With the uprising of the BALCO investigation and the integrity of baseball imperiled, one must ask the question, "Does the American public take sports too seriously?"
Mitch Cozad, backup punter at Northern Colorado has answered the aforementioned question unequivocally. In the era of steroids, which has prompted the increasing of the stringency of drug testing, Cozad decided to attempt an alternative method of performance enhancement.
On Monday night, Cozad stabbed starting-punter Rafael Mendoza in the kicking leg. Some might say that this is simply a case of acting without thinking -- however, a quick look at the motive points in the opposite-direction. Whatever pressures Cozad was facing that week, he obviously felt it necessary to obtain the starting roll -- extremely necessary.
Now, I hate to speculate on matters like these -- but I will anyways. More than likely, we're looking at a prototypical plight of peer pressure -- how about that alliteration? I'm having fun, let's make more assumptions. It's quite probable that said pressure was applied by a mixture of media and parental expectations
I mean, that's how it is -- right? If you're not the starter, you're obviously not very good -- especially when we're talking about punting. It's bad enough being the backup-quarterback, I can't even imagine what it must be like to take the spot of backup-punter. Because, we all know how often punters go-down in the game of football -- it's almost inconceivable.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe Cozad just got caught up in the adrenaline -- which, of course, comes hand-in-hand with punting -- saw Mr. Big-Shot-Mendoza walking to his car -- surrounded by attractive women, as he is the staring punter -- and decided, "I'm going to put that guy in his place."
On the other hand, maybe not.
Now that I've ripped on punters as much as humanly possible, let's get serious. This is the future generation we're talking about, after all. Have we really gotten to the point where if one misses the starting job, he or she should stab the starter?
The sad, but ultimate truth is that sports are being taken far too passionately. Now, it's deplorable to mention politics on any website which relates to sports -- we've lost touch with reality, and sports are pulling us further and further away. It's time to sit down and have that platitudinous conversation with your kids and let them know that it really is acceptable to be the backup.
It's kids like Mitch Cozad who remind us what can happen to an insecure adolescent who just can't #### the fact that he is the reserve. This is true of many college athletes who spend much of their high school careers as the star-players of their respective towns -- regardless of position. Unfortunately, with the coming of high expectations, there will be cases of consummate failure, which will test the will-power of the person involved.
Honestly, we can all sit and laugh at the stupidity of Cozad's actions, or we can learn from them. These situations occur every day, whether or not the proverbial Mitch Cozad decides to express his anger physically or emotionally -- upon himself or upon others -- we need to recognized that there is a problem, and work on a solution to fix that problem.
Because my first blog seems to be locking up -- this second blog will be used for a continuance of the ongoing discussion.
Here is a copy of the original post:
Danica Patrick, after dropping out of high school, electing to take a GED test instead, and moving to England, slipped her way into the IRL and into the national spotlight. It has been widely accepted that her appearance in IRL events is, for the most part, a mild attempt at publicity for an oft-incon####uous sport. Yes, Patrick was just the con####uousness that IndyCar needed, and apparently, is going to hold on to after Patrick denied any plans of switching over to NASCAR.
Naturally, if Danica wanted to make such a move, NASCAR fans and media enthusiasts alike would support the move emphatically -- putting together their early predictions for which NASCAR events Danica would win, and how the move would benifit her incalculably. Nevermind the fact that her qualifications are imperceptible, nevermind that she has never finished above 4th in an IndyCar event, nevermind that her greatest career accomplishment was leading at Indianapolis -- Patrick's move would be insanely agreed-upon. And why not? She harbors public attention, is an excellent media incentive, and helps IndyCar brush-off the notion that it discriminates against certain individuals. And while some people concur that certain sports should be exclusively men -- just ask Keith Hernandez -- the including of Patrick certainly plasters the word 'humanitarian' accross the face of IndyCar Racing in the eyes of most.
Really -- who cares about the repercussions? Right? The United States certainly applies this philosophy.
