SERIOUS DANGERS LURKING IN FORWARDED EMAILS

[This item is from someone who wishes to remain anonymous. You will learn why as you read it.] Late one evening, while online, I received an IM (Internet message) from a gentleman who said he knew me through mutual pals online. We chatted for an hour or so before deciding to keep in touch, as we had so many things in common. Eventually after a week or so of knowing him, I trusted him with my name (first name) and phone number. After all, he knew my friends and I felt he must have been okay if they all liked and knew him. He knew a lot about them; he knew a lot about me, and he knew a lot about a lot! He seemed like such a nice person, a pleasant person, and someone whom I felt very comfortable sharing my time online (and on the phone) with. One night, a friend from our group of friends invited me to a Chat Room where several of the friends had gathered and were chatting when this gentleman popped into the Chat Room. He popped in and then left quickly. Then, for the first time since I met and started chatting with him, I mentioned him to one of the friends who was in the Chat Room, one whom this gentleman claimed an association with. She was in total awe, she did not know who he was! Things were beginning to look really suspicious. The more she and I chatted, the more suspicious it became. It also became apparent that this guy knew none of us. Suddenly, he disappeared off-line for a few days, then one day he pops back in and sends me an IM saying that we need to talk. He called me at my home and I was very upset, so I asked him how he really found me and why he had felt the need to lie in the first place. ***PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS:*** He told me that he spotted my screen name on a "Forward" that one of my friends had sent to someone else. My screen name is what attracted him. He then used the screen name of others on the list of forwards to acquaint himself with me and various others from our clique of friends. He also used the Member Directory (at AOL) to look up info about others on the list of forwards, so as not to look suspicious. He said he felt it was the only way he would have the chance to get to know me, and the main attraction to me was "My Screen name" because he thought it was "sexy." I was upset, needless to say, as I had trusted this man with my personal info, such as phone number and name. He also knew where I lived (thanks to the phone bill) and I was now his prey. A few days after having last talked to this person and thinking that was the last of him, I received a phone call at 4:00 AM. It was this man telling me he was in town to see a friend who lived 20 minutes from my house, and wanted to know if I would like to meet him for coffee or breakfast. When I told him it was not such a good idea, he became irate and hung up on me. I immediately called him back (caller ID) and explained to him that my husband was back home (trying to scare him) and please not be so mad (in fear of him and what he might do). Telling him that my husband had returned and we were reconciling was a lie, and I told him this to make him think I was not alone. Imagine the feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach when he came back with the following response - - "You're a lying bitch, your husband is not there with you -- you are alone!" I hung up on him and immediately called the Broward County Sheriff's office and told them what had happened. They sent an officer over to take a report and said that was really all they could do for me at that time. So, I packed few belongings into my car, and drove to my sister's home for the night. Fifteen or twenty minutes after I arrived at her home, I received a phone call from this man again. He knew that I had called the Sheriff and reported him; he knew where I was and he knew my sister and her husband's names. This man had been stalking me for weeks and I had no idea. I walked, ate, slept and breathed in constant fear until he was finally arrested for stalking -- Not for stalking me. Nope -- for stalking another lady who lived in Kendall, Florida. I wanted to share this with you all. And yes, it is all true. Friends, when you forward things and you leave your friends' names out in plain view like that, you are putting them and yourself in what could be grave danger. I hope I have gotten this message across. I have not even begun to mention his assault (rape, using deadly force) charges the detectives from Broward County and Kendall, FL uncovered on him while investigating his prior history. People, please -- Be safe, be careful and use Blind Carbon Copy (BCC). Please Remember: It is Important to remove all personal email addresses when forwarding items from this, or any other emails. Many of us have a great deal of information in our signature files that appear at the bottom of many of our messages. In addition, the blind carbon copy (BCC) option makes the individuals you send email to unseen by all other recipients. E-mailers should also cut out ALL email addresses from "Fwd's" when forwarding the message on. You may have received unsolicited emails from individuals who have retrieved your email address via a forwarded message from a group. IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS, CHANGE HOW YOU SEND E-MAIL! Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people that received the message before you -- namely their e-mail addresses. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some person to get a virus and his/her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across their computer. Someone can also take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel. HOW DO YOU STOP IT? Well, there are two easy steps: (1) When you forward an email: DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message. Highlight them, right click and click delete; backspace them -- whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. (2) Whenever you send an e-mail, don't use the "To:" or "CC:" Use only the "BCC:" (Blind Carbon Copy) for sending the message. Click on the little address book beside "To" to "select recipients" but put the recipients in the "BCC" box instead of the "To" box. That's it -- it's that easy. NOTE: Anyone who reads this item should send the information (just copy-and-paste from this website) to everyone on your e-mail list. It should also confirm why & how we should "clean-up" our e-mails. Even if you are already using BCC, you no doubt have friends who need this information to understand the importance of using ONLY BCC.

