Diego Garcia Island

As reported by the http://www.telegraph.co.uk the Diego Garcia Island is: "… a 17 sq. mile horseshoe-shaped atoll in the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago. It has a tropical climate with thick jungles and white sand beaches."  Initially, upon reading this, one might suppose that this must be some sort of tourist destination catering to the rich and famous and hardly newsworthy.  Unfortunately, it isn't, instead, from the years 1968-1973, the native Chagossians were forcefully deported by Great Britain which had become the principal colonial power of the Diego Garcia, upon the implementation of the Treaty of Paris in 1814.  Like anything, the immediate question to ask was why the approximately 1,500 Chagossians were deported from their island of residence?  The short answer is that the United States strongly desired to have a strategic presence in the Indian Ocean that would allow their military vital access to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  Therefore the deportation of the peoples there was primarily done with the purpose of establishing an important strategic base without the annoyance of the indigenous people populating the island interfering with the base, and also creating possible compromised communications or inconvenient protests.

Since the time of the deportation, the Chagossians have lived in exile, and although they were given some money as a settlement for being re-located, they have also pursued various lawsuits in the fight to return to their land of their birth.  Not too surprisingly, the Chagossians have not been successful in their lawsuits and based upon the vested interests of both Great Britain and the United States, they will not be succeeding in returning to their homeland anytime soon, if ever.  Perhaps therefore one should simply look upon this incident as just another injustice perpetrated against innocent civilians, all for the purpose of the so-called "greater good" or simply for the convenience of Great Britain or its proxy, its designated lessee the United States being able to take possession of a strategically placed desirable location so that timely military force is capable of being applied against countries in the immediate region.

In a modern world in which colonial powers have voluntarily or through pressure relinquished their power and control of colonial countries and governments, the Diego Garcia deportation incident should follow this same pattern and consequently the Chagossians should be masters of their own fate.  Once and for all, the Chagossian people should be given a choice to return to their homeland with appropriate compensation and materials to rebuild their homes and lifestyle or instead to voluntarily surrender their right to return to their homeland on an individual basis.    Instead, Great Britain pushed through a Marine Protection Act for the Chagos archipelago which in essence, will preclude Chagossians from ever returning to their homeland, because the environmental protections of the marine reserve will stop them from being able to effectively fish the waters of their native land, should they be repatriated to their homeland.

In the United States lust for empire, it has no guilt, nor compunction, asserting itself against other sovereign peoples as if their way is the only way, the right way, and God's way.  It isn't.

Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech

No doubt, most people are unaware of who Alexander Stephens was, but he was the first and the last Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who on March 21, 1861, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, GA made a extemporaneous speech which in its words and in its effects describes the founding principles of the Southern States and for what they stood for.  This speech puts to rest, forever, the so-called "lost cause" of the Confederacy, to which the South claims that their cause was both noble and chivalrous, and further that the South lost the war not because that they were in the wrong, but only because they could not overcome the uncouth North's numerical and industrial advantages which brought wanton destruction and depredations upon the South, that forever destroyed and upset the traditional and genteel ways of Southern life.

At the time of Stephens' speech, Abraham Lincoln had just been inaugurated only two weeks earlier in the month, so that when Stephens bragged that the "revolution ….been accomplished without the loss of a single drop of blood," the Southern attack upon Ft. Sumter had not yet been made, so that the absence of blood that Stephens referred to would be plentiful enough for the next bloody four years.  Further, in order to justify the Southern secession from the Union, Stephens drew upon the founding fathers of our country and was surprisingly candid in stating fairly and profoundly that: "The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. …Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."" Stephens makes two essential and critical admissions, the first is that our founding fathers believed completely in these words that "all men are created equal", and further that the Southern states upon ratifying the Constitution were in agreement in principle that slavery would over a period of time fade away from this great land, to which the Constitution stated that a tax or duty on the importation of persons may be permitted, beginning in the year 1808.  Subsequently to the enacted Constitution, a further Federal act was passed in 1807, forbidding the importation of slaves in 1807, which became effective in 1808.  In fact, slavery was in continual decline in the United States from the inception of our Independence until the advent of the cotton gin, which changed the economics and importance of slavery in fundamental ways.

Stephens went on to state that: "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition." This self-serving statement is demonstrative proof of the delusion of the South.  The United Kingdom had in 1833, outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire, in a time when the sun did not set on this empire.  The mistake that the United States had made was in their enactment of our Constitution there was assumed that over a period of time, and additionally through taxation and later through the prohibition of slave importation that slavery as an institution, would become marginalized, outdated, and outmoded, but instead new technology and the inherent greed of money making put a lie to that noble purpose.

The South, far from having a meaningful "lost cause" instead when defeated at the ballot upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, decided to rebel in order to skirt its attendant obligations and duties, and to instead impress upon people who had done them no wrong, that they were born to be forever enslaved to the Southern cause and to the Southern way, so that the Southern man could live well upon the bread and blood he had extracted unjustly from his fellow man.

Your Personal Computer is very personal in a very bad way

Seemingly, no matter what you do, even your own personal computer and its peripheral devices act as if it is your "big brother", most of the time without you even remotely being aware that this is happening.  For instance, most everyone has a printer in order to print out and to document items of importance, but that color printer, depending upon its make, inkjet or laser, and sophistication of said printer may easily have an invisible code that identifies that printer to the actual user.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) discovered that certain laser printers contained a coding pattern of virtually invisible yellow dots placed into an arrangement that shows: "…which printer was used to print a particular document, and sometimes also shows when it was printed."  The ostensible reason for the large conglomerate printer manufacturers to add this hidden tracking device onto their color printers is so as to help identify and to convict money counterfeiters, but in reality this sophistication can just as easily be used for sophisticated domestic surveillance and consequently to stifle or to compromise legal civil dissent that our government finds to be "inconvenient".

Most computers have a combined CD/DVD burner to which whenever a CD or DVD is created (burned) that CD or DVD probably will contain as part of that burning mechanism a unique sequence of numbers that identifies clearly the source of the CD or DVD which can then be consequently verified and cross-checked against the CD/DVD burner that resides within your personal computer.   Further, most blank CDs or DVDs contain within the center of the disc itself, coding information, that enables a government agency to determine where the batch came from, and subsequently perhaps even where they were purchase from or a general idea thereof.