The great John Lennon once said, "If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." The great George Bush once said, "#### Saddam, we're taking him out," more than a year before invading Iraq. The great #### Cheney once said about the possibility of a War in Iraq, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries," on the topic of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The always reliable Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz once said, "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." White House Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card said, "From a marketing point of view, you don't roll out new products in August," when asked about why Bush watied until after Labor Day to convince the American public that the War in Iraq was warranted. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Then, in June of that year (2003) said, "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." And to top it off, when asked about the number of Iraqi insurgents, he said, ""I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, on July 9, 2003, said, "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."
What sad times these are when musicians, known drug-addicts, make more sense than the politicians who we put in the White House. The fact of the matter is, Bush was much more rational before he was in control of our country; during his campaign in 2000 Bush told voters in the second presidential debate that, "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'" It's a shame that people will simply say anything to disagree with what another one says, or to promote himself in the public eye. So why would a man who upheld such beliefs invade Iraq? Perhaps his interview with Pat Robertson shed some light. When Robertson advised Bush to prepare the public for casualties in Iraq, Bush responded, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
This, my friends, is the rationale the US leaders use when justifying wars. Presidents who showed some semblance of intelligence while campagning elect to leave that intelligence behind and do whatever it is they "feel like" doing. No -- strike that -- whatever "God told them to do". Once again, quoting Bush (June 2003), "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did." If any normal American were to say something of the sort, he or she would be ostracized in society and, most likely, shipped off to an asylum for mental treatment -- when George Bush says it, we re-elect him. The strong political winds of nationalism that Bush has done an excellent job in swaying in his favor blind Americans of their prudence and leave behind the scent of gunpowder and the sound of the World Trade Centers collapsing.
And I reiterate how ironic it is that the man who put this reasoning in the best words is Bush, himself. It's our own involvment in affairs that are none of this country's business which prompted the 9/11 attacks, couple that with our own negligence of homeland security -- or perhaps, the allowance of such attacks to occur, as former American military analyst, Daniel Ellsberg believes -- and what you have is a massive tragedy. What's more, the fact that this tragedy was used to manipulate the minds of millions of Americans brings the legitimacy of the attacks themselves into question.
To say that the government told the public about every aspect of 9/11 would be naive. What the American public does see is the incessantly-replayed images of the World Trade Centers crashing towards the ground, thousands of people trapped within -- the images of people leaping from the windows of their 80th-story windows. What the American public doesn't hear about are the four hijackers who are still alive-and-well. What we don't hear about are the pilots, who couldn't even control small propeller aircrafts, according to their instructors, flying massive commercial airliners at the height of a lawn-mower. We don't hear about the fact that the World Trade Centers were built to withstand the impact of a 707 jet-liner which is nearly the same size, and travels 100 mph faster than the 767's which hit the towers. We don't hear about the 81 eye-witnesses, including more than 20 trained firefighters stationed around the buildings, who heard explosions 20 seconds before the Center's collapse. The fact that, as Lieutenant-Fireman Paul Isaac Jr. said, "Many firemen knew there were bombs in the buildings but they're afraid for their jobs to admit it because the 'higher-ups' forbid the discussion of this fact." The fact that CIA director Robert Woosley reported that, "There were definitely bombs in those buildings." The fact that never in the history of the world has a steel-framed building EVER collapsed due to fire, and despite this, somehow, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was just outside the World Trade Center building, was warned that "the World Trade Centers are going to collapse, we must leave now." And that, even though such information was, apparently, available, it was not told to the firemen who died inside of the buildings when they collapsed. The public was told that there existed no video footage of the 757 hitting the Pentagon; however, a few years later, the government releases frames from a security camera which show the blurred image of something hitting the Pentagon. The footage which the FBI siezed, a matter of seconds after the attack, telling those who had viewed it to never discuss what they had seen. We don't hear about the rehearsal of the attacks on the Pentagon in the Mass Casualty planning exercise in 2000. We don't hear about the fact that Hani Hanjour, the "pilot" of the plane which hit the Pentagon was pulled over for speeding in August of 2001, three-weeks-later, he sent a check in for $100 to pay the ticket and court charges. Yes, this is the same suicidal maniac, the one who finds our government to be evil, who sent this check.
