Mere Conservativity

Atlas' shoulders are itching

2010-02-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

The transportation department is now jumping into the Toyota recall fray, demanding documents to investigate regarding whether Toyota moved swiftly enough to enact the recall.

The Transportation Department demanded documents related to Toyota's massive recalls in the United States on Tuesday to find out if the automaker acted swiftly enough. Toyota, meanwhile, said it will idle production temporarily at Texas and Kentucky plants over concerns the recalls could lead to big stockpiles of unsold vehicles.

Atlas Shrugged is by no means an upstanding work of literature, but it is certainly an insightful one. One of the central issues of the plot involves an American government punishing successful companies by handicapping them against other companies (to make it "fair"), and enforcing industry-wide socialist subsidies to "promote" business. The result, of course, is that the successful companies are slowly and inexorably driven into the ground, trying to drag the burden of a massively unproductive sector with them. Ultimately the economy goes into an endless depression, with no real producers left.

While Toyota may not have acted as promptly as they should for the recall, one strongly suspects that the trouble they are in is not at all due to their procedure for the recall, and very much due to their success at the expense of American car companies. Toyota rose to the top by the choices of the consumer; now it appears suspiciously like the government is attempting to knock them down a peg to support our own failing domestic industry. And that failure is due to very specific, preventable problems. Yet what we see is nothing like an attempt to solve those problems, but instead an attempt to tear down their opponents, to "level the playing field".
The similarity to the situation described in Atlas Shrugged is troubling, to say the least.

Yet what we see here par for the course lately. Our government is actively engaged in propping up failed enterprises with good money. If not stopped, this can do nothing other than utterly erode our economic foundations and ultimately lead to the collapse of our currency, economy, and national stability.

-()4|<.

The Good Old Days of Bush... Hardly.

2009-12-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

Apparently a poll actually showed that 44% of Americans would prefer to have Bush again versus Obama now, politico has mentioned.

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

The article goes on to mention how this might effect the 2010 elections, but those are practically a decade away in the accelerated lifespan of current political climates.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is a bit of number skewing in the sampling pool. While I am not supportive of Obama's policies in general, I certainly don't see a return to Bush as a step forward. Many destructive government practices begun during (or before) the Bush administration have been brought to painful light in this one. Many people don't like where they see our country going in the past year, but other than a few more abrupt changes wreaked or suggested by Obama's really very strange czars, much of what people dislike are things that had simply not been surfaced during the previous administration(s). The Tea Parties could have happened during the Bush administration with nearly equal validity. The difference is the "in your face" style of liberalism that Obama and his administration have been pursuing, which shocked enough people to get them out of their daily routines and into the streets.

The long game works nearly every time against the American people, our attention spans are too short to notice what's up. But when those who wish to transform our society to a form of their choosing smell victory, sometimes they show their hand too soon. That is exactly what has happened with Obama's victory and subsequent actions, and why there has been such a strong reaction against them. Had he kept a lower profile and simply continued to ram legislation through congress without fanfare, much more damage would already have been done.

The days of Bush were not the good old days, not for liberals or conservatives. Bush felt very strongly about certain issues and ideals, and was content to use the rest for bargaining. Conservatives loved the lip service he paid to their pet issues, but it was largely lip service, and little progress was made on those fronts, certainly very little that has not been quickly erased by the advent of a liberal administration. If we do not realize that "settling" for a Republican who talks the talk but who is errant or weak on the economy, dangerously uninformed in foreign policy issues, and willing to gamble with issues he touts during stump speeches but has not shown during his career in elected office to have taken action on, we will have done ourselves and our nation a huge disservice.

We can't go back to Reagan, and we can't go back to Bush. And we should want neither of those things. We should remember the lessons of the past, but use those to move forward and encounter the future from a position of strength and reality. Otherwise, we will become part of that past so quickly that our words of protest will hardly have stopped echoing before we realize we are irrelevant.

-()4k...

Four for Friday - Huge News Week

2009-12-03T22:09:00.000-08:00

Here are four very significant stories to be aware of this weekend, as we move into what is apparently the fourth week or so of the Christmas season this year...

1. Dubai Tower, world's tallest building by far, set to open next month

Next month's opening of the Burj Dubai tower, the world's tallest building, will bring Dubai's era of exuberant expansion to a juddering halt as hundreds of other building projects are already mothballed.

The article actually speaks much more of Dubai's ongoing economic woes than of the tower itself, but the building is an impressive undertaking. Here's the tower's wiki page for more info.
The tragic human rights story behind the undertaking is that of the thousands of immigrants brought in for what is basically illegal slave labor. Their story needs to be told.

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2. Next we have being reported what the Russians have known for a long time: your crayons are not made from a T-rex... This is a potential energy revolution in the making:

Many Russians and Ukrainians — no slouches in the hard sciences — have since the 1950s held that oil does not come exclusively, or even partly, from dinosaurs but is formed below the Earth’s 25-mile deep crust. This theory — first espoused in 1877 by Dmitri Mendeleev, who also developed the periodic table — was rejected by geologists of the day because he postulated that the Earth’s crust had deep faults, an idea then considered absurd. Mendeleev wouldn’t be vindicated by his countrymen until after the Second World War when the then-Soviet Union, shut out of the Middle East and with scant petroleum reserves of its own, embarked on a crash program to develop a petroleum industry that would allow it to fend off the military and economic challenges posed by the West. Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth.

Someday the idea that your car runs on smushed prehistoric biomass will be set down alongside the ideas that the earth is flat and that flies spontaneously generate from rotten meat...

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3. Next up, say a prayer for modern western civilization: Britain is no longer a sovereign state, but now subject to the EU presiding body in Brussels. (see also Vox Day's article and links)

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

So it turns out that the Eurocrats got England before the Muslims did. Ah well. Wait 50 years and see how things stand...

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4. Lastly, also on the British front, what is now being ubiquitously referred to as "Climate-gate".
You all know about this one, I hope, but for those of you who don't read the news much, or want more info than Jon Stewart (so far the Daily Show spot is the most coverage the issue has gotten in American "news media") provided, I highly recommend going here for a tongue-in-cheek but accurate summary of the extent of the scandal unleashed by this uninvited peek into the sordid underbelly of the global warming conspiracy. Enjoy:

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”.

The information heist came at just the right time, too, when the public had been pushed just a little too far into fearing the imminent destruction of the world, and started to push back. Polls in America had already started to indicate the public was still skeptical of the warming. Of course, now those few alarmists which have not switched from "warming" to "climate change" will do so, perhaps even have the gall to swap to "cooling" and themselves decry the false tactics used to skew the data to show false warming when we're really all in danger of the next ice age. The remedy will be the same in either case, however: taxes and regulations to stifle evil, job-providing and wealth-producing industries and line the pockets of more bureaucrats.

4+. Of course, the wrath of the stung bureaucrats will now turn upon those who exposed their game:

"Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon..."

"...We may well have a hearing on this, we may not. We may have a briefing for senators, we may not," Boxer said. "Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated.

Naturally.

-()4k..

The Manhattan Declaration - Go Investigate and Sign It

2009-12-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

I was notified of this today. I suggest those of you who believe likewise should go sign it, as I have done. Note that it acknowledges that civil disobedience, in an appropriate and godly manner, may become necessary as a result of following the ideals contained within it. -()4|<.

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The Manhattan Declaration

A Call of Christian Conscience

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To sign this, go here.
For FAQ, go here.
For the general site, go here.

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US Foreign Policy - Hope but no Change

2009-11-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

With two entries in the works, I first wanted to bring to your attention this short but interesting tidbit from Der Spiegel:

"When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming."

I recommend you all go read it, it's fairly thoughtful and less influenced by domestic politics than most of what we get here. It's also indicative of a gradually-clarifying world opinion on Obama. The honeymoon appears to be over, and now the soft approach and "nice" rhetoric that got him the Peace Prize is being weighed in the scales and found wanting.

The highlight of the piece, as far as I am concerned, is the following statement (emphasis mine):

"Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik."

One might say, convinced that after eight years of Bush, the world was just waiting to be charmed, President Obama and his team are finding that charm only gets you a willing audience, the "Hope" if you will. But the "Change" only occurs after strong, realistic, and well-executed foreign policies are brought into play. Bush's policies were strong, and even occasionally well-executed, but often fatally rooted in personal idealism over practical realism. Obama's policies seem, like Bush's, to consist largely of optimistic idealism, but unlike Bush, his optimism is based not on the persuasive and positive effects of freedom, but on the universal goodness and reasonableness of mankind, an even shakier and less stable foundation.

One has to wonder whether his repeated failures to charm the world into a better place will result in his adoption of a different strategy, one more resembling Bush's aggressive and often preachy stance towards the world.

The Spiegel piece suggests this may already be occurring:

While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.

We are approaching a situation remarkably and dangerously similar to the one we occupied pre-WWII in the Pacific: lecturing Japan on its policies, while sending our forces to deal with conflicts elsewhere. Eventually militant forces in Japan gained the upper hand, and all the outraged blustering Washington could issue weighed little in the face of the new overwhelming Japanese naval supremacy in the region.

Fastforward to the 21st century: Lectures on human rights fall on deaf, unappreciative, and increasingly (and rightfully?) resentful ears in China when our irresponsible economic policies are agitating their own economy. Meanwhile their military is more or less openly stating that their immediate objectives are to deny us air and sea supremacy further and further out from their mainland.

One major difference between then and now: China has more than a handful of nukes. And, as the Spiegel article points out, nuclear disarmament is a non-issue there. Nukes = respect and leveraging power. Why on earth would they want to give them up?

Meanwhile, apparently Obama's playbook has only one entry for China: Demands for transparency, increasing debt, and more lectures on human rights.

The piece goes on to point out the similarities that are being drawn between Obama's foreign policy and that of Jimmy Carter. It might be worth noting that it was under Carter that we funded central asian terrorist groups (Al Qaeda, for example), and Osama Bin Laden.

From weak policy to funding our future enemies... We can hope that weak and misguided policy now does not lead to either of the two parallel situations later. A capable and realistic foreign policy might remember that history has a way of repeating itself...

-()4|<..

Bowing to No One

2009-11-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

Obama has created a furor over his repeated bowing to foreign leaders. Arguments have tended to rage over whether or not his nearly 90-degree bend at the waist constituted a "bow" or not, which is of course silly. Yes, he was bowing.

However, I submit that this is not the point at all. The relevant question to me is brought up by a statement by former Vice President Cheney:

"There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness."

While it's certainly true that our friends don't expect it, whether our enemies see it as a sign of weakness is a more esoteric criticism, protocol notwithstanding. It gives more the impression, perhaps, of an inexperienced leader who is not sure how these matters are conducted. Yet while Cheney's comment is representative of a very common attitude in the US, I consider that attitude to be well-meaning but misguided.

It's easy to write off such a statement as more American arrogance: "We're the leader of the free world; others may bow to us, but we bow to no one." Yet the issue of paying respect to foreign leaders is a subtle one.

It's clear that part of Obama's approach to dealing with foreign leaders is wanting to be on good terms with all the other kids on the playground. Not totally a bad thing; though it shows a certain naivety on his part, as on the part of most liberals concerning foreign policy, it very rarely hurts to show respect to other people. The nonsense about "showing weakness" is probably true in dealing with a nation like Russia (and may very well stem from the Cold War mentality which most of our current government/infrastructure people seem irretrievably locked into), but does not apply in most cases.

It's 2009. The Cold War is over. Though President Obama doesn't seem to have any kind of cohesive strategy for engaging an increasingly belligerent Russia whatsoever, his interactions with China are arguably more important. And in that culture, bowing is not seen as a sign of weakness.
(Unless perhaps it be taken to the extreme of a kow-tow. And lest you think that idea laughable, go look again at how in debt we are to China. And recall that the Empire State Building was lit up yellow and red very recently in honor of the Communist revolution in China. We may yet see Obama approaching the Dragon throne, with the "three kneelings and nine head-knockings")

The problem with Obama's bowing is not so much that it projects weakness, but that it demonstrates a fantasy-approach to foreign policy. One in which by showing each other respect and being nice to everyone, "bad" leaders will suddenly see the light of freedom and reasonableness. This is similar to Bush's unswerving and irrational faith in the idea that if we can bring freedom to a people, they will choose to use this freedom in the same manner that people who earned their freedom have used it. Neither approach has demonstrated anything more than ephemeral success. Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Myanmar, all greatly appreciate the attention they so desperately crave and are now under Obama's administration receiving, yet at the same time make it clear that they do not intend to change their policies just because we threw them a bone of recognition. To believe that they would do so is in itself arrogance. And while a more subtle arrogance than that of America in some periods in the past, it is as foolish and ineffective nonetheless.

In any case, bowing to the Japanese Emperor is not going to make Al Qaeda decide that this is their big chance to launch another attack, or Iran decide to build another reactor, or Russia invade another small, former-Soviet province. Those things are all happening anyway.
A lack of a prudent foreign policy or economic strength to back up the bow will indeed bring trouble, however, and that is precisely what has been occurring.

"Walk softly but carry a big stick": this is an expression I've quoted here before, one containing much insight. The strong may bow to the weak with no loss of face, because they do it out of generous respect and not out of obligated weakness. If we as a nation really feel that bowing is in and of itself a sign of weakness, perhaps it shows how unconfident we have in fact become.

-()4|<...

Secession in Sudan

2009-11-15T19:46:00.000-08:00

Just a short entry tonight: this story was brought to my attention by an African missionary.
Apparently there is a distinct possibility that southern Sudan may secede.

November 11, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — South Sudan could unilaterally split from the north because of a dispute over the oil-rich region of Abyei in Africa’s largest country, leading Islamist opposition party leader Hassan al-Turabi said on Sunday.

Sudan is currently in a period of uneasy "stability" after the end of the civil war there in 2005, with a coalition government uniting the nation, though unresolved situations like Darfur belie any perceptions of actual peace...

Observers say the biggest obstacle to reconciliation is the unresolved status of Abyei, which is on the north-south border.

"I realise now that this is a very critical issue — it could risk something very serious for the whole deal," Turabi told Reuters in an interview. "It might provoke the south to proceed directly towards a proclamation of secession."

They have also not yet accepted UN peace-keeping forces.

(Hmm, perhaps they spoke to the Congolese...)

-()4|<.

Warming? Cooling? Whatever is convenient

2009-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

The BBC News reports that not only has global warming disappeared to be replaced by global cooling, but that this cooling trend will continue for some time.

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

Why so truthful all of the sudden? It's hard to know the motive. Perhaps the bald-faced lies perpetuated by the rabid global-warming crowd were finally so obviously at odds with reality that cooler heads (pardon the pun) decided that if any vestige of the human-caused climate catastrophe crowd were to survive, it would have to be admitted that climate change was at very least not confined to warming trends and rising sea levels.

I personally am rather confused by the warming catastrophe crowd, considering some of them seemed to be convinced that by tomorrow morning the Atlantic might very well be lapping at our thresholds, while others were simultaneously predicting an apocalypse so slow in coming that we might well be living on other planets before it arrives.

Meanwhile, evidently it was getting colder all the time...
Now record cold temperatures are being seen all over.

We should note, however, that while climate change skeptics see this cooling as justification for their skepticism of inexorably rising global temperatures, true believers' faith in the heat death of the world by our own hands continues unabated:

In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.

Yes, thus spoke the oracle: Centuries-long ice ages may interfere, as in the past, but at some day in the hypothetical future, it will get hotter than it is now. Other scientists agree:

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.
But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

Notice the language here. Does anyone not realize that this has taken on all the artifices of a religious institution? Dr. Latif, worried that he might be perceived as a nonbeliever in Warming, clarifies that despite the scientific data stating otherwise, he is not a skeptic! Yes, we must have faith that the heat is coming. Ignore the cooling trend. Just believe. Sooner or later a heating trend will re-emerge, then we can start all this up again.

Meanwhile, the American people are less and less convinced; polls show that significantly fewer Americans are worried that Florida will go the way of the Siberian land bridge any time soon...

The new poll found that only 57 percent of Americans believe there is “solid evidence” for the existence of global warming, compared to 71 percent in April 2008.
Additionally, the poll shows that the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is caused by human activity has dropped from 47 percent last year to 36 percent today.

One can only hope this means we'll hear less hysteria about carbon footprints and other such nonsense related to carbon dioxide levels, which have never been causally linked to warming anyway. But "Cap-and-Trade" is already here, and something tells me that more of the same taxes are coming whether facts or the American people back them up or not. It's not a question of reality or democracy anymore. As President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus (currently being sidelined in the EU for being a disagreeist) has pointed out, global climate change politics is just a power-play.

So should we sit idly by and watch our freedoms be taken for whatever trendy excuse the religio-scientific backers of the liberal pan-bureaucracy may contrive? We already have been. And that realization is by far the most frightening thing I'll encounter this halloween...

-()4|<.

Update: Transparency

2009-10-29T10:38:00.001-07:00

It would appear that the Democratic party is backing off of it's "transparency in government" goal.

House Democrats blocked the public from attending the unveiling ceremony of their health-care bill Thursday morning, allowing only pre-approved visitors whose names appeared on lists to enter the event at the West side of the Capitol.

Only pre-approved visitors are allowed to hear what the massive health care bill is going to do? And they've gone so far as to block off normally public entrances. If they are unwilling to let the public hear about the bill, can we expect to get the promised 72 hours for everyone to read the bill before voting occurs? The Obama administration seems to be breaking a lot of campaign promises. I wonder if anyone in real journalism will notice.

UPDATE: Looks like the promise to leave the final bill up online for 72 hours has been officially broken.

Conservativity Rising

2009-10-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

It appears that more Americans are identifying themselves as conservatives this year.
Gallup has the numbers...

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

Predictably, liberals in charge of government have caused a number of Americans to react by shifting towards the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. This is partly because this time, they are so much more dramatically militant, in-your-face liberals than Americans are accustomed to seeing in positions of power. (People, for example, such as Obama adviser Robert Reich who say things like: "We are going to have to, if you are very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you, maybe, going for another couple of months. It's too expensive. So, we're going to let you die.")

This sort of thing horrifies decent people, who react away from it. But it works both ways, and people are sadly vulnerable to pressure on how they ought to think. It's a natural process; those same outraged people might well trend back into liberal territory under a conservative administration. (or what passes for one these days)

In fact, it's likely that these are indeed middle-grounders who moved towards the fringes of the liberal camp during the later Bush years, in reaction to issues such as the Iraq War and the perceived threat of anthropogenic climate change, but who are now drifting back to the average American slightly-conservative-but-not-very-well-informed moderatism.

It has been predicted that America will continue to follow this trend, due if nothing else to higher birthrates among conservatives. (though this trend is greatly eclipsed by the ongoing northward migration of and birth rates among immigrants, which will play a far greater role in political shifts in America to come) Yet at the same time, polls clearly indicate that younger Americans (the 18-29 crowd) are much more liberal than their older counterparts.

One thing that sticks out, however, is that the increases in Conservativity (if one may so phrase it) and in Liberalism, while somewhat antagonistic to each other, both came at the expense of the moderate camp, which has been in decline since 2005.

In other words, people are slowly moving away from the middle, towards the opposite ends of the spectrum. Further information on the Gallup site confirms this:

While these figures have shown little change over the past decade, the nation appears to be slightly more polarized than it was in the early 1990s. Compared with the 1992-1994 period, the percentage of moderates has declined from 42% to 35%, while the percentages of conservatives and liberals are up slightly -- from 38% to 40% for conservatives and a larger 17% to 21% movement for liberals.

Yet some of us refuse to see the issue as we are being told to see it. That is, with two camps (Republicans on the conservative to moderate-conservative side, and Democrats on the liberal to moderate-liberal side) fighting for the attentions of the balanced Americans in the center who haven't chosen a side yet.

Sometimes the old paradigms need to be replaced. This conception of the two party system is one of them. I don't agree with much I hear from either side these days, and I think I'm not at all alone in that. Obama captured the hearts of a large portion of America's population by getting them to believe that he was "for them", in a deep and meaningful sense. His falling popularity seems to be a sign that Americans are starting to realize that he is not. (whether they grasp on a collective scale that many of his policies are exactly the opposite of what we need right now, or were merely empty rhetoric, remains to be seen. If that is beginning to happen, we'll see popularity levels around 40% before the end of his first year, I suspect.)