THE NEW AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

By ELLIS R. MILLER, [Huntsville, Alabama, USA] In a slight revision of the commercial jingle, I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, I’d like to buy the world a Coke and apologize for America. The lack of even meagre objectivity or flexibility, the utter inability of the average American via some Cold War mental block made stronger and resistant to fundamental reason or reading comprehension by the abuse of antibiotics is staggering. The violent refusal to even consider alternative opinions of any nature evident in the immediate backlash, like a primal reflex honed and tempered by thousands of years of evolution, to the most generous, kindest constructive criticism is at an all time low. G W B’s agenda is more than just setting a bad example -- it is a sweeping mandate that seems to spring from and reverberate through American multinational corporations -- and having been re-elected I suspect it has been made stronger. On the other hand, there is no sinister plot: Imperialism is much older than Democracy and the natural evolution of a Democracy that has given way to the paranoid focus on militarism for at least the last several decades of the Cold War has proven to be something we should have emphatically guarded against, but not wholly improbable. Bush’s agenda, however tragically misguided, is dismissing both the lessons of ancient history i.(e.g. the fall of the Roman Empire), as well as the recent collapse of another Super Power the Soviet Union, [ironically enough the United States takes credit for that stellar feet of Democracy, yet whatever the contribution has been, apparently learned nothing from it]. Such historical precedents are dismissed as quickly as that next left-wing subversive who doesn’t want to attend the mandatory Whitehouse office/prayer meetings of John Ashcroft (if I had to attend I would certainly find God as quickly as possible and pray he doesn’t break into spontaneous song). Now, in the case of Corporate America the Bush minions refrain from the use of foul language or any individual expression in attacking domestic dissidents, yet the same philosophy prevails and the violence against any form of independent thought is just as deliberate. The fact that corporate America has crafted a more subtle form of neo-conservatism that is twice as politically correct and infinitely more destructive -- spanning both Republican and Democratic administrations -- provides ample evidence in considering big business in the United States the first cause of George Bush. For the past several years, specifically, I have seen the “Dilbert-like” office politics of Fortune 500 IT Departments give way to a sort of overwhelming ignorance and myopia violently resistant to independent thought even in an industry, IT, which necessarily thrives on creativity and innovation and dies without it. The mere reading of vendor documentation (or reading at all) prior to a typical WebLogic installation, for example, is virtual heresy. Moreover, every innovation, suggestion, or creative solution to correct the obvious performance problems and resulting assault on the AS (Application Server) uptime, even when based on objective analysis (in the case of Oracle database applications STATSPACK) has been violently dismissed if not prohibited, necessarily being replaced by thoughtless, big-money solutions based on purchasing a larger server or spending money to upgrade to more CPUs or more memory. Now, the complexities of IT, in particular the Oracle RDMBS or any AS (Application Server) are by no means cut and dry yet that is exactly where the innovation of individuals is most valuable and, in the past, highly prized. Yet, the growing lack of Information Technology expertise in the United States based on the fact that it is treated like a commodity, ALMOST IN VAIN HOPE IT IS JUST ANOTHER FRANCHISE, as evidenced by the rampant, non-strategic outsourcing, is a mirror reflection of the subsequent decline in ALL intellectual pursuits even as fundamental as reading and in the last three years the downturn has been quite drastic. Instead, Bush’s America is one in which the budget dictates all innovation or IT growth and, even in times of tight budgets, the current myopia plaguing the American political landscape in both the Whitehouse and corporate office does not give way to American innovation as it is still deemed to be a weighty a threat to the single-minded pursuits of our nation: power for its own sake. The general corporate ban of individual thought and analysis stands even when appealing to that most-high Protestant ethic of rigid frugality i.e. doing more with the same resources or hardware and software as a direct result of complex, objective, even mathematical analysis. Instead, the mere offering to provide such expertise is viewed with disdain or mild suspicion at best -- even in the past three years (2001-2003) when corporate IT budgets were strained, immeasurably. And in those rare cases where I and others have been provided the most exquisite freedom to apply “dangerous” analytical capabilities to successfully implement innovative solutions to complex application performance issues related to bad design, code, or even initialization parameters, the success has earned a quick and hearty exit as one with such magical, inexplicable powers of independent thought is, by definition, a threat and some sort of new breed of left-wing IT professional (I never realized that Information Technology and the associated analysis could be deemed a school of political thought sort of like Algebra II being left wing). I tie the two together, my personal experiences in the American IT industry over the past three years, especially, and the supreme, all-knowing reign of Bush: “I don’t like reading or the nuances that arise from it” but love the Lord Jesus, who hates fags but loves war and bad intelligence. To stress that the attacks you have experienced from “M” are so very typical and of the same stubborn, narrow-minded, xenophobic breed that literally have a death grip on the US political horizon as well as (simultaneously) the economic future of this formerly great, innovative nation (much of that spirit of innovation coming as result of immigration and cooperation of diverse cultures). Regardless, even I recognize there has always been a longstanding battle between liberals and conservatives, innovators and imitators (not to say that politics dictate intelligence at least prior toBush), start-ups and the next McDonalds, cookie-cutter franchise, but for the first time in my lifetime the former has been slowly, subtlety duped into smiling at the 5th Blockbuster in the same mile stretch of road, yet rationalizing Starbucks as the franchise of the great American revolutionary. Yet the strip malls, giant, monolithic media corporations, and utter disdain for outside assistance or cooperation even from our closest allies doesn’t explain it, entirely, as the evolution of American de-evolution is much more complex yet its incarnation is actually much simpler. Bush is the personification of everything gone wrong in the United States for the past twenty years, and nothing more or less than what corporate America must absolutely consider their finest work -- his re-election being their finest hour and a resounding confirmation that they have finally eradicated the thinking, sometimes defiant, individual. Now onto military conquest of the ROW (Rest of World) as they surely don’t have time to busy themselves with translating all those Successories into French, German, and Italian. The lowest common denominator is always there, even in the most enlightened Democracy. My country, our Democracy, simply got old, tired, and paranoid and quit fighting against it. To the contrary, we celebrate it in defiance to the entire free world. ”Without exhaustive debate, even heated debate, of ideas and programs, free government would weaken and wither. But if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that every individual or party that takes issue with our own convictions is necessarily wicked or treasonous, then, indeed, we are approaching the end of Freedom’s road.” [Dwight D. Eisenhower] “When vested economic interests “stand in” with Governments the sacredness of property converts all innovation into sacrilege.” [J. A. Hobson]