Microsoft Office is America's most popular word processing and document creating platform, but contained within Word are tools that track the creation of a document which when unmasked will show changes/comments/corrections and dates that are all contained within the details of the document itself, which will also feature as wellthe original author information, and additionally in all probability a unique number or coding sequence assigned to the document which will probably identify the Word document against the purchased copy of Word itself. 

If you use your computer to download documents or media files, you may not be aware that this too is tracked by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to which the very fact that you have downloaded a file will be part of their database, identifying you through your unique Internet Protocol (IP) address that is assigned to your personal computer upon signing up for ISP service.  This means that should you download a document that is copyrighted, you may receive a warning or worse from an agency or company demanding payment or the possibility of a lawsuit for the violation of federal copyright laws.

None of the above items fit the description of items that consumers would be clamoring for while purchasing and subsequently using a PC but they are all there to track you, to monitor you, to harass you, to compromise you, and to convict you.  Your personal computer is an evidence gathering machine whether you like it or not.

Why Does Apple Inc. Issue Corporate Bonds?

Apple Inc. has a staggering market capitulation of $660 billion dollars as of the autumn of 2014.  Additionally, Apple has somewhere around $150 billion in cash or cash equivalents on hand, which would, by definition, mean that they would not have any need whatsoever to issue debt such as bonds, yet in the last couple of years, Apple has done just that.  There are two significant reasons why Apple has gone to the bond market, to which the most compelling reason being that Apple has just about $138 billion of its cash assets held overseas, which they cannot repatriate back into America without suffering huge tax consequences, consequently Apple deliberately utilizes legal tax havens overseas, effectively lowering their United States tax rate immensely because the taxes that they pay in the States are based on profits made in America.  The other reason for the bond issuance is that the credit worthiness of Apple at AA-plus is the same as United States treasuries, with Apple being able therefore to issue debt at yield rates to investors that are just modestly above US treasuries, assuring themselves of an incredibly low debt cost and therefore a very enviable low cost to service borrowed money.

It is important to understand that In order for there to be fairness and justice, law must be equally applied and applicable to all, but when you are dealing with literally billions of dollars, and recognizing too that every dollar that you pay in taxes is a dollar that disappears from your corporation piggy-bank; as a corporation, you may well take the position, that it is in your company's best interests as well as in your stockholder's best interest to do everything imaginable to lower and thereby to reduce your tax consequences, while still being able to state with pride that your corporation pays all of its legal taxes, but this same corporation cannot also truly contend that it pays all of its taxes within the "spirit of the law".

Apple too recognizes that with the cost of money being at historic lows and with their credit rating being equivalent to US treasuries, that thereby by definition their credit rating is higher than all but nineteen nations in the entire world.  This therefore translates into Apple's ability to issue bonds that will be well received, if not oversold, at incredibly competitive rates, which in actuality as compared to US treasuries are just basis points above them.  However, Apple has demonstrated in 2014 that they are even smarter than the smartest guys in the room, because in 2014, they were able to issue additional debt which according to Reuters results in:"eight-year notes issued in Europe, Apple's bonds will yield 1.082%, while 12-year notes will yield 1.671%."  This means that Apple's new bonds will yield considerably less than equivalent US Treasures in which the 10-year US treasury currently resides at 2.32%.  Apple is able to accomplish all this because bond yields in Europe are even lower than in the United States.

Consequently, because Apple is so successful at their bond issuance, they therefore have the capital and flexibility to pay out dividends at a satisfactory yield to satisfy stockholders, to make planned purchases of corporate stock in buybacks to either help support their stock price or to appreciate it through the attendant increase in earnings per share and return on equity, to take advantage of the deductibility of debt interest, and finally to have the flexibility and wherewithal to make investments into instruments that yield or will produce returns higher than the debt that they are paying.

There will never be an IPO like Apple or Microsoft Again

Financial news magazines, pundits, television commentators, love to talk and to talk and to talk up IPOs ad nauseam.  It makes you wonder, if IPOs are so glorious, so good and such an easy path to easy money, why anyone that is an insider at these IPO companies would ever even consider selling a share.  While there have been some phenomenal IPOs, such as Google or Apple there have also been phenomenal flame-outs such as pets.com and etoys.com.  Whether an IPO is a good investment or not depends on a lot of factors, such as the underlying value of the company, its growth rate, its return on equity, its market share, and its cache.  The one thing that you seldom heard about is that IPOs and the astonishing returns such as Apple or Microsoft have generated will never occur again, or at least, will never occur again with the likes of Facebook or Google.

To get an appropriate picture of IPOs of today, we should compare them against a few from the previous century, starting with Apple Computer.  When Apple's IPO came out on December 12, 1980, its market capitalization after the first day of trading was higher than any other IPO since Ford Motor Company of 1956, and the market capitalization of Apple was $1.778 billion at the close of business that day, making it a resounding success.  Today, the market capitalization of Apple is the largest in the entire world at a staggering $669.94 billion, which is a percentage increase of 37,579%.  Microsoft's IPO came out in 1986 and at the close of business on its first day of trading its market cap was $778 million, to which its closing price was substantially higher than its IPO offering of $21 whereas it closed at $27.75 a share.  Today, the market capitalization of Microsoft, which at one time had the largest market capitalization of any stock in America, is $408.72 billion, which is a percentage increase of 52,434%.  The stock that generated the most insane media frenzy during the 20th Century had to be Netscape, to which people were literally salivating to get in onto the deal.  Netscape closed at $58.25 in 1995, making it the very first stock to more than double its IPO price on its very first day of public trading and giving it a market capitalization of $2.9 billion.  However, over the next few years, Netscape essentially stagnated in the market, before being bought out in an all stock deal by AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999, or a percentage increase of 45%.

In the 21st century, there have been some mega IPOs but none of these will reach the heights and returns of Microsoft or Apple.  For instance, there is Google which after its first day of trading in 2004 finished with a market capitalization of a very impressive $23 billion, today its market capitalization is $373.96 billion, which equates to spectacular 1,525% return.  Facebook's IPO came out in 2012, in which after its first day of trading its market capitalization was $104.2 billion to which the underwriters of Facebook struggled all day to keep the stock above its IPO price, to which it was later to fall significantly under, only to recover quite strongly so as of today, it is worth some $209.4 billion, a percentage increase of 101%.  Finally, there is Alibaba, the largest IPO in the history of public offerings, which upon its 1st day of trading in 2014 had a market capitalization of a simply unfathomable $231 billion, and currently is at $286.6 billion, a percentage increase of 24%.

