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SHAMELESS PROMOTIONS DEPARTMENT Web Site Design, Development and Implementation - A listing of selections from our design portfolio can be found here. A web site is an investment in your business and an amazing vehicle for the wide distribution of information. No business should be without one. Contact The Webmaster to begin your website today.
THE SOAPBOX The fog of war has pinched a number of us, including some in the major news organizations. In my case it looks like I believed early reports, which are almost always wrong, that the antiquities from the museums in Baghdad were looted. As it turns out, only 33 artifacts are missing. The curators and scientists "stored" almost all the valuables for safekeeping. Despite the errorenous reports to the contrary, score one for the good guys. I too am troubled by the "missing" WMD's, but not in the way many in the media in the US are. With proven capability and intent, there is no doubt the Hussein regime had the ways and means to produce WMD's, especially chemical and biological agents. I am concerned about where they are. The absence of evidence of WMD's, to date, is certainly no proof that they do not exist. On the contrary, it only proves the lengths those who posess them will go to keep them hidden. The real problem is that they are still on the loose, somewhere. Every day that passes makes it more likely they will be used. Unless they are found first. SARS and now Monkeypox are making news. We are on a heightened state of alert, not just here in the US but also worldwide, for sudden outbreaks of contagions. As well we should be. A case in point: Non-weaponized smallpox has a casualty rate of 30% and has no effective treatment, after a certain stage of the infection has passed anyhow. There is no cure, antibiotic or medicine. It infects anyone who comes in contact with it. It spreads with exponential speed. What if our enemies have a weaponized version? You can bet that no matter the strain, if our enemies have it they will try to use it. I'd like to provide a little perspective for those with no patience for pace of current world events. First, I read a great little book recently. It could have been called WW I for Dummies, but such a title is not dignified enough for The Oxford Press. At any rate, it's called The First World War, by Sir Michael Howard CBE. Here's the gist of it for my point. WW I took 4 years (1914 - 1918) , mobilized 22.8 million with 3.41 million dead for the Central Powers against 39.2 million men mobilized and 4.6 million dead for the Allied (France, Britain, Russia, Italy and the USA). Just let this sink in for a minute; 4 years, 61 million mobilized and 8 million soliders dead. As of June 13, 2003 the current war in Iraq has lasted almost 3 months with around 200 Allied dead and even the most padded counts of Iraqi dead (both civilian and military) at around 10,000 tops. My second point relates to the question of "where the hell is Saddam, the WMD's and, for that matter, Osama?". The world is a big place. Even the mountains of North Carolina can be a really big place. Just ask the FBI and Eric Rudolph, the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing suspect. This guy evaded the best of our law enforcement folks, in the mountains of Western North Carolina, for over 5 years. While Mr. Rudolph is suspected of having help and sympathizers, he sure didn't have a billion dollars in cash, as Saddam is widely reported to; neither does he have millions, as Osama is reported to have. Combat is nasty, and people die. But the skill and precision of this latest war should be marveled at, especially when held up against some of the conflicts of the 20th Century, like WW I. Nonetheless, patience, persistence and dedication to the cause of a world free of tyranny and terrorists is what the long-run game is about. Sooner and hopefully not later, Saddam, Osama and all the WMD's will be found. I would like to give a great big "Hooah" to Task Force 20. I am sure they would prefer that their story remain a secret but it's important to know that such men and women exist and stand ready to defend our freedom. Little of what these folks do, day in and day out, ever sees the light of day. What you can be sure of is that they are patriots and men of honor whose work made such a relatively blodless and rapid conquest of Iraq possible. Freedom & Liberty are concepts largely alien to the countries in the Middle East. This is especially so in Iraq for the past 20 years or more. We have an incredible amount of work to do in Iraq. While intermittent combat is not over we must attempt to repair civilian infrastructure, establish the rule of law and a justice system, a banking and financial system, and a political system robust enough to weather the inevitable turmoil that freedom brings. It remains up to us and the Iraqi people to establish the basis for what should become a truly bright future for them. Keep in mind that they will also have the freedom to fail. It remains our responsibility to assure that they are given that opportunity and make sure that failure doesn't happen. The Federal Reserve thinks the spike in natural gas prices has the potential to weaken the economy. With most natural gas in short supply and many industries dependent on it as fuel, or in the case of chemicals, as feedstock, the Fed is correct to be concerned. In some cases the cost of gas has doubled in the past year. I know of no industry that is able, in the current enviornment, to pass on much of this increase. With natural gas feedstock as much as 40% of the costs of some basic materials (like plastics) this resistance to, or friction against, price increases weakens producers of basic materials, retarding their ability to continue capital investment. Profit is the engine of capitalist economies and feedstock price increases have seriously eroded profits. We continue to get raw material price increases for the chemicals we buy new. Anything with an "ethyl" in it has been hammered. We shop around as hard as we can but there is no arguing with the cost of gas and feedstocks. Once everyone has gone up in price there is nowhere else to go. But you can save money by buying surplus materials, so browse our site, check the listings and find an item you need. We'll save you money and help your profits! the webmaster
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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE * A tour bus load full of noisy tourists arrives at Runnymede, England. * A t a convention of biological scientists, one researcher remarks to another, "Did you know that in our lab we have switched from mice to lawyers for our experiments?" * A teacher has been arrested in NC in possession of compasses, protractor and ruler. * A fourth-grade teacher was giving her pupils a lesson in logic. *
* Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man. John Locke (1632 - 1704), * Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. Thomas Paine (1737 -1809) * If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) * Democracy's the worst form of government except for all the others. Sir Winston Churchill, (1874-1965) * War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice is often the means of their regeneration. John Stuart Mill (1806 -1873), British philosopher, economist * Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it. Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924) *
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