On the November 17, 2008 Hannity & Colmes program, Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris explained to Alan Colmes why Hillary Clinton should not become Secretary of State.

DICK MORRIS: Well, it's a terrible idea for a lot of different reasons. The first is the past, which is that Bill Clinton has basically made his living for the last five or seven years running around the world doing favors for major foreign leaders and investors, getting money from them for his foundation, his library, and for his own pocket. And we don't know who they are, we don't know what he did in return for them, and that money goes to the Clinton family. Take a guy like Frank Giustra. He flew with Clinton to see the president of Kazakhstan, one of the most reactionary repressive governments in the world — one our State Department condemns. Clinton then pushed the president to become the head of the organization that oversees elections when he doesn't have any. Giustra who set up the meeting got the uranium contracts from mining in Kazakhstan, and Clinton got a $131 million for his foundation and library, and a pledge of half for the proceeds of the mine. Those deals need to become public. We need to know what they are. And going ahead, in her tenure as Secretary of State, is he going to stop that? Or are we essentially going to be able to rent the US Secretary of State by paying her husband half a million dollars to give a speech?

COLMES: But Dick, let's say there's a vetting process, all that is investigated, all of it comes out, all of it is above board, there's full disclosure and transparency, in that case what's the problem?

MORRIS: OK, well, look, if that's the case, I'd want to know what those are, and we go through them and we look at them, and in the event, they'll all above board, I'll fall over dead.

And so would I.

The vote gap between Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D for Dumb) has progressively narrowed from 727 to 236. What's more than a bit suspicious about this is that several news sources have reported finding batches of ballots with ALL votes for Franken and NONE for Coleman. That's like spilling a piggy bank with 491 pennies in it, and finding that all just happen to land with heads facing up. The odds of that are so astronomical that it is many trillions of times less probable than beyond a reasonable doubt. Even when the votes are found in heavily Democratic areas — something highly suspicious in itself — it still stinks to high heaven. When asked about this, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota agreed that it defied rational explanation because Coleman would be expected to receive about one-third of the votes in those Democratic areas. Get out your scientific calculator and plug in (.67) y^x (491); the result isn't appreciably different from (.5) y^x (491). It is still many trillions of times less probable than beyond a reasonable doubt.

The probability of finding just a single batch of 100 votes for Franken is:

In a heavily Democratic area: 0.00000000000000000405

It is very difficult to appreciate how vanishingly small this chance is, but this may help clarify its stark improbability. Imagine that you had a piggy bank filled with 100 coins. If you could spill the coins, count the number of heads and tails, and replace them in the piggy bank every 10 seconds (and good luck doing it that fast!), it would still take about 80 billion years to have a reasonable chance of the coins landing with all heads or tails up.

In a typical area (representative of the whole state): 0.000000000000000000000000000000788

That would take a mere 800 trillion years.

Statistical improbabilities far more likely than these are sufficient to send men to the electric chair, so we have, once again, proof that the Democrats are cheating. If they weren't so ignorant of statistics, they could have concocted a better way to cheat.

Repeat after me, D is for Dumb.

Here is another one of the mental defects associated with liberalism.

The hypocritical liberal Democrats in Washington want us to believe that they're friends of anyone in the United States who isn't rich. If you're in the middle class or lower class, they're your friends. Yeah, right. For years, libs blocked attempts to extract some of the enormous energy resources in and around the US, including offshore oil. They agreed to allow limited offshore drilling only after they faced relentless pressure from their constituents, who were furious about paying over $4 for a gallon of gasoline. Gasoline prices quickly fell after offshore drilling began. The price drop was greater than the impact of that oil because it sent a signal to the international oil market that we were finally serious about tapping our energy reserves. Markets must factor in future supply and demand when setting current prices.

Not long after limited offshore drilling was given the green light, liberal Democrats, perhaps emboldened by Obama's victory, spoke of further restricting or even stopping it. The only thing that kept the price of gasoline from spiking up again was the massive collapse of the US economy.

Liberal Democrats also want you to believe that they are deeply concerned about protecting the environment. If that is true, try explaining this: Why are they willing to let China drill for oil off the US shore? China doesn't care about protecting their environment; do you really think they will be any more concerned with ours? The Chinese have a long track record of poisoning our kids with lead and poisoning our pets with melamine. Do you think they care about an oil spill or two?

If we were to drill offshore, not in a limited fashion, but with a determination to get every drop of oil we can, it would do two things:

• Further decrease oil prices. $2.25 per gallon is OK; $1.50 would be better.
• Protect the environment by crowding out the Chinese. When American oil companies drill, they take great care to protect the environment because they know that even a minor mishap can be used as ammunition to attack them and thereby limit future drilling.

All of the offshore oil that can be economically extracted will be taken. The only question is WHO will take it: us or the Chinese. Whether you are an American concerned with the price of gas, or someone concerned with the environment, the best alternative is for us to get that oil — NOT the Chinese! Consequently, isn't it obvious that liberal Democrats don't care about us? They DO care about the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, who give money to politicians under the table so they favor laws that artificially inflate the price of oil — thereby benefiting the Saudis and other foreign oil-producing nations. See how nifty their little game is? It's just a variation of politician's standard modus operandi in which they take bribes, also known as campaign contributions, from special interest groups to do things that benefit them, but hurt us. If those special interest groups advocated things that helped most Americans, there would not be a need for them to use money to influence politicians, right? Politicians would do those things anyway.

Senator Orrin Hatch said, "Democrats claim that they're for the poor. The worst thing they're doing to the poor is preventing us from developing our own oil because the poor are spending up to 50% of their income for home heating, for fuel . . . and guess who is doing it to them? It's these people [such as Nancy Pelosi] who are in the pockets of radical environmentalists. I'm not talking about true environmentalists — we're all that. We all want clean air, clean water."

Most people are liberals when they are young, idealistic, and ignorant about economics. Winston Churchill is reputed to have said something such as, "Show me a young conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." Another variation of this quote (there weren't many tape recorders in those days!) is, "If you aren't a liberal by the time you're 20, you don't have a heart. If you aren't a conservative by the time you're 40, you don't have a brain."

Many people wise up, but some don't. With such overwhelming evidence that economic liberalism is so corrosive to prosperity, I've spent many years wondering why even smart people can be libs (note that I never said that liberals are necessarily dumb — just ignorant; their meanings are not synonymous). I stumbled upon the answer a month ago; here it is.

A mutual friend offered to set me up on a blind date with Katie Couric several years ago. I suppose most men would jump at the chance. After all, she is attractive, intelligent, successful, rich, and famous. She's reputed to be perky, too. My answer?

No.

Our mutual friend then tried to change my mind by emphasizing that Katie is even more fun in real life than she is on television. My answer?

No.

Why would I rather sit at home alone on Friday and Saturday nights than date someone who is arguably one of the great catches of all time?

For the answer to that, let's fast-forward a few years to the 2008 Presidential campaign when Katie is interviewing Senator Joe Biden, the Vice-presidential candidate and running mate of Barack Obama. Biden said, "Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence, is demonstrate that he or she knows what they're talking about . . ."

Seconds later, Biden said, "When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened . . .'"

FACT: Franklin Roosevelt was not President when the stock market crashed in 1929. Herbert Hoover was.

FACT: Neither Hoover nor Roosevelt communicated with Americans via television, a technology that was still experimental at that time.

FACT: Every student who isn't mentally challenged learns the above facts during elementary school and numerous times thereafter. History is hardly my forte and something I rarely read about, yet even I have read the above facts so many times that I cannot fathom how anyone with at least a room-temperature IQ could fail to know such elementary information.

Let's return to what Biden said: "Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence, is demonstrate that he or she knows what they're talking about . . ."

And you obviously don't, Senator.

Katie Couric is smart enough to instantly realize how Biden's remembrance of history was pathetically garbled, yet did she make an issue out of this?

No.

Sensing weakness on his part, did she move in for the kill and ask him a "gotcha" question, as she did with Sarah Palin?

No.

Now do you understand why I refused to date Katie Couric? She and other members of the liberal "mainstream" media gloss over shortcomings in liberal candidates, yet rabidly attack Republicans. When Barack Obama appeared on The View, all of the co-hosts except Elisabeth Hasselbeck gushed over Obama, behaving as if they were high school girls smitten by the captain of the football team. In contrast, when Senator John McCain appeared on that show, he was treated like dirt. Barbara Walters was so enraged that she couldn't look at McCain, even when she spoke to him.

I am not a fan of McCain, although I think that he would be a better President than Obama. Presidential candidates should be able to answer tough questions, so I don't object to anyone grilling McCain if Obama is given equal treatment. Just one problem: Obama doesn't receive tough questions -- except for the few that Bill O'Reilly asked during his short interview.

I refused to date Katie Couric because I ardently believe that all people should be treated fairly and equally. Katie Couric has a long history of going easy on liberals and going for the jugular on conservatives. Is this fair?

No.

Speaking of fairness, it may be unfair of me to divulge some inside information about Katie Couric that only her friends (and a few friends of her friends) know. Revelation of this fact might tarnish Katie's reputation. Might I go for her jugular and reveal this fact?

Stay tuned.

Update: Biden later gave us another glimpse into his brainpower when he said that "jobs" is a three-letter word. I can understand how someone might miscount the number of letters in a longer word, such as imbecile or simpleton, but how can he lack the mental horsepower to instantly recognize something so obvious? Of course, he was chosen by Barack Obama, a man who illustrated an even more alarming intellectual deficit by saying there are 58 states. Imagine the howls of laughter and endless derision if a Republican were to say anything even half that stupid!

Incidentally, if you're a liberal, don't attempt to excuse those mistakes by blaming them on fatigue. During my medical training, when I'd usually work over 110 hours per week, I was so tired when I left the hospital after being on-call with 40+ hours without sleep that I would sometimes go through an intersection and seconds later realize that I hadn't the slightest idea if the light I'd just passed was red, yellow, or green. Yet even then, had I discussed the number of US states, I know that I'd say 50. That tidbit is etched into my deepest memory banks, along with 2 + 2 = 4, and the mainstream media is biased.

The mainstream media creates the perception that liberals are more intelligent by magnifying Republican gaffes while ignoring even more tangible evidence of Democrat stupidity. In other words, what the mainstream media does isn't always journalism, it's often propaganda. I despise propaganda even when it emanates from someone who would otherwise be desirable, such as Katie Couric . . . well, she might be desirable, were it not for the dark little secret the public doesn't know about her. Behind her cute smile is something that's far less appealing. Go ahead and idolize her if you wish, but don't bother inviting me to join the Katie Couric fan club. She doesn't deserve it. I loathe her because the myths that she and other members of the mainstream media spread permit Democrats to lie with impunity because they know their propagandist friends won't take them to task. Hence, Katie is helping warp the political landscape in the United States.

Freedom of the press isn't constitutionally protected because our Forefathers thought it was important for lunatics to speculate about whether Sarah Palin actually delivered her baby or whether her husband is sleeping with their daughters, as some Martians have suggested. Instead, the men who framed the Constitution realized that a free press performed a vital function by serving as a watchdog over the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. An impartial press helps to keep government in check, curbing its tendency for excesses, fraud, waste, and abuse of power.

Just one problem: the mainstream press is no longer impartial, or anything close to it. Everyone with common sense knows they are enthusiastic cheerleaders for Democrats and pit bulls who loathe conservatives. We're all paying a price for the propaganda that passes as journalism these days, and it will only get worse. Just wait.

Update February 2009: Biden spoke of a “website number” instead of its address or URL.

Now that Senator Barack Obama is discussing reparations for slavery, I recall something that my brilliant brother once said decades ago that is applicable to this issue. After the American Indians applied enough political and economic pressure to get American taxpayers to atone for injustices committed a century before they were born (thus setting a bizarre precedent that people can be financially penalized for misdeeds they did not commit), my brother remarked that the Indians, instead of endlessly bellyaching about the evil White Man, should instead THANK US for giving them the freedom to benefit from our superior technology. Without those advances, my brother noted, Indian mothers would still be living in wigwams and crying when their children died of appendicitis. Unless my many teachers were mistaken, American Indians were living in the Stone Age when European explorers first appeared on this continent.

The same is true of people who lived in Africa during the years that many of them were nabbed and put into slavery. Yes, that is a great moral injustice, but it is easy to see how we helped the descendants of those slaves by bringing them to the United States. African lives are often brutal and cut short by disease or violence. Many people in Africa still eat "bush meat" (e.g., gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, and other primates) instead of obtaining their food from nice restaurants or grocery stores, as African-Americans do. (Here's an insightful perspective that harmonizes with my stance.)

