James Fox

  In a desperate attempt to divert attention away from his malfeasance in office, or actually distracted to the extent that he totally disregarded the consequences of his actions, George Bush put the lives of thousands of American citizens in jeopardy. Knowing full well that in this global economy, hundreds of multi-national corporations employ thousands of American citizens, and that those citizens must live and work in the middle-east, he chose to launch a frontal attack on a well organized terrorist group.

 This group is known to have private financing and the governmental and public support of many Arab states. This means they'll be as hard to catch and punish as catching a goldfish with boxing gloves on your hands. Missile and bombing attacks are like dumping a tank full of guppies on the floor to get one goldfish out. It's just plain stupid.

 The terrorists had already stated that they were at war with America, and they considered the military and civilians were both enemies because they were American. Now we have given the middle-eastern nations reason to aid them in their missions of revenge against the hated American living and working in their country. I shudder to think what will happen over the next few years because they never forget. The war of the Crusades lasted 200 years and the Christians never did prevail.
 

I'm not saying those terrorists shouldn't have been punished, but Bush really goofed in the way he did the deed. The task should have been taken on by private money, and the terrorists should have not been "killed." All that came to the training camps or any gathering places should have started to die from some new unknown cause. When they figured out that only members of the terrorist groups were dying, they would get the message, but would not be able to place blame.
 

In closing, I'd like to leave you with this thought: How many sleepers do we have among us? A sleeper is an immigrant or a person who has lived, gone to school , or worked abroad, or a teacher on a work visa. Sleepers are ideal citizens until they are called upon to fulfill their assignments. Some might attack the power supply, the water supply, or communications -- while others just go around blowing up key buildings. I'm Sorry, George Bush, may God forgive you because history surely won't.
 

James Fox, The Mojave Hermit
hermit1@qnet.com

James Fox

Our forefathers created the 14th Amendment to our Constitution in an attempt to insure every citizen's right to due process and equal protection under the law. In other words, under our Constitution, each and every one of you readers are legally entitled to fair and equal treatment by law enforcement. The ACLU gives lip service to this guarantee, but raises all sort of indignant objections to this, when government take steps to insure this equal treatment.

How many times have you sat fuming in your vehicle as a police officer writes you a speeding ticket, while dozens of cars speed by going as fast or faster than you were before he singled you out to ticket? Under the Constitution, every vehicle speeding by going faster than the speed limit, has to be pulled over and given a ticket, or your 14th Amendment rights have been violated. This same example applies to any other traffic law violation including parking in handicapped spaced, etc.

Now logic dictates that the L.A.P.D. or the Highway Patrol, both of which are way understaffed, under-equipped and operating on a reduced budget; cannot arrest every law-breaker on the streets and highways. However, to comply with the Constitution they must. If they do not, the ACLU should step in to insist that they punish none. This of course would allow total chaos. Everyone could drive anyway they chose with impunity. What a conundrum!

The answer, of course, is cameras. Cameras everywhere … at intersections, on freeway overpasses, in schools, even in churches. Actually with a constantly growing population and an ever-increasing crime rate, our law enforcement capabilities will never be able to cope.

Unfortunately, the ACLU is the loudest opponent to you receiving the fair and equal treatment you are entitled to. They place your personal privacy ahead of your constitutional guarantees. The only other loud opponents to cameras being used to insure that every law-breaker being caught by the cameras and punished equally, are the people who are probably busy breaking the laws on a daily basis. These people are the product of over 40 years of liberal indoctrination and have absolutely no respect for our legal system. They are the ones caught by the Media cameras looting and vandalizing property during our frequent riots. I have yet to hear that our liberal media has turned those photos of local people looting and breaking windows, over to the police, so they could be prosecuted and made to pay for their crimes.

James Fox

It seems like every time every time something happens in the world that could possibly have an impact on the delivery of gasoline from the oil well to the gas-pump, the petroleum industry giants immediately bump up the price of a gallon of gas.

They don't wait until the eminent cost increase is verified, they just zip out and reset the gas pumps and justify their actions via the news media after enough complaints are received and enough questions are asked about the price increase.

The captive victims, the dependent public never seems to question or try to verify the actual impact on real total margins that quantify and justify the increases in pump prices - prices that currently have jumped 25 cents in less than 7 days.

Real total margins -- the difference between the pump price and the sum of crude costs and taxes -- had declined during the 1980's, were fairly stable in the 1990's, and have fluctuated over the last several years as the gasoline supply situation became more volatile. While this was happening, numerous enhancements in the quality and complexity of gasoline (such as the phasing out of lead as an octane booster and the introduction of oxygenated and reformulated grades) have been introduced.

