chaos and honey

.............anyone care to try this one out?

some of my take.........
ok now that the 'citizens' of france have made their decision, next up is the dutch who are sure to vote no - particularly now that the french have shown them the way........
is there any chance the british public will vote yes on the consitution if given a choice too?
seems to me as an outsider that a yes vote would have solidified the once utopian dream of trying to unite europe under one political banner and economic mode.........
the no vote shatters this hope and keeps alive the old europe of many cultures under a leaky umbrella.........
all of this being said, turkey is the country that will be sure to remember yesterday's vote. they made a political deal with france that would allow them to get into the eu sometime down the road for a 'we will not support' the u.s. effort in iraq........
well, turkey has now quite possibly been shown the door because of yesterday's vote and may coming crawling back to the 'u.s. sphere of influence' in the coming months.
end of day, as much as democracy is supposed to be for one and all, this vote yesterday proves politicians with NO cohonees that leave the tough choices to 'their public' even after being voted in can and will find that the public much of the time is too busy voting with their emotions instead of their brains.
this vote should have never been allowed into the public arena. it will take the eu another twenty years to put this past them. i suspect several politicos in the states and china just about now are having nice tall drinks and saluting the french 'citizens' for allowing them to stay ahead of the game.........
paris is about to get attention, and the 'french' love attention, lets see how they talk themselves out of this one........
"Yes, but it is a beautiful remindier that citizens expressions are heard, even if the music isn't quite played the way we want......"
i can hear it now.........
the real trouble will begin when the dutch vote no and the european govts start to realize that their vision of the eu is a dead end in the hands of the folk.
if the eu is to grow into a unified, cohesive entity that is economically sound and not consisting of different platforms in every other backyard it has a long way to go.
in essense what the europeans are now being asked to vote on is a commitment to an entity and a foundation in which to let it proceed politically and economically as a unit. there is a very clear historical parallel with the united states when it tried for over ten years to create its constitution in order to bring its states under one federal jurisdiction.
what transpired on sunday is bad long term for the eu.
the vote no by the french and tomorrow's NO vote by the dutch will set this process back quite a bit and will give 'local' govts the ability for a time to take even wider lattitude in their economic budgets and they will feel lesser possibility of being held accountable for transgressions.
the eu will go forward, but i predict it will be the 'eastern' states that push for a cohesive unity now and they will do this because they first and foremost know what it is like to exist on the edge and have their nations existence threatened.
in the end, if a united europe is too suceed it would be wise to look at the forumla used in the states to create tiered govt that works.
that should take only about a hundred more years for the europeans to learn to accept.

Orchid  

Full Bloom 

scarface revisited......

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/international/americas/24mexico.html?hp

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

here is an interesting list compiled by a couple of Time magazine critics. everyone i am sure will have their own version of what should be on it and what should not, but i was surprised that this list actually includes many good movies and it is not as top heavy as i thought it would be with 'newer' movies.......

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1116642367186

nice little rally against israel held in britain, love was not exactly in the air......

sports.espn.go.com/nba/dr...id=2063740

above link are doug gottlieb's thoughts on nba teams drafting high school kids and he is obviously not a fan of the practice.
he is also wrong imo.
so what is his point exactly? that if you flounder in college it is better than fizzling in the nba and never having been awarded a multi-million dollar first round contract?
and since when does even competing at the college level and becoming eligible for the nba draft make you a 'certain success' in the nba?
doesn't happen, most guys drafted into the nba in the first round are no longer playing in 'the league' within five years.......
why do i take umbrage at this article? because as much as he thrashes the idea of kids going from high school to the nba draft, he doesn't say that the success/ failure rate is proportional to all of our lives.
not all of us become first round draft choices. some of us go unselected and mature into great people, some of us continue to wallow in turmoil.
most of us take chances in life in order to go forward and attain our goals - win or lose.as for the age minimum in the nba, why do we want it in place exactly? to spare a life of desperation for the kids that don't make it into the nba? i highly doubt that, what happens to the kids who sign major league baseball contracts out of high school who fail, what about the teens active in the tennis tournaments throughout the world? what is the rate of success amongst their numbers trying to attain the top levels of their sporting professions?
no, seems to me that we want the age limitations because it would help the universities with millions of dollars on the line and fans who want their college game to be what it was twenty years ago (me included).
as much as i am for watching the best kids play in college and a well played game, too, i think it should be the right of the young man and his parents/ guardians (if they have a say) as to when the young man wants to take on the risks & responsibilities - win or lose..........of playing professional ball.

