Imagine the Quaker
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archives | newquaker.comSaturday, August 07, 2004
US Drug War in Latin America Is Failing
Mr Walters Will Use Spooky Hand Technique
Mr Walters said in Mexico that billions of dollars of investment over many years have failed to dent the flow of Latin American cocaine onto US streets.
"We have not yet seen in all these efforts what we're hoping for on the supply side, which is a reduction in availability," he said in Mexico City.
But he predicted positive results would be seen within a year. When asked how that would happen, Mr Walters said that he would use the "spooky hand" technique, a variant of a strategy pioneered by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Mr Rumsfeld continues to use his "spooky hands" strategy in the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
Mr Walters was speaking just after he had visited Colombia, where US-backed efforts to wipe out drug-smuggling gangs and eradicate coca crops have turned the country into the world's third-largest recipient of US military aid.
Correspondents point out that whenever the US has been able to cut coca production anywhere in Latin America, the shortfall has been made up by increases elsewhere in the region.
Production has notably risen in Peru, the world's next biggest producer of cocaine after Colombia.Satire using a shortened, barely re-written, slightly altered news article by BBC News, August 6, 2004. Photos by Associated Press. Used in compliance with fair use provisions of Title 17 USC Section 107.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 10:25 PM
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Well, duh. Reuters news service reported today on the latest issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in which British and US researchers admitted that our solar system is probably unique. All other solar systems (at least 120 of them) are gassy planets in elliptical orbits that take them far too close to their stars for them to be anything like Earth. The scientists also think that Earth was formed in a manner unlike any other planet in the observed universe. [See report in Reuters, August 4, 2004]
Certainly pertinent to this is a recent notice in the August 2004 issue of Scientific American (p. 28) summarizing SETI's most recent findings (or lack thereof). SETI, you will recall, is the acronym for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, the group that listens throughout the universe for intelligent signals using the Arecibo radio telescope. So far they have covered 95.7% of the visible sky at least once, verified 64.8% of the data, and enlisted the personal computers of 5 million participants for the new SETI@home project. All of the signals received have been verified as earthly in origin.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 10:20 PM
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Frightening fun with numbers. A California marketing research firm, the Barna Group, reported Monday on its nationwide survey on Christian Americans and their views on time-wasting public-policy issues such as removing the Ten Commandments from government buildings, removing "In God We Trust" from the nation's currency, removing "One Nation Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, the presence of creationism in schools, and using the F-word in public broadcasting. [See story in Charisma News, July 29, 2004]
The biggest surprise of the survey is not that Americans are opposed to "a constitutional amendment to establish Christianity as the official religion of the United States" by a two-to-one margin; the big surprise has to be that 32 percent of adult Americans actually support the idea, with evangelical Christians weighing in at a whopping 66%!
Here's my concern. If we continue to saunter through each national election with a mere 50% of the registered voters making an appearance at the electoral polls, it's entirely possible that the 32% (in effect a 64 percent majority) of the Americans who support the idea of Christianity as the state religion might well appear at the next local, state, and national elections and vote in precisely those people who are willing to represent them on these issues. Who says your vote doesn't count?
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 12:56 AM
© Merle Harton, Jr. All rights reserved. Biblical references are NIV® unless otherwise noted.
