Do You Have YOUR Papers With You?

This story needs to be read by anyone who doesn't think our freedoms are eroding away bit by bit and piece by piece.

In this case, not by the Patriot Act, or by a Presidential Administration lying, then lying about the lying, then lying about lying about the lying, while defending torture and engaging in unjustified wars.

No, this time, it's about arresting people for failing to carry proper identification on a public bus. A woman named Deborah Davis rides the bus to work. The bus in question passes through the Federal Center in Lakewood, CO. It is apparently not uncommon for Federal officers to get on the bus and demand ID from everyone on board.

Now, I understand that the bus enters Federal property, but... it is also a public bus. We are not supposed to be subject to random searches, nor are we supposed to be required to present our "papers" to anyone who happens to demand them. When riding a public bus, instead of driving a car, there should be nothing illegal about traveling without ID.

Ms. Davis, after several such trips on this particular bus, decided that this was a violation of her rights, and so one day in September, she decided to refuse the request for ID. She was removed from the bus, handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car, and ultimately issued two tickets.

Now, I understand that many people will say "So what? It's a security matter." But they are missing the point. This is a woman on a public bus. The bus has a stop in the Federal Center for the convenience of those who work there. If it's such a security risk, have the bus go AROUND the Federal Center, drop workers off outside, and perhaps run a Federal shuttle bus if necessary.

My concern is with the whittling away of our rights. Rights don't tend to go wholesale, because no one would stand for it. If we were suddenly, and without justification, told that we had to have a permit to leave our house, or that we had to be in after dark, or that the Government was now going to assign our jobs, churches, doctors, etc, there would be a huge outcry.

But allowing this practice to stand is the first step to a Soviet Union style system where anyone in government can, at any time, demand your papers, and jail you if you don't have them. Heck, we've already got a President who has invented a new category, "Enemy Combatant", which has no rights as either a U.S. citizen or Prisoner of War. If the Feds can do it once, they can do it again.

What if next time, they decide to invent a class of "criminal" called "Seditious Non-Compliant" and declare that they, too, are exempt from protection under the Constitution. Then, defining "not presenting proper identification to a Federal officer" as sedition, and voila, Soviet Union. Here in America.

Am I being grandiose? Probably. But nevertheless, we have to fight the little battles, because if we don't, we could find ourselves having lost the war without ever having realized there WAS one, until it was far too late.

Liam.

Liam Humor Reminder

Some time back, I gave up on the index post, because there are just so many rants now, it was getting too long and too hard to maintain. However, the idea was a good one, and so what I plan to do now is keep THIS post, with a link to the latest humor column on the other blog, and a list of a few of the things on this one which aren't rants.

I may not be great at keeping it always at the top, but I will re-post it to the top every time there's a new entry on the humor blog.

The most recent humor blog entry is:

Hamming It Up (11/27/2005)

Serious Essays:

What Depression Means to Me (2/17/2005)
A Farewell (2/27/2005)

Short Fiction:

The Keeper (2/21/2005)
Tiny Bubbles (4/11/2005)
Final Wish (5/9/2005)

Janet's Posts:

The Birds and the Bees (2/24/2005)
Defense of being a Catholic (6/23/2005)

Congress Wins the COLA Wars

Fellow Blogger Ken Grandlund recently wrote this post, in which he pointed out that on top of all of their perks and privileges, our Congress voted on 11/18 to give themselves a $3,100 pay raise. This brings them to an annual salary of $165,200. Ken suggests that this is high, and given the current state of the economy, it feels to me a bit like a CEO running a company into the ground and then receiving a huge severance bonus when he leaves the now floundering company.

On the other hand, this is merely a 1.9% increase, so while one might take issue with how much higher the Congressional salary is than the average American whom they are supposed to represent, it probably only represents the difference in spending power of that congressional salary between 2004 and 2005. As a comment to Ken’s post, I added the following.

And keep in mind, this is the same group of idiots who have not allowed the minimum wage to increase in nearly a decade.

Sure, a 1.9% raise doesn't seem like all that much, really. A drop in the bucket as you say, and probably approximately equivalent to the increase in the cost of living, such that in constant dollars, there is no increase at all.

But if inflation is justification for a cost-of-living adjustment in Congressional salaries, then it is certainly justification for an adjustment in the salaries paid to the poorest Americans, the ones who are barely scraping by and can't afford to have their pay effectively CUT by inflation.

