There are many things that are both said and done, that under close examination, are not what they seem. Sometimes things are put into action that you thought would make life better, but instead made it worse or at the very least, kept things the same and dash your hopes for improvement. This happens all the time with the large organizations like the government.

President Bush announced a plan for a hydrogen powered car. He stated that this would help clean up the air and decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Just about everyone knows that you can obtain hydrogen from water, things don't get much better than that. But did you know that hydrogen can also be produced from fossil fuel. The plan for the "Freedom Car" as the president calls it, is to have 90 percent of the hydrogen produced from fossil fuel and 10 percent using nuclear fuel. What does this mean to the American public? It means that the factories producing hydrogen will be dumping carbon into the atmosphere, off setting any gain from the cars. It also means that we will still be just as dependent on foreign fuel. So next time you hear about the "Freedom Car", try not to laugh.

The defense department touted the F-22 Raptor as the greatest fighter ever produced. It is a great plane, but a plane that will not be very useful in this new type of war. It was designed to fight Russian fighters but that threat no longer exists so the powers that be, want it to now be a ground support plane. This is a completely different mission than it was designed for. One has to realize that the *"Flyaway Cost" is a staggering $85 million in 1999 dollars which may not even be the true cost. The air force lists other cost per unit like "Program Acquisition Cost" which is $184 million each in 1999 dollars. Surely we can use a cheaper plane for ground support and, I might add, a better one for that mission. Maybe we need more warthogs, you know, the A-10 thunderbolt that was so effective defending our troops on the ground during the Iraq war. The F-22 when put into the ground support role not only is too expensive but it doesn't work. It had computer freeze ups that rendered it not very useful. Another thing is the plane is made for speed, not the slow, grueling ground attack. Burt Rutan the famous aircraft designer had proposed a design for a plane which would only be used for ground support. It's armament was a large cannon that ran along the length of its body, it was a tank buster like the A-10.. It may also have had machine guns, I can't remember, but its entire cost was only $2 million per plane. Just think, we could have had 92 of these planes for the price of ONE F-22. If you were on the ground would you rather be supported by 92 planes or one? The plane was rejected, I guess it wasn't going to be built in an important Congressman's District.

Photo Source: US Air Force
F-22 Raptor

Missile defense, another of these high cost, low return or no return projects. We all know that we need some sort of defense against missiles even though there are other ways of attacking this country with nuclear weapons. The problem here is that the only ones that feel secure are the contractors who are now rolling in our money. The total cost of missile defense is estimated to be at 1 trillion dollars and climbing. Even this would be worth it if it worked, but does it? I let you be the judge. We haven't tested any defensive missiles for a couple of years but when we last did, we had 8 tests. To make it easier for the defensive missiles we put beacons aboard the incoming missiles. How could we ever miss under those circumstances? But we did miss 3 times out of 8. So even if the enemy is nice enough to put beacons on their missiles we will still hit only 5 of 8. But what if they don't put beacons on their missiles and just decide to launch ordinary missiles? I don't even want to think about that. Oh, and yes, we deployed this system off the coast of Korea recently, the Koreans must be trembling in their boots, WITH LAUGHTER.

Photo Source: www.llnl.gov

Livermore provided technical assistance in rocket sled tests conducted by the U.S. Army to evaluate the effectiveness of an upgrade of Patriot for defense against theater ballistic missiles.

We just had an election in this country. Most people think the main issues were jobs, Iraq, medical coverage and Social Security. Guess what, in poles conducted after people voted and were asked the question of what was the most important issue to them, the most common answer was moral issues. Whether we agree with the question of the administration being moral or not is not the issue. The issue here is that more people felt that the administration was more moral than the opposition and that this was the most important issue. It seems that the conservative Christians have the biggest popular voice.

London is a pretty quiet city has cities go. Wrong there is an epidemic going on there that threatens to bankrupt the city. This is not a medical emergency but an emergency of a different type. It is an epidemic of stolen man hole covers. In one borough of London alone over 227 manhole covers and grates have been stolen and there is no end in sight. Scrap metal prices are being blamed for this. In the year 2000 scrap metal paid $97 per ton, now it pays $340 per ton. It doesn't take long to steal a manhole cover. Two men jump out of a car with with hooks and lift the cover into the trunk. An economic boom in China has caused the rise in scrap metal prices. There is one problem with stealing these manhole covers though. It you put six into the average cars truck, the front wheels will rise off the ground making you look like your driving a funny car.

*See http://www.afa.org/magazine/Nov1999/1199f22.asp