owadays there are more contractors in Iraq than there are soldiers. We don't know for sure, but there are at least 180,000 of them and they are hired from all over the world. It appears that the prime reason is that we need them in the current situation. There's an insufficiency of soldiers to equip and sustain a deployed force, without end, for who knows how many years. Robert Scheer, a regular columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, in an enlightened and scathing commentary on the issue wrote, "... consider the irony... that the U.S. experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that drove the founders of our own country, to launch the American Revolution". As George Washington warned in his farewell address, once the American government enters into these "foreign entanglements", we lose the Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed to the necessities of war for empire".
The men of companies like Blackwater earn substantially more than our fighting men and women. As Scheer put it, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is dependent upon killer mercenaries." I'd respect reading your response; is he overly critical or frankly accurate?

The Republicans appear to be planting the seeds of a constitutional crisis in California in order to dilute the almost guaranteed Democratic Party victory in the election. It could possibly reverse the expected outcome of the election. The legislation is named The Presidential Election Reform Act. The proposal would re-write the rules for the distribution of electoral votes in California. As it stands now, under current law, all of California's 55 electoral votes will go to the presidential candidate who wins thy popular statewide vote. The proposal would rewrite the rules for the distribution of electoral votes, from the winner-take-all system, which is the tried and true system in the United States. Under the proposed change, electoral votes would be apportioned according to the winner of the popular vote in each of California's Congressional districts. Bob Herbet, writing on the subject in the Los Angeles Times feels that would likely throw at least 20 electoral votes to the Republican candidate. It could very likely be passed. As Herbert wrote, " a sign of the bad faith in this proposal is the fact that there is no similar effort by the G.O.P. to apportion districts in places like Texas, a state with 34 electoral votes, and a state that is likely to go GOP anyway.
The proposal will almost certainly get the support it needs to get on the ballot, then we hope that Californian voters would soundly defeat this awful proposal if it gets on the ballot.

If I was back on the air, who would I want, right now, as a couple of guests? Easy to answer, Jeffrey Toobin the legal scholar, author of "The Nine" which takes us inside the secret world of the Supreme Court. He reveals a lot about the present and probable future make-up of the highest court in the land. Toobin, the legal,analyst at CNN asserts that the outcome of the election is the only factor that will determine the future of the Supreme Court. He sees it becoming more and more conservative.
And the retired chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. As chairman of the Fed he was, in all likelihood, the second most powerful man in the world. His book is "The Age of Turbulence, adventures in a new world". The man the financial world calls "The Oracle" blames fellow Republicans for abandoning conservative principles and saddling taxpayers with huge federal deficits. His strongest criticism goes to George W. Bush, calling the president an incurious ideologue with little interest in economic matters, who allowed a runaway Republican Congress to rack up huge deficits. Greenspan writes that in the 2006 they deserved to lose the election.

I wonder if you too are watching with interest the high school teacher from Oregon's lawsuit; suing for the right to bring her gun to school. She acquired a concealed weapons permit awhile ago as a protection against an abusive ex-husband, but now says that the shootings, such as those at Virginia Tech last April, have convinced her that she needs her gun in class in case some crazed student goes on a rampage. You know the NRA's stance on teacher's having guns, what's your view? Would you want teachers to be armed... and dangerous?

A word about the President and how cleverly the Republicans are using the war to their advantage, in the election. Let us not forget, it is the Bush war. He and he alone is responsible for our presence in Iraq, But by pretending that the decisions rest not with him, but with the military, President Bush forces the Democrats to criticize a respected General, David Petraeus. It makes Democrats appear unpatriotic, as if they don't support the troops. For Bush it is truly clever politicking, but it comes at a high price; the principal of the civilian leadership's supremacy over the generals will be weakened.