When I last Left Indonesia, I Flew Into a Coup in Bangkok

The President is in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world – having been there I can tell you that it is nothing like what you think. Indonesia is nothing like the Middle East. Indonesians are Asians who are by nature much more moderate. Don’t forget Indonesia is home to the fabled “Bali” island – a tourist mecca that was bombed by terrorists years ago. Indonesia has been hit by terrorism by Islamic extremists. It has fought them. Indonesia’s are a good people we can do business with.

However, the lack of international experience by Americans was exhibited this week when Rush Limbaugh thought it would cost $200 million day for the President to travel internationally (funny, he never said that about Pres. Bush), when the real number was about $10 million -- what it was when Bush traveled, a tiny fraction of that. Limbaugh needs to get a passport and spend some time in the real world if he is going to influence millions of Americans who have the same lack of actual knowledge of these countries and travel costs. Actually I think Limbaugh deliberately airs every lie designed to savage America’s first black President who inherited the worst economic situation in seven decades.

That’s almost as pitiful as Sarah Palin criticizing the Fed for it’s “quantative easing” – a potential Presidential candidate totally ignorant of our system and the fact that the Fed is an independent agency not controlled by Congress or the White House. We really want clueless running our country? The Fed was designed not to be the plaything of politics and politicians like Palin, who is blissfully ignorant of how our American financial system was put together and why.

I was in Indonesia for the first time when I was a just-laid-off-from-the-Fortune500 entrepreneur who was on a mission to start business on behalf of U.S. companies. It was the mid-80’s. Then Indonesia was ruled by one man named Suharto, a “President for Life” jerk running the country. He fell after that. Now it is an actual democracy. When I left Jakarta on that trip for Bangkok, a coup had just occurred in Thailand, changing the government. A couple reporters had been killed. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. It turned out to be a whole another story, because I almost didn’t get out.

Indonesia is a good trade partner for the U.S. because their economy consumes goods we make – whereas its neighbors would rather export to us than buy from us (like China).

We finished our job in McAllen about 5 today – one pane seemed as big as an 18 wheeler, a burglar could have tapped it and carried out a BIG screen TV in the gaping hole, but not now that it has Armor Glass security film! LOL.

Going to the edge of Mexico's Drug War Death Alley Today -

Growth equals GREEN JOBS folks. My green company keeps growing but it is also is taking me to dangerous territory --today I have to go to McAllen for a job near the Mexico border where drug gangs closed the international bridge with heavy gunfire during a gang brawl at one point last week.

While illegal immigration from Mexico has dropped dramatically under the Obama administration, our drug policy the last 40 years has failed and things have gotten worse despite the billions spent. Even after 8 years of Bush administration control over border issues and 10 years of the same Texas Governor (Perry), it has become more dangerous to be in Mexico -- or near the border. I once drove to Guadalajara in a car with a friend - but that was 1990. Just going to Juarez (across from El Paso), or Reynosa (across from McAllen) has gotten several Americans killed in recent days/weeks.

Only a change in strategy has the potential of turning this situation around. There are no jobs for young people in Mexico, other than being a police officer (and those are risky) or a drug mule for a gang. Their system has concentrated wealth to the point that a few people control all the money and the vast majority have nothing. For the bottom to feed their families, they have to chose a drug gang or illegally crossing our border to take jobs Americans won't do like cleaning Meg Whitman's house - none of them are running hedge funds.

And these billion dollar drug gangs are getting their heavy weapons from AMERICAN GUN DEALERS.

If I hear gunfire from across the border, it will be coming from American weapons killing innocent civilians and police. (I do have our GSA blast rated security film on my vehicle to foil a break in and avoid spraying glass from gun shots).

Remember prohibition in the 1930's and Al Capone and the gangs fighting for control of the illegal booze market? That was worth millions and was a local fight - now we have the global version of it that is giving crooks billions to buy even more powerful weapons.

With poverty so high in Mexico, killing one leader only leads to 100 more willing to take his place. It is a no win strategy. The money has even corrupted the police and federal military - who often do the killing for the gangs. They are now killing Mayors, Governors - not unlike Al Qaeda but without a religious purpose. It's all about CONTROL.

If I survive this trip, you can 'friend' me on Facebook, to see future updates.

In the meantime, I bet the gun dealers sleep very well despite knowing that their weapons are instrumental in the carnage. Our government has done little to nothing to stop the illegal weapons exports from the U.S. to Mexico in the last 10 years.

Michael Fjetland
Global American Series
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican

Conservative columnist Loren Steffy: "Healthcare Reform bill will SAVE $158 billion over the next 10 years" - Repeal that?

According to the conservative columnist Loren Steffy, the Healthcare Reform bill will SAVE $158 billion over the next 10 years.

You want to repeal something that cuts the deficit? duh.

