Elephant in the Room

Trouble has been brewing and bubbling over in the Middle East in earnest since the end of WWII and the foundation of Israel in 1948 by the Allied Powers, a Jewish state in the midst of Palestine. It was deemed as a measure of justice for the Nazi treatment of the Jews during Hitler’s Third Reich.

Actually, the trouble started well enough in the 7^th century AD with the birth of Islam and the subsequent conflicts between Muslims and Christians beginning 400 years later during the crusades of the 11^th – 13^th centuries over claims to the so-called “Holy Lands.”

Today, the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim Palestine and the city of Jerusalem in particular as the historical seat of their religions. The Jews once did occupy and reign over the territory in ancient Biblical times but had since scattered throughout the world.     

So, the cause of the trouble is religion.

The nation of Israel has been fighting for its very existence ever since it was founded in 1948 completely surrounded by Islamic peoples who have in their hearts and minds not given up their claim to the territory as a major center of Islam, and some of whom have vowed to reclaim it and wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.

It’s all about religion.

The latest threat to Israel comes from the nation of Iran, who’s political and religious leaders have flatly stated again and again that Israel does not have the right to exist. Now Israel is afraid that Iran is on the brink of obtaining nuclear weapons and therefore is doing everything within its power to prevent that from happening.

Earlier this year, Israel accused Iran of trying to assassinate Israeli embassy personnel in New Delhi, India, and Tbilisi, Georgia. That followed the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist for which Iran vowed revenge and blamed the government of Israel, which is itching to invoke a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities as part of a growing confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program.

In the midst of all this, Israel’s major ally, the United States, is leading a global push for sanctions that it hopes will force Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. Naturally, Iran is maintaining that its nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes and not for weapons.

The U.S. is asking Israel to wait before acting militarily against Iran with the hope that the sanctions will work. As an inducement, Israel is being offered advanced weaponry including bunker-busting bombs and long-range refueling planes in return for it committing not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities this year.

Of course the average American citizen, while saying goodbye to its tax dollars, is as usual, getting nothing.

Actually the U.S. has its own plans in place to attack Iran if necessary to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. President Barack Obama has assured Israel that the U.S. is prepared to take military action if necessary in the event that diplomatic efforts and sanctions fail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues the negotiations will fail unless Iran agrees to halt all uranium enrichment, ship its current stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country and dismantle an underground enrichment facility near the city of Qom.

This week the U.S. Congress passed a new set of severe sanctions on Iran's energy, shipping and financial industries, convinced that increasing the economic pressure on Tehran will derail its suspected nuclear weapons program. The bill would penalize anyone who works in Iran's petroleum, petrochemical or natural gas sector, or helps Tehran's oil and gas industry by providing goods, services, technology or infrastructure.

Netanyahu was not impressed: “Neither sanctions nor diplomacy has yet had any impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program," he said.

Some U.S. Congressmen objected to the legislation, casting it as a step toward war. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said it should be called the "Obsession With Iran Act" and warned against "beating the war drums once again."

"We need to stop the wars. We don't have the money to fight these wars any longer," Paul said.

Paul, as usual, is right.

More wars are not going to solve a problem which has been festering since the 11^th century. The United States has nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons. The Christians and the Jews have nuclear weapons. They object to the Muslims having nuclear weapons. The problem is not nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have functioned as a valid deterrent to war for the last 67 years – a necessary evil, but they’re here to stay.    

Religion is the problem.

Everyone knows that the problem is religion, but no one wants to mention it.

We’re still fighting the crusades of the Middle Ages by proxy in the 21^st century. If you take the imaginary man in the sky out of the equation all the problems would be solved.

The Islamic countries – the Muslims-- have to get over the fact that Israel is a legitimate state.  The Jews and the Christians have to reconcile the fact that the Muslims still have to some extent a legitimate claim to parts of Jerusalem.

Diplomacy is the one and only answer.  