For reference, the best year to be on the minimum wage was 1968, when the wage (in 1996 dollars) was $7.21.

When I was in High School in the early 80s earning my $3.35/hour after school, I was earning a 1996 adjusted rate of between $5.90(1980) and $5.06 (1984), and that's the last time the wage has been over five 1996 dollars except for the year 1997, the last time the wage was increased (to $5.15, or $5.03 in 1996 dollars).

In 2005, the wage is $4.15 in 1996 dollars, the lowest buying power of the minimum wage since before 1955 (I don't know how much before, I can only find constant dollar references back to 1955).

So the rich get richer, the politicians keep their buying power, while the poor have programs cut and have the lowest buying power for their minimum wage in the last 50 years.

Where, exactly, is the compassion in "compassionate" conservative?

Liam.

Selling America

I think I've mentioned this before, but I think it's important for those who still support the current President to understand a few of the things he's done that completely undermine this country.

Remember when he took office, the Federal budget had been balanced and there was an actual small surplus(*). Remember when he started the war in Iraq, the Administration insisted that the cost of the war to the U.S. would be no more than 3 or 4 billion dollars. Remember that Republicans have always called themselves the party of fiscal responsibility and lambasted Democrats with the words "tax and spend".

Well, it turns out Mr. Bush engages in “borrow and spend” (or maybe in keeping with the prior theme, “tax-cut and spend”). In five years in office, the Bush Administration has spent so much and given so many tax breaks to wealthy individuals that he’s had to borrow money and lots of it. He has, in fact, borrowed more money than every President before him combined, much of it from foreign sources. More than the 42 previous Presidents COMBINED. See this from the House of Representatives website.

With this captain at the helm of the ship of state, we borrow $5 billion dollars every business day.

He has borrowed billions of dollars from the Central Bank of China, viewed by some as the next rising superpower (I mentioned this a day or two ago). Probably not such a good thing to be beholden in huge amounts to a competing superpower.

Me, I think I’d rather have a President getting a little illicit hanky-panky on the side and running an orderly and strong fiscal policy than one who gets to bed every night by 9pm and wouldn’t think of cheating on his wife... but borrows about $15 for every U.S. citizen on a daily basis in order to run the government.

Now, I have a number of pro-Bush readers (or have had in the past), and if any of you can give me a reason why these numbers aren’t as insane as they sound, it would surely help me sleep better at night. For now, I’m just lying awake worrying about what happens when China, with the rest of the world standing behind them, knocks on our door wanting to collect.

Record borrowing. Record debt. And don't tell me that the war on terror and the events of 9/11 justify this level of record. In the last hundred years, we've been through two World Wars. We've had major stock market crashes and natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanos. And yet in spite of all of that, in five years we've borrowed more than 42 previous Presidents dealing with all of that and more, combined.

Some more quick numbers:

$8,000,000,000,000 (eight trillion dollars) - The current national debt, up 40% since Bush took office.
$27,000 - The amount owed for each American Citizen man, woman and child.

To break down that Eight Trillion just a bit...

When Reagan took office, the national debt was just under a trillion dollars. He increased it by over 1.6 trillion. An average yearly increase of .2 trillion. His first year in office it rose by .1 trillion, and his last by .25 trillion.

Over the next four years, Bush Sr. increased it by another 1.5 trillion. An average yearly increase of .375 trillion. His first year in office it rose by .25 trillion and his last by .4 trillion.

Clinton increased it by another 1.6 during his eight years, but the rate of increase slowed dramatically. In the last three years of his Presidency, the debt rose by a mere .26 trillion. An average yearly increase of .2 trillion. His first year in office, it rose by .35 trillion and his last by a mere .018 trillion. The only President in 25 years to lower the yearly deficit over his term in office.

In the subsequent 5 years of the Bush Administration, it has gone up 2.3 trillion. That's almost half a trillion dollars a year. His first year in office, it rose by .13 trillion (includes 9/11). We have yet to see what his final year will look like.

For a graph of how the debt has gone under every President since Roosevelt, click here. And an interesting graph of National Debt as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product is here.

Liam.

(* Note, it takes some creative accounting to actually call it a "surplus", but the budget was essentially balanced)

Ohio and Diebold Strike Again

Folks, it’s really time to start making a fuss. The basis of our democratic system is being stolen out from under us, and we’re not even blinking.

