The finest in resort living: Camp Delta

The GOP is sticking to its guns on Guantánamo Bay. The party maintains that the detention facility at the base there, Camp Delta, is better than home for the detainees.

Former congressman Duncan L. Hunter (R-CA) has long been an outspoken proponent of holding alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. As far back as 2005, he was claiming that detainees were actually leading better lives at Camp Delta than they were in their native homes:

The inmates in Guantánamo have never eaten better, they've never been treated better and they've never been more comfortable in their lives. ... And the idea that somehow we are torturing people in Guantánamo is absolutely not true, unless you consider having to eat chicken three times a week is torture.

Granted, most people would agree that eating chicken three times a week is not torture (as long as it's not from KFC). But to assert that Camp Delta detainees "are treated exceptionally well" based on what they're fed is either disingenuous or Hunter demonstrating that he's a simpleton. FBI memos dating as far back as 2002 document widespread use of "highly aggressive" interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay that most reasonable Americans would deem torture.

Now that President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, the GOP is back at it. This time they're trotting out senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to make a case for the continued operations at Camp Delta. Inhofe asserts:

Anyone, any detainee over 55 has an opportunity to have a colonoscopy. Now none of them take 'em up on it because once they explain what it is none of them want to do it. But nonetheless its an opportunity that they have.

What more could any self-respecting detainee ask for in life? With a menu of "honey glazed chicken" or "lemon baked fish," served with whole-wheat pita, various vegetables, and fruit, along with the fresh smell of ocean air, it's hard to distinguish Camp Delta from a cruise ship. Meanwhile, their captors provide them with copies of the Koran, prayer rugs, beads and oil. They broadcast the call to prayer five times a day and the cells have signs pointing toward Mecca. But the cherry on this sundae of resort life that the detainees look forward to with the greatest anticipation is the colonoscopy they get if they can reach the ripe old age of 55.

Treasury department logic

My impending retirement

What a way to start a weekend! I found the following email with the Subject "FUNDS NO:35460021 UM09" in my Inbox this morning:

Payment Reference No.-35460021
U.S. Department of Treasury
West African Foreign Remittance Payment Department.
WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.


Attention Dear Beneficiary,

We the entire members of Top Management of the U.S. Department of Treasury West African Foreign Remittance Payment Department. washington D.C, on behalf of the Government of the United States of America, under the auspices of the US Treasury Department held a meeting this week concerning your payment, both foreign and local contractors and some inheritance funds which were not released to the right benefactors.

Mr. Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Executive Secretary, United States Treasury Department, has just informed our Department here in El Monte California that All the listed contractors and Inheritance funds benefactors which their CONTRACT PAYMENT SUM AND INHERITANCE FUNDS were not paid to should be released to them with immediate effect.

We discovered that your payment listed to us has accrued up to $5.7 Million (Five Million, Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars), you are advised to respond with effect so that we will process your payment to be made in any form you wish to receive your funds.

Kindly respond to this office so that your payment will be processed and transferred under 72 hours of receiving this email.

On going through files yesterday, we discovered that your file was dumped untreated, so at this juncture, we apologize for the delay of your payment and please stop communicating with any office now and attention to the appointed office below for you to receive your payment accordingly.

Now your new Payment Reference No.-35460021, Allocation No: 674632 Password No : 339331 , Pin Code No: 55674 and your Certificate of Merit Payment No : 103 , Released Code No: 0763; Immediate Telex confirmation No: -1114433 ; Secret Code No: XXTN013, Having received these vital payment number, therefore You are qualified now to receive and confirm Your payment with the United Bank of Africa immediately within 72 hours.

However, I wish to inform you that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter. Also note that from the records presented to the bank your outstanding inheritance contract payment has accrued up to the sum of US$5.7 Million (5 Million, Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

NOTE THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO RECONFIRM THE BELOW INFORMATIONS TO ENABLE US RECONFIRM THAT IT IS SAME AS WE HAVE HERE IN OUR OFFICE:

1.Full Name:
2.Phone Number:
3.Residential Address:
4.Legal Occupation and Position

BE SURE TO PROVIDE THE ABOVE INFORMATIONS CORRECTLY.

As soon as this information is received, your payment will be made to you, As a result of the on-going drive of the United States National Treasury Department to update our books and clear overdue payments to all rightful beneficiaries / heirs, I strongly recommend that you promptly and humbly respond to this notification letter immediately.