odd news story of the day imo, a brief quote.....
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON, Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Legislature has repealed a 330-year-old law that barred American Indians from entering Boston and has long irked area tribes _ even though it hasn't been enforced. Both the House and the Senate on Thursday voted to strike down the 1675 law passed during King Philip's War between colonists and area Indians, and that has remained on the books ever since..............

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/18/wtc.trump/index.html

i agree with donald trump regarding the wtc and its rebuilding. he makes a significant and important point, i will paraphrase him
" if someone destroyed the statue of liberty you wouldn't replace it with something else, you would build the same thing"........

oil for food (actually turns out cash) crisis is getting interesting now,
this because politicians being named are screaming bloody murder. interesting that the politicians are screaming and the u.n. does nothing but say that 'over sights and mistakes' were made.
this is probably because politicians fear losing their jobs and the u.n. people do not.
also interesting to see people try and turn the story around and blame the u.s. now for not acting.
what exactly were they going to do? bomb the french, english, germans, russians, and one biz guy in texas?
no, the u.s. is the only one to my knowledge making sure this investigation comes to light while all others wished it away.
all politicians and businessmen who have been named should get their day in court ( & in front of various hearings too) and if found guilty should be made to issue statements of apology and be skewed publically.
BUT this does nothing to the u.n. which looks to get away with this heist while being the biggest transgressor of all, afterall, it was their program that was corrupt and corrupt from within i might add.
days of wine and roses continues for the u.n.........looking good is still much more important than having any substance.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/576798.html
for a long time i have been advocating getting both palestinian and israeli kids together under a cultural and sports guise. it seems that little by little people are beginning to realize that getting children together and having them see and participate with known icons and activities that are close to their hearts is a way of showing them that they are not so different from one another.
yesterday an attempt at bringing ronaldo into israeli backfired when the crowd got out of hand cutting short his visit.
i could write an entire essay on the failure of police in israel on knowing how to be 'real' police, this because they have been trained essentially regarding in dealing with security threats. they are not the best in dealing with crowds that get out of hand who are not a mortal threat to the country. they tend to let things get out of control and stand helplessly by as people nearly riot.
want an other example look at the gush katiff/ settler movement which shuts down the highways here when demonstrating against the pull out. the police are ineffective at best and allow the demonstrators freedom of movement causing delays on major highways and making it impossible for people in need to get to destinations. i witnessed an amubulance stuck in traffic yesterday, idling in place with its sirens wailing for fifteen minutes as it tried to make its way though a jam of cars on highway 4. but i digress.........
futbol, music, art, and other activities are ways of getting people and children together......
hopefully they will choose to be a bit more polite to their icons in the future though.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2057633

i hope that this idea goes the distance. will be very interesting to see how a real 'world series' plays out and how it will develop over the next twenty years. latin america and asia will give the states a run for their money in nearly no time.
if the 'high commission' of baseball does their homework they could make this competition worthy of international attention second only to the world cup.