I’ve written before about how last year in Ohio (and other places), George Bush surprisingly won the election after all of the polling leading up to the election and the exit polling DURING the election pointed to his clear defeat. I’ve also written about how the Diebold voting machines can be hacked undetectably in about 30 seconds from one of the central tabulator machines. And I’ve mentioned the fact that this is the first time the exit polling has been more than the “margin of error” away from the facts.

Note, I’m not saying it’s the first time they’ve been WRONG. When the end results of an election are so close as to be within the margin of error, races have been called incorrectly. Just ask President Dewey. But this is the first time that the actual results differed from the poll results by a statistically significant margin.

OK, so maybe it happens. One of the problems with statistical random sampling is that occasionally you can get weird results. If you try enough times, eventually you’ll be able to flip a coin one hundred times and get one hundred heads, leading to the experimental result that “coins land heads up 100% of the time.” The problem with it happening just one time (even if it was in polls all across the state) is that it is statistically possible.

But it happened again a few weeks ago, interestingly enough on propositions designed to challenge the use of these voting machines. The propositions were winning in every poll coming into the election, by as much as 2/3 of the voters in favor, and yet the propositions were defeated. Interestingly, the SAME polls called the results on the other elections on the same ballots correctly.

How odd that a vote taken on an easily hijacked voting machine challenging the use OF that voting machine, would fail to pass in spite of overwhelming support.

Wake up and smell the election theft, folks. Free and fair elections are at the core of our nation. They are the bench mark we often use when declaring one country or another an honest democracy or a sham pretender. It looks like our elections are being stolen, and the will of the people is not being accurately represented in the final counts.

It is time for election reform. We need some form of hand-countable paper ballot as an audit trail for recounts. We need some sort of ballot receipt for voters, so that if someone suspects fraud and can find enough voters with certified ballot receipts indicating a suspicious vote count, there is evidence to file a challenge. Perhaps we even need some form of double check in our elections, with voters casting their ballots on two different systems which would be required to act independently, and only if both came up with the same results (within a certain statistical margin of error as long as the net popular result wasn’t different) would the results be certified.

But there is very real reason to suspect that our votes are being hijacked. Even if they aren’t, just the fact that there’s sufficient reason to believe they might be should scare the pants off of everyone who takes the time to vote.

Liam.

Feeling Frustrated

I'm in a frustrated mood, so after quite a few days of relatively few postings, I think tonight this may be the second of several.

Right now, I'm thinking about Jose Padilla, whom I've mentioned before. Why aren't more Americans up in arms about the way this American citizen is being treated?

I'll say right up front, I have no illusions that Jose Padilla is necessarily a good guy. I have no idea whether he is now or has ever been associated with al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. I have no more information than anyone else on whether he was planning on engaging in terrorist activity.

But he deserves his day in court, as do we ALL as citizens of this great nation. And for three years, Padilla has been held without charge, representation or trial, because the President declared him an "enemy combatant" and claimed that under such designation, he was not due any of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to US citizens. This is patently absurd and insane. This is a level of power we CAN NOT let the President have. Because the power to incarcerate merely on personal assertion is too dangerous to remain uncorrupted.

Perhaps in this case, it may turn out to be warranted. It might be that, had Padilla not been imprisoned these last three years, he would have carried out several major attacks, detonated several dirty bombs, and killed thousands of people. Perhaps in this case, President Bush is honestly behaving in the best interests of the United States.

But what about next time? Once a power exists it will be used, and there are no checks and balances on this one.

What about if the next person declared an enemy combatant isn’t? What if a mistake is made and Bush or some successor President declares an innocent citizen an enemy combatant? Or worse, what if Mr. Bush decides that someone like me, a very vocal critic of his policies, is enough of a thorn in his side as to need dealing with, and decides to declare me an enemy combatant, either based on trumped up charges of non-existent evidence of my terrorist involvement, or simply based on the charge that by speaking out against Presidential actions and policies, I’m “giving aid and comfort” to the enemy?

Should anyone in our country really have the power to make his or her opponents and enemies go away without so much as a trial or even any contact with the outside world? Is this really any different from the old Soviet Union, shipping dissidents to Siberia or committing them on spurious mental health diagnoses?

Sure, I’ve written about Padilla before. But he’s still in prison, and after three years, he’s only just had charges filed against him (and that, largely, so that the Administration could avoid the otherwise upcoming Supreme Court hearing on Padilla’s case that might have stripped the “enemy combatant declaration” power from the Administration).

