But this is not the only problem with the Satcher nomination. Dr. Satcher currently runs the Center for Disease Control, where he secretly conducted blind HIV studies on newborn babies. Thousands of HIV-positive infants were sent home without anyone telling their parents that they had the affliction, just so Satcher could track the spread of the disease. In addition, Dr. Satcher was a participant in the misguided attempt to nationalize the health care system in 1993, and Satcher has given CDC funds to Project Fire, which sponsors homosexual rallies and parades. Apparently, none of this was offensive enough to dissuade President Clinton from nominating Dr. David Satcher. We trust that it will be enough to prevent his confirmation.
The case involves police officer Grant Snowden and his wife, who ran a day-care center in Florida. Mr. Snowden was accused of molesting a 3-year-old boy while the boy was in the care of his wife at the day-care facility. After a thorough investigation, Miss Reno's office dropped the charges against Snowden before the case ever got to trial. End of story, right? Wrong.
Reno's office then attempted to save face and found an 11-year-old girl who was willing to testify that - when she was 4 years old - Snowden had attacked her at the day care facility for three consecutive days. The jury acquitted Snowden for lack of evidence. End of story, right? Wrong.
Reno's office next found a 4-year-old girl who said that Snowden had "done bad things to her" while she was watching television and filed charges again. Reno hired a speech therapist by the name of Laurie Braga - who would later be presented to jurists as a psychologist - to interview the girl. During the interview, it was learned that the "bad things" to which the 4-year-old girl had referred were nothing more than the fact that Mr. Snowden occasionally turned the TV off while the little girl was watching it, making her cry. End of story, right? Wrong.
The case went forward in 1986, the child was brought into court along with the 3-year-old from the previously dismissed case, Mr. Snowden was convicted of child molestation and was interned in Florida's South Bay Correctional Facility, where he has remained to this day - for the past 11 years. How in the world did he get convicted? It seems that transcripts of the interview sessions in Reno's office are very instructive. Time after time, sexually suggestive ideas were placed in the minds of these children until the children parroted them in a courtroom. Never once was it suggested that Mr. Snowden was innocent. Naturally, the children assumed that adults were wiser than they, especially on the subject of sex, and finally they came to believe that Mr. Snowden must have done something wrong if other adults said he did.
As for their part, the Snowden's simply could not figure out how the children learned about the depraved sexual behavior that was detailed in court. Thanks to the assistant attorney general in Florida, now they know. The Snowden case is back before the federal judges again, but Miss Reno could be the one in trouble this time. Two things are certain - someone is guilty of witness-tampering, and someone kept this story under wraps for a very long period of time.
What Dr. Teller means by those words is that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming has not yet been proven by the scientific method, which first requires one scientist to postulate a set of laws defining or solving the problem, and then requires other scientists to obtain the exact same results when they duplicate the effort. No such method has yielded a consistent answer for global warming predictions.
One scientist who has tried, however, is Dr. Edward Lorenz of MIT. In a ground-breaking experiment, he wrote a computer model which predicted weather patterns. The model was capable of predicting months of weather events in a matter of hours. At one point, Dr. Lorenz wanted to re-run the last half of a lengthy simulation, so he obtained the printout of the previous run, and re-entered the temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and other data commensurate with the half-way point in the simulation - with one slight variation. Although the calculated data had been accurate to 6 decimal places, Dr. Lorenz only re-entered the data to 3 decimal places, rounding as appropriate.
At first the simulation tracked very well - the future predictions agreed with the previous run - so Lorenz went for a cup of coffee. When he returned, the computer was spitting out results which were wildly different from the initial simulation. After a thorough investigation, Dr. Lorenz concluded that the problem was caused by the extremely small differences between the 3-digit and 6-digit temperature, humidity and pressure data that he had re-entered into the computer. When a system is so sensitive that we cannot possibly know the initial conditions well enough to obtain repeatable results, scientists say that the system is chaotic. The weather is a chaotic system. After all, where will you find a weatherman who will say "The temperature tomorrow in downtown Peoria will be 59.854637 degrees Farenheit."?!
This is only one of the problems scientists are faced with in erecting an accurate global warming model. Others include predicting the effect of the human component since Mother Nature still emits the majority of greenhouse gases, accounting for the temperature regulation capability of the oceans and modeling the great quantity of particulate matter in the atmosphere from volcanoes and the like.
