Jefferson Ash." Gargon started to charge at him and he realized that he had looked at the mother's face when he spoke. Ash curled into a defensive position, but the mother called off the charge before the man had a chance to hit him.
"You may look upon me human, for I see our immediate futures linked, but to me, you have no name. Is that understood?"
Ash shrugged his shoulders, "as you wish my lady, but if you do not know what a bathroom is, then it would appear that you need me more than I need you."
Lina could not deny the creature's statement, but she did not want it to think it had the upper hand, "you are expendable to me, human, do not underestimate my kindness. I can find another human to tell me what I wish to know."
As she finished her statement, three more men entered the room. Ash noted the exact likeliness that they all shared with each other. If he looked close, he could tell them apart, otherwise, they would seem like duplicates.
Since they seemed to like playing a medieval role, Ash thought to play along, "My Lady," he stated, "you may find another to fill my void, but you will not find any others with the influence I wield for my country."
"You are a lordling, then?" the Mother asked.
"In a sense my lady; I am an elected official for the people of my land. They call me a Senator."
Lina was unimpressed, "Who is your king?"
"We do not have Kings, My Lady, my nation is ruled by many people who serve the interest of the people they represent." Ash was proud of his statement.
"How many humans make up this council? Lina asked.
Ash noted that everyone was seated now with the exception of the Gargon fellow. This helped put his nerves at ease, "hundreds My Lady," he replied, "you killed nearly one third of the representatives of my nation today." Ash noticed the duplicates smiling at each other.
Lina was very pleased with the creature's statement. Humans have a way of giving-up once their Lords are eliminated, she thought. "You seem very proud of your standing, human, but a people who are ruled by so many are not ruled at all. There is an old saying handed down from my great ancestors. It states that too many appendages in the kettle, spoils the brew. We Elves have tried councils of your sort within our history, and the concept bore fruit in the early stages, but as generations progressed, the honor of the first council diminished and corruption held sway. How many human generations have passed since your rule of council?"
Ash sat up in shock. Did she just say Elves? Ash was too dumbfounded to think of time in generations, so he answered her in years, still in shock by her statement.
She smiled at his answer. "That is many generations by way of you humans. I would stake my life that corruption runs rampant through your council."
Ash remained silent, and still bewildered.
Lina nodded her head in understanding; "Now tell me, for your life depends upon your answer, where does your King reside?"
"We do not…" Ash cringed as Gargon stormed in his direction,"Lady, please, we truly do not have a King, we have a President, but he is merely a figurehead. Congress runs the nation."
Lina held up her hand to ward off her male. The human mentioned a different name for the King. Maybe the humans have changed their designation of the leader. "Where does your," she stumbled to repeat the word.
"President." Ash interjected.
"Where does it reside?" she asked, and she motioned to one of the seated duplicates. He pulled a map from his belt and placed it in front of him.
There were no markings on the map, but it was a fairly good hand drawing of North America. It looked as if it were drawn on animal skin. Ash pointed to a spot near the east coast, "We call it the White House," he said, still too defeated to think clearly.
Lina slapped him across the face, "that is impossible. The human Kings have always resided in the east. Gargon, K…"
"Wait, wait, please let me explain." Ash was truly terrified; "my nation is made up of mainly people from the east. England, France, Italy, Pakistan, geez there are people from all over the world living here. I tell you the truth, My Lady, I have no reason to lie to you."
"I do not know those names you speak. Why should I believe you?"
Ash whined, "Because I am telling the truth, Lady, I truly am."
Brako interjected, "Mother, there were Ethiopians amongst the humans we eliminated."
Lina looked at her male offspring and nodded her head, "very well, we will seek this King in the White House that the human suggested. Runko, you will take your force to the east above and around the Waters of Life," she outlined his path on the map and Ash noted that it traveled south along the Hudson Bay and east between the bay and the Great Lake, and then the path swung down the east coast from the north. "Gargon, Rika and I will travel your path until you swing east above the Waters. I will have Sanon reclaim the northern cold lands, and Dracon and Brako will retake our lands to the west. Conquer everything in your path. We will join forces with you in the east once the mid and west lands are reclaimed. I wish to cleanse my lands before the warm season."
Lina motioned to Dracon and the spear, and he slid the human weapon across the table to her. "What is this?" she asked.