You want to go back where insurance companies could drop you once you got sick? Or denied you for a pre existing condition? (Especially when our population is aging and has an obesity problem due to its fascinating with high fat food and salt (1/3 will get diabetes from being overweight in the next few years).

Let's improve the healthcare bill by allowing the feds to negotiate lower prices from the drug companies - that would save another $200 billion/year!...Negotiating for lower drug prices has been fought by the Republicans and the drug companies in the past --nor was it included in this healthcare reform bill.

It's time to change that so we can CUT our costs even more.

The clueless leading the uninformed is not a recipe for success

When you are talking JOBS, its all about economics - and in a global economy economics are, duh, GLOBAL, and involve dealing with CHina, India who are training the engineers we aren't.

And we are going to elect a bunch of yahoos who have never been there and couldn't find these countries on a map?

Boy, I feel so much better knowing that!...LOL. The clueless leading the uninformed is not a recipe for success as a country falling behind the world in technology and education folks.

That's more scary than Halloween!..lol

Since the Bush years and my TV terrorism advising, I have argued CARGO should also get screening

No one should be surprised Al Qaeda tried to send bombs via Fed Ex - duh! It only took 10 years for them to figure out the obvious.

Since the Bush years and my TV terrorism advising, I have argued CARGO should also get screening - why just the passengers riding above?

It does show that our system is working better than it ever did, but needs improvement..it's a world of 200 countries sending packages!

How to Create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs That Can’t Be Exported

“Starting in late 2009, Clinton began lobbying privately for an energy-efficiency loan-guarantee program. He prepared a detailed memo for the White House laying out a plan that would use $9 billion from the Treasury to leverage $67 billion in financing to retrofit offices and residential buildings. This specific, doable idea—comprehensible to the independent, small businesspeople Obama has lost—would create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs in construction and manufacturing that can’t be exported.”

Article link: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/26/alter-obama-clinton-and-clean-energy.html

Neither President Obama nor the GOP have embraced this plan that would generate a big boost in jobs and cut our energy waste at the same time. It would put us back in competition with China that is taking the lead in new green technology – the next major job-creating engine of the 21st Century.

The U.S. needs an energy PLAN. Doing the “same ol’, same ol’” will not solve our debt and energy issues. Only bold, innovative action will. Thomas Friedman points out how seriously we are lagging China’s “Moon Shots” and this is a policy to help us regain the lead.

Friedman article link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opinion/26friedman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

What Bill Clinton has proposed should be up before Congress right now – with a bipartisan vote because it will create the jobs we need and advance the technology leadership we are losing.

And remember, Clinton was the last President to generate a $200 billion SURPLUS so he knows something about budgets (that $200 billion surplus was instantly turned into a $1.6 trillion deficit after the Bush tax cuts of 2001, and grew larger with two unpaid for wars, etc.).

We need leaders who will generate the jobs we need – and Bill Clinton’s plan should be embraced by both parties for that simple reason.

Have you seen a better one that advances our technology and generates the huge number of jobs we need?

Want to REALLY FIX our Economy? Drop All Tax Cuts and Cut Pentagon 50%

"Where's the beef" was a popular commercial years ago - and that applies to the GOP "Pledge to America" Their plan only continues to INCREASE the debt more than a $1 TRILLION MORE than the Obama Plan.

Yet even the Obama Plan won't be able to get the budget back under control unless we take even more serious action than the political wimps on both sides who won't tell America what really needs to be done. Voters want to believe in fairy dust - that you can cut taxes and increase spending and come out ahead instead of deeper in the hole (voters prefer voodoo economics to reality!)

Want to really get costs and income under control?

Then let ALL the tax cuts expire. That would generate $4 TRILLION dollars in the next decade. (The GOP plan to let the top 1% keep their tax cut would put us another $1 TRILLION in the hole).

Then CUT COSTS starting with the fattest cow in the lot --which alone could save $3.5 TRILLION in the next decade. Which is that?

Since the Pentagon budget is more than the military budgets of the next 45 countries COMBINED, that's the fattest cow. It has too many unneeded weapons projects and too many surplus Generals sitting around with nothing to do and too many layers of bureaucrats. We have excessive numbers of Generals and layers and layers of bureaucrats that make getting stuff to Afghanistan and Iraq harder not easier.

CUT its budget 50% so our military budget is only larger than the next ten countries combined. That would save $350 billion a year, or $3.5 TRILLION in the next decade.

Between the two, we would be $7.5 TRILLION AHEAD - Put another way, we'd be $7.5 TRILLION out of the hole (making up for the $5 TRILLION we went into the hole from 2000-2008). It would eliminate the need to attack our safety nets like social security and any other cuts are pure gravy.

But Americans really don't want reality - just more voodoo economics that they can have their tax cuts and a smaller deficit too. LOL. No politician ever tells voters what they need to hear; only what they want to hear.

