The Status Quo

The biggest attack on troops occurred yesterday in Mosul, creating some 80 casualties. The main problem with this insurgency is the help of foreign countries, Iran and Syria. A stable democracy in Iraq would be a serious threat to their totalitarian regimes, so they will do all in their power to undermine the country. The border is long and relatively indefensible leaving it open for the influx of weapons and personnel.

In Vietnam and Korea, China and Russia were involved in the wars without it being acknowledged by the US. Troops and supplies flooded into North Korea and North Vietnam. The US was left to play only defense. Here, the administration has done little to deal with the involvement of Syria and Iran. If the US maintains the status quo here, I doubt the situation will improve. I don’t know enough to recommend a course of action, but the current status quo will only result in dead troops, terrified civilians, and a decreased morale at home.

The Biggest Story Not Being Reported

So wild eyed communist sympathizers can go around protesting, but Christians cannot protest a gay parade?

(CNSNews.com) - Four people who were arrested during a confrontation at an annual homosexual pride event in Philadelphia could spend up to 47 years in prison for public reading of Scripture, an attorney for a pro-family organization said on Thursday.Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association (AFA) Center for Law and Policy, is representing the group in court. He claims the Christian activists are being persecuted simply for exercising their constitutional rights."They were exercising their First Amendment rights in a public forum, and we have videotape that demonstrates that," Fahling said.
The case began on Oct. 10, when Repent America Director Michael Marcavage and 10 other persons preached and read verses from the Bible during an annual "gay pride" event known as "Outfest" in Philadelphia.Fahling said that a video of the confrontation showed Marcavage speaking through a bullhorn while he and his supporters were "being shouted down by irate gay activists."However, city officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the video did not show the start of the confrontation, when they said Marcavage tried to interrupt an onstage performance with his preaching and then disobeyed a police order to move to the perimeter of the "block party" to avoid the potential for violence."They were not prohibited from preaching," said Karen Brancheau, a lawyer for the district attorney's office. "A reasonable request was made to prevent a situation from becoming dangerous to their own safety, as well as the safety of the participants."Charges were later dropped against seven people in the "Philadelphia 11" because they were not seen quoting Scripture on a videotape of the incident. However, the remaining four individuals have been ordered to stand trial on three felony counts -- criminal conspiracy, ethnic intimidation and riot -- and five misdemeanor charges. If convicted, Fahling said, they could face up to 47 years in prison. Charles Ehrlich, the city prosecutor in the case, has called the Christian protestors "hateful" and referred to preaching the Bible as using "fighting words."Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan has banned the protestors from doing any type of evangelism within 100 yards of any "gay and lesbian event."This past week, U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker denied emergency relief from prosecution despite video footage Fahling calls "undisputed evidence" that the group cooperated with police and were continually harassed by members of a homosexual organization called the Pink Angels. Then on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit turned down a similar appeal.Since the federal courts did not intervene, the
last route for the group to avoid trial would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Fahling said"First, symbols of Christianity are removed from the public square; now, Christians are facing 47 years in prison because they preached the gospel in the public square. Stalin would be proud," Fahling concluded. CNS News

Rumsfeld Questioned by Troops

To begin, I liked the fact that Rummy took the questions in the first place. Regarding the armor for the vehicles, his answer of "we're moving fast as possible" just doesn't cut it. They've been there for over 2 years now. In WWII, the made Liberty ships in a matter of days. I doubt in today's day and age, the military can add armor plating to Hummers.

I think he was clueless to the problems soldiers were having getting travel reimbursements and hopefully he'll address the issue. The military needs to get its act together regarding its logistics and finance.

Congress, meanwhile, is patting itself on the back for its intelligence reform bill which probably does nothing but change around bureaucracy.