Religion is the elephant in the room.

Next in Line: Syria

Next in Line: Syria

Sabers have been rattling in Washington and the halls of Congress several months now for the United States to go to war with Syria to oust the Assad government for the benefit of the Syrian rebels.  

Senator John McCain took to the senate floor last March and made an impassioned plea for a US-led war effort against Syria, and for President Obama to commit himself to using force.

"The President must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will Assad be allowed to finish what he has started, that there is no future in which Assad and his lieutenants will remain in control of Syria, and that the United States is prepared to use the full weight of our airpower to make it so," said McCain

Well, now we learn that President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government. The order, approved earlier this year broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

Of course, the full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing remains unclear but apparently the United States is collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies near a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

In my lifetime, which began just after the end of WWII, I’ve witnessed a series of never ending wars and conflicts from Korea to Vietnam, Bay of Pigs, Grenada, Panama, Persian Gulf, Bosnia- Kosovo-Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iraq.

All of them involved keeping some so-called “bad guys” from acquiring power or ousting a “bad guy” in power. I know for a fact that many American lives were sacrificed in those conflicts but that very little benefit accrued to the average American citizen. The American government, Democrats and Republicans alike will never learn that we gain nothing from these wars but always manage to lose plenty.

It’s the same old story. Assad, like Qaddafi in Libya, and all the other “bad guys” before him, doesn’t want to give up his power, nor do the many hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have benefited from his regime.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no foreign policy expert by any manner or means, but I can’t think of a single reason why my country should go to war with Syria or otherwise become involved in their civil war. If it is necessary for us to make war with Syria, then there are at least dozens of other countries we should be attacking as well.

Yes, I concede that Assad is a brutal dictator who is killing his own people and maybe he shouldn’t remain in power. But what are the rebels doing? Are they just sitting around singing Karaoke and playing tiddlywinks? Aren’t they killing their own people too?

Who are these Syrian rebel fellows anyway? Are they a bunch of nice people who seek nothing more than benevolence and goodwill for their countrymen? Or are they bad guys too seeking the political advantage for themselves and their cronies?

The latter is my guess, but sure, I admittedly don’t know. I’ll bet you money that President Obama doesn’t know either. I’ll bet Senator McCain doesn’t know.

Who the Hell knows?

I do know this: If the Tea Party, for example, or the Libertarians, or some other disgruntled segment of the American population started to seriously oppose the current political system in the United States; if they wanted to throw all the bastards out and start all over; and threatened to use force in their effort, there is absolutely no question in my mind that Obama and McCain, and all the other Republicans and Democrats in power right now would never go quietly.    

In such an event, the full force of the American government police and military forces would be unleashed upon the “traitorous rebels.” Blood would flow in the streets and the countryside. Americans would be killing Americans.

Why not? It’s happened before.  

Americans might someday again be next in line.

Right!

A right is that which is properly due to a person from others based upon nature, law, tradition or moral principle.

Rights confer a legal claim or title upon persons as a matter of justice and morality.

Thomas Jefferson, speaking for America’s founding fathers, wrote in the Declaration of Independence, that natural rights are “self evident truths.” That means that such rights do not arise by the law, nor are they given to persons by governments, but they existed before governments and laws.

They are self evident.

All persons are equal under the law, according to our nation’s founders. (Slaves weren’t considered persons then) We’re simply born with certain self evident natural rights, which include at the core:  Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The sole purpose of governments, they declared, is to secure these individual rights for the people. Such governments are created by the people and derive all of their just powers from the consent of the people.

So, after the Revolutionary War, “We the People” ratified, i.e. consented to, the United States Constitution which enumerates in detail the limited powers of the three separate branches of our new government; a government conceived for the sole purpose of securing our individual rights.

That original Constitution did not specify or enumerate the exact substance of our individual rights. After all, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that such rights are self evident; therefore it was not thought necessary to do so.