Obama Goes After Employers Hiring Illegals - Will GOP Reverse that - & Protect the Traffickers?

Not until the Obama administration were EMPLOYERS held responsible for knowingly hiring illegals instead of US citizens. This didn't happen under Bush and when the GOP held control of Congress from 2000-2006.

Now it turns out the some of these employers are even trafficking in humans to get their workforce! Why did the GOP give these creeps cover for so long? It's wrong even if they are not trafficking humans! Check out the linked article to get a taste of what employers are doing that hurts both Americans and the illegals.

Will the GOP protect these creeps again, assuming they take control of Congress this November? Let's hear it from their leadership...now, BEFORE the election.

Whose side is the GOP on? Do they still favor the employers (by not punishing them like the Obama administration has) or do they favor the working Americans who don't get jobs when employers are knowingly hiring illegals instead, even engaging in human trafficking!

These corporations are making Gov't look downright Good

You say corporations are better than gov't right?

Well, I go to Discount Tire store in Kemah to replace a couple bad ones, but it turns out they don't do alignments! (I'm supposed to put on new tires and ride off with them misaligned? How stupid!).

So then I have to go to a NTB place for an alignment (so they are smarter in that regard). They park my car in front but don't tell me --I find them doodling in an office! Stupid corporate trick No. 2.

Then Today I find out the Verizon rep sold me the original Droid, not the 2 or the X! (Hey, sell them the old stuff first!) Duh! And they have this crazy system where reps are in different stores on different days so you never can connect with the person who sold you the phone.

That's three dumb corporate moves in a row.Got more you'd like to share? Add a comment.

What corporate genius said that you should sell tires but not an alignment? Did he jump out with his golden parachute yet? This is how we are supposed to get out of a recession?

We be stupid! No wonder why we are in a mess - and its not just government we need to improve. What happened to common sense and service that makes sense?

Would Jesus Burn a Koran? Kickback on our Troops

A so-called "Christian" group is planning to burn copies of the Koran, the Islamic holy book, on 9/11. Where did Jesus say "Hate Thy Neighbor and Burn His Books"?

Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Afghanistan, said the burning of Islam's holy books "could cause significant problems" for American troops overseas.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan," Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday.

Petraeus is right. The alleged "Christians" doing this are beyond stupid. It's going to lead to more soldier deaths and be a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaida, who is about as popular as a pack of rattlesnakes since they are now killing fellow Muslims (Shiites) with car bombs in Iraq.

What bible are these so-called Christians reading? They translate Jesus' command "Love Thy Neighbor" into overt acts of disrespect, hate and incitement. I would wager a bridge in Booklyn that they don't even know that Jesus and the Virgin Mary are treated with great respect and admiration in the Koran. Instead of doing the Jesus thing of interfaith meetings to seek common ground, they are doing the Hitler book burning act -- and sounding equally intolerant.

Did Jesus ever call for the burning of the Jewish holy book, the Torah, even when he was being sentenced to death? You might recall he actually "forgave" his executioners; he didn't condemn them or call for revenge.

How would you feel if someone from another religion, or an atheist, burned a bible? That's the kind of reaction this stupid act will have on Muslims worldwide. It's a slap in the face; its not Jesus saying "turn the other cheek" is it?

You may recall that Jesus lived at a time when Judaism was the dominant religion and Christianity was the new kid in town. Anyone calling for burning the Koran seems to have missed reading the same bible stories I did.

In this respect our extremists are no different from the Muslim extremists who hate everyone not as limited and intolerant as they are.

The blood of our troops will be on this idiot's hands. In fact, it is not even "Christian" to do so - did Jesus burn books?

Actions have consequences folks. Our acting as stupid and intolerant as the Taliban and Al Qaida doesn't give us the high ground. Extremists are twisting Christianity and Islam into nothing but intolerant blind hate --the opposite of what both Jesus and Muhammad taught.

Tea Party: Kill Social Security, Mediaid - Economic Solution>?

You think the job situation is bad because of the illegals in this country? Think again. We did this one to ourselves. More precisely, DC did this to us when it let Wall Street run wild with phony credit default swaps from 2000 to 2008 while a GOP-controlled Congress borrowed and spent like drunken sailors.

Not one illegal was responsible for Wall Street's greed selling phony instruments to banks worldwide and nearly tanking the global economy. Not one illegal cast a vote in Congress DOUBLING OUR NATIONAL DEBT IN 8 SHORT YEARS from 2000 to 2008--a debt that had taken over 200 years to build to that point!

Most of the illegals were bent over doing jobs Americans won't do anyway - like picking food in the field or working in Iowa meat plants and chicken farms.

Things have changed though. The Bush administration refused to penalize the employers so that did get jobs away from people willing to work. The Obama administration has been more aggressive on cheating employers who hire illegals instead of U.S. citizens.

