Whatever Works

An eight-year-old Little League ball player hits a single. The next batter hits a sharp ground ball that's bobbled by the shortstop, who then picks the ball up and tosses it to the second baseman. The baseman, not yet at second base, swooped his glove, containing the ball, toward the base runner. The base runner reached second base. The umpire signs "Safe!"

The second base runner signals "time" and walks over to the umpire. "Sir, his body was between you and me, but I felt his glove brush my shoulder. I'm out."

An unbelievable story, right? It could never happen?

I've come to the conclusion that this is where our current "getting away with it" attitude starts. Sports coaches teaching youngsters to take an erroneous call in their favor. Teaching them to seize advantage by breaking rules, and trying to hide it from the referee.

In the children's prisons, it becomes ok to sneak a look at the test paper of another, if it can be done unobserved. It no longer is a problem that one's peers are aware of his ethical shortcomings, it's only a problem if he gets caught. Even then, his peers will likely respond with "Dawg! Good try!"

After a number of years and a number of confirmations of this behavior pass, our ethically challenged lad graduates law school and becomes an attorney. The firm at which he's employed--as do most law firms today--advocates and requires him to win the case regardless of truth and regardless of the harm caused to the innocent.

Then come years of success winning huge punitive sums for his clients, many of whom would have no complaint had they exercised diligence to protect themselves in advance, against deep pocket plaintiffs who were merely attempting to provide a service, and who had been problem-free for decades. He decides to go into politics.

After building a warchest and setting up a campaign staff, our anti-hero wins the election by digging up irrelevant dirt on his opponent. He has used, walked over and cast aside friends whose usefulness is at an end, or who become liabilities.

It doesn't matter, his plan for his people is unquestionably good. Should anyone actually try to question it, they are evil and enemies of the people. They are to be discredited, and jailed, if possible.

Meanwhile, the country sinks into a war of each man's hand in the pocket of another and productivity being punished at every turn.

This is the path destined for those who advocate the maxim, "The end justifies the means."

Unless a more livable philosophy can achieve pre-eminence, the world will slide, on the skids of altruism, back into a new Dark Age.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Sacrificing Our Young People

Yesterday, I had a particularly long drive home, and during part of it, I listened to the Hugh Hewitt radio show. I didn't get to hear much of it because, I had to change the radio station to keep from denting the dash with my fist.

Hewitt was interviewing someone connected with John McCain's campaign (whose name I didn't catch) about the differences between McCain and Obama. The above link is to Hewitt's transcripts page, 'pon which I'm hoping that a transcript will appear in the next day or two. I guardedly agreed with much of what this gentleman was saying until the point I'll now describe.

The interview turned to the war, the differences between the way McCain and Obama would handle it, the difficulties between the President and Congress, etc. It was in this part of the discussion when this gentleman uttered words much like the following: We must be careful how we sacrifice our young people. I was livid.

How we sacrifice our young people? Not wishing to alienate my readers of tender sensibilities, I won't write the string of George Carlin-approved epithets that are now going through my head, just remembering this utterance.

This points out one of the fatal flaws of today's conservatives: they aren't individualists. They, like their leftist brethren (who happen to have a more internally consistent--though thoroughly wrong--philosophy) are pragmatists. They'll do whatever it takes to put out the immediate fire, even if it means extinguishing it with the last of our drinking water.

"We" shouldn't be sacrificing anyone. If you, sir, want to sacrifice yourself for any reason or for no reason, you have my blessing. I don't think any of our marines, soldiers, airmen or sailors join their favorite branch with the thought of self sacrifice. They join for several different reasons, not the least of which is to defend the various and several United States of America.

They depend 'pon their officers to devise strategies and make intelligent decisions in sending them into battles that they can win and that will be instrumental in helping the effort. It's treasonous when the political and military hierarchy sends soldiers into battles to serve the unConstitutional ends of politicians. That's the kind of crap over which our ancestors fought the War for Independence from the British Crown.

I plan to attempt to learn the name of this philosophically challenged individual over the next day or two, but that's not crucial. There are many like him, in and out of elective office, and they tend to cluster in places of political power. They deserve to be removed from civilized society, by way of a sudden exit from a flying aircraft without benefit of a parachute.

War is the Health of the State.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Treat Your Prostate Well

"Men over the age of 75 should no longer be screened for prostate cancer....." is the first sentence of a story in the Aug 5th, 2008 Los Angeles Times. A front page story. Above the fold. It must be important.

