selling ports, denying aid to hamas and the end of clean water...

congress is up in arms again, this time due to the planned takeover of a british company's work by a united arab emirates owned company. apparently the problem is that the work to be taken over is the management of major u.s. ports. yea, yea yea...national security...bla, bla, bla...terrorism. but this raises a totally different question to me...and i am glad this happened, because i had no idea our ports were being run by foreign companies.

which makes me wonder only this...forget if it is british or canadian or french or chinese or iraqi or iranian or algerian or nigerian or angolian...why are we auctioning off the running of our ports to foreign companies period? i still haven't bought into globalization...i am not sure it is good for anyone...although in the long run it may work out for everyone...i am pretty damn sure that it is not good for this country. and when the american worker is falling farther and farther behind where he once was...shouldn't the government be doing all it can to promote american business? and isn't the easiest way to do that by allowing american companies...or hell...even the government...to run things like, oh, i don't know...port of entries? this just seems ludicrous to me. talk all you want about terrorism and national security and get your sound bites out so you can run for reelection...but what about economic security? bring back fdr...if we're going to waste this much government funding...the least we could do is put people to work...

here is a big surprise...egypt is pissed that we want to cut off all aid to hamas after they won elections. gee, didn't see that coming. yet another example of the hypocracy of the western world when it comes to democracy and freedom, especially in the middle east. we spent decades screaming that the palestinians needed to stop their "terror tactics" (never mind that they were less devestating and less productive as far as promoting terror in a populous than most actions israel took over those years) and instead move to the democratic process. so guess what...the militants weren't getting very far anymore with suicide bombs...so they went to the ballot box...and won. they used the system we implored them to use...only we never thought they actually would, so now we don't know what to do...and since we never negotiate with terrorists, even if they have abandoned terrorism and moved to the democratic process (although we have no problems negotiating with terrorists we helped in destroying democratic institutions in some countries)...we cut off aid desperately needed by the people. bad idea genius...

after a century of such back stabbing from western powers...numerous lost opportunities to show the world we mean it...to uphold un resolutions against israel as well as iraq...to say "this aggression will not stand" whenever someone invades their neighbor...to come to the rescue of africans as we did europeans...to come to the aid of arabs and asians instead of cutting of their medicine...i'd be pretty pissed too...

the supreme court heard arguments on the clean water act and whether it was meant to include tributaries and all parts of waterway...doesn't sound very promising. here is the problem...as much as i wish it were different, as much as i wish the u.s. government could regulate dumping and polution...two centuries ago this didn't occur to those folks...i've often wondered how in god's name congress got away with legislation like this...especially the endangered species act. i'll give them credit...they had to try...and i hope to god the justices find a way to manipulate the constitution into allowing congress to do it (afterall, they are the supreme court, they can make the constitution say and protect anything they want)...i'm not holding my breath though...

when i met you i was just a kid, hadn't built up my defenses...so i gave my heart completely...