Wall Street's hedge fund managers and borrow and spend by Bush/GOP really put us in a deep hole that will take YEARS to get the jobs back. Many are gone forever.

They allowed U.S. companies to stay here but "move" their headquarters offshore so they could duck paying their fair share of taxes. That increased our deficit. They gave the top 5% the lion's share of tax cuts, paid for with borrowed money, which the rest of us -- you, your kids and great-grandkids -- will have to pay for. That increased the deficit. (the Pentagon budget so that it is greater than the next 20 countries defense budgets put together—we could save hundreds of billions and still have a budget greater than the next ten countries put together).

How are we going to fix our mess and cut the deficit if we don't close these unfair tax loopholes for the privileged and many others like it? Ordinary citizens don't get this kind of preferential treatment.

And let's face the truth -- a lot of individual Americans were doing the same thing with their home equity borrowing in the 2000's. The whole thing was unsustainable. Finally the credit card maxes out and the party goes bust.

I found out when I was laid off years ago that I had to create my own job, and take a low pay filler to get cash flow even though I had a law degree. However, as a result, I now own a thriving "green" company that is part of the new economy. I’m making more money than I have in my life, with my own company that sells a product that pays for itself multiple times over. It’s the type of clean new industries we need to produce new jobs.
Tea Party candidates are suggesting the solution to our problems is to get rid of social security and medicaid. They blame the illegals for our economic troubles.

Don't blame the illegals for our economic troubles. They didn't create this mess. They came here to fill the job void during the good times. It was our own idiots in DC that let Wall Street run wild and spent borrowed money like drunken sailors from 2000 to the time the party crashed in late 2008 that got us into this black hole. It wasn’t them and it wasn’t President Obama. He got a wrecked ship full of $5 trillion in new IOU’s when he arrived the first day on the job. It will take years to fix the damage.

What is so ironic is that the crew that wrecked this ship up on the reef are now the ones claiming to be able to "fix" it - by voting against Wall Street reform and going back to tax cuts for the wealthy that makes our economy more and more like Mexico's - a pyramid with a few at the top getting all the breaks with most of the people with nothing at the bottom.

Watch for the truth. When the "tea party" people like Sharon Angle call for abolishing social security and Medicaid (which millions of people like my mother depend on), then exactly who are they representing? Not the ordinary, legal American.

The problem today is not the illegals, so much as it is the "legal" citizens who are returning us to the failed economic policies of the 2000's, and worse.

The Floating Car

This is not something you see everyday - a dune buggy on floats!

Gingrich: "Muslims are Nazis" - Calculated Lie That Jesus Would Reject

Did Jesus ever say: "Hate thy neighbor and anyone different from yourself?" He even hung out with prostitutes, lawyers and tax collectors!

I was just having breakfast in Seabrook when the folks at the table next to ours when one of them said this: "Newt Gingrich says Muslims are Nazi's." It was greeted by a knowing silence as they continued on. You could see the expression in them that, of course, it's true! What a hate-mongering lie masquerading as fact.

Last week when I was giving a presentation on terrorism to NASA employees and contractors, the head of NASA's security said: "There are 50,000 terrorists in 60 countries." He's probably right. 50,000 is NOT 1.5 billion people!

Casting Al Qaida as Nazi is one thing -- but to claim an entire religion of 1.5 billion people are all Nazis is not only false but a calculated lie.

It is Gingrich who is using the Nazi tactic --like Hitler blaming Germany's problems on the Jewish people. Gingrich should be a co-defendant in the case of the guy who stabbed a NY cabdriver after he said he was Muslim. It's hate-mongers like him that drive the unstable over the edge, like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

When Fox allows this to be "news" it is also engaging in religious racism and prejudicial fear-mongering. Their actions allow Al Qaida to claim that this is a war against Islam instead of just the terrorists. It is taking advantage of Americans ignorance about other religions.

I am a Christian and it is time for Christians to shout down the bigots and extremists like Gingrich in our own religion -- just as Imam's have condemned Islam's extremists. Does Gingrich or Fox ever expose that the Islamic Koran actually has passages describing in positive terms Jesus and the Virgin Mary? No.

If the GOP wants back in power, it should not be based on stoking hate and ignorance. We have had one Nazi party too many.

Jesus would be ashamed to hear his name being used by people like Gingrich and Franklin Graham as a message of hate.

Who's Responsible for Our Debt Crisis? See the Graphic Evidence

Check out this graph. It shows how our national debt was DECREASING until Reagan took office. Then see what happens when Clinton took office.

People forget that when Bush took office he got a $200+ billion surplus from Clinton -like a nice car with $ in the bank. When Obama took office he got a $1.3 TRILLION Deficit (first day) and a locked up financial system -- like inheriting a smoking wreck and over $5 Trillion in new IOU's.

Since it's our only ship of state, do you think its an overnight fix without spending on repairs? How cheap was it to fix the damage from the Exxon Valdez or the BP spill?

