Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea

Civilian Fatalities in Iraq as of May 31, 2005

Civilian Fatalities: Estimate
Reported MIN	Reported MAX	Avg	Days
21940	24897	29	808

Reported civilian deaths resulting from the US-led military intervention in Iraq as of Tuesday, 31st May 2005

Source: The Iraq Bodycount Database

Iraqi Police and Guardsmen Fatalities in Iraq as of June 4, 2005

Iraqi Police and Guardsmen Fatalities: Estimate
Total	Avg	Days
2203	2.7	808

Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

Coalition Military Fatalities in Iraq as of June 4, 2005

Coalition Military Fatalities
US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days
1670	89	96	1855	2.3	808

* Polish, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Thai, Estonian, Salvadoran, Netherlands, Slovaks, Latvian, Kazak, Hungarian

Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

Methamphetamine Epidemic

The U.S. is experiencing a methamphetamine epidemic. Over the past ten years meth moved from being a predominantly rural problem in isolated areas to a national epidemic. A google news search of methamphetamine returns over 5,000 news articles for just the past 30 days. Every state is reporting strained resources for emergency services, law enforcement, fire fighters, treatment services.

This is not a rural problem in Iowa, not an inner city problem in Chicago, not a California problem, nor a New York problem. The epidemic is spreading through rural areas, urban centers, suburban neighborhoods, from Maine to Florida, Arkansas, South Dakota, Texas, Nebraska, California, Alabama, Oregon, Kansas, Louisiana, Hawaii ... I could list all 50 states, and all the counties in those states, and still have to add on Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.

A google search of the top ten U.S. newspapers during the same 30 day time period returns 70 results. The meth epidemic appears to be invisible to the major and national media which makes it even more difficult for local communities to get help and resources for the front lines battle against this epidemic.

Article Counts by Media (May 5 - June 4, 2005):
USA Today - 4
Wall Street Journal - 4
New York Times - 6
Los Angeles Times - 19
Washington Post - 12
Daily News - 0
New York Post - 2
Chicago Tribune - 0
Newsday - 14
Houston Chronicle - 9
Christian Science Monitor - 2
Miami Herald - 14
Reuters - 0
MSNBC - 3
CNN - 3

Middle Class Shrinking according to Bureau of Labor Statistics

Factcheck.org has done the summarizing for me in Update on Kerry's "Shrinking Middle Class" -- Still Shrinking in 2003. Read the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Real Earnings in July 2004" and the U.S. Census Bureau, "Current Population Reports, P60-226, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003" available from the U.S. Government Printing Office for yourself if you're skeptical.

If you are skeptical, then could you loan this downwardly mobile workaholic a few dollars?

Give the Middle a Break (rumored to be an email to president@whitehouse.gov)

Dear President Bush,

I have been saving for retirement for fifteen years. I have -18.9% return on my investment. Although I am a cautious investor with a graduate degree in finance, I was unable to survive the market downturn which hit me hard beginning in 2001. I stayed away from internet stocks and other high-fliers, but was unable to guess the extent to which companies were lying on financial statements, nor the extent to which Wall St. analysts were lying about their analysis.

If you proceed with your present plan, I will not receive enough social security to help me during retirement. Half my parents retirement income comes from social security. The other half from their company sponsored pension fund. I have never worked for a company with a pension fund because most pension funds have been eliminated.

When I retire, I will have no pension, almost no social security, and the very small sum of money that may survive the vicissitudes of the investment market. In reality, I will not be able to retire at any age.

Yet, my work in the information technology field is being not only out-sourced, but in-sourced also. When my department requests additional employees, we must wait until they can be brought in from overseas. Even temporary employees must be brought from overseas. I work 60 to 80 hours a week to keep my management from thinking that it would be cheaper to replace me with a worker imported from overseas.

I work for a Fortune 2500 firm which will remain nameless. Because our parent company has been bid-rigging for years and recently was investigated, our stock has recently severely declined. This has had a negative impact on our investments through the company stock option program.

From every direction my government and private industry is working against typical middle class wage earners like myself. You want to cut my social security benefits. You encourage outsourcing my job by keeping in place tax incentives. Now I hear that you want to increase my taxes by getting rid of my mortgage and state income tax deductions, so that you can decrease the taxes of people who already have lots of savings.

I'm not asking for any help. Just please, stop doing so much harm, harm to the middle class wage earners. We're the oil in the machinery of this country. We help the rich get richer, and keep the poor from completely starving. We're squeezed from every direction. Our benefits only decrease; our taxes only increase; our real wages steadily decline; our expenses steadily increase; and yet we continue to show up to work early and stay late in order to put in our 14 hour days week in and week out.

We don't have any lobbyists. No one in government needs to consider us. There is no profit and no glory to championing the middle class wage earner. Yet, no democracy can survive without a large and healthy middle class.

Regards,
Jag Hwawck Ulaga

Pronunciation: 'jag 'wäk ü 'läg ä
(Just Another Glamourless Hard Working American Who Can't Keep Up Let Alone Get Ahead)

Moviephile

Favorite Movies:
The Insider, The Secret of Roan Inish, The Straight Story, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, Horseman on the Roof, Queen Margot, Elizabeth, Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior, Amelie, Songcatcher, Chocolat, Benny & Joon, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Man Who Cried, A River Runs Through It, The Four Feathers, Lone Star, Pride and Prejudice, The Missing, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Hero, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', `Eat, Drink, Man, Woman', A Room With a View, Don't Look Now, The Seventh Seal, My Dinner with Andre, Gosford Park, Gandhi, Indochine, The Lover, Two Brothers, Middlemarch, A Room With a View, Persuasion, Full Metal Jacket, Sound of Music, Moulin Rouge!, Election, Desperately Seeking Susan, Stranger Than Paradise, The Tango Lesson, Finding Neverland, Doctor Zhivago, Monsieur Ibrahim, My Brilliant Career, Babette's Feast, The Piano, The Portrait of a Lady, Ran, Korol Lir (King Lear/Russian), Shadow of the Vampire, Heaven's Gate, , Big Night, Vatel, Tous les matins du monde, Like Water For Chocolate, Tampopo, Scent of Green Papaya, Bread and Tulips

Other Notable Movies:
Fanny and Alexander, Persona, House of Flying Daggers, Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, The Story of Qiu Ju, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu, Breathless, Week End, 8 1/2, Blow-Up, Eraserhead, The Story of Adele H, Camille Claudel, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Enigma, Michael Apted's 42: Forty Two Up, Dead Again, Charlotte Gray, Stage Beauty, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Sling Blade, Map of the Human Heart, American History X, Girl Interrupted, The Opposite of Sex, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Antonia's Line

Documentaries:
Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine
Waco: The Rules of Engagement, Super Size Me, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Riding Giants, Hoop Dreams, Control Room, Born Into Brothels, Salaam Bombay, The Fog of War