In 1998, Payne Stewart, a professional golfer, was aboard his private jet -- when his pilots stopped responding to Air Traffic Controllers, five F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to the location of his jet within 18 minutes, even though Stewart was flying in a very rural area. American flight 11 took an unexpected turn at 8:28 PM and hit the first Trade Center 27 minutes later; the second flight, which hit tower #2, went off course 35 minutes before crashing. An Air Force Base rests 71 miles away from the World Trade Centers -- F-16's can fly at speeds in excess of 1500 mph, it would have taken 150-210 seconds to get to the towers. Oh -- and flight 77 flew within 8 miles of the White House, where there are Anti-Aircraft guns which can fire heat-seeking missiles up to 18 miles.
All coincidences, the government contended, just before they used the attacks as justification for an invasion on foreign soil. After easing the spirits of Americans, they gently made their way over into Iraq, which had absolutely no connections with the 9/11 attacks, and began to dictate which type of government the country should be run-under. And we wonder why much of the world express much displeasure over our actions? If we are really the "peace-makers" which we claim to be, why aren't we in Africa, where thousands of people are the victim of mass-genocide and extreme starvation? Oh yeah, forgot -- God told President Bush to invade Iraq. Isn't it great how well we elevate the standard of separation of church and state?
While the rest of the world slowly becomes enraged by our arrogance, we sit back, planning out the future of another country's government -- maybe we should force them all to learn English. Wait, then we could no longer use the excuse that it's difficult to decipher between civilian and Iraqi military men to explain the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
We condemn communist governments for trying to forcefully impose their form of government unto other countries; but, it's perfectly fine for the United States to do so -- because democracy is "right". I wonder how this country would react if another Army invaded our country, began to re-develop our government while killing and raping citizens of our country.
What the United States is doing gives the impression that we are all a bunch of self-serving hypocrites who care only that another country have the democratic form of government. One has to imagine how much longer the US's superiority is going to last, dealing out potentially trillions (yes, that's trillions, with a 't' and an 's') in Social Security and pension and welfare while spending billions on wars to change governments and angering many other countries in doing so.
According to a report by WorldNetDaily, "A newly published paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension and welfare timebomb is growing into a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy." Professor Laurence Kotlikoff says, "One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent."
With such an impending doom on the horizon -- politically, economically, and militarily -- one can only hope that the government will come to its senses soon, otherwise, this great country's tenure may just be coming to an abrupt end.
Danica Patrick, after dropping out of high school, electing to take a GED test instead, and moving to England, slipped her way into the IRL and into the national spotlight. It has been widely accepted that her appearance in IRL events is, for the most part, a mild attempt at publicity for an oft-incon####uous sport. Yes, Patrick was just the con####uousness that IndyCar needed, and apparently, is going to hold on to after Patrick denied any plans of switching over to NASCAR.
Naturally, if Danica wanted to make such a move, NASCAR fans and media enthusiasts alike would support the move emphatically -- putting together their early predictions for which NASCAR events Danica would win, and how the move would benifit her incalculably. Nevermind the fact that her qualifications are imperceptible, nevermind that she has never finished above 4th in an IndyCar event, nevermind that her greatest career accomplishment was leading at Indianapolis -- Patrick's move would be insanely agreed-upon. And why not? She harbors public attention, is an excellent media incentive, and helps IndyCar brush-off the notion that it discriminates against certain individuals. And while some people concur that certain sports should be exclusively men -- just ask Keith Hernandez -- the including of Patrick certainly plasters the word 'humanitarian' accross the face of IndyCar Racing in the eyes of most.
Really -- who cares about the repercussions? Right? The United States certainly applies this philosophy.