Americans want representation by their government, and the simmering dissatisfaction that makes itself known at things like the tea parties, town hall meetings, and other demonstrations will only increase as Washington in general, together with this administration in specific, attempt to hijack our nation for their own ideologies.

-()4|<.

The Forum Troll President

2009-10-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have had an interesting time picking a story to write on for the past few days. An extremely busy weekend made it easy to delay the choice altogether, but I realized that I was shying away from stories involving our president. Enough has already been said about him, certainly, and yet I find myself writing one more entry about him today.

Obama has achieved and maintained total media saturation (indeed, with the media's acknowledged support and involvement) since his nomination, with significant coverage before then. That has not diminished. With the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize, the failed bid for the Olympics in Chicago, the situation in Afghanistan; everyone is waiting to see what the president will do.

Even aside from the media, in our national discussion President Obama has been like an especially controversial troll in a forum; some take his side and defend him, others hate him with that special hatred reserved for forum trolls, but either way he has now taken whatever discussion existed prior to his involvement and focused it entirely around himself and his statements.

This is what President Obama, consciously or unconsciously (considering the skills of his media team, probably consciously), has done on the national stage. Perhaps it's also the forte of a populist president; if you wish to run as a personality and not a platform, your personality must necessarily remain in focus if your goals are to be achieved.

Obama has gambled daringly that his 'brand' is sufficient to sustain loyalty to his goals and ideals. This has largely worked. (with perhaps the notable exception of the tea-party attendee types, who have been marginalized by the White House as disagreeists. Whether they can be successfully marginalized or not is a question for another time, but while they are numerous, they are still a clear minority.) It's interesting to note that if his brand becomes unpopular, his clout vanishes. He is only left with the usual political maneuvering, in a field where he is still a newcomer.

But for now, the president has the world's attention. The peace prize was as clear a sign of this as could be given. Consider Bono's recent editorial in the NYT. It's quite glorifying of President Obama, and at the same time surprisingly pro-American. More insightful pundits than me will doubtless pull many valuable observations from his take, but let me focus on one of the most obvious: The world is calling, and Obama is America's chance to respond.

Obama is our first global president. Perhaps fitting as America's power and influence in the world peaks and enters a decline (perhaps 'the' decline, but it's too early to call), a man has risen to the top who is using that high platform to spread idealism throughout the world. Many feel, as does this writer, that some (not all) of those ideals are flawed at best. But that is irrelevant in a global sense. I submit that the world in general feels more ownership of our president than we do, and that is both based in his approach to the world, and mirrored in his response to it.

Liberally-minded (in the modern political sense) Americans feel very strongly the pressure of the rest of the world opinion weighing in, and are finally basking in the glow of a president they think they just might be proud to show the world. For example, let us consider that the left end of the political comedy spectrum (SNL and the Daily Show), previously unwilling to mock Obama even in a tangential sense, are now doing so. But unlike former president Bush, it is not his ideals that they mock, nor his actions, but his inaction. Obama is their applicant to the rest of the world, to demonstrate their solidarity, to show that the world's most touted issues (environmentalism, poverty, nuclear disarmanent, etc) are their issues as well. They see this as their shot to be at the world's table not because of American's power, (a reason they would despise, like a crass and socially awkward uncle who nevertheless is invited to every family party because he also happens to be extremely wealthy) but as sensitive, knowing, and worldly intellectuals who belong there. Obama is their personified manifesto, their best shot yet at getting in. They don't want him to mess this up.
Neither does the rest of the world, as Bono writes:

"The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, 'Don’t blow it.'"

Conservatives often make two mistakes in their response, either blowing off the rest of the world altogether as irrelevant (short-sighted, unwise, and furthermore uncharitable: in these times, "no man is an island" applies to nations more than ever), or else attacking those ideals of Obama which are demonstrably false, yet without supplying their own methods of dealing with the problems he purports to be solving.

Example of the latter: People do need health care. I believe that no plan currently circulating through our congress would be anything less than a disaster, but our current situation is clearly inexcusably bad as well. While I have heard many compelling reasons given in impassioned speech as to why Obama's plan should be consigned to a place where the worm does not die, nor is thirst ever quenched, I have not yet heard a single agreed-upon workable alternative solution by those opposing the Obama plan.

What does that accomplish on a national level? The president (who seeks to advance his goals by the force of his own personality, remember) could easily claim that the attacks are not really against the health plan, but against himself. In fact, he doesn't even need to say this. His backers can do that for him. And we see that this is exactly what is occurring now. To return to the analogy, the troll has struck again. The forum topic is no longer health care, but all the commenters' opinions of the troll himself, generally expressed in wholesale irrational favor or disfavor. Few bring forth a detached, logical analysis of the forum troll and his arguments. He is now setting the agenda. His provocative statements, and existing opinions about his kind, generally reduce all conversation to endorsements, rejections, or endless bickering. Eventually the topic is closed, no meaningful progress having been made on the subject.

If we seek to have a meaningful national dialogue on anything worth accomplishing, this trolling must end. The president has ushered in a new era in which every political argument defaults back to himself. He remains the center of attention, and as long as we all argue about him, he wins. For is not that the goal of the troll?

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September 11th, 2008?

2009-10-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

It is possible that, on September 11th, 2008, at 11AM, our nation's financial system was attacked and almost destroyed.

This is not a shock claim, or the contrived theory of a few fringe lunatics, this is a fact. On a morning in September, $550 billion suddenly began to be electronically extracted from our nations money markets. This could have led to a total collapse of the system had it not been quickly shut down.

But don't take my word for it. Representative Kanjorksi from Pennsylvania has the facts. He starts talking about it around 2:00. Listen carefully.

The collapse of the US economy and the end of our political system as we know it?

His words, not mine. If I am understanding him correctly, they were briefed on the 15th, and the attacks took place the preceding Thursday. He said 11AM. That means the massive withdrawal started on September 11th, 2008, 11AM. Within a few minutes of the exact moment of the 7th anniversary of the planes hitting the towers in NYC.

Why has this information not been made more public? I don't know, but the knowledge makes me uneasy. The sudden, urgently needed bailouts, the subsequent shock to the world's financial system, the major shifts in our national economy, the government acquisition of large portions of the financial infrastructure and automotive industry, now the call to shift away from the US Dollar and stop using it for oil transactions, all this resulted from the sudden withdrawals on that day.

This is not even new information. It came out this past February, as best I can tell. Did you know? I didn't. But now you know too. And it doesn't take a genius to realize that something's seriously wrong here.

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The global reign of the dollar is over?

2009-10-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Soon the US Dollar will not be the currency used for oil transactions, The Independent (UK) reports...

"In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar."

First thought: I don't really blame them. Our leaders have been irresponsible enough in handling our economy, and our problems have spilled over and affected the entire world's economy. If the dollar is going to be unstable, swapping to a basket of currencies makes sense.

Second thought: "a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar." - A fledgling pan-Arabic Muslim currency, anyone? That sounds like a portentous global economy shift waiting to happen.

And lest you think that this is merely a hysterical prognosis of some fringe economist:

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The article darkly hints at a future conflict between the US and China over Middle East oil, but we will pass over this idle speculation for the meatier material on actual Chinese involvement in the situation:

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls.

The Chinese tend to be practical economists these days. A burgeoning economy in desperate need of resources such as oil to fuel its rise is well-served by increased economic ties to the countries with said resources. And unlike us, they are not likely to go about things in an ambivalent manner, hesitating between pragmatic manipulation of the areas with the resources we need and condemnations of our "self-serving" involvement there. The Chinese economic engine needs more oil to run on, and thus they will do what it takes to get more oil.

Meanwhile, we won't even drill for the oil we already possess domestically. Small wonder our economy is flagging while theirs is set to pass us by mid-century.

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

Perhaps this is a misunderstanding. President Obama has given no sign that this would be a move that he disagreed with. In fact, such a shift seems perfectly in line with the "New world order" he likes to give speeches about. (that speech was meant to be uplifting; upon reading the transcript I was instead quite interested in determining exactly what worldview our President holds. Not one in which the British are held in high regard, that much is certain...) I would not be surprised at all if he gave a speech lauding the move away from the US dollar, as a good plan to diminish US hegemony and level the world's playing field. He is, after all, not only a US citizen, but "a fellow citizen of the world." (second paragraph of the transcript)

This means, apparently, that he would never be so jingoistic as to put the concerns of his own country above the concerns of others. Which is lovely, except that he is not the president of the world, he is the president of the United States of America. His responsibility is not to "remake the world once again

" (the last words in his speech), but to lead our nation in a responsible way.

So the dollar is on its way out as a global medium of exchange. Is anyone willing to fight for it?

Not our Elected Citizen of the World in Chief.

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An Economy of Errors

2009-10-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

Two reports about the economy, within one week of each other:

First report: (Sept. 24th) New unemployment claims drop unexpectedly!

WASHINGTON -- The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits in the U.S. fell for the third straight week, evidence that layoffs are continuing to ease in the earliest stages of an economic recovery.
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 530,000 from an upwardly revised 551,000 the previous week. Wall Street economists expected claims to rise by 5,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Second report: (Oct. 1st) New unemployment claims rise unexpectedly!

WASHINGTON -- First-time claims for jobless benefits increased more than expected last week in the U.S., a sign employers are reluctant to hire and the job market remains weak...
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 551,000 from 534,000 in the previous week. Wall Street economists expected an increase of 5,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

So one week, they are excited to report that job claims fell from 551,000 to to an adjusted 530,000. The next week, they are surprised to report that the claims rose to an adjusted 551,000 -from- 534,000. Amazing...

Fundamentals of economic growth are more or less a given. In exceptional times, people construct elaborate theories to pretend the fundamentals can be ignored. (I recall breathless economic forecasters demonstrating how in theory, the tech bubble could go on expanding forever; a never-ending boom with no bust.)

But sooner or later they always come back. You cannot ignore the basic rules of national economies forever and get away with it. We listened to the music, now it's time to pay the piper, and he doesn't accept debit or credit.

The roots of our economy are being hacked away, and these people are trying to gauge its strength by counting the number of leaves that haven't fallen yet. I suppose if the whole tree falls down, they'll be delighted to report that an unexpectedly high number of new fungi growths indicates that life is returning to it after all...

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5 More Qom-style nuclear plants in Iran?

2009-09-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

WND News is reporting that the UK's MI6 has discovered 5 more nuclear facilities in Iran, hidden in the mountains.

Deep-cover MI6 agents who have described the workings of the once-secret underground uranium enrichment plant near the Iranian city of Qom now have discovered a staggering five more similar operations, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

We don't normally feature breaking stories on this blog, my focus being more on the analysis of the issues behind the stories. However this one seemed important enough to mention. (and drudge hasn't said anything about it as of this writing) The article is short, I have copied the relevant content here:

They, like the Qom facility, are buried deep inside the mountains of north Iran and are guarded by divisions of Revolutionary Guards.
The details were sent this weekend to some G20 leaders who met in Pittsburgh when the Qom facility was revealed to the world.

The MI6 agents have established that, like Qom, the new plants are staffed by nuclear scientists from Iran's main weaponization program. It is known by the acronym Metfaz, and is headquartered at 180 Western Avenue in the Pars district of eastern Tehran.
Details of the MI6 discovery were hand-delivered to Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, over the weekend by Sir John Scarlett. They contained a detailed picture of what was being built at the five new plants.
A senior intelligence source said the data came from "an Iranian nuclear scientist's smuggled laptop, defectors and satellite imagery."
The highly unusual indication of the source material is seen as a deliberate attempt by Western intelligence to rattle the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a further vital part of his nuclear plan has been discovered.

The situation in Iran is swiftly reaching a breaking point; we will see what happens. It comes down to whether the world powers decide whether Iran will be allowed to achieve the status of a nuclear power. If not, I am curious how a body defined by inaction will then act.

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The Underside of the Economy

2009-09-27T08:55:00.003-07:00

The jobless rate for people aged 16-24 (and who are not students) is over 50%. With minimum wage increases the past three years, it may come as a surprise that this group of people has been hardest hit by the economic downturn we've experienced. The minimum wage (set currently at $7.25) deters the hiring of young inexperienced workers. Over the past 3 years the minimum wage has increased 23% while there has only been an 8% increase due to inflation. The government has required businesses to increase pay at about three times the market rate. While this is beneficial for people who are employed, it makes it more difficult (fiscally) for companies to hire people without there being an increase in the amount of money made by a company. Raising the minimum wage during an economic slump, while a nice idea, really only makes the problem worse for those who are seeking jobs and do not have much experience.

To remedy this businesses must be encouraged to hire people. The theory was that tax incentives would get businesses hiring. Tax incentives that are effective get companies hiring. The current incentives are not worth the cost of hiring. Companies are trying to make money. Small tax credits in an economy where everyone is spending less have little effect. A significant change in the way government handles business needs to take place. Unfortunately, I do not see either side rushing significant aid to anything but banks and car manufacturers. Cars, lending, and taxes do not an economy make.

Iran's Nuclear Plant Circus

2009-09-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

Why so naive, world?
The Iranian government is having a field day with this.

If you read news online, you already know that Iran has a second nuclear power plant. But there is much more news here than you might think.

First, the LA Times article has this quote from President Obama.

Speaking before the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh, President Obama said the plant is a "direct challenge" to global nonproliferation. He added, "Iran must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and make clear it is prepared to meet its responsibilities as a member of the community of nations."

Oh, and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown chimed in, doubtless trying desperately to tie himself to President Obama in any sense, having already been snubbed repeatedly at the G20 and having chased Obama through breakfast just to get a chance to speak with him. But that's another story.

Added Brown: "The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community. The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand."

Oh dear. How many times has Iran heard that line? Something tells me they aren't impressed.

But there is more heavy-handed political-speak to come. This from the Washington Post article. Be afraid Iran:

"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," Obama said, detailing how the facility near Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "International law is not an empty promise."

"Ah, now I see", President Ahmedinejad was quoted as saying. "The first 14 times you said that and did nothing I did not believe you, but now on this 15th time I see that you are serious."

Ok no, I made that quote up. What he actually said was this:

"If I were [President] Obama's adviser, I would definitely advise him to refrain making this statement because it is definitely a mistake," Ahmedinejad told Time magazine Friday in an interview in New York that took place even as Obama was publicly revealing the plant's existence. "It would definitively be a mistake."

Now the plot gets thicker.

But White House officials said Western intelligence agencies have known about the facility for several years and believe that Iran acknowledged its existence Monday in an attempt to head off intense criticism that they knew was coming.

"We believe that the Iranians learned that the secrecy of the facility had been compromised," a senior White House official said Friday morning. "We've been aware of this facility for several years, building up a case so that we had very strong evidence."

I'm willing to hazard a guess that in this case "Western intelligence agencies" means MOSSAD, aka Israel. Unless Iran was too obvious, and some kid found it on google earth...

The basic alleged situation is that everyone knew Iran had the extra power plant, they just rushed to condemn it once Iran realized that they knew, or something.

What it boils down to is that there has been no strong, unified international effort to force Iran to stop, even though (remarkably) nearly all nations agree that Iran with military nukes would be a terrible idea. Ahmedinejad is somewhat insane, but definitely not an idiot. He knows what he can get away with, and he's been doing splendidly so far.

Sooner or later this is all going to come to a head when the Israelis decide it has to end, and send an air strike. That may not succeed as well as the Osirak operation in Iraq did; Russia is supplying Iran with advanced air defense weaponry at the same time as it suggests it might be open to the idea of sanctions. (Putin likes to have his cake and eat it too, it would seem.)

Now the real question in all of this to me is not necessarily what happens to Iran, but to what extent their national sovereignty matters these days. That is to say, we are all pointing fingers at international bodies and saying "Why aren't you doing anything?". Do we really want the UN to be able to do something? Do we want them in the position to be able to go into a sovereign nation and by force, violate their sovereignty and impose international will on them?

Sure, this time, it's Iran. What if international consensus decides that America should give half of Texas back to Mexico?

The argument still smolders in this country over state's rights and how the Federal government is encroaching on their last remainders. Perhaps the real movers of the times are ignoring the tea parties and such things because they know that protests against national government excesses are irrelevant in the face of coming international law with teeth. It would matter little how many Americans or American congressmen agree or disagree with environmental issues if the UN could simply declare it to be international law and demand all nations conform to it. (and be able to enforce that demand)

So in all of the controversy over Iran and their nuclear program, before you think "they should do something about that", stop and ask yourself. Who are "they", and how much do we really want them to be able to do? And if we don't like what they can do, is there anything we can do about it? Not really. We live in different times now.

America's say in world affairs is only determined firstly by her economic might, and secondarily by her military supremacy. The economic might is vanishing before our eyes, and a good portion of America's clout with it. Watching the irresponsible way our government is handling the crisis doesn't help the world view us in a more favorable light, either.
The traditional American response has been "Well, the world can take a hike."
But that statement has only been possible because we had the power to back it up.

Losing that power, we will merely have the attitude of a superpower without the force to sustain it. Don't think some nations will lose any time putting us in our place.

Wake up America. As goes our economy, goes our standing in the world. As goes our standing in the world, goes our national sovereignty. If those in Washington want to chip away at the strengths in our economy according to their ideologies, rather than solve the problems there according to practical reality, they are betraying our nation in a more fundamental sense than any Revolutionary War Benedict Arnold or Cold War Rosenbergs possibly could have.

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Nuclear Disarmament MADness

2009-09-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

The UK's Guardian is reporting that President Obama is planning to drastically reduce and eventually eliminate our nuclear arsenal.

"Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal."

The policy of MAD - Mutually assured destruction - was initiated during the Cold War and continues to this day. Essentially, MAD dictates that you keep enough nuclear weapons that a devastating attack on your country can be returned in like kind, ensuring that if one nation begins a nuclear exchange, both parties (and to some extent their allies) will be more or less annihilated, thus preventing such an exchange from ever occurring. Critics may argue that this policy is indeed "mad", but as it is obvious that such a nuclear exchange never occurred, it's hard to argue that it failed.
One very important point is this: MAD is not concerned with the quantities of warheads, but with the RELATIVE quantities. So the issue is not to have a certain level of nuclear strength, but to retain nuclear parity.

Apparently Russia, pleased with our removal of the planned missile shield sites in Eastern Europe, has indicated it might be willing to reduce their stockpiles as well.

"Russia has approximately 2,780 deployed strategic warheads, compared with around 2,100 in the US. The abandonment of the US missile defence already appears to have spurred arms control talks currently underway between Washington and Moscow: the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, said today that chances were "quite high" that a deal to reduce arsenals to 1,500 warheads each would be signed by the end of the year."

So, this retains nuclear parity, assuming that both sides have the means to verify that the deal was being followed. The Doomsday Clock will be turned back a few minutes, and all will be well. Except...

"Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials."

Most people agree that it would be wonderful to live in a world in which nuclear weapons did not exist. However, we do not. And we cannot pretend that we do. And now more and more nations are developing such capabilities. Pandora's box has been opened, and one cannot gather the destructive powers released and enclose it again.

The Soviet Union's leadership clearly did not wish for their own destruction. They viewed a massive nuclear bombardment on their nation as resulting in their destruction, and thus took steps to avoid it. Thus, MAD succeeded, at least on the most important level of preventing global nuclear pandemonium.

Now think of a nation like Iran. I should say that I have no issue with the Iranian people. The Iranians that I have met have tended to be intelligent and likable. But their highest leadership in recent years have shown (through things such as demanding the utter destruction of Israel and denying the holocaust, for example) that they are both genocidal and out of touch with reality.

Imagine if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, a feat they are currently on the brink of accomplishing. Now imagine if an even more unstable set of radical Islamic leaders came to power. They could proclaim that a unilateral strike is mandated to please Allah by destroying Israel, and as such that Allah will protect them from any retaliatory strikes. They might also determine that truly destroying Israel must be accompanied by destroying their ally, the 'great satan' America. Their missiles cannot reach us here in the CONUS (Continental United States), but what about our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? The concept of MAD is thus totally destabilized, and the risk of nuclear war grows perilously near.

