Some in Congress Want to Legalize Marijuana

Why not? Just about everything seems to be acceptable nowadays. Why should we expect Congress not go along with slide towards moral abyss. The pro-Marijuana lobby has become quite vocal in recent years. I imagine some of them even contribute to members of Congress. And there is nothing politicians love more than campaign contributions.

The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance.

Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, said Frank, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups.

"The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government's business," Frank said on Capitol Hill. "I don't think it is the government's business to tell you how to spend your leisure time."

The Massachusetts Democrat and his supporters emphasized that only the use -- and not the abuse -- of marijuana would be decriminalized if the resolution resulted in legislation.

[...]Marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, according to the drug control office.

"Smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science -- it is not medicine and it is not safe," the DEA states on its Web site. "Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers."

Report: U.S. 'Wasted' $560 Million on Iraq Repairs

It's too bad the surge didn't have much impact on the waste and corruption which is the Iraq War. I've said it before - Americans are dying propping up an inept government. Not only are our troops dying (even if the violence is down lately) but our tax dollars are being wasted at a time when Americans are suffering hardship at home. It couldn't be any worse.

The United States has "wasted" more than half a billion dollars in Iraq repairing facilities that were damaged because of poor security, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction says in a report released Wednesday.

Stuart Bowen's quarterly report arrived at a price tag of $560 million by tallying the results of more than 100 audits his office has conducted.

Further billions had to be diverted from reconstruction to security because the Bush administration did not adequately foresee how volatile Iraq would be when it began rebuilding the country, the report says.

"The U.S. government did not fully anticipate or plan for the unstable working environment that faced U.S. managers when reconstruction began in Iraq," it says.

Contractors spent an average of 12.5 percent of their reconstruction contracts on security, the inspector general found.

Bowen's team also criticizes the government for poor coordination between agencies.

The lack of cooperation "contributed to delays, increased costs, terminated projects, and completed projects that did not meet program goals," the report says.

McCain's Flipflop Express: On Abortion...2006

Here's more evidence that John McCain's flipflopping predates the current election year. This from the Carpetbagger Report, November 20th 2006:

Just to follow-up briefly on Michael’s guest-post from yesterday, Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) new-found opposition to Roe v. Wade is rather remarkable, even for him.

In 1999, McCain was in New Hampshire, campaigning for the GOP nomination as a moderate. He proclaimed himself a pro-life candidate, but told reporters that “in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade.” He explained that overturning Roe would force “women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.” Yesterday, campaigning for the GOP nomination as a conservative, McCain said the opposite.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask one question about abortion. Then I want to turn to Iraq. You’re for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, with some exceptions for life and rape and incest.

MCCAIN: Rape, incest and the life of the mother. Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So is President Bush, yet that hasn’t advanced in the six years he’s been in office. What are you going to do to advance a constitutional amendment that President Bush hasn’t done?

MCCAIN: I don’t think a constitutional amendment is probably going to take place, but I do believe that it’s very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should — could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support…. Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states.

The old McCain didn’t want an amendment and didn’t want Roe overturned. The new McCain completely disagrees with the old McCain.

Joe Klein: Neocons Trying To Have Me Fired From Time

The neocons are the sinister power behind the Bush administration. Therefore it is no surprise that they would want to silence anyone who dares challenge them. The American people are unaware of the power of this un-American clique.

I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel's best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.

Happily, these people represent a very small sliver of the Jewish population in this country. Unhappily, their views have had an impact in the highest reaches of the Bush Administration--and seem to have an influence on John McCain's campaign as well.

Mexico's Drug Cartels Target Bystanders

We need to worry about what's going on along our border. This is the price to pay for a lack of immigration policy. When is the last time you heard any of the candidates talk about the crisis along our border. The Mexican drug cartel is getting rich from the easy access to America. And guess where they get those guns to kill innocent people. Before too long we will have complete chaos along our southern border.

The three teenagers started their big weekend singing "Happy Birthday" to the parish priest.

The next day, they prayed for hours with their church youth group, then went on to a quinceañera, Mexico's archetypal 15th-birthday celebration. As the party wound down, they talked their parents into letting them go for a late-night cruise down the main drag in Guamuchil, a Saturday night ritual in this sleepy market town, friends and family say.

During that cruise, investigators believe the teens inadvertently blocked drug cartel assassins in hot pursuit of their enemies. Once police arrived in the wee hours of July 13, the assassins were gone but the three teens and a 12-year-old girl who was riding with them lay dead in their cars. Four others -- another teenager and three adults -- were dead in nearby cars. There were 539 bullet casings on the ground.

