Jan. 09, 2003 - 22:16 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Ridiculous

I now seem to be so blown out Politically Correct and super Paranoid that it is hard to have any idea of what position I should take on anything.

Smallpox innoculation for instance. It seems to me that the statistics on ill effects are about the same as always. Low incidence. Yet many different organizations are using the ill effect bit to excuse most anything. Rocky Mountain News of January 9 by Bill Scanlon has an article, "Health workers urged to put off vaccine." That from the Chief of the Colorado Health and Hospital Association said Wednesday. Now the biggies of the hospital crew, group, cadre or whatever it wants to call itself cite the figures. One person in one million will die. Fifteen people in one million will get gravely ill. Considering the population of our country I would guess that the percentage of one person in a million is on the order or .00001 per cent.(I'll have to Google that to see what the present US population is and see what the number is on that. Will put it in my notify). They don't want health care workers to take the same risk that other folks take ? I would almost lay a bet that a larger percentage of people will die from alcohol, overeating, lack of exercising and risky things like skiing, snowboarding, aggressive driving or use of drugs, in each category. Originally 4000 Colorado health care workers - mostly from hospitals or county health departments - volunteered for the vaccine. Are there Oxy-morons at the helm ? Non-Sequitur maybe or downright Dougly.

On Point this morning titled, "Repealing Reform," says this, "There are days we almost miss Newt Gingrich. He turned out to be a hypocrite and left the House in disgrace, but during the early days of his regime in the mid-90's he pushed through positive rules changes which the current GOP leadership is seeking to undo. Such as the eight year term limit on being speaker. It disappeared Tuesday on the first day of the House session. So did the rule prohibiting members and staffers from accepting meals or gifts exeeding $50, with a limit of $100 a year from any source. Another rules change would allow charities to resume paying for lawmakers to travel and stay at resorts. Colorado's own rep. Joel Hefley,chairman of the House Ethics committee, tried to object, but couldn't even get his messages to the speaker returned." I wonder does that say anything to anyone but me ? I remember the definition of an honest politician I once read, "An honest politician is one who stays bought." Looks like charities and most anyone else can put as much money where they want it and buy whoever will accept. "Honesty, yeah right.

Gina Holland of the Associated Press has an Article in this morning, "Felonious execs to do more time," "Federal panel OKs tougher punishment for corporate crime." She mentions that one side says the sentences and punishment are not strict enough and the other screams that they are too tough. She mentions, "Executives in (Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp, etc.) could NOW be sent to prison for life if convicted of wrongdoing, critics said." She says further, "The tougher sentences will affect executives convicted of securities violations or other crimes that endanger the finances of a publicly traded company, people who block investigations and those involved in large-scale crimes could be double."

What could possibly be done to those who almost require employees to hold company stock but bar them from selling it when they themselves are cashing in ? What could be done that is strong enough to punish people who cause corporations to collapse because of their dishonesty and greed ? It is quite possible that many people will never even come close to regaining what they lost through disappearing pensions, 401k's and steady jobs. Thing that gets to me is that, of course those guilty robber barons will be grandfathered and not have to suffer those stiff penalties. And they are the ones who should suffer the most to my way of looking at things. Big expensive mansions, huge estates, fleets of cars, multiple residences the selling of which now, can't come close to helping those in need.

So as usual in our country things go from the sub-slime to the Ridiculous . . . . . .

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