Suspension of Disbelief

Okay, before we begin let me point one thing out that's really been bugging me. You know that $700 billion in "taxpayer" money that's going to be used at some point to "bail out" the financial industry? Well, guess what. It's not taxpayer money, unless you're talking about the taxpayers who own Chinese and Western European banking conglomerates. They will be giving the US government the money to "bail out" or otherwise entitled buy out parts of the financial industry. This isn't money that has ever come from the taxes of you or I. If we had that kind of money, why are we financing two wars with foreign money? Why is the national debt expected to hit $11.4 TRILLION (that's $11,400,000,000,000 for those keeping track) because of this buy out? Because it's not money that we own. It's money that own us to them. That's all. ----------------------------------------- And on to what I really wanted to talk about tonigh...

President Reagan had an idea about how the world should run. He deregulated Big Business. That is, he removed the restrictions put in place that kept companies from cheating. He removed, primarily economic oversight. He said that it was unAmerican that in this capitalist society that such oversight, such restrictions should exist. To him, these concepts flew in the face of that illusive, figmentary idea we like to call freedom. He wanted Big Business to have the freedom to do what it will and believed that in doing so, said companies would check themselves. They would check themselves because it was in their best economic interest to do so. Yet, what he didn't realize is that what was in the best interest of Corporate America could be unknown to Corporate America itself! That Big Business could be akin to a compulsive gambler who as they fall further and further into the hole panic and begin making riskier and riskier bets, thus then subjecting themselves to even more debt ...

The greatest victim of George Bush's abstinence only education program are the children that he claims to be protecting. Teen pregnancy is the highest in the western world with 53 pregnancies in every 1000 girls aged 15-19. That's a little over 1 in every 20 girls. The number of teen pregnancies in the United States is almost three times that of Canada, England and France (about 20 in a 1000 or 1 in 50) and 17 times that of the Netherlands (3 in a 1000 or 1 in 333). All are western nations and all except the United States provide comprehensive sex education in public schools. Now let's move on. One half of all new STD cases are in people between the ages of 15-24. HIV leads all other STDs in % increase between 2000 and 2004 at 42% amongst teens. It, unlike many other STDs, becomes almost immediately re-transmittable and yet can show no symptoms for years. It may not even show up on blood tests for six months or more. It is transmittable and affects people of all ra...