U.S. Combat Deaths in Iraq Plunge in July

So what? We are still in Iraq in large numbers while Afghanistan rapidly deteriorates. Even if no American dies in Iraq we are still paying a fortune to be there ($10 billion /month) to maintain the status quo. And if the Republicans have their way we would be there for the indefinite future. We cannot afford to be in a place that shouldn't have been in the first place.

The number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat in Iraq has dropped sharply in July and the monthly total is likely to be the lowest since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003.

Five U.S. soldiers have been killed in combat in Iraq so far in July compared to 66 in the same month last year, according to the independent website icasualties.org, which keeps records of U.S. military losses in the conflict.

The drop underscores the dramatic fall in violence in Iraq to lows not seen since early 2004.

Seeking to build on those gains, thousands of Iraqi security forces launched a major operation in northeastern Diyala province on Tuesday. Al Qaeda has sought to stoke tensions in religiously mixed Diyala, which lies close to Baghdad.

Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askari said on Wednesday that 35 militants had been detained so far. Iraqi police and more than two Iraqi army divisions, each of up to 9,000 troops, are taking part in the offensive.

CIA Accuses Pakistan of 'Backing Militants'

Pakistan military/intelligence agencies were responsible for putting the Taliban in power in the first place. So it shouldn't be any surprise that they are today supporting our enemies again. Our relationship with Pakistan is a house of cards that is really to collapse. And the potential for militant Islamists in that country to take over is very real. And if the Jihadists gain control of Pakistan's bomb it could mean world war. What a mess Mr.Obama will have on his hands come January.

A senior CIA official this month confronted Pakistani officials over ties between the country's intelligence service and militants in the tribal areas, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Citing defense and intelligence sources, the Times said that the trip by agency deputy director Stephen Kappes demonstrated a harder line being taken against Pakistani ties to those responsible for the surge of violence in Afghanistan, including militant Maulavi Jalauddin Haqqani.

Earlier this year, the US military pressed for Pakistani troops to hit the Haqqani network in the tribal areas.

"It was a very pointed message saying, 'Look, we know there's a connection, not just with Haqqani but also with the other bad guys and ISI, and we think you could do more and we want you to do more about it," a senior US officials told the Times, referring to Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency.

The daily said the meeting could be a sign that the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's ISI "may be deteriorating".

A US official said there was no evidence of official Pakistani support of Al-Qaeda, but there was "genuine and longstanding concerns about Pakistan's ties to the Haqqani network, which of course has ties to Al-Qaeda."

Study: China Trade Deficit Cost Millions of American Jobs

We've known this for decades but it continues unabated. And both parties have been to blame for not protecting American industries. Both parties have been in complicity to sell out America.

The Economic Policy Institute, supported by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, reports that the growth of U.S. trade with China since the country entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has devastated the domestic economy.

The study says China’s soaring deficit cost Americans 2.3 million jobs and $19.4 billion in lost wages between 2001 and 2007.

Virginia lost 39,500 jobs and North Carolina has lost nearly 80,000 jobs to China since 2001. The apparel industry was most affected in North Carolina with 11,372 jobs lost between 2001 and 2007.

North Carolina ranked eighth among the 50 states and Washington D.C., with 79,800 jobs lost. California suffered the most losses, with 325,800 fewer jobs. West Virginia’s job losses totaled 7,200, including 900 workers in the wood products manufacturing industry who were displaced last year.

The Washington, D.C.,-based think tank blamed the trade imbalance for pushing down wages an average of $8,146.

Scott Paul, exeuctive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said any jobs that are being created are not making up for the income lost through jobs shipped overseas.

The study is based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau and United States International Trade Commission.

Video: Countdown Exposes McCain Record on Not Supporting Troops

This segment on Keith Olbermann's Countdown finally puts to rest the notion that McCain is a champion of American troops. The report also debunks the myth that the media is more sympathetic to Obama than McCain.

McCain on Larry King Live (7-28-08): Transcript

Read the entire transcript of John McCain's appearance on Larry King.

KING: Senator, you criticized him for the trip, a trip that you told him to make. MCCAIN: Actually, I was glad that he went to Iraq. I was puzzled and befuddled by the fact that he announced his policy towards Iraq and Afghanistan before he went. I had hoped that he would go, and for the first time, sit down and get a briefing from General Petraeus. You know he never had before?

