Spending Priorities?

[Tami]

This article was in today\'s New Scientist Technology newsletter. First, I have to wonder how the US government can justify spending millions of dollars on weaponry and \"anti-weaponry\" and billions of dollars on space travel when there are so many people who lost everything they own, their jobs, family members and in some cases their whole town. Further, in the wake of the insurance companies giving these people nothing but grief and the run-around, why are the citizens of the US not loudly speaking out that its government needs to change its priorities. Why spend millions of dollars to prevent something that \"might\" happen and while something catastrophic IS happening within its own borders?

Improved X-ray vision to stop nuke smugglers

20 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Celeste Biever

IT\'S been a long day at the Port of New York and New Jersey. Officials have wasted precious time and money opening up or X-raying at least 150 incoming freight containers. They turn out to be full of cat litter, ceramic tiles or bananas - all of which happen to be naturally radioactive.

What they don\'t realise is that they have also nodded through a container in which is stowed a 50-kilogram canister of stolen highly-enriched uranium. Unlike the bananas, the low-energy gamma rays it emits are easily absorbed by the 2-centimetre-thick sheet of lead around it, so it passes through the radiation monitors unnoticed. Some time later, home-grown terrorists build two nuclear bombs, take one across the country in a car and set off simultaneous explosions in New York and San Francisco.

Nightmare scenarios like this have already prompted the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spend $300 million installing radiation-detection equipment at the nation\'s ports. But despite this, US ports remain vulnerable, according to the many scientists, government and port officials who testified on the technology for detecting smuggled nuclear materials before a special hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security in June.

\"We\'d be crazy to assume that the bad guys aren\'t thinking of this,\" says Bruce Schneier, a security expert based in Mountain View, California.

Around 80 per cent of freight containers coming into the US are already screened by a radiation portal monitor, which detects any gamma rays and neutrons that escape from the container, and that figure is expected to rise to 100 per cent by the end of the year. But these scanners have significant limitations.

Firstly, they wrongly flag around 2 per cent of all containers as suspect, mainly because they cannot distinguish between a plutonium bomb and the radioactive potassium-40 found in bananas. More importantly, they fail to detect the most dangerous nuclear material of all: highly enriched uranium (HEU).

Unlike plutonium, which emits neutrons and high-energy gamma rays that are almost impossible to shield, HEU emits only low-energy gamma rays. The monitor detects gamma rays using a piece of plastic called a scintillator, which emits photons when it is hit by gamma rays. These photons are then converted into an electrical signal. But if the uranium is shielded by just a thin layer of lead, or even wood, the detectors miss it. And HEU is much easier to turn into a bomb than plutonium.

The number of false positives may be reduced by a new set of detectors known as the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal, to be introduced in 2006. These will distinguish between radioactive isotopes such as plutonium and the potassium-40 in bananas by replacing the plastic scintillator with an inorganic crystal such as sodium iodide. These crystals also emit photons when hit by gamma rays, but the photons have different, clearly defined energies depending on which isotope the gamma rays come from, allowing the isotope\'s identification.

But even this detector will not be able to detect uranium. So the DHS is devoting further millions to fund the development and testing of a new generation of active screening technologies that bombard containers with high-energy particles or rays and then scan for the resulting signature emissions. Instead of relying on the low-energy gamma rays that uranium naturally emits, the bombardment will spark the emission of higher-energy neutrons or gamma rays that can penetrate lead shields and be picked up by the detectors.

One idea being tested by Dennis Slaughter at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is to bombard the container with a beam of neutrons (New Scientist, 16 July, p 8). If the neutrons hit uranium or plutonium, they induce fission reactions that split the nuclei into smaller fragments, but do not start a chain reaction as the density of neutrons is too low. These fragments emit high-energy gamma rays as they decay.

Meanwhile James Jones of Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls is using a similar idea in reverse. He bombards the containers with high-energy X-rays to induce fission reactions in uranium and plutonium and then looks for the neutrons that are emitted in the process (New Scientist, 11 January 2003, p 17).