"That is an assault rifle, My Lady." Ash responded.
"This weapon killed many of my creations, human, how does it function?"
"I have never shot a rifle, My Lady, all I know is that you pull the trigger and a bullet will shoot out the end."
Lina felt that the human spoke the truth. "What is a bullet? "
"What is an Elf?" Ash responded, and speaking the thought aloud startled him.
They all laughed at him; "The humans question is reasonable, Mother, they have probably all forgotten about us." Gargon stated.
Ash watched as the mother folded her hair behind her ears; "there're pointed!" Ash exclaimed in exasperation, "what are you people?"
"We are Elves, not people, you swine." Ash noted that the one called Rika, answered. She didn't seem to like him very much.
"But that is just a fairy tale. Elves don't exist." Ash said in exasperation.
"That is a long story for another time; now, what is a bullet?"
Ash shook his head, he could see the clip, and he pointed at it, "they are kept in there, and when you pull the trigger," he pointed again, "the bullet shoots out the end." he finished by pointing to the muzzle.
"Mother, we should use the human spears against them. They shoot five times the length of our bows."
Lina looked at her daughter, and noted the shaking of Gargon's head. She agreed with her eldest male, "we would never become as efficient in their use as the humans are, dear. It is a mighty weapon, and could be our undoing."
Lina shifted her gaze back to the human, "show me this bullet."
"I told you my lady, I do not know how to use them. I just know that they are kept in there." Ash again pointed to the clip.
Ash watched as Gargon drew a sword from his waist. It seemed odd to him because he didn't remember seeing the guy - elf- whatever these things are, wearing one. Thinking that Gargon would finally finish him, Ash fell to the floor and curled into a ball. It took him a moment before he realized that the cracking sound he heard was the rifle. Ash slowly lifted his head to peer onto the table, "are you crazy?" he remarked, "You could have blown those things up."
Gargon looked at him in shock and quickly backed away from the table. All the rest followed suit.
"Show me this bullet, human."
Ash saw that the clip was severed completely in half and also that the table was sliced open. He looked at Gargon's sword in disbelief, the edge had to be extremely sharp. He also saw that the sword split the clip and the bullets inside perfectly. A hair either way and there would have been lead flying around the room. He grabbed the clip and carefully extracted one of the bullets and set it on the table. He pointed at it "that is a bullet."
"It is so tiny, Mother." One of the duplicates noted.
Ash thought that the Runko fellow answered, but they moved around and he lost track of who was who. He could defiantly tell Gargon from the rest and of course, Rika and the Mother, but the other three were too close in looks for him to decipher them apart.
"How does it function, lordling?" the Mother asked.
Ash picked up the bullet, and Gargon immediately went into a defensive position. Ash held up his hand as if to say, its ok, and placed the bullet in his palm. Ash pointed at the fat end, "gun powder is packed inside this cap," he then showed them the bottom of the bullet, "this little thing right here, is a charge. The rifle," he pointed at it, "has a little hammer that strikes this little charge, and it makes the gun powder explode." "The bang sound." Gorgon stated.
Ash nodded his head in the affirmative. "When the gun powder explodes and makes the banging sound," he nodded at Gargon, "this top piece shoots out at a very fast speed. If it hits you, it will hurt."
Ash noticed that they were all nodding their head in understanding, and he was thrilled that he was able to explain it like he did. He really had no idea about guns, but he has learned enough to know the basics.
"You must show me this powder, Lordling." The Mother stated.
Ash, although pleased that she stopped calling him a human, but also mystified that she would think him a Lord, looked at her in confusion. "My Lady, I don't know if I can open it without it exploding. I don't know much about weapons."
"Then you are of no more use to me, Gargon!"
"Wait - wait, I'll try." Ash knew that the bullet end would come off, he just didn't know if it would blow-up in his fingers. He studied it and then grabbed half of the sword split clip. He held the bullet by the base, and used the clip to grab the top by pinning it against the table. He noticed the Elves shuffling out of the way. He slowly wiggled the bullet while he ground the clip into the led at the top, and after a few minutes, he was surprised when it separated. He slowly pulled the bullet off the base with his fingers, and poured the gunpowder onto the table. He was very proud of his accomplishment.