NOTE: We have mounted our security network to monitor every in-coming call, if we still find out that you are still dealing with all those fraudsters that have been frustrating you, I shall stop and cancel your payment immediately.

Thanks and God Bless you.
Mr. John Mensah
West African Foreign Remittance Payment Department.
WASHINGTON DC, USA
Office Fax: (202) 622-6415
Personal E-mail: westafricaonustreasury@yahoo.com.hk

I can tell the email is official because they were notified by Mr. Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Executive Secretary, United States Treasury Department (otherwise I might be suspicious that the West Africaon Treasury uses a Yahoo! email address). It must be important considering the entire members of Top Management of the U.S. Department of Treasury West African Foreign Remittance Payment Department bothered to address my inheritance. I already promptly and humbly responded, providing the above informations correctly immediately.

I did note that he writes that if he still finds out that I am still dealing with all those fraudsters that have been frustrating me, he shall stop and cancel my payment immediately. So please keep this confidential -- they have mounted their security network to monitor every in-coming call. As directed, I stopped communicating with any office now and attention to the appointed office above for me to receive my payment accordingly. I gave them my bank account number and PIN so they can deposit the funds directly into my account.

The upshot of the email is that I have an outstanding inheritance contract payment of $5.7-million coming to me! That should be plenty of money for me to live off of for the rest of my life without working anymore. It says my payment will be processed and transferred under 72 hours of receiving this email, so I might as well retire now.

Respect privilege

It's not easy going through life with a disability. Fortunately, people with disabilities get an occasional privilege. One of them is the use of disabled person parking spaces. It helps make one small aspect of life a little easier.

Nonetheless, the privileges need to be respected. When taken for granted, the person doesn't appreciate the privilege. When a person has a sense of entitlement to privileges, it leads those without them to begrudge the privileged. So even a person with challenges in life and few privileges should take care not to abuse them.

When Bob Shatney, a paraplegic man, was being cited for parking in a disabled person parking space, he was surprised. Even though he had neither a disabled person placard nor disabled person license plates, Shatney felt he should not be cited.

Shatney had just bought a new car, so he did not have his disabled person plates yet. But Shatney also qualifies for a disabled person placard. He could use the placard until the plates arrived. Instead, Shatney felt that having his wheelchair in the back seat and hand controls for driving entitled him to use the disabled person parking space, even though the law said otherwise.

The law says that the disabled person placard must be displayed when parking in a disabled person parking space. In fact, it says that the person must show the registration for the placard when a law officer makes the request. The law does so for a couple of reasons. One is that abuse of disabled person placards is rampant. Another is that many people have "invisible disabilities" where you cannot see that they have a disability by observing them walking from their car parked in a disabled person parking space.

There is no exception in the law for people with wheelchairs or for having hand controls in their car. If there were, some people without a disability would find yet more ways to take advantage of disabled person parking. The law protects the privilege of the driver or passenger with a disability. It should be respected by the beneficiaries of the privilege.

As for Shatney, his citation was canceled. Because he demonstrated that he had the legal right to use disabled person parking, the local police sergeant canceled the citation. That's fair to Shatney, but it was also fair that he was cited in the first place.

The adaptive driving cautionary tale

Buying a van adapted for driving from a wheelchair is a costly investment. Depending on the scope of adaptations needed, the price can even run into six-figures. This is obviously not a purchase to take lightly.

Nonetheless, it can be a critical investment for a person with a disability. An adapted vehicle can provide that person with independence most people take for granted but that is otherwise unattainable for someone with a significant mobility impairment.

Considering all this, one would hope that making the purchase would go smoothly. After all, activities of daily living are challenging enough for someone with a major disability. That person would hope that their purchase is sure to be hitch free. Unfortunately, it's not -- even in the most uneventful of purchases.

First of all, at least for the initial purchase, the driver must undergo a driving evaluation given by a team that includes an occupational therapist and a rehabilitation engineer who specialize in adaptive driving before even ordering a vehicle. Secondly, funding is a challenge and most traditional lenders won't provide a loan for an adapted vehicle because of the high cost relative to the Blue Book value. Finally, the driver must have at least two fittings before delivery just to ensure the van is configured appropriately for the individual.

After all this, my most recent purchase of an adapted van went from a major hassle to my worst nightmare. I chose the same dealer from which I had purchased my prior two adapted vans, ADS Mobility. ADS had been in business for almost thirty years and had a good reputation in the industry. In my prior two purchases, the dealer did its best to provide quality service to me and they fully rectified the one accidental incident that occurred. This last purchase was a different story altogether.