So should the United States government forcibly seize my money or property to give to African-Americans? There is no way to ethically justify such confiscation. The issue is incredibly divisive. Being forced to pay for a crime you did not commit is so infuriating that it has the potential to ignite a race war. Yet Senator Obama, with his silver tongue and dearth of common sense, is foolish enough to say that "words are not enough" -- implying that our past apologies and trillions of dollars transferred to African-Americans via myriad social welfare programs are not punitive enough; the evil White Man must pay, again.

Senator Obama, were you awake when your elementary school teachers were trying to teach you about the Civil War? Or were you just seething with racial hatred, biding your time until you gained the power that might enable you to use the US government to commit another atrocity by shaking down innocent people? American already paid an unimaginably high price for slavery: about 360,000 Union soldiers died in the Civil War. The blood they shed fighting to abolish slavery is sufficient punishment. Yet you salivate at the prospect of virtually enslaving white Americans to make them pay more in taxes to make amends for wrongs they did not commit. Senator Obama, you fancy yourself as a Messiah, but your endless greed and twisted morality make you a national disgrace.

Barack Obama's recent trip to Europe gave us a remarkable insight into his lopsided view of history. He obviously enjoys bashing the USA and belaboring our imperfections (even ancient ones). He wants us to repeatedly apologize to the world for those imperfections, yet he conveniently never asks Europeans to apologize for Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the fact that the misdeeds committed in that part of the world fueled two world wars that led to the death of over 70 million people and inflicted years of suffering upon countless more. It is obviously absurd to ask today's Europeans to apologize or pay for what their fathers and grandfathers did, yet Obama cannot understand that it is equally preposterous and indefensible to demand that today's white Americans continue to apologize and pay for wrongs that were more limited in scope and further back in history. That's the point . . . a point that Obama doesn't get. A man whose intellect leads to such conclusions does not deserve to be President, and anyone who supports him is either ignorant or an unprincipled thug.

Based on his discussion of reparations for slavery, his description of his grandmother as a "typical white person," and many other comments, Obama obviously enjoys stewing about racism. The fact that Obama -- a man who is arguably the least experienced and qualified Presidential nominee in history -- might become our next President is unimpeachable evidence that our nation has largely overcome racism. Yet Obama behaves as if it were one of the dominant issues. Alarmingly, Obama treats this sensitive matter in a way that is bound to divide our nation, not unite it. That's probably not a coincidence. When Obama dwells on past imperfections of the US and proposes an escalation of confiscatory taxation as the remedy, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that his rage about the United States has kindled a desire to destroy it. If you read between the lines of what he says and does, it is clear that his primary motive to be President (other than self-aggrandizement) is to inflict a long overdue (in his mind) payback upon white Americans. The "sacrifices" he talks about and will demand of us are his code-talk for a transfer of wealth via higher taxes that is tantamount to reparations. Mark my words: reparations are coming.

Obama's only notable talent (other than his silver tongue that masks a second-rate mind) is in camouflaging his rage well enough so that millions of Americans with second-rate minds cheer him on. Obama doesn't have any good ideas for dealing with pressing issues such as the skyrocketing cost of energy. His response to that is to suggest that Americans tune-up their cars and ensure their tires are properly inflated. That flip response to such a serious matter illustrates just how vacuous he is.

In a recent speech, Senator Obama touched upon the fact that many Americans consider him to be a risky choice. Why might that be true?

• Because of his inexperience? He knows so little about business that almost no corporation would hire him to be their CEO. Why, then, is he qualified to assume the Presidency and thereby become the most economically influential person in the world?
• Because of gaffes such as his claim that he's visited 57 states, or "the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor"?
• Because he is married to a woman who seems to hate America as much as he does? While recently speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Michelle Obama said that "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country." How on Earth could someone live in the United States for 44 years and not feel proud before that day? When a 7-year-old girl asked Senator Obama why he wished to be President, he responded, "America, uh, is, is no longer, uh, what it, it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, 'I don't want that future for my children.'" Aside from the fact that he is imbued with negativity and sounds like he has a subnormal IQ, one must wonder how he and his wife developed such anti-American sentiments considering how blessed they've been. Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and reported earned almost $300,000 in 2006 working as a publicist for the University of Chicago Hospitals. Their total yearly income was $991,296. Yes, it is a terrible country in which a man who can't intelligently answer a question from a child can make so much money and become such a prominent political figure.
• Because he chose to attend a church that seems less interested in worshiping God than in wallowing in black resentment and spewing anti-American vitriol? His long-time pastor, the fiery Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says blacks should not sing "God bless America" but "God damn America." Even if you can ignore Wright's more infamous inflammatory statements, such as referring to the United States as the "US of KKK A," it is difficult to listen to Wright's diatribes for long without wondering about his sanity, or lack thereof. As a physician, I am legally entitled to make determinations of sanity. I've never treated Wright, but I have seen more than my share of people with a variety of mental problems. Interestingly, none of the patients that I involuntarily committed (i.e., I signed a paper to take them off the streets against their will for their own good, or for the good of society) exhibited anywhere near the level of incandescent rage that boils out of every bitter pore of Wright's body. Even when I disagree with another black political and civil rights activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton, he can still come across as charming and even huggable. In contrast, Wright seems downright kooky. Much of his fury apparently stems from the fact that there are still traces of racism in this country. Clear-cut evidence of this can be found in some revealing statistics: only about 7% of blacks say they'll vote for McCain, while almost half of whites are willing to vote for Obama. And whites are the racist ones?? For every vestige of anti-black racism in USA at present, I could mention two ways in which whites are racially victimized by blacks or people favoring blacks, such as when I discovered years ago that black students at Michigan State University could pass courses even if they got every question wrong on every test (** see the footnote at the end of this posting). Hence, Wright seems Wrong about racism, so his maniacal speeches make me wonder if he is living in a different world. Evidently Obama is living in that world, too, given that Wright was his pastor for 20 years. How could the Obamas cozy up to such a hatemonger for so long? The answer is obvious.
• Because Obama refuses to engage in town-hall meetings with McCain? Sans the teleprompters with carefully crafted words written by others, Obama is uh . . . um . . . ah . . . prone to awkwardly pause and stumble and uh . . . um . . . ah . . . say stupid things. Countless high school students could outshine McCain in a debate, so when Obama -- a Harvard Law grad -- runs away from debating such an intellectually unimpressive man, it's obvious that he probably has good reason for being so diffident.
• Because of his condescending attitude toward women? When a female television reporter in Michigan asked him,“Senator, how are you going to help the American autoworker?” he called her "sweetie" and said that he'd answer her question later. He never did, so she asked it again. Still no reply. Might this patronizing man not have all of the answers he claims to have? Might the change he promises be a step backward into the days when women were second-class citizens?
• Because he butchers the truth when he claims that McCain is focused on race, when McCain has made it clear that he will repudiate any attacks on his opponent that are even remotely racist? The truth is that Obama is the one playing the race card with comments such as, "And did I mention that I am black?" Yes, you did. Repeatedly. The Obama camp is so prone to level charges of racism that even Bill Clinton, the so-called "first black President," is now defending himself against their baseless allegations. Bill Clinton is many things, but he is obviously not a racist. This illustrates how desperate Obama is; unable to offer substantive arguments, he and his cronies sling mud.
• Because the supposedly anti-war Obama is already threatening to invade Pakistan if he becomes President? Pakistan is a nuclear power and an ally in our fight against terrorism. How would you characterize this? Irresponsible? Reckless? Foolhardy? Impulsive? Or all of the above?
• Because of his megalomania? His head is so big that even fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton mocked Obama's enormous ego by capsulizing his overly dramatic speech tinged with religious overtones, "Now I can stand up here and say: 'Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.'" Have you noticed something about the audio quality of Obama's speeches? In October 2008 (and perhaps before), his voice has OBVIOUSLY added reverb to make him sound more God-like.
• Because Obama, despite having a huge ego, lacks confidence in his ability to handle tough situations, or even to answer questions from anyone who isn't one of his supporters. After "Joe The Plumber" Joe Wurzelbacher asked him about punitive taxation, Obama headed for safer territory for a meet and greet session: to a barber shop filled with black people.
• Because he repeatedly and intentionally sought to associate with some of the most intransigent left-wing radicals? Anyone who doubts the latter should read The Obama Nation by Dr. Jerome Corsi. Knee-jerk liberals might reflexively assume that book is biased, but it was exhaustively researched and every line in it was scrutinized by an eminent attorney hired by the publisher to verify that every statement in it was true and had evidence to support its validity.
• Because his political naiveté leads him to make simplistic statements such as urging both "Georgia and Russia to show restraint"? That's like a school principal urging both sides to show restraint when the captain of the senior high football team is beating the hell out of a kindergarten student. Russia has a long history of bullying others and brutally using its force in despicable ways, such as when it recently hinted at the possibility of nuking Poland. Russia attacked Georgia because it wanted to control its valuable gas and oil pipelines and because it wanted to test the waters, as it periodically does to gauge how willing the international community will be in resisting Russian aggression. Weak responses, such as Obama's childish one, merely embolden Russia. When bullies get away with bullying, they are more likely to terrorize others in the future. According to several sources, the leftist loon George Clooney is an unofficial advisor to Obama, perhaps explaining why Obama can sound so unintelligent. Obama later reversed his position and tried to emulate McCain's tough talk when it became clear to everyone with a room-temperature IQ or above that McCain's position was -- once again -- right on and Obama's position was the kind of nonsense that one would expect from a brash and clueless young man with no foreign policy experience but an ego that won't let him see how inept he really is. Do you think it is a coincidence that enemies of the United States are gleefully salivating at the prospect of an Obama presidency? BTW, if you don't know why they are so eager for Obama to win, you are simply too dumb to cast an intelligent vote this November. Obama supporters who don't have their heads buried in the sand have a difficult time reconciling the superficial luster of his recent excellent adventure to Europe and his repeatedly demonstrated ability to fumble even the most basic real-world foreign policy matters. Face it: Obama is an empty suit. Behind that 3000-Watt smile is a man who isn't qualified to run your city, let alone the United States.
• Because his judgment is so poor that he picked a running mate, Senator Joe Biden, who repeatedly said that Obama was not ready to serve as President? Biden stumbled and later apologized for describing Obama as "clean" (tacitly suggesting that most blacks are not), thus showing Biden's gift for sticking his foot in his mouth.
• Because he wants to raise your taxes to give to the United Nations and various foreign nations (as if we don't already give enough!) when Obama himself, despite being a multimillionaire, is so stingy that he doesn't give money to his half-brother who lives on less than $1/month in a Kenyan shantytown? Obama is an ardent supporter of redistributing wealth, as long as it's your wealth that is being redistributed: that is, taken from you. Obama isn't as friendly as he should be with his family, but he is friends with Antoin ''Tony'' Rezko, a convicted felon who helped Obama in a shady real estate deal a few years ago. Obama is also friends with Bill Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist and member of the notorious Weather Underground in the 1960s that made bombs to kill Americans. The antipathy of Ayers toward America evidently had not dissipated by 2001, when he was pictured stomping on an American flag for an article in a Chicago magazine. Obama's political career was launched at an event at Ayers’s home, yet Ayers thinks we're stupid enough to believe that Ayers is just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood."
• Because he seems constitutionally unable to answer tough questions without waffling? For example, when asked to define when a baby acquires human rights, he responded, "That's above my pay grade." That is a pathetic cop-out considering there is no pay grade above that of President of the United States. A President needs a backbone and thick skin, neither of which Obama possesses. Obama's sycophantic followers become apoplectic if anyone mentions his middle name, which is Hussein. They and the liberal "mainstream" media have bent over backward to coddle Obama because, however much they want him to be President, they know that he wouldn't stand a chance against McCain if the two candidates received equal, impartial treatment. Fortunately, some liberals are principled enough that they have distanced themselves from Obama now that he is, ah, um . . . stammering and stuttering and . . . uh . . . pausing so long to formulate answers to questions that an average junior high school student could answer with aplomb. In the process, Obama is showing us that his true gift is limited to a flair for reading a teleprompter; sans that crutch, he sounds like a complete idiot. His "That's above my pay grade" admission reveals that he agrees with millions of Americans who think that he is out of his league. Without his teleprompter or his carefully rehearsed answers, Obama is so intellectually unimpressive that I highly suspect that affirmative action played a role in his academic success. (See the footnote at the end of this posting if you haven't already read it.) As I discovered, affirmative action influences not just who gets in to what school, but how those students are subsequently coddled and even promoted via academic fraud.