On this last point, Dr. Teller suggested that if we do find that humans are responsible for global warming, intentionally introducing reflective particulate matter into the atmosphere would achieve a Mount Pinatubo cooling effect for far less than the $100 billion annual cost of the global warming treaty being proposed by Al Gore, the Clinton administration and those planning to meet at Kyoto, Japan in December.
During the event, Vice-President Al Gore suggested that global warming is being caused by an excessive world population which must be cut using abortion. This, despite that fact that human-induced greenhouse gases comprise a minority of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and despite the fact that 30 million immigrants entered the United States during the same time that 30 million U.S. abortions took place.
The response from Congress can be best described by the words of Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA), who said "Mr. Speaker, I rise to express outrage at the recent comments by Vice-President Al Gore to the effect that abortion is the solution for global warming." Congressmen John Shimkus (R-IL) and Ron Lewis (R-KY) echoed the words of Congressman Pitts, and a letter of protest was signed by many other Congressmen and sent to the Vice-President.
The incident is instructive because it shows the extremes to which some in the environmental movement will go to avoid the scientific method when discussing global warming. When the Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century, the doomsayers predicted that the loss of farm labor would result in a lack of food, causing most of the world's population to perish. Time after time, the purveyors of fear have predicted doom and gloom for those gullible enough to believe. The current crop of naysayers is no different, except that this time, the fear-mongering comes from those entrusted with the leadership of our country.
On October 8th, the House passed a measure which re-affirms the fact that Congress must approve any site nominated by the United Nations, and it automatically removes the U.N. designation from 47 of the sites if Congress fails to approve them by the year 2000.
The audacity of the United Nations in usurping Congressional authority is almost beyond belief, and this is not the first time it has happened. For the U.N. to think that they can waltz into America and start hanging their shingle over our most beloved historical sites - without approval - is very naive. The U.N. should not fret over the possibility that Americans might tear these sites down - it won't happen. Those behind this at the U.N. need to be made to tow the line, and Congress has taken very appropriate action in this regard. The bill now goes to the Senate, where Senator Jesse Helms is expected to aid in its passage.
According to the State of Michigan, Michigan Department of Community Health, there were 25 accidental deaths caused by firearms in 1996 in this state. Presumably, those of normal capacity over the age of 10 know the difference between a play gun and a real gun, and know better than to 'play' with a real gun. (And, after all, 10 year olds can be charged as adults for violent crimes in Michigan.)
Yet 23 of the 25 fatal firearms accident victims were 10 years of age or older. These are not little kids discovering a real gun and thinking that it is a toy - most were adults over 18. They should have been taught that you ALWAYS treat a firearm as if it is loaded.
In the same year, 1996, while 25 people in Michigan were accidentally killed in a fatal firearms accident:
more than four times that many died of drowning (108),
more than five times that many died in fatal fires (128),
more than six times that many died of accidental poisonings (153),
more than TWENTY times that many died of acccidental falls (503),
more than SIXTY-THREE times that many died in motor vehicle accidents (1,577)
Homicides - (which includes people shot and killed while committing a crime) - for 1996 in Michigan according to the Mi Dept. of Health were 804 for all ages combined, and for all weapons combined. According to the State Police Uniform Crime Report for 1996, there were 699 homicides in the state. (They have no explanation for the discrepancy).
By comparison, there were 30,208 reported abortions in 1996 in the state of Michigan. This is not an error. Over THIRTY THOUSAND babies were intentionally killed in this state EVERY year for more than the last 17 years (In 1980 it was over 45,000 and has been decreasing yearly since that time - Over 600,000 babies have been killed in Michigan since 1980, and that is only the reported abortions).
The report did not say how many abortions were caused by a firearm.
Even one child lost from any accidental cause is too many, but accidents are a fact of living. You cannot legislate accidents to make them go away. The fact is, firearms accidental deaths in Michigan are lower than any other reported accident category!
While no death is insignificant, next to 30,000 babies being aborted per year in Michigan makes 2 children under the age of 10 accidentally being killed by a firearm in Michigan seem miniscule.
-Arlynn Afton
As we approach the celebration of Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in Canada on Tuesday, November 11, we thought it might be a good time to look at the way our veterans are treated.
Here at the DO we often disagree with the various military adventures into which politicians enmesh us. But as our readers frequently remind us, the job of the armed forces is to obey orders, not to make policy.