A DISILLUSIONED AMERICAN REPUBLICAN SPEAKS OUT

By ELLIS R. MILLER, Huntsville, Alabama, USA. [This is a comment on a discussion started by myself, Julian Hancock, on an American website for IT Professionals, comparing the Fall of The Roman Empire with the current political scenario in the USA.] I am currently reading "The Sorrows of Empire" which outlines, in part, our new foreign policy never before undertaken by the United States (at least not blatantly): pre-emptive attacks on governments which are perceived to be a threat. In a broader sense, the author outlines the inevitable fall of our new quest for imperialism or militarism. Without listing or expounding on the scholarly study performed by an array of venerable authors validating and supporting you, the more obvious signs are on this list, daily, and in the corporate offices all across America: dissenting opinion or constructive criticism based on objective reasoning and fact is greeted with such enlightened responses as, "Kiss my ass you fucking pussy foreigner Nazi" or "Fuck you and mind your own business you goddamn Communist," where the confusion between the Nazi movement and Communism is often profound. America has become a country of ignorantly defensive, xenophobic evangelical’s hell bent on invading/bombing any country or person, were it possible via satellite, who doesn't like it. Personally, I am trying to relocate to Canada and/or the EU, but being an American citizen with only a passport and having never worked abroad this could take some time. In the interim, I try to avoid interesting conversations with most former friends and peers as Americans aren't just idiotically violent towards foreigners, and the quickest way to get banned from an office is to actually comment on something aside from the saving grace of Jesus or blowing up “sand-niggers” --especially the ones who are gay. Keep in mind, I was a registered Republican. This time around I voted for Kerry. Last time around I was working 90 hours a week. Next time I hope to be watching from somewhere in the EU, perhaps. Regardless, what should have been an erratic anomaly, the first four years of the W Presidency, is now confirmation of well, it is the beginning of what will prove to be a significant decline in both the economic and political influence of the United States (when one has to count on Russia, the former Soviet Union, for emphatic political support not much else needs to be said).

GOD IS ON BUSH'S SIDE IN CHRISTIAN JIHAD

By ANDREW ROUSE, Wisconsin, USA. The US election was a referendum on morality. The Democrat ticket has left behind completely any tie to absolute morality given by God, and that is specifically why Bush won the election and specifically why John Kerry rightly lost. Issues like 'the war in Iraq' are problematic but debatable. Issues like full term no-questions asked abortion on demand (live birth abortion) and issues like gay marriage or even civil unions are issues that are wholly incompatible with the Christian worldview and NEED TO BE REJECTED by any God fearing voter. John Kerry and most Democrats have demonstrated in their actions, not their words they are anti-Christ in their philosophy and that is not something any Christian wishing to please God can be behind. There is no 'blood thirsty' group of which you speak. You have gotten sucked into the biased BS media hype I'm afraid. You get your news through the communist news network (CNN) or something? I wish that there was a fair way to choose a leader in this or any other country, but it's very, very rare that a Democrat ever sides with something that can be aligned with values taught in the Bible. They always cave into liberal agendas like 'gay rights' or 'abortion on demand.' Sadly it makes any of the 'good works' they might have on their plate a moot point ... Biblical moral truths are a trump card. Sorry to inform you but it's purely political tripe. The BS about 'lust for money and blood' that is an absolute lie. The motivation of the peace-loving majority that just said 'hell no' to hiring an evil man devoid of good as Commander-in-Chief of the USA was to hire somebody that openly admits he's a Christian, who actually prays on his knees for guidance and wisdom and has millions of people praying for the same. You are a very misguided, surly person. It's very sad that you are grouped in with the majority of the world that has lost sight of what is most important (pleasing God first) and have bought into this liberal 'me first' mentality that has plagued Europe and most of the world ... the very thing that has turned Europe into a godless majority society ... basically completely secular. Well DUH -- of course the secular majority of 'the rest of the world' doesn't like Bush. Bush stands for Biblically based moral truths. That really pisses off 'the world' that thinks they can make their own moral laws. It's false and always will be. Putting 'the right of a fish' in front of the 'right of a created being' will always be one of the most important issues of all history. A man that will openly say that 'harboring a culture of life' is the solution has a trump card of righteousness over a man that will openly say "regardless of your thoughts, I will spend YOUR money to KILL unborn humans, and you have no say in the matter." That is pure, concentrated Evil. There is no way around it. The war in Iraq can be considered 'a mess' … I'll let you in on a secret ... IT IS A WAR ... by definition it's a mess. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that war. It is a war of righteousness ... a holy war which is what 'the war on terror' is. It is quite literally a war between Christians and Muslims -- an analog of 'good and evil'. Something that the mainstream media is too chickenshit to say aloud. From here on out until the 2nd coming of Jesus, there will be an ongoing war between Islam and Christianity. The only true threat to Christianity on this planet is Islam. The majority of people that call themselves Muslim have no idea what that means, but a very large and growing minority do know what it means, and those are the people we 'call' extremists. Those are actually as they accurately call themselves the 'true' Muslims. So, YOU have chosen to 'side yourself' with the Islamic fantasists. Do you have a good reason to back that up? If you believe there is some ulterior motive for the Bush administration that has an evil root I will 'call you on it' and tell you point-blank you cannot be further from the truth. I'm not even a Republican. I'm not tied in any way to 'the Bush crowd,' but I've followed plenty of the important decisions and actions by our president and I have no problem with most of the truly important decisions, like anything that keeps us more separate from the UN (most evil organization in history) and any of the actions that side with Israel to help out the only God-fearing nation in the Middle East. There are political 'trump cards' and Bush has several. It would be nice if there was a Democrat that hadn't sold his soul to the devil for political gain but I've yet to see one. If you have an example I'd sure like to see it. You cannot resolve 'god fearing Christian' and 'abortion rights,' not at all, not in the least. Anybody that is pro-abortion is point-blank anti-God, they are absolutely incompatible. Most Demonocrats are more worried about the spotted owl than the 4000 babies being killed in America DAILY. Whine whine whine -- oh the poor kids dying at the rate of 3 a day in Iraq. Well, let's start with 4000 versus 3 for starters. Let’s move on to righteous cause versus wholly evil cause rooted in nothing but selfish greed. To say that the war in Iraq is a 'trump card' over the completely evil 'abortion is a constitutional right' mentality of the liberals all over the world can not possibly be more of a lie. Yeah it's an unfortunately difficult mess, but there is no reason the end result won't be not only peaceful but righteous and it's absolutely wrong of YOU to judge the heart and soul of the president on what is intentions are. I know liberals just can't stand being told they are wrong, but sorry, you are wrong. Check your facts. You are basing your judgments on lies and believing them. The actions of our president by and large are in-line with what the Bible teaches. The actions of most liberals are absolutely out-of-line with what the Bible teaches, and that is the only trump card. Somebody that votes or acts out of line with the Bible ought NEVER be in power of anything. COMMENT: If you are not already scared of the militant Christians in America, this epistle of hatred and misinformation may cause you to have a second think.

