Hi neighbors. Another day in the neighborhood, and the world. Some days take stronger coffee than others.

I see where the oil-for-food scandal now involves a Texas businessman. When this whole investigation started it was United Nations officers that were the main targets. It always comes back to a United States citizen being the bad guy doesn't it? A Korean man was involved as well according to the New York Times article.

China is in the news again. It seems the Chinese people are angry at the Japanese people. The Chinese government is shrugging its shoulders and in effect saying, "What can we do? The people are speaking." Well, yes. But it seems a little funny when they are all repeating the same lines from the same script.

Remember the Cold War? I remember it well. The Cold War was frightening for everyone and convenient for several I suspect.

Now that was troubled times. The nation was told to always be prepared for nuclear attack. As children, we learned to keep our eyes on the sky, waiting for the bombs to drop.

We are still suffering from the policies started in those bad ole days in my opinion.

As a child, I didn't understand a lot about the Cold War. There was one generation between that didn't have to worry about defending the neighborhood from invaders -- at least not invaders from this planet. There were several years when the only perceived danger was some unknown, non-human one. But that was a short-lived fantasy stoned to death on 9/11.

Today we have the chemical warfare scare and various colored "alerts" for homeland security.

I wonder how this generation will feel about things 20 years from now? The Cold War left an effect on we Baby Boomers for sure. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't take things at face value.

Still, we are pretty gullible on some fronts even yet. The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to bring a lot of "hidden" things to light.

Although there are several government sites that are easy to wade through, some are more circular than useful.

Truthfully, I wouldn't know where to look for supposedly "hidden" documents. I guess there is no large Internet folder marked "United States Government Secrets" so it might be you'd have to look for a document and hope for the best.

The thing I find the most odd about government cover-ups is how well they work. In an age where information is everywhere for the taking, most of the time we only discover the really juicy and questionable behaviors long after the fact. And often only by accident.

Actually, I wonder how many scandals are results of an attempt at a deliberate cover-up and how much is just bad filing and red tape bottlenecks.

It does seem too often that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The CIA and FBI insist this is the most secure way to run things. At least they did, until Homeland Security got one man to run the entire country's security.

I wonder what we'll find out about him 20 years from now? A few months ago I read where some elected officials had tracking devices inserted under their skin so if they are kidnapped, or buried under rubble, they can be located by satellite. How effective it is to show on international television who has locator devices and where they are implanted? It seems too much like getting an unlisted number and having it printed on your business cards. People do odd things in the name of security.

It seems that Texas doesn't have enough illegals to pick their crops this year. Doesn't that strike you as odd? These must be some of those "jobs Americans won't do" as President Bush would say. It seems no one else will do them either.

Prepare for higher prices in the grocery stores on Texas produce.

In a world flooded with products made cheaply by low-paid workers around the world, food picked by desperate people for a pittance is also cheaper on the shelves.

Chinese workers are threatening to strike. At least they were just before the protests started against Japan's school textbooks. That timing seems a bit strange, but what do I know? In magic tricks, and government it seems, the hand is quicker than the eye. Most magic is done with flexibility, diversion of attention, and the old smoke and mirrors.

We certainly live in magical times don't we? Or maybe that's just a Cold War Baby Boomer Hippie flashback.