The great John Lennon once said, "If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." The great George Bush once said, "#### Saddam, we're taking him out," more than a year before invading Iraq. The great #### Cheney once said about the possibility of a War in Iraq, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries," on the topic of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The always reliable Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz once said, "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." White House Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card said, "From a marketing point of view, you don't roll out new products in August," when asked about why Bush watied until after Labor Day to convince the American public that the War in Iraq was warranted. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Then, in June of that year (2003) said, "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." And to top it off, when asked about the number of Iraqi insurgents, he said, ""I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, on July 9, 2003, said, "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."
What sad times these are when musicians, known drug-addicts, make more sense than the politicians who we put in the White House. The fact of the matter is, Bush was much more rational before he was in control of our country; during his campaign in 2000 Bush told voters in the second presidential debate that, "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'" It's a shame that people will simply say anything to disagree with what another one says, or to promote himself in the public eye. So why would a man who upheld such beliefs invade Iraq? Perhaps his interview with Pat Robertson shed some light. When Robertson advised Bush to prepare the public for casualties in Iraq, Bush responded, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
This, my friends, is the rationale the US leaders use when justifying wars. Presidents who showed some semblance of intelligence while campagning elect to leave that intelligence behind and do whatever it is they "feel like" doing. No -- strike that -- whatever "God told them to do". Once again, quoting Bush (June 2003), "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did." If any normal American were to say something of the sort, he or she would be ostracized in society and, most likely, shipped off to an asylum for mental treatment -- when George Bush says it, we re-elect him. The strong political winds of nationalism that Bush has done an excellent job in swaying in his favor blind Americans of their prudence and leave behind the scent of gunpowder and the sound of the World Trade Centers collapsing.
And I reiterate how ironic it is that the man who put this reasoning in the best words is Bush, himself. It's our own involvment in affairs that are none of this country's business which prompted the 9/11 attacks, couple that with our own negligence of homeland security -- or perhaps, the allowance of such attacks to occur, as former American military analyst, Daniel Ellsberg believes -- and what you have is a massive tragedy. What's more, the fact that this tragedy was used to manipulate the minds of millions of Americans brings the legitimacy of the attacks themselves into question.
To say that the government told the public about every aspect of 9/11 would be naive. What the American public does see is the incessantly-replayed images of the World Trade Centers crashing towards the ground, thousands of people trapped within -- the images of people leaping from the windows of their 80th-story windows. What the American public doesn't hear about are the four hijackers who are still alive-and-well. What we don't hear about are the pilots, who couldn't even control small propeller aircrafts, according to their instructors, flying massive commercial airliners at the height of a lawn-mower. We don't hear about the fact that the World Trade Centers were built to withstand the impact of a 707 jet-liner which is nearly the same size, and travels 100 mph faster than the 767's which hit the towers. We don't hear about the 81 eye-witnesses, including more than 20 trained firefighters stationed around the buildings, who heard explosions 20 seconds before the Center's collapse. The fact that, as Lieutenant-Fireman Paul Isaac Jr. said, "Many firemen knew there were bombs in the buildings but they're afraid for their jobs to admit it because the 'higher-ups' forbid the discussion of this fact." The fact that CIA director Robert Woosley reported that, "There were definitely bombs in those buildings." The fact that never in the history of the world has a steel-framed building EVER collapsed due to fire, and despite this, somehow, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was just outside the World Trade Center building, was warned that "the World Trade Centers are going to collapse, we must leave now." And that, even though such information was, apparently, available, it was not told to the firemen who died inside of the buildings when they collapsed. The public was told that there existed no video footage of the 757 hitting the Pentagon; however, a few years later, the government releases frames from a security camera which show the blurred image of something hitting the Pentagon. The footage which the FBI siezed, a matter of seconds after the attack, telling those who had viewed it to never discuss what they had seen. We don't hear about the rehearsal of the attacks on the Pentagon in the Mass Casualty planning exercise in 2000. We don't hear about the fact that Hani Hanjour, the "pilot" of the plane which hit the Pentagon was pulled over for speeding in August of 2001, three-weeks-later, he sent a check in for $100 to pay the ticket and court charges. Yes, this is the same suicidal maniac, the one who finds our government to be evil, who sent this check.
