The Story of the Wrecking Yard

One day while walking through a wrecking yard, I began to survey the years and years of neglect and abuse. There were so many cars that were once somebody's pride and joy, now rotting away in a field with little hope of restoration. My eyes caught a 1967 Plymouth GTX, sitting on its frame, with major areas of rust. 'What a machine,' I thought, whose history is typical of such a car.'

Purchased right off the showroom floor, a young husband explains to his new wife that this really is a practical car, compared to some of the other models offered.
It had room for the "future" kids and it ran really smooth. The 440 cubic inches under the hood meant nothing more than the fact that it had the power to climb up steep hills if need be (surely the wife wouldn't want to be stuck on an incline with young ones eager to get to church).
The 4-speed transmission would certainly help with gas mileage when on vacation, and the dual scooped hood was there so dad could have a little fun (I mean, c'mon: this is a real sacrifice).
The wife is eventually convinced that the car needs to be purchased, the money changes hands, and the GTX rumbles down the road. It is taken home where it is quickly admired by the neighbors.

As the years go by the Plymouth serves its family well. It's reliable, it gets everyone to work (as well as getting the kids to school), and dad has some fun in it on Saturday nights.
But it doesn't seem long until the car is considered "old", and with soaring inflation and especially gas prices, it becomes an 'impractical form of transportation.'
Although it was a great automobile that served its owners well for 10 years and never let them down, the Plymouth is sold to a neighbor's teenage son for a tenth of the original price.

'Some quick changes are in order,' thought the teenager. A set of mag wheels were installed and the rear end of the car was lifted up in order to make room for some unusually large tires.
A cheap red paint job was applied over the original black paint. The exhaust was replaced and the car was now heard coming from blocks away. Whereas before, the neighbors quickly admired it, now the only time they came out to look at the car was to take notice of new dings and dents it had acquired.
It became the eyesore of the neighborhood, and had gained a reputation as a real terror on the local streets.
Eventually all this hard abuse on the GTX would take its toll, and the once strong motor began to tire and eventually died. This owner grew from a teenager to a young man, and his interest in the car soon faded, and he gave the car to his younger brother who had showed an interest in it.

The younger brother had BIG plans for the now classic musclecar (which didn't look like it at the time). He would pull the motor, have it rebuilt, go through the entire drive train, then have a good body shop repair every panel on the car and paint it black once again.
He would do this as soon as time and money permitted, but until then the car would be fine parked in the backyard, where it could brave the elements for a few short months.
Months, however, turned to years, and body work turned to major rust repair.
The hood was even sold to a passer-by who noticed it in the backyard. The GTX became such a major project that the $300.00 that it could be sold to the wrecking yard for, sounded like a fair deal.

So here it is: the motor and tranny are gone, the interior is completely gutted and the rust is rampant. But if someone had the time, the resources and the desire, it could be made like new once again, and become the very desirable classic car that it was.

The same goes for that Olds 442 a couple isles away, or how about that Mercury Cyclone that needs just a little attention and a new front clip? And look at that VW Thing: remember those?
How about an old 50's Buick convertible: wouldn't that be a cool cruiser?
Climbing on top of the roof of an old pickup, its fun to imagine all these cars in their original form, but who has the resources or cares enough about a bunch of old neglected cars?
Some of mans greatest creations, these cars, yet rotting away in places like this all across the country.

Perhaps you are like an old car, your life having been something like the Plymouth GTX. You've worked hard and have always been reliable, but yet you are still just getting older.
Where has all your hard work taken you?

Could it be that you are like a hot rod, living life in the fast lane? The fast lane, yes, it seems short and sweet at first, but as time goes on, it gets tougher and tougher to master.
Maybe, in your case this has led you down streets that you wish you had never traveled.
Then again, you may be like the GTX as it now sits: neglected and beaten from the past, stamp-set in the present, in need of a total restoration.
Just like a car, we people eventually die, too. But as you sit in life's wrecking yard, who cares enough about you to help, or even could help if they wanted to?
Where are the resources, what will they cost?
Is there really any hope?
Who can escape time and death, anyway?
There is One who can do a frame-off resto…One who can fix you up right. One who always has the time and resources to make you Concours-ready. You just have to accept it.

Why?

Sometimes, people pick fights with very specific things that are mainstream in our society. Sometimes these things are more mainstream than we would like to admit, but that is beside the point here. These fights are usually picked because the one who is now on the offensive was once affected by this thing. They are usually motivated by something close to anger because of the fact that this thing once hurt them. You can call it resolve.

Some people fight abortion; others focus on drugs. Some people choose homosexuality; others focus on the origin debate.


Then there's pornography. In some way or another it relates to the above issues.