For another excellent take on this case, read this post over at Huffington Post.

Liam.

Superpower

We hear a lot of speculation lately that China will be the next superpower. With the amount of money we currently owe the Chinese government (with our dear President having borrowed more from them during his 5 years in office than all previous Administrations combined), there are also those speculating that perhaps the United States’ days as a superpower are coming to an end.

Personally, I think the rise of another superpower might just be one of the best things to happen to this country in a long time... as long as we’re smart enough to recognize it and act accordingly.

Consider that right now, the United States is the bully on the playground. We’re essentially the only seventh grader in a field full of fourth graders. This has given us a superiority complex, from our leaders at the very top down to the lowest of the flag-waving masses.

Right now, there isn’t anyone on the playground who can seriously challenge us, and so we’ve stopped caring what anyone else thinks of us. We’ve come to believe that our own petty political in-fighting has honest, world-wide importance and have effectively given the finger to everyone who doesn’t fall in lock step behind us.

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t that way. Certainly there were aspects of the cold war which were much to be concerned about, but we were relatively evenly matched. That meant that instead of merely bullying the fourth graders into following us, we had to engage in diplomacy. Those smaller countries might not be as strong as we were, but enough of them lined up behind our fellow big kid could be enough to topple us.

Consider also that although there’s a certain insecurity involved in having an evenly matched opponent, there’s a certain level of stability and sanity required in order to GET to superpower status. Right now, we’re the world’s policeman, stepping in anywhere we feel the game isn’t being played our way. We’re also the world’s target, as we learned (and as the President is unable to go more than two days without referencing) on my son’s 8th birthday, 9/11/2001.

Right now, we have the extreme insecurity of knowing that there are people out there small enough to avoid our detection, with enough will to actually hit us in ways that hurt, and the insanity to think that this sort of attack is moral and proper.

Now, the question remains, will we react correctly or in time. I really don’t know. It may be that we truly are living in the declining days of the United States era, and that our great nation will never be the same. But maybe, just maybe, if we recognize the advent of a superpower China, we’ll start behaving like responsible citizens again.

That is, if the rest of the world can ever forgive us our ham-handed diplomacy, our use of torture, our attempts to dictate policy to the United Nations, our refusal to take part in global treaties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a hundred other actions spawned by our over-developed sense of self worth.

Liam.

Sex Education

So, one of the larger news stories of recent weeks up here in New England has been the State of Maine, which is about to lose its federal funding for sex education in schools.

The reason for this is that the federal program ties funding to the teaching of abstinence in order to keep teen pregnancy under control, and Maine doesn’t wish to go there. Or, more to the point, Maine teaches abstinence but also teaches safe sex methods, which are apparently verboten under federal guidelines. The reasoning goes “If you teach safe sex methods, you’re sending an implied message that sex is OK.”

Now, you might say “Well, if they’re not going to teach children to be moral, we shouldn’t be supporting their efforts”. Putting aside whether anyone’s specific version of morality should play into government funding of education programs, there are a number of good reasons why Maine is right and the Federal program is wrong.

My argument goes like this: I plan to teach my children to drive safely and not to speed, and yet I also plan to teach them to wear seatbelts and have insurance. Just because I teach them how to protect themselves in the event of an accident doesn’t mean that I’m telling them it’s OK to go have one, and I’m pretty certain my children are smart enough to understand that.

Put another way, I plan to teach my children about the evils of alcohol and drugs. I’ve already started doing this. But I also plan to tell them “If you ever slip, if you find yourself at a party and you do drink, or your friends do, call me and I’ll come bring you home.” I won’t be undermining the “don’t drink” message, I’ll just be saying “If you do, I’ll be disappointed, but don’t make it worse by dying.”

But here’s the kicker... I’ve spent my summers (in part or in full) in Maine for virtually all of my life. When I was a teenager, Maine had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Most teen pregnancies per capita of any state in the Union. At that time, what was their primary sex education class focus? Abstinence. Then about 15 years ago, someone got the wild and crazy idea to teach safe sex and the incidence of teen pregnancy and STDs plunged. Maine is now in the top five LOWEST rates of teen pregnancy in the nation.

Maine learned the hard way that just because we teach our children things doesn’t mean they’re going to follow. Maine learned that kids sometimes get bored and when they do, they sometimes experiment with sex. Maine learned that teenagers have hormones coursing through their bodies at levels which make it virtually impossible for them not to be tempted, no matter HOW good they are.

