late today in yesterday's Open Thread. Though long (sorry, sitemonitor...), it is so good and important (IMHO) that it deserves another post. Please forward to friends if you want. (A friend of mine suggested forwarding to the WH.)
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Mike D: "I've been emailing with a Pakistani I met virtually on YouTube. It started with my critiquing a comment he made as anti-semitic. Much to my surprise he apologized for the apparent anti-semitism and said he was really angry at our government. I think to his surprise I didn't reply back by waving the flag but agreed with everything he said. He recently sent me this letter and asked to send it to people in the US and I thought this would be a good place to post it. Its kind of long and wordy but still worth reading"

Dear Citizens of United States,
We Pakistanis are ordinary people like you, having the same dreams, needs, ambitions, and passion for our country. We like you, feel the same regret for wars, same grief for world problems, same distress towards injustice, same hopes for a better tomorrow. We, like you, also dream about having serene borders, comfortable homes for our children, fine education, some leisure, and a satisfied mind that what we are contributing to this country and the world at large today as well as future generations tomorrow. We want to live in the comfort of our homeland, away from overseas interventions and foreign-extremism in the exact same way as an average American desires.
We achieved our independence after much struggle and sacrifice (over 4 million lives were lost); after much strangling and many fatalities, we finally broke free of the quandary at the hands of British and Hindu rulers. After independence, we have shown remarkable progress in many areas despite having rulers who placed personal interests over national interests, who never really had to face the trauma of poverty, sickness, injustice, or leaving their loved ones behind to inhabit a land with no promises. Yet we did not give up and made a nation out of it. We did not fail as our current leaders try to put it, to solicit more and more aid to gratify their own greed. In our short history we have never been blessed with a true leader after our founder, and yet imagine our courage, we did not break down, we moved on and on. And we never really looked for shortcuts to this existence, we have paid in plenitude.
We have now been presented with yet another aid package from your country which will be financed by American taxpayers. We know that your country is already in debt. We request that you please KEEP YOUR AID. We do NOT need it. We prefer to rely on our own resources, our own means; because at the end of the day this money will not be utilized for our poor nation. It will be siphoned off by greedy rulers and will only serve to increase the corruption that is rampant in our country.
Let us give you a reality check, this aid will be utilized to finance lavish foreign trips of our government personnel who will take hundreds of friends and family members to luxurious places. It will be utilized to provide notorious yet special security services that we cannot afford, to people who are not even part of the government but somehow our democratic rulers are much obliged to flatter. The so-called economic development this new aid promises will definitely not materialize. We know this because this has been happening for the last several decades.
The so-called promises to create jobs for us will never be fulfilled. Why not use this money to expand the job market within the USA for the American people, which itself is being hit by the worst recession in decades? Not only that, the conditions mentioned will destabilize our civil system, will cripple our autonomy, our existence, will rob our craftsmen and the population on the whole of their much deserved earnings, and in turn will fan more frustration. The ordinary Pakistani is already paying a heavy return against the lending of the IMF. Our electricity, fuel and other bill payments include massive taxes to pay IMF debts. The Kerry Lugar Bill does not attempt to bring any solution for our challenges at all, instead, it will be sucking blood from our innocent population in the name of a few miscreants who are not a part of us in the first place, in the name of a war that didn’t belong to us by any means and was imposed on us. Are we really attempting to build peace in here? Who are we fooling in the name of amity?
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is an independent country. We are fully capable of meeting our own needs as Islam teaches us to be. We do not rely on shortcuts for realization of our needs. By the grace of our creator, we have been seasoned to work hard and achieve the impossible. The elite currently in charge of our country do not in anyway represent the opinions of the general public. In their sinister yet sadly successful efforts, the public is kept so busy in their basic problems that they never really get to question them on where the Aid money was utilized and why it was even requested in the first place.
Its time the U.S realized that and leave the treachery of aiding us to our face and stabbing us in our backs. As the voice of enlightened Pakistanis, let us assure you, we will be delighted if the same money is utilized in your own country to deal with the recession it faces. We will be glad if it is also spent on research and precautionary measures on why so many Americans die with stress-related diseases every year, why life is getting tougher and tougher for an average American family and their social values are declining. We urge you to ask your Government whether this aid package is really helping us, the fellow citizens of Pakistan, or are you helping our shameless government with their lifestyles and luxuries? Are you setting up schools and better health care or fanning more extremism due to ill-utilization that our rulers will ensure and frustration that the brutal conditions on this sell-out package will bring for us? Are you actually helping to support our displaced countrymen or giving them more reason to hate you for financing our depraved rulers?
Your financial aid will not do us any good, since more than this amount already stays in the bank accounts of our narcissistic leaders, who occupy the seats but are indifferent towards the distress of the majority. If you are still so keen to help us however, start sharing best practices, help us establish good governance, help us in make our systems more transparent, help us in medical research, help us in building up universities to polish our youth.
We also request you ask your government how this bill helps the American nation and us, when it will just land in a few pockets. Exactly what will our unfortunate nation be faced with as conditions for this aid that will never reach the people? The Patriot act which has destroyed your constitutional rights cannot be allowed to happen in Pakistan. Let us make it more apparent, we will not allow the U.S. access to any of our properties or our citizens. These citizens belong to a free country, accountable to none other than their own national laws and America as a knowledgeable and well-developed country should respect that. Our country is capable of dealing with any miscreants itself and we have been doing so since before this so called war on terror started. We will not allow interference in any form whatsoever in the internal matters of our country, in its governance, in its institutions and above all in its authority that this bill carefully ensures. Our rulers may be dissolute, our nation is not.
Your country has not only deceived you in the name of wars to eliminate terror while being exceptionally involved in creating it, but it also has left many homeless, many innocent killed, many children orphans, many women widows, houses and hopes shattered. It hasn’t just betrayed us, it has betrayed you. And rest assured, the bullying tactics that your country specializes in will someday become a pit in itself. Haven’t we all started witnessing that it in front of our eyes already?
We however maintain, the U.S. citizens don’t deserve to be kept in darkness. Since World War II, your country has intimidated directly or indirectly at least 44 countries. In the name of peace you have created havoc; distributing civil wars, turmoil, oppressing nations, breaking them into pieces, dictating policies that completely butcher the civil structure. As your infamous Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger once put it so correctly: While being America’s enemy may be dangerous, being America’s friend is invariably fatal. Who would comprehend that better than our nation, who has a history of 62 years being your ally and what did we get in return? Treachery, betrayal, deception?

