It's HOT as blazes. Summer has hit Houston like a blow torch - A/C is O U T on the old Merc and only 1 window will roll down. Time to get a hybrid (50 mpg!).

News keeps getting stranger by the day. New abuse photos and videos, and I heard a military intelligence officer try to say that Nick Berg was part of Al Qaida and consented to his own death - I find that too off the wall.

Got to run...

Just back from bean town Boston - for a BU graduation that turned into Noah's floodwaters - people walking around in $1,000 suits drenching wet with no umbrella.

Then our hotel turned out to be 1 block from City Hall where gay marriages were issued for the very first time - which was at our underground rail stop. AMAZING scene it was. Will discuss more later...

Grandmother is 100 and news is she is failing, so must go. News gets weirder by the day from Iraq.

Those Who Kick Dogs and People

As I was walking a neighborhood a few days ago, collecting signatures to get on the ballot, a man came out of his house with his dog.  His dog made a beeline toward me. He was friendly and cute and wanted to play, but the man saw me with my Congress T Shirt and yelled at the dog: "Murphy, get back over here!"

Murphy did as commanded an--d the man then kicked him! Poor Murphy yelped. It was all I could do to keep from kicking the man for kicking the defenseless dogs. Obviously, the guy likes the incumbent I am running against (Tom DeLay) and hated my "Fjetland for Congress"  T-Shirt presence, so he took it out on the dog.

Later, I passed his house and never asked for a signature. I was getting 9 out of 10 anyway and don't need a signature from a bastard who kicks dogs. I wouldn't have asked for his signature even if I had needed it! People who abuse dogs and humans are unAmerican creeps.

Seeing the mistreatment in Iraq of prisoners made me feel the same - a few morons mistreating Iraqis making all of us Americans, and our military, look bad. A military source now says that 90% of the Iraqis had committed no crime -- they were civilians caught in various dragnets. These weren't dangerous Al Qaida types, but ordinary Iraqi moms and dads and brothers caught in a cross cultural hell. 

Then the horrible news of Nick Berg being beheaded by Al Qaida terrorists (they were not Iraqis but Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an Al Qaida leader overtaking Osama as a global killer showed how ugly tit-for-tat violence can get.

Then it turns out before he was killed that Berg had been in JAIL in Iraq --by our own military-- and our people would not let him have access to a lawyer! His own family had to sue in court to get him released! What is going on over there? This is not the America of our forefathers, who fled an abusive Monarchy and set up a bill of rights to avoid just this kind of nasty treatment. This is not a role model of democracy that is supposed to be set up in Iraq.

We have to reclaim the moral high ground.  We start by providing Iraqis with access to courts, bonds, attorneys and fair hearings.  If Americans had a foreign army here putting us naked on the end of a dog leash, etc. and not letting our families know what happened to us for weeks on end, we'd all be outside planting roadside bombs too. 

Duh, connect the dots Washington! If you treat people like dirt the situation gets worse, not better. Some genius in Washington or the Pentagon forgot that if you don't treat people with respect and give them a chance to prove their innocence, they get very hostile. We are supposed to show the Iraqis a role model better than Saddam, not copy it! No wonder things are going to hell over there. So many screwups and those awful pictures have led to more bullets being fired back at our troops and has cost us the moral high ground.   

Those prison abuse pictures had a kick back effect --and helped cost Nick Berg his life. People around the world are feeling very abused and kicked by officials here who talk democracy but don't practice it.  Kicking Iraq won't make it better, it will only make it more dangerous. But like an abused wife, it will be nearly impossible for the current players to win back the trust or the hearts and minds of the people needed for success in Iraq (or elsewhere).

Sadly, our leaders have alienated nearly the entire world, spent $200 billion on a war that had no connection to 9 11 or weapons of mass destruction -- and was rushed into with no plan or enough troops to provide the necessary security.

At the same time we now have a half trillion deficit with only the rich getting the real tax cut. Everyone else gets left table scraps, and they think they've just had a break.

It's time to kick some arrogant people out of Congress who have abused the trust of the American people -- and left them facing more hundreds of billions in costs for future years in Iraq on top of the half trillion dollar hole in our budget and a record trade deficit.

Our economy and kids will be paying in money and blood for their follies and disrespect for generations.

Sleeping Dogs

Henri the 100 lb wonderdog was snoring so loud it woke me up, so here I am.

The weekend was a mix of heavy thunderstorms on Saturday with 2 to 4 inches of rain - and pretty blue skies Sunday. I got out and continued my signature drive.

The latest poll results show the incumbent is at the lowest rating he's been in 20 years - 36% - with 64 per cent wanting someone else! This could be the year for a big change.

Iraq is looking stranger every week. Now allegations of abuse of prisoners by some GI's.  All it takes are a few bad apples to wipe out any remaining good will we had among the Iraqi people. This is unAmerican conduct that will kickback on us.

Gas prices are high and I keep meeting people whose businesses are not doing well or have been laid off or think they are about to be laid off. When they say the economy is doing better I have to wonder when it will trickle down to normal folks.

Perhaps what we really need is NO ONE in charge for the next 4 years - then we could all focus on business instead of political infighting, wars and without a Congress spending money like water flowing over Niagra we might get ahead! LOL.