Both these technologies have been used to detect HEU behind lead shields and have been developed to prototype stage. But both have their drawbacks. Neutrons are scattered by materials rich in hydrogen, such as food, fuel, clothes and wood. As a result, the illuminating beam in Slaughter\'s system was unable to get to the sample in tests on cargoes containing any of these common materials, and the signature emissions of Jones\'s technology could not pass out of the container.

Both have come up with methods to overcome this problem (see \"Fission or food?\"), but others think that since much of the freight passing through ports every day contains hydrogen-rich material, the answer lies not in neutrons but in photons. \"Photons are much more penetrating of hydrogenous materials,\" says physicist William Bertozzi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bertozzi has set up a company called Passport Systems, based in Acton, Massachusetts, which is working on a rival technology known as nuclear resonance fluorescence imaging. In NRFI, an X-ray beam excites all the nuclei of all the atoms in the container. A gamma-ray detector then identifies the atoms according to the unique energies and intensities of the photons emitted as the nuclei return to their original state without undergoing fission.

Bertozzi decided to apply NRFI to cargo containers when he realised that an X-ray beam of high enough energy to penetrate a lead shield would also span the range of energies needed to excite each of the atoms in the periodic table - between 2 and 9 million electronvolts.

Unlike its rivals, Bertozzi\'s technique can identify both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes in a container. All nuclei are made up of clouds of protons and neutrons that rotate and vibrate with respect to one another when they are hit by photons at their resonant energy. The exact energies emitted when the nuclei fall from these different energy states depends on the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus, and provides a unique signature for every element and isotope.

By carefully positioning the detectors and the beam, Bertozzi can illuminate each 20-centimetre cube of the space within the container individually, so putting the resulting images together will give a 3D image of the location of all the radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes in the cargo (see Diagram).

This means the system can be used to detect traditional explosives or contraband as well as nuclear materials, and could be useful to customs officials who simply want to ensure that a container holds what its owners claim it does.

Being able to pinpoint the location of the various contents within the container might also allow a more intelligent analysis of its contents. Bob Ledoux, CEO of Passport Systems, intends to program the system to distinguish between a nuclear bomb, which would be attached to a traditional explosive and require a higher alert, and the components for a bomb, which might simply be surrounded by a lead shield.

But Jones regards this as a waste of time, preferring to simply pinpoint the nuclear material. \"I don\'t need to know what the element is at every single point,\" he says. \"If there is no nuclear material declared at all in this cargo I don\'t care what else there is.\" His detector is able to find the approximate location of the nuclear signals. The three technologies will be tested against each other in late 2006, at a site being built in Nevada by the DHS.

Slaughter also helped write a report on technologies for detecting smuggled nuclear materials, commissioned by the DHS but not yet released. It concludes that the final system is likely to be a combination of all the technologies being developed. \"There is no silver bullet that works for all cargo mixes,\" Slaughter says.

Preventing a terrorist nuclear attack is obviously about more than scanning containers. Increasing security at reactors so that the material cannot be stolen in the first place will be a major part of the equation. But should terrorists get their hands on any uranium, Schneier is confident the technology to prevent it being smuggled is within reach. \"It\'s the kind of thing that technology can actually help with, unlike so many security problems.\"

From issue 2522 of New Scientist magazine, 20 October 2005, page 30
Fission or food?

Neutrons are scattered by hydrogen, which is found in many everyday materials likely to pass through ports on an hourly basis. As a result, any detector that uses neutrons would be unable to detect radioactive materials if they were simply packed in clothing or food.

Jones has overcome this by adding a gamma-ray detector for the high-energy rays that even uranium emits after being bombarded with X-rays. The neutron signal is still important as it is better able to penetrate lead, but it no longer has to be relied upon. Jones presented the work at the International Conference on Accelerator Applications in Venice, Italy, in August.