Give the guy a break. He didn't create this mess but has the nasty job of fixing it.

The Over-committed Geezer

How's this for a week:

I am running to a different installation every day,
just did a radio program on climate change with a Rice professor,
will be shooting a TV ad tomorrow, then giving a presentation to architects,
then giving a presentation to NASA next week on terrorism and
doing an interview with private space companies like Virgin Galactic for the Global American radio program -

You think I might be a bit over-committed for a 60-year old geezer?

I love it. LOL.

GA Radio this Saturday: Are Your Children at Risk to International Sex Traffickers? Yes…

5 August 2010
Global American Series

Are Your Children at Risk to International Sex Traffickers?
Yes…

You can hear our first Global American Radio broadcast on International Trafficking this Saturday at 9 a.m. on Business 1110 AM Houston, streamed on http://business1110ktek.com/ and also available worldwide at our new Global American Radio website at:
www.GlobalAmerican.org

Did you think slavery ended in the U.S. in 1862 with the 13th Amendment? Did you know that over 12 million people have been trafficked worldwide - and that nearly every city in the United States has people being held against their will for sex services and forced labor? According to official sources, 300,000 American children are at risk of becoming victims – including some of the 450,000 runaway children each year.

Did you know that human trafficking is today’s third largest criminal activity in the world – after arms and drugs? It’s a $10 billion/year business. It still exists on your street or in the massage parlor, the nail salon or private homes.

Many cities in the U.S. are hubs of trafficking, from San Francisco to Houston. Texas is a major hub and Houston is the hub of the hub. Over 90 languages are spoken in Houston. Its diversity allows traffickers to hide almost in plain sight. One group of labor trafficked men were made to take off their clothes and live on the second story of a house—the kidnappers lived downstairs--until they could ransom them to their families. But the same story is happening in American cities everywhere.

Did you know that despite the huge number of people being held in bondage, from 2001 to 2005 only 140 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking in U.S. courts – and that was a 109% increase from 1996-2000!

Children are preyed on by pimps and predators hanging out at bus stations etc., promising love that turns out to be a Dr. Jeyll and Mr. Hyde trap into an isolated controlled world of forced commercial sex and abuse. They are denied their own money. They can’t own a phone or talk to their family or friends. They are moved from city to city, living in apartments or massage parlors, and even private homes. The traffickers are also getting more violent against their captives.

80% of the trafficked are women, 50% of them are minors. Boys are also trafficked. Solution? Police still are not trained to recognize a trafficked person, who often hide or deny their victim status to official authorities who arrest them – and also take advantage of their plight. On August 5, the Houston Chronicle ran an article on two Houston vice officers who were caught taking nude photos of a prostitute – way beyond normal procedure. It is not an isolated incident according to many sources. Harris County Texas, however, gets high marks for training its officers to recognize a trafficked person. The Houston Police Department does not. I was informed that some HPD use the services provided by the massage parlors and don’t think of these women as being trafficked.

Europeans are ahead of the U.S in trafficking laws. Sweden has a model law that criminalizes the DEMAND for prostitution (arrest the guy asking for sex) but decriminalized prostitution itself. “Sex Purchase Laws’ have reduced prostitution by 50%!

The UN passed a law in 2004 and it ranks countries on their trafficking efforts. Kuwait flunked and ranked as the worst. It is unwilling to prosecute its own citizens -- who hire thousands of overseas workers and have a history of serious abuse cases. It makes you wonder why we saved their butt from Saddam?

There is only one person providing services to help people who have been trafficked in the Houston area. Dozens of groups provide help for drug or alcohol issues, but an empty hole exists for victims of sex trafficking. U.S. Law Enforcement needs training to recognize trafficked persons, and we need a system to get these people help. International trafficking victims can get help without being charged with a crime, but a domestic U.S. sex trafficking victim has to be charged with a crime to get assistance for counselors, etc.!

Attention needs to be paid to this important issue that could affect your sister, daughter, niece, brother, nephew , etc.

Michael Fjetland
Global American Series
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican/

Sponsored by Armor Glass International, Inc.
www.ArmorGlass.com
“Saving Energy and Providing Security”

Are Your Children at Risk to International Sex Traffickers?

5 August 2010

Are Your Children at Risk to International Sex Traffickers?

Yes…

Global American Series

Did you think slavery ended in the U.S. in 1862 with the 13^th Amendment? Did you know that over 12 million people have been trafficked worldwide - and that nearly every city in the United States has people being held against their will for sex services and forced labor? According to official sources, 300,000 American children are at risk of becoming victims – including some of the 450,000 runaway children each year.

Did you know that human trafficking is today’s third largest criminal activity in the world – after arms and drugs? It’s a $10 billion/year business. It still exists on your street or in the massage parlor, the nail salon or private homes.