This is purely hypothetical, of course. But it is hypothesis grounded in reality, and a realistic observation of the tendencies of nations.

What is unrealistic is trying to pretend that nuclear weapons never existed, or that, having existed, they can be eliminated forever.

We live in such a world where policies as outrageous as MAD are required to keep the peace. In such a world, where every nation desperate for power and respect on the world stage is racing to acquire nuclear weapons of their own, a push to eliminate all of ours is not altruistic or visionary, it's madness.

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Disagreeism?

2009-09-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

We often hear about "-isms" these days.
Feminism. Chauvinism. Marxism. Capitalism. Atheism. Fundamentalism. Racism... the list goes on. Anyone you can label as a "something-ist" is identifiable as belonging to the corresponding "-ism"

With a few rare exceptions (feminism being a notable one), to be labeled an -ism by those who label such things is to automatically be made equivalent to a warped philosophy, a wrong, possibly dangerous way of thinking. (Capitalism also used to be an exception, but look how the word is being used now...)

I would submit now that it's possible another -ism is being added to the list: "disagreeism".

Adherents of this way of thinking are marked by their stubborn and misguided refusal to agree with popular opinion, perceived popular opinion, or with those who feel that their positions should also be held by all correctly-thinking people.

For example: "It is a responsibility of government to make sure everyone's standard of living meets a certain level"

Disagree? You are clearly not compassionate, are probably a greedy, racist, capitalist pig, and might possibly be a disagreeist. (notice how the -isms run together. More on that later)

Nancy Pelosi recently made an impassioned plea to the disagreeists, that they might cease their divisive ways (which apparently also inherently lead to violence) and stop making statements that people might possibly misinterpret. I believe "incitement" is the term used.
Notice the implication: Those of you who voice your disagreement need to take responsibility, because it may cause other people to act violently.
The condemnation is not on those who take words and run with them, and make personal decisions to act violently, it's on the disagreeists who won't just relent and agree with us already.

(That comment about a "balance between freedom and safety" also happens to make me nervous. Those definitely shouldn't be a zero sum gain. Otherwise, they keep talking about how we're safe... how not free does that then make us?)

Now, let us be clear. Any group of people with a common, deeply held conviction can begin pegging others as disagreeists, if those who disagree are perceived to be a minority in that context.

To use the obvious example, both sides of the political spectrum more or less accuse the other of this on a regular basis. Both feel that normal, "everyday", "grassroots" Americans support them, and those who disagree are the "ultra-liberal left", conspiring Marxists who want us to become a Socialist state ruled by Big Brother, or "right-wing fundamentalists", gun-toting, Bible-waving fringe groups that are irrelevant and can be ignored as such. (even if hundreds of thousands of them show up on your front lawn in DC. Thanks to everyone who went!)

Clearly, we here at MC side more often with the gun-toting, Bible-waving fundamentalists, if you prefer to label them as such. However, we have never questioned your right to disagree. In fact, we encourage it. The dialogue tends to be fruitful.

And notice, Pelosi isn't questioning that right either. She's merely indicating ominously that your disagreements might lead to violence which you will then be held responsible for, that's all.

To cite another example of this, and also how -isms run together, let us look at Jimmy Carter's recent assertion that criticism of President Obama must be racially motivated. (This, of course, motivated by Joe Wilson's now-famous outburst)

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

No doubt, many do feel this way. But I note that Condaleeza Rice was highly respected by many of the people who now greatly dislike President Obama. Could it possibly be that they actually reject Obama's ideology and policies, totally apart from the race with which he identifies? And what of the growing numbers of African Americans who also find themselves losing the faith they once had in President Obama?
But Carter is not finished.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

Aha! There you have it. It would seem that what Carter is actually condeming is disagreeism. A sincere debate would never result in someone accusing President Obama of lying, because clearly Obama would never lie. The only outcome of a sincere debate would be you agreeing with Obama. Unless... you are a racist. This is currently one of the most commonly attributed motives for disagreeism. You disagree because... you are a racist. Or a capitalist. (ie, greedy person who wants to take poor people's money to line your already bulging wallet) Or whatever -ist you care to supply.

Having discovered the principle of disagreeism, we can trace its effects through Obama's presidency. Americans who didn't vote for President Obama? Fundies clinging to their guns and Bibles. Americans who disagree with Obama at town hall meetings? Fringe groups. (some clearly were, but all of them?) Americans who disagree with Obama by massively protesting in Washington? Irrelevant. Americans who disagree with Obama by accusing him of lying during a speech? Racists.

And now, a la Pelosi: Americans who -still- disagree with President Obama? Potential inciters of violence. And remember the "freedom vs. safety" line. If disagreeists incite violence, you must be kept safe. Unfortunately, that apparently can only come at an equivalent cost in freedom.

So: Disagreeists incite violence
Violence reduces safety
Safety comes at the expense of freedom

The message is clear: Disagree with us, risk losing some freedom.

We will see, Madame Speaker. But if the recent Washington rally is any indication, more Americans disagree with you every day.

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We're going to need more tea...

2009-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

On September 12th, a massive crowd descended upon Washington DC.
They were there to protest big government, runaway spending, and the growing realization that our government increasingly no longer represents or acts in the best interests of its citizens.

Good descriptive article from WND with some pictures here.

UPDATE:
Excellent set of mostly high quality photos of the crowd, along with time-lapse video showing the surge of people attending, can be found here. Note that the signs are almost all home made. This is not some manufactured crowd, these are concerned individuals.

The New York Times dot com article was titled "thousands stage protest of big government".
The White House said the day before that it was "unaware" of any rally.
The main stream media generally did not cover it.

Well, it was more than thousands, and it was more than tens of thousands.
This article on the Obama inauguration crowd demonstrates that there could easily have been over one million protesters. (see the diagram at the top) It appears that the numbers at least rivalled those of the inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson, at 1.2 million.

Christie Carden, the organizer of the very successful Huntsville Alabama tax day tea party we covered here back in the spring, was there as well. Describing the turnout, she said:

"GET IT RIGHT, PEOPLE! Even Fox News is reporting "tens of thousands" marching in D.C. I was there. Crowds went all the way to Washington Monument on ONE SIDE of the Capitol, AND all the way to Pennsylvania Ave and 14th St on the OTHER SIDE. "

Mike Pence also gave a speech, the beginning of which can be seen here:

We'll let you decide if you think it was significant to have this kind of crowd, of conservatives (who typically don't protest in large numbers), many of them senior citizens, on a national holiday weekend, who travelled all the way to our nation's capitol for a one day rally.

This is something new, or something rather old that we've needed for a long time.
Washington would be wise not to ignore it.

Yet their response has mainly been to do just that, or dismiss it as irrelevant.
Some party officials have attempted to picture the organization as fringe radicals opposed to the health care plan. (Of course, the tea party movement started far earlier than the health care issue, but spin is the order of the day)

A few more cynical commentators have said that the moment the economy improves, these kinds of protests will largely evaporate. That may be true. People are less likely to turn out when they don't feel directly threatened.

However, the numbers in Washington surpassed all expectations, even for those who helped organize it. If this many Americans are motivated enough to actually pay to go to DC, how many are sitting at home, equally motivated but without the time or money to attend?

3 million people is 1% of our entire national population. By some accounts, over half that many people showed up. And the exact number is not even important, clearly there is a national shift in mindset occurring. What affect will all this have on the 2010 elections? Time will tell. Meanwhile...

Remember, remember, the 12th of September.

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8 Years Later

2009-09-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

The weather here in Dallas is quiet and overcast this morning.
A fitting accompaniment to the day's memory.

It has been 8 years since then. Children now in third grade do not remember the events that occurred this day in 2001, because they were not yet born.

Those of us old enough to feel the impact of that day said "we will never forget".
Have we remembered?

On that day, we all came together. Everyone was an American, and differences were put aside, at least temporarily. President Bush stood on the rubble with a megaphone, and we all agreed "never again".

Well, it hasn't happened again. We demanded more security, and we we got it. Lines at airports, Patriot Acts, increased government control. Are we safer? Hard to say. Probably, we are.

At what cost has our increased security come?
The "War on Terror" continues, with the lives of many soldiers lost. (I say lost, but not wasted)
Yet after many setbacks and many hard-won victories (heard about Iraq much lately in the MSM? There's a reason for that.), are we any closer to defeating global terrorism?
Is that even a meaningful goal?

I have written that we cannot defeat Islamic fundamentalist terror groups if we do not ourselves possess principles as deeply held as theirs. I hold to that statement, and maintain furthermore that the current cadre of unqualified, opportunistic career politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are clearly not up to the task.

Accusations of irresponsibility from other nations hurt because they are true. Our national economy is deeply and integrally tied into the world economy, and those who should have wisely governed our spending have foolishly increased it beyond all reason, passing laws which led to the collapse, then spending unprecedented sums of taxpayer money to feed the bonfire they started. In doing so they destroyed not only vast portions of our own national wealth, but contributed to the destruction of other countries' wealth in the process.

We do not live in a vacuum; our actions affect the rest of the world significantly, and it will react in various ways, whether justly or murderously. This lesson at least one would think we would have learned after September 11th. I do not think any reasonable person can suggest that we are to blame for the events of that day, but one could probably suggest that if we had been paying attention, we would have seen it coming. When will we realize that we, as normal American citizens, need to demand accountability from our elected officials? And to elect competent and qualified people? The alternative is to let those who failed to see 9-11 coming, those who ruined our economy, and those who seek to exploit and direct a culture of entitlement to maintain their control, turning this nation into something utterly different from what the founders conceived. We elected them with the understanding that they would govern well and rightly, but they have done neither.

Even as I write this, thousands of Americans are en route to Washington DC for what could be the biggest 'Tea Party' yet, to protest a such a government. One that seemingly goes its own way now, regardless of the views of its constituents, or the dictates of economic and social reality.

The protesters' choice of day is fitting; what better way to honor those who fell on this day eight years ago than by using the following day to attempt to ensure that the lessons we should have learned from their deaths not be disregarded by an entrenched and power-hungry bureaucracy whose only concept of "change" is further entrenchment and encroachment?

Let us live in freedom, because the gift of a life is too precious to be managed by a government institution. Perhaps that is the best lesson we can take from this day, 8 years later.

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Back in Business

2009-08-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

Well, summer is over, and so is our break here at MC.

Expecting posting to resume as of now. We'll see how much time I can devote to it as we go. I will certainly begin with a reduced schedule, and possibly increase as the season continues.

I'd like to shift gears a little, however. Other blogs do an excellent job of analyzing the important news as it happens, and I have realized that I have neither the time nor an interest in attempting to beat them at their own game. I'd like to begin taking a more reflective approach, and look at how individual news stories of interest fit into a larger scheme of how the world is changing these days.

So bear with me as I adjust to my new schedule, and we will hopefully uncover some interesting "stories behind the stories" in the days to come.

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Hope, Change, and Falsified Birth Documents

2009-07-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

So, this may come as no new news to many, but we still have no idea where our president was born. Now even the hospital he claimed as his birth hospital is covering up both the claim and the supporting letter.

That linked article actually borders on silly to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of web coding. Of course the html-created version of something is going to be different from the actual scanned letter.

Concerning the cover-up, however, this blogger considers the fact that the 'official letter' initially displayed on their website was actually just html to have been a rather obvious give away that something was wrong.

The hospital is answering no questions, naturally, and refuses to comment.

I, with most people, believed myself to be reasonable in dismissing the initial claims of Obama not being a naturally-born citizen as far-fetched. After all, if he hadn't been, surely someone would have stopped him from running early on, right? And besides, this kind of thing doesn't actually happen in America, right? "Not in Germany..."

But as time goes on, the simple refusal to supply necessary paperwork and information is starting to convince me. If he is a natural-born citizen, why not just supply the papers to prove it? And sorry, laser-printer copies are not considered valid.

Unfortunately, those in places of influence have more or less utterly bungled the issue, by using the issue not to block Obama's nomination on straightforward legal lines, but to whip up anti-Obama hysteria. I don't support the man's positions, philosophy, worldview, or decisions either, but that doesn't mean I have to convince the world to shrink back from the idea of his presidency on an emotional level. There is more than enough evidence present to demand clarification, but it should have happened early, and concertedly, not all along the way in random alarmist fits and starts.

That being said, of course I support inquiries into the matter.
Up to this point, Obama's supporters have basically brushed aside efforts to resolve the matter as irrelevant. Which is only natural, considering his entire rise to power has been exactly that: a power play. Republicans lost at the political game. Whether due to scruples or incompetence, or more likely a combination of the two, does not now matter. Either they will pull themselves together, function as an effective opposition party, and gain some ground in the next few rounds of elections, or they may go the way of the passenger pigeon.

The facts seem to support the conclusion that the condition of Obama's natural born citizenship is at least under a great deal of reasonable doubt; all that needs to be done is to push forward with that mindset. Yet any efforts we see now are by contrast fractured and ineffective.

Perhaps Obama's seeming strength is due largely to the incompetence of his enemies.
Should a different crowd arise, or a leader unite them, he would be advised to plan cautiously for 2012.

UPDATE: The story continues... now a soldier is refusing to deploy, claiming that Obama has no authority to command the US Military, since he is not a natural born citizen and thus cannot be President. Legal proceedings are underway...

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Walk softly, and carry a big schtick?

2009-07-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

Obama is currently in Russia, making more treaties which we will, if history is any indication, be expected to unilaterally honor.

However, in keeping with my general preference to pick out non-obvious (or at least less obvious) aspects of current news, I'd like to analyze a recent quote by Obama made while in Russia.

The quote is as follows:

"The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground."

Apart from the odd phrasing in this particular instance, this sentiment is nothing new.
It's the exact opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's bit of wisdom "Walk softly, and carry a big stick.", and represents the opposite approach, of talking big yet bringing no force to back up your words.

This is, as an aside, exactly the philosophy which brought us into the Pacific theater in WWII, with numerous strongly-worded reproaches of Japan's expansionary actions, yet no force in the region to give them weight. The aggressive faction of the Japanese government concluded that ours were idle threats, and proceeded with their imperialistic ambitions.

Russia would naturally be no different, nor would China, who as we've recently seen has no problem with backing up their words with deadly force to subdue unruly outlying provinces.

They are all too happy to hear words denouncing force, when force is exactly what they are accumulating.

In our world, force rules. In other words, in a secular sense, the future belongs precisely to those who -do- gather armies and bury missiles. The US has secured and maintained its freedom only by means of these things, and when it abandons them, its freedom will quickly follow.

Now the leader of our country has denounced both; it must be no coincidence that he clearly despises our freedom as well, a fact underlined by the unprecedentedly rapid dismantling of it since his administration took power.

One is left to wonder whether the last vestiges of our freedom will give way before external forces, or internal dissolution. Time will tell.

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"So this is how liberty dies... "

2009-06-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

I ran across an article from the Times Online, stating that Vladimir Putin had banished casinos from most of Russia, essentially exiling them to the nether regions of the land. Not a particularly fresh piece of news, I read a similar article a day or two ago.
But this one caught my eye.

The story is unsettling; this is just the latest example of Putin basically re-instating himself as Czar. Freedom in Russia was a tumultuous but short-lived affair, evidently.

Upon reaching the end of the article, what I found was comments by my fellow Americans, and a Canadian. Far from decrying this bit of arbitrary power-wielding by an increasingly dictatorial Putin, they applauded it. (interpret the italics as sort of a shocked, wide-eyed whisper)

Samples from the three which greeted me include:

"MR Putin has got it right if only the USA would put a stop to all the casinos..."

"...I hope he bans alcohol too as it's the curse of Russia bringing misery to millions."

"Good law. Good sign Putin could resist the criminal elements. Alcoholism needs health and moral-choice education beginning in elementary school..."

It's possible that the comments are still up on the article. If so, go read and grieve for our nation.
It almost makes me want to give up. Why fight for our freedom, when so few of us want it?

You may think I'm over-reacting to a few random comments. But the signs are everywhere. Every time someone says "there ought to be a law...", and I hear it and similar statements more and more frequently these days, they are giving over responsibility for their own actions (and with it their freedom) to the government.

Do Americans really despise their freedom so much that they will exchange it for illusions of security and the chance for a few unearned creature comforts?

Do we even as a nation know what freedom means?

Perhaps we have forgotten how to live, and thus have forgotten to value the ability to order one's life as one pleases.

At any rate, it seems that the daily loss of our freedoms is accompanied not by outrage (except by a few), or action, but instead occurs:

" ...to thunderous applause."

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Did Rome resist falling? Or beg for it?

2009-06-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

So as anyone informed enough to be reading this is no doubt aware of by now, the global warming energy bill has narrowly made it through the house. This is basically the equivalent of voting to steer the Titanic towards another iceberg after the first collision, on the grounds that this one will plug the hole left by the last one.

Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape.

Oh yes. They will be transformed. Flip back through our archives to a few months ago, and you'll see an article about the decay of Detroit, and how the wild is creeping back in. Our industry is packing up and moving to China. Don't blame the Chinese; industry is no longer welcome here.

“It has been an incredible six months, to go from a point where no one believed we could pass this legislation to a point now where we can begin to say that we are going to send president Obama to Copenhagen in December as the leader of the of the world on climate change,” said Markey, referring to world climate talks scheduled this winter.

A great honor, to be sure. Attempting to stake the heart of your country's infrastructure in exchange for a chance to sit at the table with the cool kids is clearly a win-win scenario for Democrats.

Ayn Rand simply called these type of people "looters", and she was right in that respect. We had achieved unparalleled prosperity and standards of living, NOT by wealth hoarded at the expense of other nations, but by CREATING wealth. Now, with barely contained excitement, they inform us that our standards of living are going to fall. ("Finally!", they sigh. "These canaglia... the rabble who need us, they have lived like fattened calves for too long. We, the elite, the inheritors of the age of enlightenment, should be given the money, to spend as it ought to be spent. The rest should live as the rest of the world lives.")

Know this. Those who now guide our country's progress hate America's success, as they hate all success that allows decent people to live in prosperity and order their own lives as they see fit.
If they must bring this entire nation to its knees in order to gain total control over your lives, they will do so. It could be rather quickly inferred that this is exactly what is going on.

Now they have succeeded in passing "the largest tax increase in American history under the guise of climate change", in the words of Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.).

The ins and outs of the mythology of green energy and job creation are straightforward enough (the bottom line: this legislation is going to hurt nearly everything it touches...), and we can outline those in another entry.

Right now, I am curious to hear any reactions you may have. I feel as if this great ship of state has been hijacked by enemies far more dangerous than any external terrorist threat.

Terrorists would be no more a national threat to a strong, free America than horseflies on a summer day at the pool. But in this weakened, divided, apologetic America, that publishes to the terrorists its interrogation techniques and does their PR work for them in advance, that cannot seem to rebuild what they destroy, or even muster the cultural strength to displace the radical culture which spawned them, to an America that now gives away its freedom to men who promise security and peace if only, if only we will let them make our decisions for us, in that America, the terrorists do not even need to "win". America as she has been is rapidly ceasing to exist, and what America is becoming will be no threat to evil.

Rome did not fall at the hands of the barbarians who sacked her, Rome fell from within.
The barbarians merely knocked over the tottering, decaying structure whose time had passed.

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We have a Spaceport?

2009-06-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

There is plenty of distressing news today, but I am ignoring all of that and focusing on the rather cool item: New Mexico's commercial spaceport is now in the process of construction.

The $198 million project, which is being funded by the New Mexico state government, is located on a remote high-desert range near the town of Truth or Consequences.

British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride.

"After all of the hard work to get this project off the ground, it is gratifying to see Spaceport America finally become a reality," Richardson said.

For all of us who grew up hearing about how the future would be (and that includes most of us, I assume), and imagining what it would be like based on those far-ranging predictions (and that includes many of us as well) then proceeded to observe the future arrive and look rather familiar, things like this are highly gratifying. It's not a flying car, but hey, a spaceport is a spaceport.

