The Thomas Report By Ray Thomas

Josey1

JUST LIKE THE GOVERNMENT: The Red Cross is acting like the federal government in that it thinks the about $564 million dollars sent to aid the WTC disaster victims and survivors belongs to the Red Cross to use as the organization sees fit. That attitude cost them their president a few days ago because she wanted to keep all that money in a separate fund that cannot be "dipped into" for other Red cross expenses. She resigned over this disagreement. On the Fox News web site, the organization is quoted this way: "The organization says it will spend the money on general disaster relief and preparation for future bio-terrorist attacks on the United States, including $50 million to cover the cost of collecting, freezing and transporting blood donations for future use. It also will set aside $29 million to install phones, data bases, audit services and communications centers to help distribute the money, and another $16 million to expand local chapter services to include "promoting humanitarian principles such as neutrality and unity and encouraging tolerance," as well as grief counseling, outreach services and "humanitarian law efforts." The remaining $71 million will be used for the Red Cross armed services program and long-term goals." The only thing that is legitimate in this laundry list of ways they want to use the money is setting up the systems to use in distributing the money. None of the rest of it has anything to do with helping the WTC victims and survivors, but merely benefits the Red Cross. The Red Cross is supposed to be simply a "conduit" to funnel this money to its proper people, for its proper uses. It does not belong to the Red Cross to use as it sees fit. The Board of Directors of the Red Cross had better change its attitude regarding this money, and quickly, or they're in big trouble. This is blatant thievery of money contributed for a specific purpose. (Source: Fox News, 11/7/2001) [110901-1] STUPIDITY PERSONIFIED: After the terrorists came within inches of killing his mother, who worked the ninth floor of the World Trade Center (she escaped), Mohammed Junaid (possibly not his real name) has quit his $70,000 a year job as a Java programmer for a dot-com company in Manhattan and headed for Afghanistan to help in the Taliban's "holy war" against the United States. He has stated clearly that he has no problem with having to kill American soldiers. He says he's the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and has been disturbed by what he calls "abuses" of Muslims by the United States. He wants to someday "establish a new state based on Islamic law." Not a chance, Mohammed. The Taliban isn't going to win and neither are the terrorists they sponsor. They're going to be destroyed and if you're with them, you'll go, too. "You're the weakest link. Goodbye." I can't think of any intelligent reason why someone who has lived in the United States all his life would want to create a state that would take this country back to the "stone age," as it has Afghanistan. He must really be strange to want to subject American women to the abuses the Taliban has put on their women and create a dictatorship like the Taliban. It's a good thing he is already in an unnamed country because if he was here, he would be arrested for treason. If he ever comes back, it would be a good idea then. I can't imagine how he came to think like this unless he has been consistently brainwashed by someone over his life. (Source: Boston Globe, 11/7/2001) [110901-2] WHAT MILITIA? The Associated Press reports that an "Arizona militia figure" was slain in a shoot-out with deputies, but I'd like to ask them to prove to me (and the rest of the world) that he was a member of any militia except a "militia of one," with himself as the only member. I get really tired of the press calling everybody who does something stupid a "militia member" just because he or she might espouse something similar to what is promoted by some militias. What they forget, or purposely ignore is that militias are not one single organization, with one single opinion on the world, no more than "the press" is the same. William Milton Cooper wrote a book about "global conspiracies," and had a weak, short-wave radio show that probably reached all of two people in which he promoted his conspiracy theories. This does not make him a "militia member." From what I can find out, he may have at one time been a militia member but was bounced because his views were far in excess of those held by the militia. I can't understand what made him attack police officers (if, indeed, he did), but being shot and killed by police trying to arrest him does not make him a "militia member." If he did attack police officers, they were probably right to shoot him, I don't know. I'm not close enough to the situation to judge. But the press needs to quit spouting the line they're given by government sources and start doing their own research. (Source: Associated Press, 11/7/2001) [110901-3] FLORIDA FOSTER CARE ABUSE: "Florida's rate of abuse in foster care -- about one in every 11 children -- [That's almost ten percent! -RT]is three times the state goal and 15 times higher than the national standard, a newspaper reported Sunday. And the abuse had gotten worse the last three years, according to an analysis of government documents and reports analyzed