Source: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/201206Baby.htm

Baby sent though airport X-ray machine

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Comment: Though explained away as an "accident," the guilty until proven
innocent, 100% suspicion at all times, authoritarian absurdness
environment that has been created in airports most likely led this
Spanish woman simply to assume that she had to x-ray her baby in the
interests of security.

LOS ANGELES -- A woman going through security at Los Angeles
International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin
intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine.

The early Saturday accident -- bizarre but not unprecedented -- caught
airport workers by surprise, even though the security line was not busy
at the time, officials said.

A screener watching the machine's monitor immediately noticed the
outline of a baby and pulled the bin backward on the conveyor belt. The
infant was taken to Centinela Hospital, where doctors determined that he
did not receive a dangerous dose of radiation.

Aviation officials, who declined to release the 56-year-old woman's
name, said she spoke Spanish and apparently did not understand English.
She initially did not want the baby transported to a hospital, but
security officials called paramedics and insisted that the child be
examined by a doctor.

The grandmother and the child were subsequently allowed to board an
Alaska Airlines flight to Mexico City.

The incident drew attention to whether aviation officials are staffing
often-busy security checkpoints adequately enough to prevent such an
accident. And it raised questions about the danger of X-rays used to
pick out suspicious metal shapes in passenger bags, given the medical
community's warnings that even low amounts of radiation that can build
up over a lifetime.

"Rather than focus on the radiation dose, which is a small amount, we
need to focus on why this happened, so it doesn't happen again," said
Dr. James Borgstede, a clinical professor of radiology at the University
of Colorado and president of the American College of Radiology. "Human
beings weren't meant to go through those things."

In the several seconds the baby spent in the machine, the doctor added,
he was exposed to as much radiation as he would naturally get from
cosmic rays -- or high energy from outer space -- in a day.

Security experts said the incident underscored a more widespread concern
about the screening process at LAX and other airports.

"The screeners are still reporting that they're being pushed," said
Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration security
agent. "If a baby can get through, what the hell else can get through?"

Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security
Administration, which manages LAX screeners, said the agency does not
have enough workers to constantly stand at tables in front of the
screeners to coach passengers on what should or should not be placed
through X-ray machines.

But in some cases, airlines contract with private companies to staff the
tables and assist travelers. The TSA will also occasionally put
employees at the tables if extra workers are available.

TSA screeners often ask passengers to remove their coats, shoes, laptops
and other items and put them into the bins, Melendez said. But they
cannot observe everything people put there, because they must monitor
screening equipment, he said.

Still, he said the TSA works hard to educate passengers about what
carry-on objects require screening and that travelers must take
responsibility for knowing these rules.

"There's an obligation on the traveler to use some common sense," said
Larry Fetters, the TSA's federal security director at LAX. "If they
don't understand, they should ask somebody. If they ask us, we are
generally able to find someone who speaks that language and assist
them."

On its Web site, the TSA posts extensive tips for travelers, including a
section titled "Traveling With Children." Listed among the items is a
sentence that reads: "Never leave babies in an infant carrier while it
goes through the X-ray machine."

There are also signs posted in English and Spanish at ticket counters
and near security checkpoints warning passengers that they must put cell
phones, pagers, car keys and other metal objects into bins that go
through X-ray machines.

Airport and TSA officials said because the incident is so rare, and
because the health risk is so low, they did not plan to issue specific
warnings to passengers to not put children through X-ray machines.

"This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler,"
said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for
the city's airport agency. "This is only the second time in nearly 20
years that anyone can recall a traveler mistakenly putting an infant
through an airport X-ray machine. Since then LAX has served more than 1
billion travelers without an incident of this type."

In 1988, an infant in a car seat went through an X-ray machine at LAX
Terminal 4.

Source:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/191206Original.htm

The Original Foreign Policy

Ron Paul
Prison Planet
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any
portion of the foreign world.

~ George Washington

Last week I wrote about the critical need for Congress to reassert its
authority over foreign policy, and for the American people to recognize
that the Constitution makes no distinction between domestic and foreign
matters. Policy is policy, and it must be made by the legislature and
not the executive.