And unlike green industry, the space industry will likely be highly profitable...

Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn said the firm already had taken some 300 advanced bookings and planned to begin flights from the spaceport within two years.

There are plenty of people with enough money to go into space (sub-orbital space, that is), and if it can be demonstrated to be safe and reliable, it may become the adult "must do at least once" item, a la Disneyworld for kids. At a gathering of the wealthy, someone might mention their Spanish villa, or yacht, but all attention will be commanded by the one who asks "but have you been into space?"

Will we really live in a world where space commutes to Asia or Europe will become routine?

It's a toss-up.

We have repeatedly demonstrated in the West that we don't care about making more power/energy available, and would rather saddle ourselves with oppressive environmental legislation and leave advancement to other parts of the world. Finding the extra energy in our system to power space flights just isn't going to happen, we must build more power-generating sources, be they nuclear power plants, or oil wells in Alaska. We can shift things around on the grid enough to cover black-outs on an unusually hot summer day, but not to cover the amount of energy that this industry is going to require. If we're fortunate/blessed, our energy capabilities will finally be expanded to cover this innovative new industry.

And that leads me to the other point, which is this:
New movements, both social and technological, have rarely been based logically on improvements in existing paradigms.
The internet, and associated information technology, captured the imagination of a generation, and they pushed that beyond all expected limits to fundamentally change we way we live and the world works, in only a few years.
Despite energy shortages, massive server farms have popped up, with their own hydro-electric power plants. Despite everyone already not having time, suddenly massive amounts of it were found available to spend (at the expense of other activities, granted) checking email, surfing randomly, and checking personal networking sites. Everything changed, not slowly as a result of gradual technology improvements, but as a result of the information revolution.

If we are ever to reach the Space Age, that every child who grew up in our generation knew was coming someday, it must be similar. Entrepreneurs and visionaries must emerge who can capture both imagination and funding. The New Mexico spaceport provides a sandbox (in the creative sense) in which they can begin to do this.

Obama has already signaled that he will not give space research a priority during his administration, but as his popularity inevitably begins to fall, it's likely that he will turn to such things to both shift focus away from unpopular socialist policies, and associate himself with popular, forward-looking ideas to boost his image.

We shall see. In the meantime, welcome Spaceport America.

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And... we're back!

2009-06-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings all. Following a dearth of posting in the past several weeks, we should be kicking things back into gear here within the month, with a return to frequent posting no later than the end of the month. Call it a summer break.

And speaking of summer, it seems that this summer of our American discontent has been made glorious (or at least more interesting) by a massive Rightward swing in Europe.

This was an inevitability. Europe had to shift politically, or cease existence entirely, but I admit I had assumed a relatively slow and painful process of the later.
And the mechanism by which the switch occurred is interesting as well.
With socialists and liberals proclaiming the ongoing financial disaster as proof that capitalism has failed, (rather like saying that a flu outbreak is proof that doctors are useless) many expected socialists to clinch their control over Europe. I was one of these, and assumed that failed socialist policies would lead most of Europe through a weakening decline until the Great Muslim Demographic shift came into play and transferred several EU member states into the Dar al-Islam.

Not yet, however. The article linked above describes the damage to the entrenched socialist power structures of Europe as follows:

Left-wing incumbents in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and of course Britain were either slaughtered, or badly mauled.

It also mentions that the comparatively right-wing incumbents of France and Italy did just fine.

As to the cause of this unexpected rout, further investigation would be worthwhile.

The article puts it down to two root causes:

It is not clear why a chunk of the blue-collar working base has swung almost overnight from Left to Right, but clearly we are seeing the delayed detonation of two political time-bombs: rising unemployment and the growth of immigrant enclaves that resist assimilation.

Ah yes, the immigrant enclaves. Much has been made in the US of a growing percentage of Latin Americans changing the balance of some political debates -abortion, for example, as Mexicans tend to be staunchly pro-life- and more of this will undoubtedly be seen as the demographics continue to shift. Less commonly, however, have I heard discussions of how Europe's demographic shift will affect politics there.
(Discussion of looming cultural shifts, yes; of political reorganizations, not so much.)

Could this be one of the first major rumblings of a new era in Europe?
Or is it instead merely the fallout from the global economic turmoil taking an unexpected route?

Time will tell. Meanwhile, though the left-leaning members of our government have long idolized Europe, something tells me this latest shift will go unadored...

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Entitling Ourselves to Death

2009-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

So this one was obvious, but I couldn't pass it up.
Pelosi is in China, behaving as we have come to expect.

"U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Beijing on Thursday to cooperate on climate change, calling a safe environment a basic human right."

There is beautiful irony in appealing to Beijing to cooperate in the efforts to change our climate (oh, sorry, I mean disrupt the natural cycle of our climate-er, I mean... Bush caused Katrina! There we go.) on the basis of human rights, when Beijing clearly not only has a track record of ignoring human rights complaints, but disagrees with the Western concept of human rights on a fundamental philosophical level altogether.

Of course, Drudge's headline emphasized Pelosi's typically creepy statement that "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

Granted, that's an interesting and revealing statement of the liberal outlook on life. More on that later, perhaps. But to me, the key phrase comes earlier in the article.

"I do see this opportunity for climate change to be ... a game-changer," she said at Tsinghua. "It's a place where human rights — looking out for the needs of the poor in terms of climate change and healthy environment — are a human right."

A human right? Since when? Are we now entitled to a static climate and optimal living conditions? It's not even possible to control the climate from a human perspective. The most of what we have accomplished so far is to murk things up a bit, and even that pales in comparison to one truly significant volcanic eruption. We might just as well speak of the entitlement to never be cold.

No generation of humans in modern history has been as concerned for the well-being of our environment, or more willing to sacrifice personal freedom (which we are also supposedly entitled to) for the sake of associated causes. And yet we are continually told by our president and other national leaders that we should be prepared to sacrifice for our country.

Pardon my frankness, but while I am quite prepared to sacrifice time, effort, and even my life if necessary for my country, I fail to see that our government deserves any of the above, nor that the interests of our country are being in any way advanced by said government.

An unfortunate event occurred in a town near my home several years back; a steel plant was taken over, the workers all laid off, and the plant dismantled and sold off. This story is unfortunately not uncommon across the country, as "looters" (to borrow a term from Ayn Rand) profit by destroying our producing power to line their pockets.

But now the looters are in Washington, and selling our freedoms isn't paying as well as it used to.
They'll be looking for more soon, which means more entitlements must be discovered.

Our forefathers knew better; we're not entitled to anything. Now we are coasting on the strength of their achievements, but inertia is running out. America was a chance for people to work hard and succeed, not for what they felt they deserved to be given to them by a nanny state.

If Americans have any entitlement, it is the chance for their hard work to pay off.
Perhaps we have forgotten that this is not always how the world works. In some cultures, you work yourself nearly to death, just to stay where you are. In others, a stratified society means that all your hard work will never help you get ahead.

America was never a give-away, it was a tough job with a good starting salary and excellent chances of advancement.

Now we are all "entitled" to prosperity, but not everyone is willing to work hard. Where then, does the money for those people come from? From the people producing all the value in this country. Right now, they are dragging everyone else along with them. But the situation can't continue forever.

If we don't kick the looters out of Washington, and also destroy the culture of entitlement, there simply is no future for America.

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Border Creep

2009-05-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

And we're back, after a short hiatus here at MC.

I have been quite busy in Mexico for the past week, and while there made a few cultural observations that might prove increasingly relevant in the days to come.

The argument over illegal immigration (or migration, as it has been more accurately described) has raged on for years now. Former President Bush seemed more or less unilaterally in favor of "amnesty", establishing a swift and easy path to citizenship for the millions of Latin Americans living illegally inside the Estados Unidos. Congress was on the verge of passing this, but overwhelming opposition from the American people killed it.

For latin migrants, it's a question of simple economics. Barely scrape by in Mexico, or earn a decent wage in America. For us, it's akin to a cultural invasion, but one that we have on a national level neither affirmed or denied.

Without a clear message from the United States either way (most people want illegal migrant workers removed, and the borders secured. Congress evidently doesn't know what it wants, Obama has not given the issue much attention, and many businesses continue to use and encourage the flow of cheap labor), one can hardly blame the migrant workers (whose culture views laws more as obstacles to work around than anything personally binding) from moving up to where they can potentially make as much in a day as they would in a week back home.

As usual, the question is more complicated than either side of the debate presents it. The facts lie rusty and unacknowledged, while the MSM focuses primarily on the emotional aspects of the conflict.

On the one hand, it's clear that illegal entry should not be rewarded with citizenship. It's also very unclear what effect the massive importation of another culture will have on America.
Well, perhaps not entirely unclear. A quick trip to most cities within 100 miles of the border
and towns all across the sun belt will make it obvious what changes are already occuring. Just going to El Wal-Mart here, hundreds of miles from the border, has become quite a cultural experience. We even have a few tiendas (Mexican corner shops, essentially) popping up around town.

On the other hand, with hospitals closing all over the country, and millions of untaxed dollars flowing southward, (forming the major portion of several Latin American economies, in fact) it could be argued that we are clinging to some principles while ignoring others, at our own great expense.

And there is a more serious problem, that has been almost totally ignored:
Without the influx of people from the south, the US birth rate falls below "the line of no return" for declining cultures. As we have previously noted, Europe has already fallen below this line, and is in the process of a massive cultural shift towards Islam, a fact that the German government has even admitted.

Any culture that decides to stop having children in sufficient numbers, dooms itself to eventual decline and collapse or displacement, by sheer lack of population. This is an inescapable historical fact.

Of course, one might reasonably question whether maintaining our culture with the importation of another culture is really possible, since as history has shown, the incoming culture will displace our own. However, as stated above, it's not a question of our culture surviving as is. We simply are not raising enough children in our own culture to perpetuate it. We can either take whoever is willing to, along with such elements of their culture as they bring with them, or slowly disappear.

Taking all that into account, regardless of where the immigration debate goes, or what solution is eventually settled on, it seems that some Spanish classes might be in order. They will be, shall we say, necesario?

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The Road to Serfdom

2009-05-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you unaware of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, or Mises economic theory, I highly recommend you go to their website, which has a library, and doing some reading. In a nutshell, you might call Mises economic theory "reality-based", versus theory-based. It's been beating the flawed Keynesian model to pieces in predicting the economy's next steps.

THE_CSM sent me this, and I thought I'd bring it to the attention of our readers.

"The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich A Hayek... handily portrayed in cartoon form.

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Powell vs. the People

2009-05-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell offers his opinions on a couple issues, mainly the Republican's current identity crisis. Let's see if he says anything intelligent...

"The Republican Party is in big trouble and needs to find a way to move back to the middle of the country, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday."

Leaving aside his bad choice of phrasing, (the "middle of the country", aka "the heartland" has been consistently conservative for a long time, not the left-leaning centrists that Powell suggests they would be best represented by) this strategy interests me (in a morbid way). Let's see what he says next.

"The Republican Party is in deep trouble," Powell told corporate security executives at a conference in Washington sponsored by Fortify Software Inc. The party must realize that the country has changed, he said. "Americans do want to pay taxes for services," he said. "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

I won't bother to quote him any more. Read the article if you wish, it's fruitless verbiage.

One might assume, based on the results of the last election, that Powell's words are true.
But over half a million of my fellow Americans who joined me in the tea parties might beg to differ. Half a million, yes, that's a very, very small slice of America. But behind every one of those people who showed up are tens and hundreds who feel the same.

The American Revolution was ignited by the issue of taxation without representation.

What we have now is a new and unnatural chimera:
Taxation without representation, and also representation without taxation.

Those who pay taxes have fewer and fewer advocates in the government which siphons off the money they have earned, while those who do not contribute to the system receive the ill-gotten gain, minus their freedom.

Meanwhile, Powell advocates a shift by the GOP from "Lie to your base for votes" to "Our base does not exist, let us become our opponents".

Republicans only have themselves to blame for their current troubles. Any true conservative or smaller-government advocate has been so burned by this point that McCain's loss would have been truly epic if millions of people had not voted for him merely to vote against Obama.

The Republican party had only survived that long because of their conservative voters. The homeschooler moms who volunteered, gun owners who contributed, pro-lifers who urgently invested in their cause. Those people have been repeatedly betrayed, their interests sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

No more. The stake in the heart of the GOP of before was not Obama's victory, but the nomination of McCain. Palin was an unexpected boost, and nearly upset the election.
And yet, as the confetti was still falling in Chicago, the Republicans turned on Palin, who offered the only breath of fresh air in the race, the only factor that made victory even conceivable, and proceeded to blame her for the whole thing.

Imagine a man who sleeps for 14 hours a day, blaming his inability to win a marathon on the fact that, had he only enough sleep, say 18 hours a day, he could have done it.

The Republican Party will totally cease to exist as a political entity in the United States if they continue on this course. Only a seismic shift in their party mentality to recognize and work for the people who have repeatedly been the motivating power behind their campaigns instead of betraying them to pander ineffectually to politically apathetic centrists who fall left by default could possibly stave off disaster.

That is, if we will ever have them back.

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Does Biden have brain flu?

2009-04-30T12:51:00.001-07:00

We knew there was a reason we hadn't seen Biden since the election:
He might actually say something, and that might be made public.

In this case, our most highly esteemed Vice President has blundered by suggesting that public transportation is now unsafe for Americans.

"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. "

Panic! Panic! The White House is now recommending that public transportation be avoided!

However, we here at MC would like to reassure our readers. The Vice President's words should not, under any circumstances, be taken at face value. What he really meant to say was this:

“On the Today Show this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week. The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week."

That's right. When Biden says "It's not that it's going to Mexico", he really means "what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico".

In fact, all of Biden's utterances should probably be understood in this more discerning light of meaning the exact opposite of their content.

But this raises a quandary. Clearly, since we are given to understand that Obama is a genius, he would not have chosen a brainless twit to be his Vice President.

The obvious solution is that Al Gore had it slightly wrong. He really should have been hunting the Manbirdpig (otherwise known as Human Avian Swine Flu). And clearly, Biden knows how to catch it. I foresee an urgent press conference in the very near future.

But we try to encourage family-friendly fare here as well, and clearly the show referenced above cannot be in any way construed as such. Therefore, I offer a second explanation, possibly even more accurate and satisfying....

They're pinky and the brain, they're pinky and the brain... one is a genius, the other's insane.
To prove their liberal worth, they'll overthrow the earth
They're pinky, they're pinky and the brain, brain, brain, brain....

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Our Digital September 11th

2009-04-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to say that I have no intention for this to become a "Chinaphobic" blog.
While I do cover stories about China when they are of importance, I think it's obvious that indulging in paranoid speculation regarding the East in specific, and China in general, is foolish and often leads others to respond by committing the opposite, equally dangerous error.

If I cover stories on China much more often than stories about other nations, it is for two good reasons. The first is that I have spent some time in that part of the world, and thus know, though perhaps by only a small degree, more of what I am talking about when I address issues from that part of the world. (As an example, one statement I could make from an experiential standpoint is that Chinese people in general, as distinct from their government, are not our enemies at all.) The second is that it is becoming steadily more clear to even the most opaque observer that China has for a long been our rival (declared rival, even) for the world's foremost superpower status, and fully intends to replace us as such, first regionally, then globally.

I say rival, but perhaps the term is misleading. On a national administrative and foreign policy level, it seems quite clear that those of liberal persuasion loathe our status as superpower so intensely that they are practically begging China to take the position from us. They have even taken numerous steps to ensure that they are prepared to do so, from Clinton's military technology transfers to the accumulation and transfer of unprecedented levels of debt into the Chinese government's hands.

One lesson we have from history is that the cultures which apologize for their own existence always give way before the cultures which do not. So, given the situation that exists between our two nations, the self-hating superpower and the would-be superpower, it is probably safe to say that the balance of power will be shifting very soon.

But enough depressing analysis, let us look at the string of stories which inspired today's entry.
Some are recent, others are from the past few years yet remain ongoing situations that have not been dealt with.

The Joint Strike Fighter program. (!)
The Pentagon. (!!)
The Naval War College Network. (?)
The NYPD. (!?)
Our power grid. (!!!)

China also plans, in the event of war, to heavily utilize "cyber" warfare.

You should read the above link if nothing else, there are some very interesting facts buried beneath the alarmist nature of the article.

The Chinese tend to handle things pragmatically. They cannot go toe-to-toe with our carrier groups, and so they develop anti-ship missiles, and extensive hacking networks.
Meeting the F-35 in the air is deadly. Meeting it in cyberspace, not so much.

For the sake of accuracy, I will mention that the Chinese government hotly denies all connection with the intrusions. Which of course, neither adds nor takes away anything from the situation, since that is what they would say whether or not they were involved.

I will say, that the Chinese are a convenient foe to blame every incident on.
Though in many cases, the attacks were traced back to China, the MSM have taken to automatically blaming Chinese hackers for every incident. (though the power grid report does mention that Russian hackers may also be responsible)

In some classes I have taken, they taught us that it's common for hackers in one area to route their attacks through another area. So these attacks may not all be originating from where they appear to be, and those tracing them may be tempted to stop at China when the trail leads farther back.

However, there is both direct and circumstantial evidence that the majority of these attacks are China-based. China has both the means and the incentive to perpetrate this kind of assault in the very high numbers we are seeing. There are also Chinese hackers claiming responsibility for some of the incidents.*

For years before the Sept. 11 attacks, radical Islamists were at war with us. Even through the first attempted bombing of the WTC, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, this fact was denied or minimized by the government.

What will it take for the government to acknowledge the ongoing cyber war with China?
What form will a digital Sept 11th take? The crash of our banking networks?
Using our power grid networks to turn off the lights?

We are currently putting up not even a token resistance; we are in essence being pillaged, outrageously expensive programs and highly sensitive information being compromised and taken with no repercussions.

If the US does not respond realistically, quickly, and practically, our national security will be even more gravely compromised, and lives will be lost as a result.

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*- Yes, we link to CNN too, even though we suspect that we, like the tea parties, might be perceived by certain biased media sources to be "right-wing extremists" and "anti-CNN"...

The Beginning of the End

2009-04-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

So many stories today... but one must be chosen, and the winner will be a continuation on a theme I am, perhaps morbidly, interested in pursuing.

It has long been my assertion that ideologies which are untrue, that fly in the face of reality, only work at best for a short time, and then proceed to destroy themselves. That is to say, false worldviews are inherently nihilistic. The massive numbers of deaths in any communist regime would be an extreme example, the current cultural annihilation of post-Christian, socialist Europe in the face of Islam would be another.

One thinks of Kipling's poem, "The Gods of the copybook headings".
For those of you unfamiliar with it, I highly recommend it.

Now for one of the most recent examples:
GM will be shutting most of its US plants for 9 months this summer.

"General Motors Corp. is planning to temporarily close most of its U.S. factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles, three people briefed on the plan said Wednesday. Analysts say the company could be seeing sales decline because of talk about a potential bankruptcy."

Wait, I thought the magical bailouts were supposed to prevent this.
Or perhaps throwing tax dollars onto an economic bonfire is not the best way to extinguish it?

Can you hear the sand in the hourglass?

We have elected those who despise earned wealth, and those who have earned it, and believe that money is theirs to make, claim, and redistribute at will. They do not understand how a nation's wealth is founded, nor do they overly care. They will simply redistribute (holding some back for themselves, of course) wealth until all wealth is gone, all the while blaming producers for failing to produce enough for everyone to share. (and the misguided populace will then attack the producers. Witness the anti-capitalist demonstrations at the G20 conference.)

Obama and his backers are leading the charge of those who wish to saw through the branches upon which they sit, on the grounds that no tree should be taller than any others.

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So "Conservative," it's working its way toward absolute liberalism.

2009-04-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

Long title, I know. Bear with me.

If you would ask any of the local leaders (around North AL) if they consider themselves to be "free market conservatives," I am pretty sure most would say "yes."

However, we have many local laws banning the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
Quite honestly, I view alcohol as a "vile drink that turns even the most respectable men into complete scoundrels"(kudos if you caught the reference, albeit an easy one), but I don't think government regulation over the marketing and sell of any goods at any time should be allowed.

