Gas $1.55 gallon in China, so why do we pay more?

I don't care to get in the middle of this pissing contest, but the record
needs some facts added concerning CC permits and gun laws.
While most states now allow CC permits without too much hassle, not all
states and cities do. Getting a CCW in certain cities like N.Y. New York
won't happen unless you have political connections.
Only 2 or 3 states allow open carry, and if you try to go down a public
street in most places with a gun strapped to your side you will donate your
gun to law enforcement and most likely get a free vacation where you have
no privileges.
Concealed carry means exactly that.
You can walk around with a weapon strapped on within your own house or in
many rural areas as long as you are on your own property.
In states which have shall issue gun laws the issuing agency must issue any
law abiding citizen a permit unless they can be disqualified by being a
convicted felon or other disqualifying reasons.
I get pissed when I see people making idiotic and misleading statements
which give all law abiding gun owners a bad image.
It only takes a few idiots to give the people who would like to take away
everyone's right to have a gun the necessary ammunition to continue this
effort.

 

Not in my state (which also happens to also allow open carry in
general). I suspect concealed carry is similar in other states to my
state without the "only on private property" restriction that you
suggest. Concealed carry means you can carry a concealed weapon except
where it is specifically forbidden (such as places of worship,
courthouses, military bases, airports, and federal facilities). In
other words, I can walk down any public street (with the exception of
one city) and legally carry a concealed weapon.

Humorosly, my state's laws say it is illegal to have a firearm anywhere
near you while you're involved with an illegal alcohol still or its
products. Where the heck did that come from!? 8^)

Yep - my state has that.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

I guess when the UN isin't involved, the US will steal money from
itself...

Guess whats not "in your wallet" -> the tax money that being siphoned
by defense contractors in scams like this.

Kofi Annan and the UN pales in comparison to Bush/Cheney and the white
house when it comes to thievery and deception.

You all realize that the plan to divert social security money to Wall
Street is a scam designed to pump money into big investment
companies. Limbaugh and the rabbid right use the UN as their whipping
boy to divert attention away from domestic scandals like this:

----------------------------------

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...5may05,0,7432321.story?coll=la-home-headlines

U.S. Officials Suspected of Embezzlement in Iraq
Nearly $100 million in reconstruction funds is unaccounted for,
investigators say.

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has opened a criminal inquiry into
suspected embezzlement by officials who failed to account for almost
$100 million they disbursed for Iraqi reconstruction projects, federal
investigators said Wednesday.

Auditors have been unable to fully document how the money was
allocated to Iraqi workers by a small group of officials working from
a U.S. outpost in Hillah, according to an audit report released
Wednesday by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for
Iraq reconstruction.

The auditors found "significant" problems in the Hillah office,
including one case in which an official fired for mishandling funds
was allowed to continue disbursing money nearly a month after his
termination.

The case is the first time U.S. government officials have been
investigated for a suspected major corruption scheme involving the
Iraq reconstruction. The rebuilding effort has been marred by
allegations against Iraqis as well as contractors from the United
States and elsewhere.

The reconstruction funds that were examined came from seized assets of
the former regime of Saddam Hussein and from Iraqi oil revenue, not
from U.S. taxpayer money.

A few other U.S. officials in Iraq have drawn the scrutiny of
investigators for smaller incidents, though none have been charged. In
the cases now under investigation, the report notes questionable
accounting practices by several officers involving millions of dollars
over a 16-month period ending in October.

Investigators are looking at a "handful" of possible suspects, said
Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the special inspector general's office.
He noted that the inquiry was in an early stage, saying only that the
discrepancies uncovered by the auditors warranted referral to criminal
investigators.

He also said it was unclear whether the U.S. officials operated in
concert, since they served at different times.

"We're not saying the money is lost. We're saying they can't account
for it," Mitchell said.

One U.S. official told auditors that he was given $6.75 million on
June 21 and told he had to spend the money by June 28, the day the
U.S.-led administration in Iraq turned over sovereignty to an interim
Iraqi government.

U.S. officials "were under the impression that it was more important
to quickly distribute the money to the region than to obtain all
necessary documentation," the audit report says.

Auditors were struck by a series of apparent accounting errors in the
Rapid Regional Response Program, an obscure rebuilding effort operated
from the Hillah office. The program was designed to jump-start
reconstruction in south-central Iraq by allowing U.S. officials to
quickly issue contracts worth up to $200,000 each.

To pay for contract work in Iraq's cash-based economy, the U.S.
appointed military personnel and civilians to physically hand out
money to Iraqis. The U.S. officials were then supposed to reconcile
those payments with receipts. But the auditors found that such
receipts were lacking or incomplete for $96.6 million of $119.9
million in payments.

In one case, two U.S. officials left Iraq after completing their tours
of duty without accounting for a total of $1.5 million. The manager of
the cash funds zeroed out the balance on a spreadsheet — an apparent
attempt "to remove outstanding balances by simply washing accounts,"
the audit report says. The officials, like all others in the audit,
were not named.

In another case, the U.S. on May 30 ordered the removal of the
official in charge of the overall cash program, but he remained in the
job until June 20. When told he had failed to account for $1,878,870,
the official returned exactly that sum three days later — leading to
suspicions that he had "a reserve of cash and turned in only the
amount" needed to complete the clearance process, the report says.

In another case, one payment official had three errors in his
accounting books. In one example, he told superiors that he had given
$311,100 to another U.S. official when he had actually handed over
$1,210,000, leaving it unclear where the remaining $898,900 was, the
report says.

Two other audits, also released Wednesday, criticize the overall U.S.
handling of Iraqi and U.S. funds.

For contracts funded with Iraqi money, contract officers could not
show that services had been delivered in more than half of 300
contracts valued at $332.9 million.

For contracts funded with $18.4 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds,
officers could not even find about a quarter of 48 contracts that had
been selected for review. Other contracts were found stuffed in
drawers or misfiled.

U.S. officials responding to the audits acknowledged problems and
promised to fix them. They blamed the discrepancies on the difficulty
of operating in a wartime environment.

The officials cited challenges such as high turnover, security
concerns and a lack of basic office supplies, including file cabinets.

"The environment here in Iraq during the war had a debilitating effect
on the quality of statements of work and contracts in general," Army
Maj. Gen. John Urias, the head of contracting in Iraq, wrote in a
remarkably candid reply. "Crisis management was the order of the day."

Army Col. Thomas Stefanko, who now oversees the Hillah office, said he
was forming a "special action team" to investigate the discrepancies
and collect any missing money.

 

<<China was given something to sit back and relax when the US invaded
Iraq. Continued raping (er, I mean access) to the US economy with
cheap goods and outsourcing is part of it (most-favored-nation-status
when it comes to trade).>>>

Raping? I''d liken it more to the US being a whore with our legs
spread.