the mexican / u.s. immigration saga is a two way street. much of this post is a compilation of notes written by me to a friend.
mexico needs the cash inflow from its citizens working up in 'gringo' land to be sent back home.
what is the dollar value of money sent from illegal workers to their families?
got to be in the billions i presume annually.......
states needs cheap supply of labor, and allow me to point out this labor consist of not only farm labor but many jobs in small to medium sized factories such as stone fabrication facilities. there a good worker of illegal means can still earn from $ 15.00 to $20.00 an hour if they are trained and provide their shop with good production..........
the 'illegals' know enough to be aware that if they are not paid well for their work that they can go to a competitor down the block.
simple fact is that u.s. companies small and medium sized can get better production and a lower cost of labor using the illegals. simply put there is profit on both sides of this equation for the americans and mexicans (and other illegals).......
it is not only a question about money but just as importantly how the money is made. production from the illegals is almost twice that in terms of real work done than compared to almost anyone else any agricultural companies can find who is a 'citizen' and doesn't feel the need to work quite as hard.......
same goes for factory production when comparing trained 'illegals' to that of trained and often soon to become disgruntled 'citizens' who will fight for a couple of more coffee breaks and manage to blow another hour during the day in conversation.......instead of really working.
same goes for construction crews who are hired and run by the medium and small companies compared to union guys who manage to work in a cohesive unit on the slow....
mind you i am not making light of the american workers, i am making light of 'citizen' workers around the globe compared to those who feel like their job is a need and salvation instead of somewhere to hang out and collect a pay check the end of the week.
let me point out that i would hire a palestinian over an israeli as an example in a split second for any job that was labor intensive for the same reason........it is a cold hard fact around the world that we in the 'first world & emerging markets' have for the most part become spoiled and would rather let someone else toil for us instead of getting our own hands dirty.
while i will agree 100% that the states needs to protect it national security, it should be pointed out that a terrorist could just as easily come from within and be a citizen or holding a green card or merely a valid visa. big borders create big headaches but i suspect if it is a question about which is going to win a battle in terms of importance - the economy will win over issues of security in this particular venue..........
things could change as we know, another day of 'where were you when such and such happened?' is all it will take.
but until that wretched day or until massive unemployment hits, the jobs being filled by the 'illegals' are ones the 'citizens' simply do not want, nor can the 'citizens' function properly within them.

what is the unemployment rate in the states right now? around 5-5.5 % - is that correct?
since when are all 'citizens' entitled to not only employment but superior job satisfaction as well......my point, most americans would not accept the jobs that illegals are taking if they were expected to produce at the same rate as the 'illegals'.
as for it being a question of capital investment over cheap labor i am not sure i agree.
my thinking is that there is no way to substitute cheap labor and high production particularly in the small to medium construction companies that are involved in much of the building industry through out the states. any time you can hire a crew of five guys and get the day over at a costs of less than $900 - $ 800 dollars a day you are doing pretty well compared to companies that are bound to use union employees or 'citizens'. this because the union employees will cost almost triple that amount of money and because the 'citizens' even though being paid almost the same will produce at a rate that is almost half - thus double time/ costs.
as for capital investment it is always needed......but if i understand the usage correctly capital investment goes towards machines and technology as much as it does towards training of employees.
construction industry imo spends a great deal of money on its tools, machines, and training of individuals - including 'illegals' this because you never want to see a good employee walk out the door and work for a competitor.
as for the idea of LEGAL immigration, it is a good idea and one that could be tried. but a rather politically Incorrect question comes up, why isn't it tried? is it possible ( i really am asking - not simply being rhetorical ) that the states doesn't want to open its doors completely because if fears the 'browning' of america? this because most of the immigrants would come from latin america at this time....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/nyregion/13hillary.html?hp

i am wondering if the pressure now on tony blair to step down as prime minister can be compared to the infighting that seemingly is taking place amongst the republicans in the states, i.e. bush's u.n. nominee getting whacked (though not knocked out yet) and DeLay's battles......
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/international/middleeast/14seddigh.html?hp
as much as the public doesn't like long wars and bloodshed, political parties particularly from democratic environs seem to tolerate them almost less and leave for weak stamina and sometimes an even weaker game plan.
much as i hate to say it, america may be winning the ground battles, but they are losing the propaganda war.......
blair may well be a casualty from this onslaught politically.
seems that all bets on the republicans (even though it is spectacularly early) to perform well and hold their power will depend on the economy (including budgets, taxes, social security, inflation & interest rate) ..........
having said that democrats seem to be finding a unified topic in one simple campaign synapses -
and that is...... you cannot trust g.w. bush.
if they keep hammering away at this they might regain power in the span of four years. having said that 'the good ship lollipop' has a long lasting staying power.
bush has the benefit of not having to run for office again, he has enough time to realize this still and make political hay out of it and use what ever political force he has to consolidate a certain type of mandate..........
question is if the republicans will actually feel as if they share his beliefs and respect his power.
democrats also have the uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot time and time again. naming of howard dean as democratic watch dog will work against them long term.
i suspect hillary will tear apart the party too.
democrats have only themselves to fear and that seems to be plenty nowadays.

An Orchid Grows In Kfar Saba