BILL CLINTON'S PUBLIC PRIVATE LIFE

By CLAUDIA CRANFORD, [USA, Jul 26, 2004] Yes, Mr. Clinton had a lot of policies/politics for which he was widely admired. And, yes, his private life, let me say it again, PRIVATE life, is all his. Until he did it on ground my taxes maintain, which my parents and others fought for. Until he took his PRIVATE life out of the private quarters of the White House and put them into the public office or closet or wherever it was. Doubtless he was more frightened of the prospect of his wife finding out, than the entire rest of the Nation!! Yes, I am aware that he was a Rhodes Scholar. And perhaps the diatribe I read against Rhodes and his scholars was a bit of sour grapes; I don't recall now the source so am unable to assess it properly. The main idea was, Mr. Rhodes was an uneducated man who made good, and set up these scholarships to celebrate mediocrity .. as I said, smacks of sour grapes. I have never thought Mr. Clinton was stupid. And the people I know who have met him, cannot shut up about his "charisma", so I must also believe that. But the man is a dog. Sorry. Sometimes I live in a childishly black and white world. If I met him I wouldn't like him, and it wouldn't matter to me that he was once President. On the other hand, I have absolutely no respect for Hillary, either! And I KNOW she is a consummate politician, perhaps better than her husband. I waited YEARS for her to come forward and say something like, look, I took a vow, I married the man for better or for worse, and I am sticking to that vow. Period. I could accept and admire that. But no, she never does that. I could not believe that the people of New York ELECTED her. I don't vote for people running for local office if they haven't lived here, shopped where I shop, fought the traffic, shook my hand and so on. She established legal residence JUST to run for office in a powerful state in order (I believe) to have a launching pad for the future. And, as enthusiastic as I might be about a woman running for the Presidency, I couldn't support her if she stays with that guy just because a divorce would "look bad" - or whatever. Weird, huh? I could endorse a "standing by my man" attitude, however idiotic, but dislike the idea of staying with him for any other reason. I am curious why he stays with her? Because he can, perhaps ... Frankly, I have just spent more time thinking and writing about them in one day than I have in five years or so.

SEXUAL INVERSION

By JOHN WILLS, Oakland, California, USA. Homosexuality is an improper concept. If I buggar a man I'm homosexual and if I buggar a woman I'm heterosexual and if I do both I'm bisexual. But copulation is something I can do only with a woman, and the first distinction in behavior, morally seen, should be between copulation and simulated copulation, including buggary. As far as psychology goes, homosexuality is a euphemism for sexual inversion of the erotic instincts, and there is no behavior naturally arising from that condition in the way that copulation arises from a positive orientation of the sexual vector of one's eroticism. The desire to buggar a man is parallel to the desire to buggar a woman, and each activity is a substitute for copulation. As for the 10% figure I've come across it before, but what it means is doubtful. If we all did an MMPI at puberty the true proportion might be found quite quickly, but it would tell us the proportion of sexual inverts in the population at that age, not the proportion throughout life, still less the proportion of gays. Gayness is a response to sexual inversion. It is not the only possible, or even the only actual, response. Some moralists [COURAGE] claim that the sexual invert is bound to abstain from all erotic activity while others claim that the sexual invert should marry and force him/her-self to copulate and raise up children to Israel. Once I went to see my little niece in a Christmas show. Part of the show was singing by the children of items they spontaneously chose. Among others they chose Jingle Bells and Jesus Loves Me, neither of which is strictly a carol. A carol should be at once a hymn and a Christmas-related song, at least in modern English. Some at least of the children were using the word to include both classes, not as the intersection of the classes. A gay is a homosexual in two senses, but when people talk about homosexuality they often mean the union rather than the intersection of sexual inversion and willingness to engage in simulated copulation.

DEMOCRACY -- AMERICAN STYLE

By Michelle O’Regan, Adelaide You might already know of a maverick radio station DEMOCRACY NOW whose anchor lady is Amy Goodman -- and I have it from a very good source of mine in the States that this is probably the only remaining form of media in America where the not so pleasant or attractive truth gets an airing. They have tried numerous tactics of course to get it closed down but to no avail. The Americans I speak to are very refreshingly and unrelentingly opposed to Bush and his administration and what they might term their foreign policy with regard to stamping out terrorism world wide. Also the state of the nation is so poor -- with the zero crime policy and the obvious skewing of the law against the blacks and the poor -- legal rorts abound. One of my contacts is the chief defence attorney in death penalty cases and has been doing this job for over twenty five years. He is also a law professor and what he has to say against the entire regime is damning . Of course it is incredibly hard for Americans to decipher the truth when most if not nearly all the TV stations and radio stations, not to mention the papers, are owned by defence contractors -- and they even have ways of shutting up dissenting voices in Congress and the Senate. What chance then to be able to scrutinise fairly? This is in effect not a democracy. My contacts speak of it being a police state, their excuse being that they are in a situation of threat to national security. So personal freedom is eroded on a daily basis ....so absurd !!! And this is the country wielding the most control in the world at present.

