Peter, I would be delighted to meet up with you and Reg.

Should I bring my own shovel or will you two provide me a new engraved one so's I feel special lol?

All goofing aside, I'd love to meet you cats, and check out that scene. Problem is scheduling. This is our high season through foliage. BUT, I count serendipity a friend so who knows what might work out.

Mid week is generally better for me to get away, say for a day trip if you two can come up with a plan that will work for you both. I expect Concord will take about 3 hours travel.

As to your question. I can understand folks having difficulty believing something based on faith alone, BUT, I have much less sympathy for those who are willfully ignorant of "indisputable experiential evidence".

I have to see if I spelt experiential right, or rather if that was what I meant. It was, empirical.

Sorry about the automatic writing, upon reexamination after publication, it was pretty horrid syntax even for me.

I'll just explain it this way.

Clinton commits perjury, his fans excuse it and justify his knowingly committing a crime. Did the same thing for Sandy Berger.

Bush/Cheney(prolly mostly Dick although I do not view Shrub as dumb, that's just 'more' PR, WHICH, satisfies large masses of peoples sense of superiority. And it works!) manufacture a situation/rationalization that numerous members of that administration published the desire for beforehand in the PNAC(.org) papers(Rebuilding American's Defenses). Jeb Bush, Lynn Cheney, etc(look it up) founded that organization and called for a Pearl Harbor type catalytic event within that, the org's founding document; as has Zbigniew Brezinski and so on since then.

My point, in this case is, neither the left or the right will believe such a thing, but it's right there in print. Including excursions involving Iraq, Syria, Iran & beyond. These sob's write down their plans, then they happen, and American's say, "nah, that can't be ...", followed by some other inanities(is that a word?) that absolve them from thinking, or rather acknowledging what a given think tank recommended, in fact came to pass.

How many years now has the largely micro minority been saying 14-15 permanent bases in Iraq? Finally the Congress is actually mentioning it. Which fits in nicely with, 'we may be there, in Iraq, for a century', which is also pooh poohed, even though that's what this administration has said on various occasions. But I'd bet there'll be another promising rationale, again and again.

Same with the North American Union(SPP.gov). The St Louis Dispatch says a couple months ago, 'that's only a conspiracy theory', but Judicial Watch, via a FOIA, gets there hands on a thousand pages of documents the USG was hiding. HIDING, or else a Freedom of Information Act filing would not have been necessary. The USG doesn't want its citizens to know. And btw, throughout that St Louis Dispatch article, one Robert Pastor is quoted saying there's no plan to unite Mexico, Canada and the US, and yet Robert Pastor has been developing & cheerleading just this plan for more than a decade.

APHIS/USDA along with international Stakeholders(a word that has special legal connotations) are pushing the National Animal Identification System. They slide 'cooperative agreement' funds to the state Ag departments, especially the large cattle states, to institute a mandatory 3 stage program they have no Constitutional authority to put in place. Non-Stakeholders, like homesteaders, farmers market small business farms(in other words, all the little people who are not Cargill or Monsanto or Hormel etc) get wind of it and start putting up a fuss at the state level. So the Feds backtrack at the end of 06 and state it's now a voluntary program on the Fed level but the new cooperative agreement funds they're passing out to the state Ag Departments are for a mandatory program, otherwise no money to the states. The first phased in stage involves Premises Registration(another term that has very special legal connotation, which is detrimental to property rights).

Immigration Reform(please). But it goes away only grudgingly despite the fact that all polls show Americans to be adamantly against it. Not unlike other issues such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and the NAU. And I guarantee you immigration reform will transpire, some time soon, because there is paperwork galore, int'l and internal, calling for it. Which also explains the repeated resurrections.

In each case, there is loads of evidence the American people are being conned and despite the actual proof, in writing from the USG or a combination of actual events and documents that called for those courses of action ahead of the subsequent events, most people are terribly ignorant, followed by those you try to enlighten who 'pooh pooh' the demonstratable facts. Including very intelligent Asses, Elephants and Independents.

Now I didn't do justice to these examples, but that's because -as you surely understand- there is height, width and depth to each such example if one is to grasp the significance and ramifications. 22 pages might be a start but 22 minutes, nah. And frankly, most American's are satisfied with the nightly news bytes of the chowder heads on the payroll of one element or another of the powers that be. Which is why the net will be controlled through economic exclusion, if not open censorship, sooner than later.

In the end, the real blame falls on the public who settled for shiny bobbles, implausible denials and quick fixes rather than be bothered with making tough decisive calls based upon substantive information. Surely you know as a teacher that our schools are primarily producing large quantities of practical imbeciles.

Anyhow, I'm doing the Allman Brothers thang again.

As to your cousin. I am relieved for you and yours and I hope he finds his way to your sphere of influence, and the continuation of his education. And the resumption of his youth in an improved atmosphere. Such parenting can be tough to recover from in the near term.

I just cannot, with a clear conscious, recommend military service, given our present folly, as I believe as much as anything, our warriors are being sent abroad in part to make our nation practically defenseless while maiming or eliminating this generation(perhaps multiple generations given the century statements).

Thank you for the kind thought, it was truly my pleasure to hope to help. Good success in drawing him in. He prolly won't get it at first but he's most fortunate to have a distant cousin who gives a hoot.

peaceably

ps When I was young and open minded, or so I thought, we had a motto I wonder what became of among liberals: "I may not agree with what you say but I'll fight for your right to say it". That too has gotten lost somewhere along the way of this strange trip.