But what policy is best? How should we deal with the rest of the world
in a way that best advances proper national interests, while not
threatening our freedoms at home?

I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace
and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and
military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism.

Noninterventionism is not isolationism. Nonintervention simply means
America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the
internal affairs of other nations. It does not mean that we isolate
ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel,
communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

Thomas Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy
position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and
honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.”
Washington similarly urged that we must, “Act for ourselves and not for
others,” by forming an “American character wholly free of foreign
attachments.”

Yet how many times have we all heard these wise words without taking
them to heart? How many claim to admire Jefferson and Washington, but
conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Since
so many apparently now believe Washington and Jefferson were wrong on
the critical matter of foreign policy, they should at least have the
intellectual honesty to admit it.

Of course we frequently hear the offensive cliché that, “times have
changed,” and thus we cannot follow quaint admonitions from the 1700s.
The obvious question, then, is what other principles from our founding
era should we discard for convenience? Should we give up the First
amendment because times have changed and free speech causes too much
offense in our modern society? Should we give up the Second amendment,
and trust that today’s government is benign and not to be feared by its
citizens? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights?

It’s hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles
simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify
interventionist policies today. The principles enshrined in the
Constitution do not change. If anything, today’s more complex world
cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign
policy.

It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy
that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to
understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and
time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether
in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to
ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars should be
lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image.

Source:
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Walker_World_Here_Comes_China_Warns_UK_999.html

Walker's World: Here Comes China, Warns U.K.

UPI
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The United States will cease to be the lone superpower within thirteen
years, and both the European Union and Britain will have to accept that
the transatlantic strategic partnership will no longer work. This is the
shock prediction of one of the top figures of the British foreign policy
establishment.
In his farewell address as director of the Royal Institute of
International Affairs, known as Chatham House after its prestigious
address in London's plush St. James district, Prof. Victor Bulmer-Thomas
said that the swift emergence of China as the second megapower would
transform the world's strategic map.

"Just as the world is currently shaped to a large extent by the
international priorities of the United States, so it will be shaped to a
significant degree by the international priorities of the two megapowers
in 2020," he told a blue ribbon audience of British officials and
politicians and international diplomats.

China will also seek to curb and to reduce American influence in the
Asia-Pacific region, he predicted, using all available non-military
tools such as trade deals, soft loans, and strategic investments. He
also expected China to demonstrate "a more aggressive approach to the
Taiwan issue."

"A period of strategic rivalry between the United States and China while
this process is underway can be confidently predicted. However, this is
not likely to lead to open conflict," he stressed. "The economic ties
between the two countries will be close and each country will have a
strong stake in the economic success of the other. There will also be
areas of cooperation, notably in tackling proliferation as well as
developing and transferring technology to combat greenhouse gas
emissions. Yet it is unrealistic to imagine that the United States will
not resist strongly the erosion of its privileged status -- particularly
when the new megapower is so fundamentally opposed to U.S. values in
religion and personal freedom."

Prof. Bulmer-Thomas' prediction that Britain and Europe would have to
reconsider their traditional ties to the United States have caused a
flurry of concern and speculation in European diplomatic circles, which
are still digesting the imminent end of Prime Minister Tony Blair's
political career after the Iraq misadventure.

"Both the U.K. and the EU have to recognize that the old idea of a
strategic partnership with the United States -- or special relationship
in the case of the U.K. -- to solve global problems will not work in a
world of two megapowers. It may still be true that most global problems
will not have a solution without the United States, but that will also
be true of China. A strategic partnership with the United States that
ignores China will not be effective, but a strategic partnership with
both countries is unrealistic," the Chatham House director added.

Bulmer-Thomas, who has run Chatham House for the past five years and
whose tenure was shaped by the 9/11 terrorist attack and its aftermath,
warned that the recent American primacy would no longer be tenable. He
said that U.S. indebtedness and low savings rate would erode its
economic position, and "the long-term liabilities in health spending and
social security will make it very difficult for the U.S. to match the
growth of the world economy, leading to a decline in its global share of
GDP."