Obviously, the IPOs of the 21st century have had not the longevity of Apple or Microsoft, but comparing Microsoft's IPO v. Google's IPO, over each of their first ten years, shows Microsoft cleaning Google's clock with a return of 9,151% to 1,525% which is an astonishing difference, especially considering that Google has been a monstrous success.  The problem that Google, Facebook, and Alibaba have is simply the law of large numbers, that is to say, because their market capitalization was so high to begin with they will never reach the returns of Microsoft or Apple, especially in regards to Facebook and Alibaba in which any hope of matching these aforementioned titans is surreally pathetic.  This doesn't mean that Facebook or Alibaba are necessarily bad investments, to date they have done quite well, what it does

mean is that there is no possibility that you can take a "toothpick" of an investment in them and hope to get anything of real substance in return.  For instance, with Microsoft an investment in 1986 of 100 shares at $27.75 would have cost you $2775.00 + commission, but today after all their splits and even without taking into account any dividends that you would have received while owning Microsoft you would have a stock value of $1,424,448 or thereabouts with a corresponding dividend yield of 2.51% which equates to $35,754 annually in dividend payments just for the pleasure of owning the stock.  

The Power to Tax is the Power to Own

It has been said that the power to tax is the power to destroy, which is true, but I find it more meaningful to state that the power to tax is the power to control and ultimately the power to own the labor of others.  If you think about it, if your labor is taxed at 100%, you are effectively a slave to that taxing authority, so while 100% taxation is slavery, than it follows that 0% taxation is complete individual freedom without attendant social or government obligations, so somewhere in-between these two numbers should be a happy medium.

A great revolutionary war was fought in this country to protest that there shall be no taxation without representation.  Yet you would find few people today that can honestly claim that their current state of taxation is represented well or even fairly.  Taxation in America ranges from property taxes, to user taxes, to sales taxes, to local taxes, to State taxes, to Federal taxes, and then there are the indirect taxes which aren't even called taxes.  The tax laws and the tax books in America are so long, so convoluted, with so many exceptions and exemptions, that two people can be making the exact same income and have wholly independent tax obligations depending upon their interpretation and their sophistication in regards to our tax code.

While there are many reasons why our tax code is so convoluted and so messed up, most of that blame can rest on lobbyists and legislatures that stumble through a strange symbiotic relationship.   The only thing that is clear in regards to our tax codes is that those without power, without special interests or influence, will ultimately pay considerably more than those that are connected.  This means that the present power to tax is in fact, the power to control and to take from the labor of unwitting others, to which the government taxing authorities specialize in wringing the bread from the laborious sweat of honest men's faces.

The fact that one's labor is taxed to begin with is the fundamental crux of the problem in the land that claims to be the land of the free.  The taxing of labor or the taking of income from labor by legal taxiing authorities is a form of enslavement to the State apparatus.  In point, the labor that you create, should be the labor that you keep, as the State has a multitude of ways to effect income, such as through lotteries, import duties, and excise taxes. 

There is, however, one more form of taxation which is fair to the people as well as to the State, and that is the estate (death) tax.  While you are alive you should definitely be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but upon your death, there are extremely valid arguments as to how a significant portion of those monies accumulated should be sacrificed to the State, and not to be gifted indiscriminately to your designated heirs.  The man of great wealth cannot use this material wealth in the world to come and should not either be permitted to still wield earthly power through delegated agents while he resides in the undiscovered country to which such passage is free of monetary taxation.

The Dangers of Remote Control Access and P2P file sharing of your Computer

There are plenty of computer programs that allow you to control or to access your desktop or other computer when you are visiting a client, residing at home, on vacation, and so forth.  These programs, such as logmein or gotomypc actually work quite well so that you are able to essentially get inside your main computer and copy files, manipulate files, utilize files and programs, and overall to conduct work as if you were actually in front of your main desktop.  There are other utilities that one can use for peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing which allows you to share files such as music, picture, or video files, from one computer to another.  All of this appears pretty wonderful, the fact that you can share or swap files remotely and routinely, work on tasks remotely, and so on, but this assumes that you live in a Mr. Rodgers type of neighborhood but in fact, you don't.

Anytime that you open up your computer to remote control access or to P2P sharing, you have basically opened up Pandora's Box, and things that you think are under your control, are not.  Sure, there are always controls, protocols, security codes, crosschecks, and so forth that will in theory protect your information and ensure the integrity of your computer, but all of these can be compromised.   Every P2P network as well as remote access programs will tout its protections and integrities, but they are all vulnerable to hackers that know how to exploit them and once a hacker gets into your computer through security leaks or bots or through cracking passwords or through malware, your files are vulnerable to being copied and exploited.

As bad as remote control access and P2P networking can be to the integrity of your computer and to yourself, the simple fact that you utilize the internet, and further that your internet is up 24 hours/7 days a week, means that your entire computer and its contents are vulnerable to being exploited and attacked at any moment, whether that attack is done through a backdoor malware attachment, a network phishing expedition, a "false-flag" website that will initiate malware, or a peripheral device setup to look and behave normally but containing malicious software that activates upon installation.

The basic fact is that once your computer is accessed by an outside computer, whether intentionally or not, that monitoring computer will through a skilled technician hands have the ability to wreak havoc within the subject computer itself, to which it can monitor, copy, or compromise the target computer as if it was by actuated by you, or perhaps the attack will be considerably less invasive depending upon a multitude of conditions and efforts submitted.  This in essence means that any government agency, foreign or domestic, or criminal consortium, or hacker can in all probability readily keep track or compromise your activities on your computer, the websites that you visit, along with the documents that you create, both private and confidential, the web chats that you have, and the exact identity of who and what you are. 

Smoking at Age 21

The United States allows States, counties, cities, and towns to set their own age limits on the legal age to purchase cigarettes, so that merely crossing from one county line to another country line, or leaving one city to another city nearby, or crossing State lines, will change the legality of whether you can purchase cigarettes or not.  For the most part, the purchase age for cigarettes is at age 18, but this like many laws that the "nanny state" plays with, is in the process of change and flux, so that the law essentially changes depending upon where you are physically located.

In America, you legally become an adult at age 18; although for some people through marriage they can become emancipated at an age under 18.  Consequently it is the height of hypocrisy to have one set of laws for certain ages of adulthood, along with other separate laws for certain ages of adulthood, which in essence means that there are different degrees of adulthood, which logically is absurd, because either you are legally an adult with all the attendant risks and rewards or you are not.  But here in America, for certain things, despite being 18 or 19 or 20 you are treated as if you are a juvenile, even though legally you are an adult for most everything else.  This is incredibly bad law, a gross injustice, and indefensible.