Many cities in the U.S. are hubs of trafficking, from San Francisco to Houston. Texas is a major hub and Houston is the hub of the hub. Over 90 languages are spoken in Houston. Its diversity allows traffickers to hide almost in plain sight. One group of labor trafficked men were made to take off their clothes and live on the second story of a house—the kidnappers lived downstairs--until they could ransom them to their families. But the same story is happening in American cities everywhere.

Did you know that despite the huge number of people being held in bondage, from 2001 to 2005 only 140 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking in U.S. courts – and that was a 109% increase from 1996-2000!

Children are preyed on by pimps and predators hanging out at bus stations etc., promising love that turns out to be a Dr. Jeyll and Mr. Hyde trap into an isolated controlled world of forced commercial sex and abuse. They are denied their own money. They can’t own a phone or talk to their family or friends. They are moved from city to city, living in apartments or massage parlors, and even private homes. The traffickers are also getting more violent against their captives.

80% of the trafficked are women, 50% of them are minors. Boys are also trafficked. Solution? Police still are not trained to recognize a trafficked person, who often hide or deny their victim status to official authorities who arrest them – and also take advantage of their plight. On August 5, the Houston Chronicle ran an article on two Houston vice officers who were caught taking nude photos of a prostitute – way beyond normal procedure. It is not an isolated incident according to many sources. Harris County Texas, however, gets high marks for training its officers to recognize a trafficked person. The Houston Police Department does not. I was informed that some HPD use the services provided by the massage parlors and don’t think of these women as being trafficked.

Europeans are ahead of the U.S in trafficking laws. Sweden has a model law that criminalizes the DEMAND for prostitution (arrest the guy asking for sex) but decriminalized prostitution itself. “Sex Purchase Laws’ have reduced prostitution by 50%!

The UN passed a law in 2004 and it ranks countries on their trafficking efforts. Kuwait flunked and ranked as the worst. It is unwilling to prosecute its own citizens -- who hire thousands of overseas workers and have a history of serious abuse cases. It makes you wonder why we saved their butt from Saddam?

There is only one person providing services to help people who have been trafficked in the Houston area. Dozens of groups provide help for drug or alcohol issues, but an empty hole exists for victims of sex trafficking. U.S. Law Enforcement needs training to recognize trafficked persons, and we need a system to get these people help. International trafficking victims can get help without being charged with a crime, but a domestic U.S. sex trafficking victim has to be charged with a crime to get assistance for counselors, etc.!

Attention needs to be paid to this important issue that could affect your sister, daughter, niece, brother, nephew , etc.

You can hear our first Global Amerian Radio broadcast on International Trafficking this Saturday at 9 a.m. on Business 1110 AM Houston, streamed on http://business1110ktek.com/ and also available worldwide at our new Global American Radio website at:

www.GlobalAmerican.org

(Should be active by Saturday Aug 7 by time program airs)

Michael Fjetland

Global American Series

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican/

Sponsored by Armor Glass International, Inc.

www.ArmorGlass.com

“Saving Energy and Providing Security”

More Jumping Fish

A view across Clear Lake taken this morning. The fish are jumping like crazy. Either they are having a feeding frenzy - or trying to keep from being a meal!

Private Spaceship Makes First Crewed Flight

Reprint of Virgin Press Release

Compare the cost of the private ship vs. NASA's...

Virgin Galactic's Private Spaceship Makes First Crewed Flight

By Clara Moskowitz

SPACE.com Senior Writer

16 July 2010 - 06:06 pm ET

A private suborbital spaceship built for the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic made its first flight with a crew onboard Thursday as it soared over California 's Mojave Desert beneath its enormous mothership.

The commercial spaceliner – called VSS Enterprise, one of the company's fleet of SpaceShipTwo spacecraft – did not try to reach space in the test flight. Instead, it stayed firmly attached to its WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve mothership.

The two crewmembers riding onboard VSS Enterprise evaluated all of the spacecraft's systems and functions during the 6-hour, 12-minute flight, Virgin Galactic officials said in a statement. In addition, automated sensors and ground crews conducted thorough vehicle systems tests.

"Objectives achieved," Virgin Galactic officials said in a statement on the company's website. "Congratulations to the whole team!"

Three other crewmembers flew aboard the Eve mothership, which is designed to carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude above 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before the spacecraft drops and fires its hybrid rocket motor to launch into suborbital space.

Virgin Galactic was founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft and their WhiteKnightTwo motherships are built for Virgin Galactic by Mojave, Calif.-based Scaled Composites, which was founded by veteran aerospace designer Burt Rutan.

SpaceShipTwo is built to carry eight people (six passengers and two pilots) on suborbital flights that would reach outer space for a few minutes, though would not go high enough to enter Earth orbit.

The flights will provide a weightless experience and a view of the blackness of space and glowing Earth below. Tickets cost $200,000 per person.