Do lawmakers (and local town Baptists) believe that regulating alcohol on Sunday prevents people from drinking on Sunday? If people want alcohol on Sunday, they can drive to another town (effectively spending a nice sales tax to another city and county) on Sunday or stock up on Saturday.

To balance the ridiculousness of the ban, let me raise a question.
Are the Sunday Protestants being slightly discriminatory with their choice of banning Sunday sales? Afterall, the Sabbath of our Seventh-Day Adventist and Jewish citizens begins Friday at sundown. If we're going to ban alcohol sales, let's at least be consistent.

Just in case some of these legislators are reading this blog,I'll put it into tinier words and an easier analogy for them--with something "less controversial" than something like alcohol (which Jesus drank, by the way. People tend to forget that Jesus didn't take a shot of Welch's out of a tiny plastic cup with his penny-sized cracker.)
If people want to buy, oh let's say...gum.
Yes, people go to the store to buy gum. Lawmakers decide that people are spitting too much gum on the sidewalks, so they decide to regulate the sale of gum on...Wednesdays. Will banning the sale of gum effectively reduce the gum consumption? My guess is..no. They can go Thursday - Tuesday to pick up their gum. In fact, they can buy as much gum as they want and spit it wherever they want. They can even, therefore, chew their gum on Wednesday. And consume too much gum. And fill sidewalks with it.

These local laws are regressive and, quite frankly, stupid.
-W

Athens Tea Party

2009-04-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

So, I unexpectedly had the chance to attend yet another tea party in the area, this time in Athens Alabama.

I didn't have my camera with me, so I will put up another post later with pictures off my phone.

For those of you not familiar with the area, Athens is a small town, about 23,000 people.
I wasn't expecting much, perhaps 50-100 people. But it seems that the word is getting out better these days. About 300 people showed up, by my estimation. And if everyone who honked and shouted in support as they passed had parked and joined us, we could easily have matched the Huntsville event.

Will Anderson, an area radio personality, led the proceedings.
Christie, the young lady who organized the Huntsville event, showed up as well, and was given a very well-deserved round of applause.

We also heard from a Marine veteran who had recently seen combat in Iraq, been injured several times, and brought back an elaborate dagger from one of Saddam's palaces.

It was encouraging to see more people show up on shorter notice this time. Perhaps the necessary organization is beginning to be set in place. That by itself would be a positive outcome of the tea party movement. Conservatives aren't used to protesting, but we all may be forced to become rather skilled at it in the coming days.

Pictures and more information to come.

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Huntsville Alabama Tax Day Tea Party - Part II

2009-04-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

First, some number crunching, for anyone who likes numbers.

The final attendance estimates I'm getting for the Huntsville, AL event were about 2300-2500.

For comparison purposes, that's about 1.4% of the city of Huntsville's population, though many participants came from the surrounding area rather than Huntsville proper.

Pajamas TV is estimating total turnout for the nationwide protests at over 578,000 people.
For Alabama, total participation was estimated at about 12,000.

So a slightly better than proportional turnout, since Alabama represents 1.6% of the nation's population, and contributed 2% of the tea party attendance with 18 events.
(New York, by comparison, with 6.5% of the nation's population, contributed just 3.3% of the total event attendance, with 33 events, while Texas, with 8.2% of the the nation's population, contributed 12.4% of the total event attendance, with 78 events. But more on Texas later.)

Note: They estimated Huntsville's attendance numbers at 3000, about 500 more than police estimates, so some optimistic rounding up may have occurred. However, by the same token, many events may have been low-balled by official counts, depending on the politics involved, so it's really hard to say.

In any case, at least half a million Americans showed up on April 15th to make their voices heard, many for the first time in their lives.

High-level reactions to the events were varied, including:
Crude and sophomoric
Clueless
Opportunistic
Hypothetically Seccessionary

CNN and MSNBC showed their true colors as crude, sarcastic, out-of-touch elites who neither have any idea of what they are talking about, nor of what normal Americans think about anything.
FOX, meanwhile, was basically along for the ride, defaulting to be the only network that gave the events positive coverage, and earning massive rating boosts as a result.

Republicans generally tried to co-opt the events as supportive, but received mixed results.
Even in Alabama, where for conservatives the Republican party has for years now been seen as the force of good in Washington battling the evil Democrats, opportunistic Republican attempts to channel the events into support for their own campaigns foundered.

One of the more interesting moments at the Huntsville event was when a Republican candidate had been speaking about kicking the current group of politicians out of power (loud cheers), and then expressed his hope that everyone would support his upcoming reelection campaign. (a few weak cheers, deafening silence)

That gave me hope more than most other things I saw. Once people realize that it's not a question of a good party vs. a bad party, but of an entrenched, damaging bureaucracy in which two largely similar parties share power and unelected officials pull the important strings, we might see some effective action taken.

To all the Americans that took time out of their schedules and showed up on Wednesday, and especially to those for whom it was the first time, we salute you. You have earned the right to protest, by acting on your principles.

In a sense, you are learning what it truly means to be a self-governing American citizen, and it is in you that any hopes of stemming the dark tide of government encroachment remain.

Let us draw together in the days ahead, for in the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"We must all hang together, gentlemen... else, we shall most assuredly hang separately"

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Ashamed of Christ

2009-04-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

Though Obama has claimed to be a Christian, it seems that his actions dictate otherwise.
We cannot know what is in a man's soul, so I will not go so far as to say that he is not.
But we can only judge a man's belief by its fruits, in other words, his actions.

So let us take as an example Obama's recent speech at Georgetown University, in which the name of Christ, or rather a symbolic monogram representing His name, was covered up by request of Obama's team.

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week -- Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.
The gold "IHS" monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

Most people who are not Catholic (the majority of Americans) would not even notice the symbol, nor associate the letters "IHS" with Christ. The exaggerated care taken by Obama's team seems to indicate that he wishes not even a remote association with his claimed savior.

As we have earlier seen, however, he does not seem to have an issue with bowing to Muslim leaders.

Though I dismissed earlier claims that he was a secret Muslim as conspiratorial, the evidence that he is at least more sympathetic towards that belief system than to his alleged Christian faith is beginning to mount.

You will note on this blog that I do capitalize the words Islam, Muslim, Allah, etc. I do not go out of my way to disrespect people by disrespecting their faith, even if I know that the God of my faith is the true One, and theirs is not. However, Obama's actions go beyond merely showing respect for people.

First there was his slip of the tongue naming the number of Islamic states instead of US states, then his slip of the tongue in referring to "my muslim faith", and most recently his bowing to a Muslim leader when no one else at the G20 did. All these things are rather suspect.

I don't know if they are all purely circumstancial and accidental or not, but I do know one thing...

"But now the LORD declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained." -1 Samuel 2:30

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Huntsville Alabama Tax Day Tea Party - Part I

2009-04-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

Today, all over America, concerned citizens gathered together to protest uncontrolled spending and general encroachment by Washington. I was present at the Huntsville, AL rally, and I can say that it was quite another thing from the small but lively band that gathered in Decatur. Even before I got off the highway, cars were backed up. People parked all along the street for over a mile down the road.

By the time I had walked to the event itself, there was already a crowd of probably three hundred. This grew steadily to a maximum of what I would guess to be around 800-1000 people. (estimated attendance will be forthcoming eventually, as some local media was present, but anything lower than 750 is an attempt to lowball the figure; the crowd was quite large and densely packed)

The speakers did mostly well. Dale Jackson was present, and of course did an excellent job getting everyone fired up. He and other speakers made numerous comments about our being "domestic terrorists", a reference to the DHS report featured in my previous entry below.

Things began to wind down when an interesting but longish discussion on the Fair Tax was plagued with technical difficulties. I am all for the Fair Tax, and for promoting it, but this was perhaps not the best venue to go into more than a brief summary.

However, everything got back on track, and ended with the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, and a rousing USA chant.

All in all, I was pleased to see the turnout, considering the unfortunately low attendance in Decatur previously. Alabama is not densely populated, so massive crowds tend to require attendance drawing from more than one county. Huntsville is something of a regional center for most of northern Alabama, however, and the event drew people from the surrounding areas. I recognized some people from that earlier Decatur rally as well.

It was a good day, and a good event. In the grand scheme of things, however, it must merely be the beginning of something greater to have any lasting effect.

I will post another article with more information soon, also hopefully with a link to some video of the event, and some commentary on the news coverage.

UPDATE: It turns out I am indeed a conservative, including when it comes to estimating crowds. Huntsville Police are estimating the crowd at 2300 people.

UPDATE 2: WHNT has a great picture of the Huntsville crowd from a better vantage point than I could reach. They also have a couple of pictures from the Dekalb county protest. More pictures may be forthcoming later.

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Warning: You might now be a domestic terrorist

2009-04-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

Are you dedicated to opposing abortion or illegal immigration?
Do you support state and local government's authority versus that of the federal government?

Then congratulations, according to the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), you are a right-wing extremist, and possible terrorist threat!

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.
"It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says.

The timing of this release is rather suspect, with the tea parties happening nation-wide tomorrow. It rather appears to be an attempt to dampen turnout.

Yes, this means our federal government is now actively prosecuting those who disagree with them, on a national level.

What did people expect? That when they gave liberals the power to enforce their doctrines, they would not then proceed to do so? It's very like electing a ski-lodge-burning eco-terrorist as President who repeatedly claims he believes the current human population is unsustainable and should be reduced immediately, then being shocked when he begins to seek practical means to do so.

The report continues, mentioning gun control and immigration issues:

Congressional debates about immigration and gun control also make extremist groups suspicious and give them a rallying cry, the report says.
"It is unclear if either bill will be passed into law; nonetheless, a correlation may exist between the potential passage of gun control legislation and increased hoarding of ammunition, weapons stockpiling, and paramilitary training activities among rightwing extremists," the report said.

Wait, so there might be a connection between moving to ban guns, and people wanting to acquire them beforehand? Brilliant!

The report also expressed worry that extremist groups would subvert and recruit returning veterans to their cause.

"As far as our military members go, I think that the military is a melting pot of society. So you might get a few, a fractional few, who are going to be attracted by militia groups and other right-wing extremists," he said.
"We have to remember that the people serving in our military are volunteers, they do it because they love their country, and they believe in what our country stands for," he said. "They spent their time in the military defending our Constitution, so the vast majority of them would be repulsed by the hate groups discussed in this report."

If they spent their time in the military in order to defend the Constitution, they might very well be tempted to join a group opposing the current administration, at least...

Now the important point is, while this report is speaking more of groups that currently pursue domestic terrorism and white supremacy organizations than of your average abortion-opposing NRA-member, what it does is blur the line between the two. This is the first step necessary to associate the latter, law-abiding citizen, with the former.

I think it's now become quite clear where things are headed. Liberal ideology states that those who know best, should make the decisions for those who do not. In their minds, they are the ones who know best, and the common people should sit back and let them create a better world for all of us. They are now taking steps within the government to ensure that they remain in permanent majority. (after all, you can't very well execute your long-term social agenda when you keep jumping in and out of power)

The farther they encroach on liberties (liberties being dangerous animals that let us make our own decisions about what to think and how to live our lives), the more people will get upset, and try to do something to stop them. That, of course, is when they must use force. It's not a question of you ever being allowed to have liberties, but of how easily you conform.

There are three responses to this. One is, to surrender. To let the government define "decent, law-abiding citizen" to mean whatever type of person will not oppose any of their actions, regardless of existing laws or the constitution, and then conform your actions to that standard.

Another is the passive-aggressive response. Let the government do what they want, don't raise a fuss, but continue to go about things your own way. I submit that this is comparable to surrender. To not resist is to encourage, and good men who see evil and yet do nothing to stop it are culpable in it as well.

Lastly, there is action. What kind of action? Well, that is what millions of Americans want to know. What can Americans who love their country, love their freedom, and yet who are also not the radicals DHS is accusing them of being, but rather respect the rule of law, do to stop this insanity?

For starters, you can attend your local tea party. Sure, you probably have a job, it's probably inconvenient to go, and there might be odd people there with silly signs, but do you think that by doing nothing, your life will continue as usual? The tea party movement may or may not have permanent effects, and alone, I suspect the net result will be insignificant. But they make an excellent first step, and a step in which numbers are crucial.

Writing your congressmen is another step. No, they won't change their mind based on your letter. But with enough letters, they may worry about being re-elected. And that will give them pause.

This DHS report is a sign of things to come. Or rather, things that are currently arriving.

How will you greet them? With fear, with indifference, or with action?

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He is Risen!

2009-04-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

¹⁰Then the disciples went back to their homes, ¹¹but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹²and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." ¹⁴At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

¹⁶Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

¹⁷Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

-John 20:10-18

Wishing you all a joyful Resurrection Sunday from MC!

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The "Post-Industrial" Economy - Eating Raccoon

2009-04-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

An interesting sign of the times. The collapse of Detroit is apparently ongoing, the city having lost half its population. Wildlife are roaming the streets, and a canny blues guitarist is cooking up some barbecued raccoon.

While economic times are tough across Michigan as its people slog through a difficult and protracted deindustrialization, Beasley remains upbeat.
Where one man sees a vacant lot, Beasley sees a buffet.
"Starvation is cheap," he says as he prepares an afternoon lunch of barbecue coon and red pop at his west side home.

It's a fascinating story, and Beasley has some wisdom to share. The video is worth a viewing for his sake, though the host is annoying to the point of physical pain. Leaving aside the issue of raccoon hunting, however, my focus was immediately grabbed by the following portion of the article:

Hunting is prohibited within Detroit city limits and Beasley insists he does not do so. Still, he says that life in the city has gone so retrograde that he could easily feed himself with the wildlife in his backyard, which abuts an old cement factory.
He procures the coons with the help of the hound dogs who chase the animal up a tree, where Beasley harvests them with a .22 caliber rifle. A true outdoorsman, Beasley refuses to disclose his hunting grounds.
"This city is going back to the wild," he says. "That's bad for people but that's good for me. I can catch wild rabbit and pheasant and coon in my backyard."
Detroit was once home to nearly 2 million people but has shrunk to a population of perhaps less than 900,000. It is estimated that a city the size of San Francisco could fit neatly within its empty lots. As nature abhors a vacuum, wildlife has moved in.
A beaver was spotted recently in the Detroit River. Wild fox skulk the 15th hole at the Palmer Park golf course. There is bald eagle, hawk and falcon that roam the city skies. Wild Turkeys roam the grasses. A coyote was snared two years ago roaming the Federal Court House downtown. And Beasley keeps a gaze of skinned coon in the freezer.

So this is the future? Correction: This is the present. Yes, this is really happening to what was formerly a booming industrial metropolis, and important American city. Right now.

America is stifled by labor unions, sending our factories overseas, and not replacing them with anything. The workers don't suddenly become skilled service-based or high-tech producers, they just fade into whatever jobs are available. And the cities carved decades or centuries ago out of the wilderness begin to return. Meanwhile, out-of-touch politicians contrive "green economy" schemes in which shackling industry and business with oppressive environmental legislation is somehow supposed to produce more money magically. Perhaps the raccoons are going to subsidize them.

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In a handbasket, part I

2009-04-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

Respected readers,

Due to the plethora of near-apocalyptic news being circulated on a daily basis, we could cover this kind of story in every single posting here, and still not come close to total coverage.

However, despite the ongoing chaos and upheaval of current world power structures, for most of us, life continues more or less as usual. I do firmly expect the madness at the higher levels of our government and other world governments to trickle down and cause problems for us in the near future, which is one of the reasons that I urge you all to find ways to let your voices be heard and push back against Washington's encroachment into every sector of public life.

But, this kind of thing can be exhausting to read. I know it's exhausting to write about.
So, I have decided that I will start a once-or-twice weekly article series called "In a handbasket".

In these articles, I will link to and briefly describe several stories that describe how idiots in positions of leadership are bringing about the apocalypse. Thus, I can bring these stories to your attention, but not focus on them to the point that this becomes one of those blogs you feel you need to be wearing tinfoil on your head to read.

That being said, we will move on to today's stories:

1. Environmental Apocalypse: Obama looks into climate engineering.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Aka, screwing with a system we don't understand, to the point that we might actually succeed in damaging it beyond repair, unlike previous paltry contributions such as anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays would be a stupid idea almost to the level of trying to change our orbit around the sun.

2. Economic Apocalypse
(aka, John Galt-ian Apocalypse): The French want to lock up their bosses.

"Sarkozy's government is worried that locking up bosses could presage greater violence as the sense of injustice grows with rising unemployment. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, says that he will not tolerate more "hostage taking".

But in France, there is violence and violence, as all students of history know. Two years ago exactly, a certain presidential candidate took the side of angry fishermen who had smashed up their port. "When you resort to violence it is because you are desperate, because you feel condemned to economic death," he told them. "I will never put the anger of fishermen who do not want to die on the same level as the gratuitous violence of thugs." That was N. Sarkozy" [emphasis as in the original article]

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand has the world grinding to a halt as those who consume begin to turn on those who produce, first via social and legislative persecution, then finally with organized violence. (Meanwhile, the last producers begin to purposefully withdraw themselves as an act of moral principle) Amusingly, she underestimated how long it would take for the violence to begin, a la G20.

3. Apocalypse by using "Death Star lasers" to recreate a miniature sun

The National Ignition Facility has already test-fired all 192 giant lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California as part of this effort. The lasers will eventually focus their power on compressing and heating a single, pea-sized fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit in order to trigger thermonuclear fusion.

Ironically, it appears this last one is by far the safest... though somehow it seems like it will take a while for said fusion to provide enough low cost energy to reimburse the cost of 192 giant lasers and assembly of a special massive test chamber.
But hey, nearly free energy would fix the economy, massively reduce world poverty, and provide the opportunity for an unprecedented expansion in personal freedom.
Which is why it will never, ever be allowed to happen.

So, there's your apocalyptic stories for today, tune in next time to see if Al Gore has invented Skynet.

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Das Cavutor

2009-04-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

In which Neil Cavuto loses his temper...

I rarely watch news on TV anymore, but I enjoy Neil's segments when I come across them.
I don't know anything about him beyond what I see on TV, of course, but he seems to be an honest man who genuinely loves America and generally does an excellent job.

Given his normal demeanor, it was somewhat amusing to see him lose his temper.
Under the circumstances, however, I would probably have done the same.
The subject is infuriating, and having someone talk in very small circles because they refuse to give you a straight answer is maddening.

Watch and enjoy. (apologies for the poor video quality)

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The Face of Evil

2009-04-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is it.

"Abortion is not a tragedy"

Read it, if you have ever wondered how someone can possibly justify the practice.
(not that this ugly farce is anything like justification, but it's the pretense they hide behind)

"'This was a desired pregnancy -- she'd been getting prenatal care -- but they re-evaluated expenses and decided not to continue,' said Dr. Pratima Gupta. 'When I was doing the options counseling, she interrupted me halfway through, crying, and said, 'Dr. Gupta, I just walked here for an hour. I'm sure of my decision.''

One hour? Yes, that's definitely proof you are justified in making a decision to terminate a life.
All that walking.
But it gets much worse.

"Feeding and raising children is expensive. Tuition may be free at public schools but there are still books, transportation, food, clothes, medical care and activities that add up -- way up. One may assume this family of five is struggling just to maintain its basics: housing and food. Add one more child and those costs rise as income drops. It's no tragedy: it's a good decision."

You can read the rest yourself. This is the crud they feed poor, frightened mothers who come in not knowing what to do. It's not a life to them, it's an economic practicality.

I posted back in January about Nancy Pelosi saying much the same thing, in her proposal to direct a large sum in the stimulus package towards abortion services.

It's the same message, the same lies, the same posturing.
Who will speak for the innocent lives who can't speak for themselves?
Obama even repeatedly refused to support bills which would have declared babies born alive as survivors of induced labor abortions to be persons entitled to rights.
Yes, even if they are born and survive, they still get killed. That is called infanticide.
That man, if you can refer to a human holding such a position as a man, has been elected our president, and is now nationalizing our economy.
But hey, did you see the news lately? His wife has style.

