Middle East fighting could devastate our economy

Yet another bloody conflict has erupted in the Middle East, and
people across the world have gotten nervous. They should be, and so
should you.

There are many reasons to be worried about terrorists based in
Lebanon attacking the nation of Israel.

The first, of course, is that this conflict has the potential to
quickly escalate into a multinational war, with the United States
becoming a reluctant participant.

A second concern is what this war could do to the world's oil
supply. If Iran is a covert partner in the attacks, as many Middle
East experts believe, the flow of oil out of the world's fourth
largest supplier could become unreliable. If the war expanded to
other nearby sponsors of terrorism, the entire region's supply of
crude - 30 percent of total world production - could be thrown into
jeopardy.

The implications of such a highly plausible scenario would be
staggering. World markets know this. That's why immediately
following the explosions in Israel and Lebanon, the price of crude
jumped to $78 a barrel. An all-out war in the Middle East could
easily double that price or more in a heartbeat.

How does $10 for a gallon of gasoline sound? How about adding 30 or
40 percent more to the price of everything? If oil fields, oil
terminals or oil tankers became targets for missiles, there's no
question that the United States and the entire world would plunge
into a depression.

The lesson for all of us is that when it comes to the foundation of
our economic and national security, we just don't get it. The most
important commodity on the planet is oil. It is the metaphoric
lifeblood of our liquid-fuel-based society. And yet, while we import
about 60 percent of this vital liquid from other nations - many of
them unstable dictatorships - we've not focused our national
attention on this extraordinarily important issue. Instead, we've
permitted politicians and agenda-driven groups to distract us with
touchy-feely nonsolutions.

Ethanol is a classic example. Politicians everywhere are singing the
praises of this insignificant energy source. The National Academy of
Sciences reports that even with improved production technologies,
ethanol still has a very low "energy profit." In other words,
burning a gallon of gasoline to produce a gallon and a quarter of
ethanol doesn't make economic sense. We get marginally more fuel,
but then need to spend it importing food that we can't grow because
we're using the land for corn-based ethanol.

Hybrid cars are all the rage among the politically correct, but even
with subsidies they are still economic losers. A $15,000 standard
engine Honda Civic gets 38 miles per gallon. The hybrid version of
the same car costs $10,000 more but only saves the driver 2 cents a
gallon, based on $3-a-gallon gas. You would have to drive nearly a
half-million miles to make that one pay off.

With scientific breakthroughs, perhaps ethanol and gas-electric
hybrid cars can relieve a small amount of pressure from this oil
import dilemma, but they don't provide the serious solutions this
problem demands.

Our government has devoted a pittance of funding toward research
into alternative fuels, when daunting technological obstacles stand
between us and - possibly - hydrogen-powered vehicles and cellulosic
ethanol. Plug-in hybrids also deserve a serious look.

We need to significantly reduce our nation's thirst for 21 million
barrels of oil and day - a literal lake of petroleum. We're not
going to meaningfully reduce that lake with "solutions" that offer
us buckets of relief.

New technologies are the answer for the future, but more domestic
production is the salvation of today. While the Middle East becomes
a dangerous threat to our economy and national security, Congress is
still debating a watered-down version of a bill that would open up
only a portion of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling.

Congressmen controlled by eco-activists are still preventing
exploration of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, even though it
could deliver 1 million barrels a day for as long as 30 years.

Domestic oil production is delayed and denied by overly restrictive
regulations and bogus lawsuits.

Worse, we've got billions of barrels of fuel available to us in the
form of oil-shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Huge amounts of
private capital are needed, and some government encouragement would
help get us there more quickly, but Congress dithers.

We need focused attention on real solutions to our liquid-fuel
problem, and we need it now. Rogue states and terrorists without a
conscience have us and our free society over a barrel. Woe be unto
us if the world oil supply plummets suddenly and we are caught
unprepared.

By Mark Mathis

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What’s a mother to do?

I received an email from a mother in Maryland that I felt
warranted my time and yours.

Her case is not that unusual if you take a good look at the family
courts throughout the country these days. I know from personal
experience that the family courts in New York are far from fare. In
fact they can be out right discriminating in some cases.

The thing that is different in this case is that his mother is
speaking up and sharing her story with us.

I think you will find the information in the e-mail disturbing at
best, not to mention the heart-breaking ordeal that this could put
her disabled 6-year-old daughter through.

I will be taking some time to review this and gather as much
information as I can over the next week to write a full article on
it, but for now I felt that sharing the e-mail with readers was a
good start.

If you have any comments you would like to share with this mother,
or would like to share your own experiences, please feel free to
post your comments below.