But some of the founders were not completely satisfied with that arrangement. They wanted to make sure that at least some of the most important and fundamental of our individual rights were spelled out and made part of the Constitution so that there might be no mistake about them in the future as the human beings who operate the government exercised their powers.  

Human beings given any taste of power have throughout history exhibited a tendency to flagrantly disregard or otherwise ignore the natural rights of persons – especially their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and all that those precious rights entail.

It was that sense of apprehension that prompted the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, which specified in writing the most important of our individual rights, along with many others as well, but not all of them.

The Ninth Amendment in particular states that: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

This important provision of the Bill of Rights seems to have been forgotten by the United States government and the political figures that operate it.

That is so even in the minds of United States Supreme Court justices, many of whom have come to believe that if a certain right is not specified and spelled out in detail in the Constitution then perhaps it does not exist, depending of course, upon whether they want to recognize it or not.  

Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout Catholic, who was recently interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, said flat out, for example, that there is no right of privacy in the Constitution, therefore the case of Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and women do not have a constitutional right to abortion.

He would overturn that landmark case in a heartbeat if the decision were up to him and other political conservatives on the bench – Catholics one and all.

Of course, this is the same Justice Scalia who voted with the majority in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission to overturn as unconstitutional the ban on corporate and labor union use of their own funds to produce political campaign advertisements, as well as the ban on issue-oriented ads within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election.

The rights of corporations and labor unions to pay for political ads, and for others to produce issue-oriented ads within close proximity to elections are found nowhere in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, yet Justice Scalia and five of his brothers on the court found and recognized such rights.

They had to interpret their existence as within the scope of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech Clause.

I say that liberty is a natural right more fundamental even than the right to free speech which is derived in substance wholly from the concept of liberty.

A woman’s constitutional right to abortion is derived from her right to liberty. The right to privacy is derived from the fundamental right of liberty. Privacy is an important element of liberty. Without privacy liberty is curtailed.

If there is no constitutional right of privacy derived from the fundamental right of liberty, then the government could install by force GPS devices in our automobiles and track our every move. It could install by force TV cameras in our private homes, bathrooms and bedrooms with which to spy on us all. The Fourth Amendment would not prevent that because spying doesn’t involve searches or seizures.

Most of our precious rights aren’t enumerated and are found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. They must be inferred from the self evident natural rights which existed before laws and before governments.

There is no right to eat in the Constitution; no right to breathe; to walk; to travel; to see; to hear; to reproduce; and on and on and on. All of those rights are derived from the rights to life and liberty. All must be interpreted as recognizable constitutional rights though they are found nowhere in that document.

Justice Scalia thinks that the Constitution confers upon persons the right to own guns but the Second Amendment does not say that. It says that we have the right to “to keep and bear arms.”

So what is there to prevent the government from implementing laws depriving people of gun ownership but allowing slingshots, pea shooters and other less deadly arms?

Justice Scalia – actually any Supreme Court Justice or government official for that matter – has the human capacity and often the craven willingness to be deliberately disingenuous, logically inconsistent, and intellectually dishonest.

Nowhere is this ominous human tendency more evident that in the matter of a woman’s constitutional reproductive right to abortion. The religiously oriented politicians and intellectually dishonest judges will simply not be satisfied until those rights are denied, and to Hell with the fundamental natural human right to liberty.

The Tennessee State House, for instance, is passing a law permitting homicide and assault prosecutions for the death of embryos “at any state of gestation in utero.” Never mind that about half of all fertilized eggs die before reaching full term, with the rate highest during the embryonic stage; they are Hell bent on finding ways to prosecute women for every miscarriage and especially every abortion no matter what.

Arizona politicians passed a law forbidding doctors from aborting most fetuses with a gestational age starting at 18 to 20 weeks or older, even in situations where the doctor discovers the fetus has a fatal defect which will likely result in the infant dying within minutes, hours or days following birth. The law also defines gestational age as beginning on the first day of the woman's last period whether she is actually pregnant or not.