I had wished, in a way, that he had a hearing in the subcommittee that he chairs on Afghanistan since he has the responsibility oversight of NATO. But incredibly to me, still, is that he does not acknowledge that the surge succeeded. No rational person could go to Iraq in the last few days and compare it to two years ago and not acknowledge that the surge has succeeded. And that's why I question very much why he would continue to fail to acknowledge that a strategy -- admittedly -- he condemned it, he said it wouldn't work, he said that it would make things worse, et cetera.

But at least he ought to acknowledge -- after getting briefed by General Petraeus and meeting these brave young Americans who have sacrificed so much in making sure that this strategy succeeded -- that he should acknowledge their success. How do you welcome this last brigade home that's coming home and say, hey, great job, but by the way, you didn't succeed? I don't know how you do that.

KING: But was he right in saying that a lot more emphasis should have been put on Afghanistan?

MCCAIN: Well, listen, this is -- if we had failed in Iraq, our complications in Afghanistan would have been far, far more complicated.

What Senator Obama doesn't understand is that they are all connected. If we had lost the war in Iraq, we would have had much greater problems in Afghanistan. And also, the strategy that he said wouldn't work in Iraq is the same strategy we have to employ in Afghanistan. It's not just to increase the number of troops; it's secure and hold, it's a government that functions more effectively, it's taking on the narco-traffickers, it's the issue of Pakistan, which is of course the border area -- it's uncontrolled. So it's got to be an overall strategy. And Senator Obama does not understand that, just like he didn't understand the situation in Iraq.

KING: So you're not criticizing him for the trip, which you told him to make, you're criticizing him for what you say is a lack of awareness?

MCCAIN: Lack of understanding -- complete lack of understanding of what America's national security threats are.

But the other thing is that, of course -- the fact that in Germany he did not go to Landstuhl. And I can assure you that the troops welcome, especially those who are the gravely wounded ones, welcome American senators. And if he had wanted to go with just a staffer, I am confident that he could have gone, rather than cancel his trip to see those brave young Americans.

But it's also about bringing back prosperity. KING: He must have understood that. Why do you think he didn't go?

MCCAIN: I have no idea except that I know that according to reports that he wanted to bring media people and cameras and his campaign staffers and I want to guarantee you, if I had gone to Landstuhl, which I have and met with the troops there and met with the wounded but if I had gone there and the military had said, you can't see these wounded people. I guarantee I'd have been on the phone with the secretary of defense immediately. I'd have seen them.

Presidential Candidate Ahead in the Gallup Poll 100 Days From Election Usually Wins

The candidate ahead in the Gallup poll 100 days from the Fall election usually wins. That means that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. This report comes from CNN's pollster Bill Schneider:

Right now, the presidential election is 100 days away, and as we saw only a moment or so ago, our new Poll of Polls shows Obama now nine points ahead of Senator McCain.

Let's bring in our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider. He's watching this story for us. I'm not sure our Poll of Polls does show nine points ahead. I think that was the Gallup poll that showed a nine-point tracking poll. Our Poll of Polls is a little closer, about six points, is that right, Bill?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: The Poll of Polls is six points, and the latest Gallup tracking poll which just came out about an hour ago shows an eight-point lead for Obama.

Well your question, what does it mean, 100 days out? As the one- time Democratic nominee, Al Smith, used to say, let's look at the record.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice over): They say a week is a long time in politics. A hundred days looks like forever. Everything could change. Or could it?

Let's see how accurate the polls were 100 days before the election for the last 50 years.

In three out of 12 elections, the 100-day-out Gallup polls were just about right. 1968, the midsummer poll predicted a close one: Republican Richard Nixon over Democrat Hubert Humphrey by two. Nixon won by one.

1972, the poll predicted a 26-point Nixon landslide. It was nearly that. Nixon beat Democrat George McGovern by 23.

2004, the polls showed a dead heat between George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry. The election was close. Bush by three.

Six times the Gallup poll got the winner right, but the margin was too big. In 1976, for instance, 100 days before the election, the Gallup poll showed Democrat Jimmy Carter leading Republican Gerald Ford by 22. Carter did win, by two.

Only once did the 100-day poll understate the winner's margin. That was in 1984. The midsummer poll showed Reagan getting reelected by 12. He did get reelected, by 18.

Have the 100-day polls ever gotten it wrong? Yes, twice.

In 1960, Nixon led Democrat John Kennedy by six in midsummer. Kennedy ended up winning by less than a point.

In 1988, Democrat Michael Dukakis was 17 points ahead of George Bush in late July. The most famous blown lead in history.

Usually, however, the 100-day poll gets the winner right, but more often than not, the race gets closer. So where are we now? Barack Obama leads John McCain by eight points in the Gallup poll.