Slaughter also has a solution. Even when a container is full of hydrogen-rich material, a small number of neutrons do make it through to induce fission of the uranium and plutonium. However oxygen nuclei are also affected by the neutrons and capture them to form radioactive nitrogen, emitting gamma rays that mask those of interest. But by lowering the energy of the neutron beam so that oxygen does not react with the neutrons, the small gamma-ray signal from uranium and plutonium can be detected, even when HEU is buried beneath a metre of wood. Slaughter presented his work at a nuclear physics meeting in Hawaii on 18 September.

[url=\"http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825225.800\"]Source[/url]

[Josh]

I don\'t understand it o.0.... *rereads slower*

[David]

I guess it's about time I replied to this thing, seeing as Ada wanted me to when she had first posted it. I think the main thing that Adaera is hinting at is that the United States is "wasting" money on what [b]could[/b] happen instead of what [b]has[/b] happened. I'm inclined to agree with her on some points; but, not all of them. I have to admit that there should be better security when it comes to nuclear materials; simply because it's so easy to smuggle just a small amount (small amounts at a time = large amount over a period of time). Although, I know that the point wasn't that there [b]shouldn't[/b] be improving their security; but, instead, [b]when[/b] they're doing so. This is the thing, the United States rarely ever supports those in times of needs like that. And when they do, it's just a little amount compared to what has been lost (I think once they donated $10,000 per household - so like $1,000,000-1,500,000 overall). That's not really that much when you start to think about it. Houses in the US range from $35,000-$350,000 (for the "normal" family - not some celebrity or something). The $10,000 would only replace few pieces of furniture, if even - though, no house to put it in. Don't forget about all that time they have to spend out of state with family or in hotels (oof, hotels ... +$$$ used).

There have been countless families that have lost everything, or close to everything they own. Insurance companies will only be able to payout so much per family; and not everyone has Insurace policies that cover nature catastrophies. So, really, some families are left with absolutely nothing. Not all people have some type of "backup emergency asset" fund or anything either - plus, those very same people were probably living paycheck-to-paycheck. So yeah, I suppose the government should had have some type of asset fund system for victims of catastrophies (tornado, earthquake, etc) that are [b]within their own boarder[/b] (I know they have funds set aside for foreign issues like in Africa and such). The problem is, if they don't set aside a certain amount of money per year; it's just not going to happen (due to those ever-so-vital budgets that they ramble on about at the beginning of the year).

Now, while taking that into consideration, you realise that they had probably set aside [b]alot[/b] for national security (since it has been one of Bush's main "concerns" and how he was re-elected again..lol). This is why they're focusing more so on the additional security than those that have been rendered homeless/jobless/etc by the hurricanes. I agree that they should had just halted their project on National Security, or lowered the funding for NASA (since they're kind of running dry these days) and given some more to those National Weather Catastrophy funds. Then those who complained that they needed more Security will just complain again - but those who are upset by the lack of consideration for hurricane victims would be satisfied (which I'm sure outnumbers those paranoid freaks).

I welcome the extra security measures, but the timing is just completely off. Super X-Ray machines to detect things down to the molecular level are nice and all... but, I would rather see a couple thousand homes being repaired, rebuilt, or the money given the families who lost alot of their stuff due to the hurricanes. Now, if they're willing to donate one of those Super X-Ray machines to me - I'd gladly take it, of course. Bwahahahaha. (oh come on, you knew I had to finish with an evil mastermind phrase)

[Tami]

You\'re right David, I wasn\'t saying no security spending, I was pointing out that government is spending billions of dollars on space exploration, weaponry and security when it has whole cities (or close to it) which need to be rebuilt.

The American government justifies its defense spending by instilling the fear of terrorism in many of its citizens. That\'s how Bush got re-elected; propaganda and how he\'s the only president who could or would stand up to all these terrorists.

The government reaction to Katrina was awful-and why? Because the government is so busy trying to control the rest of the world it sloughed off what was happening within its own borders. Hundreds of people who didn\'t need to die, did. Yes, certainly alot of what occurred was state and city responsibility, but why was not more effort put into ensuring that people were safe? It\'s not like there wasn\'t any warning about the hurricanes, it wasn\'t some random disaster.