by The Florida Times-Union. Nearly 20,000 children in Florida are in foster care. The state has some 4,200 foster homes. The number of children mistreated in foster care has risen every year since 1998, according to the Department of Children and Families and the Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability." All this is happening at a time when the child protection services are being investigated for just that. They just don't seem to care, as if they know something we don't know -- such as that "the fix is in" so they don't have to worry and can simply use the scandal as a "fund-raiser" as they usually do by claiming "not enough money and not enough people." The figures are "dry and boring" except for the fact that they represent children -- who were supposedly taken from their families to keep them from being abused, who were abused in the care of the child protectors. This is a problem that is present everywhere and I'd bet that the numbers are similar all over. This is what makes me insane; that the people who claim to have their protection in mind will allow them to be abused and sexually abused while in their custody and not do anything about it (for the most part). They're not only failing those children, what they do is counterproductive. It abuses them even more in a place where they were promised safety. Thanks to Wendy Isherwood. (Source: Naples News, 1/5/2001) [110901-4] CYBER-SECURITY CZAR REJECTS ID SCHEME: "Richard Clarke, the president's special adviser on cyber-security, says he can't name one Bush administration official who supports the idea of a national ID card. He admits, though, that the White House doesn't yet have a formal position on the concept. The idea, raised in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, has drawn criticism from civil libertarians who say it would violate individual privacy. Despite those concerns, Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. was the first to push ID cards, suggesting his company's database software should be used. Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Scott McNealy was next, and earlier Wednesday Siebel Systems Inc. announced 'Homeland Security' software." Larry thinks he's fooling people by offering the government the software for nothing. He knows that once the government starts using this software, businesses all over the country are going to have to buy software and hardware that is compatible with it in order to be able to read the cards. This will mean millions, even billions of dollars in profit to him. Now, I have nothing against profit, but I resent him thinking I would not know the reason why he's offering to violate our right to privacy in order to get it. His contention that "all that information is already out there so why worry" doesn't make me want to forget it. That's the common scam used by those who want to take away what privacy we have left. It may be already out there, but I'm not going to make it worse by giving people my personal information and widen the number of places where it is available. That information is my property and it is against my personal principles to be free with it. Furthermore, if it ever becomes law in my lifetime, I'll become a lawbreaker. (Source: Arizona Republic, 11/8/2001) [110901-5] RAY'S SHORTS: These are very short items, but on important subjects: Maybe they hope he won't come back: "Oh my GAWD! Perhaps no other media personality sucked up more to Bill Clinton while in office than the interminable, pretentious left-wing pretty-boy of CNBC, Geraldo Rivera. Which makes it absolutely stunning that Fox News, the antidote to liberal media bias, would hire this schmuck to be its war correspondent in Afghanistan beginning on November 16th." (GOP News & Views) Yeah, but what are your qualifications? Geraldo says: "I'm very fit. I still box. I don't smoke. I'd like to find a reporter who can outdistance me. I have a 31-inch waist, a 42-inch chest. I'm still real butch. Courage has never been my problem. Brave men run in my family. . . . I think, arguably, I am the most experienced war correspondent in America today. Some people in Europe have more experience. But in the U.S., I've seen more combat than 99 percent of the armed forces personnel." Yeah, and it'll get you out of the country, too. (TV talk-show host Geraldo Rivera on becoming a combat reporter for Fox News, Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/6/01) No Wal-Marts? Has anybody ever wondered why there are no Wal-Marts in Afghanistan? It's because there are so many Targets in that country. (850 KOA, Denver, originated with an 8-year-old) Yeah, just let anybody vote: "A federal judge barred Lawrence, Mass., from requiring voters to show identification in Tuesday's mayoral election, saying the requirement would have been unfair to Hispanics who may have been less likely than other voters to have proof of identity [And why would that be, judge? Could it be that you're profiling? -RT]. Zobel made the ruling after the state's Democratic party sued the city of Lawrence. Democrats said the requirement would discourage voting by Hispanics, who make up about half of the voters in the former industrial center north of Boston [Sounds like a lot of profilin' goin' on heah. -RT] (Associated Press, 11/7/01) [110901-6] http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/nov/09/nuggets.htm