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The Taliban gets it right, for once

2009-04-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

An interesting story; evidently our esteemed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated to an international conference that she does not understand the mind of men of conviction.

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday that those members of the Taliban who abandoned extremism must be granted an "honorable form of reconciliation."

The Taliban's response was swift.

"They have to go and find the moderate Taliban, their leader and speak to them. This is a lunatic idea," Mujahid said by telephone from an unknown location.

"There is no other way. We want our freedom and respect for our independence," Mujahid said.

See, Hillary is a unprincipled pragmatist, and doubtless views the offer of "reconciliation" -a return to that global village that is seemingly required for such things as raising children, perhaps- as something profitable, which only requires the public swapping of a few privately held convictions, something which she does on a daily basis. It's a win-win, right?

But this is why we cannot find victory in Afghanistan. We do not understand our opponents. These are not men who change their principles as they change their garments. They will fight, and die, for what they believe in. Our current administration, by contrast, uses principles as talking points to buy favor, while fully embracing a post-modern view that there are no absolutes.

Well, here is an absolute for you. The Taliban are wrong, their views and actions contain much that is evil, and they are also not going away until you destroy them or re-educate succeeding generations and wait for the older ones to die out. Islam does a fairly comprehensive job of shaping the worldview of each generation of adherents, by the way, so don't count on "winning hearts and minds" on a large scale basis among the hardcore Islamists in the south of Afghanistan.

In Sun Tzu's incomparable Art of War, the writer states:

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

We (or those at the top of the decision-making process: unprincipled bureaucrats) clearly do not understand our enemy, men of courage and principle. Our leaders clearly do not understand themselves, as the angst, doubt, and guilt-ridden liberal psyche so painfully reveals. There is therefore no means of victory, until men of iron-clad convictions lead the way.

Bush, for all our disagreements with him, was clearly a man of convictions. He was a leader that our enemy could truly hate, as their declared foe, and one that could secure victory over them. Unless Obama abandons his teleprompter, learns to love that which is true over that which is convenient, and finds a spine, he will be to our enemies merely an object of contempt.

Perhaps he should consult that bust of Churchill, which he snubbed the Brits by returning, to find out what sort of thing a leader is.

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Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

2009-03-31T15:21:00.000-07:00

So, an ominous but not really unexpected development in the naval balance in the Pacific:
China has evidently assembled a stockpile of weapons specifically intended to destroy aircraft carriers.

The range of the modified Dong Feng 21 missile is significant in that it covers the areas that are likely hot zones for future confrontations between U.S. and Chinese surface forces.

The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike.

Now, that's not particularly surprising. Any rational individual would expect a globally significant economic and military power with long-standing regional territorial claims to begin working on ways to control those areas.
That naturally means first disabling our carriers, which can project force over a significant area, and have served as a deterrent to China's ambitions for decades.

The frightening part is not that they have these weapons, but the Navy's reaction, as described in this excellent article:

The Navy’s reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified.

That the Chinese would have come up with a solution to our carriers is hardly surprising; that our Navy has been caught totally off guard by it is frankly terrifying.

Another troubling portion of this report comes in as a remark in passing in the first article:

While the ASBM has been a topic of discussion within national defense circles for quite some time, the fact that information is now coming from Chinese sources indicates that the weapon system is operational. The Chinese rarely mention weapons projects unless they are well beyond the test stages.

This approach stands in stark contrast to our own. Examples might include our highly publicized and agonizingly slow development of an effective ICBM shield...

Couple this with a few related facts, the discovery of a new Chinese submarine base on Google Earth, the scandalous reduction of our human intelligence resources, etc. It boils down to that we have much less idea of what China is up to than we ought to.

The situation in some ways mirrors our relationship with Japan before the Second World War.
Our resources increasingly diverted by other conflicts, we had less and less force with which to counter Japan, traditionally not seen as a naval threat, but continued to adjure them to abide by previous policies and agreements.

"Peace through Superior Firepower" is not just a great t-shirt slogan, it's a truism.

Do not believe that China will sit idly by as their growing naval capabilities are met at best with remonstrative statements from Washington about unnecessary build up.

If we allow this situation to continue, one day we will quickly and simply lose any control over that area of the Pacific. Officials will claim that they could not have expected it, heads will roll, public outcry against China will rage, but the truth is that, as with so, so many "sudden catastrophes", it was seen coming, and could have been avoided.

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Decatur Alabama Tea Party

2009-03-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

On a warm Saturday morning at Rhodes Ferry park by the Tennessee River, a few score citizens gathered to celebrate their freedom and protest Washington's encroachment on both their rights and their pocketbooks.

Things were a little slow at first; it was the first time that some people had attended this kind of meeting. But as it went, things picked up steam, and pretty soon we had a full-fledged political assembly going. The Republican party was heavily represented, of course, but seemed almost apologetic, whereas some of the open-mic speakers commented that both parties were responsible for the current mess.

After the scheduled and open speakers, petitions were brought forth to be signed, and things ended on a more or less hopeful note.

The Verdict:
It's a beginning.

If that meeting constitutes the sum of the region's efforts, then it will not have accomplished much. However, if this is the first step towards gaining a voice in Washington, then combined with all the numerous towns doing the same, it might not have been in vain.

The idea is that this is all leading to a massive crowd converging on Washington on July 4th.
We shall see, but if such an event occurs, there is at least a decent chance that MC will be there to cover it...

I hope to attend the "tea party" in Huntsville in a couple weeks, being the area's largest city it may have a somewhat higher turnout. The more people show up, the less excuse the media have for ignoring it. If you are sick of listening to the depressing news and want to actually do something about it, come on down. Here's the info...

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One small step

2009-03-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report a piece of good news.
The aforementioned new policy that would have greatly restricted available ammunition on the civilian market has been retracted, thanks evidently to two Democratic senators from Montana.

"Upon review, the Defense Logistics Agency has determined the cartridge cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for sale," Cunningham wrote.

The Defense Department liaison was responding to a letter yesterday to the Defense Logistic Agency's Vice Admiral Alan S. Thompson from Tester and fellow Montana Democrat Sen. Max Baucus. The senators argued "prohibiting the sale of fired military brass would reduce the supply of ammunition – preventing individual gun owners from fully exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We urge you to address this situation promptly."

We don't know the full details behind this story yet, but you can bet there were some calls and letters sent to their offices... Gun owners are not pleased to see their rights being undermined. This is what we need to happen on multiple fronts.

Even small victories are encouraging these days. Hopefully we will see more of this.

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You wanted change?

2009-03-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

My fellow Americans.

Despite my and my associates' best attempts to dissuade you, you insisted on electing as the leader of America a man whose loyalty to America is questionable at very best.

So how are Hope and Change progressing thus far?
Let's see what's on the administration's agenda, three months in.

1. Going after farmers

H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 could end farmers’ markets as we know it by requiring growers to register, be subject to inspections of their gardens by federal agents, and maintain safety records related to food production or face large fines.

Under H.R. 875, all participants in farmers’ markets will be forced to register, otherwise the market will be shut down as an illegal operation. Failure to comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 would result in a fine of up to $1,000,000 per violation.

Yes. Because organic produce helps the terrorists win.

2. Going after gun owners

"From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD--actually from Government Liquidators, llc.--the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition.

Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap."

(Be sure to check out the "What can I do" section at the end of the linked article)

3. Going after veterans

The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries.

"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."

So, giving away trillions is a matter of course, but that $540 million (.077% of the 700 billion dollar bailout proposal, by the way) is just way too much for the government to spend on soldiers who were wounded in combat into which the government sent them.

None of this should be surprising;
Obama was the most liberal senator.
Liberals have consistently despised and attacked small town/rural America, gun owners, and those who defend our country. Only after 9-11 did they start doing lip service to soldiers, all the while still screaming that their cause was evil. Now a majority of Americans, some well-meaning but misguided, others with similarly warped views, have given them the reigns.

You won't know America once they're done, if they keep at it, and you certainly won't want to live here. But by then, you probably won't be allowed to leave.

"Da, komrade... everyone who applies for an exit visa gets one. There is just one small problem with your papers..."

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What has been shall be

2009-03-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

Let us consider a word of wisdom from the late Adrian Rogers:

“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for-that, dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

I believe that sums the whole situation up well.

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Eugenics, 21st Century Style

2009-03-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

Genocide based on racial or physiological differences has been so thoroughly (and rightly) lambasted in our society that even the idea of it is execrable.

But when economic incentive is introduced, no act of murder is too vile to withhold from the unborn and defenseless.

We have evidently arrived at that anticipated (and dreaded) point in history at which point "designer babies" have begun to emerge as available for purchase.

The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year.
His clinic also offers sex selection.

How convenient. You can just pick out a baby that has the traits you in your wisdom deem most desirable for the upcoming generation. But perhaps there are some negative aspects to this technology?

The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother's womb.
Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes - or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes - to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others.

"Discard any others". That is to say, they find the embryo out of that batch that they want, and let the other ones die. Now for those who argue that a 6-cell embryo is not yet human, I have two questions. First, if it's not human, what other form of life is it? Second, is it not brazen sophistry (let alone blatantly hypocritical) to say that the technology is there for people to pick out hair and eye color for their child, then in the same breath say that it's not a child?

Now of course, such a ground-breaking step is fraught with controversy within the scientific community.

"It's technically feasible and it can be done," says Mark Hughes, a pioneer of the PGD process and director of Genesis Genetics Institute, a large fertility laboratory in Detroit. However, he adds that "no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized."

But Fertility Institutes disagrees. "This is cosmetic medicine," says Jeff Steinberg, director of the clinic that is advertising gender and physical trait selection on its Web site. "Others are frightened by the criticism but we have no problems with it."

Mark Hughes is either being outrightly deceptive, or a victim of wishful thinking. Jeff Steinberg represents the future of this clinic. There is unbelievable profit within this technology. How many parents would pay to make their child more intelligent, taller, more athletic, etc, if the means to do so was readily available to them?

A recent poll taken shows that there are already a number of them that would.

In a recent U.S. survey of 999 people who sought genetic counseling, a majority said they supported prenatal genetic tests for the elimination of certain serious diseases. The survey found that 56% supported using them to counter blindness and 75% for mental retardation.

More provocatively, about 10% of respondents said they would want genetic testing for athletic ability, while another 10% voted for improved height. Nearly 13% backed the approach to select for superior intelligence, according to the survey conducted by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine.

And this is just the beginning. Once the technology begins to be more widely used, and if it displays consistent results, imagine the clamoring of competitive parents for their offspring to have the advantage that other parents are giving theirs. Imagine the testimonials of proud parents touting their gene-selected children's success in school.

Now of course, all this is not so simple. Success in anything is not merely the genes one brings to the table. One can argue whether leaders are born or made, but the truth is that at least a great number of them have been made. The same is true of the rest of life. While success in school often comes to very intelligent children, it comes arguably more consistently often to children who have parents who love them, discipline them, and reinforce their education.

Athletics, one of the prime fields I can imagine this technology being advertised for, is the same. How many "sports dads" can be persuaded into taking this route just by being asked "What if you prevent your son from a future in sports by withholding this advantage from him?"

Of course, the other way of phrasing the question: "Are you willing to kill off several to many future children in exchange for having one with a possible slight advantage?" will never be asked.

A Brave New World indeed.

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Califonia Dreamin'

2009-03-01T17:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like California is having some trouble. 10% unemployment. Now, do we really want to nationally emulate the kind of active government that California has had?

The First Foot Drops

2009-02-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

To pay for his expansive social engineering, President Obama is planning a $1,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 trillion) worth of tax increases.

Now, I'm not an economist, but it strikes me as an appallingly bad idea. If taxes increase, people have less money. Thus, people spend less money. Thus, the economy shrinks more. Call me crazy, but in order to stimulate an economy to grow I think you need money to be changing hands. No matter how much imaginary money the government tosses at infrastructure changes and those pork projects that don't exist in the stimulus bill will make people spend money.

One thing that this economic theory ignores is the simple fact that people with money hire people. If the people who have the money stop wanting to pay for such services, they will not hire people. The government does not have a method of creating wealth and cannot pay for services unless money is taken from people. By taking excess amounts from the "rich," the government harms everyone who works for the "rich." The engine for wealth generation will stall just like it did in the 1930s.

Taking Stock

2009-02-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

In which Rick Santelli says what we all have been wanting to say.

So, I suppose I'll see y'all in Chicago in July then? Heheh.

UPDATE: CNBC has posted a poll about whether or not you'd join the Chicago Tea Party.
Go vote yes!

UPDATE 2: CNBC is now spinning this like crazy. The link above that used to lead to the poll, now leads to desperate attempts to contain the message. The poll seems to have been removed, after a quarter of a million Americans responded, 94% saying yes.

UPDATE 3: Now the White House has responded with a curt dismissal of Santelli.

The White House on Friday dismissed a cable television reporter's criticism of President Barack Obama's housing bailout plan as the ranting of an individual who "doesn't know what he's talking about."

This is a foolish decision on their part. Santelli's remarks are resonating because many people agree with him, not because he's a marginal ranter. Look for these "rants" to become increasingly frequent in the days ahead.

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Sometimes you get what you ask for

2009-02-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

"The burning heavens reflected in a mud puddle."

This is a little-known, seldom-quoted, and less-than-complimentary description applied to a well-known leader. In a turbulent time, having entered a deep economic depression, a great nation turned to one man who seemed to have a plan to change it all and give them hope. Leaning socialist, he promised to take money away from those who had selfishly hoarded it and give it to the people who deserved it, to restore justice and economic stability. While he himself was not very experienced in politics, he began to gather an intensely loyal following, largely due to his fluent and persuasive speeches, and soon despite opposition from the political establishment he was brought to power by a massive public movement.
Naturally, I think we all know who I am referring to.

This past November, millions of Americans poured into voting booths, some for the first time in their lives, to elect an ideal. With boundless enthusiasm, even tears, they affirmed the rise of the man who would accomplish all their dreams.

Well, change has come. As our economy plummets, some of the most unqualified (financially speaking) leaders in American history have thrown together a massive, bloated piece of legislation. Containing everything from abortion incentives and the establishment of state-sponsored and mandated euthanasia to billions of dollars wasted on meaningless trivialities, this bill ushers in an entirely new era in American history. Avowed economic socialists confidently state that the free market has failed, and push more and more government intervention as the only reasonable way to keep the markets in check.

Of course, this is bald-faced hypocrisy, considering government legislation required loans to be given to unqualified applicants as a sort of proxy welfare. Congressional hearings lambasted the greedy corporations that caused this crisis, while blithely ignoring the fact that they themselves were largely responsible.

To paraphrase a famous quote, our government is like someone who breaks your legs, then offers to sell you crutches and says "See? If it weren't for us, you wouldn't be able to walk."

And of course, all this is using your money. The money you have worked to earn.
But as we have previously shown [Nov 20, 2008 "Ownership"], some liberals outrightly deny that it is your money. It's rather like a married man feeling himself generous for offering to sell his wife a piece of the pie she made for him. Absurdity, to say the least, but that is what they feed us, and expect us to like it.

But millions and millions of Americans have shown a remarkable ability to stomach that, provided that they are able to continue in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

The problem is that falsehood is always eventually self-destructive. That which opposes reality, economically or otherwise, will eventually show its true colors by seeking to remove itself from reality. One can easily make the next logical step: socialism leads to nihilism.

If you are inclined to immediately dismiss this, go look at Europe. The nations that have most fully embraced socialism are those whose cultures are in the most severe jeopardy.
In fact, some of those cultures may never recover.

The West is facing an identity crisis, which the financial crisis is now bringing to a head.

But those European nations which are now struggling to maintain any shred of their traditional identities in the face of a changing world are finding that sounding the depths of post-modern pluralism, humanism, and socialism has been not progress, but poison.

Liberals in America for generations have held up these exact values as the continuation of the Enlightenment principles (i.e., Secular Humanism) that they claim legitimacy based upon.
Now, they have finally attained critical mass. The experiment already shown to be failed is still touted by them as the final solution.

Every time liberal principles, economic or otherwise, have been attemped in America, they have failed. This is a matter of public record. However, those who continue to push them would have us believe that the problem has always been that we have not gone far enough.
(a little cyanide will hurt you, but downing it all will cure you)

Now, millions of Americans have spoken. We will drain the cup to the dregs.

If anything of America remains after that draught, maybe they will have learned the bitter lesson. Or maybe not.

And in case you didn't catch on, the individual I described at the beginning was Adolph Hitler.

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Blood-Letting

2009-02-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

There was an old practice of medicine that called for the draining of blood in case of an illness, known as blood-letting. Of course, this had varying degrees of efficacy, but it was a stand-by for doctors for thousands of years. Even barber poles reflect the practice of letting blood, as barbers used to also carry out the procedure, often slitting arteries or using leeches to drain the blood from their vict-er, patients.

Now, of course, we recognize the importance of healthy blood to overall health, and rarely indeed engage in taking away life-sustaining blood from someone already weakened by disease.

Or do we?

In an unprecedented act of largess, the new 9.7 Trillion dollar financial stimulus package (aka, the fiat-slaying apocalypse) is casting forth enough money to give every man, woman and child IN THE WORLD $1,430. That also translates to over $32,000 for every legal citizen of the United States.

This, of course, reduces money to a mere fantasy. The US is deeply mired in debt, so much so that our sovereignty has been all but out-sourced as well. (China or Japan could easily send us plummeting into a depression by shedding their dollar reserves) And now we are summoning forth nearly 10 Trillion dollars to resurrect our economy? Forth from where, may I ask?

From the aether, evidently. Or, more specifically, from that magical world called the Federal Reserve, where more dollars are printed when we need them. As a result, the value of a dollar is based less and less on anything real. Of course, this is the price you pay for going with fiat currency, and has been going on for some time.

But all that debt we kept borrowing time with has caught up with us, and now the glass house is collapsing upon itself. Again according to Bloomberg:

"The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15..."

This does sound like a time for desperate measures, no?

So desperate that we debase our dollar, the currency upon which our economy runs, (the blood of our economy, you might say) to be worth practically nothing but the value of the US Government's promises? (And I'll take a Yen over one of those any day)

Have we really come to the point that we will try to save ourselves from dehydration by drinking blood sucked from our own arteries?

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In order to form a more dubious union

2009-02-03T18:20:00.000-08:00

The unionization of the world continues...

You know about the European Union, how about the African Union? As a concept, it has been around a while, but some of the more practical details are still being worked out. For example, whether the organization will be more than symbolic:

"The chairmanship of the African Union is a rotating position held by heads of state for one year and gives the holder some influence over the continent's politics but
carries no real power."

Understandably, since many of the individual nations on the African continent do not have control over what happens inside their borders. (One thinks of Somalia, for example)

Now, who will be given leadership over such a tenuous, developing union in its vulnerable years?
How about Al-Qaddafi! Wait, you will say, isn't he a terrorist? Ah, but he renounced terror in 2003. Since then, he has apparently been busy.

"Qaddafi, once ostracized by the West for sponsoring terrorism, has been trying to increase both Libya's global stature and its regional influence — mediating African
conflicts, sponsoring efforts to spread Islam on the continent and pushing for the creation of a single African government."

Oh dear. Those jingoistic Western bullies, holding a little thing like state-sponsored terror against him. Let's see what else he has been up to.

"The Libyan government continues to imprison people for criticizing Qaddafi," said Reed Brody, a Brussels-based lawyer with Human Rights Watch who watched Qaddafi take the helm of the AU. "Hundreds more have been 'disappeared.' Libya
has no independent NGOs and the government tightly controls all forms of public expression."

Ahem. And when the Belgians get you on human rights, after their little incidents in the Congo, it means something. It will be interesting to see how an African union progresses under his leadership. Apparently Sub-Saharan Africa, which has resisted the spread of Islam for decades, is up against a stacked deck.

One can only wonder what will happen when the Crescent rises over Europe as well, as the irreversible demographic shift ensures that it will. When Islam stretches from Indonesia to Britain to South Africa, we may indeed have an interesting situation in the world on our hands. Meanwhile, men like Qaddafi continue to hold positions of influence within the African Union, and the UN.