To be an American, to be your own person, implies free will and choice, but too often in today's society, there are those that will use or create law to make crimes of things which should never be criminalized, because these certain "do-gooders" believe that they know better than you do, and consequently what you should or should not be doing.  The crux of the matter is that the law should not be used as a cudgel to effect change, but instead the law should be equally applied to all, so that the setting up of special laws for adults that are at the ages of 18-20, is fundamentally a violation of the 14th Amendment which stipulates that all persons are subject to "equal protection of the laws". 

For those that are so focused on the evils and dangers of smoking, do what a reasonable and fair person would do, make your argument in the public square, and devote your resources, your time, and your money to activities that support your viewpoint.  To utilize instead, oppressive, unequal and unfair laws, that allow the majority to dictate to the minority, is a pox upon this country and for what it stands.  Quite frankly, if those anti-smoking advocates are unable to persuade smokers to cease and desist, perhaps they need to consider that there are a multitude of factors that are involved in people's decision to begin smoking in the first place, and unless those factors and influences are replaced with something of equal interest to the smoker himself, the activity will probably continue.

There are far too many people that when they see an activity that upsets them, disturbs them, or annoys them, believe that there "ought to be a law", but alas, they should instead understand: "Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite… "(Matthew 7:4-5)

Naked Short Selling

The average investor believes that there is only one bet that you can make in regards to the stock market which is to buy a stock and hope (or pray) that your particular equity goes up in price over time, and thereby allowing you to reap profitable returns.  That is probably the most common type of trade but it certainly isn't the only way to play the market.  For instance, there are other people, who are naturally pessimistic, or perhaps don't believe in the particular hype of a certain stock, or are contrarians for one reason or another, that also want to play the stock market, but do not want to buy a stock that they hope will go up, but instead would like to invest in some manner where they can bet that a stock will go down in monetary value.  Not too surprisingly, since Wall Street desires to accommodate all comers, that type of investment is known as a "short sell", which basically means that you are borrowing the shares at today's price, which gives you thereby the option of purchasing the shares later, at what you hope to be at a lower price, and subsequently garnering a profit.  In summation, when you go long, you for example  purchase 100 shares at $12/share, and if you later sell the same stock and all your shares for $15 share you have made a profit of $30 ($150 sell price - $120 buy price), which doesn't take in account any commissions that you may have paid.  When you short a stock at let's say $12 share for 100 shares, that means you have borrowed the shares, when you later actually buy the 100 shares at $10 share and thereby close out your position you have made a profit of $20 ($120 sell price - $100 buy price).  Again, the concept of selling short a stock is your belief that the stock will fall, so you borrow the shares from your brokerage company at the higher price, and then return the same shares at the lower price, pocketing the difference.

All of the above is perfectly legal and fairly routine, as the fact that an investor can bet on either the "long" or the "short" side of a particular security allows investors to place a bet per their volition. The key thing to remember is that when you purchase shares of a stock, those shares are issued to your brokerage and assigned to your account, whereas when you short shares, you are borrowing shares from your brokerage company that you will replace at a future point at your discretion.  The difference between naked short selling and short selling is that in regards to naked short selling, the actual shares themselves are never borrowed in the first place.  While that might on the surface just sound like quibbling, the problem with naked short selling is that these phantom shares can be utilized by sophisticated traders in certain stocks, to artificially push down the price of a stock, because this oversupply of phantom shares disturbs the normal equilibrium between the actual shares of stock being bought as well as the actual shares of stock being borrowed or sold, and too many sellers at the same time will have a strong tendency to lower the price of the equity.  So that with naked short selling, because you do not have borrowed shares and are in fact in a position in which in actuality you will "fail to deliver" the actual borrowed shares of stock because you are naked short selling, this increased volume of sellers, will in essence corrupt the equity system, and typically result in the equity price being lowered, and consequently when you close out your phantom position, you will have made money at the expense of legitimate stockholders.

While naked short selling is a financial crime, it is also a crime that is hard to discover, and also hard to prove, consequently the practitioners of naked short selling ply their trade, recognizing that the lure of easy money far outweighs any ethical concerns that they may have or legal concerns that might worry those of a different ilk. 

Cell Phones and the Police

On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that police officers must have a warrant in order to search a suspect's cell phone. Chief Justice Roberts wrote in regards to cell phones: “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers.”  You would think that this Supreme Court decision would mean case closed with a correspondent great and grand victory for those that believe in the Fourth Amendment that protects one against unreasonable searches and seizures but when you have an object as common and as sophisticated as a smart-phone, which contains incredibly detailed information about your calls, conversations, contacts, location, and your browser history to mention just a few of its attributes, the police will absolutely never allow this proverbial treasure trove of information to just simply be ignored.  To the police, cell phones are the holy grail of data that contain the very basis of actionable information to arrest you and/or other people, or and at a minimum to better understand your life and position, to which their review of your cell phone data gives the police an almost God-like understanding of what you are about.

There are way too many people that believe that their lame password somehow protects their cell phone from prying eyes, while this may be so in a few certain circumstances, for the most part the typical cell phone security lock is only there to give you the illusion that your privacy is protected when in actuality it is not.  America is a high-technology country and for just about everything created with a pass-code, there is a device that can break that code and subsequently allow another person or department to peruse your cell phone contents completely and unobtrusively.  For instance, police are well aware that mobile forensic devices will accomplish a complete and thorough extraction of your cell phone data typically in a matter of minutes either out in the field, or back in the home office, to which, in theory, these extraordinary police actions might be overturned in court, or be found out by the public or media to their disapproval, or on the other hand be considered exigent exceptions to the warrant requirement, or simply never discovered by anyone outside of those that are in the know.

The bottom line is that certain police departments will never willingly desist from extracting actionable data that rests in plain sight when they believe that they are dealing with a perpetrator or someone of that ilk.  If police were given a choice between using enhanced interrogation techniques or the unlimited access to cell-phone data they would choose the cell-phone data.  If police were given a choice between a warranted search of a suspect's home and all of his possessions with the exception of his cell-phone, as compared to justa search of the specific cell-phone itself, they would select the cell-phone data. 