Rutan and Scaled Composites also built SpaceShipTwo's predecessor, the smaller suborbital craft SpaceShipOne financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for reusable, manned suborbital spacecraft in 2004.

Thursday's captive flight test was the 33rd voyage of the mothership VMS Eve, one of company's the WhiteKnightTwo craft. It was the third captive-carry flight for VSS Enterprise. The first of these joint flights occurred earlier this year in March.

The mothership crew consisted of Mark Stucky, Peter Kalogiannis and Brian Maisler, while Peter Siebold and Michael Alsbury rode aboard VSS Enterprise.

The VSS Enterprise is the first in a planned fleet of suborbital SpaceShipTwo spacecraft for Virgin Galactic. While the first test flights are being flown from Mojave, Calif. , Virgin Galactic is building a terminal for space tourism flights at Spaceport America in New Mexico as well.

The VSS Enterprise named after the fictional starship of the same name from the science fiction television franchise "Star Trek."

Copyright © 2010 TechMediaNetwork All rights reserved.

So....you still think only NASA can take people to space? After SpaceShipTwo, they have plans for a SpaceShipThree - to go into orbit....I'm betting Virgin beats NASA back into space.

Mexico's First Car Bomb - Iraq on our Border. Time for a New Strategy

Drug gangs in Mexico for the first time used a car bomb. It won't be the last time.

Ironically, my original script I was writing when the Gulf War started was about an international collaboration between South American drug gangs and a Mideast plot for a terror attack on the U.S.

It seems that the drug gangs are now taking a page from the Middle East violence - using a cell phone to set off a car bomb at the worst possible moment. This incident is a bad omen. It means that there will be more of these as the fight between the wealthy gangs and the government of Mexico continues - with the gangs with far greater intelligence, arms and money than the government.

There is a Newsweek article that suggest legalizing pot could hurt the cartels (remember Al Capone in the 1930's? Legalizing booze put him out of business, along with his failure to pay income taxes).

No one has ever died from marijuana - none, zip, zero. Here is a chart showing deaths in different categories in 2000:

Annual Causes of Death in the United States

Tobacco	435,0001
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity	365,0001
Alcohol	85,000 1
Microbial Agents	75,0001
Toxic Agents	55,0001
Motor Vehicle Crashes	26,3471
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs	32,0002
Suicide	30,6223
Incidents Involving Firearms	29,0001
Homicide	20,3084
Sexual Behaviors	20,0001
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect	17,0001, 5
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin	7,6006
Marijuana	07

So why not take it out of the cartels inventory and cut their profits 20-50% (the estimate profit they make from selling it)? TAX IT. Use it for medical purposes. Strip the cartels of a business and put it in the hands of legitimate business, like the pharmacies they have set up in California, New Mexico, etc.

President Nixon started this "Drug War" in the 1970's. It has been a total failure for over 40 years.

Insanity is defined as trying the same thing each time and expecting different results. Pumping more and more money and military equipment into the drug war has not made a difference. Putting people into prison for smoking a substance less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco is not making a difference.

The gangs are making over $100 billion/YEAR, which they use for importing American high powered weapons from American gun dealers to wage turf wars.

Now they are adopting Al Qaida techniques to maintain power. They've even begun assassinating candidates for high office. We have a situation as serious as Iraq right on our border, which stretches from Texas to California.

A lot of people think the biggest threat to us is from illegal immigrants. Most of those people are simply looking for work and opportunity they can't get in Mexico. They do jobs I don't see any American willing to do - nasty jobs like picking veggies or working in a meat plant. You want that job?

The real threat to us comes from the billionaire drug barons who have a fondness for beheading victims, assassinating political leaders and now -- car bombs. They do it with less concern than Al Capone had for lives of any kind. And they are doing on American soil as well as in Mexico.

We need a new course of action. Removing a profit center from the cartels would be a good start. Otherwise they will only continue to grow bigger, more violent and more dangerous. If by removing even one profit center from their world, we cut their profits --that is a good thing. It would also give us tax revenue source we never had and could really use right now. A pot tax would add billions in revenue to the State of California alone.

What if these drug lords get bored with buying American machine guns and acquire a nuclear weapon? They are already rich enough to built submarines (one was found recently being prepared in a remote jungle). Losing that sub will hardly dent their finances, or stop them from building more. You can do a lot with a $100 billion tax free dollars a year!

We need to take a different approach to win this "war" - or things will get worse. This first car bombing on our border should be a wake up call. An American consul officer was killed with her husband recently. No one is safe on either side of the border.

But I suspect that it will take an even worse attack by these thugs for us to change a losing strategy.

The Netherlands has coffee shops selling pot and their world did not end. The streets in Amsterdam are less violent than those here in Houston.

Wild Week from Alex

Alex provided a wild week, with us dealing with rain while doing jobs. Yesterday I saw two major traffic back ups on I 45 as I went North. One car was sideways with its wheels up against the cement median and up against its top was an 18-wheeler. I didn't look good for whoever was in that car.