Seems a federal panel (uh, yeah, another one of those!) says that the potential psychological and physical harm of seniors learning they have prostate cancer outweighs the benefits of treating it. Some doctors argue against treating prostate cancer in those over 75 because they might die from something else anyway. Think of the many and sundry implications of that mindset!

Anyone can die anytime from any of hundreds of causes, but if a guy gets shot in the leg do you just let him bleed because he might get hit by a car tomorrow?

Other doctors, fortunately, take the opposite view, saying that this is a ploy by HMO lawyers to save their firms' money, and that it's a form of ageism. It'd also be easy to make a case (since it was a "federal panel," that they want to exclude the elderly from treatment to save medicare money.

My view is slightly different. Many doctors, especially the federal ones, look forward to a fully socialized, nationalized medical industry. The realistic ones already realize that under socialized medicine, service to the public will and must deteriorate and ultimately be rationed. "Important people--politicians, and industrialists and businessmen who toe the line with them, will continue to get the best medical care. The rest of us will wait in a line. The only way the line will move forward, is when the dead are pulled out of the line in front of you.

In time, as medicine deteriorates, even medical care for the elites will slide, but the elites don't think that far ahead. It won't occur to an ex-President, for example, that after age 75, or 70, or however bad it gets, that he's just another old man.

Waiting in line.

"Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything--except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards--never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind--yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on the operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he's the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he's the sort who doesn't." --Ayn Rand

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The International War On Hunger

So I'm watching Fox News, more listening than watching the continuing coverage of the comments of various thieves, power-mad politicos and pundits about the untimely death of Tony Snow. Snow was one of the nicer and smarter DC denizens, even despite the fact that he'd fallen in with a bad crowd. Compared to most of the thugs that inhabit Washington DC, he seemed to stand out as an honest, intelligent and rational individual (to the extent of my observation).

But, the passing of Mr Snow isn't what I'm writing about, today.

One of the thievin' thugs being interviewed by the Fox News talking head was Mike Huckabee, one of the unsuccessful Republican candidates for the party's nomination for President. Despite a few areas of grudging agreement, I'm happy that he didn't get the nomination.

Somehow, like most Republicans, Huckabee waxed altruistic (is it altruism when a man wants to give away money stolen from others? Of course it is!), and applauded the notion of the federal government "helping" in the fight against world hunger.

There are many problems with this idea, none of which will be addressed in the rush to take more and more money out of the control of those who produced it, and giving it to those who produce nothing.

• The entire notion of forcing goods from their producers to give to non-producers destroys the philosophically required principle, and very American tradition, of one's right to one's life and the products of that life.
• There is no Constitutional justification for "foreign aid" of any kind--in fact, the founders warned us in their writings about avoiding foreign entanglements.
• Much of the money stolen from its producers will end up in the pockets of American politicians and bureaucrats, rather than the hungry people we're (sneeringly) told are to benefit.
• Almost all the rest of the money will help fill the private bank accounts of the dictators in the countries whose people would supposedly help.
• The few truckloads of actual food to be given to the hungry people will exist mainly to provide photo opportunities for the partially complicit and/or very gullible world news media.

Huckabee is an evangelical preacher, and hence a class I altruist, whose altruistic ardor has led him to the other half of the Dark Side--politics. All the faith and force you can imagine, all wrapped up in one somewhat charismatic fellow. Given his deepest wishes, he'd have all of our hard-won production at his disposal--not for himself, mind, but for the ever growing numbers of others. Not that he'll stint on his own creature comforts, of course.

They never do.

What has to be done to end world hunger is to make the parts of the world in which poverty runs rampant become productive. That requires freedom. It requires recognition of the individual's right to his life and the products thereof.

That's not the prerogative of the federal government of the various United States. It falls to the people in the areas affected to right things for themselves--though interested individuals might find ways to help.

The world is smothering itself in an orgy of altruism.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Turning the US Over To the Control of the UN

It's long been the opinion of a large minority of Americans that the United Nations is an anti-American organization. Many actions of the UN in recent years proves this--they are very fond of disproportionately criticizing the US while simultaneously requiring the US to shoulder a huge degree of financial responsibility for its operation.

There's a deliberate effort to subjugate the US federal government to the UN, undoubtedly due to extreme envy of our wealth by governments of other nations. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that these governments wish to sap the economic strength of the US to place the US at (or below) a par with the socialist nations of Europe.