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday faced open criticism from his own U.S. troops, who complained about inadequate armor for Iraq...Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don't we have those resources readily available to us?" ... Rumsfeld conceded that "not every vehicle has the degree of armor that it would be desirable for it to have," and said the Army was hurrying to rovide more armored vehicles, adding 400 per month. But Rumsfeld added, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Yahoo News

Reminder of the AIDS hype

This is a rather old article, but it's prevelance and importance in paramount when reading and discussing the "AIDS epidemic." The biggest problem that I have with the AIDS hype, is that almost all AIDS cases today are easily preventable, especially in the US. The cure or treatment of AIDS for whoever has it, isn't a bad thing, but there's only so much federal and charitable money allocated to for disease research in the US and the world. Unfortunately, AIDS is receieving the lions share of that money, when it could be better spend on other more unpreventable diseases. Every dollar that is spent on AIDS research takes away from money spent on cancer or leukemia research.

...it turns out that AIDS in Africa -- which doesn't even require an HIV test to diagnose -- may be a very different condition than AIDS in America. Evidence shows that "AIDS" in Africa is just a new description of many age-old diseases common to nations in misery and war with starvation, wrecked economies and ruined public health services. HIV tests, essential to any diagnosis of AIDS in the United States, aren't even given in Africa, except to tiny samples of the population. For Africa, there is the "Bangui Definition." (which specifies), the patient must have two of these three symptoms: "prolonged fevers for a month or more, weight loss over 10 percent, or prolonged diarrhea," combined with any one of several minor symptoms -- chronically swollen lymph nodes, persistent cough for more than a month, persistent herpes, itching skin inflammation or several others. But many of these symptoms show up from other African diseases, now vastly spread because of the political chaos.

Poor sanitation, poverty, malnutrition and parasitic diseases were always common and are now endemic. In America, AIDS is a name for 30-odd diseases found together with a positive test for HIV antibodies. Consequently, being HIV positive is the requirement for a diagnosis of AIDS in the U.S. In addition, there's even a credibility problem with such HIV testing as it is done. ....False positive test results with the common HIV ELISA tests can come from many causes, including pregnancy and diseases endemic to poverty-stricken Africa, such as malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy. The Western Blot is a more precise follow-up test, but expensive and rarely done in Africa. ... Transmission to infants from infected mothers' milk is reportedly widespread, but can't really be checked until 15 months after birth, when the infant develops its own antibodies.

"It's also a money game, and Africans learned to play it," says Michael Fumento, author of "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" -- "going to places with high rates and then extrapolating positive test results over the entire nation, because that's where the money is. If diseases are diagnosed as traditional, few Westerners care, but if they are described as AIDS, money and help come flowing in from Western nations." For example, tuberculosis deaths have now been reclassified as AIDS deaths in many African statistical reports.

It's the same disease, but now it qualifies for help. These facts are amazingly unreported in America...In questioning the reason for what appears to be gross exaggeration of AIDS statistics, experts bring up the old legal term of "Cui bono" -- who benefits? The list is very long.

In money terms, first there is the pharmaceutical industry....Then there is the public health establishment. More billions can go for salaries, offices, staffing, travel and long reports. The World Health Organization budget has skyrocketed along with African AIDS statistics... In America, government AIDS money is spread far and wide. Federal spending now tops $10 billion and is increasing yearly even as case loads fall.

One of the most pernicious effects of the scare tactics is the wish to "prove" that AIDS is a heterosexual disease that "anybody can get," distracting from its most recognized form of transmission -- intravenous drug needle sharing and unprotected anal sex. As Bethell writes, "The failure of American AIDS to 'explode' into the general population led the authorities to look for the phenomenon elsewhere.... If the very high AIDS spending by the U.S. government is to be sustained, the emergency would have to be drummed up elsewhere, ... so Africa beckoned..."

However, contradicting the highly-publicized "heterosexual" AIDS infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa, HIV is difficult to contract. Under normal, healthy conditions, the chances of an infected man transmitting the virus to an unprotected woman are less then 2 in 1,000, according to the World Bank. And the August 15, 1997, "American Journal of Epidemiology" reported that male-to-female transmission of HIV is extremely difficult, requiring on average one thousand unprotected sexual (non-anal) contacts, and female-to-male requires
on average 8,000.... WND