Cell phone data is the ultimate temptation for police departments, few will willingly resist, and virtually all will desire it, consequently one can say with a certainty, that Supreme Court decision or not, police departments will do what they will do and let the chips fall where they may.

Bar Mitzvah

Bar Mitzvah is a wonderful Jewish ceremony and celebration (Bat Mitzvah for females) to which upon turning thirteen, the subject young man comes of age, and is according to judaism.about.com "now morally and ethically responsible for his decisions and actions."  While many of us are familiar with the celebratory aspects of bar mitzvah, the young initiate is often required to do all or some of the following:

                1.  To lead as well as to read a specific prayer during the religious service, often                                                                                           encompassing a traditional chant.

                2.  Giving a speech or a particular reading to the assembly

                3.  The completion of a charitable project

For most Americans, secular or not, turning thirteen is a non-event, it typically means the end of kid meals discounts if not before, as well as discounted amusement park events, yet it is still too early for a driver's license, however it does signify the very first year of becoming a "teen"-ager, which could if of itself, be a reason for a ceremony or celebration and probably should become one.

While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with treating teenagers between the ages of 13-17 as juveniles, especially in a legal sense, there are very valid reasons why they should be expected to be more responsible and more cognizant of their decisions and their actions.  It is a grave mistake and a grand disservice to teenagers to treat them as if they were perpetual children, when they most certainly are far wiser, more manipulative, and definitely knowledgeable on a fundamental level of right as opposed to wrong activities and behaviors.

I love the concept that before the age of 13 in the Jewish culture, it is the parents that are held responsible for their children's actions, whereas after that age, it is the person himself that is held accountable for their actions.    The bar mitzvah ritual is of immense importance and significance, in allowing and permitting those that are now 13, to take and to make their own way in this world.  In fairness, too, bar mitzvahs are not thrust upon those that receive them, but are events that are knowingly anticipated far in advance of their time, so that the skills, maturity, and preparation needed can be attended to for the successful application thereof.

It is said that success is when preparation meets opportunity, and therefore you should not readily expect success if the time and the attention needed is not spent with your children to prepare them to one day to become good and responsible citizens.  While it can be said that lessons can be learned on any given day and while there is truth to that, there is more truth in knowing that if the goal is clear, the steps taken to achieve that goal are knowable and subsequentlya pathway can be properly built stone by stone to bring about this success.

As a parent you can, should you desire, simply let the chips fall where they may, but why hope for the best, when you as parent can help guide and to formulate the moral, ethical, and foundational principles that will allow your children to become or at a minimum have the opportunity to be the better part of your goodness.  When you birthed your child, there was tremendous joy, yet there is even more joy when your child grows up and becomes truly that apple of your eye.

Antibiotics, Growth, Breeding, and Chickens

As published in a study for Poultry Science three different chicken strains were compared from 1957, 1978, and a commercial Ross 308 strains (2005) at the University of Alberta.  Each of the chicken strains was fed the same feed under the same conditions, and their respective weights were measured at 56 days of age.  Part of their conclusion was that: "From 1957 to 2005, broiler growth increased by over 400%," which means that over the last fifty years, the poultry producers have figured out how to through genetic modification increase the size of their chickens over 400%, which is simply stunning, through selective breeding and genetic genius.  To the consumer of chicken, this means that the price of chicken is cheaper, in fact significantly cheaper than what it would be if this unprecedented growth had not occurred, and for the producer of poultry this means significantly less money spent on chickens per the yield of chicken meat and a more efficient utilization of space for the farming of chickens themselves.

The poultry industry is big business so that commercially bred poultry for mass production are virtually in all cases not free-range chickens but bred instead inside long, low, and dark sheds which are filled with chickens and more chickens that have difficulty in even walking due to lack of space and the disparity of the weight of their breast meat and overall body to their legs.  Under these conditions the main concern for poultry producers is not the comfort of the chickens themselves, but the constant assurance that there is no imminent danger of a contagious chicken-borne disease that would decimate the population of the chickens, consequently most poultry producers make it a routine practice to add antibiotics to their animal feed so as to assure themselves of the continual good health of their product.

For poultry producers antibiotics are that "perfect storm" of correct animal feed because not only does the antibiotic control or reduce infectious diseases to the birds themselves, it also produces increased weight gain for chickens, so that this type of dual benefit seems like a gift from the gods.  However, like anything that is routinely used to fight or to stave off diseases, bacteria itself will develop over time resistance to these antibiotics, to which when inadvertently transferred over to humans, endangers the safety of human beings because of their resistance to typical antibiotic drugs which could result in extensive hospitalization or even death.

Not too surprisingly, poultry producers are reluctant to correct or to change the very things that have allowed them to make massive profits over the years as well as providing to consumers a product that is both cost-efficient and extremely popular.  Consequently, the only hope of making meaningful change when it comes down to antibiotics in our poultry feed is transparency along with specific rules and regulations passed by the FDA that would apply equally to all.  However, pharmaceutical companies and large agribusinesses along with the respective logistical chain organizations that are utilized to provide us with cheap poultry have a vested interest in keeping things the way that they currently are, but this type of short-sighted thinking does a grand disservice to the public at large and puts ultimately human life and health at risk under the banner that the lust for money rules all.

Who is Jeanette Rankin?

I have always had and will always have a great deal of respect and admiration for those that are willing to stand up for principles of real merit, especially when their viewpoint is out of the ordinary, out of the norm, against the mob, against unenlightened public opinion, while often being the voice of reason, of justice, and of love, which I find even more poignant when that voice is the voice of just one.  In any country, in any person, justice loses out and begins to erode, when people that know better, that have been blessed with uncommon wisdom and insight, let their voices be silenced for whatever reason or whatever purpose in order to just get along.  Jeanette Rankin, was a two-term congresswoman from Montana,  the first woman to be elected to congress, who served terms from 1917-1919, and from 1941-1943, in which in both of her terms she would be called to vote on the resolution of war by her nation.  The United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917, was somewhat controversial, especially considering that President Wilson had run for his second term under the banner of "He kept us out of the war", nevertheless when the votes were tallied, the Senate voted 80-6 for war, and the congress voted 373-50, of which Congresswoman Rankin was one of the dissenters.   However, after the "day in infamy" in regards to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when Franklin D. Roosevelt asked congress for a declaration of war on Japan, the vote in the Senate was 82-0, and in the House the vote was 388 in favor to which Congresswoman Rankin was placed under enormous pressure to simply state "present" when it came for her turn to vote, as that non-vote would not be counted for or against the war resolution, effectively making the call for war unanimous in both houses.  Congressman Rankin would not be dissuaded from her vote, making her vote the only dissenter in World War II and making her the only congressman to have voted against the resolution of war in both World Wars.