Toward this end, the traitorous B Hussein Obama has authored and submitted to the Senate a bill (SB 2433) which, besides committing a hefty chunk of our tax dollars to the world's most savage dictatorships, filtered though the thieving, grasping hands of the leaders of the UN, but it cancels debts of these so far unidentified dictatorships owed the World Bank--at US expense). Read the text of the bill here.

This, of course, means that it'll leave the dictators of these countries with money to purchase more arms and enlarge their armies to better repress their people and, perhaps, to help train and arm groups that would harm the US.

As noted by Alex Jones, of Infowars.com, the bill requires the President to sign on to the UN's Millennium Declaration, which, according to Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media:

.....[A]after cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as "official development assistance."

"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning ’small arms and light weapons’ and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child," he said.

The bill invests the power for enactment of its provisions in the President, which could be B Hussein Obama by the time the bill becomes law. Now, in my own head, this commitment sounds like handing over the sovereignty of each and every one of the United States to an anti-American organization. I have no doubt that is what the multicultural Senator Obama intends.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

El Pueblo de Los Angeles Promotes Gang Violence With Big Payouts

Antonio Vinaigrette, el Alcalde del Pueblo de Los Angeles, is in the process of taking over all of the city's anti-gang programs. As an ex gangster himself, he obviously knows what he's doing. After all, he's also attempting to take over the entire city children's prison system. An obvious rationale? Put gangsters in front of the classes to teach children how to better conduct the War on Productivity in Los Angeles. Given his background and personal philosophy it, as Science Officer Spock used to say, is logical.

Meanwhile, these efforts are being carried out mostly by the City Council.

There is an expose on LA's local Fox News affiliate KTTV, of the effort of one City Councilwoman, Janice Hahn. Seems she's been paying gangsters big bucks to mitigate gang violence in the city. She's been getting gangsters who are arrested of violent crimes, released from incarceration so they can continue their work. See Chris Blatchford's expose video, as shown on KTTV, here, along with other related stories.

Apparently the money, fairly large sums. is given with no strings attached. One gangster is quoted as saying he didn't know what he was supposed to do, for the money. Another took his homies to the Raging Waters amusement park for the day.

Ms Hahn who, along with her father and brother have inhabited offices in City Hall for decades, gets very defensive when asked for specific answers about her programs. She cuts off interviews she deems hostile, much as does El Alcalde himself.

Arrogant as many of the Los Angeles City Council members are, they still have to stand for election every four years. Angry as LA residents are at the high local taxes and foolish spending, these parasites keep getting reelected.

One must suspect some Chicago-style hanky panky at the polls. And, of course, this is Hollywood, with all the celebrity-driven socialist propaganda being brought to bear at every election.

Like MS Hahn's insane notion that paying gangsters off will make them nice.

Meanwhile, the murder of someone (anyone) is the cost of initiation to many gangs and the murder of a member of another gang is even better. As might be suspected in a part of the country in which victims are disarmed by law, there are many murders in El Pueblo, of both the guilty and the innocent, and these murders apparently occur with the blessing of el alcalde and the rest of the City Council. Only occasionally are they prosecuted and they're almost never prosecuted severely.

A recently, one of Ms Hahn's paid gangsters was murdered by a member of a rival gang. She attended the funeral and hugged the deceased thug's mother. One must wonder if he was killed by a gangster with a gun purchased with Ms Hahn's money.

People should never be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Another Interesting Observation

This one comes from a friend, Mr Cecil Proulx.

Fred Thompson and Hillary Clinton were walking down the street when they
came to a homeless person. The Republican, Fred Thompson, gave the homeless
person his business card and told him to come to his office for a job. He
then took $20 out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person.

Hillary Clinton was very impressed, so when they came to another homeless
person, she decided to help. She walked over to the homeless person and gave
him directions to the welfare office. She then reached into Thompson's
pocket and got out $20. She kept $15 for her administrative fees and gave
the homeless person $5.

Now, do you understand the difference?

The only variance from this I might suggest is that both of them would've taken the $20 bills from the public treasury, after they had been taxed from you and me.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Case For Freedom in Medicine

The following is a quote from Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. I copied this paragraph once before, but I think the theme of this paragraph needs to be read, digested and understood now, more than ever before. Medicine is perishing in an orgy of government regulation and theft. Doctor Hendricks, a character in the book who goes on strike against government usurpation of his freedom and his medical judgment, tells why he decided to strike:

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything--except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards--never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind--yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on the operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he's the sort who doesn't."

