Uh Oh in St. Augustine A woman was pulled over by St. Augustine (Fla) police for allegedly running a red light. Inside the car, police found a 24-pack of Busch beer--strapped in with a seat belt. They also found a 16-month old girl in the rear seat who was not strapped in with a seat belt, although the girl's mother was beside her.
The driver, 46-year old Tina Williams, was arrested and charged with DUI, child abuse, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving without a valid license.
This question comes to mind: What chance does that 16-month old baby girl have to live a productive and satisfying life?
And don't you want to see Tina Williams punished?
Who to punish here?
A few days ago, five local teenagers were killed in a car crash.
The car was a 500hp BMW, owned by the driver's father. The driver was noted for his love of speed and had several traffic tickets under his belt already at the age of 19. While no one knows exactly what happened, four of his friends got into this speedy BMW with him one morning about 3 a.m.
It appears the purpose of this early morning gambit was car racing, as they drove off the end of the private runway (where John Travolta lives and flies) at 120 miles per hour.
Certainly this is a tragedy: five young lives snuffed out forever. But from all of the eulogies, you'd think these boys were saints. It was said, over and over again that they were loving, kind, courageous, studious, etc.
That may be true. But they were also careless and carefree, and irresponsible, and stupid, and inconsiderate--and they cared so little about the people who loved them that they killed themselves in a foolish, early-morning, daredevil stunt.
If the driver had lived, would you want to see him punished?
So what's wrong with a few tainted drugs?
Older people especially know that most drugs cannot be imported into the United States from Canada. Older people especially know that drugs from Canada cost far less than their counterparts sold in the United States, e.g., a drug might sell in Canada for 50-70% less than that same drug would sell for in the U.S.
Why are drugs not allowed to be imported from Canada to this country? The official reason given by the Bush administration is that Canadian drugs are not subject to the same strict quality control as drugs made in the United States. Drugs from Canada might be tainted and therefore, says the Bush people, we must forbid their importation: the implication being, of course, that Bush & Co. are concerned about the well-being of U.S. citizens.
That is all pretty much B.S. The truth is much uglier. The Bush administration is in bed with the drug companies and does pretty much whatever the drug companies ask. That's because the drug companies are huge contributors to the Republican Party. In addition, the drug companies have large numbers of highly-paid lobbyists running around the halls of Congress making sure our Representatives and Senators know how important it is to stem the flow of illegal, possibly tainted drugs from Canada so that U.S. drug companies can continue to reap humongous profits.
Well, shucks, most of the drugs which would be imported from Canada are made here in the U.S. or by U.S. companies in other countries. So, if these drugs were tainted, then the drugs sold here would also be tainted.
That may not be far from the truth. Ironically, one Canadian company, the Biovail Corporation, manufactures drugs such as diltiazem in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican drug industry makes about $35 billion worth of drugs every year and most of those drugs end up on the U.S. market.
Oops. Diltiazem is a blood-pressure medicine. One day a worker noticed that some of the capsules were spotted with blue flecks, and the blue flecks matched the paint on the factory doors. Biovail dealt with the problem by covering the carts that carried these drugs.
Question: If Biovail makes drugs in Puerto Rico, does that make it a U.S. Commonwealth company and not a Canadian company?
The Associated Press reviewed 100 pages of FDA reports and found that U.S. drug plants, supposedly watched by U.S. regulators, do not maintain sterile laboratories and have exported tainted pills.
But we knew that. The FDA is headed by Bush cronies. And the Bush administration never lets facts get in the way of it's theology.
Write to the White House and request that we be able to import from Canada the same drugs that we buy here. The only difference is the price.
More Spying by our friends in the White House
According to Peter Swire at Think Progress, the Bush administration has inserted a proposal into the 2009 budget proposal that would make the NSA wiretap program look like child's play.
This proposal "allocates $6 billion for a secretive system that is designed to protect government and private computer systems from attack. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House proposal 'would likely require the government to install sensors on private, company networks.'"
Swire thinks it is important that the government establish security measures to adequately protect its own computer systems. The government should not, however, install their particular measures on private systems.
That sounds like a smart move. But unlikely under our current leadership.
Final note
In an analysis of Bush's Federal Budget Request for 2009 (a total of $3.1 trillion!), Think Progress has noted that $515 billion will go to the Department of Defense. When adjusted for inflation, this is the largest defense budget since World War II.
The kicker is this: That $515 billion does not include the costs of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan! If those are added into the mix, the actual defense budget will be almost $688 billion!
No wonder we can't afford affordable health care in this country. No wonder we can't afford most of the other things our people desperately need! We're too busy beating up on people for non-existent weapons of mass destruction!
Oh, no, sorry, that's wrong. That was what we were told first. Now we're told that we've sent our army into these countries to ensure democracy. Except that after almost 5 years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no democracy.
So, here's the situation: the US is spending just under $3 billion per week to cram democracy down the throats of Iraqis and Afghans, the majority of which have not an iota of interest in following the basic tenets of democracy.
Evidently, in the fantasy world of the Bushites, $3 billion a week down the toilet to try to achieve an impossible goal doesn't matter.
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