I'll mention the following to answer in advance any allegations from pea-brains who might conclude from the above that I am racist: I am not. I would LOVE to have a black President, if that person were someone like Colin Powell, Larry Elder, Justice Clarence Thomas, Angela McGlowan, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Professor Walter Williams, or the gorgeous and brainy Michelle Bernard. Then there is Allen West, Lt. Col. U.S. Army (Ret.), who is now running for U.S. Congress in Florida, but a man that outstanding has the potential to be an exemplary President. Herman Cain is a highly impressive businessman whose brilliance and superb judgment made me stop in my tracks the first minute I heard him speak; I didn't want to miss a word of what he had to say. They and many other black Americans would be vastly superior to Senator John McCain, a man whose fondness for letting Mexicans flood into this country because "we're all God's children" is probably kindled by the fact that he is married to a stunningly beautiful woman with half a billion dollars and a big heart who looks young enough to be his daughter. When you look like a tired old grandfather and your rich foxy wife says "jump," you ask, "How high?"

I saw the response that Senator McCain gave several years ago when a reporter asked him about the child he and his wife adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. I can't recall his exact words, but from what he said, and the expression on his face, it was clear to me that he wasn't crazy about the idea but, with an air of resignation in his voice, that he had to give his wife whatever she wanted. Fine, do that, Senator McCain . . . just don't force me and other Americans to pay (directly and indirectly) for your misguided immigration policy.

If McCain is elected, he might be the last Republican President because his open-door immigration policy will inundate the United States with millions of people who are more likely to vote for Democrats, given their affinity for redistributing wealth.

Why are Americans seemingly incapable of electing smarter politicians when clearly more intelligent people are relegated to obscurity? My guess is that too many people spend too much time watching American Idol or focusing on the antics of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. A miniscule proportion of our population scrutinizes what our politicians are doing and how they are screwing us in so many ways that you couldn't keep track of half of them if you devoted your life to that undertaking.

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** When I was an undergraduate I worked for Michigan State University tutoring minorities and athletes. As a tutor, I was privy to some inside information. At that university, minorities could sign up for certain class sections that were reserved for minorities. "Students" in those sections were guaranteed a passing grade if they showed up for the exam and signed their name on the test. If they tried to answer any question, they received a "B," and if they got any question correct (even by random chance), they were given an "A." That policy was obviously intended as a crutch to give a degree to people who could never obtain one legitimately. I thought, "Why not dispense with this pretense of education and just give those folks their sheepskin the second they matriculate? After all, it'd save the taxpayers 4 years of tuition, room, and board." Unfortunately, the long-range consequences of these well-intended left-wing crutches are disastrous. People with those sham degrees are foisted upon the real world, where they give the rest of us heartburn.

By the way, most of my students never bothered to attend my tutoring sessions. Many of them evidently figured out that they were given a free ride through life, so why should they lift a finger and try?

Here's a question for you to consider: Without changing the amount of money you pay in taxes, could the government do something to make paying them less objectionable? Realistically, most of us pay taxes only because that beats the alternatives: fines or imprisonment. But what if the government did something to make paying taxes so rewarding that you actually wanted to do it and enjoyed it . . . is that an impossible pipe dream?

No. Here is an example of how this could work. Let's say that of the total taxes you pay yearly, $4000 will be spent by the government on welfare, helping needy families. Instead of paying that $4000 to the government, you'd pay it directly to the people who would otherwise ultimately receive it. Such assignment could be random or, preferably, chosen by the taxpayers selecting whom they wish to help. A proof of payment would be submitted to the government as proof that one's tax obligation was met.

This system would achieve many benefits not possible with our current nameless, faceless, cold bureaucratic system:

• It would make people feel better about paying taxes by allowing them to see tangible things their money did: feed a family, buy clothes, pay for their utilities or healthcare, etc.
• It would permit welfare recipients to see that the money they received came not from a government with pockets that seem endlessly deep, but from a person they knew who worked hundreds of hours per year to earn the money they received.
• It would foster a bond between the recipients and payors. That bond would likely make many people want to give even more.

Thus, this system could benefit everyone involved. If any taxpayer wished to opt out, he could pay his taxes directly to the government.

Another possibility is actually erasing one's tax liability if a taxpayer gave something of greater value to a welfare recipient, such as a job. For example, instead of paying $4000 to the recipient, I might give him a part-time job paying $8000 per year. That would be good for him because he would have more money. It would be good for me, because I would get $8000 of work from him.

The US government isn't very receptive to new ideas, but it should do everything possible to reduce resentment of our politicians and bureaucrats. Why? Think of the thousands of governments that have existed since the dawn of mankind. How many of them still exist? Not many. People usually get sick of them and toss them out. The US government has faced no serious threats to its continuance of power, but that is primarily attributable to the fact that Americans have been, by and large, satisfied with their lives and prospects for the future. Things aren't so rosy now. In the past few years, gasoline has tripled in cost. Jobs are irretrievably being lost to China, India, and other countries in which the cost of living is so low that workers can afford to work for much less than Americans.

The shit will really hit the fan (pardon my language) in about 20 years when people my age begin retiring and find that they won't receive a penny from the government because the hundreds of thousands of dollars they paid were spent on today's senior citizens to, in effect, buy their votes. The only way that people my age (or younger) can receive benefits similar to those now paid to retirees is by burdening the taxpayers working at that time with oppressive taxation. The last figure I read in Forbes magazine was about two-thirds of a worker's yearly income — and that doesn't include all of the hundreds of taxes we pay. So, someone is going to be furious. Hundreds of millions of people will be robbed, big time.

If you think that wrath isn't inevitable, read what economists are saying (and have been saying) about this coming problem. It is a looming nightmare that will cause even placid people to boil with rage. Unfortunately, most people are so oblivious to this problem that they elect politicians who keep promising more, now, thus ensuring that people now paying taxes will get even less when they retire, because their money was spent years ago.

Politicians, it's time to put your thinking caps on.

Revenge has acquired a bad reputation as a negative emotion that does more harm than good. We're told to forgive and forget, or to let the local prosecutor do the dirty work for us when things get really bad, such as when my father was murdered. Although I have a doctorate degree and have studied psychology and behavior for decades, one of my relatives (I'll call him Dave) without a degree recently taught me an important lesson about revenge.

Dave told me about one of the young punks in his area who would often drive by his home at a dangerously excessive speed well above the posted limit. Dave worried that one of his kids would be hit and killed by SpeedRacer, age 17 or so, who evidently was not deterred by the prospect of a speeding ticket or even a manslaughter charge. Videotaping SpeedRacer's racing also did nothing. Like most parents, Dave loves his kids, but he did something that most parents would not do. Dave stopped SpeedRacer one day and told him that if he ever hit one of his kids, he'd better hope that the police got to him before he did, because he would literally tear him apart. What I haven't yet mentioned is that Dave is large, strong, and physically imposing. He once crushed the rib cage of someone by giving him a play bear hug. If Dave were enraged, I have no doubt that the scrawny SpeedRacer would be turned into mincemeat without using any of the firearms in Dave's extensive gun collection. Dave would never start a fight, but given sufficient provocation (such as seeing his son splattered on SpeedRacer's hood), well, heaven help you.

Dave's threat did what the police and umpteen laws could not accomplish: SpeedRacer stopped speeding, at least around Dave's home. I think that parents have an ethical obligation to safeguard their children as much as possible, and most parents would probably agree with me . . . yet I can't imagine most parents going as far as Dave did. That's too bad.

Why do politicians act as if they have a God-given right to put their hands in our pockets and take even more of our money? Americans already pay a staggering percentage of their income in taxes, but most of those taxes are so cleverly disguised that few people realize they're paying them. Furthermore, the value of what we receive in return for those taxes is very low; if you think the government is wisely spending our money, you're either in kindergarten or the kind of ignorant fool that politicians love, because your stupidity gives them free rein to continue their profligate waste.

Michigan lawmakers hiked the state income tax several months ago, earnestly claiming that they'd cut all of the fat from the state budget. And what did they do next? Spend over $300,000 to construct a fence to keep turtles from crossing the road in one spot. First, when many Michigan residents are forced to choose between not eating, not paying for medicine, or not paying for their heat and electricity (thanks to our sluggish economy), it is utterly insane to spend more on turtles than on humans in need. Second, $300,000-plus?!? I could have erected an equally effective fence for 1% of that cost! When politicians spend money (or "invest" it, to use their favorite euphemism), "spending it" is not the most accurate term to describe what they do; "blowing it" is closer to the truth.

The Michigan legislators who voted to raise the income tax gave us a remarkable insight into their morality. Michigan residents were already reeling from job cuts and other maladies that have decimated our economy. If the US economy has a cold by analogy, Michiganders have double pneumonia. So, is it morally acceptable to take sick people and bleed them even more?

After raising our taxes, our legislators patted themselves on the back for "solving" our fiscal crisis. Solve it? They didn't solve it; they simply transferred it onto the backs of the already overtaxed people and businesses in Michigan. You and I cannot solve our financial problems by making our neighbors pay our bills. If we even tried to force them to pay our bills, we could be prosecuted for fraud and extortion. Yet the Michigan legislators have given themselves the right to plunder whenever they feel like it, forcing taxpayers to pay more or risk imprisonment.

The government does provide some necessary services, so I am not opposed to all taxation. What irks me about taxes is that we spend so much in taxes and receive so little in return, thanks to an incessant series of blunders (not to mention outright fraud) committed by politicians, such as the above-mentioned turtle fence and literally millions of other extravagances.

I watched Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm on television, solemnly and repeatedly stressing that she could not cut the state budget any further without curtailing essential services. Really? Gov. Granholm is smart and articulate (and attractive, to boot), but clearly unaware of how much fat remains in the budget. Frankly, people become angry when they hear politicians make such claims and then see the state wasting so much money. Want some examples? Here are just a few of the ones I've seen:

• The local Secretary of State office has not one but TWO big-screen TVs.
• Whenever I enter a state or county office, I usually see employees standing around or working at a snail's pace. In the above-mentioned Secretary of State office, I spent hours (waiting!!!) listening to every word one worker said, analyzing whether it was essential or purely a waste of time for her and the dozens of people waiting to see her to renew their driver's licenses and whatnot. At least a third of her time was spent in idle chitchat. Translation? If you look at the total cost of her salary, benefits, and retirement, the beleaguered taxpayers of Michigan are paying well over $20,000 per year so that just ONE state worker can entertain herself by making small talk and gossiping. However, to grasp the true total economic cost of her motor mouth, one must also factor in the time wasted by thousands of Michiganders waiting to see her.
• Most every time I see a road crew working, one man works while two others stand around and watch him. This happens so often that it is virtually a cultural cliché.
• Whenever the State of Michigan purchases automobiles for employee use, those vehicles are invariably new and usually larger and more luxurious than they need to be. I bought a used car for less than one-third what a new car costs, yet it looks and runs like new. Why can't Michigan economize in the same manner? Are state workers too good to ride in used cars? This insistence upon buying only new vehicles is particularly abominable when you analyze the ethics behind it: The state, using its powers, forces its citizens (many of whom cannot afford new vehicles) to pay more in taxes so that state workers can have brand-new vehicles.

Politicians sometimes wonder why the general public harbors a deep-seated animosity toward them. I will start a list, and feel free to contribute to it by posting a comment. Our animus stems from the fact that they:

• Spend our money as if it grew on trees.
• Are overly and outrageously intrusive, enacting laws that have no Constitutional basis.
• Behave like thugs, threatening us with fines and imprisonment for not obeying each and every law, even the ones that have no Constitutional basis.
• Enact so many laws that no one could possibly know them all or abide by them all, making everyone a lawbreaker. The resultant selective enforcement gives prosecutors the ability to single out people they dislike for any reason (justified or whimsical) under the sun. This is fundamentally at odds with the rule of law and the rights and sub-rights conferred by it.
• Behave as if they are more important than the citizens they purport to serve.
• Generously fund their retirement benefits when ours are clearly in jeopardy. You know all that money you and your employer paid over the years in Social Security taxes? You will be lucky to receive a quarter of what was paid in, and you won't receive a penny of interest. Any banker who stole so much of your money would be imprisoned for years, but politicians conveniently give themselves a free pass to steal as much of your money as they please without fear of repercussions.
• Are often arrogant, imperious, unresponsive, and dictatorial.

Fisher-Price is recalling almost one million toys because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead. What's particularly troubling about this is that Fisher-Price has had a long-standing relationship with the Chinese vendor that applied the paint. Fisher-Price is practically synonymous with “quality toys,” so they must have imposed various quality standards on their vendors, including a prohibition against using leaded paint. Yet it happened. Again.