What did the US get out of it; a deteriorating economy, a failed social structure, not to mention countless killed soldiers? It isn’t a surprise the same Kissinger who believed in brutal de-population of the world and whose policies your government still follows, also said Soldiers are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy. Decide for yourself, where this face will lead you? This hatred your government is mongering against your beautiful country is pushing you down the path of obscurity too, with a point of no return.
Ask yourselves, are the U.S soldiers really worthless herds of cattle to be thrown into hostile territories just so that a few in the Govt. can benefit by selling their weapons to the U.S Govt., which buys them from these local multi-million dollar businesses at such dear cost of American tax-payers blood-earned money? Decide yourself, where this will lead you as a nation? This hatred your Government is mongering against your beautiful country is pushing you down the path of obscurity too, towards a point of no return.
We as responsible citizens of Pakistan request the responsible citizens of the U.S. to challenge their government on the effectiveness of wars it has waged in the past and ones it plans to wage in the future. For instance, what did the American people get out of the Vietnam war? Did the Vietnamese attack them? What did the American people get out of the War between Iraq and Iran? What did the American people get out of the recent war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Did the American people get a share of the oil wealth that is being stolen from the Iraqis by brute force?
Think about the latest package of deceit this Kerry Lugar Bill brings for us, the ruthless face of which we are already seeing, yet you are kept so oblivious to. We respectfully ask you to convince your government to keep that money to themselves and utilize it to benefit your ailing economy, or maybe it can be used to return the debt that US owes to China.
Only then will we as a nation be inspired by the high spirits on your nations conscientiousness, and will be stimulated to follow your footsteps and will be thankful to you for our generations to come.
Sincerely,
A Pakistani.

Awesome game!

The Guvernator apparently has a soft spot for girlie men, after all, as he just enacted Harvey Milk Day and signed legislation which would recognize gay marriage from other states. The White House takes on the crooks and liars of Big Insurance. Barry's aides suck at convincing us that the stimulus is working. The FBI comes one step closer to the reality of Minority Report. Oh, Tom...The GOP uses ACORN as an excuse to try to undo legislation which would stop banks from racially-excluding minorities from loans. Why are we still focused on Iran, when it's Pakistan which is he powderkeg? The Drug War's only good for helping the Taliban. China already learning the capitalist art of garbage dumps? I like how people in places which are already job-less from inefficient energy production and consumption methods claim that going green is going to kill off business. The U.N. Chief admits fraud in Afghanistan's "election". Gordie says everything British-owned must go. I guess the Harvard dean who claimed women are inherently bad at math didn't know about Elinor Ostrom. Iran makes it so easy for Obama to be diplomatic. (Sarcasm.) The thugs currently running Honduras must be avid readers of neo-con articles. Tea baggers don't give a fig about "bi-partisanship". Grayson seemed to do alright at a townhall meeting.

Some Columbus Day trivia (just for fun):

The Santa Maria was also called “La Gallega”.

The Captain of the Pinta was Martin Pinzon, who was also part owner of his ship and the Nina. Pinzon never accepted the authority of Cristóbal, and he deserted the small fleet more than once. There is conjecture that his erratic behavior was because he had syphilis.

Columbus had 17 ships on his second voyage.

On his third trip, Columbus modified his belief that the Earth was round because he detected a bulge at the equator. He surmised the Earth was shaped like a pear with a rise "like a woman's breast" on which rested the "Terrestrial Paradise" or Garden of Eden.

Between the 3rd and 4th voyages, Chris and his brothers were arrested and sent back to Spain in chains. He was 53 at the time.

On his 4th trip, after thinking he had at last found a passage to the Indies via the Rio Belen Columbus ran aground and was stranded. He convinced the natives to give him supplies by predicting the February 29, 1504 lunar eclipse – just like the character in Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee.

Patients ended up getting a radiation over-dose because someone set the CT scanner too high.

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In the 80's we had "Promises, Promises"...
... In '08 we were given a promise made.

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Tom Tomorrow (rocks)

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/10/13/t...

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/

So what is that bunker-buster missile for, then? MLK's kids settle their legal problems.

once this is the standard.

Medicare and SS will be going broke because there are not enough young people entering the workforce because of abortions!! Unbelievable!

Hermitage has a run in with enterprise corruption in Russia. A $230 million tax fraud is committed against the Russian state and everyone in on the sham gets their share of the loot. Now there's a problem as people of Russia become riled up after watching the video that is being shown in Russia.

http://www.askbutwhy.com/2009/10/hermitage-exposes-fraud-committed-to.html