In 1998, Payne Stewart, a professional golfer, was aboard his private jet -- when his pilots stopped responding to Air Traffic Controllers, five F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to the location of his jet within 18 minutes, even though Stewart was flying in a very rural area. American flight 11 took an unexpected turn at 8:28 PM and hit the first Trade Center 27 minutes later; the second flight, which hit tower #2, went off course 35 minutes before crashing. An Air Force Base rests 71 miles away from the World Trade Centers -- F-16's can fly at speeds in excess of 1500 mph, it would have taken 150-210 seconds to get to the towers. Oh -- and flight 77 flew within 8 miles of the White House, where there are Anti-Aircraft guns which can fire heat-seeking missiles up to 18 miles.
All coincidences, the government contended, just before they used the attacks as justification for an invasion on foreign soil. After easing the spirits of Americans, they gently made their way over into Iraq, which had absolutely no connections with the 9/11 attacks, and began to dictate which type of government the country should be run-under. And we wonder why much of the world express much displeasure over our actions? If we are really the "peace-makers" which we claim to be, why aren't we in Africa, where thousands of people are the victim of mass-genocide and extreme starvation? Oh yeah, forgot -- God told President Bush to invade Iraq. Isn't it great how well we elevate the standard of separation of church and state?
While the rest of the world slowly becomes enraged by our arrogance, we sit back, planning out the future of another country's government -- maybe we should force them all to learn English. Wait, then we could no longer use the excuse that it's difficult to decipher between civilian and Iraqi military men to explain the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
We condemn communist governments for trying to forcefully impose their form of government unto other countries; but, it's perfectly fine for the United States to do so -- because democracy is "right". I wonder how this country would react if another Army invaded our country, began to re-develop our government while killing and raping citizens of our country.
What the United States is doing gives the impression that we are all a bunch of self-serving hypocrites who care only that another country have the democratic form of government. One has to imagine how much longer the US's superiority is going to last, dealing out potentially trillions (yes, that's trillions, with a 't' and an 's') in Social Security and pension and welfare while spending billions on wars to change governments and angering many other countries in doing so.
According to a report by WorldNetDaily, "A newly published paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension and welfare timebomb is growing into a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy." Professor Laurence Kotlikoff says, "One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent."
With such an impending doom on the horizon -- politically, economically, and militarily -- one can only hope that the government will come to its senses soon, otherwise, this great country's tenure may just be coming to an abrupt end.
According to the American Medical Association,40,000 people die every year from inhaling passive smoke. The Centers of Disease Control report that an estimated 434,000 people die from firsthand smoking. Essentially, for every 11 smokers who die each year, they take one, completely innocent non-smoking bystander with them.
Children who live in the homes of smoking individuals are at a severely increased risk for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), ear infections, respiratory problems, and asthma attacks, reveals Surgeon General Richard Carmona in a recent report. In fact, half of all non-smoking Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. What's more, tobacco smoke is considered an allergen which can be dangerous when exposed to certain individuals -- not to mention that side-effects such as nausea and extreme headaches are common in people, even those who do not suffer from allergies or asthma.
And that's not the worst of it. This smoking -- which menaces the health of those who chose not to cope with the dangers of smoking, is still allowed in many public areas and is a common state-sponsored drug. These states ignore the salubriousness of the general public and stand-by , cheering on the jubilant smokers and using such excuses as, "Nothing can be conclusively proven about secondhand smoke," to justify their dismissal of the loss of human lives.
It's time for the states to get a clue; people don't want to have to endure the unpropitious effects of secondhand smoke. Among all MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA sporting arenas, not one permits smoking in seating areas -- indoor, or outdoor; enclosed, or open.