These margins have profit already factored into them, so a gradual recovery of diminished profits could be stretched out over several months, and these sudden huge increases in pump prices could be eliminated. The following is an example of how the oil companies are attempting to get the consumer to finance increases in costs and in the process double dip to profit from the change:

The average franchise gas station has 10,000 gallon, storage tanks, so we will base this example on a typical gas station on 8/11/03 selling gas at $1.74 per gallon. And on 8/18/03 increasing the price to $1.92. The cost of crude actually dropped 3 cents. Distribution, Marketing and Profit costs dropped 7 cents. State and local taxes increased 1 cent. However, refinery costs and profit increased 25 cents resulting in a total cost increase of 16 cents during this one-week period.

One rip off was the 2 cent increase over the actual cost increase, but the real rip off was this…If during this week, the station pumped 4,000 gallons of gas at $1.74 the remainder in the tank was $1.74 gasoline with all the costs and profits factored in, the next load of $1.92 gas was mixed with the $1.74 gas and the resultant price based on ratio and factored costs, should have been $1.81.

When they raised the price of the whole 10,000 gallons in that tank, they double dipped to the tune of 11 cents times 6000, or $660. That's on just one tank, think about the huge rip off throughout the state. Reclaiming that money from the oil companies would go a long way toward getting California out of debt.

James Fox

Education:

Then, If they had a teacher's union when I went to school, it was a well kept secret. I was dragged to several PTA meetings in the early evening (Mom didn't trust me home alone...she had a home bakery going, and I loved to eat). Anyway, at those meetings it was the parents who did most of the talking, and the teachers who answered the questions about what was going on at school.

I was personally tutored when I had trouble learning, I was whipped with a willow switch in the first grade, paddled with a paddle in the sixth when I was bad.

My teachers were dedicated, slave driving taskmasters, who loved me so much they took personal responsibility for my education. They knew their subjects and had no agenda except teaching, and that should be credential enough for any school.

Now colleges are accepting kids who have to take remedial classes before they can do any college class-work because they can't read or write. What on earth happened that could have created this shambles of the education system? Answer:

The National Education Association (N.E.A.) kept a low profile until the early part of 1970 when it started flexing its muscle. The N.E.A. war-chest for lobbying has many politician's hands sweating. In 1975 The California branch of the N.E.A. was born as the California Teachers Association -- then in 1977 the N.E.A. took control of the P.T.A. and opened offices in Washington D.C.

Gray Davis in a stupid attempt to reform education presented AB 1X. "Peer Review" which cannot work in a union atmosphere. Lets face it, if you were a 5th grade teacher and you had test scores to grade and your job depended on the accumulative results of the grades, what would you do? And you, the 6th grade teacher...you've known the 5th grade teacher for 12 years and your kids play with hers. Her class is out of control, 52% are outright failing and the discipline has broken down. You have to write an evaluation of her performance as a teacher. What are you going to do? What will the union let you do?

When I thought there was no hope, the battle was lost, a tiny spark of reason started to glow within the Los Angeles school area. The second largest school district decided that it was time to put the money where it would do the most good. They decided to link salary to achievements.

Officials from the Los Angeles School District are calling for a link between teacher salaries and student achievement in a new contract. The proposal could mean $7,000 more per year in additional income for Los Angeles School District teachers who develop specialized academic skills and work at schools where test scores rise by a specified amount. The union is furious! And I'm so happy, I could just sh..! If this catches on, our children might have a chance after all.

Why am I so happy? I'll tell you why. The children are going to be entering a competitive world when they leave school and their success and perhaps even their survival will hinge on future testing. So, the sooner they are subjected to being tested and graded, the sooner they can be assisted in their weak areas.

When the second world war ended, and thousands of G-Is returned to civilian life, many jobs were occupied by patriotic women who didn't want to return to the kitchen, so when I got to Detroit with a wife and an infant daughter, there wasn't a single rental listing in the Detroit Times. We camped "out" while I stood in a line, that stretched for three blocks, to register for unemployment and work. There were no jobs listed in the paper either -- NONE!

I spent so much time at the unemployment office, I made friends with one of the councilors. He was such a nice guy he let me come over to his house and wash his car and do all sorts of things for him, in return one night, about midnight, he called me and gave me instructions on how to get to a company that was going to be hiring in the morning.

I cleaned up, jumped on the streetcar and when I got there, I was 47th in line for the job. At 7:00 a.m. sharp they herded us into a large room and announced that we would be taking two days of written examinations and on the final day, the survivors would be interviewed. The tests covered every field imaginable the math included doing square-root by hand, writing analytical geometric equations, and they even had some elementary physics equations.