That’s what they think about a woman’s fundamental constitutional reproductive rights.

Politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives are all hyped up over the possibility of sex-selective abortions. So they’re debating a bill that would ban abortions performed on the basis of gender-selection.

"The people of this country are overwhelmingly for this bill, and liberals are going to have to make up their mind whether they are so committed to abortion on demand that they think that includes killing little girls because they are little girls," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.

Under his proposal, physicians who perform sex-selective abortions would face heavy fines and up to five years in jail, and the bill contains language that would strip federal funding from any clinic found in violation of the measure.

Is Rep Franks concerned with liberty?

Right!

Crooks in the Books

Ever since George W. Bush started the still unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $billions upon $billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have ‘escaped’ the books so to speak, never to be seen by honest participants again.

There are crooks in the books.

Huge sums of cash shelled out for waging the wars, and afterward for reconstruction, simply cannot be accounted for. That money hasn’t just disappeared in to thin air. It now resides in the pockets and bank accounts of crooks – American crooks, Iraqi crooks and Afghani crooks. They stole it. They embezzled it. They misappropriated it to their private use. 

Even those sums which can be accounted for have vanished into the thoroughly corrupt black hole of the Middle East. I say vanished because America – the average American citizen -- is going to realize nothing whatsoever from the expenditures after eleven years and counting of U.S. conflict and occupation activities. No profit. No gain. Not even the return of a single dime in principal. It’s all gone.

That which technically isn’t gone has been wasted. Even the U.S. government admits with certainty that, of the mega $billions spent, or should I say dumped into the cesspools of Iraq and Afghanistan, way too much has been wasted, and the government can’t even determine how much. 

The U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds reports of the largest reconstruction project of its kind in U.S. history that "billions of American taxpayer dollars [are] at risk of waste and misappropriation."

In what was called its final audit report, it spelled out a wide range of accounting weaknesses. "The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known," said the report. Auditors found huge problems in accounting for the huge sums. One contractor, for example, got away with charging $80 for a pipe fitting that its competitor was selling for $1.41 because its invoices were not reviewed properly.

Mountains of cash were literally being shipped to Iraq on pallets at one time yet there were not enough auditors in charge to account for what happened to it. "Given the vicissitudes of the reconstruction effort — which was dogged from the start by persistent violence, shifting goals, constantly changing contracting practices and undermined by a lack of unity of effort — a complete accounting of all reconstruction expenditures is impossible to achieve," the report concluded.

This is so despite the fact that the office has spent more than $200 million tracking the reconstruction funds and producing numerous reports which documented criminal fraud kickbacks, bribery, bid-rigging embezzlement and outright theft of government property and funds.

A $35 million Pentagon project was started in December 2006 to establish the Baghdad airport as an international economic gateway, and the inspector general found that by the end of 2010 about half the money was "at risk of being wasted" unless someone else completed the work.

Of the $51 billion that Congress approved for Iraq reconstruction, about $20 billion was for rebuilding Iraqi security forces and about $20 billion was for rebuilding the country's basic infrastructure. The programs were run mainly by the Defense Department, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

So let me see if I have this right.

The U.S. government, under the direction of President George W. Bush, shelled out hundreds of $billions to prosecute the war in Iraq. In the process we destroyed the country’s basic infrastructure and decimated the Iraqi Army and security forces, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of deaths and destruction we caused to Iraqi private property.

Now the U.S. government is involved the largest reconstruction project in history, rebuilding the Iraqi Army and security forces with $billions upon $billions of dollars, and spending $billions upon $billions more to rebuild the Iraqi basic infrastructure. The largest U.S. embassy in the world is now located in Baghdad Iraq.

We destroyed the country at huge cost and now are rebuilding it a huge cost, yet the average American is going to get nothing from the scheme.

Am I missing something here?  