This statement, along with several other statements made by the striking men of the mind in the novel, crystallize the thoughts of every productive individual who's given it the proper degree of thought. Everyone who works for a living, and realizes that he'd take home roughly twice as much pay, but for the extortion of the slave masters in government, and that everything he buys would cost less than half what it now costs, but for the taxes and regulations producers of goods and services must endure, will see how Dr Hendricks' decision will apply to himself. Then, he must decide how long he'll live and work under the slavery of the parasite.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Greater Good

Politicians, many of them members of the conservative persuasion, who command fat salaries for, in essence, extract by force pieces of our lives (often the whole of someone's life) to use for their own ends, love to cite "the greater good" as the goal of their thefts. "For the greater good" is also cited as the reason why certain individuals make sacrifices to the benefit of such nebulous concepts as "humanity," "my country," "future generations," etc.

"The greater good" is very often an euphemism for "god" or "god's will," as decreed by a priest or witch doctor, or such. One should always take "the greater good" to mean the good of the individual who makes the pronouncement. Because that's what he means when he invokes the phrase (whether he'll admit it or not).

One might observe that, for example, nearly all of those who praise American military men and women for contributing to "the greater good" are beyond eligibility to enter the military, and most of them have never done so.

I reject any notion of "the greater good."

The greatest possible good is what's good for me. Depending 'pon the context, that might also mean what's good for those about whom I care.

While most of the world is writhing in an orgy of self-sacrifice, the truth comes out: the world works best when each individual takes care of himself. For those relative few who have periods of need, there are friends, relatives and private charity can provide relief. In the absence of the all-consuming vortex of "the greater good," each of us can easily deal with those relative few who hit rough periods.

The sooner each of us can dispose of these silly concepts and learn to truly enjoy his own life, the better for the world and every one of us.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

....But I Don't Own New Orleans....

For months now, we've been hearing all manner of suggestions as to how to rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel. There are many websites to which one might contribute money to help--still! The incapable (as has become painfully obvious) federal government has a website that has a long list of links for victims to seek aid, and for donors to offer goods, services and funds. The inept Mayor Nagin unjustifiably makes himself look much the hero on the City of New Orleans site. And Louisiana's equally incompetent Governor Blanco maintains yet another site that belatedly tries to close the barn door so we can't see that the horses have long since escaped.

Hurricane Katrina was named after Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation, because of their very similar dispositions. But, I digress.

I heard an announcement on the radio today calling for architectural ideas for the rebuilding of the city. I missed the details, and they're not important, because it only served to make me wonder: Why are we discussing rebuilding New Orleans?

Why are we discussing rebuilding New Orleans??

Like most of the area to which we fondly refer as the Unites States of America, New Orleans is largely privately owned. Individuals and firms own homes, condos, apartment buildings, businesses, strip malls and shopping centers. We don't actually have anything to do with it. Unless by some happenstance one or two of you happen to own a bit of property there, neither you nor I has any interest in New Orleans--of course, I mean any real financial interest there.

Many of us might have made some sort of donation to one of the many charities committed to providing one or another kind of aid to the unfortunates effected by the storm. Fine.

But the task of rebuilding the city is really the task of each property owner to rebuild his property, however he sees fit. It's his property. It's not ours. New Orleans does not belong to us.

Each and every one of the property owners that comprise the city of New Orleans has the responsibility to either procure insurance, make other arrangements (in advance) to be prepared to rebuild, choose to live elsewhere, or just risk it.

Wherever each of us lives, there are risks. It's the responsibility of each of us as individuals to prepare for the possibility of disaster as best we can.

Debbie and I have fire and earthquake insurance. The house is on fairly high ground, not very near a body of water that's likely to flood severely. What with these and various other precautions, we think we're pretty secure against just about anything but the theft often authorized by eminent domain.

America needs to re-privatize. All of us ought to look at the United States as a huge patchwork of bits of private property, owned and controlled by individual owners.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm Regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Have Faith, and Hand Over Your Wallet

I just sent a letter to the opinion/editorial editor of the Orange County Register in response to a letter from a "Republican" California State Assemblyman who has submitted a bill to create a department which assigns state grants to charitable organizations, both religious and secular. Possibilities (certainties?) of corruption are endless. Need I even state that it's utter insanity that funds be confiscated from productive individuals to give to charitable organizations, even those of which they may not approve? In a rational society, this thief would be hanged.