So while the United States would remain the world's largest economy in
dollar terms it would probably be matched or overtaken by China as a
trading nation, and in GDP as measured by purchasing power parity. The
United States would probably keep its military and technological lead
with an annual defense budget of over $700 billion, and would remain a
megapower in 2020. However, if China continues the double-digit annual
growth in its defense budget it will be spending some $400 billion a
year by 2020, double the European defense spending and four times as
much as Russia.

But the United States has been damaged psychologically by the recent
setbacks in Iraq. One key component of superpower status is public and
political support for the investment of the resources required to
sustain that position, and that is now in question. The U.S. belief in
itself and its special role "has been sharply eroded as a result of the
war in Iraq and other related policies such as the abuse of prisoners in
Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

"There is no doubt that self-belief has taken a sharp knock under the
Bush presidency and the traumas of Iraq and Afghanistan will weigh
heavily on the U.S. electorate for several years yet. The notion of the
United States as 'a force for good in the world' will not be as widely
accepted as before. Isolation is not an option for the United States,
but a more neo-realist approach to international affairs certainly is,"
he noted.

China by contrast has abundant belief in itself and its own special role
in the world, and is fast acquiring the financial resources to match the
United States as a megapower. China will soon be the world's largest
holder of foreign exchange reserves, he predicted, and "will strenuously
seek to convert a significant part of its international financial assets
into real assets though strategic overseas purchases. This will give it
a global presence and the book value of Chinese inward investment will
exceed that of most other countries in those developing countries that
allow foreign investment access to natural resources."

China will grow dramatically in global strategic reach and political
power, and will add to its current veto in the United Nations Security
Council with a bigger share of votes in those international
organizations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank where
voting is determined by economic weight. By 2020 it will have developed
"a range of public policy instruments to promote its national interests
and these will include sticks as well as carrots. As the largest
importer in the world, China will have immense leverage over those
countries or regions interested in signing Preferential Trade
Agreements. At the same time, China will not hesitate to use sticks to
achieve its interests."

Europe would have to adjust to these new realities, he went on, and
learn to coordinate its international policies accordingly to defend its
own interests, since neither the United States nor China, engaged in
their rivalry, are likely to seek to strengthen international
institutions or the United Nations.

"The EU has to speak with one voice in international forums and that
requires a change in past practice by Britain and other member states,"
he urged. "The obvious starting point is the International Financial
Institutions, where the multiplicity of EU votes needs to be replaced by
a single EU representative. This will be very painful for the United
Kingdom, but there is really no choice unless we are prepared to see
Britain and the EU becoming less and less influential on the
international stage. Ultimately, the same will need to happen in the
U.N. Security Council, but that will take longer."

Source: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/34211.php

Guest Opinion: North American Union would supplant U.S. sovereignty

KAREN S. JOHNSON
Tucson Citizen
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

I just returned from a week in Washington, D.C., with a group of
concerned women where we learned about the Security and Prosperity
Partnership, also known as "The North American Union."

This partnership was agreed upon at a private meeting held in Waco,
Texas, on March 23, 2005, among then-president of Mexico Vicente Fox,
U.S. President George Bush and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin of
Canada.

The SPP is an agreement to merge our United States of America with
Mexico and Canada.

I am outraged about what the Bush administration is doing with this
partnership behind Congress' back. (See www.spp.gov)

With virtually no mention in the mainstream media and no oversight from
Congress, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez is pushing forward,
through his department, the "working groups" that are implementing this
plan.

Government bureaucrats and business leaders are "harmonizing and
integrating" our laws with Mexico and Canada on a broad range of issues
such as e-commerce, transportation, environment, health, agriculture,
financial services and national security, just to mention a few.

Do we want our laws "harmonized" with Socialist Canada and corrupt
Mexico?

If you are concerned about terrorism in our country, just remember that
enlarging our borders, merging our security functions with one of the
most corrupt nations on earth (Mexico) and giving up sovereignty and
constitutional protections do not make us safer.

Dr. Jerome Corsi, a Harvard professor who has spent months researching
this issue, was recently able, through a Freedom of Information request,
to obtain about 1,000 pages on SPP/North American Union.

That information clearly reveals that the Bush administration is running
a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which unelected
bureaucrats are crafting a broad range of policy changes.