Adding insult to injury, now we learn that that more than $200 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted. Auditors said the U.S. has spent about $8 billion to train and equip Iraqi police since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The Police Development Program -- which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world -- was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S. military left last December. But Iraqi political leaders, anxious to keep their distance from the Americans, were unenthusiastic.

"The U.S. government has a tendency to go ahead with programs that it has decreed are in the host country's best interests," said an embassy spokesperson. "This was such an expensive program, and there was plenty of time to get the Iraqi government to help shape it in such a way that they could eventually take it over. But we never got that buy-in."

Meanwhile, a report by the special inspector general for Afghanistan warns that handing over security to Afghan forces as the US withdraws its troops would also likely balloon the costs of US-funded aid schemes. Millions of dollars in US funds have been lost due to poor planning and workmanship in projects to help rebuild Afghanistan and billions more are at risk.

More than $89 billion US dollars have been squandered on Afghan reconstruction. Audits of various projects taking place across the country found significant construction problems and flaws. The basement of one expensive building, for example, is now being used as a chicken coop.

All of this leads to one inescapable conclusion:

There are too many crooks in the books. 

Olympic Obsequium

The summer Olympic Games have returned this year along with its legions of pretentious fawning obsequious hangers-on who contribute absolutely nothing to the event while shamelessly advertising their own personal political status and self importance.

Leading the pack of parasites this time was First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, who formally opened her stint as leader of the U.S. Olympics delegation on Friday at a breakfast for the athletes saying she was "just in awe" of their company.

"Try to have fun. Try to breathe a little bit, but also win, right?" she remarked banally while mingling with the U.S. athletes, posing for photos, shaking hands and sharing hugs. "Every few years, these games bring pride, excitement and wonder to millions of people around the world. And that must mean so much to all of you."

The rest of her pep talk was mostly about her. She told the U.S. athletes that some of her fondest memories in sports stemmed from watching the Olympics on television; and how her father, who was athletic, contracted multiple sclerosis "in the prime of his life." "He retained his love of sports, truly," she recalled. "And the Olympics was a special time for him to watch amazing athletes of all abilities compete on the world stage."

Afterward the first gadfly was off to the lavish grounds of Winfield House, the official residence of the U.S. ambassador in London to promote her healthy living "Let's Move!" campaign aimed at tackling childhood obesity with hundreds of children gathered on the lawn.

She appeared with several past U.S. Olympic and Paralympics standouts, including Brandi Chastain, Gabriel Diaz de Leon, Grant Hill, Summer Sanders and Dominique Dawes. "Being here is otherworldly for me," the first lady oozed; "I am still so inspired."

"I think this is amazing and what the first lady has done to get kids to move is truly wonderful," said former outstanding U.S. Olympian track star, Carl Lewis. "Both she and the president love the Olympics and the Olympic movement."

Then she attended a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and finally took her premium VIP seat for opening ceremonies at Olympic Stadium. On Saturday, Mrs. Obama will meet with Samantha Cameron, the wife of British Prime Minister David Cameron, before watching U.S. athletes on the first full day of Olympic competition. She’ll see more events on Sunday before departing.

The Olympic Games are no longer much of a sporting event. It’s become a political show. The athletes are merely pawns in a spectacle of international political competition. Which nation has the better athletes? Which will win the most gold medals?

USA!!! USA!!! chant the salivating American morons in the stands.

Naturally, this kind of grand recurring contrived event attracts politicians, their wives and entourages like flies to a dung heap.

President Obama and Michelle certainly knew that when they brazenly but unsuccessfully tried earlier to use the powers of the presidency to manipulate the Olympic Committee to locate the 2012 summer games in the city of Chicago, their hometown and the seat of their political influence, so that they could capitalize on the political goodies for themselves and their friends.  

Never mind that. If she can’t land the big political prize for her home town, at least she’ll lead the American delegation of political parasites and sycophants to London where she’ll hobnob with the Queen and all the lesser high born privileged nobles of international society. She’ll still have the attention; the best seats; the finest food, and plushest accommodations.