G.W. BUSH IS A LIAR AND HYPOCRITE

By John, publisher of THE LIST [See below this item] If you didn't already have enough reason to believe that President Bush is a bigoted, anti-gay jerk, check out what he's done now. You might recall that for years federal government employees have been protected from job discrimination based on their sexual orientation. Well, guess what? Even though President Bush promised he would not rescind those job protections while he was president, he just did! The president of the United States lied. Now granted, this isn't as big a lie as going before Congress and lying to the entire nation about why we needed to go to war, and hundreds of American service members needed to die as a result. No, not that big a lie. But it ranks pretty high up there. President Bush is willing to sell us up the river and then some. He is controlled like a big dumb puppet by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and all the other anti-gay bigots of the religious right. It is high time that every single gay Republican spoke up and declared that he or she will not be voting for President Bush this fall. Who Am I? A gay journalist and political consultant in Washington, DC who cares about gay politics and likes getting involved and making a difference (you can read more about my gay rights campaigns, like StopDrLaura.com, below). I have a law degree and a masters from Georgetown., worked as a legislative aide in the US Senate for five years, have written for the Economist, among other publications, and have spoken about gay issues on a lot of TV shows, including ABC News' World News Tonight, Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNN, and the O'Reilly Factor, among others. You may subscribe to The List or just read about it at THE LIST

REVELATIONS About The CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

By "OzMedia," Vancouver, Canada I just finished watching an episode on the History Channel about the Cuban Missile crisis and how it was entirely brought on by America. Since the decline of the USSR, they have gained access to previously unavailable documentation stored in Russia. It is SO similar to the Iraq invasion it is not funny at all. The US had always used Cuba as a party zone for the rich and famous to get away. When Castro took over they were squelched and started to boycott buying anything from Cuba. They had their OIL reserves reduced! The Canadian PM at the time hated Kennedy so he stood down and said he would participate. Americans were shown propaganda movies that turned them against Castro. A few weeks later they said there was a CONFIRMED nuclear threat upon the USA. They had photos taken by unmanned aircraft; they were later proven as inaccurate and taken on a different day because it was too overcast when the Americans SAY that they were taken. They were of ordinary cargo trucks SAID to be moving warheads. (Just like the claims that the trucks leaving Iraq were WMD.) They then started extremely low supersonic fly-byes (aircraft built to fly at 80 - 100,000 feet) over Cuban guns, which were told not to return fire by Castro on several more occasions. It ended with the Russian arms being stopped by an American naval blockade just off the coast of Cuba and returning to Russia. What was unknown by American intelligence at that time was that two Russian subs in the convoy were armed with tactical nuclear weapons that would have levered the US navy ships. They were out of contact with Russia at the time and had the go ahead to fire if needed, as they were tactical torpedoes and not full ICBM missiles. When American's say how close Castro came to starting WW3, they are actually the ones who instigated the conflict with outward offence. In the USSR's defence, their complaint was that the US had WMD in countries like France, Spain, Egypt etc. and had the USSR surrounded, their response was to deploy arms in Cuba. Unfortunately with the US wanting back their party town and OIL, they had to find a way to turn Americans against Castro, this was a good excuse. Snivelling little peckers !