Having elected our first Arabic president, who held his first Presidential interview with a Dubai-based TV channel, the US is apparently trying to play catch-up in this new emerging world.

Liberals were nearly dying of embarrassment and chagrin at the fact that we were a superpower leading the world. Their projections of guilt made this the most uncomfortable position imaginable for them.
Now, they have a chance to kill off that excellence which propelled us ahead of everyone else, drop us back down into the crowd (and after all, haven't we all learned in school that no one is any better than anyone else?) and establish us in a comfortably compromised position with those who would take advantage of us. We can only pray that their culture of failure will come back to bite them on this attempt too.

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A Modest Proposal

2009-01-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

The woman second in line of succession from the president has a brave new plan for boosting the economy: kill more infants.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

In this video link, Pelosi repeatedly uses the term "reduce costs" when referring to killing off the future generation, whose lives apparently do not justify the cost necessary to raise them.

Yes, by all means. Kill off more of the future generation of workers, in order to achieve prosperity. Let us consider this for a moment.

Suppose we grant, for the sake of argument, that this could guarantee an economic upswing in the way that Pelosi describes. There is good Biblical precedent for this. In Old Testament times, the Hebrews were repeatedly commanded not to follow in the ways of the nations around them, or to worship their gods. One of these false gods was called Molech (among other similar names). A common practice of the time was to sacrifice a child by passing it through fire. Accounts differ as to whether the child was burned completely or only severely injured; some Roman accounts of similar practices indicate the children were incinerated while music was played loudly to drown out their cries. This was done for various reasons, the most common of which was to guarantee blessings of prosperity for the coming year.

Evidently, this practice is coming back into fashion.

Setting aside the unthinkable barbarity of this approach, it is simply and utterly ignorant.
Killing off your future work force does not decrease costs in the short term (the majority of educational and other costs Pelosi mentions would not come into play for a few years) and would put a damper on the economy in the future, as the population continues to age and increasingly fewer people enter the workforce. (having been murdered prenatally) Every abortion now only increases the increasingly warped ratio of nonproductive to productive citizens in the future.
Logically speaking, they should be encouraging everyone to have -more- children.

And the fact that Pelosi has 5 children of her own also introduces a staggering hypocrisy:
I've had mine, let the masses kill off their own spawn.

I have an even better idea. Since retired people have already contributed their working years to the government, why not kill them off instead? Their productive years are behind them, so you don't lose those, you eliminate the massive strain on the healthcare system as the baby boomers age, and you can take back most of the money they saved through inheritance taxes too, so really everyone wins. Well, except the people who have to die, but who are they to stand in the way of our standard of living?

God help us.

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NAFTA III - Transition Phase

2009-01-14T14:11:00.001-08:00

Evidently, along with Pakistan, our southern neighbor is under some risk of collapse.

Of course, there has not been any specific incident named as making the collapse of the Mexican government imminent, it is even noted as less likely than that of Pakistan. Lack of a real change in situation coupled with a change in rhetoric leads me to suspect what has really changed is policy.

The report says a collapse in
Mexico seems less likely, but noted that the government infrastructure
is "under sustained assault and pressure" from drug cartels and gangs.
A collapse within the United States' southern neighbor would also
"demand an American response based on the serious implications for
homeland security alone."

Oh yes, of course. We would no doubt be obligated to step in and prop up a government that has been working so hard to cooperate in our efforts to, say, secure our border.

(Ironically, sealing off our border would make the collapse of the Mexican government nearly unavoidable, and probably several other Central American nations as well, as the cash flow of Latin American workers from the US back to their families has become a crucial segment of their home nation's economies)

There have been rumors and portents for years about the supposed plan to form a North American Union, combining the US, Canada, and Mexico into more or less a single economic entity. If those be true, this would seem to be one of the initial stages (beyond the purely economic ones). Actually stepping in to help prop up the Mexican government would be an important transitional step, but whether that happens or not remains to be seen.

Now of course, closer economic ties are certainly developing, as economic concerns increasingly trump sovereignty issues. We may indeed someday see the age authors of fiction have written about, when lines of authority are drawn along corporate, and not national, boundaries. But, that is a somewhat one-dimensional vision; many other forces are at work in the world besides the continuing economic globalization.

Still, if you had predicted back in 2000 that an emergent global financial crisis will require extraordinary measures to be taken and cause nationalization of major segments of our economy plus government economic intervention to be ramped up to unprecedented levels, it would have sounded like the introductory plot to a Tom Clancy novel.

Who could have suspected that this would be the reality we face as we slide spinning, off balance, into 2009?

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Change and a Reminder

2009-01-13T11:01:00.000-08:00

As I recall, our president-elect was supposed to be the one to make the rest of the world love the United States again. It seems that Iranians failed to receive that message and are already treating Obama just like they did Bush.

How long is it going to take before people realize that you cannot reason with anyone who wants your nation to be utterly annihilated? This is not a war over resources. It is not a war over land. It is a war of ideas. Militant Islamic states/terrorists cannot be talked out of their hatred. Only the destruction of Israel and the West will placate them.

Israel has tried the peace route for years. They conceded the Gaza Strip after the Yom Kippur War in an effort to placate them. Instead, Hamas has used that gained territory to launch rockets into Israeli civilian areas for years[1][2][3][4][5][6][7], which has inevitably resulted in counter strikes.

We face an enemy who does now want to discuss and reach compromise. Al Qaeda itself says this outright[8]:

To those champions who avowed the truth day and night......
And wrote with their blood and sufferings these phrases...

The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostateregimes does not know Socratic debates...,Platonic ideals..., nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.

Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They are established as they [always] have been
by pen and gun
by word and bullet
by tongue and teeth[9]

This is the enemy. They do not care who is in power. Their goal is to overthrow "godless regimes" and replace them with "Islamic regimes."[10] I do not think the election of Obama will change the stated goal of our enemies, nor the nations known to associate with them. Iran, under Ahmadinejad, will always villify the west. Our enemies will continue to burn our leaders in effigy. I hope Obama will take our enemies at their word. They mean what they say. It is not political speak to them. They are convinced of it. They will continue attempting to destroy us until we destroy them.

Somali Pirates -- Update

2009-01-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Saudis gave in and paid the $3,000,000 ransom for the oil-toting Sirius Star. Piracy sometimes pays. Well, unless your boat doesn't capsize.

Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi
supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom
after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the
dead men said Saturday.

I guess the other pirates got away with their share of the ill-gotten loot.

Big Plans

2009-01-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

In this the age of free money, a town in south Alabama has come up with a brilliant idea: Ask for $375 million dollars. And asking for all of the proposed money to go to 'green' improvement projects. This falls right in line with President-elect Barak Obama's plans for a stimulus package. Edwardsville is lauded as an example. Every city in the US should be trying this hard to invest in renewable resources and provide jobs in these troubled financial times. The entire request is a mere .045% of the $775 billion that is planned for the next two years. So, here's to you Edwardsville, AL. Good luck!

Behold the Swarm

2009-01-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

So evidently the newest conceivable terrorist plot we should be concerned about is the use of "insect-based" biological weapons.

Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of entomology at Wyoming University and author of Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, said such Rift Valley Fever or other diseases could be transported into a country by a terrorist with a suitcase.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon."

Can't you just imagine the headlines... "Flu-Roach Infestation Threatens St. Louis", or "Killer Bees actually Al Qaeda Plot"

And evidently, it's not even hard:

He said it would "probably be much easier" than developing a nuclear or chemical weapon, arguing: "The raw material is in the back yard."
He continued: "It would be a relatively easy and simple process.
"A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it."

Of course, this requires some knowledge in a rather selective field. And also requires some pretty impressive results to actually inspire terror. (at least, to inspire more terror than the thought of being attacked by insects already accomplishes for most people)

Perhaps this is what has, for now, prevented this less obvious method thus far: terror that can be thwarted with a flyswatter or a can of raid is somehow... less terrifying.

But perhaps I will eat my words when the ravening fell-swarm of plague-bearing locusts descend upon us, devouring all crops and spreading deathly contagion. Perhaps, my words will be all that remain to be eaten.

(Note: this article may appear to be satirical in nature, but rest assured that we at MC do not underestimate any threat. Any tarantulas found bearing tiny silver biohazard capsules near a public water-storage facility should definitely be terminated with extreme prejudice.)

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An Obvious New Year

2009-01-05T19:22:00.000-08:00

Let's start the year off with something that should be obvious, but for some inexplicable reason is not.

The California Supreme Court will hear a case on the legality of granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens attending public colleges, potentially setting a national precedent for nine other states that allow the same discount.

Okay, in-state tuition for people who, technically, don't live here. Let me ask the obvious question: How are illegal immigrants getting into colleges that require identification? Well, that's apparently just the beginning.

The states of Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington also provide discounted college tuition to illegal aliens.

...Discounts to illegal immigrants at public institution.

Furthermore,

On Dec. 22, the California Supreme Court announced that it would review whether the state law first enacted in 2001 that “authorizes undocumented aliens and other non-residents who attend and graduate from a California high school to pay in-state tuition for post secondary education violates” federal law.

Bypassing whatever convoluted legal argument can be crafted concerning this practice, how is it that illegal immigrants are graduating from schools intended for U.S. citizens and approved guests?

It is good that, as a nation, we have these opportunities available for students (especially those who 'pledge to seek legal residence'). But, am I missing something? Isn't it illegal (as in 'against the law') to take up residence in the U.S. if you are not a natural or naturalized citizen? It may be naive of me to continue in this, but I still think that the keyword there is 'illegal'.

I know it's not a nuanced position to take.

Illegal immigration is against the law. Immigration is not against the law.
There is a clear difference between the two previous lines. Perhaps that is too obvious.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Unrest Unsleeping

2008-12-28T00:11:00.000-08:00

As the new year approaches, there is certainly no lack of stories to cover. (We have been taking a bit of a holiday break here at MC, thus the lack of coverage)

The Israel-Gaza situation seems to be the most urgent international crisis currently receiving MSM attention. Though, there is probably literally almost no way in the world of getting an objective account of what occurred, given the nature of the conflict.

The situation is akin to trying to heal a festering wound by wrapping it tightly in gauze and punching it occasionally, then ripping off the gauze expecting to see healthy skin. (amazingly enough, this ridiculous-at-best method of establishing peace has been tried repeatedly by foreign powers determined to "bring peace to the middle east".) And they actually give out nobel prizes for this! Though, I've long said that getting a Nobel Prize (except perhaps in scientific fields) is a sure sign that you have probably done things which will cause death and disaster.

Imagine you have a long-standing feud with another person. They have caused you and your family grievous harm, and you feel force is the only way to resolve the issue. Then some foreign leaders who have never been to your country (outside of maybe a tourist trip and/or short stay at the nearest Four Seasons), don't speak your language, etc, meet with some divisive figures from your part of the world, argue about semantics while eating food you will never be able to afford, all finally shake hands, and announce that they have solved your feud.

But, of course, nothing has changed for you. You just wait until another good opportunity, and strike out again. When this is done in a violent manner (as it tends to end up being), it leads to more violence, and more violence, until a pattern of conflict is established. When this pattern has occurred for decades in its present form, and centuries in other forms, it cannot change until the "hearts and minds" of the people involved change.

This sounds trite, but there is no other reality.

Actually, any attempt at a solution to the problem of violence in the Middle East that is based in a world view where people are seen as inherently good, is doomed to failure.

Which brings us back to this season. The only real hope for peace, is that which the angels proclaimed in Bethleham, so many years ago. "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men on whom His favor rests..."

When Peace does not reign in the hearts of men, how can it reign in their land?

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SXeasXon's XGreXetiXngs-Merry Christmas!!!

2008-12-23T22:38:00.000-08:00

First off, I'd like to celebrate the day by thanking my mysterious co-contributors, WMR and CSM:

Both of you bring specific talents to this blog, and I've enjoyed keeping this going with you.
Here's to another year of fun writing. Thanks guys.

And to those few of you who read this:

Thank you, have a wonderful Christmas, and may your numbers multiply greatly in the coming year!

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Mirrored Losses

2008-12-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why I thought about this today. But, it seems that the parties simply switched candidates for this past election. In 2004, the Democrats ran an aging, boring fellow with no clearly stated vision for the nation teamed with a spunky, though vapid, vice presidential nominee. The Republicans ran George W. Bush who was more charismatic and had a plan (vague though it might have been at the time) teamed up with an older vice presidential nominee. In 2008, the Democrats ran a charismatic Obama with a very vague plan of "change" teamed up with an older vice presidential nominee, and the Republicans ran an aging boring fellow who never really laid out a plan and teamed him with a spunky, though attractive, vice presidential nominee.

I'm just tossing this one out there for discussion.

Pirates! 2

2008-12-18T18:33:00.001-08:00

In the latest development in the Somali pirates situation, China is sending a small naval detachment to help deal with the problem.

"We are making preparations and
arrangements to deploy naval ships to the Gulf of Aden for escorting
operations," [Foreign Ministry Spokesman] Liu said, without elaborating on details of the mission.

This is a new development for China, who historically has not had a navy prone to global actions. For a long period of Chinese history, there was basically no Chinese navy whatsoever, though at other times China held quite a firm grip on the seas around their borders. Ironically, those seas used to be scourged by Chinese pirates as well, but that's another story.

Meanwhile, as all eyes turn to see what the US Government's reaction will be, the official response was something along the lines of "Hm? Oh, whatever, that's fine.".

A U.S. State Department official said the U.S. has no problem with China "deploying its assets."

"China, like a number of other countries, has decided that we as an international community must act," the official said.

China has a vested interest in seeing that their cargo stays secure while passing through the area, doubtless. And it is a welcome relief to me to see that we don't feel an obligation to right the wrongs of the Gulf of Aden. More interesting is the fact that the local Muslim countries have up until this point done little to diminish it, let alone put a stop to it.

China's intervention may actually make a difference, as they have been heavily investing in Africa for a while now. Though, it has been made clear that Somalia is not really functioning as a nation right now. The "Somali Coast Guard" is actually a piratical organization as well.

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A little Christmas Cheer from Mother Russia

2008-12-17T14:06:00.001-08:00

What better way to spread the love of Christmas than with the gift that gives on giving?
No, I don't mean fruitcake, but something even better:

10 MiG-29 Fulcrum Fighter Jets that Russia is providing to Lebanon free of cost.

Russia gave Lebanon an early Christmas gift of 10 MiG fighter jets today in a deal to boost defence co-operation.
The MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters would be provided for free to Lebanon under an agreement on military-technical assistance, the head of Russia’s defence co-operation service said. Mikhail Dmitryev said that the jets would be taken from Russia’s existing stock.

This is like upgrading from a .22 pistol to a shotgun for the less-than-formidable Lebanese Air Force:

The MiG-29s, one of Russia’s best fighter jets, will provide considerable additional firepower for the Lebanese air force, which currently has only five outdated Hawker Hunter jets and 16 helicopters.

Of course, it's a bit of a white elephant as well. One wonders where they will find qualified pilots for these advanced fighter jets. And the gift becomes token at best, really, when you remember that their southern neighbor Israel has arguably the world's best pilots plus top level fighter jets that they outfit with their own packages.

In the event of an air war, those MiG-29's would simply become the first targets.

No, Russia has not really changed the balance of anything in the region militarily speaking, what they are doing is stirring up trouble. First with the highly publicized trips to Venezuela and now Cuba, it seems they are looking to rekindle the frosty fires of the cold war. Of course, that won't happen, since Russia is actually doomed, demographically speaking.

Their birthrate is so low that unless a rapid change occurs somewhere, in a few generations they simply won't have the population to sustain a military large enough to matter. Their own healthy ministry is predicting that by 2011, the death rate there will equal the birth rate. (possibly due to the fact that their are more abortions than births in Russia) Coupled with the fact that their population has been declining by half a percent annually since the mid-90's, those figures spell bad news for Russia. Now, their population is projected to fall as much as a third by 2050, down to 85 million or so.

In summary, now might be a great time to visit Russia.
Who knows, maybe they'll give you a fighter jet.

Dos Vedanya, Tovaricham...

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New York Insanity

2008-12-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

Gov. Paterson of New York has decided that raising taxes is the best way to fill the gaps in the state budget. The theoretical yield of this expansion of taxes is $4,000,000,000. But, how will the state of New York get this money?

Placing a sales tax on taxi and bus service? Removing the state 8-cent-per-gallon tax limit? The concept of taxing such things is not new at all. It seems to be common in an era where the goal of 'progressive' government is to get people to drive less. Adding a tax on 'digitally delivered entertainment' (meaning downloaded music/movies/etc...)? The concept of adding a tax to an already controversially easily acquired item seems rather foolish to me. Increasing taxes on soft drinks simply because they are not healthy?

Hmm...less driving, increased taxes on stuff in general, a tax for being unhealthy? It seems New York is well on the way to liberal tax-topia.

Badly Aiming Journalists

2008-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

It seems that, with paper closures and bankruptcies exploding on the scene, journalists have been missing more than hitting these days. That was graphically illustrated in Iraq with a random shoe-throwing incident that clearly demonstrates their aim may be permanently off.

An Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes and an insult at George W. Bush, without hitting him, as the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi premier at his Baghdad office on Sunday.
As the two leaders met in Nuri al-Maliki's private office, a journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," and threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush.
Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who ducked and was not hit.

Clearly, this journalist needs work on both his pitch and his delivery, as the President nimbly avoided his bombardment and shrugged off the incident. And notice that the Premier moved to protect the President, and didn't dive off the stage to save himself. (in Iraq, shoes may be a huge insult, but they're probably the least destructive thing you're likely to have thrown at you.) This may actually be proof of how safe Iraq has gotten: the most dangerous thing being thrown now are size 10 loafers.

An alternate account, involving more dialogue on the part of the shoe-chucker, (not to say shoe-bomber...) can be found here. In this version, his dialogue is even worse:

"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog," the journalist shouted (in Arabic), Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times reported in a pool report to the White House press corps.

Myers reported that the man threw the second shoe and added: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

On a more serious note, the situation is sadly ironic. Here is power being peacefully transitioned over. (to what will sadly not be a particularly efficient or corruption-free ruling party, but at least they're not abducting, raping, torturing, and gassing their citizens now) Iraqis now have some say in their own government. Untold numbers of terrorists have been wiped out. Whether or not you agree with our reasons for going in, this event should be at least a moderately happy one for everyone but Al-Sadr and Al-Qaeda, setting the stage for some troop withdrawals in the near future.

Had this man thrown shoes at a visiting leader while Saddam was in power, he probably would have been thrown in a pit somewhere and starved to death. The very freedom of this man to doff his footwear and toss it at the leader of the most powerful nation on earth (and subsequently -not- be beaten to a pulp by his security force, to whom Bush signalled to stand down as the man was subdued) demonstrates that, contrary to his apparent views, victory in Iraq really is a reality. It seems the wait is over; the other shoe really has dropped.

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WWII and the Future of Cyber Warfare

2008-12-13T00:51:00.001-08:00

For decades, Sci-Fi writers have frantically written the future, attempting to nail it down before it arrived. Pending the mass production of flying cars or psychic internet surfing, however, we who live in the increasingly less mundane present can sometimes catch a glimpse of it.

There was, for example, the cyber-barrage unleashed by Russian hackers that effectively disrupted Estonia's government for a number of days.
(For those interested in such things, Wired magazine has several articles describing how it went down in their archives, and some of it is fascinating.)

Far more troublesome for us here, though, have been the Chinese hackers.
They have caused massive (and under-reported) trouble to defense websites, emails systems, and gotten away with some restricted information. And that's just what has been made public.

Now, it seems the French are learning about this difficult-to-counter expression of Chinese disapproval, after Sarkozy dared to meet with the Dalai Llama. Shortly after, the French embassy in Beijing's website went down.

China, of course, denies it was any official move by their government, which may actually be more or less true. In the infinite web of personal connections within Chinese culture, nearly nothing need be official in a literal sense. However, that doesn't mean they weren't directly responsible either, and I suspect there is some incentivizing going on for Chinese hackers.