March 26, 2006

Editor,

The thing that Assemblyman Leslie forgets when he proposes the establishment of an “Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, (AB2704)” is that he’s proposing doing it with my money, and of course, that of every other Californian, rich or poor.

The first thing that’ll happen will be the staffing of the office with way too many high-salaried civil servants. This will come out of my pocket. Then, these civil servants will hand millions of Californians’ hard-earned dollars to “charities,” many of whom won’t be carefully checked, and many of whom will steal or waste these funds. News stories abound, telling tales of poor accounting practices and lost or stolen grant money.

If Mr. Leslie, indeed is a Republican, which seems like a stretch, he’d favor lowering the level of California’s state tax bite so that each Californian is able to keep and control more of his earnings. We can then, among other things, donate effectively to charitable organizations we check out and deem worthy ourselves.

So, Mr. Leslie, I ask you. How much confiscation of our earnings is enough? How long will California’s War on Productivity last? How many productive individuals must leave California before you guys’ll get the point? When everyone’s on the dole, who’s going to pay your bloated salary?


Thank you,
*Col. Hogan*

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Where Did My Charitable Spirit Go?

Seems like every few weeks, there's another disaster, following which come pleas for donations to aid the victims.

I was in a disaster once. Mine was less overwhelming than many others--although not to those who died. I lost a lot, but not everything. FEMA helped some, though most of the help came from our own insurance. Altogethe, it covered maybe half of our loss.

Presumably, there were calls for charitable giving, though I was too busy to be aware of it. None of that charity came my way, though I didn't ask. We recovered, eventually.

My dad told me, years ago, that when he was a young man just getting started on his railroad career, that his taxes were about 10% of his gross earnings. Local, state and federal. I don't think he actually paid income tax those first years.

Thirty years ago, I earned around $6.50 an hour. I did pay state and federal income taxes, and all the normal stuff, BUTT! I was a single dad at the time. I had a nice apartment. I had a used pickup and a new motorcycle. I sent Jim to a private school (even then, I thought that government schools were bad business) and I often took time off from work to ride up and down the state to see the sights. We ate at restaurants. We went to LA often for libertarian group outings and went to an occasional movie or rock concert.

I make more than four times that now. I'm doing ok, but there's little extra. I have to think about going out to the better restaurants, running up to LA for the evening doesn't happen any more--traffic, the cost of gas and the cost of the entertainment are the main issues. No way could I afford private school tuition for a youngster. My quality of life is better, but not four times better.

The cost of the several layers of government is about half of my production. That's bogus! Most of that money is wasted, and/or goes into the pockets of politicians and their cronies. The roads and parks, etc are--well, to only say poorly maintained would be a major failure in perception. The schools' best areas of competence are in subverting parents' value systems and distorting America's founding principles--that is, substituting a state-subserviant morality for individualism. I could go on and probably will at some point.

Back to the original point, my charitable spirit is lost somewhere in that 40%. I figure that if the several layers of government really need that much of my productivity, they can take care of the disaster victims, the poor, the lazy and all the unfortunates.

Except that they aren't doing that, either!

They take half of our prodictivity to "care" for the unfortunate victims and there are more of them now than ever before!

Well, that's where my charitable spirit went.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Year's Worst Tragedy

Hurricane Katrina is, even now, spreading destruction in the area surrounding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. A massive evacuation has taken place and the storm is having its way with the area. I certainly hope damage is less than predicted by the news media yesterday and overnight. My fervent hope is that no more lives are lost in this storm and that rebuilding will be easier than predicted.

Even now, nations around the world are setting up agencies to collect donations of needed supplies and money to aid the victims in the path of the storm.

Undersecretary Jan Egeland of the United Nations is personally involved in the coordinating efforts to effectively bring the disaster aid from all the nations in the world to the disaster area.

Ethiopia has already pledged $15 million dollars in aid, Iran $10 million and France a whopping $35 million. More countries are expected to announce their pledges in the coming hours.

Oh, wait! Someone just handed me....Mr Egeland is actually asking that the United States send these amounts to these countries? Are you sure?

Well then.....


Never mind.



Remember, Vote for No Incumbent!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California