Adults in my reading audience, think back to the last time you were in the beginning of a new relationship, with all of the heart-fluttering and happy hormone endorphins flowing. Can you honestly say you never did anything stupid? Had unprotected sex with your partner when you know you couldn’t afford to have a child, because you were out of protection and got too close before realizing? Or in this age of AIDS, had unprotected sex with a new partner before each getting tested to be sure you were both STD free?

Adults don’t have nearly the same levels of hormones surging that teens do, and we make stupid choices when the happy juice gets flowing. Studies have actually shown a marked and measurable decrease in both intelligence and wisdom (making smart choices) when in the infatuation stage of a new relationship.

So let’s be smart. Sure, we’d all like to believe OUR children are the GOOD kids, the ones who won’t have sex until they’re married. But human nature doesn’t work that way for adults who have the wisdom of age. It’s certainly not going to work that way for children, who don’t. So teach your children abstinence. Tell them how important it is to wait. But then tell them how to protect themselves if they ever slip.

If you parent correctly, your children will not take this as a tacit approval of sexual activity. It is possible to show disapproval with a behavior and still teach your children how to limit the damage in the event the behavior ever happens.

Liam.

A Note to Bill O’Reilly: Add Me To Your List. PLEASE.

[Note: I realize that in this post, I paraphrased Mr. O’Reilly’s remarks. So as not to open myself up to charges that I put words in his mouth, please visit his blog, on which you’ll find a link to the actual audio, posted November 14th. --Liam]

A few days ago, self-important gas bag Bill O’Reilly made a now infamous statement regarding San Francisco. Responding to the citizens there having rejected a new law to allow military recruitment in local public schools, he said that we should now declare San Francisco open to al Qaeda, and that if an attack happens there, the federal government should not respond or expend any effort on their behalf.

This is not unprecedented from Mr. O’Reilly, and so didn’t really merit comment. I seriously doubt that anyone with more than three firing neurons takes the man seriously, any more than they take Rush Limbaugh seriously when he reports Administration talking points that are in direct contradiction with the facts, nor Pat Robertson when he tells the people of Pennsylvania that they shouldn’t look to God in times of need, because they didn’t vote the way he (Robertson) thinks they should have.

However... Now O’Reilly has gone a step further. He has said that he plans to post a list of his political enemies on his site, http://www.billoreilly.com. This list will consist, among others, of the "left wing smear web sites" that spread "these lies" about him. Well, this isn’t a left-wing blog, and I don’t consider quoting people in context to be smearing, but any list of Bill O’Reilly’s enemies is company I very much want to be in. So I’ll make it easy.

To Bill (or his staff, I’m sure he can’t be bothered to actually do his own work on compiling this list): My name is Liam Johnson. I live in New Hampshire, and run this blog, http://www.liamjohnson.net.

Oh, and I think you’re an addle-brained gas bag, full of macho posturing but not man enough to face real challengers, resorting instead to inviting people on your show whom you know wouldn’t be willing to dignify a worm such as yourself, and then calling them "not man enough to appear on The Factor". All the while being yourself not man enough to invite on real challengers.

Just to be sure you know I belong on your list.

Good day, Sir.

Liam.

(For those who question my characterization of this blog, in my view it is a centrist blog seeking truth and a better America. Right now that path leads away from the Republicans. That any path away from Republicans is viewed by them as liberal can’t be helped.)

Torture...

A chilling post about torture on the Huffington Post today, made more chilling because the person who posted it posts links and citations for each of his allegations.

Remember, this is going on in OUR names. And most Americans don't seem to particularly care. Some actively DEFEND these practices, because they're being carried out by their guy.

Sickening.

Liam.

Something lighter...

For those who found the previous entry as depressing as I did, here's something a little bit lighter that I found on the Internet.

It's an article entitled Revision Thing: A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies, from Harper's Magazine.

The story is interesting, reasonably coherent, and made up entirely of quoted sentences which were later determined to be false.

Liam.

Oh Please, whatever powers may be, DON'T let this be true...

Daily Kos is reporting that a recent report on Italian TV purports to prove that US forces dropped chemical weapons on the town of Fallujah, indiscriminantly hitting civilians as well as military targets.

If this turns out to be true (and I still pray that it does not), we will have lost the last shred of moral superiority we may once have had over Saddam Hussein.