First of all, ADS delayed delivery of my van for months. The owner, Chuck Kutz, fed me excuse after excuse, blaming all the delays on his suppliers. I have since discovered that all of the excuses were lies. I now speculate that what actually happened is ADS probably misappropriated the payment I made for the vehicle and did not use it to purchase the base Honda Odyssey Northstar conversion and all of the additional adaptive driving equipment I require. Instead, it was probably used for ADS's other expenses and then Kutz probably had to wait for sales to later unfortunate customers to use their payments to acquire my van and equipment over the subsequent months.

Part of the equipment that ADS contracted to install in my van was an AEVIT L Series system. This system costs well into five-figures all by itself plus thousands of dollars more to install. When I finally received my van, it had a used EGB SS electronic gas and brake system installed instead. This is an obsolete (albeit reliable) predecessor to the AEVIT system that hasn't been manufactured since 2001 and which the manufacturer doesn't support anymore.

The reason why ADS mangled my transaction has now come to light. The dealership went out of business and closed up shop. No other address or phone number was given to any customers for any kind of follow-up service on undelivered purchases, which happened to be the state of mine at the time. The owner has gone into hiding and is incommunicado. Fortunately (sort of), my van was abandoned at a distant Honda dealer, so I was able to retrieve it.

The van had the temporary registration vehicles have when first delivered by dealers. I checked with the Department of Motor Vehicles to determine when they would send me my permanent plates and discovered that ADS had neither processed my registration nor paid the taxes and fees. Of course, I had already paid ADS thousands of dollars to do so. Unfortunately, ADS left it up to me to process the registration and pay the taxes and fees -- yet again!

Is this tale over? I hope so but it might not be. Other people who recently bought adapted vans from ADS have actually had their vans repossessed by ADS's supplier. It turns out ADS didn't pay its supplier for a fleet of vans and Kutz absconded with the unfortunate buyers' monies.

ADS Mobility was QAP Accredited by the National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association (NMEDA). This Quality Assurance Program (QAP) accredited what, in this case, turned out to be a very low quality and crooked dealership. In all fairness, the QAP is a well designed program and is a strong indicator that an accredited dealer can be relied on to deal in good faith with its customers. Nonetheless, a dealer bent on ripping off its customers can still become QAP Accredited by defrauding the NMEDA, just as it does its customers.

Buyers of adaptive vehicles should not rely solely on any such indicator that their dealer will take care of them. Let this tale be a warning to act with great caution when purchasing such an expensive and critical vehicle. Before paying the dealer, try to determine what comprises the dealer's inventory of vehicles and equipment. Try to identify your own vehicle as early as possible and verify that no suppliers have a lien on its title. And whatever you do, avoid dealing with Chuck Kutz like the plague!

The dichotomy of recovery

The fallacy that the tax increase hurts business

Ever since President Obama first said he would increase taxes on those earning over $250,000 per year (which was when he was still only a candidate), Republicans have been parroting the claim that doing so would harm American business. They claim that many people who earn over $250,000 per year own small businesses and that to increase their taxes would stifle the growth of their businesses.

There’s a fatal flaw to this logic. The President's tax increase on people earning over $250,000 per year is a personal income tax, not a business tax. If the owner of a business (whether it is large or small) has a $250,000 salary, the owner’s salary was already an expense of that business before the tax increase. Adding to the tax does not increase the expenses of the business one penny; it only decreases the amount of the salary that the business owner gets to spend.

In fact, it could be said that the business owner earning over $250,000 per year was already stifling the growth of the business himself before the tax increase. Taking such a large salary reduces the amount of the business’s earnings that gets put back into the business. If the business owner is truly concerned about the tax increase, he could simply reduce his salary down below $250,000 per year. Then the business owner avoids the tax increase and his business retains more earnings, providing it with greater assets to grow on (or to use to weather this recession). That’s a win-win solution.

Republicans also claim that the tax increase on the wealthy discourages Americans from pursuing the American dream of building wealth. If that were the case, it would mean that when the tax increase is enacted, those earning over $250,000 per year would suddenly resign their high paying jobs or cut back to part time. The truth is they might have to actually work a little bit harder since they have a little less discretionary income to sustain their wealthy lifestyles. At the other end of the wealth spectrum, there is not a single average wage earner in this country who will now cease aspiring to earn over $250,000 per year. That tax increase is a problem 95% of Americans would love to have.