Unfortunately, NASCAR and Major League Soccer have chosen to ignore these risks as well -- allowing smoking in almost every area of the stadiums. So much so, that some have elected not to attend NASCAR events because of the "smoky environment" and their own dissatisfaction with the organization's lack of respect for its paying customers. This same philosophy can, and should be applied to states which are currently endorsing smoking in public.
"Keep your smoke at home, I don't want it." We live in a free country -- one where any individuals is permitted to make his or her own choices, as long as that choice does not infringe upon the safety or health of another. If you want to smoke, go right ahead -- but risking the lives of others is beyond the question. It's time for some new legislation.
I am an avid sports writer in my part of town and am active in expressing my opinion (at times, I can get carried away, yes). I am known by many as a die-hard Beatles fan and I always get people talking about my constant references to them. Not only do I find them to be the best band to ever grace the planet, thus far, but I also find them a very good source for comparison in my articles. Hope you enjoy my articles on here as I'm just getting started, and I am always open for commentary.
.
Writer and Featured Columnist, RealGM Sports: www.realgm.c om
.
Read My Articles Daily at RealGMBaseba ll.com Under "Call to the Bullpen"
.
Online Blog at www.northside r.net
campagning elect to leave that intelligence behind and do whatever it is they "feel like" doing. No -- strike that -- whatever "God told them to do". Once again, quoting Bush (June 2003), "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did." If any normal American were to say something of the sort, he or she would be ostracized in society and, most likely, shipped off to an asylum for mental treatment -- when George Bush says it, we re-elect him. The strong political winds of nationalism that Bush has done an excellent job in swaying in his favor blind Americans of their prudence and leave behind the scent of gunpowder and the sound of the World Trade Centers collapsing.
who couldn't even control small propeller aircrafts, according to their instructors, flying massive commercial airliners at the height of a lawn-mower. We don't hear about the fact that the World Trade Centers were built to withstand the impact of a 707 jet-liner which is nearly the same size, and travels 100 mph faster than the 767's which hit the towers. We don't hear about the 81 eye-witnesses, including more than 20 trained firefighters stationed around the buildings, who heard explosions 20 seconds before the Center's collapse. The fact that, as Lieutenant-Fireman Paul Isaac Jr. said, "Many firemen knew there were bombs in the buildings but they're afraid for their jobs to admit it because the 'higher-ups' forbid the discussion of this fact." The fact that CIA director Robert Woosley reported that, "There were definitely bombs in those buildings." The fact that never in the history of the world has a steel-framed building EVER collapsed due to fire, and despite this, somehow, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was just outside the World Trade Center building, was warned that "the World Trade Centers are going to collapse, we must leave now." And that, even though such information was, apparently, available, it was not told to the firemen who died inside of the buildings when they collapsed. The public was told that there existed no video footage of the 757 hitting the Pentagon; however, a few years later, the government releases frames from a security camera which show the blurred image of something hitting the Pentagon. The footage which the FBI siezed, a matter of seconds after the attack, telling those who had viewed it to never discuss what they had seen. We don't hear about the rehearsal of the attacks on the Pentagon in the Mass Casualty planning exercise in 2000. We don't hear about the fact that Hani Hanjour, the "pilot" of the plane which hit the Pentagon was pulled over for speeding in August of 2001, three-weeks-later, he sent a check in for $100 to pay the ticket and court charges. Yes, this is the same suicidal maniac, the one who finds our government to be evil, who sent this check.
And that's not the worst of it. This smoking -- which menaces the health of those who chose not to cope with the dangers of smoking, is still allowed in many public areas and is a common state-sponsored drug. These states ignore the salubriousness of the general public and stand-by , cheering on the jubilant smokers and using such excuses as, "Nothing can be conclusively proven about secondhand smoke," to justify their dismissal of the loss of human lives.
So much so, that some have elected not to attend NASCAR events because of the "smoky environment" and their own dissatisfaction with the organization's lack of respect for its paying customers. This same philosophy can, and should be applied to states which are currently endorsing smoking in public.