It looks like this one could be close.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Why is this race different from all other races? In every one of the last dozen presidential elections, either the president was running for re-election, or the vice president was running to succeed him. Imagine what would be happening if either George W. Bush or Dick Cheney were running this time. But, they're not -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Which makes for some fascinating potential.

Video: Legalized Loan Sharking - Payday Loans

First there was the subprime ripoff. Now those who haven't been finished off by the mortgage collapse and taking out payday loans. In both cases working people are being ripped-off by what are essentially modern day loan sharks. All with the blessing of the government.

Federal Budget Deficit for Fiscal 2009 Projected to Be $490 Billion

Another ignominious Bush record:

The White House is expected to report a projection for a $490 billion budget deficit for the budget year ending in September 2009, a number that would be the highest number recorded.

Senior administration officials confirmed the number to FOX News on Monday, but downplayed the impact of the number. The official said that as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, the deficit projection would be roughly 3 percent to 4 percent.

Another senior administration official said "a lot can happen" in 18 months that could worsen or improve the outlook, such as an improved economy leading to better tax returns, or increased spending under a new administration. The official specifically warned about the impact a Democrats.

"Democrats could blow the doors off spending and drive the deficit even higher," the official said.

McCain on ABC's This Week: Transcript (7-27-08)

Read the entire transcript:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Senator Obama was in London this morning, and he was responding to your comments from yesterday when you said that 16 months might be a pretty good timetable in Iraq.

He said, "We're pleased to see that there's been some convergence around proposals we've been making for a year-and-a-half."

SEN JOHN MCCAIN: That's really good. Look, it's not a timetable, as I said. I was asked, how does that sound? Anything sounds good to me, but...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you never used the word before.

MCCAIN: ... you know, the point is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made a point of never using...

MCCAIN: ... I never...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the word before.

MCCAIN: Look, I have always said, and I said then, it's the conditions on the ground. If Senator Obama had had his way, we'd have been out last March, and we'd been out in defeat and chaos, and probably had to come back again because of Iranian influence.

It's conditions on the ground -- the way that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, the way that General Petraeus has said -- conditions on the ground, so that the Iraqi government can have control, can have the sufficient security, so that we don't have to come back. Senator Obama said that if his date didn't work, we may have to come back.

We're not coming home in victory. We're coming home in victory.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it does seem...

MCCAIN: But it is a -- it is not a date. I want to make it very clear to you, it is not a date. It's conditions on the ground.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you shouldn't have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: Pardon me?

STEPHANOPOULOS: You shouldn't have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: I didn't use the word timetable. That I did -- if I did...

Transcript: Karl Rove on FOX News Sunday (7-27-08)

Read the entire transcript:

WALLACE: First of all, your overview of Obama's trip — did he shore up his credibility as a potential president and commander in chief?

ROVE: I think the short answer to that is we don't know. Every big event like this has plusses and minuses. And there are some things that he did that did shore up his standing.

For example, he was on the same world — he was on the same stage with world leaders. There was the shot of him in the helicopter with Petraeus over Baghdad in the stories. And he clearly dominated the media with his world tour for, you know, more than a week.

He received a semi-endorsement from Maliki of this idea that U.S. troops could be brought out by the — by 2010, though there is a big difference, I think, underneath the surface between Obama's view and Maliki's view.

And finally, he had these huge crowds in Germany. And those were all on the plus side, and that helped him.

On the other hand, he remains against the policy — the surge — that made success in Iraq possible, and I think that's hard to fathom. The dominant photograph of the opening stage of this world tour was him hitting a three-point shot in Afghanistan. I'm not certain that's the best image if you want to say, "I'm a world leader."

He had three tough interviews with Terry Moran, Katie Couric, Gibson — they were all tough interviews. And the crowd was big, but it was in Germany, and he's running for president of the United States, not president of Europe.

And then finally, we had this dust-up over the visit to wounded troops, and there was also sort of a hint of arrogance. They demanded that they be — that he be treated as a — as the occupant of the White House, with White House rules.

And I think, frankly, finally, the speech in Germany, while it was soaring in its rhetoric, was actually, you know, somewhat vacuous. I mean, I'm not certain there was much "there" there. And he's received some criticism in the European press for it.

So on balance, I think, short-term plus, but potentially a long- term — long-term, it might not make that big a difference for him.

WALLACE: I want to go back to the — particularly the reception from the Europeans and that extraordinary crowd in Berlin — 200,000, according to police reports.

Back in 2004, you and other Republicans went after John Kerry as being too continental, too European, in his sensibility. I talked to the Obama camp about that this week, and one of the top strategists said to me that they feel the country is way past 2004 and freedom fries and now would very much welcome European support.