Back to bed...

Iraq keeps getting more Nuts

Just when you think it could not get worse, Iraq gets worse. Now the army may storm Najaf, the Muslim holy city which is the Muslim Vatican - you can imagine how Christians would react if a foreign army stormed the Pope. That's what is seriously being considered as I write.

Just WHO is making these decisions? It's clumsy mistakes like this --made by someone HIGH up the chain of command -- that will create a worse backlash -- And THAT will result in more of our troops being attacked and killed as a result.

Americans with little global experience will assume that this tactic will work. It's the same mistake the British 'redcoats' made against the American colonists before 1776, who were the ones not playing by the 'rules' -- shooting at the lined up Brits from behind trees and then retreating...American forget, but in 1776 WE were the 'insurgents' wanting independence, and didn't want anyone else telling us what to do.

Now in Iraq we Americans are the Redcoats and the insurgents are the ones not playing by the rules, hiding behind trees and roadside bombs on their own home turf. The insurgents and creeps like Al Sadr are hoping we do make a major mistake like going into Najaf - it will enflame the people against us. Whoever is running this show keeps making mistakes that make things worse instead of better over there.

To his credit Paul Bremer admitted publicly recently that major mistakes had been made -- then he started rehiring ex-Saddam Generals! Egads, Alice is Wonderland is here. What's next?

Bremer was the one (with somone's blessing) who cut of the pay of thousands in the Iraqi army with guns, so they then had nothing better to do from then on but shoot at our troops. Duh! Former Pres. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker warned NOT to do that. How many of our kids died because of that screw up? If we had kept them on the payroll they would not have had an incentive to start the insurgency. But deprive a man with a gun and a family to feed of a paycheck and you have trouble...firing them created an instant insurgency that has grown with every additional mistake.

Stay tuned. It looks like our clever leaders are about to make some more mistakes in Iraq, a country that has never known democracy, and was intentionally designed by the British after WW I to be unstable. We can't win with a military only solution. It will take a real political solution - not an imaginery one.

Last Water Heater Made in America

After the water heater blew up (sprang a nasty leak), we had to replace it (East Sunday we had NO Hot Water -yikes- and it was a downpour of cold rain outside).

We survived until Monday, thanks to a shower at a local country club.

The plumber who came out remarked, after installing our new unit, that it was the last one made in America - we bought the same kind we had before because it lasted nearly14 years!

Now, they will be made in Mexico!  Wonder how long it will last? Why do I think that the price won't really drop much when they start selling those?  The new one installed was $720 - pretty good for a 14 year lifecycle. So if one from Mexico is $500 (I doubt it) how many jobs were lost to save about $20/year over 14 years? 

Unfortunately, we are shipping our manufacturing overseas and the jobs that go with it.  I've been in over 55 countries since the 1970's, helping them set up their own production for local needs.

Now it turns out Mexico, China and India will produce everything we use in our houses, from faucets to toys and water heaters. They have a cost advantage because the economy has gone global.

Maybe future wars won't be over oil - it will be China cutting off our water heaters unless we cave in on Taiwan! Or they withhold all the Christmas toys they make for us. 

I bet after one cold shower many Americans would give up half of California and New York to get hot water again, to heck with anybody! Ummmm. Not sure we want to be this vulnerable guys!

My Water Heater Erupted with Iraq

How can a water heater be like Iraq?  Iraq sprang a serious leak this week - hot steam erupted from what was supposed to be progress in Iraq's nation building, just as I discovered our water heater sprouting steam into the attic, creating a waterfall into the house.

Fortunately, I walked into the house right after it happened and was able to shut a valve and stop the flow before real damage occurred. A few minutes or an hour later we would have had a major disaster.

Unfortunately, the valves may be stuck wide open in Iraq eruption that occurred this week. Someone has been turning the wrong valves and the mistakes have piled up, like a boiler set too high until it finally explodes. Some of the reasons I covered in a new Global American newsletter released a couple days ago (access and archives at www.INTLEGALGROUP.com).

A culmination of a series of blunders have set the stage for hellfire in Iraq - no planning, failure to have enough troops or give them cultural training, dismissing the Iraq army, failing to secure the borders to keep Al Qaida out, using aircraft to bomb a Mosque killing women and children, the list goes on. Our leaderships blunders have caused centuries old enemies, Shiites and Sunnis, to team up for the first time ever. We are poking the hornets nest and they are teaming up. NOT a good sign.

My water heater will be fixed by Monday. The Iraq broken water heater is so critical now from valves being turned, often the wrong way, that it will either blow up completely, or will take years to fix. Our obsession with Saddam the local thug has left Osama bin laden a wide open field to focus on attacking the U.S. We should NEVER have taken our attention off that snake. It's almost guaranteed America will be hit again, and probably soon.

Lack of international understanding by our military and political leaders has put us in a tight box. A U.S. commander said the American mission remained to ''kill or capture'' the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. That can only make him a hero and get him elected - or increase the rage we seem to have stirred up (600 killed in Fallujah last week, mostly women, children and elderly).

First good sign was a U.S. commander negotiating a cease fire...