In June, the toy maker RC2 Corp. recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line (source). Before that, there were so many reports of other contaminated products, foods, drugs, supplements, and herbs that you would need a team of researchers working full-time to keep track of all of them. A few months ago, The New York Times reported that Chinese producers routinely and intentionally add melamine to rice protein and wheat gluten in animal feed products to falsely inflate their protein levels.

The New York Times also detailed (F.D.A. Tracked Tainted Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China, June 17, 2007) how a state-owned company in China exported diethylene glycol, a syrupy poison used in some antifreeze, as safe, pharmaceutical-grade glycerin. Instead of cooperating, the Chinese blocked an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On Oct. 27, 1997, Mary K. Pendergast, then deputy FDA commissioner, wrote “The U.S. imports a lot of Chinese glycerin and it is used in ingested products such as toothpaste.” She stressed the need to learn how that poison was introduced, which might “prevent this tragedy from happening again.”

A decade later, Chinese-made diethylene glycol was mixed into medicine that killed at least 100 people in Panama. Chinese toothpaste containing that toxin was found in the United States and seven other countries.

In Fascinating Health Secrets and The Science of Sex, I cautioned against consuming food or herbs from China, given their indifference about food safety and their rampant pollution that ensures that many of their food and herbal products are inevitably contaminated. Here is a relevant quote from The Science of Sex:

There have recently been reports indicating that many herbs (especially Chinese or Asian herbs) possess unacceptable levels of toxins and thus cannot be recommended unless a particular product has been tested and proven to be safe (even then, I'd be wary of batch-to-batch variation in purity). For example, ConsumerLab (www.consumerlab.com) tested 21 brands of ginseng, 17 of which were Asian and one of which was a mixture of Asian, American, and Siberian ginseng. Twelve of these products failed the test (eight products were contaminated with both quintozene and hexachlorobenzene, and two products contained unacceptable levels of lead). Other tests performed by the California Department of Health Services found contamination with drugs and potentially toxic heavy metals in 83 of 260 imported Chinese remedies. If they can’t nuke us, perhaps they are instead trying to poison us (by the way, I’m only half joking). Another study of approximately 2600 Chinese herbal preparations found that 25% of them contained synthetic drugs, including Viagra. Unless you are fond of playing Russian roulette with your health, I think you should—at a minimum—avoid a product unless it has passed testing by ConsumerLab or another independent lab. Given the abysmal track record of Asian herbs, I think it would be prudent to avoid all of them.

Based on the recent news reports, I am no longer half joking about them trying to poison us because they can’t nuke us. They are poisoning us, and it is intentional, not an accident. I don’t fault the FDA for not detecting this problem sooner because the FDA does not have the resources to inspect every food shipment into the United States. However, it is sheer lunacy for the FDA to give the Chinese the ability to poison us as they did with feloniously contaminated food because we don’t need any food from China; our farmers can grow enough to feed us and still export to other countries. Our Congress is evidently unconcerned about American farmers producing enough food, because it has paid billions of dollars as subsidies to farmers to encourage them not to grow food. Then we turn around and buy food from the Chinese—utterly idiotic! The FDA wants to prohibit Americans from buying prescription drugs from Canada**, yet it permits food and herbal imports from a country—China—that intentionally poisoned us. Does anyone in Washington have any brains? Why not ban all food and herbal imports from China? Add toys to the list, and the next generation of American kids will be smarter, because lead is a known neurotoxin.

** I have never seen any evidence that prescription drugs from Canada are any less safe than drugs obtained from American pharmacies. In fact, Canadian drugs may actually be safer. The safety of American drugs is compromised by an idiotic system that gives crooks an open door to, for example, sell counterfeit drugs that have killed and injured many people.

My brother and I previously sold some Chinese-made storage accessories through our GarageScapes company, but we discontinued them after tiring of their stunningly pathetic lack of quality control. Not only was their quality control horrendous, but it did not improve even after exhortations that “you'd better improve, or else.” Sheer apathy.

That was no aberration. After purchasing countless other Chinese products, I am convinced that they don't give a hoot abut quality or ethics. Whether it is a badly chipped storage rack or a tainted medicine that kills humans, the Chinese don't care. Period. So why do we buy from them?

Anyone who answers “price” is penny-wise and pound-foolish. I won't paint with a broad brush and assert that all Chinese products are junk, but a surprising number are.

I think the American perception of value is distorted by what I call the Wal-Mart effect. You know—you buy something that seems to be a bargain, but you are myopically focused on price, not quality. I will be the first to admit that I, too, was once this stupid. Then it hit me: many of the seemingly great bargains were anything but. For example, one fall in which I did very little baking I had three mixers fail that I purchased from Wal-Mart. When I was young, I bought a relatively inexpensive made-in-America mixer for my Mom as a Christmas present. That mixer was still going strong over three decades later—and my Mom baked more than Martha Stewart and Better Crocker combined! (Several thousand cookies later, I am fortunate that I discovered an easy way to lose weight.) Thus, you and I could save money by purchasing better-quality items that might cost more but last a long time. Furthermore, our landfills wouldn't be filled with so much junk that dies prematurely. Recycling is good, but what's even better is obviating the need for recycling, or delaying it for many years.

Were it not for our involvement in World War II, the Chinese would have been permanently enslaved by the Japanese—at least the Chinese who weren't exterminated, as many were. I think it is natural to express gratitude to someone who saves your life, but I have never seen any evidence that the Chinese feel the least bit grateful for what we did for them. To my knowledge, they never even sent so much as a Hallmark card after the war. Instead, they became bellicose. Their truculence and “to heck with you” attitude even extends to friendly corporations such as Fisher-Price and others who give them work.

Imagine if you'd saved the life of someone's father and then given that person a job, yet he repeatedly and intentionally poisoned your products and killed your customers for decades. Aside from being aghast at the lack of gratitude, wouldn't it be reasonable to fire that person? Of course. Ergo, it's time to fire the Chinese and give jobs back to Americans. We've given the ungrateful Chinese too many chances to amend their behavior, and they continue to spit in our faces.

The American patience for Chinese intransigence is growing thin. I think that a candidate in the upcoming Presidential election could guarantee his election by seizing this issue and illustrating how inexpensive made-in-China goods often cost more in the end in addition to imperiling our health. We could put millions of Americans back to work and have higher-quality products that are safer and more durable by banning imports from China.

Incidentally, the primary reason why we prevailed in World War II was because of our industrial capacity. In the past few decades, the American economy has shifted to one based on services and information, not industrial production capacity. Industrial production capacity is a national strategic asset, yet it is one that our leaders seem to have forgotten.

We don't need to wait for our leaders to wake up, however. We could achieve immediate effects by boycotting corporations that incorporate Chinese products into their goods, especially ones intended for human or animal consumption. Remember the old ad jingle: “East meets West, La Choy makes Chinese food, swing American”? It's time to amend that. “East meets West, China poisons our products, die, Americans!”

Update: A few weeks later, there was yet another massive recall because of made-in-China toys being contaminated with lead. This latest recall involves 800,000 Mattel toys, including 675,000 Barbie accessories. According to an AP report, this is the third major recall of Chinese-made toys in the past few weeks necessitated by lead contamination. One needn't be a psychiatrist to know that there is something seriously wrong with China and the mindset of its people. We saved them in World War II, and soon thereafter they and the Russians—another one of our WW II allies—were out to get us any way they could. The Chinese attack has been relentless and multipronged. Do you think this chronic lead contamination problem is just a mistake? Perhaps not. If they want to beat us—and they do—they could get an edge by poisoning our kids with lead so the next generation of Americans is less intelligent. Unfortunately, the lead contamination problem is just the tip of the iceberg. China is our enemy, and they have more up their sleeve than just lead. We now know about some of the other hazards, but some won't be discovered for years, AFTER untold damage has been done. Then the Chinks will apologize to us, just like they always do, while they are secretly giving each other the high-five for a job well done as they celebrate the stupidity of Americans for being so blind to the war they're waging. Wake up, Americans. Stop buying made-in-China products, and tell Wal-Mart, the #1 supporter of made-in-China junk, to find suppliers in other countries. If you analyze Wal-Mart's success, it boils down to one primary economic fact: We rewarded them and made them multi-billionaires because they gave us low-cost goods. However, when these low-cost goods have a short life span, or when they are contaminated with lead or other risks to our health, it's clear that the value of what Wal-Mart is giving us is highly suspect.

Update #2: A smart student sent the following complaint to me:

Dear Dr. Pezzi,
I was entranced by the ER stories you posted online. They were quirky, funny, insightful, and enjoyable to read. You seem to be a man of high intelligence and ingenuity. However, I do have a complaint to make. Your most recent blog post alluding to your belief that China is conspiring to poison American consumers unnerved me, not because of the current lack of high product quality controls in China, but because you used the word "Chinks" to describe the Chinese.   If you know anything about the Asian-American community, you would know that "Chinks" is a highly offensive, racist term used predominantly by non-Asian Americans to describe the Chinese or any other Asian ethnicity in a demeaning, derogatory, condescending manner. It is akin to calling a Caucasian a "stupid honkie" or "white trash". Perhaps you don't see anything wrong with using offensive, racist terms to describe people of different ethnic backgrounds but I do. I was very disappointed to come across that word in your blog. When I first started reading it, I was surprised at your opinion that China is conspiring to poison the American market with low-grade, cheap, and toxic products. I disagree with you that there is an actual conspiratorial policy in place although I agree that many Chinese-made products are of inferior quality at the moment. I was hoping that your intelligence and education would have made you less narrow-minded and prejudiced. Your use of the word, "Chinks", only confirms the stereotype that white people from your state are narrow-minded and believe themselves superior, to the point of considering members of other ethnic (be it American or otherwise) backgrounds or cultures to be subpar.

My response to her:
You seem to be a highly intelligent person yourself, so I am a bit surprised by how offended you were. Let me try to make a distinction:

From your message: ""Chinks" is a highly offensive, racist term used predominantly by non-Asian Americans to describe the Chinese . . . in a demeaning, derogatory, condescending manner."

I think highly of many Chinese — probably you, too! :-) — so I never intended that as a global denunciation of all Chinese people. I DID intend it as a way to verbally lambaste the Chinese who commit the atrocities I mentioned. Anyone who intentionally poisons millions of people over a period of decades deserves to be called something far harsher than "Chink," but I usually don't use profanity.

So, there's a distinction here. I was clearly referring to the "bad Chinese," not ALL Chinese. If you've written much, you know that authors often relax their standards of proper English usage in an attempt to spice up their writings and to more effectively communicate their feelings. A few weeks ago, the publisher of Forbes magazine used the word "ain't" in an editorial . . . amazing! I've heard others use more contentious language, such as the famous "N-word." Since I am probably one of the few people who truly loathes racial discrimination AND has a viable plan to help eliminate it, I do not want to contribute to the problem by using epithets that stereotype people — but, in fairness to myself, I don't believe I did that. As I mentioned above, I think it was obvious that I had my finger pointed directly at one subset of Chinese: the ones who evidently don't give a hoot about their fellow human beings.

>  "I disagree with you that there is an actual conspiratorial policy in place . . . "

An actual conspiratorial policy in place? Nah, of course not. That would suggest a Machiavellian scheme motivated by "the usual suspects": greed and power. Not very appealing, but perhaps understandable. The reality is probably even more grim: a decades-long pattern of execrable behavior that evinces their utter apathy and contempt for people in the United States and others around the world who have been repeatedly victimized — even killed — by the callous disregard shown by the Chinese who think nothing of poisoning others.

I am glad that you are offended by racism, because I am, too. I hope that you are equally intolerant of the racism that some Chinese have manifested by sending us foods and other products laced with myriad toxins so many times for so many years that it can no longer be excused as simple incompetence and by using lame alibis like, "Sorry, I didn't know that lead is toxic." The Chinese people aren't bumbling idiots; they know better, but a distressing minority of them act like wanton criminals. Incidentally, that is wanton (lacking in morality), not won ton (the soup). If their apathy isn't rooted in racism (a xenophobic devaluation of others), how do you explain their actions? We've already ruled out stupidity. What's your guess?

It's either blatant racism, or something equally abhorrent: their utter apathy and contempt for their customers around the world — which, if you think about it, certainly does smack of racism. Caucasian Americans have no monopoly on racism. In my opinion, by poisoning us for many years, the Chinese have manifested a racist inclination to view us as expendable rubbish that's less important than their profits. Again, Chinese with that attitude deserve a term far more derogatory than "Chink."