Jeanette Rankin was a pacifist, who voted against war as a matter of conscience, and who believed strongly that without the influence of women in the polling vote as well as in public office, that war with its attendant destruction and devastation of human life, property, and the senseless sacrifice of men would continue to be the lot of humanity.  Congresswoman Rankin came to power in the time of woman's suffrage and was famous for saying, "the first time I voted, I voted for myself."  She believed strongly that in giving women the vote, that then, there would be a real opportunity for more peaceful resolutions to be taken seriously and acted upon.  She well understood that a mature and responsible country should lead by example and consequently should act in a manner becoming their Constitution and the intended legacy that they wished to leave for humankind and generations yet unborn.  She recognized that countries have a responsibility to live up to their ideals, to practice what they preach, and to not do so, is an inconsistency that in of itself tells the true tale of that country.  Congresswoman Rankin believed that the United States should be that beacon of hope, of liberty, of freedom, for all, and in order to accomplish such noble goals, should demonstrate mature forbearance in times of trouble rather than becoming quick to anger, quick to judgment, and quick to war.

Where are the Affordable Electric Cars?

It seems just about everyone has heard of Tesla, considered to be the premier American manufacturer of electric cars.  But what of their cars, for instance, their cheapest entry into the market, their Model S, retails for a base price of around $70,000, hardly a price that would entice most Americans, except for those that are making amounts of money that far exceed the median of American income.  When one takes a more detailed look at electric cars in America, it is the pricing of these cars that is the most shocking, as none of the electric vehicles offered has a reasonable price point, with the Nissan Leaf, the most popular electric car in America, retailing for nearly $30,000.  Not too surprisingly, the sales of the Leaf are the best of any electric in America, at a ballpark of 25,000 units per year, which is robust for electric cars, but anemic overall.  The lack of both affordable electric cars and sales is especially troubling because of all the tax incentives and benefits that are setup to "goose" their sales, such as the $7500 federal tax credit, up to an additional $6000 State tax credit in States such as Colorado, free charging stations for new electric cars for up to two years, free HOV lane access, car insurance discount, electric vehicle supply equipment tax credit, and parking fee exemptions or privileges, with most of these benefits dependent upon the State that you reside in.

The most basic reason for the sales of electric cars being so poor, to which the Obama administration is on record of stating that they desire to see 1 million electric vehicles on the road in 2015, can be contributed to both the performance and the price of the vehicle itself.  For instance, to get a brand-new economical electric vehicle will cost you close to $30,000 and easily way more for most models, whereas a brand-new gas powered car or even a hybrid can be had for about $15,000 or even less, an incredibly substantial difference.  Then there are the tax credits for owning an electric vehicle, to which all of these credits are set up for people that make really good money.  In order to avail yourself of the full $7500 federal tax credit, you will have to have an income of over $52,000, to which only about 25% of all Americans make that amount of money or more in a given year.

The real reason why there aren't any affordable electric cars is that the manufacturers of said cars can't make them affordable, that is to say they simply cost a lot more money to manufacture than gasoline or hybrid vehicles.  That, in itself, doesn't bode well for the industry, so despite Consumer Reports prostrating themselves at the foot of Tesla, cars that are manufactured for the elite, aren't deserving of any special accolades.  If, on the other hand, car manufacturers are really interested in producing and selling electric vehicles in the low millions of units, they will have to recognize first, that it cannot be done without manufacturing cars that are affordable and practical for the masses, as opposed to a selected section of the American population that buys these types of cars because it makes them feel that they are contributing to keeping the planet more green. 

Despite all the financial incentives, gimmicks, and hokey "feel good" nonsense, today's electric vehicles are simply not attractive to mainstream America, who neither has the time nor the money to unduly waste on all flash and no real substance.

The Minimum Wage Battle

Most people do like the fact that a floor has been set for a minimum wage, so that at least they know when they are working  that their wages can't legally go lower than that.  There are a lot of positives to say about having a minimum wage and for fairness in general when it comes to paying a wage, but at the same time, one must consider that you cannot just legislate or dictate or demand your way to prosperity.  There are a lot of factors that help set the wage that you work for, such as age, experience, reliability, work ethic, work output, sociability, and so on, with the important caveat too that employees are free to look for employment elsewhere, so that as long as you are not essentially in a one-company town, each side has some degree of power.

In recent times, our President has requested that the federally mandated minimum wage be lifted from the current $7.25/hr to $10.10/hr but there is really no realistic hope of this passing.   The fact of the matter is that labor costs are a critical part of a company's ability to maintain an appropriate gross margin and to remain competitive in their respective industries.  Additionally, the raising of a minimum wage always has unintended consequences.  For instance, if the minimum wage was to be raised up $2.85/hr you would have all those short of the new minimum wage receiving the full additional $2.85/hr, plus all those that were in-between in pay of the old minimum wage and the new mandated minimum wage would received their respective increase, and those that were previously making $10.10/hr or a little above that wage, would be asserting their own pressure, that their wages needed to be increased in order to create a gap between their old pay scale as compared to those that were merely just making the new "minimum".  The consequence of all this, depending upon the industry, could range from a minimal impact, to something of a truly massive concern to the enterprises' bottom line, or even towards its entire business operation and continuing successful operation.    The upshot, is that these companies would take a long and careful look at their labor staffing, to which in all probability positions would be terminated, hours would be sliced and diced in such a manner as to reduce staff during slow periods and to only ramped up during busy periods, and further a careful study would be made as to determine whether additional equipment or machinery could replace human labor.  In essence, as always, this would mean that those that were least qualified for the new minimum wage mandate, would be the first to be let go or not hired in the first place, while those that received the increased wages would clearly benefit from this program.

There is another way, however, that might be able to best satisfy all parties involved.  Currently, our National Government offers an Earned Income Credit (EIC) for lower income families and while this credit as currently structured is primarily for benefit of families as opposed to just individuals, it could readily lend itself to some basic modifications.  For instance, the EIC could be restructured in such a manner, that if you worked, for example, 2000 hours at the wage of $7.25/hr, that our government would provide as an EIC credit the additional $2.85/hr for you so that you would in essence have earned $10.10/hr.  This would provide the dual benefit of raising wages for the poor, as well as providing incentives for disadvantaged people to find employment.  Additionally, this particular EIC credit could be set up quarterly, rather than annually, to provide the money to individuals in a timelier manner.  The only real fly in the ointment for this proposed plan is that there would also have to be employer penalties or respective credits set up so as to make sure that employers didn't "game" the system, meaning that steps would have to be taken so as to preclude employers from using the government EIC to make up for any shortfall that they should have provided in fair labor pay. 