I think that announcing billions of dollars for NASA programmes and 300 million for x-ray scanners to protect against something that *might* happen is a slap in the face to all those citizens who are struggling just to get the basic necessities of survival.

What is the US Government really afraid of....more of its dirty arms dealing and meddling in other countries coming back to bite it in the butt again? Meanwhile it\'s people need homes, supplies, and the materials to build. Oh but guess what? The government is so concerned about what the lobbyists think, they won\'t even lift embargos and outrageous tariffs to get affordable supplies into the country. If the government can afford to spend billions on trying to own outer space, then it can afford to lift tariffs and help its citizens rebuild.

[David]

The thing about the United States government is that it doesn't have any concession towards things that aren't in their yearly budget. They look at whatever is being proposed and if the "spare change" doesn't give enough to help out in a suitable way, they won't bother with helping at all. What's suitable, you say? Something that makes them look good. Instead, they rely on their ability to exculpate theirselves from any situation. "It's not our fault, and we don't have the funds - we're sorry." However, it's obvious that they're so focused on what the rest of the world thinks of them - that they don't realise that their lack of actions towards their own citizens (in terms of helping them) lowers [b]everyone's[/b] opinion of them. The government doesn't give much tolerance towards their citizens. From personal experience, it was a real shocker when I moved to the UK. They may be more harsh in some cases, but they do care about the people who live here. Canada and UK both have medical insurance systems that are better than the US' by tenfold. It doesn't matter how much money you make (or don't make) here, you can always get NHS. In the US though, if you make too much (which is probably $15,000 a year or more) they'll decline you for what's an already-crappy medical system (Medicare).

Point is, we shouldn't expect the US Government to budge when the rest of the world stares at them with blank expressions. They're blind to that. US can be in Africa helping along some type of medical emergency, but when a huge hurricane causes millions of damage - they just act like it never happened at all. I've seen a news clip where Mrs.Bush didn't even know the name of the hurricane at all - how's that saying to the world that our government cares about their people...it's not. While Mr. & Mrs.Bush were out on holiday in some foreign country, their own country had lost lives - homes - and buildings. Yet, they came back and still didn't know what had happened - and only had put on a facade to attempt to convince the people.

All-in-all, the whole world knows that Americans have it tough considering their government really doesn't care at all about them. Everything's broken up into sub-groups due to the amount of states there are (each state has its own sets of rules and insurance benefits, etc). Nothing's ever static, nor will it be that way - ever. Quite simple, but pathetic in the same breath :-/

[Tami]

I can only imagine how you must have reacted seeing for yourself the US from outside the US. Keep in mind, I am not in anyway putting down the American people-there\'s alot of them out there whom I quite like. The government however-and those who get rich off of it (like ohhhh....softwood lumber lobbyists) are an entirely different story. By the same token, I am not saying that the Canadian government is better, or the UK goverment, or any other country\'s government. They\'re all evil (government bodies as a whole, that is-again, there are a *few* politicians out there who really do have their country and its citizens\' wellbeing as their motivation) - just not the members of Jean Chretien\'s former cabinet and their friends in Quebec (see? even we have evil politicians)

But...when countries such as Canada have to sneak their urban disaster rescue teams into the US so that they can help (ooo treason on the part of Louisiana, let\'s fine them by sending disorganized FEMA teams into the state *said tongue in cheek*) it really doesn\'t say much to the American people in regards to their government. President Bush\'s popularity is at an all time low. Gee, I wonder why. Could it be in part some of the wonderful things his wife says? \"Don\'t send your refugees to Texas, it\'s full\" What happened to \"charity begins at home\" Mrs. Bush? Or is that just not ... your home.

When I hear things like that, or see things like \"Louisiana is sending it\'s least skilled and poorest people out to the rest of the nation\" (said by a chatter in an irc channel, not ours) it makes me fume. What gives these people the right to think that ANY human being has less of a right to shelter, food, and good health than the next? Since when does the level of your job skills or the size of your bank account excuse you from being sent somewhere safe? It doesn\'t...unless you\'re an elderly person trapped in a carehome because no one bothered to make sure there was funding and contigency plans in place to evacuate should the need arise. It\'s not like hurricane season isn\'t an annual event.