The mother came over, and sniffed at the gunpowder. "I know this material," She stated to her offspring. "I last seen it used by our great ancestors. They used to tell us children stories around a camp fire, and would toss bits of it upon the fire so that it would spark and hiss." She walked back toward Rika, "our greatest ancients used to draw ruins in the dirt before they cast their mightiest spells. It wasn't until later in our upbringing when we discovered that the dust had no bearing on a spells success or failure, and the practice was forgotten." She placed her fingers upon her chin in contemplation, "There was a spell that was used to negate the use of dust. Sorcerers would cast them at each other while they each tried to draw a ruin in the dirt."
She looked at Ash, "how many warriors are in your service, Lordling?"
Ash was confused. How could she negate gunpowder, he thought. "Um, about five hundred thousand." He didn't mention that over three hundred thousand were out of the country.
Everyone except him, gasped.
The last time the humans drew battle against her, they could only muster thirty thousand warriors, Lina thought. If they kept their use of these weapons, she would have no chance of prevailing. "How many swordsman, archers and cavalry?" she asked.
Again, Ash was confused, "we no longer use swords or archers, and our vehicles have made horses obsolete." He responded.
Lina was shocked, as were her offspring. They all just stared at him as if he were a stark raving lunatic. "What is a vehicle?" she asked.
"Four wheels and metal." Ash responded. He didn't feel like trying to explain the simplest details to these Neanderthals.
"The horseless wagons, Mother," A duplicate, blurted out.
"They are hardly horseless, My Lady, each vehicle has the power of three hundred and fifty horses."
They again looked at him as if he were mad, "I would rather have three hundred horsemen with swords, than one horseless wagon, human. You seem too proud of such an insignificant exchange," Runko stated. The Senator threw his arms up in defeat.
"So you don't have any swordsman?"
Ash shook his head.
"Or archers?"
"Nope!"
"Or cavalry?"
Again, Ash responded in the negative.
"Well, children, this may be easier than I thought." Lina smiled and Ash thought it was the loveliest thing in the world to see. Until he realized what it would mean for his country.
"Um, My Lady, without rifles you would not stand a chance. They are one of the deadliest things man has ever created."
"They will be useless very soon, Lordling." She grabbed Rika by the hand and led her to the gunpowder, "I have a spell that can make the sparkle dust useless, but I'll need to draw upon your energy once again. It will likely make us both very weak for a few days. Gargon, you, and Rika will stay with me, Dracon, Runko, Brako; you have your mission so go to it. Once Dracon and Brako neutralize their areas, they will join me by the Waters and then we will reinforce Runko in the east. Do not kill the King, Runko, I wish that pleasure for myself. Without their weapons, the humans will be novices in battle. Enjoy your killings, children."
She turned toward Ash, "without trained warriors, your human race will soon become extinct."
Her children started filing out of the room, Ash sat down, and placed his head in his hands. My God, he thought, this woman is worse than Hitler.
"Gargon, take the human to another dwelling. Rika and I will remain in here and cast the spell."
"Gladly, Mother," Gargon pulled Ash to his feet and roughly shoved him toward the door. "Lordling," Ash turned in her direction, "after I complete this task, you are going to teach me all there is to know about your human life. I will know everything, or I will leave you to the crows. Do you understand?"
Ash just nodded and exited through the door.
He was sitting in General Slovich's office with his feet up on the desk, trying to get some rest. The Gargon fellow was standing in the doorway. How was he going to get out of this mess? Ash thought. Elves, what the heck are Elves? He thought they were supposed to be little like Santa's helpers, but every male he saw was rather tall. Ash stood six feet, and so did the Elvin males. He had to be dreaming because this nightmare was excessively freaky. He also worried about giving the direction of the White House away. His thought at the time was to lead them away from D'Marco, but now it appeared that the largest force was going to be heading straight to where he was vacationing, and with the majority of the US troops stationed in Iraq, what chance did America have? The thought was too much to bear and he was about to close his eyes when all of a sudden, the ground began to vibrate. Gargon garbed a hold of the door jam to steady himself, and Ash clung to the arms of the chair. He looked to Gargon for an answer, but the intimidating brute just smiled at him. Ash had a feeling that his greatest nightmares were about to begin.

An excerpt from EARTH 2010 twenty ten
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