The SPP is truly rewriting U.S. administrative law, all without
Congressional oversight or public disclosure.

The government watchdog organization, Judicial Watch, obtained many of
the same documents Corsi has received - including the organizational
chart and a listing of trilateral Mexican, Canadian and U.S.
administrative officers who report on multiple, cabinet-level "working
groups."

The SPP.gov Web site has put up a "Myth vs. Fact" document posted for
public relations purposes to begin the whitewash in which they think
they can hoodwink the American public.

One of the ways the administration has been able to go around Congress
is by not having the three countries sign a treaty or "law" on SPP.

I want to know - and the American public should demand to know - where
does the Bush administration get the congressional authorization to
invite two foreign nations to the table to rewrite U.S. law?

The Bush administration is trying to create the infrastructure for a new
regional North American government in stealth fashion, under the radar
and out of public view. Congress has unequivocally been asleep at the
wheel.

It is incredible but, if this template is followed, just four years from
now, the United States may cease to exist as an independent nation.
Its laws, rules and regulations - including all freedoms guaranteed by
the Constitution - will be subject to review and nullification by the
North American Union's unelected governing body.

There will no longer be a Canadian or Mexican border.

Transnational transportation corridors will crisscross the United States
delivering the cheapest goods possible from China and Vietnam with
Mexican truckers who will work for a pittance of what our U.S. truckers
earn.

Thousands of middle-class jobs will be wiped out, and the United States
will become nothing more than a province in an emerging North American
superstate.

The American people have got to be alerted and we must contact our
members of Congress to put a stop to this.

Most representatives and senators are largely unaware of the SPP/North
American Union.

I am certain that an aroused and deeply concerned electorate would have
little trouble gaining support to block what is planned and retain our
nation's hard-won independence.

Please help stop this insane move toward a North American Union.

U2 there guy...take it easy today!!

They love trying don't they???

Anybody get any messages from Russia or Africa yet???

If so...better steer cleer folks.

Very nice Green...thanks for sharing beautiful.

Sleep well and see you tomorrow..take care!!

Greetz Wild...you we're missed!!

Nuthin much...just havin a bottle of Hooch and havin a blast about now
(seeing doublez of u'z) also...other then that..it's going great
tonight...how are you doing?

What do you need help with hun?

HEY JUMP ON IN TIGER...WE HAVE HOOOOCH TO GO ALLLLL ROUND MAN!!

Time is all I have here to.

Hope 2007 is abit more consuming in patience and some time for me is
what I want for the new years and better health...

I can't wait to hit the local Gym and get into shape for myself...

CHEERS IAM MAN ^_^

AND TO CHRISTMAS UP & COMING...PLUS DAT NEW YEARS IS BIG TIME...won't be
out celebrating though this year *sobs* it's cool though..I will still
be here with those left behind to keep up sum happy spirits !!!

CHEERS MAN... GULP... GULP... GULP... WooOoOoOooo... I am seeing
DOUBLE..hahahahaha

(PASSES DA HOOCH ALL ROUND)

Hey man...you know how the CHIZ MAN does it??

I always got guest spares of HOOCH backed up and ready to sparkle and
rain all over the room...

BOOZE HEAVEN ON MONDAY NIGHT ha ha ha...COME ANDDDD GET IT....

YES SIR IAM having a BLAST...Got a bottle of HOOCH and I'm ready to have
a great time. It's been awhile since I had a snort. So I have to party
about now here infront of this pc screen.

So if I seems strange later. IT'S NOT CHIS..>>>>>>>It's MY EVILLL
POSTING TWIN just so ya's know ahead of time later on tonight...

It's good to forgive and forget before the new years isn't it folks??

WoAH who's baking a pie??? 0_o

I WANT APPLE....HAND EM OVA!!!

You did the right thing!!

It's almost the New Year and you would want to start off on the right
foot going into 2007.

It can happen to anyone of us. but atleast you apologized and you will
feel better later.

.... Also! *HOLD* on the little fishy's on mine please. they give me
poison bum gas..lol

Extra Cheese Crust on mine please !! ^_^

So many bands....But yet! so many song selections to choose
from...*sobs* -_-