Politics and Policy   It galls me that President Bush continues to claim that he and the Republican Party are making America safe from terrorism, and criticizes Democrats (or any of his critics, for that matter), for endangering America. As we well know, prior to 9/11, Al Quida was a relatively small (but well-funded group) who’s primary recruiting advantage was the continued American military presence in Saudi Arabia, which some Muslims felt was an occupation of their Holy Land by infidels. Relatively few Muslims really felt endangered by America because, well, there weren’t many Americans to be seen. But that all changed with the Iraq war, and now Iraq is the premier recruiting tool and terrorism training center for Muslim extremist groups. But foreign policy aside, let us look at what the U.S. has done to improve border security. I’m not talking about the leaky border with Mexico, but instead with incoming transportation of person and cargo by air and ocean, which go through border customs stations, things which are regularly under the purview of Customs and Immigration inspections. A customs broker (and former Republican) recently complained to me that the changes he has seen with respect to cargo shipments are “all for show”. Now they require more forms to be filled out, on both sides of the ocean, before shipments arrive. This doesn’t mean that more cargo containers will actually be inspected (only a nominal number are), it just means that more paperwork has to be processed. Now, before sending a suitcase nuclear bomb or poison into the U.S., a terrorist has to sign an oath that he is not importing anything improper. (I can just imagine the frustrated terrorist – “My goodness, our plans have all been for naught – I cannot ship this into the U.S. without signing a form in advance, under penalty of perjury! Surely the prosecution for making a false declaration on the form is more severe than any other punishment I might receive for shipping a weapon of mass destruction into the U.S.! Surely we must abandon our plans!!!!!!”) Then there are the people who arrive into the U.S. by air or through our border crossings. In the past, anyone arriving from Canada and Mexico didn’t need passports if they merely declared themselves to be U.S. citizens and have a driver’s license from a state to prove their identity. Since state driver’s licenses are notoriously easy to fake (ask any underage drinker), this was certainly a big loophole. And the proposal to issue “high-tech” visas to immigrants into the U.S. doesn’t do a bit of good if an illegal immigrant simply alleges he is an American citizen, and is therefore not required to carry any form of I.D. while in the U.S., and only needs a driver’s license to get into the U.S. The obvious answer here is that there needs to be a national identity card, along with a unique trackable ID number. Social security numbers don’t work as they currently exist, because a few years after a person dies they are re-circulated. Now, a unique ID number and a national identity card has a lot of advantages, because it can help reveal identity theft (multiple residential addresses can raise a red flag). Such identity cards are mandatory in almost every other developed nation. But it won’t happen here in the U.S., because some people fear it is one of the final steps before the tribulations in the book of Revelation, or a method for some tyrannical government to keep track of rebellious citizens. These arguments have never been very convincing to me. After all, if God says it is time for the world to come to an end, I find it hard to believe that any law we enact in the U.S. Congress is going to have any impact on hastening or delaying that event. Secondly, given the amount of tracking which is currently done upon U.S. citizens both privately (credit bureaus, banks, etc.) and governmental (warrantless wiretaps, etc.), it seems that the horse has already left the barn on that one. So as a halfway measure, the Bush administration decided that U.S. Citizens traveling abroad in the future need a passport to return to the U.S. But they didn’t appropriate any extra money to process the easily anticipated additional workload. Instead, initial passport application screening was – wait for it – outsourced to CitiCorp! Since the contract with CitiCorp didn’t provide for the additional workload, a huge backlog immediately developed. And on top of that, they failed to hire additional federal workers for the “final screening”. Those federal workers are expected to process and protect America from terrorists by spending no more than four minutes on each passport before approving or rejecting it. (Remember, after all, Republicans are the party of “smaller government”). So now thousands of Americans are waiting months for their passports, and having to cancel vacation plans when they don’t arrive. Faced with the ire of a considerable number of voters (many of whom are more well-to-do than average), Congress immediately calls administration officials on the carpet to answer for the delays. So faced with this problem, the White House sees this as not an administrative foul-up, or a failure to adjust the budget and taxing policies to meet a threat to public safety. Instead, it sees this merely as a public-relations problem. Much like they did with Katrina. The Republican answer to a public relations problem is to (a) quiet the victims quiet as fast as possible, by promising to spend more money to make things right, (b) complain on the side that it really is the victim’s fault, they should have applied earlier, and (c) deflect public attention elsewhere, and then never spend the money as promised, because there is no money available to spend without increasing taxes or decreasing money for the Iraq war. Specifically with respect to the passport problem, we see the “Katrina” response mode in effect. First, the administration promises to be “flexible” about the passport application process. “Flexible”???? What does this mean????? Are they going to compromise the security of the most important document the federal government can give its citizens, and the first line of defense against terrorists entering the U.S., in order to make some wealthy citizens happy so they don’t have to cancel their vacation cruises overseas after Bush & Co. screwed up providing basic government administrative services once again????? And today, we find that they are going to postpone the passport requirement for yet another year, to give more time for the passports to be issued. No world on if they are going to hire more passport workers. So any terrorists who want to enter the U.S. from Canada on a fake driver’s license knows that he has another year with which to put his plans into effect. And why is ANY part of the passport issuance process outsourced? Want to bet that those bank workers handling these applications are paid less than $10.00 per hour, and speed is valued by management over terrorist screening? (These are the same people who process torn and re-taped credit card applications because they say their job is only to process the applications, not to reject them). Want to bet that at least ONE of them is a security risk for participating in identity theft? Which brings us to the primary lesson, once again: If you want good government, you don’t hand it over to people who hate government as a general principle. (Posted by Rick from Seattle, June 21, 2007).   College Rowing Scholarships Title IX has made hundreds of college rowing scholarships available for women rowers, and recently some colleges have even begun to offer scholarships to a select few of their men's rowers, also. Who gets these scholarships, and how do those rowers get noticed by the college coaches, whereas others do not? What type of athelete is the college coach looking for? Can non-rowers really have a chance at a rowing scholarship? What NCAA regulations impact a high school student hoping to row in college? This page is devoted to resources which help answer those questions.            Copyright 2006-2007 - Brookridge Associates Inc. All rights reserved.