We did a job in Spring yesterday, which was on the receiving end of 5 inches of rain. It was a 2-hour compute to get home, with flooded access roads.

The day before the guys had to access a third story window with a 40 foot ladder in the rain (normally the film goes on the inside but these windows weren't accessible from the inside so we had no choice. Just as the rental ladder arrived, so did the rain gusher. It was hair raising but fortunately there was no lightning and no one fell 40 feet getting it done. I was soaked.

The calls keep rolling in for Armor Glass, so I bought a small Toshiba notebook computer today to take with me to process work in the field --the bigger Fujitsu laptop was so bulky and heavy to handle in my van. The Toshiba has a 13 inch screen but is light as a feather.

I looked at the Ipad first - but it doesn't have a printer hook up or enough memory to do what I needed to have done.

It was a wild week of rain due to Alex - even though it was 500 miles away.

Another busy week ahead...all the way to August and beyond.

Heat is Popping Corks and People - Michael Berry's "Bombing" of Mosque

The Atlantic waters are the hottest on record and it hit 95 on my car outside temp gauge today. The heat was enough to pop the wine corks sitting in the trunk of my friend's car - as you can see in this photo and video.

Apparently that is not all that's popping off - Mr. Michael Berry apparently got mad about a Mosque being built near the World Trade Center in NY and called for it to "be bombed." That puts him in the same league with people who bomb buildings to make their point; people like Al Qaida. Since when is promoting violence an adult, acceptable thing for a talk show host? What's next. Promoting Murder?

Jerusalem hosts the Christian church, the Grand Mosque and Jewish Synagogue in the same place - and it hasn't caused the world to end. Muslims revere Jesus and Mary both (its in the Koran if you look it up).

America was founded on the principle that one religion would not rule all the others -- as it was like in the England when our founding fathers fled. Mr. Berry needs to do some traveling and get a grip on his brain.

Just like most Catholics are not IRA bombers (remembers the 70's?) and most white guys are not extremists like Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, most Muslims are NOT terrorists, only the fringe like Al Qaida, the former IRA, or the Taliban make up that fringe.

We live side by side with them every day in Houston. You are probably buying gas, cigarettes and beer from them. Did they shoot you walking in or out of the store? No.

Get a grip folks. Americans need to travel and get some reality. Mr. Berry should have known better, having an Indian wife. He needs to go spend time in places like Pakistan (right next to India), Indonesia and talk to ordinary people -- instead of sounding like an extremist himself.

Actually, he should go to some of the Houston mosques and talk to the ordinary people there. I have. Even our Congressman have been in them. Mr. Berry will find that they are like any American - wanting respect, a chance to do their job and be left alone, and education for their kids. They want peace, not war. Get a grip folks!

We have enough nuts in the world without encouraging our own nut cases to go bomb a building. How does our violence make us better than 'them'?

GOP to Mex Prez - It's OK for Gun Dealers to Sell Assault Weapons to Drug Gangs

When Mexico President Calderon addressed a joint session of Congress yesterday, most GOP representatives blew him off -- and failed to attend the session to hear his words.

Then, when Calderson said that the drug lords were getting assault weapons from American gun dealers that had led to thousands of people killed, the GOP reps criticized him!

The message from the GOP is, apparently, that it is OK for American gun dealers to sell deadly assault weapons to drug lords - who have killed over 20,000 people in the last 3 years. 80% of the 75,000 weapons seized from gangs in the last 3 years have come from American gun dealers. Over 7,000 of them line the border from Texas to California.

Where is the Congressional outrage? It's illegal for Mexican citizens to own guns so our failure to control gun sales to drug gangs gives them even more power over innocents as well as the Mexican police.

This lack of respect by our Congress reps of our neighbor's President was uncalled for. Third graders act better than that. Siding with drug gangs on guns is even worse.

What kind of people are representing us in the GOP? (And this was before the New GOP Senate candidate basically said it should be OK for private individuals to discriminate - a major step backwards.)

To put it from a different perspective, how would Israel feel if our gun dealers were selling these weapons to the Palestinians?

And where is the NRA on this? Do they support selling assault weapons to drug gangs? The ban on these weapons was lifted in 2004. This is the result.

What kind of 'War on Drugs' is it if it is OK for dealers to sell no less than 75,000 weapons to criminals in a country where drug gang violence is out of control?

Yes, we need a change in Washington alright. We need less of people like TX Sen. John Cornyn and a party that thinks giving the finger to our neighbors is a solution. The fight against drug gangs will require joint cooperation - a raised middle finger and failure to keep our people from dealing in illegal weapons won't cut it.

Perhaps the GOP will wake up when these Mexican drug gangs use American-bought assault weapons on our border agents and citizens --which they already have!