I am particularly offended by how Americans have repeatedly extended a hand a friendship, and a helping hand in time of need, to countless people around the world, only to later have them figuratively (and often literally) thrust a fist in our faces in return. If you are of Chinese heritage, you can thank your lucky stars that you weren't alive and living in China during World War 2. As I mentioned before, Japanese soldiers raped and murdered innumerable Chinese women — even young girls! The Japs (or Nipponese, if you object to "Japs") had such a commanding lead over other nations in that region that they never could have recovered without being rescued by Allied Forces (90+% of which was American might).

What might have stopped the Japs from behaving like savages? Do you think they'd wake up one day and suddenly realize that their prior actions were an unconscionable moral abomination that revealed a deep character flaw in their culture? I doubt it. Had the Japs won WW2, you — being a hot young female — wouldn't have had the luxury of spending your day reading my web site and then writing to me to nitpick about whether it is politically correct to use the word "Chink" to bash Chinese people who do evil things and evidently don't give a shit about it. Instead, you probably would have been raped a dozen times or more by Japs whose culture taught them that they are so superior to others that non-Japanese people are less valuable than dogs. Don't believe me? Do some research, learn more history, and listen to the words of people who witnessed and experienced the many Japanese brutalities that gave us a transparent view into their souls. Yes, the Japanese people have changed for the better in the interim, but only because the United States forced them to change. Go ahead and denounce American rectitude as people around the world love to do in finding fault with "the Great Satan," the United States, but our virtue is a light-year ahead of anything you could get from others who inexplicably have no conception of their own shortcomings. Get a mirror, for heaven's sake!

From what I've read in various journals, some professors think that, deep down, we're all racist. We all think we're superior to folks on the other side of the ocean, and even on the other side of the bleachers. If you receive a good education in college, you will learn WHY people think the way they do, and WHY that innate xenophobia once served us so well in earlier times during our evolution. Racism is often viewed by highbrow intellectuals as being something of an atavistic trait that doesn't befit us modern, cultured folk, but hey, we're all racist to some degree because it's in our genes. Although Caucasians in the United States have long been denigrated as being the worst racists in the world, I think that what you're seeing is a classic case of psychological projection. Are white Americans racist? Yes, of course we are, but much less so than many others who would wipe us off the face of the Earth if they could. There is perhaps no more clear-cut manifestation of racism than the desire to subjugate and kill others who aren't "us." Criminally negligent and intentional poisonings (yes, intentional: do your own research to verify this), as the Chinese have done, can also be construed as a vicious manifestation of racism.

Professor Pezzi has a pop quiz for you:

Q: What is more racist?

(a) Intentionally (if not conspiratorially) poisoning others for decades.

(b) Being so exasperated by repeated poisonings and empty promises to cease those actions that I chose the word "Chink" because I wanted others to know how much I loathe the Chinese businessmen/criminals who, try as they may, just can't seem to stop themselves from their ingrained patterns of misconduct.

Time to get out the red pen.

Did you pick (a)? Good!

Pick (b)? God help you.

You said one thing that mystifies me: "Your use of the word, "Chinks", only confirms the stereotype that white people from your state are narrow-minded and believe themselves superior, to the point of considering members of other ethnic (be it American or otherwise) backgrounds or cultures to be subpar."

I've met many people who were incensed by what some Chinese have done, but have you ever met or heard of anyone who thinks that Chinese people are subpar? You must be kidding! The "white people from [my] state," as you phrased it, have a stereotype of Chinese people that is, if anything, complimentary. Mention "college student," and what's the first thing that pops into the minds of many people? Young, irresponsible party animals. Booze, drugs, iPod-like priorities.

Now mention "Chinese student," and what's the first thing that pops into the minds of many people, including me and lots of us other hicks here in Michigan? Bright, ambitious, studious, dedicated, hard-working, quiet, responsible. Lots of books. No boozing it up.

Now if that's a stereotype, it's certainly not a negative one. So, when the hicks I hang around with aren't busy making moonshine or keeping up with world events by reading The National Enquirer in our outhouses, we don't bash Chinese people by calling them "Chinks" — except when they poison us . . . again, and again, and again. It's called righteous indignation.

I realize that you have probably been indoctrinated by the thought police in college who take a simplistic view of how racial perceptions are formed and expressed. First, while the word "stereotype" has a negative connotation, some stereotypes are rooted in reality. For instance, my stereotype about Chinese students being smart and industrious is buttressed by facts showing that they have higher IQs and better grades.

Finally, calling me "narrow-minded and prejudiced" is categorically wrong. Unlike the racial "leaders" in our country who perpetuate interracial tensions by mindless truculence and inflammatory rhetoric that fuels divisiveness, I could do more to end discrimination in 15 minutes than those leaders have done since the inception of the United States.

One of my grandfathers was murdered by his co-workers because he was an immigrant from Italy — or an Italian-American, to use today's PC way of appending one's ethnic heritage onto his citizenship. At that time, Italians were viewed as being subhuman. In the minds of the lily-white (they thought) "real" Americans who murdered my great-grandfather, a dirty Dago like that didn't deserve to take a job away from a "real" American.

By the way, that is just one of the many reasons why I loathe racial or ethnic discrimination. If you want to learn more, organize a lecture at your college in which I'd explain how to give racism a long-overdue KO punch. Professors and other members of the thought police are great at stomping their feet and pouting about discrimination, but they don't have any viable plan for truly changing how people think. At best, they just make people so fearful of being labeled bigoted, biased, or a racist that they keep their thoughts to themselves. Does this really solve the problem? No, it simply sweeps it under the rug.

My plan is better: it doesn't hide the dirt, it gets rid of it.

After hearing about the disastrous bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I recalled something a relative (I'll call him Don) told me several years ago. At that time, Don worked as a sales rep for Hilti, a company that sells fasteners and adhesives. Don said he'd sold umpteen containers of adhesive to the contractor building a huge bridge in Michigan. Without going into all of the engineering details of that botched project, Don said the bridge was literally held together with Hilti adhesive. Perhaps that adhesive lasts indefinitely, but don't count on it. Every similar adhesive that I've seen becomes brittle and markedly weaker in time. So if a major bridge in Michigan collapses without warning, well, you've been warned.

Most people wouldn't let a store overcharge them for a pack of gum, yet most people live their entire lives without realizing how the government steals thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per year from them. In an earlier posting, I mentioned some of the taxes people pay but often don't consider in assessing their tax burden. That burden can easily exceed 50% of your income. Think of everything you purchase with your after-tax income: your mortgage or rent, food, auto payment, gasoline, medical insurance, house and personal property insurance, auto insurance, clothes, drugs, electricity, propane or natural gas, phone service, cell phone service, computers, Internet service, televisions, stereo systems, entertainment, and thousands of other things.

Now consider what the government provides to you in return for taking half or more of your money. Is it worth just as much to you as the dollars you spend? Probably not. In fact, it is probably not even close. The government does a good job of protecting our local and national security, so I won't complain too much about that money, even though much of the military expenditures are wasted. The government also plows the road in front of my house in wintertime, although not nearly as often as it should. The government also helped to educate me, but I paid for most of my education. Therefore, when I compare the value of what I buy with half my income and what the government provides for me with the half it takes as taxes, I don't think that the government is spending my money very efficiently. Every year, billions of dollars seem to vanish in Washington, with no bureaucrat or politician held accountable for it. Money doesn't vanish, of course. The excuse about “we don't know where that five billion dollars went” is just that: an excuse, and a rather shaky one, I might add. Someone knows where that money goes, but when it goes into someone's pocket illegally, the government seems to forget where it went. Ironically, the government would not tolerate this degree of sloppiness from us, the taxpayers. If you as a taxpayer made even 1% of the errors in recordkeeping that the government does, it could fine you and put you in prison. Isn't this a perversion of justice?

While watching TV yesterday, a public service commercial featuring a de rigueur Hollywood celebrity caused me to stop in my tracks:

“Provide your child with a healthy and safe home. Remember, this is your family we're talking about.”

Add in the obligatory tone of condescension, and you get the message.

What a monumental waste of airwave time! Most parents don't need such patronizing lectures, and anyone who does is either too dumb or too apathetic to be receptive to it.

A decade ago, a bevy of supercilious Hollywood celebrities in ubiquitous public service commercials somberly instructed us on the importance of condoms in reducing the risk of HIV transmission. This message is almost bound to fall on deaf ears for a multitude of reasons. What people need is a message like this:

“Prevent HIV transmission without decimating your pleasure. Find out more at www.not-another-useless-message.org.”

(Of course, too many people don't know what “decimating” means, so we'd need to substitute “markedly reducing.”)

The problem with condoms is, of course, that they do decimate pleasure (more for men than women, as I explain in The Science of Sex). The current epidemic of obesity is living proof that most people will let nothing stand in the way in their pursuit of pleasure (it's a pity that more people haven't read my weight loss book, in which I explain painless ways to lose weight). Cognizant that people are governed more by pleasure than logic, I invented a simple way for people to have "safe sex" without decimating pleasure. (Not that this is relevant to the current discussion, but I also developed various ways to amplify the pleasure of sex, which I explain in The Science of Sex.)

OK, you movers and shakers in Hollywood. I know you're listening, because several of you have written to me about other topics. Here's your chance to make a real difference instead of squandering your public service commercial time. Find out what I am talking about, and then spread the word.

To contact me, click the following link:

www.MySpamSponge.com/send.php?handle=doctor

MySpamSponge is a site I developed that anyone can use to block all of their spam, but never any legitimate messages. With MySpamSponge, you communicate using handles instead of e-mail addresses. A handle is essentially a contact code that gives people a way to contact you via e-mail without you having to reveal your e-mail address. Similarly, you can send a message by using the recipient's handle as the address (mine is doctor).

Update February 17, 2008: On August 1, 2007, I contacted Patty Stonesifer, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (read the letter here). My letter began, "I am a physician who devised two new methods to block HIV transmission. I would like the opportunity to present them to you because they dovetail with your efforts to curb HIV/AIDS."

One might think that the Gates Foundation would welcome an effective new way to block HIV transmission (and one that can be implemented now, not after years of research), yet I never heard from her. Why not? Although I know why, yesterday I read about a study which concluded that "when people feel powerful, they ignore new opinions." There's another way to say the same thing: When people feel powerful, their intellectual arrogance leads them to conclude that they have all the great ideas.

Ms. Stonesifer probably thought, "What could a doctor in Michigan know about preventing HIV transmission that we don't already know? Gee whiz, I'm a bright person, and Bill has exhaustively researched this. We've collaborated with the preeminent researchers in this field, so we've left no stone unturned."

Except, of course, for a couple of ones that are glaringly obvious to me (being an outside-the-box thinker), but something that would seem like hieroglyphics to people who think inside the box. Incidentally, studies have shown that most scientists tend to follow a pack "follow the leader" mentality. Those people do valuable work by conducting the nuts-and-bolts research that needs to be done, but they aren't the mavericks who generate new ideas.

According to a press release by UNAIDS (a joint venture of the United Nations and the World Health Organization), in 2007 2.5 million [range: 1.8 – 4.1 million] people became newly infected with HIV. Let's do the math: It's now been over six months since I wrote to the Gates Foundation. In that time, over a million people were infected with HIV. Thus, by blowing me off as she did, Ms. Stonesifer blew an opportunity to save many lives.

But let's be realistic: why should royalty like the Gates Foundation listen to me? Cognizant that they're too important to give five minutes to someone they view as a peon who couldn't possibly have anything worthwhile to say, I set my sites a bit lower and sent a message to a man who appeared as a guest on The Big Idea Show. He was the head of an AIDS organization that I'd never before heard of, and he seemed to be down-to-earth and genuinely interested in combating this problem — or so he seemed on TV. I asked for nothing in return; just the opportunity to present my ideas to him.

He never responded.

Update May 11, 2008: Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of California, Berkeley, released a new policy analysis (1) which concluded that the most common HIV prevention strategies are doing a poor job of controlling the primarily heterosexual epidemics in Africa. What isn't working?

• Condom promotion
• Encouraging sexual abstinence
• HIV testing
• Treatment of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
• Vaccine and microbicide research

According to Daniel Halperin, lecturer on international health in the HSPH Department of Population and International Health and one of the paper's lead authors, "We need a fairly dramatic shift in priorities, not just a minor tweaking."

I agree. However, the Gates Foundation and others are seemingly more content to burn money in an attempt to manifest their good intentions than to achieve good results.

Journal reference:

1. Reassessing HIV Prevention. Malcolm Potts, Daniel T. Halperin, Douglas Kirby, Ann Swidler, Elliot Marseille, Jeffrey Klausner, Norman Hearst, Richard G. Wamai, James G. Kahn, Julia Walsh, Science, May 9, 2008, vol. 320.