Is it so difficult for the government to set aside a large portion of the money it currently spends on necessities like smarter bombs and create a fund to look after the emergencies which take place on its own soil? The American government is so busy making its mark on the rest of the globe it doesn\'t even realize the full scope of what its actions (or inactions) within its own borders have done. One case in point. Softwood lumber-you know, the materials used to build homes...much like the ones that need repair or complete rebuilding in the southern states. The government has imposed such a huge tariff on imported lumber that there will not be enough *affordable* lumber for the average person to rebuild their homes. The supplies needed will cause a huge strain on American lumber supplies. Now you would think that the government in all of its wisdom would relax those tariffs and let the rebuilding begin. Nope. Well, I hope it has a contingency plan for all of the environmentalists who will be marching on the White House when logging companies start overharvesting American forests to meet the demand. Ready to take another look at that Kyoto agreement yet, Mr. Bush?

The American government tries to portray itself as a country which believes in the global community-yet closes its borders to those who can and want to help-then cries foul because \"the US does so much for the rest of the world, but no one does anything for them.\" Mr. Bush and his cronies need to learn that before they start pointing their fingers at others, they\'d better take a long hard look at why fingers are pointing back at them-and why the world views America with very jaded glasses.

This article, written in 2004 drives home even more points in regards to the American Government and its spending priorities:

Bush Honors Veterans By Slashing Veterans Affairs Budget by $1 Billion

by James Boyne
Guest Commentator for Irregular Times
June 1, 2004

I read today in an article by the Associated Press that President Bush’s 2006 budget (if he is re-elected) has a provision in it that will cut funds for Veterans Affairs by 3.4% or roughly $1 billion. The total VA Budget is $28.7 billion a year.

Let’s put this in perspective.

Many (although not all) veterans are pro-Bush, pro-Republican, and pro-Iraqi war. They are patriotic in the sense that patriotism is often confused with \"supporting your President in time of war no matter what.\" President Bush therefore can take advantage of this fact and can continue to cut the VA program with little regard about whether or not a majority of veterans will vote for him. A majority will. After all, he is the Commander-in-Chief and as Commander-in-Chief he gets to distribute a load of his P.R. and give a load of campaign speeches to orchestrated and controlled groups of our young men and women currently serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines as well as prime time TV coverage at the War College. This plays well on TV on the nightly news and on the major newspapers’ front-page photos of President Bush.

In return for Veterans\' lost lives, the sacrifices, the suffering, the dislocation, the burdens, the family disruptions and related family crises the President proposes a $1 billion cut in a $28.7 billion VA budget.

The only logic I could determine behind this significant budget cut is that the President needs more money to take care of his various fiscal messes:

* President Bush has already spent over $200 billion on the Iraq War.
* The ongoing costs of the Iraq occupation costs roughly $1 billion a week (the same amount that Bush wants to cut from the yearly VA budget).
* President Bush (if re-elected) will in all likelihood need another $200 billion to pay for the total reconstruction of Iraq since he just spent $200 destroying it. This may be a low estimate.
* President Bush, to his evident glee, recently passed a $350 billion tax cut. (Just think, he could have proposed a $349 billion tax cut and left the Veterans Affairs budget alone).
* President Bush and an array of Republican special interests, with much fanfare and pride, just passed what was to have been a $350 billion Medicare prescription drug program. Whoops! It turns out someone who is in charge of the White House calculator must have pressed the wrong buttons and the Medicare program is now estimated that it will cost not $350 billion, but rather $550 billion. Oh well, what’s a $200 billion error (Did someone get fired for that minor mathematical boo-boo? Of course not. They just got threatened with firing if they told Congress about the mistake). Congressional leaders said they would not have voted for the bill if they knew it would be quite that pricey. Doesn’t matter anyway. Nearly all of the $550 billion will end up in the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry, Bush’s most ardent campaign contributors. Senior citizens will see at the very best a paltry benefit that is confusing, complex and virtually impossible to understand. In the shadow of all this, President Bush will squeeze another $1 billion from the Veterans Affairs budget. Yes, that makes sense.