TERRORISM AND IRAQ By COLIN LUCK The terrorists are only in Iraq after the invasion and the removal of a lawfully elected Government, no matter how distasteful we may have found it. Sure there were some remains of the army who where prepared to fight a guerrilla war after the overthrow of the Iraq Government, but now there is an organized resistance from outside Iraq doing most of the damage. I'm betting that within 10 years of all of us withdrawing from Iraq that it will be back in exactly the same position that they where before the invasion: - a dictator running the place as he/she fit. The current problems in the Middle East can be traced directly back to an Englishman commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia, who is considered as being responsible for the layout of the Middle East as it exists today. He was also responsible for the current political system which is mostly monarchical in type. The real problem with terrorists is that they have no borders to defend, so they can just move around as they need to and leave the country that they where staying in previously in tatters as they get attacked and defeated. It is the terrorists who know when to run away and hide, not the individual countries who have a lot to lose and sometimes a lot to gain as in Afghanistan prior to 9/11where the Taliban was supported financially by Al Queda. Now it is widely considered by many that some of the remnant's of this group escaped into Pakistan, which is an ally and who is incapable of even venturing into the area where they were thought to be, as it is such a lawless place that no Government official is safe no matter if they be a member of the Government or a group of well armed and supported soldiers. While this particular area is in Pakistan, it is effectively a different country as they only pay lip service to what the Pakistan Government wants to happen. You also have the problem that, even if you manage to wipe out the heads of these organisations the survivors will only go elsewhere and start new groups, so that instead of only having one problem you end up with many from different sources. The only way to prevent this is to stop the reasons why people are drawn to these groups, and it is not "Religious Zeal" but poverty, as they see their actions as the only way out of the present situation. In all of the oil rich Middle East countries it is a fact that while there is an enormous revenue from the oil, the general population see no results from this and are now in a worse position than they where 30 years ago. They now have a far larger population to support (something like a 4,000% increase in that time) and a far lower standard of living. If it were possible to break the hopelessness of these people, there just would not be the people willing to join these fanatical groups in the numbers that they currently are. The family of a suicide bomber in Palestine receives $10,000.00 US when the person blows him/her self up and takes a few Jews with them. Now they are not doing this for the "Idea" or even in the hope that they will be blessed with the 40 virgins at the gates of Heaven but for the money to support the family. If it was possible to break the cycle of poverty in these countries this problem simply would not exist to the extent that it does today if at all, as the people who are only too willing to send others to their deaths seem somewhat reticent to do the same thing when they have the chance. These leaders are effectively no different to our politicians who do exactly the same thing. Now I'm not advocating this for a single minute, but just how far do you think the US President would get if the Military refused to follow his orders? About as far as Ben Laden would and that isn't very far at all. The current idea of chopping off the head to see the rest of the beast wither away just isn't going to work. What needs to happen is to cut their legs out from underneath them so they do not have the cannon fodder to throw away at will like they are presently doing. America currently has a position where Iraq was invaded to teach North Korea a lesson. Of course North Korea was not attacked as they are capable of standing up for themselves unlike Iraq. We now have outside people pouring into Iraq to kill the "American Infidel," so what was nothing more than a side issue in "The War on Terror" has turned into a far bigger mess than it was originally intended to. This is something that always happens when you deploy the military with no clear defined purpose. When this whole mess started the original objective was to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of Mass Destruction. Well guess what: they don't exist and in all likelihood never, did but with some careful "Social Engineering" people can be taught to believe almost anything. Iraq is a perfect example of this. Iraq never had any direct connections with Al Quadia other than maybe some of its members passed through Iraq.Well if that is a reason to invade a country why was Pakistan left alone? After all they had to traverse Pakistan when they where running away from Afghanistan so by the same logic or lack thereof, Pakistan should have been the second country invaded and the repressive regime overthrown. The one really big problem with organisations like Al Quadia is that they have no borders to protect and they can just melt into the background as required. So with no specific target GWB chose Iraq -- probably because of the person running the place and the way he was perceived (quite rightly) by the rest of the world. You can have the biggest army and best weapons in the world but these are useless if you have no target to use them on. For what reason are US and allied soldiers still being sent to Iraq? To help democratic elections to be held? Sorry but no it is nothing more than a face saving exercise now, as the situation has been reached where the COW is unable to lose this battle so they must stay until the bitter end. You had better believe that for every person sent by the COW there are ten going there voluntarily to throw us out. While America is a very big country they can not hope to prevail in a situation like this as they simply lack the manpower, and unless you want to resort to actions like Saddam Hussein we are bound to lose in the end as we simply do not have the manpower or equipment to withstand an assault like what is coming if something doesn't happen rapidly that brings peace to that area. The current actions of the COW have not soothed the Iraq population but only inflamed them. The very same people who saw us as a liberating force now see us as the enemy who must be thrown out at all costs. Sure the US has the ability to turn Iraq into a sea of molten glass in the desert, but it is incapable of doing this because if they do they are showing themselves to be far worse than Saddam ever was, and unfortunately that is the only way that we have a single chance to win this whole mess that was started by an act of stupidity. Currently we have a tin-pot fool being given far more recongnition than he could ever have hoped for, and getting world wide exposure. If he had been left alone running that stupid little newspaper, a few thousand people would have heard of him and as they already knew him or of him. They don't count now almost everyone in the world has heard of him and the fanatic fools are rushing to defend a bigger fool from the stupid actions that have started this whole mess snowballing out of control. The simple fact is that you can not deploy any military force without clear and concise directives and plans. We all went in to remove Saddam Hussein but there was no plan of what to do after the fact, and it is this poor planing that we are paying the price for now. Many Americans say they distrust the UN but what will happen if it is the US who turns out to be the "War Criminals" in this case? These people (Iraqis) do not know any better as all of their lives they have lived this way, so you cannot honestly expect them to change overnight a way of life that has kept them alive up till now. Any change that might be seen will be in 3 - 4 generations time -- nothing sooner. After all there is no clear enemy so that, short of genocide, you can never be sure that you have rid that country of the people whom George Bush originally claimed to be attempting to free from oppression. I honestly think you would stand a better chance of digging the biggest hole possible with a D10 Cat and attempting to fill it with $1,000.00 notes one at a time in the middle of a hurricane than winning a clean victory in Iraq. Right this minute there are people over there who were previously separated by hatred, but who are now uniting to rid themselves of the occupying force, which they see as far worse than what they had previously.

RACISM IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

By MAXWELL EDISON, Denver, Colorado. [The following comments are a summing up of an online discussion titled: “Racism in the USA.” The text of the discussion topic is shown at the end of this statement.] I intentionally avoid placing a race label on anyone, especially in the context of discussing "black" and "white" America, or any other shade of color for that matter. Contrary to what some people in this discussion have suggested, no, I'm not turning the other cheek to a problem and no, I'm not just hoping a problem will go away by avoiding it and no, I'm not denying that there are racist people in the world. What I have suggested, however, and everyone seemed to have missed my point (either intentionally or unintentionally), is that in 2004 America, there are ABSOLUTELY NO racial (or gender) barriers in America that will prevent a person from becoming all he or she strives to become. All one has to do is recognize the positions of two very powerful and respected Americans, Condoleezza Rice and our distinguished Secretary of State, not to mention Supreme Court justices, lawyers, business owners, mayors, and on and on. Are there individual racists in America? Sure there are, just like everywhere else in the world. And "white" people don't have a monopoly on being racist, as it knows no racial barriers. I believe Louis Farrakhan is a racist, for example, just like a member of the KKK (Senator Robert Byrd???) is a racist. I believe the policemen who beat up (black) Rodney King were racists, just as I believe the people who beat up (white) Reginald Denny in the aftermath of that incident were racists. One has to define racism before one can define a racist. It used to be that "racism" included the word "power" over another. But just like many things, I believe "racism" has evolved into something quite different than in the past. It could certainly be defined differently depending on the point in history to which you are referring. Was "racism" the same, in both definition and in scope, in 1770 as it was in 1870? -- and how about 1900? Fast forward to 1950, and then fast forward again to 2000. We now see race being used as a method to exert power over corporations and municipalities, by people like Jessie Jackson, but the power card is held by different people than it was just 50 years ago. My definition of racism in 2004 America is probably different than what one might imagine. I would define racism in 2004 America (and other places) as the practice of labelling people based on their race, pure and simple. I was asked a racist question, for example, in my 2000 census form when I was asked what color my skin was. I think the comments that started this discussion are racist comments. Not that I'm suggesting that it was intentional racism, but rather unintentional. I believe that racism in America (and other places) has evolved in such a way that it doesn't necessarily have to be intentional. If a person looks at another person in a manner any differently than he would notice a person's eye color, I believe he's practicing racism - by today's standards, at least by my definition of racism. Colin Powell, for example, is not our "black" Secretary of State, but rather our distinguished Secretary of State. To see him in any other light, to see him as defined by "race", is not only a disservice to him, but a disservice to what should be a national goal to be as color blind to a person's race as we are to the color of his eyes. How about this as a definition of (today's) racism: “The practice of defining and/or separating and/or judging and/or considering people based on the color of their skin.” I've seen the following comments in this discussion: "I met an afro-American." "Black people are smart." "Some of my friends are black people." "I am white." By the (my) "new" definition of racism, all of those comments could be considered racist. To label people based on their skin color in the context of discussing history is one thing. In cases like that, it's probably unavoidable. But to continue to do it in the context of the present day, and especially future goals, is sabotaging what should be the desired outcome, and that is having one's skin color as insignificant as one's hair or eye color. If I were a member of any particular race, I would find many of these comments very offensive. Wait, I am a member of a particular race (but I've never said which one), and I do find them offensive. Someone said, "apart from the appointment of a few token judges and police captains, blacks in general were looked down upon and treated as inferior." I disagree whole-heatedly. If the person who said this defines himself and others by skin color, he may "choose" to believe that, but that doesn't make it true The reality is that most people just don't want to be burdened by the race discussion. Most people just don't want race to matter. I once interviewed a fellow who spent the entire interview discussing his activities as a race activist. His "achievements" on his resume were measured by race related issues. I didn't hire him because I didn't want what I considered a racist in our company. Why would someone bring race into a job interview? How can that help our productivity? When people say that they don't want race to be an issue, why in the hell do they make race an issue? Because they are "unintentional" racists, that's why. I'm a goal oriented person, or at least I try to be. Part of achieving a goal is to behave and think as though you've already achieved that goal. What's our national goal in regards to race relations? Do we want to continue to label people based on their race? Is that really our national goal? I think that the best way to achieve our national goal in regards to racism is to behave and think as though we've already achieved that goal. And that means to stop labelling people because of the color of their eyes. It just doesn't matter. Here is the discussion topic which Maxwell has addressed: A couple of days ago I had the good fortune to meet an Afro-American. He is an IT Pro who works in Sydney, but retains his US citizenship. He was able to satisfactorily answer all my questions regarding the status of Afro-Americans, and explained in detail how the racial tensions between black and white actually manifest. Incidentally, he found no problem in my using the term "black," and frequently used this term himself in his description of the status quo. I would be most interested to hear the opinions and personal experiences of any American of any shade of color, on this subject or, for that matter, anything else about racism in general.