Sex doesn't have consequences. Children shouldn't get in the way of an act that was meant solely for the pleasure of those involved. In fact, children are a mistake. [Abortion]

It is addictive and we try to label it as something that helps release tension. Even the strongest fighter with the most resolve can fall if they put their trust in their own strength. [Drugs]

It encourages sex without discrimination towards gender through objectification of the human body. [Homosexuality][Belief in random mutations through natural selection encourages objectification and vice versa]

Here is the disturbing information that can be spread. It is not explicit or obscene; the numbers do the talking.




Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States


Internet Pornography Statistics

Pornographic websites
4.2 million (12% of total websites)

Pornographic pages
420 million

Daily pornographic search engine requests
68 million (25% of total search engine requests)

Daily pornographic emails
2.5 billion (8% of total emails)

Internet users who view porn
42.7%

Received unwanted exposure to sexual material
34%

Average daily pornographic emails/user
4.5 per Internet user

Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer)
1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)

Daily Gnutella "child pornography" requests
116,000

Websites offering illegal child pornography
100,000

Sexual solicitations of youth made in chat rooms
89%

Youths who received sexual solicitation
1 in 7 (down from 2003 stat of 1 in 3)

Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites
72 million visitors to pornography every month

Internet Pornography Sales
$4.9 billion



Children Internet Pornography Statistics

Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography
11 years old

Largest consumer of Internet pornography
35 - 49 age group

15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures
80%

8-16 year olds having viewed porn online
90% (most while doing homework)

7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address
29%

7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address
14%

Children's character names linked to thousands of porn links
26 (Including Pokemon and Action Man)


Adult Internet Pornography Statistics

Men admitting to accessing pornography at work
20%

US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites
40 million

Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week
53%

Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home
47%

Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction
10%

Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites
72% male - 28% female

Country Porn Pages

United States
244,661,900

Germany
10,030,200

United Kingdom
8,506,800

Australia
5,655,800

Japan
2,700,800

The Netherlands
1,883,800

Russia
1,080,600

Poland
1,049,600

Spain
852,800



US Hardcore Pornography Titles Released

Year: 1988
#of Titles: 1,300

1989
1,350

1990
1,340

1991
1,505

1992
2,200

1993
2,400

1994
3,200

1995
5,700

1996
8,000

1997
8,000

1998
9,200

1999
10,300

2000
11,500

2001
10,900

2002
11,700

2003
11,400

2004
12,000

2005
13,588

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. 525,600/13,588 = 38.68 minutes per video.


Sources:Statistics are compiled from the credible sources mentioned. In reality, statistics are hard to ascertain and may be estimated by local and regional worldwide sources.ABC, Associated Press, AsiaMedia, AVN, BBC, CATW, U.S. Census, Central Intelligence Agency, China Daily, Chosen.com, Comscore Media Metrix, Crimes Against Children, Eros, Forbes, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Free Speech Coalition, Google, Harris Interactive, Hitwise, Hoover's, Japan Inc., Japan Review, Juniper Research, Kagan Research, ICMEC, Jan LaRue, The Miami Herald, MSN, Nielsen/NetRatings, The New York Times, Nordic Institute, PhysOrg.com, PornStudies, Pravda, Sarmatian Review, SEC filings, Secure Computing Corp., SMH, TopTenREVIEWS, Trellian, WICAT, Yahoo!, XBIZ


* At 13.3 billion, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide sex industry sales for 2006 are reported to be 97 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 44.8 billion in 2006. Internet Filter Review

* A 2000 MSNBC.com survey found that as many as 80 percent of visitors to sex sites were spending so much time tracking down erotica on the computer that they were putting their real-life relationships and/or jobs at risk. "Until they discovered cybersex, most of these people had no problems with sexual addition", according to the survey’s author, Al Cooper, a sex therapist at the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Center in San Jose, Calif.

Hollywood currently releases 11,000 adult movies per year – more than 20 times the mainstream movie production. LA Times Magazine, 2002.

* "Last year, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, pulled in $50 million from adult programming. All the nation's top cable operators, from Time Warner to Cablevision, distribute sexually explicit material to their subscribers. But you won't read about it in their annual reports. Same with satellite providers like EchoStar and DirecTV, which is owned by Hughes Technology, a subsidiary of General Motors. How much does DirecTV make off of adult product? “They don't break the number out. But I would guess they'd probably get a couple hundred million, maybe as much as $500 million, off of adult entertainment, in a broad sense,” says Dennis McAlpine, a partner in McAlpine Associates, who has tracked the entertainment industry for over two decades. “I would think it's probably more than what their overall profit is. The other areas are losing money. That's making money.” Then there are the big hotel chains: Hilton, Marriot, Hyatt, Sheraton and Holiday Inn, which all offer adult films on in-room pay-per-view television systems. And they are purchased by a whopping 50 percent of their guests, accounting for nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits. One hotel owner said, "We have to have it, our guests demand it.” From a CBS News Special Report, November 2003

* “Most girls who enter the porn industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again.” Luke Ford, quoted by CBS News

* 42 percent of surveyed adults indicated that their partner’s use of pornography made them feel insecure. Marriage Related Research, Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1.