The Oprah Winfrey Show recently teamed up with QVC to search for the "Next Big Idea." From a field of 6000 applicants, eight finalists were selected to appear on Oprah's May 3, 2007 show. I was dumbfounded by what I saw. All eight finalists were women (perhaps not too surprising, considering Oprah's thinly-veiled misandry), whose ideas included a fold-down baking pan, a vegetable peeler, a food item (a stuffed biscuit), a clip for hanging Christmas cards on wreaths, a plastic ball to assist in floral arrangements, decorative drapes for shutters (can you say, "just another craft project"?), a radio-controlled doodling toy, and an eye shadow applicator.

Ahem. Calling most of these things "inventions" isn't just a stretch, it is the "Next Big Stretch." Several of the ideas have been around for years (almost a century in one case), and the remainder are anything but the kind of great ideas you might expect from a pool supposedly representing the best ideas from 6000 entrants. Stick a knife into a biscuit and stuff some food inside—is that really an invention? I did that when I was a hungry kid looking for a snack at a time when I was "slow," according to my sixth-grade teacher. (This page explains how I went from dunce to doctor and later graduated in the top 1% of my class in medical school.)

The winning idea was the fold-down baking pan, invented by a woman supposedly desperate to find a better way to remove food from a pan. Sheesh, hasn't she heard of a frigging spatula, for heaven's sake? Instead, she concocted a maze of sheet metal that looked like it was designed by the same person who styled World War II-era ammunition containers. Her pan looked to be impossible to thoroughly clean without scrubbing for hours with various brushes to reach into its nooks and crannies. I love baking, and I love most baking gadgets if they serve a purpose and aren't more of a nuisance than they are worth, but I wouldn't use her fold-down baking pan if someone gave it to me. And that, my friends, was judged the best of the 6000 ideas. The "Next Big Idea"? No, the "Next Big Disappointment."

The amount of money that Americans paid in 2006 to participate in online dating: $649 million.

The amount of money that they needed to pay: Zero.

“Zero?” you ask, “What about sites like Match.com and Yahoo Personals in which people must pay to contact others?”

If you use a free site that I created, www.ContactMeFree.com, you don’t have to pay any site to contact others, or to read messages sent to you. I invented a way to bypass the need to pay for a membership. In fact, if you and others used ContactMeFree, you would be freer than paid members to contact others and have people contact you. The dirty little secret of the online dating industry that almost NO ONE seems to get is that paying for a membership does not remove all of the obstacles that personals sites put in your way! Even if you are so rich that money means nothing to you, you do care about meeting the best possible match, and finding that person sooner, not later. Online dating sites make it seem easy to meet people, but they are structured to make that process more difficult than you imagine. They want you to keep paying, month after month. And you do. Fools.

I admit it: I was once this foolish. Then I had an epiphany and began to see how little my membership fees actually bought. The deeper I dug, the more I realized how online dating sites are rigged. I wanted to do something about it, but what? Initially, it seemed that their “pay to contact” stranglehold was insurmountable.

Then, eureka! I figured out how to legally obviate the need to pay membership fees to online dating sites, and other “pay to contact” personal ads, such as those in newspapers in which contacting someone might cost you $1.99 or more per minute. I released ContactMeFree a few months later, and since then every dating site became effectively free to use. Yet you and others keep paying them. Why?

If you spend a few minutes reading ContactMeFree’s FAQ page, you will see that ContactMeFree is an indispensable adjunct to any dating site, unless money, time, and results mean nothing to you. The worst that anyone can say about ContactMeFree is that you cannot immediately contact someone if that person does not yet have a ContactMeFree profile. So what? I created an innovative way for you to send a message to someone even if that person does not yet have a ContactMeFree account. News travels fast on the Internet, and in a week or two everyone could be flocking to ContactMeFree and reading the messages waiting for them. Or you can keep on paying the online dating sites, month after month, and year after year.

Perhaps people are waiting for there to be a critical mass of ContactMeFree users before they think it is worthwhile to sign up. This is reminiscent of what the first few telephone purchasers faced over a century ago. Why buy a telephone when there are few people with telephones to converse with? Or why be the first person to buy a fax machine if no one else has a fax to receive your transmissions? However, we know how that turned out, don’t we?

What you need to know about online dating, but probably don't

In my mind, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all time is why so many people around the world and at home think that the United States is evil. I am not a mindless flag-waving apologist for the United States, and I realize that its track record is far from being unblemished. In fact, as you will later realize, I have 20/20 vision in seeing the flaws of the US government. To prove it, I will later mention one abomination that goes on every minute of every day in the good ol' USA that would boil the blood of anyone who cares about justice and our most basic Constitutional rights, yet you've probably never noticed this.

But evil? C'mon, what is the evidence for this?

When the US is said to be "evil," the person expressing that sentiment is usually trying to convey the idea that America is imperialistic.

Before I proceed, I ask that you think about this, not just react to it. Research has shown that when discussing politics, people generally enter and leave the discussion with their preconceived notions, thinking more emotionally than rationally. Therefore, all the logic in the world won’t turn a Democrat into a Republican, or vice versa.

After Germany capitulated in World War II, President Truman went to Europe to attend the Potsdam Conference. While there, he made a statement about America's aims:

"Let's not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We're not fighting for conquest. There is not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole."

That is still true today. Oh, I know what many people say about America. It's evil. It's imperialistic. It invaded Iraq just to get its oil.

Remember when I asked you to put your thinking cap on? Well, it is now time to think. If we invaded Iraq to get its oil, why haven't we taken a drop of it after 4 years? During that 4-year period, fuel prices in the US have surged. Like other presidents, George W. Bush is concerned about his approval rating from American citizens. Bush's rating is very low, yet there is something he could do to become wildly popular and even revered at home: He could give us cheap oil.

Really cheap. Instead of paying over $60 per barrel to Middle Eastern countries, we could instead pay them nothing. Don't think so?

Who could stop us? Don't be misled by the difficulty we're having fighting a ragtag band of Islamic extremists in Iraq. The United States is its own worst enemy. We intentionally handicap ourselves by fighting with both hands tied behind our back. If we were to unleash our military, it could bomb anyone back into the Stone Age within minutes (if we use our nuclear weapons) to hours or days (if we use conventional weapons). We could seize oil not just from Iraq, but from every oil-producing country in the world except for Russia (for obvious reasons).

But we don't, even when we have darned good excuses for doing that, such as during the Gulf War. Iraq deliberately invaded Kuwait to seize its oil and other assets. Iraq was clearly a ruthless, bloodthirsty aggressor. We could have punished them by seizing its assets and giving them to Kuwait, or giving them to the American taxpayers—the ones who pay to combat genuine imperialists, such as Saddam Hussein and the many wannabes who would love to emulate the brutal way that he subjugated people and treated them like dirt.

For that matter, we could have punished Germany and Japan after World War II. They started the war without justification, killed well over 30 million innocent people, enslaved and tortured countless others, and indelibly affected—for the worse—the lives of just about everyone living at that time. We did not even demand reparations, so the cost for the war was borne by taxpayers in the United States and our allies. American taxpayers, suckers that we are, even paid to rebuild Germany and Japan. We treated their citizens with dignity and respect. Had Germany and Japan prevailed in the war, do you think they would have returned the favor? Ha! Look at how they treated their vanquished: they pillaged their assets, revoked their freedoms, enslaved them, starved them, raped their women, made their children miserable, and used them as guinea pigs to perform sadistic medical "experiments."

If that isn't adequate justification for punishing those countries, what is? We could have sent a powerful message to the world by penalizing the countries that waged this aggressive war, but we instead gave them a helping hand rather than the iron fist they deserved.

No one could have stopped us. We had the A-bomb and no one else did. We could have subjugated the entire world, for that matter. I could have a cute little fräulein preparing a fresh and tasty breakfast for me right now, instead of eating soggy microwaved leftovers from two days ago. I could have some of General Tojo's descendants mowing my yard and painting my house. But we did not enslave the citizens of Germany and Japan, even though we could have turned every last one of them into permanent slaves to serve us and subsequent generations of Americans. "Hey, Hashimoto, you missed a spot! Better take care of that before I begin whipping you with a bamboo cane." Japanese soldiers, without any provocation, did far worse things to captured Americans and Chinese.

But we didn't retaliate, because we aren't imperialistic, and we are not evil—at least, not in this way (more about that in a minute). Both the Germans and Japanese behaved like utter savages in World War II, inflicting unprecedented barbarity. We even let the Emperor of Japan get off scot-free, allowing him to live a carefree life of luxury. Had Japan conquered the United States, they would have butchered President Truman and spat on his grave. Yet who is reviled around the world for being evil? The USA. Go figure.

In my opinion, the real reason we invaded Iraq was so that President Bush could pursue a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Bush sought revenge because Hussein once tried to have Bush's father assassinated. If someone tried to kill your father, you'd probably want revenge, too. However, most people don't have the means to get even, whereas George W. Bush had the combined might of American armed forces at his disposal. I think that Bush's desire for revenge clouded his objectivity in assessing the true risk that Iraq imposed to us, so Bush bent over backward to find justification for the war. I won't argue that we were, or were not, justified in invading Iraq. That's debatable.

What isn't debatable is that we could have seized their oil, yet we did not. So, in this regard, it is just plain crazy to say that America is evil and imperialistic.

The truth is that the power-hungry control freaks in Washington don't need to subjugate anyone around the world to satisfy their thirst for conquest, because they have 300 million people to subjugate at home. Their primary means of control is by confiscating about half or more of every dollar we earn via myriad taxes, not just income and sales taxes. Unfortunately, 99% of Americans know more about Paris Hilton than they do about the taxes they pay. More than a few Americans are so stupid that they actually think the government PAYS THEM because they receive a refund every April—oblivious to the fact that this is as much a refund as it would be if I stole a dollar from you and returned a few cents. How many people add up the other taxes? There are Social Security taxes (money I'll never see, incidentally), gasoline taxes, telephone taxes, other utility taxes, property taxes, real estate transfer taxes, gift taxes, estate (death) taxes, state income taxes, state "usage" taxes, city income taxes, alcohol taxes, cigarette taxes, firearms taxes, luxury (e.g., boat) taxes, workers' compensation taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes, inventory taxes, other business taxes, countless other taxes, and a bewildering number of fees for everything from driving a car to getting married to building a house (building permit, septic permit, well permit, driveway permit) that sap countless billions of dollars from American citizens to feed politicians and their not-always-benevolent aims. There are myriad fees for starting a business and running it, and additional fees if your business is one of the many ones subjected to additional regulation (food permit fees, astronomical FDA fees, medical license fees, DEA fees, etc.). Then there are fees for parking meters, driving on toll roads (and bridges and tunnels), traffic tickets (some of which are just another source of revenue for the government), and road usage taxes for truckers. If you buy a snowmobile or ATV, the government isn't satisfied by merely taxing you on its sales price; they also impose multiple never-ending registration and usage fees. If you ride a bicycle, own a dog, hunt, fish, hike, or often just breath in the wrong spot, the government has even more ways to pickpocket your money. As if that is not enough subjugation, there are innumerable IRS penalties and court fines to drain even more dollars from citizens who might inadvertently not comply with one of the million and one laws and regulations governing us peons.

Here is a pop quiz that few people can pass. Can you? Let's see.

Q: Can a citizen of the United States be compelled to work without compensation?

1. Of course not, silly. Being forced to work for free is slavery, which is unconstitutional.
2. Only incarcerated prisoners sentenced to hard labor can be forced to work for free.
3. Yes.

The correct answer is #3, Yes.

OK, time for the next question:

Q: In the United States, who can be compelled to work without compensation?

1. Illegal immigrants.
2. Enemy combatants being detained for planning or committing terrorist acts against the United States.
3. People convicted of treason against the United States.
4. People convicted of both mass murder and rape.
5. Emergency room doctors.

The correct answer is #5, Emergency room doctors.

Skeptical? I'll prove it with this excerpt from my www.ER-doctor.com site:

As an ER doctor, the federal government obligates you to see every patient who walks in the door, whether or not they can pay for their care, even if what they have is clearly not an emergency (for example, in True Emergency Room Stories I presented a case in which a woman came to the ER via ambulance after calling 911 because she wanted me to check her vagina to see if it was "tight enough").

I would not object to this if the government fairly compensated me for that care, but they don't. In fact, I could be fined $50,000 per occurrence by refusing to see a patient. There is a name for forcing people to work without compensation: it's called slavery.

Essentially, the government created an unfunded mandate, and put the burden for funding that mandate onto the backs of ER doctors. My income as an ER doctor was cut in half because so much of the work I did was without compensation. Not only did I treat thousands of patients for free, but I actually lost money from them because I still had to pay for malpractice coverage and other expenses.