___________

The E-mail (the original e-mail has been edited slightly for
publishing here):

I would like to tell you about the courts in Richmond Indiana,
judges there lock people up with no jury trial all the time.

I am a mother without custody who was ordered to pay support for 4
other children. 3 of these children are now grown and living out on
their own. I have a disabled 6 yr old daughter I am raising now.

I live in Maryland. I have now found out they are charging me with
contempt and have issued a felony warrant for my arrest. When I’
asked why I cant pay they don’t care that the fact of my 6 yr old
daughter is disabled they tell me tough luck and your mistake’s now
here I sit waiting to be dragged away from my disabled child who
needs me here with her and they do not care period.

The judges and prosecutors don’t care for anyone’s civil rights they
strip people of their parental rights without proving they are unfit
and if you are poor you are made to sit in jail without a trial of
any kind the judge decides your fate and they have no compassion for
any excuse you may have.

My older children are very upset by the fact I’m to be locked up
with no consideration for their disabled sister. As for trying to
get someone involved to helping me I cant even afford that with her
being disabled and mounting expenses for her care I am barely
floating by.

Seems to me the entire justice system is a mentality of the good old
boys system.

You violate their rights we will look the other way and ignore their
complaints. It’s not right. My daughter I am raising now is
documented being disabled by the social security office and my civil
right to be her parent is being violated and her right to have her
mother is goanna be violated. And no one cares.

My older children have called to try and talk to these people and
they are told we can’t discuss this with you. Um excuse me this
involves them and they are grown adults and have the right to know
what’s going on and they have a right to make a plea if they like it
or not.

Only in America are you made into a criminal by your own court
system if you are poor and cant afford to pay or god forbid you have
a disabled child and you have to choose between her care and the
care of 3 children that are grown and moved out on their own and are
working and making their own way.

Is it my fault she is disabled, my fault for taking care of her when
she needs me yes and ill stand by that no matter what.

So charge me as a hardcore felony criminal for being a mother to a
disabled child.

Richmond Indiana family courts are a disgrace to America. I promise
here and now charge me I will make this into a public national media
event of what kind of people run the court there.

When you are suppose to uphold the law and you don’t you should be
held liable for it period.

I have been locked up from my children once before for being too
poor to pay and all with no jury trial. And it’s getting ready to
happen again. No lawyer wants to help me cause they don’t want to
fight their own corrupt system its all about money, money, money.

Forget the children that need their parents forget their rights just lock them up and be done with it.

Well I am one parent that’s tired of it period. We have rights to
and to be railroaded over those rights is wrong our forefathers made
it that way and that’s the way it should be period.

Remove those that violate every constitutional right and put people
on the system that are fair and have compassion for someone’s
circumstances and quit making poor parents criminals.

Written by A. Wallace

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A Search for the Truth (part 14)

With as many weeks as we have been following this article, I have
managed to keep it based on the facts and leave my personal views on
the side. I think it is time for a change.

Yesterday I received a package from Debbi containing photos of the
boys, the gravestones and the site where the murders took place. I
will have some of the photos scanned in and on next weeks update.

Researching this article and reviewing the facts has been an ongoing
thing, but without a visual look into the privet lives of these boys
the case has remained at somewhat of a distance. While sorting
through the photos, the sense of adding a past, a life and a person
behind what have been names has now become a reality.

I’ve stressed to (the readers) to consider that something like this
could happen in your community, to your family and worse to you.
Though many people think not here, not in my family or it would
never happen to me. The fact remains; we have no control over some
things in life. That is why we as a group we need to take some kind
of control to prevent things like this from happening again or in
our own towns.

I know I said last week that we were going to start reviewing and
taking an investigative approach this week. But with the photos just
getting in, it would be better to start that approach next week. We
will be able to add actual photos to what we are talking about. You
will get to see just how open the field is where the murders took
place. You will see how these boys look like people that you see on
the street everyday, if not someone that you know. You will see the
life in their faces as they gather with friends and have fun. Then
you will see the gravesites where they lay to rest!

I reuse the words “you will see” for a reason. Though you have
reviewed the facts, it has all been words to date. Every reader can
tell me that these boys are dead, but can you can tell me if their
hair was long, curly or straight. Have you seen these boys’ smiles
when they are having fun? Have you looked upon where their bodies
lay after the shootings? Have you looked at their gravesites and
thought about how their faces looked, their smiles or anything else
for that matter?

This is what the families of these boys have to live with and go
through. This is what they have to live with. Though we will never
feel what they do, we will get an idea of what they live with and
what it would do to us to live with the same horrors. We will see
for ourselves, we will remember the looks on the boys faces and we
will know what it is to look at the site where they lay to rest and
know they are no longer here.

