Cave News

Newlyweds - Davin and Heidi Nicholas

Rich man all the richer for leading poor a mans life

There is a story here in the Buffalo News about a man who wanted to keep running the deli & grocery he owned even though the neighborhood was slowly changing for the worse.

Despite being attacked and robbed time after time, Walter Kaminski clung to his store even though his niece in California begged him to join her.

He said he owned the building, liked running the store and had lived there all his life.

He was set in his ways, had never married and didn't want to pick up and start over. He still liked it there, even though much had changed, even though his old fishing buddies had passed on or were too sick to drop a line.

He lived in an over-the-store apartment, surrounded by books, boxes of papers, an RCA TV with a rabbit-ear antenna and plastic bottles of prescription pills. A crucifix hung on the bedroom wall. And as we talked, Walt Kaminski told me something, something that made the story different. He told me he was a millionaire.

He started investing in energy stocks in the 1940s. He bought General Electric in the '50s. IBM. Geico in the early '70s. He pulled out the certificates, to show me. As years passed, the investments grew. And grew.

When reporting the accounts of Mr. Kaminsk’s robberies, the newsman made no mention of the deli owners wealth or he would have been killed for his money in that tough neighborhood.

Not only could Walter Kaminski afford to leave his dying business and the mean streets. He could afford to live anywhere he wanted.

But no. He stayed. He had other ideas for his money. He told me he gave away more than a million dollars, mostly to Roswell Park Cancer Institute - anonymously, by necessity. With no wife or children, he wanted to turn his fortune into good fortune for others.

It was a fabulous story of a smart, giving man. And I could not write it. Telling the story almost certainly would turn Kaminski into a dead man walking.

He was being robbed for cartons of cigarettes. If word got out that the man had millions, even if it was in stock certificates tucked in safe deposit boxes, the jackals would strike. They would not understand that the money was not stuffed under his mattress. And they would do anything to get it.

Mr. Kaminski died last week at the age of 88.

“Walt Kaminski was a rich man who lived a poor man's life," writes the columnist. "It is the way he wanted it, and he was all the richer for it."

Forest rangers report growing job dangers

There was a time when nearly all Forest Service Rangers came in contact almost exclusively peaceful tourists and other forest visitors.

There is an article here that reports growing job dangers for Forest Service Rangers.

For the nation's forest rangers, the serenity of the woods increasingly is giving way to confrontations with unruly visitors

Attacks, threats and lesser altercations involving Forest Service workers reached an all-time high last year, according to government documents obtained by a public employees advocacy group. Incidents ranged from gunshots to stalking and verbal abuse.

Forest Service workers were shot at while trying to confiscate a marijuana plantation in California's Angeles National Forest. Two loaded shotguns and more than 78 kilograms of processed marijuana were seized.

Things like off-road vehicles are taking people into the backcountry to get away from all rules of civilization, and trouble appears to be ensuing," said the group's executive director, Jeff Ruch.

Is it possible that marijuana growers are moving into National forests to avoid the more aggressive sheriffs deputies and other law enforcement officers encountered in non-National forest areas?

Court upholds most of DeLay Redistricting in Texas

With minor exceptions, the political redistricting map of Texas, drafted by Tom DeLay, has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

In typical media fashion, one announcement here headlines: Court Nixes Part of Texas Political Map, accenting the negative when in reality the high court decision was a huge victory for Republicans who gained six Texas congressional seats in 2004.

Gerrymandering has been going on since 1812 when Elbridge Gerry, the fifth Vice President who served under James Madison, drew up the first political redistricting map.

The map (pictured) by Mr. Gery was said to look like a salamander, hence the name Gerrymander.

The liberal media makes it sound like Tom DeLay did something new with his redistricting in Texas that added six more congressional seats for the Republicans.

Nowhere did the press mention the seats gained when Democrats were in charge ten years earlier as a result of redistricting. In usual double standard fashion, Gerrymandering was fine when the Democrats did it, but now that the Republicans are in charge it’s another story.

Actually, the main reason the Democrats, and their supportive media, are so incensed by the Tom Delay redistricting is because of a very probable permanent Republican majority in the House as a result of future redistricting in Texas and other states because of population shifts.

In fact, 2006 may be the very last chance for the Democrats to take control of the House of Representatives in Washington. Demographics is working against the Democrats and will continue to do so.

BP charged with propane price manipulation

There is a story at the link below saying that BP energy traders is guilty of price manipulation.

Federal investigators said Wednesday that BP energy traders cornered the U.S. propane market in the winter of 2004 and illegally manipulated prices, driving up heating and cooking costs for rural consumers.

The charges come at a time when oil and gas companies are under intense scrutiny from consumers and Congress over soaring energy prices and record profits, and analysts said the entire industry's credibility could be damaged.

Link

Will Bush do what Roosevelt wanted to do?