* 41 percent of surveyed adults admitted they felt less attractive due to their partner’s pornography use. Marriage Related Research, Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1.

In March 2005 Christianity Today published the results of a study called “Christians and Sex” in their Leadership Journal. 680 pastors and 1,972 laypersons were surveyed, with the following results:
* 44% of churchgoers want to hear more scriptural teaching from their pastors on the subject of sex.
* 22% of pastors feel they should spend more time on the topic.
* 85% of pastors say they speak about sexual issues once a year, while 63% of churchgoers say their pastors do so. Among those churchgoers who say they want their pastors to preach more about sexual issues, 47% say their pastor speaks about it once a year, an even bigger difference of opinion. A CTI analyst was quoted saying "Perhaps this desire for more biblical exposition on sexual issues exists because pastors are not speaking forcefully or clearly enough, while exposure to sexual images and messages in today's media is ever more heightened."
* 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation.

Meanwhile, 74 percent of pornography sites display free teaser images; 66 percent do not include a warning of adult images. And only three percent require adult verification.
MSNBC: Scarborough Country

Please share this information.

And they swore an oath to be gentle unto the weak, terrible unto the wicked...

Now that I'm back from SI Camp, I guess I can tell you guys about some of the cool stuff that we did.

1) Lectures:

The material covered in the lectures consisted of intel history, careers, agencies, counter-intel, and various materials "recommended" for consumption. I think my favorite lecture was done by a man who was a good friend of Bob Hansen, the man who was portrayed in the movie Breach.

2) Teams:

The whole camp was split into six teams with each team having two separate divisions. For instance, my team was CIA. Within CIA, we were split into CIA 1 and CIA 2 with CIA 1 being the female team and CIA 2 being the male team. The teams represented six different agencies within the intel community: SOCOM, NRO, DIA, CIA, FBI, and NSA. At the end of the week, CIA was second overall in points.

3) Missions:)

This was obviously my favorite part of the week. Four missions were conducted throughout the week and the results affected our overall points standing.

Monday: Dead Drop. I was not able to participate in this mission due to the fact that I was in a heated argument with an interrogator at the time. My cover had been blown by a former TCC student who just so happened to spew out my real name in front of everyone. Yes, Calamy knows who I am talking about.

We were about to leave one of the buildings to start our mission when I looked out the window...

"Uh, oh."

"What?"

"You see those dudes with the guns in that golf cart over there?"

As everyone walked out of the building, they fired up the cart and came speeding over to the multitude that had gathered outside.

The first words out of their lips...

"Is there a Matthew Womack here?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Two more were called up and we were told to wait next to the cart. The one that was guarding us had a Steyr AUG and I was so tempted to take him down and run.

Alas, I could not do it. They transported us to a building were we waited outside the interrogation room. The guard at the door looked like an Easter Island statue. I decided to make some small talk with him...

"So is that an AK-47 or '74?"

He seemed somewhat surprised that I would ask such a question.

*Looks down at gun*

"74."

He then went inside the room. Oh, well. I tried.

Our team did not do well on this mission because of the fact that by the time they met the contact, our team had spread out too far to actually perform the dead drop. This was due to a lack of communication. *Ahem*

Tuesday: Interrogations. On Tuesday we had to interrogate five different people and guess which one was the baddy. I did not like this mission.

Wednesday: Arms Deal. We had to meet a contact out in some drainage ditch across a field. As we were crossing the field, a small band of guerrillas pounced on our group and make us spread-eagle.

She-guerrilla: "What are you doing here?"

Group: "We're humanitarian workers."

She-guerrilla to ME: "What are you doing?"

Matt Womack said: "We're looking for some children who have gone missing from their village."

It's amazing what the mind will come up with in a crunch.

SG: "I haven't seen any missing children!"

Big Ape who is waving M-16 around: "Should I teach dem a lezon?"

They took two of our guys for interrogations while a higher-up with "the black group" came storming in and demanded our release.

We later found the contact, who had a sniper rifle, and he gave us money and directions. We then located the arms dealer and he tried to sell me more than what we had originally asked for. (This was because of the fact that I was the team leader.) He demonstrated his merchandise by shooting off an RPG. After some quick and forceful demands, we were able to obtain a weapons crate. It was heavy and big enough that I had to help another guy carry it. As our team was heading back into the clearing, a security Jeep in the parking lot roared to life and came flying at us with lights blazing. This was not good. Even though we had the crate, I think that we still ran to the next contact before anyone else...

Next, we had to barter the crate for some blood diamonds. Through some more forceful demands, we were able to make a deal for 18 diamonds. As the dealer was counting them up, the security Jeep reared its ugly head again and we split. In the ensuing madness, a diamond was dropped. We thought we had seventeen. When we met our last contact, she counted out 19. The hand is quicker than the eye...