LONG HISTORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEVIATION IN CHRISTIAN CHURCH

By COLIN LUCK The Uniting Church in Australia has finally entered the twenty first century and accepted the inevitable as, just for example the Catholic Church has for many years had practicing homosexuals as priests within its various orders, but they were the worst kind as they felt it their right to be sexually intimate with young boys. All the current Christian churches have this problem and the Anglican Church in Canada is actually broke after admitting that they protected paedophile priests, and the current leader of this country’s church apologised to the victims. Actually, while always being alleged, this practice was never given a second thought as anyone who made these complaints was considered to be unstable and many were locked up in lunatic asylums for their own protection. The Catholic Church has recently been shown to have protected these priests by moving then around to different parishes when their deeds became too outrageous in any one particular parish. Most of the other churches did the same thing: it was really nothing more that protecting each other’s back and they were in this case, like any other profession, as they all group together for their own protection (just try to make a complaint about a Doctor of Medicine.) Anyway in church run orphanages it was common practice for the priests/religious people to come around and any child that they took a fancy to was their sexual play toy until they got sick of him or found someone that interested them more. You will notice that most of the current sexual abuse claims against the church are lodged by males against the priests. But similarly the nuns quite often took a liking to their female charges and in return for sexual favours would allow that child better food/clothing and general conditions, as these places where horrendous at the time. Because of the inability of the people in charge to control themselves sexually most of these institutions have now disappeared. However this is nothing new and has been practiced for all the time of the Christian church which effectively started in the fifth century when Pauline Christianity was accepted by the Roman Emperor Constantine as his favoured religion. Prior to that there were small loosely organised "Christian Churches" around but none was very big and they all followed different teachings. Haven't you ever wondered just why it is that the Catholic Church is the main source of old texts of Christian teachings? In addition to the afore mentioned, the original founders of the " New World' who fled England to escape religious persecution had much the same problem, but this time with their young females as all too often these young girls who were attractive and had just started menstruating where invited over to the religious leader’s house for a week long or longer for “religious instruction.” This was never questioned in any manner and most of these young girls ended up pregnant. But at least the pastors weren't abusing young boys. Personally I can't see a difference in principle between an admitted homosexual and a priest who sexually assaults young boys. To me this is all homosexual activity but these very priests are not considered as homosexuals for some reason. To me they are the worst form of homosexuals as they exert their power over someone that isn't in a position to defend themselves and actually should be safe with these very same people. The admitted homosexuals don't attack young boys as they prefer males of their own age and this is considered as wrong, but the ones who molest young boys are considered as normal by the church. To me this reeks of a "double standard" of the worst kind as to me anyone who is sexually intimate with another of the same gender is actually a practicing homosexual. However as I already mentioned there was no reference to female sexual activity being frowned upon by the early church. This is something very new and only came about within the last 30 years or so. It was the early Christian Church which made sex dirty, and while necessary for the procreation of the species and for that matter the church (even the current Catholic Church frowns on any form of birth control) they didn't want their members to enjoy it but to have sex only to create new members of the church. Actually at the time and up until very recently pregnant women and those with very young children where treated as sick and avoided when possible. However if you take a look at the Orthodox Jewish Church it is the females who are empowered sexually as, when they marry, they are given certain rights and they expect to be serviced very regularly. Even today it is grounds for divorce within that church if the woman claims that her husband doesn't service her often enough. The very minimum that these women can expect is to be serviced five times a week and it is only males with heavy work (like camel drivers) who are allowed to service their wives less. But even then they must service their wife at least twice a week if not more, and always at the females demand. The Christian church on the other hand has turned this around and made the wife the male’s property who was only there for the man's pleasure. It was only very recently that "Rape in Marriage" was accepted as an offence as, prior to that it was considered as the wife's duty no matter what, or how she was used in a sexual manner.