While George W. Bush tosses money out the window like so many in the pursuit of bombing campaigns, tax cuts for the rich, and pharmaceutical payoffs, what is the state of affairs for the everyday people who make up America\'s active military and veterans?

* The pay scale of our active, volunteer servicemen is a joke.
* The VA benefits program dates back to World War II.
* The VA hospitals and facilities should be the pride of our nation, not the dilapidated embarrassment they have come to be. Some of the hospitals date back to the 1890’s. The physicians, nurses, medical and support personnel at VA hospitals are sorely underfunded and lack the modern day support they need.

Just think. $1 billion (One Billion Dollars) cut from the VA program. From hospitals. From doctors. From nurses. For what?

For a successful war? By the time the Iraqi war fiasco is over and we have liberated the 27 million Iraqis didn’t want our liberating force it will have cost U.S taxpayers a half a trillion dollars or about $500 billion. If we stay there for 50 years like we have in Korea, Japan and Germany it will cost us much, much more than that.

For burgeoning American prosperity? I don’t know what the hell taxpayers did with their $350 billion tax cut but I don’t see people rolling around in the streets hooting and hollering about how rich they suddenly are. That is, of course, because most of us didn\'t see much come from that tax cut after all. There are still 9 million reported unemployed, another 9 million long-term and discouraged unemployed who aren\'t even looking for work, 45 million working Americans who can’t afford health insurance, 1.6 million Americans who file for bankruptcy every year (many due to hospital, medical and prescription drug bills that have sucked their life savings away -- see the connections?).

For a better health-care system? June 1, 2004 is the day that the new Medicare prescription drug cards will be effective for senior citizens. The administration of this program is a nightmare come true for seniors. Participants must first pay a $35 a month premium, then a $250 deductible and then have to pay a co-pay of $20 or so. Then when their out-of-pocket reaches about $1250 the plan stops, and doesn’t kick in again until they have spent over $3000 or so. Then when their out of pocket reaches $5000, the plan will pay for almost all. Participants have to choose a card that advertises partial coverage of some drugs, then commit to that card for months on end, even though the card providers can change their terms and coverage as often as they want, without warning.

I tried to explain all this to my 89-year-old mother -- but she fell asleep! I told her it was June 1st and asked her where her new drug card was. She looked through her pocketbook for two hours and said, \"Well, I guess I don’t have it. How do I get it?\"

I can guarantee you that Aetna, United Healthcare, CIGNA, Pfizer, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Glaxo-Burroughs-Wellcome-Smith-Kline-Wells-Fargo-Whatever-it-is-This-Week, Pharmica, Eli Lilly, the large hospital chains, and prescription distribution and delivery corporations have had hundreds of accountants, lawyers, and administrative managers working day and night on the best way to extract their fair share of the $550 billion dollars.

But alas, Veterans Affairs is going to be slashed by $1 billion. Boy, that makes sense. Especially in light of the fact that it is the VA hospitals that provide prescription drugs to eligible veterans.

Oh, it makes perfect sense! With wars that cost $1 billion a week; wars that cost a half a trillion ($500 billion) to \"liberate\" people that hate us; $550 billion sham Medicare drug programs that prey upon the frailty and confusion of the elderly for the benefit of the pharmaceutical/health care insurance monster; the $350 billion tax cut that must have went \"poooooff\" since it didn’t seem to make a dent in the unemployment rate other than a few extra retail jobs at Burger King and Dunkin\' Donuts; the $200 million that President Bush has raised to get re-elected; with all these things and all these factors, veterans should be asking themselves, \"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, MR. PRESIDENT?\"

I myself am a veteran, so I know from personal experience how important Veterans Affairs services are. And even though I\'ll never manage to be the President in a million years, I have some ideas I\'d love to give him if he would ever listen. If I were President, I would demand $7 billion back from the $350 billion tax cut (since a $343 billion tax cut would have been just fine). I would take $7 billion back from the farcical Medicare drug program; the fictional nature of its cost has been exposed since the appearance of a $200 billion mathematical miscalculation (so what’s the difference if the program only has a fictional $543 billion instead of a fictional $550 billion?). That’s $14 billion extra I would now have as President.