Because remember, the strongest argument that's been made against him is that he was a dictator who tortured his own people and used chemical weapons on some of them.

Well, how can we, with any kind of straight face, charge him with these crimes when we, in his place, found exactly the same tactics necessary and/or useful in keeping "the insurgents" down?

How can we call him morally reprehensible and ourselves liberators and the forces of freedom, when Iraqi citizens suffer virtually the same fate from us as they did from him, but with less stability in the region and more IEDs?

The Daily Kos article is here.

Read it, and then keep your fingers crossed that this turns out to be a liberal fabrication, because if it's real, we'll have lost any shred of sympathy in the eyes of the rest of the world the next time we get hit, while simultaneously virtually ensuring that we will be.

Liam.

Interesting...

I don't know anything about the source, so I want to stress, I don't have any indication that this is true. It's merely interesting speculation, and I pass it along in that spirit ONLY.

There is a a site out there with a different take on the bulge on the President's back during the debates.

Rather than a prompter, as has been widely suggested, this site suggests that our President is wearing a portable defibrilator. They provide a pretty convincing set of circumstantial evidence that Bush has been having atrial fibrilations and TIAs (mini strokes) since the January, 2002 "choking on a pretzel" incident.

I have to admit, that whole "choking on a pretzel" thing never seemed plausible to me. But it's exactly the kind of minor embarassment that makes for a PERFECT cover story, because no one thinks to question embarassing information. The reasoning goes "why would they admit to something that makes him look so stupid, if it weren't true".

Regardless, whether uncovered fact or work of fiction, I found the site to be an interesting read and thought I'd pass it along.

(Among my friends, I have several medical doctors, and at least one of them occasionally checks out the blog. If someone with more medical knowledge than I wants to refute (or even confirm) anything in the linked site, I'd love to hear more!)

Liam.

The ASVAB scam...

(A tip of the hat to my Mom for pointing this out to me).

There is a push on to try to convince all High School Juniors to take the ASVAB test. According to the main ASVAB program page (click the link in the previous sentence), this is a career aptitude type test, designed to help students choose what to study in college, and what career might suit them in life. What the letters ASVAB stand for is not explained. But take a quick look at the link in question. You'll see a page that talks all about "Discovering your possibilities" and "Exploring Careers". It's a relentlessly upbeat page, giving the impression that this is an agenda-free test, solely for the advancement of your children.

Then we turn to military.com's explanation page. It says: The ASVAB, like most aptitude tests, measures your potential. The ASVAB predicts how well you might do in certain military branches and specialties, as well as how well you might perform in certain civilian careers. The test is an indicator only, and not the final word on your military career direction.

(Underlining done for emphasis, not on the original page).

Yes, that's right, ASVAB stands for: Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Buried in the paperwork required to sign up for the test is a form which gives permission for the results to be forwarded to the Armed Forces recruitment offices. According to one site I read, if this form is not filled in and signed, the test will not be processed.

So they try to convince everyone that this test is a must for children trying to determine their direction in life, then they give a test developed for and administered by the military, and in order to have the test scored you have to agree to have information about the test taker forwarded on to armed forces recruitment.

The thing here is, this is an invasion of privacy. Clearly, the Armed Forces believe that the way to make up for the low enlistment rate is to trick as many students as possible into taking this test. For my own children, I'd rather it be their choice whether they choose to explore a career in the military or not. Few children grow up unaware of the Armed Forces, I don't believe children should be targeted and coerced into considering options they aren't interested in.

So, to recap. Joining the "No Child Left Behind" provision that requires High Schools to turn over private information on students to military recruiters (which you can opt out of, see below), now we have the military trying to trick students into taking the military aptitude test.

And you know that none of this would have been necessary if our military were being used in legitimate ways. There is no shortage of brave young people who are willing to step up and defend their country. But when they know they'll be asked to risk throwing away their lives on an ill-conceived, badly managed military boondoggle in Iraq or elsewhere, can you blame them that they aren't willing to step up?

Put another way, if Iraq had somehow invaded the U.S. instead of the other way around, right now we'd have record enlistment. People who join the military want to know that they're serving their country, not just the political aspirations of a group of people who are willing to throw away a few lives in order to cement their power.

Liam.

For those interested in how to opt their children out of the sneaky "No Child Left Behind" reporting, visit http://www.leavemychildalone.com.