This unfunded mandate is a moral abomination. If the federal government thinks it is so important that emergency departments treat everyone, then it should provide the dollars to pay for that care. Instead, it uses (abuses) its power to do whatever it pleases, even if it is antithetical to our Constitution and something that would infuriate anyone subjected to these "work for free or else" laws.

Who else in our society must endure such subjugation? Even if you are hungry and in danger of dying from starvation, you cannot go into a restaurant or grocery store and demand free food (try that and you'll go to jail). Even if you are freezing to death in wintertime, you cannot force a builder, landlord, motel, or hotel to give you free shelter. No matter how badly you need clothing, you cannot force a store to clothe you without paying. No matter how much you need transportation, you cannot force a car dealer to give you a free automobile. No matter how badly you need glasses or contacts, you cannot force an eye doctor to give them to you free. The need for food, clothing, and shelter can be far more important than healthcare, so why is it that only ER doctors must work for free? Is it fair? Obviously not.

I can hear the liberal minds whirring as they try to justify this abomination. "But you weren't forced to work for free all of the time."

So what? Imagine if autoworkers were forced to work 30 minutes of every hour without compensation to build cars for poor people, or people who simply chose not to pay. If the government, with its characteristic arrogance, demanded that of autoworkers and others, I guarantee you that the government would be overthrown in a heartbeat. Even the military and police would point their barrels toward Washington, and with perfect justification. Long ago, our government declared that slavery was an unconscionable national disgrace that would never be repeated, but consider this: the slaves received at least meager compensation for their work in the form of food and lodging. They were never asked to work for free. American politicians don't care if ER doctors are forced to work without compensation half of the time. Those politicians know that it is wrong (if they take the time to think about it) and unconstitutional, yet they do it anyway because it's just one more way in which they buy votes for themselves.

Most people do not care about politicians doing evil things unless they are victimized by those injustices. Well, folks, today's politicians have a nasty little surprise for you, too, but most of you are so busy watching Paris Hilton and frittering away your time in other ways that you'll never figure it out until it is too late. I wish you good luck. You’re going to need it.

Now let's return to the original topic: the all too common perception around the world that the United States is evil. Had Germany and Japan prevailed in World War II, the world would be a vastly different place than it is today. Millions of Muslims think the US is evil, yet we created a world in which they are free to follow their religion. If some of their followers attacked Berlin or Tokyo (had Germany and Japan won WW II), Muslims would likely have been been murdered by the millions.

I thought I knew how intolerant and savagely brutal Germany and Japan were in WW II, but after watching documentaries such as Hell in the Pacific and Ghosts of Bataan, I am stunned not only by their barbarity, but by how many of them actually enjoyed inflicting torture. German and Japanese soldiers committed innumerable monstrous acts, such as killing millions of innocent people and raping untold numbers of women and girls. The Russians retaliated for this during their conquest of Berlin in 1945, during which time they raped at least 100,000 women (including elderly women AND GIRLS), 10,000 of whom subsequently committed suicide.

Japanese soldiers raped and then killed many thousands of Chinese women—without any provocation, I might add. Had Muslims attacked Tokyo, Japs would have raped and then butchered every Muslim woman they could get their revengeful hands on. Muslim men would be treated like dogs, enslaved, beaten, spat upon, and then killed. If history is any guide (and it is), some unfortunate Muslim men would also be skinned alive, just as some Japs did to captured Allied soldiers in WW II. Other Allied POWs were burned alive or beheaded while others died of starvation or dehydration. At least one man that I know of had an arm repeatedly broken by the Japs, who refused to let a doctor set his fractures. 400 POWs being transported to Japan were stuffed into the hold of a ship with nowhere to urinate or defecate except where they stood. That atrocious odor was compounded by the smell of decaying corpses from men who died en route. Some Japanese soldiers cannibalized Allied POWs. The lucky victims were killed first; the unlucky ones had their flesh stripped while they were alive. Japs would fillet off more flesh on subsequent days to, for example, make a biceps burger. Incidentally, I am not making this stuff up. It actually happened, although you probably never heard about it in your high school or college history classes in which the teachers and professors intentionally—I think—sanitize history. (Why they sanitize it is something I will address another day.)

Rather than turning POWs into hamburger, the American military bent over backwards to treat their prisoners decently. Our military leaders naively thought that if we were kind to Axis POWs, the Germans and Japanese would reciprocate and treat Allied POWs decently. American leaders didn't just order that POWs be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Convention, but that they were treated as good as, or better than, our soldiers. I watched a documentary that demonstrated how we treated German POWs. They were housed in the same type of barracks as our GIs, with the same number of men per building. They were paid for their labor, given first-rate medical care, and given the same food as American GIs—or, upon request, an equivalent of their own type of food to suit their German palates. In fact, German POWs were fed better than American civilians, who were subjected to rationing. While Americans went hungry at home, German POWs ate fresh meat and vegetables without rationing. German POWs were also provided with a theater in which they could entertain themselves by putting on plays. A captured German General was given his own private villa that included a garden and a servant. At dinner, the General was served beer and wine—and if his servant happened to be female, I wonder if he wasn't given an even better treat at bedtime. If German prisoners died in captivity, they were given a military funeral, complete with Nazi flag. This luxurious treatment infuriated many American civilians, who objected to how kind we were to people who were trying to either exterminate or enslave the rest of the world.

By now, my point should be obvious: the United States is not evil. We're tolerant. We don't want to subjugate the world, even though we could have done that.

Germany and Japan were not tolerant. They were evil, and would have obliterated anyone who wasn't a good little slave. Had Germany and Japan won World War II, Muslims would not have the freedom to read the Koran and follow other tenets of their religion. Indeed, there might not even be any Muslims by now, because the Germans and Japs had an exceedingly low tolerance for opposition, annihilating even those who had done nothing to them. Unrelenting attacks, such as ones perpetrated by various Muslims against the US and its allies, would have likely resulted in an unstoppable campaign by the Axis powers to exterminate every Muslim in the world. Yet we're the evil ones? Go figure.

Incidentally, the folks who believe that "America is imperialistic" don't have facts on their side. Exhibit A: Before the US entered World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill repeatedly begged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to enter the war. Churchill tried persuading Roosevelt every way he could, but Roosevelt—upset over British imperialism—refused. He wanted Great Britain to renounce the imperialism which enabled that comparatively tiny nation to become a world empire. Churchill wouldn't yield, even in his darkest hour when defeat by Germany seemed imminent. Exhibit B: Think of how many countries we could have taken over (every country in the world), and compare this with how many we have. Even when we enter a country to fight a war, we eventually leave that country, and our involvement almost invariably results in more freedom for its citizens. Had we decided to stay in Kuwait and turn it into a giant free gas station for the USA, who could have stopped us? The reality is this: America has a long track record of renouncing imperialism even when we could greatly benefit from it. We live by the principle that "might doesn't make right"—except, of course, when American politicians and bureaucrats shaft American citizens, which they do every hour of every day.

As an inventor and outside-the-box thinker, I know there were three tragedies that day. Everyone knows about one of them: the shooting. What were the others?

• Something the victims failed to do that could have saved many lives.
• What the police should have done besides cowering behind trees and cop cars.

Are we living in the Stone Age or the 21st century? Come on, police, get with the program! Furthermore, while I greatly respect the courage of what some victims did in trying to block the shooter's access to their rooms, I am saddened that no one thought of much better ways to neutralize him. In less than ten seconds, I conceived at least four ways to do that. Now five . . . and six . . .

If Bill Gates doesn't want to buy the "it will change the world" hardware/software gizmo that I am now developing (see * below), perhaps he might consider hiring me through his charitable foundation to help students become more intelligent and creative. In this case, a bit of creativity could have saved many lives.

* Microsoft should buy it, according to something that Gates said. In a discussion of missed opportunities during a televised program (Buffett & Gates Go Back to School) in which Bill Gates and Warren Buffett responded to questions from students at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln School of Business Administration, Gates said, "In Microsoft's case, the biggest mistake is where we miss something that's coming along that's going to be huge. We don't want to have anything that comes along, some breakthrough . . . that we haven't gotten the best people in and are putting that together with the work we're doing, so it would be missing something like that that would be our worst mistake."

Well, Mr. Gates, I have something that is a huge breakthrough, potentially more popular than the Internet, and something that more people will find an indispensable part of their lives. It can be used alone or in conjunction with computers and the Internet. Everyone can use it, from young children to old folks, including the myriads of technological Luddites who can't, or won't, program a VCR. Here's your chance to out-innovate Google.

Let me tell you, if none of the dozens of "smarter than the average bear" students and professors involved could think of how to stop the rampage by that whack job, then perhaps there is merit to my contention that iPods, cell phones, and other "I want to be an automaton" devices hinder our thinking more than we would like to admit. By the way, Bill, don't try calling my cell phone. I don't have one.

After all charges were dropped yesterday against the Duke University students accused of raping the black exotic dancer (or is it more politically correct to say African-American exotic dancer?), I began to think of various things our society does that perpetuate the corrosive aspects of discrimination and racial bias. Ironically, in an attempt to help black people, societal do-gooders have implemented affirmative action programs that perpetuate racial divisiveness and breed resentment as well as skepticism of minority accomplishments.

As an undergraduate at Michigan State University, I witnessed MSU do something in the name of helping black students that should incense anyone who cares about justice and academic integrity. I wrote about this topic years ago on my www.ERbook.net site. Here’s an excerpt:

I worked for MSU tutoring primarily minority students [all of whom were black]. In the course of my tutoring job, I discovered that MSU had certain class sections that were hidden from other students—and hence inaccessible—in the course enrollment book. Certain sections were reserved for athletes, and certain sections were reserved for qualifying minority students. Students in those classes were guaranteed a passing grade if they merely showed up for the exam and signed their name. (Perhaps the professors in those classes took to heart the quip by Woody Allen, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”) If the students attempted to answer any of the questions, they were given a B, and if they got any question correct (even if it was by random chance), they were awarded an A. That ticked me off! I had to work my butt off to succeed, and here were people being given a free ride through life just because of their skin color or because they could catch a football. However, it is important to note that not all minorities and athletes were handed a degree on a silver platter after four years of pretending to be a student; some of them took regular classes and worked just as hard as anyone else. Nevertheless, the fact that any student could be awarded college credit in such a fraudulent manner is alarming. Why it happened is another matter. My guess is that the university bowed to political pressure to graduate more minorities—and we all know that sports teams can be big money-makers for colleges, so there is an obvious incentive to give dumb jocks a helping hand.

It is no secret that affirmative action exists, but I was shocked by the degree to which it is sometimes so blatantly offensive. This isn’t just offensive to hard-working non-minorities who are displaced by minorities given an unfair boost, it is also a slap in the face to hard-working minorities who achieve success on their own. In fact, those latter people should be particularly incensed, because the existence of these scandals undermines public confidence in the legitimacy of their achievements.

People who criticize affirmative action risk being labeled as prejudiced. Research has shown that all humans tend to possess a reflexive distrust of others who are not like them. Basically, xenophobia seems to be part of our genetic heritage. However, I think that this innate tendency can be overcome by one’s life experiences. For example, in the ER I noticed that black patients, especially older ones, tended to like me more than white patients. I am not sure why that was true. Perhaps it is because I treated them with respect and concern, which they may not have been used to getting. In any case, it is natural to like people who like you.

Furthermore, when I meet a black person who is intelligent and contributes to society instead of having his hand out, I like that person even more than I would someone with equal attributes who is white. Based on that, if I harbor any prejudice as a white person, it seems that any bias I have is a slight bias against white people. Consequently, if I speak out against affirmative action, it is not a manifestation of prejudice. I think affirmative action, although well-intended, hurts everyone in one way or another. I think that there are better ways to achieve diversity. For example, Joe Klein wrote an interesting article in the December 18, 2006 issue of Time magazine entitled “There’s More Than One Way to Diversity.” After reading him for years, I believe that his opinions tend toward the left side of the political spectrum. If Joe Klein criticizes affirmative action, then there is probably something fundamentally wrong with it. I think that Mr. Klein and others would be even more critical of it if they knew of some of the most heinous things done in the name of affirmative action, such as the sham college degrees awarded to some black students by Michigan State University.