Then from the $89 billion that I requested for Iraq so we could bomb them into oblivion, I would extract $7 billion and re-direct it to the Veterans Affairs Department. We\'d just bomb Iraq into $7 Billion less worth of hurt. That’s $21 billion so far I have found. Then I would take $7 billion from the next half trillion ($500 billion) that Iraq is going to cost us (since what the hell is $7 billion subtracted from a half trillion?). Now I am up to $28 billion. This is obviously just pocket change to President Bush when it comes to all the other things he spends money on. To the VA it is a matter of critical, urgent needs in order to survive and operate.

Then, if I were President, I\'d do something really savvy: taking about $50 million from my $200 million in my campaign contributions and just donating it to the Veterans Affairs Department. What a public-relations coup that would be! Finally, if I were President, I would go on TV and instead of just thanking veterans families for sending their loved ones to Iraq to get their asses blown off, I would call on all wealthy Americans to send donations (possibly taken from their $350 billion tax giveback) and donate something to the Veteran Affairs Department.

Yellow ribbons tied around trees, American flags draped around coffins, and somber music played by military bands sure looks impressive, but money talks, as they say.

Never once have I actually seen President Bush stand before a group of veterans or a group of active military servicemen and say, \"Hey, let\'s slash the Veterans Affairs benefits program,\" and seen them jump to their feet and hoot and holler with joy. I’ve never seen President Bush stand in front of a big banner as a photo backdrop with the phrase \"Slash VA Benefits,\" plastered all over it. Maybe it wouldn’t make a good photo-op for the nightly news. Or, maybe it’s a secret and your local Congressman or Senator doesn’t want you to know that as a Republican he supports cutting Veterans Affairs benefits.

If I were President I could probably find a few billion more somewhere, too. I’d stop that fake \"tropical rain forest\" being built in Iowa. I’d stop subsidizing pharmaceutical drug research with taxpayers\' money given to the drug companies that in turn charge outrageous prices to recoup the research money that was taxpayer money in the first place. I\'d eliminate the phrases \"pre-existing condition\" and \"exclusion\" and \"not covered\" from the vocabulary of health insurance policies; if the health insurance industry is allowed to take its cruel absurdity any further they will be denying claims based on the fact that you are \"sick,\" \"ill\" or needed to see a \"doctor.\" With four more years of President Bush most health insurance policies probably won\'t cover doctor visits, hospital stays, in-patient or out patient procedures, or drugs of any kind. Coverage for mental health will be excluded entirely, since we will all be crazy by then.

In conclusion, if I were President, I would take the $28 billion I had cleverly \"found\" and double the Veterans Affairs Department budget. That would be $56 billion. That doesn’t sound like a lot to me -- does it to you? We spend between $200 and $300 billion in Iraq already and the country looks worse than ever, with everyone in Iraq is running around with rifles, pistols, machine guns mounted in the back of pickup trucks, and rocket propelled grenades. The NRA (National Rifle Association) sure as hell doesn’t need to open up an office in Baghdad. Those Iraqis are all set.

Do I have to yell to make myself heard? Fine, I\'ll yell. VETERANS UNITE! NO PRESIDENT DESERVES A SECOND TERM UNTIL HE CAN GET OUR COUNTRY IN ORDER. UNDER BUSH, OUR GOVERNMENT AND OUR ELECTED POLITICIANS ARE OUT OF CONTROL. DO THEY REALLY HAVE WORKING BRAINS? WE NEED TO THROW THE BUMS OUT.