How much did the American taxpayers have to shell out for this latest unnecessary extravaganza? I’ll bet she didn’t spend a dime of her own money. Surely she didn’t travel by commercial airline. Of course she took the secret service with her. How many millions did it cost us to feed the First Parasite and her entourage for three days of hobnobbing and attention seeking in merry old England?

Why is it that a politician’s wife – the president’s wife -- always gets the honor of leading the American delegation to the Olympics? At Lillehammer in 1994 it was Hillary Clinton. Laura Bush got the nod in 2006 for the Turin games.

Why is it even necessary to send an official American delegation?

Why not just send the athletes and let them compete for the love of the sport?  

Chick-fil-A Filet

People today often wonder why there are so many lawyers amongst us.

Well, the following story represents the kind of unmitigated nonsense that keeps us lawyers happy, prosperous and busy.

Mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino, has vowed to thwart the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain from opening one of its fast food fried chicken franchises in his city solely because he doesn’t approve of the CEO’s personal religious beliefs.

This petty statist tyrant has already blocked Wal-Mart from a Roxbury development last year because of his personal perception of the company’s supposed impact on neighborhood businesses and lower-wage workers. Now he’s after Chick-fil-A because the company president, Dan Cathy, favors traditional marriage.

Cathy, a religious man, gave an interview last week to the "Biblical Press" affirming his personal Christian values, saying that he and his company are "guilty as charged" in supporting a "biblical definition" of the family and suggesting that gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.” While Chick-fil-A is not a "Christian business," it is run on "biblical principles," he said.

“Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston,” croaked the mayor. “You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population. We’re an open city; we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion… That’s the Freedom Trail. That’s where it all started right here. And we’re not going to have a company, Chick-fil-A or whatever the hell the name is, on our Freedom Trail.”

But Chick-fil-A is not excluding anyone. The company released a statement saying it has a history of applying “biblically-based principles” to managing its business, such as closing on Sundays, and it insisted it does not discriminate. “The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender,”

So Chick-fil-A the business is not discriminating against anyone. The CEO just has personal religious beliefs which mayor Menino doesn’t like. He’s going to make the business pay for the personal beliefs of its executive. He said he plans to fire off a letter to the company’s Atlanta headquarters “telling them my feelings on the matter.”

“If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult — unless they open up their policies,” he warned. “It doesn’t send the right message to the country,” said the tyrant. “We’re a leader when it comes to social justice and opportunities for all.”

Open up their policies? This has nothing whatsoever to do with Chick-fil-A’s business policies. The mayor, who heads the government in the City of Boston, wants a private individual to change his religious beliefs or face the consequence of deprivation of his right to do business in the city.

That is a clear cut violation of a private individual’s constitutional First Amendment rights under the Free Exercise Clause. A city mayor doesn’t have the right to deny a business license to a person because he doesn’t approve of that person’s religious beliefs.

Any good lawyer would have a field day with this case.

If mayor Menino doesn’t like Cathy’s Bible thumping beliefs he doesn’t have to patronize Chick-fil-A but he may not use his government powers to punish the man and his company by violating their rights.

I’m all for gay rights, and don’t agree with Mr. Cathy’s religious beliefs either, but that’s not going to keep me from enjoying Chick-fil-A if the food is good. It would be a different story if the business discriminated against gays as a matter of policy but that is not the situation here.

Apparently lots of people don’t like Dan Cathy’s stand on gay marriage and their response to it is voting with their feet by boycotting his restaurants. Nearly 4,000 people have signed a pledge to boycott Chick-fil-A, and Jim Henson Co., creator of “The Muppets,” “Labyrinth” and “Fraggle Rock,” is backing out of a proposed deal to make products for Chick-fil-A kids’ meals.

There’s nothing illegal about that but it makes no sense to me. It’s not going to change anything and the people doing it are simply missing out on a good meal.