Thursday: The Great Rendition. The mission was conducted in a three story building. On the first floor was a nightclub that was dark like a funeral parlor. It was complete, though, with Mexican rap coming out of a CD player, a soccer game on TV, an artist painting obscure things, a bartender who glowered at everyone, a poker game, and an overall dislike from everyone for the security goons who slithered their way around the place like as if they owned it. Upstairs was a different story. A corporate party was taking place between members of Shell, Exxon, and BP. The occasion was the completion of an oil pipeline in the host country.

Before the mission, I had the wonderful task of splitting our group into three platoons with each having a leader and a communications officer. The concierge at the entrance was supposed to hand us three walkie-talkies for communication during the mission. The mission was split up just like the platoons. Platoon 1 (my platoon) would find the contact, who would give us certain instructions, and then relay instructions to platoon 2. Platoon 2 would receive more instructions on down the line and relay them to platoon 3. Since my cover story involved oil research, I had to mingle with the guests of the corporate party - which turned out to be a black-tie affair. My comm. officer and I made friends - again - and we worked well together. Since he was the international relations student working on his thesis, I offered my humble, uneducated scientist's theory, not "projection", on how the pipeline would benefit the country. This was an interesting topic of discussion with some of the other guests at the party as one of them turned out to be the daughter of a Venezuelan oil big-shot. (Who, of course, was really a puppet...but we couldn't say that.) We eventually went downstairs where we found the contact in the nightclub. We relayed our instructions to platoon 2, which quickly disappeared. I then instructed my team to mingle until we were needed again. After platoon 2 disappeared, two goons stood at the bottom of the staircase and made sure that no one made it upstairs to the party. One of the goons happened to be the former TCCer.

"Ben, man, how's it goin'? Man, don't you remember me? Sophomore year at Ohio State?"

As he's saying this, he's waving an M-16 around.

"Dude, I have no idea who you are...I went to CalTech..."

One of the guys who had been playing poker decided that he could get past security and go upstairs. I can think of only one reason why he would try to do this: Besides playing poker, he also pretended to be slightly drunk. Yes, drunk. He made it about halfway up the stairs before the guards threw him back down.

"Bunch of stupid people walking around with guns...not fair that we can't go up there...YOU BUNCH OF RETARDS!!"

I tried to keep from laughing as he meandered back into the club.

Later on, I was sitting next to him as he was playing poker. Someone poked their head in the doorway to the club and shouted:

IS THERE ANYONE FROM NRO IN HERE?

The soccer game and Mexican rap could not fill the silence that fell on the room.

Drunk: Man, who wants a bunch of spy people with guns walking around this place?

Me: Yeah, the guards are bad enough.

Drunk: Hey, weren't you in the party upstairs?

Me: Yeah, but I figur'd that if they are going to be treatin' you guys like that I might as well stay down here. Besides, it was too stuffy up there.

So I mingled in the club for a while. I played chess with one guy who got into an argument with the rest. He thought we should watch boxing, but that was too American for the rest of the locals who wanted to watch soccer. He beat me in something like five moves.

I also tried to get a drink from the bartender.

"Are ya staying (for the night) or are ya just here for a while?"

I didn't know that we were supposed to be "staying", so I said that I was there just for a while.

"Did ya pay the cover charge?"

"No, nobody asked me 'bout a cover charge."

"Go pay the concierge."

I told the concierge about the situation and she said, "Tell him that the concierge will cover it."

I got a shot glass full of Pineapple Jarritos. It didn't last very long.

Next, one of the guys playing poker said: Hey, did anybody bring a CD of something else? We've heard this one like three times already.

The humor provided a nice break from the stress of the mission.

Moments later, I looked around to see how my platoon was doing. I could not come to a conclusion because of the fact that half of it was missing! Half of my platoon, including my comm. officer who possessed the only walkie-talkie for our platoon, disappeared on me. After some quick words with the concierge, she told us to wait a moment there in the lobby. Behind her, two guards were talking to each other about something totally obscure. I was staring into space behind them while I was thinking about our situation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the elevator door behind the guards open. One of the guys from my team poked his head out - along with his rifle - and ran to the staircase along the wall. Several more team members, all visibly armed, did the same.

The diversions that the mind creates in such a situation are amazing.

The concierge then told us to go outside where we would meet our team.

The end of that mission also meant the end of our aliases. As our team met, everyone was saying, "Hey [alias], what's your real name?" We eventually found out that we had three Bens on our team.

On Friday night, they announced the final scores. The top four teams were designated with a new mission and name.

"In second place: CIA. You will now be designated as Echelon Dark Steel. This coming week you will be transported to Pakistan to hunt down a man by the name of Osama bin Laden..."