This proposal seems practical, fair, sensible, and purposeful for all involved.

The Important of Attentive Listening

Talking is a great communication skill, a wonderful way to get across instructions, information, and to impart knowledge to others, but in order for this to occur there has to be a receptive person on the other side that is actually engaged in listening and responding to us as opposed to simply going through the motions of a kind of listening.  Too often we don't actually have conversations, but simply people taking turns talking to which neither side pays full or even much attention to what the other person is saying, because they often are too concerned about themselves and what they want to say to put forth the effort or to have the desire to actually listen to what the other person has to say and this results in a pathetic version of communication.

Listening is a skill, to which some people are naturally more adept at listening than others, but it is a skill that can be developed in all.  The first part of listening is to acknowledge that in order to effectively do so, you have to remain both calm and focused.  There are a high percentage of people that believe that they can effectively listen while multi-tasking, so they blithely go about their business, mutteringthings such as "uh huh", "hmmmm", and "yes, I see", during lulls in the conversation as if that feeble attempt to demonstrate that they are listening is actually valid, but alas it is not.    Also, it is not possible to listen well if you are overly excited, impatient, upset, or lacking in respect for the speaker, as most of their words will simply travel in through one ear and then out through your other ear.  Sometimes too, when in a classroom,  for instance, despite your best attempts to actually listen well and to comprehend what is being said, the subject matter that is being discussed is beyond you, of little interest to you, or too mundane for you, or the speaker goes too quickly from point-to-point for you, so that you fall behind, lose interest, or simply become lost and thereby your attention to this speaker drops down near to zero.

The main reason that listening is so important is that it translates into being able to learn better, to comprehend better, to achieve more successful communication, and for being receptive to accepting wisdom.  Reading is a form of listening, meditation is a form of listening, quietness is a form of listening, and all of these are necessary in order to hear that quiet, still voice that stirs within your heart, your soul, and your mind.  You can never hear the words of our Lord, if you do all the talking; you can never rise above the material, if all you ever contemplate or think about is the material.  In the quietness and silence of our environment, we are in those moments most susceptible to receiving the bliss of eternal joy and recognizing that in this ineffable serenity we are able to for the very first time to reach out and touch the very finger of God.

The Call for Great Souls

We are spiritual beings encased in a physical body, to which, for so many of us because of the lure of this material world or the entrapment of it, there is the erroneous belief, that we are our body, without a spirit.  That mistaken belief about our true identity is probably the primary reason why there is so much strife, hatred, and uncaring on this planet, for if you believe that this is all that will ever be, life becomes not a mission of love, but one of survival and drudgery, and a visceral belief that this is a zero-sum society and thereby wars are fought for self or country aggrandizement.

Even before our cries reach God as to why and to what our purpose is on earth, He has already anticipated our deepest and most heartfelt desires.  That is why, deep within us, is that yearning to find our way back to our Lord, who is pure love and everlasting justice.  Unfortunately, for so many of us, the pathway to our most inner freedom, is either unclear or fraught with wrong turns, obstacles, and detours.  It isn't so much that we lack the desire or the initiative to mine the pure gold of God's wisdom; it is more than we lack a great leader to guide and to encourage us in our sacred quest.

 However, God give us no task without providing us too with the tools and the wherewithal to accomplish this very assignment, for is it possible for the blind to lead the blind?  While it is true too, that in the land of the blind the one-eye man is king, even more so, in a land of delusion and deception, the man with the all-seeing eye is the true King of them all.  God derives no pleasure from our missteps, and He greatly desires that we be accorded the opportunity to, of our own volition, to seek his love and justice.  For these reasons as well as for many more, great souls are incarnated here on earth, in all places and in all times, for our benefit, for our sanctuary, for our inspiration, and for our salvation.

These great souls come to shake loose the cobwebs that surround and inundate our mind, to enlighten us about our true mission and of God's love for all people no matter their status or situation.  Great souls always lead by example, their courage, knowledge, and foundational truths, enraptured us because their words and actions resonate so deeply inside of our very being, as if we are truly seeing as for the first time.  Great souls testify to the truth and their penetrating insights will compel us to truly reflect on who we really are.

Great souls remind us that: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few," Matthew 9:37.  The rudder of the ship is metaphorically like a great soul, guiding the ship of humanity forward to where it needs to go.  We need too great souls to be that Northern Pole Star to help lead us back to the promise land.  That is why great souls come to us over and over again, because God has not forgotten His creation, He yearns for our return, and he provides us, even now, with the means, the way, and the desire to walk back to Him.

Same-Sex Marriage

In America today, an incredible 32 States permit same-sex marriage.  This is a stunning reversal of fortune for the traditional institution of marriage in this country, to which this reckless charge for same-sex marriages can, for the most part, be placed at the judicial branch of government.  The fabric of traditional marriage, which had previously been defined as the legal union of one man to one woman was first overturned by Massachusetts that argued through its supreme court that the Massachusetts Constitution "…forbids the creation of second-class citizens."  In dissenting opinions, one judge wrote that "… this case is not about government intrusions into matters of personal liberty." "Is is about whether the State must endorse and support their choices by changing the institution of civil marriage to make its benefits, obligations, and responsibilities applicable to them."  Another judge dissented with this opinion, that the "power to regulate marriage lies with the Legislature, not with the judiciary."

Had it not been for the Massachusetts judiciary decision, which was bad law incorrectly applied to the constituents of the State of Massachusetts, it would not be likely that same-sex marriage would be in the state that it is today, as 21 of the 32 States that have allowed same-sex marriage, the ruling has come from the judiciary and not by the State legislature or by popular vote.  The most significant problem with judicial decisions on institutions as profound and meaningful as marriage, and what it should or should not be, is that a very minute group of individuals, of perhaps five to seven judges should be in the position of no more than explaining, expounding, or interpreting Constitutional law, but instead we find that certain active judicial branches are making new law with profound and disturbing effect upon the population.