On the other side of the issue, Mike Huckabee and his band of loyal Christian followers are rallying around Dan Cathy and his Chick-fil-A restaurants. Huckabee called the Cathy clan “a wonderful Christian family who are committed to operating the company with Biblical principles and whose story is the true American success story” – one “that is being smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left.”

He declared Aug. 1 “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.”

“Too often, those on the left make corporate statements to show support for same sex marriage, abortion, or profanity, but if Christians affirm traditional values, we're considered homophobic, fundamentalists, hate-mongers, and intolerant,” Huckabee wrote.

This will probably result in more customers for the restaurants than there would have been before this controversy started.

It looks like Chick-fil-A will avoid the filet

Men on Mars: Why?

The United States government is Hell bent on sending men to Mars.

Why?

Men were sent to the Moon 43 years ago. They walked around on the surface. They collected some rocks. They even drove an expensive car. They hit a few golf balls. Then they got into their capsule and came home.

Those Moon missions cost $billions upon $billions of taxpayer dollars.

For what?  What did we get for it?

There was nothing of value gained in those missions which could not have been achieved with unmanned missions. There is nothing on the Moon aside from rocks and dust – no air, no water -- nothing. There was clearly no good reason to send human beings to the Moon. They were sent there solely to fulfill a popular science fiction fantasy.

And some of the men involved in those missions lost their lives.

Now, 43 years later, NASA is spending $billions upon $billions of taxpayer dollars again -- on another manned space mission – the Orion manned mission to Mars. The first Orion four man capsule crew model arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week to undergo testing and development before an initial unmanned flight scheduled for 2014.  

The first manned mission to Mars is scheduled for sometime in 2021.

"This is the first time we've had a vehicle that will truly send us where we've always dreamed of going," gushed NASA's Josh Byerly to Fox News.

At least he admits to the real reason of the mission. It’s to fulfill a dream – a science fiction dream -- not for any practical or sensible purpose.

The Orion capsule is a part of what NASA had planned as the sprawling and ambitious Constellation project that would offer a replacement for the space shuttle -- and a means to ferry humans into outer space and back to the moon – then to Mars, NASA hopes, within the next 10 years.

NASA never bothers to explain exactly what benefits to mankind these missions will provide aside from the fulfillment of the science fiction fantasy – an Earthling walking on another planet -- cool. That’s it; because there really is nothing to be gained by manned missions which could not be accomplished by unmanned missions.

It’s exactly the same situation we experienced with the manned Moon missions. The reward will simply not justify the expense. The risks, hazards and dangers to human life will outweigh the benefits to mankind.

You see, there is a huge difference between the arduous, risky and dangerous manned Earth explorations of the 15^th century and afterward compared to the manned space explorations of the mid 20^th century to the present.

Human beings are adapted to life on Earth. Everything that human beings need to survive can be found right here on Earth. The atmospheric pressures are right. The temperature range is right. All of the special conditions for human survival are right almost everywhere on Earth.

By contrast, on the Moon and Mars, none of the special conditions are right. There is little or no atmospheric pressure everywhere. There is no air. Temperatures are at the extremes everywhere. It’s either blazing hot or freezing cold. There is no food anywhere. There is lethal radiation everywhere.

Men on Mars would have to stay in complicated, expensive and fragile containers all the time, and everything else necessary for their survival would have to be taken with them to last for the entire mission.

Mistakes made on Earth may be rectified. Mistakes made in outer space will be fatal. There is very little margin for error on missions to outer space.    

Add to all of this the fact that there is nothing on Mars except rocks and dust – exactly the same situation as on the Moon. If there is life it is microbial life; hardly worth the risk and expense of the trip. Even if there were gold and diamonds to be found, the practicalities of successfully mining it and bringing it home would not justify the risk and expense of the effort.

There is just nothing of practical value to be gained by manned missions to Mars. Our nation cannot afford them. The risks are far too great.

So again I ask: Men on Mars: Why?