Like most of our generation, we've been fortunate enough to avoid military conscription. Father Outrage served in the army during the Korean Conflict, and Grandfather Outrage managed to fight in both WWI and WWII. George Washington once said, "I am a soldier, so that my son can be a farmer, so that his son can be a poet." Well, the DO hardly qualifies as poetry, but we hope Grandfather Outrage is not too disappointed.
Our hats our off to all the men and women who have fought our country's battles. Even when foolish politicians have sent you off to foreign jungles and deserts you've fought bravely, often displaying amazing valor and resourcefulness. While politicians have taken the credit, or tried to avoid the blame, the armed forces have shed real blood around the globe.
So how has America rewarded those who have fought our country's battles? We thought we might compare the way that society rewards those who fight and die for their country with the way the court system compensates "victims." Here goes:
"If the veteran, as the result of service-connected disability, has suffered the anatomical loss or loss of use of one or more creative organs, or one foot, or one hand, or both buttocks, or blindness of one eye, having only light perception, or has suffered complete organic aphonia with constant inability to communicate by speech, or deafness of both ears, having absence of air and bone conduction, the rate of compensation therefor shall be $70 per month for each such loss but in no event to exceed $3,093 per month." --United States Code, Title 38, Section 1110(k)
To translate from the legalese, if a soldier stepped on a mine and had his foot blown off, being maimed for life, he would receive $70 per month. If he lost one hand, one foot, one ear, complete loss of hearing, and both his buttocks were blown away he would receive an amount "in no event to exceed
$3,093 per month."
On the other hand, if they were a navy aviator like Paula Coughlin and they were "harassed" as part of the Tailhook scandal, then their compensation would be $5 million. Coughlin was not physically injured, but suffered "psychological trauma." (This award was upheld by an appeals court jury.)
"If the veteran, as the result of service-connected disability, has suffered the anatomical loss or loss of use of both feet, or of one hand and one foot, or is blind in both eyes, with 5/200 visual acuity or less, or is permanently bedridden or so helpless as to be in need of regular aid and attendance, the monthly compensation shall be $2,207." --United StatesCode, Title 38, Section 1110(l)
On the other hand, Alonzo Jackson was awarded $850,000 when an Eddie Bauer security guard forced him to remove a shirt the guard thought was stolen. Jackson cried on the stand when he reenacted the trauma of removing his shirt for the jury. Two friends of the crying boy (who were forced to stand in a corner) were each awarded $75,000.
"If the veteran, as the result of service-connected disability, has suffered the anatomical loss or loss of use of both arms at levels, or with complications, preventing natural elbow action with prostheses in place, has suffered the anatomical loss of both legs so near the hip as to prevent the use of prosthetic appliances, or has suffered the anatomical loss of one arm and one leg so near the shoulder and hip as to prevent the use of prosthetic appliances, or has suffered the anatomical loss of both eyes, or has suffered blindness without light perception in both eyes, the monthly compensation shall be $2,768." --United States Code, Title 38, Section 1110(n)
Like Alonzo Jackson, four female employees at a Hardee's were also forced to remove some clothing by their female supervisors as part of a search for stolen money. The four women were awarded $901,900.
What about a soldier who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his country, and dies in battle? How is his family compensated for the loss? Depending on the soldier's rank, his grieving family may receive anywhere from $769 per month to $1,636 per month.
On the other hand, the parents of Sergio Jiminez were awarded $262,500,000 as a result of the death of their six-year-old. Mr. and Mrs. Jiminez did not put their child in a seat belt, and they may have run a red light leading to the accident. The South Carolina jury thought that Chrysler did not adequately design a latch on the Jimenez's minivan.
To summarize, if veterans serving their country:
* Lose a hand or foot they get $70 per month.
* Go blind or lose both feet or both hands: $2,207 per month.
* Lose both legs: 2,768 per month.
* Die: Maximum of $1,636 per month for surviving family.
On the other hand, if you're a woman or minority and you can get "victim status" the awards are dramatically different:
* If you're a female officer harassed by your fellow officers: $5,000,000.
* If you're black and you cry because you had to take off your shirt in public: $850,000.
* If you're a woman and had to take off your shirt in private: $225,475.
* If you're Hispanic, don't put your child in a seat belt, run a red light, and the child dies: $262,500,000.
Is this the America our parents and grandparents died to defend?
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