Video: Home Energy Prices Could Soar

With no relief in site. It's a fine mess this oil President has gotten us into. At least his friends are benefiting. Can you imagine what your energy costs would be if the Bush and his neocon handlers decided to attack Iran?

Obama on Meet The Press: Transcript (7-27-08)

The interview was done from London by Tom Brokaw. Read the entire transcript:

MR. BROKAW: Do you believe that President Maliki would be in a position to more or less endorse your timetable of getting troops out within 16 months if it had not been for the surge?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, we don't know, because in my earlier statements--I mean, I know that there's that little snippet that you ran, but there were also statements made during the course of this debate in which I said there's no doubt that additional U.S. troops could temporarily quell the violence. But unless we saw an underlying change in the politics of the country, unless Sunni, Shia, Kurd made different decisions, then we were going to have a civil war and we could not stop a civil war simply with more troops. Now, I, I...

MR. BROKAW: But couldn't they make that political decision because troops were there to help them make it.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, the--well, the--look, there's no doubt, and I've said this repeatedly, that our troops make a difference. If--you know, they do extraordinary work. The troops that I met, they were proud of their work, they had made enormous sacrifices, they had fought, they had helped to construct schools and, and rebuilt the countryside. But, for example, in Anbar Province, where we went to visit, the Sunni awakening took place before the surge started, and tribal leaders made a decision that, instead of fighting the Americans, we're going to work with the Americans against al-Qaeda. That was a political decision that was made that has made a huge difference in this entire process.

So the, the point I want to make is this, Tom, I mean, you know, if we want to look at the question of judgment which is the one that John McCain raised, John McCain's essential focus has been on the tactical issue of sending more troops, and he's, he's made his entire approach to foreign policy rest on that support of Bush's decision to send more troops in. But we can have a whole range of arguments about past decisions--the decision to go into Iraq in the first place, and whether that was a good strategic decision, where we've spent a trillion dollars at least by the time this thing is over, lost thousands of lives in pursuit of goals John McCain supported that turned out to be false. We can make decisions about does it make sense for us to set a time frame for withdrawal to encourage the kind of political reconciliation that needs to take place to stabilize Iraq. We can talk about the distractions from hunting down al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where there is no doubt that we would be further along had we not engaged in some of these actions, and...

MR. BROKAW: But we have to talk about the reality of what's going on in Iraq right now.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, but, but, but, let me...

MR. BROKAW: And the Anbar awakening, most people believe, was successful in large part because the American troops did come in and make it possible for them to have the kind of political reconciliation...

Click for more from 'Meet the Press'
Obama sticks to his guns on 'Meet the Press'

SEN. OBAMA: Tom, look--Tom, I'm, I'm--the fact that--the...

MR. BROKAW: Do you disagree with that?

SEN. OBAMA: As I said before, our troops made an enormous contribution, but to try to single out one factor in a very messy situation is just not accurate, and it doesn't, it doesn't take into account the larger strategic issues that have been at stake throughout this process. Look, we've got a finite amount of resources. We've got a finite number of troops. Our military is stretched extraordinarily because of trying to fight two wars at the same time. And so my job as the next commander in chief is going to be to make a decision what is the right war to fight, and, and how do we fight it? And I think that we should have been focused on Afghanistan from the start. We should have finished that job. We have not, but we now have the opportunity, moving forward, to begin a phased redeployment and to make sure that we're finishing the job in Afghanistan.

- See a 9 minute video excerpt from the interview.

McCain: Immigration Reform Like My Becoming an "Astronaut"

Another strange comment from John McCain. He is essentially telling us, in this interview with a Pennsylvania newspaper, that immigration reform is as likely as him becoming an astronaut and landing on the moon. Read the entire transcript of the interview:

Q: The immigration legislation that you worked on in the Senate last year. Would you try to get that passed as president?

A: Of course, it was my proposal twice, but the fact is it was rejected twice. I mean I’d like to be on the next launch to the moon. I’d like to be an astronaut. There’s a lot of things I’d like to see. Working

together, in a bi-partisan fashion with the president, we thought we came up with a proposal that would address all aspects of the issue. We failed.

Rather than go back and fail again, we need to secure the borders and make sure that Americans have that confidence in border security and then we move on to other issues.

Video: Barack Obama on Meet The Press (7-27-08)

The interview was held in London by Tom Brokaw. Read the entire transcript:

Video: Increased Dangers on America's Beaches

You need to see this video before going to the beach this weekend. We must deal with the fact that the environment is playing a greater role in our lives. We need to be prepared.