James Boyne,
Guest Commentator
Source: [url=\"http://irregulartimes.com/solvingveterans.html\"]Irregular Times[/url]

[David]

[font=\"Tahoma\"]Yeah, it was quite interesting when I had first moved here and did some research about how the government works here in contrast to how the American government works. I can actually understand why the US government does what it does; but, only in the technical sense. They would much rather focus on how they look externally, than they would focusing on what's going on internally. That actually causes people outside of the United States to wonder what in the world is the government over there thinking. I think it really goes back to Clinton trying to change things on an international scale. While it may be a good idea when you initially look at it, it turns sour when you think about how all of that energy focusing on international relations could had been used for their own citizens (or making a nation-wide health system that isn't based on income). Yeah, there are alot of things that the US Government could do to help the situations that happen on their own soil; but they don't look at it like that.

I don't know why they don't, but they just don't. To me, being an American citizen and will eventually be a dual citizen of both the United Kingdom and the United States in due time, it really distresses me. It's not like I can just live within the United States and be happy ever again. I know how the US looks from the third point of view, and I'm really not happy in the least. It was bad enough when I lived there and saw so many flaws; but when you get to compare it to first hand experience with another government, you really start to wonder. If one nation can do something, then why can't another? Especially when the "other" nation that would be copying the original is said to be wealthier and more able to do such things.

Thinking about things like Hurricane Katrina really upsets alot of people in and out of the United States. Simply because it shows US' bad side, for sure. Though, in reality, there's not much that can be done about all that - that's why most citizens started taking matters in their own hands. If someone's going to do something, at least they're going to do it right, right? It's pathetic to think that the government isn't helping at all; but, it's the harsh truth of the situation. :-/[/font]

[Tami]

I really don\'t know what the answer is, it\'s difficult for any government to have a contingency plan for every scenario, but to let things fall apart as the US government did is reprehensible. Then to talk about possibly charging the young man who drove the bus full of refugees to Houston is just sick. Yes, he stole the bus-but why were all of those buses idle to begin with, when so many people needed to be evacuated? There is absolutely no reason for the high death toll other than the government\'s ignorance-and that is on all levels. Those buses should have been put in service from the first day of the hurricane warnings.

I think that a huge problem on Bush\'s part is that he cannot, or has great difficulty, when he has to admit he was wrong, or made a mistake. It is one thing to have pride in your country; quite another to hold onto that pride to the point of stupidity.

[NightStorm]

No, the biggest problem we are facing here is not Bush being unable to admit he made a mistake, it\'s the laws of Juristiction that are in place due to the American Constitution that prevents the Federal Government from overriding State Officials in matters of State. Bush offered assistance when it was first announced that Katrina was coming, and he was told by the illustrious Governor and Mayor of New Orleans that things were well under control, and his assistance was not needed (they now blame this on the rift between the Republicans and the Democrats). Because of this, Bush\'s hands were perverbially tied. It\'s my opinion that in matters of State where lives are obviously at risk, to Hell with what was written into the Constitution 200 years ago... send in the Military and deal with it.

[Tami]

Ah...I wasn\'t aware of that law until the last episode of Commander In Chief, where they were dealing with hurricanes and an oil tanker. I think that if the individual states are going to do something like they did...tell the federal government that everything is under control, the feds should at least have observers present to ensure that is true, and have that sort of \"veto\" power whereby if the report that all was under control is false, then federal agencies can move in.

[NightStorm]

Exactly. There should be cases where the Feds are permitted, in cases of extreme emergency, to overthrow the decision of the State and act on their own behalf. If the Feds would have been allowed to mobilize when they offered, a lot more people could have been evacuated in advance, and the Naval ship that was offshore could have been brought in and used as a floating Hospital and Shelter... they were ready for it, but the Governor ordered them back to their ship.
I\'ll see if I can track down the article.

[url=\"http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Hurricane+Katrina%22+Bataan+offshore\"]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Hu...Bataan+offshore[/url]

[Tami]

That whole scenario is just one big....bad, really bad...joke. It\'s like not one agency was sure of what the others were or weren\'t doing. There definitely need to be improvements in all areas of emergency planning.

[NightStorm]

Yeah, and through it all the Mayor was insisting that everything was well under control.
Hence why there is currently a massive investigation taking place as to why so many people were not evacuated.