The February 12, 2007 issue of Time magazine included an interesting article by Scott Haig, M.D. entitled Doctors without Dollars. As Dr. Haig illustrated, the traditional practice of medicine is no longer as lucrative as it once was, so doctors are looking for other ways to make a living. Some doctors have turned to cosmetic surgery and offer things such as laser treatments, Botox injections, and hair transplants. Other doctors offer alternative medicine therapies that border on quackery, yet pay better than mainstream medical treatment. Many doctors have left the practice of medicine altogether, and are now stockbrokers, financial analysts, or realtors. I discussed this topic several times in my www.ERbook.net site, beginning in 1996. I graduated in the top 1% of my class in medical school and was trained as an ER doctor, yet I would rather mow lawns or do virtually anything else than work as an emergency room physician. I know one surgeon who quit his job to become a bartender in Montana, another surgeon who now sells Amway products, a neurosurgeon who is a plumber, and a few doctors who are now artists. Then there's the internist who sells women's clothing in her home, a cardiologist who now makes furniture, and a doc who makes stained glass windows.

Years ago, it was almost unheard of for doctors to transition to other careers. If you were smart enough and dedicated enough to become a physician, and you were lucky enough to pass all the hurdles that society imposes, then you generally practiced medicine until the day you retired. Medicine was perhaps the prototypical “great career,” offering respect, unsurpassed job security, and income that ranged from excellent to superb. Finding a doctor who was a millionaire was about as surprising as finding a cheerleader who is pretty.

Medical careers no longer offer such financial security. Some docs continue to rake in money, such as ophthalmologists who perform LASIK operations and can make more money in an hour than many other doctors make in a week or two. However, many other doctors now make less money than some real estate agents, salesmen, autoworkers, UPS drivers, and even teachers (I prove how a UPS driver can earn more than a doctor on my www.ER-doctor.com site on this page). Nothing against teachers, but becoming a teacher is considerably easier than becoming a licensed physician. Paradoxically, many people still harbor the notion that doctors are overpaid. The father of one of my ER patients mumbled something about “you doctors are paid too much,” and then demonstrated his resentment by leaving the emergency room to smash my car, much to the amazement of the security guard who witnessed this.

As I mentioned in my ER site and some of my books (Fascinating Health Secrets and True Emergency Room Stories), society has a vested interest in training and retaining the most intelligent, dedicated, and conscientious doctors. To get the best people, society must pay them very well and reduce the endlessly escalating hassles of medicine, such as dealing with unfathomable bureaucracy imposed by the government and insurance companies, as well as the ever-present threat of a malpractice lawsuit even when no medical errors were committed (a Harvard study revealed that over 80% of malpractice lawsuits lack merit). The more noxious a medical career is, the more likely it is that the most intelligent people will choose another profession. I made that prediction several years ago, and just after that the number of people applying to medical school dropped four years in a row—something that had never occurred before.

What is even more worrisome than the declining number of applicants is the fact that such a dwindling pool invariably reduces the quality of it. Consequently, many people who now get into medical school would never have been accepted two decades ago when I applied, when the competition was fierce. While watching ABC-TV’s The Bachelor with a friend who is a cardiac nurse, we were amazed that the bachelor, a young physician, had actually graduated from medical school. After listening to his characteristically unintelligent manner of expression, we looked at one another and simultaneously asked, “Is he retarded?”

His place in medical school could have been taken by someone with more brainpower, but as I mentioned elsewhere, many of those people with higher IQs who would have chosen a medical career years ago are now repelled by the realities of modern medical practice and therefore chose another career. Anyone smart enough to be a good physician has the intelligence to do countless other things. It is easy to find a job that pays better than medicine, requires less devotion, and does not require working nights, weekends, and holidays.

My mom died of cancer two years ago, and I truly resent all the holidays and other family get-togethers that I missed because I had to work. Once those precious family days are over, they are gone forever. I was willing to make that and 1001 other sacrifices because I thought that I would eventually be rewarded for doing things that no human being should ever have to do. How many of you have worked 40 hours in a row? I’ve done that numerous times with no sleep and no breaks, working at a frenetic pace to treat trauma and other patients who constantly poured into the hospital. Trying to cope with these impossible demands, some of my colleagues turned to amphetamines. I was offered speed but declined it, instead choosing to drink liters of Pepsi and chew caffeine pills as if they were candy. My ER residency director once commented that I was the smartest resident they ever had, yet she also chastised me once or twice about how cranky I was. Gee-whiz, I wonder why? After years of sleep deprivation and running on so much caffeine that I shook like a leaf, it is no freaking wonder that I would be less than diplomatic when, for example, a nurse refused to chaperone me so that I could perform a pelvic examination on a rape victim who was very eager to get her evaluation over with so that she could go home and shower. In this case, the nurse was just standing around waiting for her shift to end, but I didn’t want the patient to wait for the next shift, which could have imposed a delay of an hour or more.

A few days ago, a 14-year-old girl with aspirations of a career in emergency medicine wrote to me and asked various questions, one of which was if I would still go into medicine if I had to do it all over again. Emphatically, NO! I have written extensively on why going into medicine is now such an unwise decision that many medical students sincerely regret their career choice even before they graduate. I won’t repeat what I wrote before, but suffice it to say that I apparently made such cogent arguments for avoiding medical careers that many people have exhorted me to stop dissuading people from choosing to be a doctor. Those people pleaded with me, saying things such as, “We need good doctors.” I agree with them, but I do not believe that the way to get the most qualified physicians is to give people a misleading idea of what it’s like to be a doctor in the 21^st century. I am certain that I could sell more books if I did not have ethical reservations that precluded me from tricking or deluding people. However, I won’t lie or even shade the truth to make a buck.

If society wants the smartest and hardest working people to choose medical careers in the future, it cannot do that by deception. However, politicians are too stupid to understand the nexus between careers with second-rate rewards and career applicants with second-rate qualifications. Lawyers and bureaucrats have no incentive to back off, so for the foreseeable future medicine will continue to be a career that is best avoided. The smartest students realize this and often choose alternative careers, leaving the spots they would have occupied in medical school to people, like the bachelor, who amaze me not with their intelligence, but with their lack of it. Society needs the smartest possible doctors, but we are not doing what it takes to get them.

Update: This posting prompted a teacher to send me a nastygram complaining about what I said about teachers. This person was so hot under the collar that I wondered if he were mentally ill with a chip on his shoulder. What triggered his outburst was my statement that "becoming a teacher is considerably easier than becoming a licensed physician." This statement is so obviously true that arguing about it makes about as much sense as claiming that walking in a park is more arduous than running a marathon. The enraged teacher then rhetorically asked about the many teachers I had, whose tutelage enabled me to become a doctor. First, the best teacher I ever had was my mother, who had many jobs, none of which involved teaching. Second, only a few of my teachers were exceptional; most were decidedly lackluster. Bottom line? Most of the learning that propelled me to the top of my class in medical school (and beyond) was acquired from self-study, not from a teacher or professor. If teachers and professors really knew how to teach, virtually every student could replicate my feat of transforming myself from dunce to doctor. Even the best teachers cannot do that because their antiquated teaching methods do not provide the necessary catalyst to fuel that intellectual metamorphosis.

A high school teacher once took me aside and, almost gushing with stars in her eyes, asked me if I were John Denver. Umm, no. There were several reasons why that could not possibly be true:

1. I'm not named John. Or Denver.
2. I don't look like him (judge for yourself).
3. He was an adult when I was a kid in high school.
4. He was on tour and doing things that I could not have possibly done, given that I attended school five days per week.

Another person wrote to tell me how sick and tired he was of "greedy doctors" focused on money. Sorry, bub, but doctors are nowhere near the top of the ladder when it comes to greed; their lust for money is surpassed by lawyers, CEOs, gas and oil companies, actors, singers, assorted celebrities, software tycoons, professional athletes (most of whom refuse to perform unless they are paid far more in a year than most physicians make in a lifetime), and countless others. Second, that person totally missed my point that to get the best people in medicine (and retain them), society must be willing to pay for their brainpower and the many years of ungodly hard work and sacrifice that it takes to become a doctor. Make a profession less rewarding, and you'll simply divert the best and brightest into other careers.

A question for teachers: If teachers are doing such a great job, why can homeschooled kids routinely trounce their peers educated in public schools? Students who attend school have a number of advantages that should increase their performance, yet their achievements are often disappointing and even embarrassing manifestations that public school teachers have not implemented simple and effective ways to augment learning.

What do you do when a movie star's daughter begins to tell you intimate details about his love life? Well, if you're an ER doctor, and that daughter is your patient, you close the door, then sit and listen. So I did. I generally do not have much time for listening, but this shift was slow, and I was curious to hear what she had to say — and why she wanted to tell me. I'm an ER doc, not a psychiatrist, but listening is (or should be) something that all physicians do.

The daughter, who I'll call Amy, came to the ER for a bladder infection, so this catharsis was unrelated to her presenting complaint (i.e., ostensibly why she came to the ER). Amy's parents are divorced, and she attends a private school far from home. She spent last Christmas with her Dad and his girlfriend Heather, who is scarcely older than Amy. Amy was "creeped out" (her terminology, not mine) by this for the obvious reason, and one not so obvious. You figure out the former; I'll tell you the latter. Amy thought that Heather was the epitome of an airhead, and devoid of common sense when it comes to matters that are better left unsaid. Such as an explanation of why her father was so good in bed, and why Heather's last lover was not. Amy did not know how to respond to such revelations, and she wondered if Heather was high on something. Amy tried changing the subject to more appropriate topics, but Heather demonstrated no apparent interest in discussing music, sports, hobbies, or her family. Just sex.

Amy said that when her father was present, Heather never discussed sex. However, when Heather and Amy were alone, Heather would return to her favorite subject. Amy had enough of this after three days, so she called her mother and asked to spend the remainder of the Christmas vacation with her. When she told her Dad why she was leaving, he looked at Heather in stunned disbelief, blushed, then stormed out of his house. Amy left before he returned, and never mentioned the subject to her mother.

Amy was dreading the next time she would see her Dad, or speak with him. He hadn't called in a month, which is very atypical for him, so she knew that he was avoiding her. She did receive some encouraging news from her mother, who — unaware of Heather's inappropriate Christmastime chitchat — said that Amy's Dad was no longer seeing Heather. That's good, but how to repair the relationship with her Dad? Should she call? What should she say? Or should she continue to wait until her Dad called? Amy was concerned that she might embarrass her father even more if she were to call, and she thought that he would call when his humiliation subsided. However, she wanted my opinion. My opinion as a doctor, or as just another person? Before I had a chance to respond, I was paged to the Trauma Room to treat the survivors of a head-on collision. As I completed their paperwork 90 minutes later, I suddenly remembered Amy. I went to see her again, but she'd already left. She has a history of frequent bladder infections, so I may see her again. By that time, I hope that the discomfiture between Amy and her father will have dissipated. I don't have any brilliant tips for mitigating what is bound to be an awkward conversation.

The recent press coverage of how war veterans receive substandard treatment in VA hospitals might lead you to believe that such deplorable treatment is a new development, probably triggered by VA hospitals being overwhelmed by the number of injured vets returning from Iraq. In reality, veterans have been getting the short end of the stick for years, even in times of peace and prosperity. I wrote about this in my first book, Fascinating Health Secrets:

America's raison d'être is freedom. Millions of Americans have fought to maintain our freedom. These veterans deserve our respect and gratitude. And how do we thank these veterans? By giving them health care in the most backward system in the United States, the Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals. The conditions there are atrocious, and unimaginable for most of us. I will never forget coming in one morning and seeing a man lying dead in the hallway, with people passing by him as if he were a cigarette butt.

During my stint in medical school, I became acquainted with the VA concept of medical care. For example, I remember calling to check on a lab result for one of my patients. I was curtly informed that the test would not be performed. Curious, I asked why. I was told that the budget for the month had been exceeded, and therefore the test was automatically cancelled. I asked if I could reorder the test. I was told that it would not change anything; the test was cancelled, and that was that. How disgusting.

By applying that same standard to the veteran when he was in World War II, he should have been able to tell his sergeant, "Sorry, sergeant, I've done my quota of work today. It's quitting time. Tough luck." A serviceman with that attitude would be shot. We don't give military personnel the option of excusing themselves from work because they feel as if they have already done enough. So why should we tolerate an abnegation of our promise to provide medical care for our veterans? They are the ones that deserve the best possible medical care in the United States — not the crack-head scumbags who litter the ERs, saying, "I be havin' chest pain." No shit. If I did $600 worth of crack in a day, I'd have chest pain, too.

Medical resources are now, and will always be, limited. Why, then, should we give the best possible medical care to some pimp or dirtbag drug dealer who gets shot by one of his rivals, yet tell a man who fought for the survival of this country that he doesn't deserve to receive any more health care? Where is the logic in that? There is none! And what about the multitudes of steatopygic welfare recipients? It takes a lot of food to result in such physiques, and the money that bought that food was paid for with tax dollars. I say, take the money from them and give it to a group that truly deserves it, the veterans.