HOW I WOULD HAVE FOUGHT A "WAR ON TERROR"

By DelbertPGH, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA I’ll grant you I don’t have any brilliant ideas for how to get out of Iraq without creating a disaster. However, one could also stay in Iraq and create a disaster. Our leaders have put us in a real hole, fighting a war that can’t be won, with stakes too high to just abandon the fight. Like Vietnam, this is an insurgency fight, waging a come-and-go fight against us and our agents. Unlike Vietnam, it is also a tribal war and a religious war. It’s not really a civil war, because you don’t have people fighting for control of the state. Nobody in Iraq seems to believe in the country of Iraq. If you squashed all the Kurds and Sunnis so bad they couldn’t fight back ever again, and let the Shiites govern the bloody ruins, within six months they’d be fighting themselves. In Vietnam, Americans won every battle they fought, and in the end they had no way of winning the war. It’s not because they had a hand tied behind their back, or dumb crap excuses like that. We bombed the hell out of North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam, and killed two million people, and our enemy still did not give up; our enemy had been engaged in continuous war against the Japanese, the French, and then us, for 30 years. Our objective was to create a government strong enough to stand by itself, which would take over the role of defending itself, so that we could leave and call the place free. That, and not the defeat of the communist army, was what we needed for victory, and we couldn’t achieve it. Sounds a lot like the dilemma in with Iraq, doesn’t it? The Brits ran Iraq between World War I and World War II, and they had to re-invade the place five times. If we had thought strategically, we would have played Iraq differently. Instead, we ignored the lesson of British history in Iraq, and we ignored our own lessons from Vietnam. The people of our government believed they could write new history, I guess. They were into bold thinking and paradigm shifting. Our army decided that it would not do any more Vietnams. It would only get into fights it could win with massive firepower, and not get bogged down in endless counter-insurgency wars. Guess what Iraq turned into, as soon as Saddam’s armies evaporated? Exactly the kind of war the army planned never to fight, trained itself not to fight, and forgot how to fight. When you do the massive force response tactic against guerillas operating behind the cover of civilians, you wind up doing a lot more offense to the people than to the guerillas, who are the ones you really want to kill. Make that mistake, especially among religious lunatics, and you create more guerillas. Massive muscle doesn’t lead to civil peace (that is, to victory) in this kind of war. You need artful, surgical killing, and you need to be seen supporting the people and their economy. Big force works against you, loses you the people, loses victory. If Bush were to have done his war my way, he would have stopped at Afghanistan. He would also have done Afghanistan with enough Americans to have trapped the last of Al Qaeda at Tora Bora. Then, we could have rebuilt Afghanistan, which is a plenty big enough challenge by itself, and made a reputation for ourselves as peacemakers in a Muslim land. I would not have told a lot of lies and believed a lot of fantasies so we could go invade Iraq, where there was no Al Qaeda. Saddam was getting weaker every year, and we could have just let him sit. If I were going to fight a war on terror, I’d first limit the scope. “War on terror” includes everybody from Al Qaeda to the Palestinians to the Chechens to the Irish Republican Army. We don’t have a national interest in fighting them all. The first step to winning a war is to pick the war you’ll fight. I’d fight it with a lot more Special Forces troops than we currently maintain, and I’d develop a standing civil occupation division or two within the Army, and couple any military occupation with an economic mission. (It may sound like we do that in Iraq, but we just flub everything.) The war will be won by intelligence as much as anything else, so I’d work on the long job of building up spies and an institutional perspective on the place. The war will also be won by trust, so I’d have to be an army the occupied people could have faith in. To be honest, I don’t know how to get out of the current mess, because it’s so big and serious. Now that we’ve torn Iraq to pieces, we’ve woken up regional conflicts. We have a third of our military tied down and unable to leave Iraq; we no longer have enough free troops to exert military influence as we once did. Iran has increased its diplomatic and regional influence, which is surely against our interests. Syria, Jordan, and Arabia all feel threatened, and are supporting big refugee populations, which typically include criminals, smugglers and insurgents. Turkey may invade Kurdistan if they separate from the Iraqi state. Most of Iraq is a breeding ground and training camp for Islamic nutcase west-hating guerillas. Afghanistan is breaking down, and is threatening the peace of the Pakistani border provinces. All of these trends look to me like they’ll get worse if we stay, and maybe much worse if we leave, too. What I’d do: 1. No troop “surge”, unless we have a strategic understanding of what it’s supposed to accomplish. Since we don’t understand it, no surge. 2. I’d put the military on a management program: learn how to do counter insurgency war. Adapt the force structure accordingly. Increase the army, permanently, by 50,000 men to account for the new occupation divisions. Build up the Special Forces, and give them the kind of creative relationship-building missions they do so well in countryside towns. 3. I’d unify the command in Iraq, with a civilian in charge. This is a nation-building, hearts-and-minds type of fight, and it needs a civilian leader. 4. Every man, woman, and military dog that goes to Iraq learns Arabic. 5. Build up the spies. Train the Iraqi cops and military. 6. Kill the enemy whenever we can, with as much delicacy as possible. Killing is essential, but the heavy hand looses the war. 7. Start pulling back, gradually. Be prepared for really ugly outcomes. Be prepared to take advantage of whatever good may develop over the years of occupation, such as an opportunity to pack up and get out. This is sort of a modified stay-the-course strategy. It depends on the government and the military to wise up and stop fighting dumb. Given that these institutions got us into the current mess, it's a good question whether that is at all possible. However, we need access to all that damn oil that's out there; without it, we'd have to take over Arabia and Kuwait, and in general behave like Nazis, or suffer economic collapse. I’m sure there are plenty of Bush enthusiasts who would object to all of this as playing the weak hand, who will bring up French or Russian diplomacy or some other dumb distraction, and who say that the whole thing can be fixed by finding the enemy who can be killed with our big cannon, and then shooting him with our big cannon. To which, I guess I’ll just have to smile, and listen.