Though this week is a different approach to the article, it is more
of my way to prepare you for what you (we) are about to experience,
about to see for our selves and about to feel. It is important to
have such an approach prior to revealing such photos in order to get
the impact that the photos deserve.

This week I would like everyone to let us know in the comments area
(or via e-mail at TheTruth@AKpcsales.net) how you feel about the
photos being included in the article and just how you think it would
impact your views on the whole case.

As a note: there have been some very interesting questions posted on
AskTheLawman message board regarding this case. Though I do not have
the authority to transfer the actual questions from that board to
this article, I will address the issues they concern here starting
next week.

Written by A. Wallace

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Arrests at U.S. border down by 45 percent

Border Patrol chief says some aliens may be frightened by tighter
security

WASHINGTON - The number of illegal immigrants caught trying to sneak
into the United States has dropped since President Bush ordered the
military to help tighten the border, the head of the Border Patrol
said Tuesday.

Officials surmise that part of the reason is that fewer people are
trying to enter the country because they’re discouraged by the
increase in efforts against them.

Immigrant rights advocates think the migrants may just be shifting
entry points, crossing at more remote and dangerous areas.

Whichever it is, Border Patrol chief David V. Aguilar reported a 45
percent decline in the number of people arrested along the U.S.
Mexican border, when comparing the 69 days before Bush’s mid-May
announcement with the 69 days after.

That’s a much greater decline than normally seen in the summer
months when southern temperatures rise dangerously and discourage
some people from making the trip, officials said. The seasonal
decrease was 27 percent last year and 29 percent in 2004, said
Customs agency spokesman Michael Friel.

Aguilar spoke at a press conference with Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum,
chief of the National Guard, which is sending about 6,000 troops to
help with logistics, communications and other duties and thus free
up border agents to do more enforcement work.

“We are becoming more efficient,” Aguilar said of the operation
since troops began arriving.

Some 4,500 National Guardsmen are in place in California, New
Mexico, Texas and Arizona, with the rest due Aug. 1, said Blum.
Their arrival so far has freed 250 border agents from support
duties, a number expected to grow to about 580.

“It’s positive, it’s real,” Aguilar said of the effort’s effect.
‘More eyes and ears on the border’

The reported 45 percent decline was to 166,299 arrests during the 69
days after Bush’s May 15 announcement, compared with 302,447 arrests
during the 69 days before the announcement.

“We have more eyes and ears on the border, more agents and
apprehensions are down,” he said. “I think it’s logical to say that
we are gaining control of that piece of the border,” Friel
said. “Something’s going on.”

Also Tuesday, two conservative Republicans proposed a new
immigration bill that they hoped would help start negotiations
between the House and Senate on immigration legislation.
The bill sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Rep.
Mike Pence, R-Ind., would set up privately run employment centers
outside the U.S. Illegal immigrants would have to leave the U.S. and
apply through the centers to return to the U.S. on work visas. Those
would not operate until after the president has certified to
Congress that the border is secure.

By The Associated Press

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Arrest made after chase, standoff in Houston, Tx.

Police chased a white pickup truck for 90 minutes Friday through
highways, rural roads and a golf course until the driver turned into
a creek, his front tires shredded by authorities' spike sticks.
Dozens of police officers surrounded the pickup for more than an
hour, many with guns drawn, as the driver, identified as Kenneth Ray
Pool, 58, sat inside. It was unclear whether the driver, hidden by
tinted windows, was armed at the time. He surrendered to authorities
around 6 p.m.

About 20 or more police cars joined the chase that started at about
2:45 p.m. Friday after the driver allegedly robbed a dry cleaning
business in Pasadena east of Houston. Police said the driver fired
shots at authorities after the robbery and allegedly threw a gun
from the truck during the chase.

During the pursuit, the driver often veered into oncoming traffic
lanes, forcing other cars off roads to avoid collisions. The fleeing
pickup scraped several cars, including at least one police cruiser,
and stopped only briefly after hitting a red pickup's passenger
side.

A 24-year-old woman and her 7-year-old son in the red pickup were
not hurt, police said.

The chase spread from south Houston to Pearland and back, with the
driver alternating between Highway 288, rural roads and finally the
Sam Houston Tollway south of downtown Houston. At one point, the
driver turned off Highway 288 and sped through a golf course before
returning to the highway.

The chase ended at about 4:30 p.m. when the driver, who was
northbound on the tollway near the Houston Ship Channel, left the
roadway and drove into a creek.

Minutes earlier, police had managed to throw down spike sticks as
the driver zipped through a toll booth. Shredded rubber fell off the
front tires and the driver kept going on the metal rims until
veering into the creek.

Police shut off all northbound and southbound lanes on the tollway
while trying to communicate with the driver.

By The Associated Press

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