Even ordinary Americans are furious with the New York Times both for what it has done, and for its arrogance in doing it. And journalists don't have much popularity to lose.

Last December the New York Times violated the Espionage Act of 1917 - specifically Section 798 which was added by congress in 1950 which reads in part:

"Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits ... or publishes ... any classified information ... concerning the communications intelligence activities of the United States...shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

The December New York Times story revealed that the National Security Agency was listening in on calls from al Qaida suspects abroad to people in the U.S.

Last week the New York Times struck again, revealing details about how the U.S. tracks terrorist financing through a consortium in Belgium.

Because of the worldwide publicity these stories generated, there can be no doubt al Qaida is aware of them, and will change its practices because of them.

"You have gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers," wrote Lt. Tom Cotton, an Army officer stationed in Iraq, in a letter to the Times.

"The next time I hear that familiar explosion...I will wonder whether we could have stopped that bomb had you not instructed terrorists how to evade our financial surveillance."

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Here is what Roosevelt wanted to do in 1942:

The battle of Midway Island was the turning point of the Pacific War. Victory at Midway was possible because the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code.

The Chicago Tribune spilled the beans in a story that ran under the headline: "NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was furious. He knew that if the Japanese read the story, they'd suspect their codes were compromised, and change them.

The president "initially was disposed to send in the Marines to shut down Tribune tower," wrote Harry Evans. "He was talked out of that, then considered trying (Chicago Tribune publisher Robert) McCormick for treason, which carried a death penalty in wartime.

A grand jury was empaneled, but prosecution was dropped because the Japanese were still using the Purple code, evidently having missed the story. The publicity from a trial would clue them in.

McCormick escaped prosecution but as a result of what he tried to do prompted congress to add Section 798 to the Espionage Act in 1950.

This section of the Act is what the New York Times violated twice in the last year.

Will President Bush do what President Roosevelt wanted to do in 1942?

Link

Rep John Murtha: aim at foot, pull trigger

Rep. John Murtha, Democratic Conressman from Pennsylvainia (upper picture), may be coming down with “Daschle-itis."

As reported here, the outspoken Murtha may be following in former Senator Tom Daschle’s path to defeat at the hands of voters back home.

Tom Daschle (lower picture) was the Democratic Senator from conservative South Dakota who pursued his own liberal agenda in Washington. The voters back home turned Daschle out of office in November of 2004.

It isn’t often a Senate Majority Leader is voted out of office but it shows what can happen when a politician follows his own agenda instead of representing the constituents back home.

As the article reports:

Daschle-itis a figurative disease which makes entrenched incumbents become national celebrities and, in the process, risk alienating the voters that put them in office.

Congressman Murtha's outspoken opposition to the war is really not the main issue.

His assertion that the U.S. is the greatest danger to world peace is only the most recent and perhaps most striking example of his potentially dangerous venture into the great left.

Murtha is obviously enjoying his sudden popularity among far-left politicians in Washington. How long will the popularity last if the voters back home decide they have had enough?

Congressman Murtha is aiming at his foot. Now all he needs to do is pull the trigger.

Do the British know something we don’t about arthritis treatment?

A GulfNews article here from the United Kingdom has some advice for arthritis sufferers:

Drink cherry juice to cure arthritis.

Cherry juice could be the key to helping repair damaged muscles and even treating arthritis, scientists said.

The article also says that drinking cherry juice drastically increases an athletes' ability to recover from strenuous exercise.

The anti-inflammatory properties of cherry juice have been examined before, but the focus of this research was on a new area: muscle damage repair.

Their study suggests the cherry juice may be effective in treatment of arthritis and gout and offers a potentially safer alternative to prescription drugs

Wacky web names: Think before you register

The British Sun newspaper online lists some pretty wacky web names.

Ever done something then instantly regretted you didn't check things out a little bit more closely!

Well, the people behind these websites must have been kicking themselves after buying this set of wacky domain names.

At first glance they might seem innocent enough, but have another read.

I wonder how many of the owners of the web sites shown actually kept them.

Here is one example:

Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views: The URL looks like this: www.expertsexchange.com.

Link here for similar wacky web sites.

I just can’t imagine handing out a serious business card with one of those URL’s printed on it.

Why terrorists love the New York Times

The justice department was using a perfectly legal method of tracking cash used to support terrorists.

This method would not have identified ordinary citizens, or affected them in any way, unless they were moving large amounts of cash in a suspicious manner.

By revealing how this was done was of great benefit to terrorists. Not only does the New York Times think this revelation was a public service, the newspaper is trying to have us think that the Bush administration was trying to pry into our finances.

It’s no wonder there is an increasing public outcry because the New York Times took away a very effective tool for fighting terror. Some are even calling the actions of the newspaper treasonous.

Instead of going after the New York Times, it would be more effective to find out and prosecute whoever supplied the classified documents to the newspaper.