The changing of the fabric of marriage within the United States is a poorly thought out experiment that will have overwhelming and deeply felt consequences that will reverberate throughout the entire infrastructure of this great country.  While supreme courts of certain states make new law, that assert incorrectly that same-sex marriage is a right, and that essentially any two adults should be able to marry each other with the blessings of the State institution and apparatus, what they have in effect done, is to bastardize the institution of marriage itself, to cheapen the meaning and the significance of what marriage means, and to disenfranchise traditional marriage and thereby to marginalize and to secularize opposite-sex couples.  Additionally, and of extreme importance, one of the most important functions of traditional marriage, is to legitimatize and to validate the children that the parents have procreated.  Same-sex couples cannot physically have children by copulation, in the case of two males it is not possible at all, while with two females, a child can be birthed by either of the females, by either insemination by a physical man (but not their marriage partner) or artificially.

Children that are brought up with same-sex parents will live under conditions that have not been tested nor tried in the history of this nation.  Proponents of same-sex marriage want you to desperately believe, that children from same-sex marriages will be just fine, and will easily fit into the American milieu, but children are not adults, they are children. 

While proponents of same-sex marriage want you to believe that all they have done is simply to have leveled the marriage playing field, asserted their civil rights, and that consequently all is fair and right, what they have done instead, is to degrade what marriage means, so that it will in effect result in our country having annihilated the nuclear family, to replace it with a State apparatus and governance, that will monitor, control, and rear our children, and our children's children.

Respect and disrespect

Watch enough reality TV and one of the most common themes that you will encounter is the participant's perspective on respect and disrespect.  There are very few comments about how respectful various people are to one another, but there are a ton of comments about how so-and-so disrespected a certain individual and how wrong or intolerable that this behavior was.  When it comes to being disrespected which occurs to everyone to some degree from time-to-time, there is a wide range of responses, from one of blithe and serene unconcern, to a violent and visceral reaction, with everything else in-between.

The first thought about disrespect, is that the people that complain most vociferously about being disrespected, are typically not all that respectful of a person to begin with, along with often having problems with their own self-image and confidence.  That is to say, only someone of the most childish personality insists that everyone does things "his way or else", as if their command should always be obeyed.  That type of attitude lends itself to being disrespected, because it is of itself, not worthy of a mature person's respect.

When it comes to respect and disrespect, it should never be a zero-sum game, to which your attitude cannot be that "I will give respect to others only when they have given respect to me".  Your attitude should instead be of being respectful to all to the best of your ability, with the understanding that by giving respect you will often gain respect, but not always will this occur.  In point, some people aren't going to be respectful, some people are ignorant about respect, some people are having a bad day or a bad week or a bad life, so you cannot expect total respect, but by doing your part, you make the world a better place.

Respect may also come down to power, that is to say, those in power, expect as a matter of course that they will be accorded more respect than they dish out, because they have "earned" it.  This type of thinking has two serious flaws, to which firstly, there are way too many people that perceived themselves as being "mightier or holier than thou" when in fact their perceptions are way off-base. The second issue is that respect and disrespect should be perfectly balanced, as you shouldn't insist on one standard for you, and a completely different standard for another.

Another very important aspect of respect is too often there are those that are respected that wrongly believe that this respect that they receive is because of their good works, their intelligence, their gifts, or whatnot, when, in fact, the respect accorded them should really be marked down to mere servility.  True respect comes from the self-discipline to show honor to another out of one's own volition in tribute not so much to the person himself, but to the institution or to social graces themselves, it is a voluntary submission done as a part of good social intercourse.  

Too often those that cry out that they have been "disrespected" are in fact, crying out that they lack the belief in the good judgment of others to perceive the situation for what it is, or that they have "lost face" with their peers so that this allege disrespect must be rebuked.   This sort of rash judgment to overturn an act of disrespect often ends rather poorly for all involved, whereas a more self-assured and confident person could readily play it off with the grace of a wise and knowing man.

English as the United States Official Language

About half of the countries in the world do not have an official language, such as America, such as Australia, to which English and its particular local dialect modifications exist as the de facto language of the country, but is not in fact by law the official language of the country, in contrast to countries such as France and Spain that do have an official language, which obviously respectively is French and Spanish.  Perhaps it is questionable as to whether the United States needs an official national language, as the country seems to operate just fine without it, but this doesn't mean that it couldn't run better, or be better off, with an official language.

In fact, 31 of our 50 States have declared English as the official language of their respective States.  The primary reason that they have done so is so that the population as a whole will more easily and more readily assimilate English as the language of choice and subsequently be able to communicate better and for all thereby to better understands each other.  Declaring English as the official language of an individual State doesn't mean that somehow other languages are outlawed; instead it means that the State apparatus may conduct its business in the language of English, as opposed to being compelled by law to furnish materials in languages other than English.  Of course, in America, it has already been adjudicated that Federal law trumps over State Law, so for Federal regulations, States would still be under Federal law language requirements.

The language used most often after English in America is Spanish.  While it is understandable that people that know only Spanish, or come from a Spanish heritage, would prefer to speak and to read, in their pleasure as well as in their work, and to conduct overall their life in Spanish, that does little or nothing to properly assimilate these residents into the very fabric of American life.  Language is the way that we communicate with each other, and it is important for a united country to be able to communicate effectively.  Additionally, there should never be two countries within a nation, or three, or even more, we should all be one country, united, under one flag and with one purpose.

In truth, we do our fellow citizens a grand disservice when we permit, aid and abet them, and encourage them to speak in a language that is not the true de facto language of choice in America.  We should instead do everything that we can to see that instead of living within a nation on self-imposed language-created crutches, as they strain to understand English, or, much worse, ignore English as a language, that they are instead given the opportunity to learn and to excel in English through tools and programs that are specifically built around accomplishing these worthy goals.

The United States is still a nation with prejudices, and with quick judgments, to which it would far better serve residents of this great country, to put forth the effort to become proficient in English so as to put a sword through the lie that they aren't "real" Americans.  This country needs more bi-lingual people, because America is the international leader in commerce, and believes itself to be first in peace and desires greatly to be the beacon of light of freedom for all peoples to aspire to in this world, no matter their creed, color, sex, or preferred language. 

While it may not be necessary to make English the official language of these United States, this country knows the virtue of literacy for all which makes for a greater nation of people knowledgeable in their own affairs, knowing English should also be part of that firm foundation that strengthens the ties that bind us into one nation, whole and indivisible.