Lately I have been slowly digesting a tome recounting WWII, the Pacific Front, and it's been incredibly interesting. One thing that stands out again and again is how American code-breakers supplied the crucial intelligence we needed to form effective strategies and keep ahead of the opponent.

In today's information-based warfare, this edge is no longer a bonus, but absolutely crucial. China's invasive hacker force is a standing liability, as we've seen from their attacks on defense networks.

In the event of a diplomatic or even military stand-off (over Taiwan, exports, China trying to sink our economy by massive debt off-loading, etc)
this resource could be used with great effectiveness.

What are we doing to counter this threat? Making little feints and false-starts in various directions, as usual. If history is any guide, it will take a massive cyber-coup drastically reducing our effectiveness before the military gets serious about starting a force to combat this threat. So far the Air Force has been on the forefront of these efforts, but has not been going about it in either a consistent or particularly logical manner.

The future remains to be seen, but with the world becoming daily a more interesting place, I hope we don't have to suffer a digital Pearl Harbor before we get our act together and take real steps to counter this threat. Right now, it's open season.

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Feminism Schmiminism.

2008-12-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

A real feminist.
Many people would read that and immediately think unshaven armpits, bra burning, and blasting "I'm an independent woman" music from Beyonce, Joan Jett, Sapphic poems, and...Hilary Clinton?

Hilary Clinton the feminist.
Hilary Rodham-Clinton, in fact.
A real feminist always hyphenates her husband's name and her own--a gesture that shows remarkable "I don't bow to the man" independence.
Hilary is heralded for having so much independence and feminist qualities.
So much independence that even after he had several affairs on her...
So much that even after he completely embarrassed her and ruined any trust that not only she, but the country had in him...
So much. That even though she had the "credentials" and "experience" to "make it" on her own as a politician...
She stays with him?

How so "feminist" of her to "Stand by her man."
Or, well...not.

Being a feminist means more than hyphenating your name.
Much like true conservatism (the past few years), feminism has lost its true meaning.
Feminism is about promoting women as equals to men--not shoving "rights to choose what to do with my own body" and "I can buy my own diamonds and keep my last name" down every man's throat.
"I believe in the rights of women — that we can do anything. My philosophy is based on 200 years of feminism that supports the rights of all human beings...Feminism properly defined is about the rights of all human beings, and that genuine equality doesn't come at the expense of anybody else. It was originally about the expansion of rights of people and that included the rights of the unborn, to-be-born. The early feminists talked about abortion in the most scathing terms as a reflection of women's weakness."
(I couldn't say it better than that, so I just quoted it.)

"Also, abortion violates the tenets of feminism, which are non-violence, nondiscrimination and justice for all. The National Organization for Women replaced a patriarchy which the early feminists would have chosen to reject, with a matriarchy that said women were more important than men. It wasn't even that men and women were equal for the feminists of the early 70's. Women were more important because if you have life-and-death decision-making over your child and you don't have to include the father in that decision-making, then you have total control. This is illusion. In reality we know that women have abortions out of desperation, not because women are in control."

Why then do women feel that killing the world's daughters makes them independent and "in control?"
India and China make up over 40% of the world's population--and every day many babies are killed JUST because they are female babies. Girls are discarded, left to die because families prefer male babies.
A real feminist would find this as a cause to support. Instead of promoting the philosophy that these babies should be adopted and accepted into society, they prefer to allow the women to choose to terminate these lives?
While women are forced (by men) to give up their children in these countries, women express their independence in the U.S. by killing their child(ren) just because it's their "right?"
How many women are in Congress? Senate? So...it's MEN that are giving women these rights?

Here's a few excerpts I found at http://www.feministsforlife.org/ :
(All quotes on this blog were taken / borrowed from this website)

How did feminism go from being pro-child to pro-abortion?

The number one goal of feminism in the '70s was to have equal rights with men in the workplace. Initially, Larry Lader and Bernard Nathanson had been going around the country saying that they wanted to repeal outdated anti-abortion laws. I don't even know if they knew that the anti-abortion laws that were enacted in 48 states were the result of work by feminists. The male-dominated medical profession and the media got together in the 1800s to make these consumer protection laws for women, as well as for children, because women were being coerced into abortions. [Also], because they believed in the rights all human beings, including the unborn, to-be-born. Women were very loud, especially in the 1800s about how abortion was wrong and at this was an evil crime. These two thought that anti-abortion laws should be revoked — Nathanson because he had seen botched abortions and Lader because [of a fear of overpopulation].

"I remember my mom told me that there were these two kooks running around saying that women should be able to kill their unborn babies. Because they weren't getting anywhere and were seen as pariahs by the governors, they went back to the drawing board. They went to these woman and told them, "If you want rights like a man, you have to pass like a man in the workplace." They basically sacrificed their children to gain entrance to the executive washroom. When Betty Friedan started hearing that 100,000 women had died from illegal abortion she said, "Oh, then we'd better do it to have it safe." That number was simply made up by Larry Lader and Nathanson after they met with resistance from Betty Friedan initially. I mean, we notice when 36 kids die of a car seat that was not installed properly. We would have noticed 100,000 dead people. But nobody questions this stuff."

So back to my original point.
Is Hilary Clinton really a feminist?
I'll let you be the judge.

Just because Sarah Palin doesn't hyphenate her last name--and she stands up for the rights of unborn daughters around the world does not mean she is betraying the feminist cause.
If anything, she is promoting female equality.
These feminists are killing their own cause by "raking her through the coals." With every insult, with every low, untrue blow, these extreme abortion-supporting feminists are ruining their cause, and instead proving the "hormonal woman" Mean Girls stereotype.

GM trying to load the dice?

2008-12-08T11:33:00.001-08:00

Evidently it takes the looming prospect of bankruptcy and dire straits to get an apology from an American car company, as we can see in this open letter from GM:

“We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression,” said GM in the missive. “Just like you, we have been
severely impacted by events outside our control. Despite moving quickly
to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds itself
precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash.”

Also:

“At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below
industry standards and our designs become lackluster,” wrote GM. “We
have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we
lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market.”

MAGICAL MC TRANSLATION TOOL: "Yeah, we need your money, we're sorry we screwed up and lost your money, please be nice and give us more of your money."

I am not sure that requires an apology, except in a government-controlled market. In a free market, if your product is clearly inferior, you lose. Minimal damage is done, except to the employees, perhaps, who have to find new jobs. No apology to consumers necessary, they have already moved on to other products, which is why you are in trouble in the first place.

But with enough government interference, it's not a question of just changing to other products.
For example, our airline industry. If foreign carriers were allowed to compete for the US domestic air travel market, most US carriers would cease to exist. But stifling competition forces consumers to make do with their limited options.

Now that GM has apologized, I am waiting for others to follow. A liberal congress should respond well to this kind of thing, but public opinion is against the auto bail-out, so we'll see...

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Coming soon to a location near you: Military Police

2008-12-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

When both the ACLU and Cato Institute agree that something is a bad idea, that thing is certainly worthy of further review... unless, of course, you are a government in the process of consolidating power over its citizenry. What is it this time, you might ask?

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

Yay, we're safer! Oh, wait. No, we're not. We're just setting a dangerous precedent and opening a sort of Pandora's box, the contents of which remain to be seen.

When I was in the Philippines earlier this year, there was a heavy military presence. Going into pretty much any significant building involved getting my backpack searched and/or a metal detector pass-thru. I wouldn't have been surprised at all by finding a curfew had been established. I realize, of course, that they were having serious problems in the south part of the islands with some terrorist incidents, and had had a couple in Manilla as well, (where I was at the time) but I couldn't help feeling a little creeped out. Though a nominally free country, it felt much more like a junta under the early stages of martial law.

Now it would seem that our wonderful, useless, incompetent, apparently eternal congress wishes to strike out boldly in the same direction. Perhaps they'll change that awkward "Department of Homeland Security" moniker to a serene and simple "Ministry of Peace". Or even further, to a vaguely techy and soundbyteable "Minipax".

How will this play out? Well, once you grasp the idea that a crisis the gravity of which a newly-armed homeland security can declare through state-allied media companies is a valid excuse for infusing society with armed troops (while simultaneously pushing for more gun control), you will have a good idea of what's to come.

May it never be, but it's sure looking that way.

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Support Your Cause (Unless We Don't Like It)

2008-11-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

It seems that financially supporting a cause is now a bad thing. In related news: Logic was recently hospitalized.

I propose that an ad like this would not be made if it were about any other religious/social group. Imagine the outcry if it were "Stop Muslims from taking over our government" or "Stop homosexuals from taking over our government." Both groups financially support political and social causes. A group certainly paid money promote the view presented in the advertisement above. How much money did groups opposing Proposition 8 spend in advertising, and were they attempting to take over the government? How can anyone take seriously a group spending money to complain that another group is spending money to counter the money they've been spending? I wonder if they even see that their own logic plays out against them, or that their argument is bigoted.

Then again, I really hope this ad was a joke.

Klaus Ascendant

2008-11-25T13:07:00.001-08:00

Proof that irony sometimes comes down on the good side, Vaclav Klaus is posed to become President of the EU.

Mainline Europeans' reaction is best described with a quote from the article:

"Oh God, Vaclav Klaus will come next," read a recent headline in the
Austrian daily Die Presse, in an article anticipating the havoc he
could wreak in a union of 470 million people already divided over its
future direction.

Klaus as the EU head is just a fun thought in general. This is something along the lines of Ron Paul somehow becoming head of the Democratic National Convention. He has, among other things, called for the EU to be scrapped, and said that the global warming crisis is not only contrived, but ridiculous. He is seemingly not well-liked in Europe, for numerous reasons, many of which are mentioned in the article. (though, I am skeptical of mass media descriptions of a man's personality, since they would also have us believe Bush is an idiot. )

His writings are a breath of fresh air, however. I highly recommend reading a few of his articles, I didn't realize such people still existed in Europe. (though I hear rumors that there are a number in Poland as well)

It will be interesting to see how this progresses... Speaking of ironies, who knew we could anticipate having a president of the European Union that is apparently a good deal more conservative than our own will be?

-()4|<.

Doomed to Repeat It

2008-11-22T23:50:00.001-08:00

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently polled 2,500 people with questions from American history, government, and economics. These tests come up from time to time, of course, and the results are usually appropriately dismal.

In this case, random citizens scored an average of 49%. That's terrible, of course, but then we don't really honor history in a cultural sense anymore, and it's mangled, chopped up, and delivered in pre-packaged and propagandized pieces in public schools. (unless you had "that" awesome teacher, in which case you had something really valuable)

However, the more disturbing outcome of this was among elected officials, who on average scored lower, at 44%! Now, granted, the article lists these as "self-identified elected officials". That includes every level of responsibility, down to the nearly inconsequential. But to me the fact that people who seek out positions of authority are also those who (apparently) have even less knowledge of history than the average is both interesting and troubling.

I'd be curious to know if this holds true in federal office-holders as well as state, but given the remarkable tendency of senators to stay in office indefinitely, perhaps the test wouldn't have been challenging to them. For example, if we use 1776 as a general starting point for America as a nation, (I know, other years may be equally or more applicable, but work with me)
then America is 232 years old this year.

Senator Robert Byrd just turned 91. He has been alive for approx. 2/5 of America's national existence, and been a Senator for over 1/5 of it.

No doubt he would have gotten right (being in his 20's at the time) the question about WWII:

Among the questions asked of some 2,500 people who were randomly
selected to take the test... was one which asked respondents to "name two countries that were our enemies during World War II."

About 2/3 of the respondents knew the answer, 1/3 got it wrong. (and named an interesting list of countries they thought we had gone to war with. Britain, for example)

But, then, some mistakes can be humorous:

Asked about the electoral college, 20 percent of elected officials incorrectly said it was established to "supervise the first televised presidential debates."

(emphasis mine)

Kind of makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time...

-()4|<.

Obama's Cabinet

2008-11-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

After the NY Times "semi-kinda-almost-got confirmation" from Hilary* on her selection as Secretary of State, and the announcing of Bill Richardson, all I have heard on the News is "What kind of 'CHANGE' did Obama mean?! How is he delivering this 'Chaaaaange' by dragging in the ideological struggle figures from the 90s?!" "How is this CHANGE if he is just dragging out the same people? With the same arguments!?" "...William Ayers!!!" (Okay, maybe not that last one. But you get the idea)

Now, as someone who completely disagrees with Obama on every platform (Trust me, I took the online quiz--ha, 98% DISAGREE, thank you! ;) ), I want to just voice this:
The man isn't in office yet. Why don't we save our criticism for when he has completely assembled his cabinet, and has attempted to follow-up on his expectations and promises. Let's see what his plans are. While I can agree with what is being said (about the recycling of the same people), I'm not going to do to Obama what so many did to Bush the past 8 years.

This man is going to be our President. As an American, I am willing to give him a chance.

(And no, that wasn't a sarcastic post, or a pessimistic "well, at least until they run the country into the ground! hahaha!" I do not expect failure, nor do I wish it. I hope that he does live up to his promises, and I hope he does make all the ills in this country better.)

* Please note that I am trying so much harder and I did refrain from referring to our supposed new Sec. of State as "Hitlery" or "Hellary" or "Hilary Rod-HamLegs" in this post. Until now...

Just a thought. I think Hilary accepted this position in hopes that Bill likes Secretaries as much as he likes Interns...

Okay, that was bad. I had to get that out of my system. I'm done.

-W

Ownership

2008-11-20T23:27:00.000-08:00

One of the pillars of conservatism is ownership. What you produce is yours. It belongs to you. Sure, you pay your taxes with the general goal to have services provided by the government (defense, roads, schools), but what you produce is yours. Your employer (even if it is yourself) has provided you with some payment for the goods or services you provided.

But, somewhere along the way, our congressional representatives have forgotten that they are supposed to work for the people. The money the government receives in taxes is not theirs. Even members of the presumably conservative Republican party are now failing to recognize that the money the populace earns belongs to the populace.

There is a serious problem when more and more of our leaders think that all of the money earned belongs to the government.

"It's not your money." Those words should set us on alert.

New New Deal just End of Old New Deal

2008-11-20T11:08:00.001-08:00

Very good article on the looming auto-industry bailout, and the bailout situation in general. I recommend you go read it.

Mr. Obama's one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping
on "deregulation" as if that were the source of current troubles. His
real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

Of course, there was more than one "deeply false note" during Obama's campaign, but this was certainly one of them.

One of the most hypocritical lines coming out of DC during the beginning of the meltdown was that the free market had obviously failed, and government oversight was needed. (whereas in reality, government intervention had caused the problem, and they were now incompetently trying to solve it.)

Now it looks like more piles of taxpayer money will be thrown onto the bailout bonfire, this time to an auto-industry that has practically begged for bankruptcy and failure between its short-sighted strategies ("let's ignore the market and fuel prices, make the cars we want, and tell you to buy them") and stranglehold by the unions.

But:
I have great news... I just saved a load of money on my car insurance by switching-ok, ok. Sorry, couldn't help myself...

-()4|<.

Pirates!

2008-11-17T10:58:00.001-08:00

Somali pirates have emerged as a threat... to shipping insurance rates, at least.

Whereas the attacks on merchant shipping vessels had been sporadic, they have greatly increased in recent months. This latest attack seized a 1000ft oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil. Ironically, the pirates have no refining capacity (and they would have a difficult time selling the oil), but they are holding the 25-member crew for ransom.

Apparently their plan of ransoming captured crew members has paid well:

The strategy is effective: A report last month by a London-based thinktank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this yearalone.
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized andbetter-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been intatters for nearly two decades.

This is surely only a testiment to my youth and idealism, but somehow the knowledge that there are pirates to be fought in some part of the world is very encouraging.

The British Royal Navy has been involved in anti-pirate operations as well:

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying tohijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire ontwo Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machinegunsand SA80 rifles.

Their success has been due partly to that quality which has always allowed pirates to succeed: elusiveness.

Having to patrol an area as large as that which the pirates are currently operating in is too expensive, which allows the pirates opportunities to strike in areas where the merchant ships must rely on their own security forces. (knowing that they will be ransomed instead of killed no doubt discourages them from fighting to the last man)

Man, that article was fun to write!

-()4|<.

Oversight? With tax dollars? psh...

2008-11-13T09:13:00.001-08:00

Not only is money being passed out from the Fed while they refuse to reveal its destination, but the bailout itself in progress is proceeding with no oversight or accountability.

$290 billion of the package has already been committed, but:

"Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fillthe independent oversight posts established by Congress when itapproved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Norhas the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed,though the initial deadline has passed.
"It's a mess," said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department'sinspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout programuntil the newly created position of special inspector general isfilled. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going todo proper oversight of this thing."

Hm, now that is highly encouraging. But, then, this is what happens when you give the government billions of tax payer dollars to solve problems that they themselves caused. Somehow, the money isn't allocated just like they said it would be. Pretty soon, it's gone, and they need -another- stimulus package. So many industries to bail out, so many Americans to pay for it, so many politicians to make sure they get a slice as it passes by. It's like filling a kiddie pool one bucket at a time, with people dipping it out with cups to drink as you go.

There is a famous Latin expression:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
("Who will watch the watchers?")

That, as the American people, is our job. The government cannot be trusted to watch itself, especially with our money. In this case, they don't even have watchers, let alone anyone to hold the watchers accountable. Anyone still wondering why congress' approval ratings are lower than Bush's?

-()4|<.

For goodness' sake...

2008-11-12T11:31:00.001-08:00

A new ad campaign is being initiated in the DC area. It's worthy of our attention:

Ads proclaiming, "Why believein a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington,D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. TheAmerican Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holidayad campaign Tuesday.

I should start out by saying I do not think these ads should be banned, or met with the outraged protests as these things sadly often are (exactly the response they are created to invoke). Free speech works both ways. Though it tends to be hypocritically invoked for one world view and not another, that is no reason to return flawed reasoning for flawed reasoning.

Also, the ad is so patently illogical that even people not accustomed to thinking critically must be given at least a pause.

"Be good for goodness' sake?" The line is, of course, from the song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", but is here ironically twisted from the normal usage of the phrase. Normally the phrase "for goodness' sake" is used as an exclamation, or as an entreaty to correct behavior, as in "for the sake of all that is good...". It is also sometimes used as a substitute for "for God's sake", by those who do not wish to take His name in vain.

But the implication here is that one should be good for goodness' sake alone, or "be good, to benefit goodness". The statement is laughably irrational. One might as well say "eat food for food's sake", or "buy gas for gas' sake". We are not good for goodness' sake any more than we pay taxes for taxes' sake.

Goodness is behavior that conforms to a right Way, doing what we "ought" to do. In a Christian world view we acknowledge that way to be one that God has set forth for us to follow.

I am quite interested in hearing the American Humanist organization (the sponsor of these ads) explain on what basis they define the concept of good, and from what authority it is derived.

Of course, they can not do that, at least not with a definition that could hold water for five seconds.

But, the ad may actually accomplish alot of good. By phrasing the question "why believe in a god?" in this way, one is immediately by reflex drawn to defend the assertion. By extension the question quickly becomes "why do -you- believe in god?", and that opens up all kinds of productive lines of thought, especially for people who are avoiding the question, or who haven't thought about it. And for Christians, it reminds us to "always be ready to give a reason for the hope we have".

So, I actually see great potential in these ads. And the humanists are even paying for them for us. Thanks for helping out, guys!

-()4K.

Need-to-know?

2008-11-10T08:21:00.001-08:00

The Federal Reserve has has granted almost $2 trillion dollars in emergency loans, and refuses to identify the recipients.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary HenryPaulson said in September they would comply with congressionaldemands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the bankingsystem. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that inseparate rescue programs that didn't require approval byCongress, Americans have no idea where their money is going orwhat securities the banks are pledging in return.

The article goes on to say that the Fed is resisting disclosure because transparency might lead to lack of confidence...

"You have to balance the need for transparency withprotecting the public interest,'' Talbott said. "Taxpayers havea right to know where their tax dollars are going, but one pieceof information standing alone could undermine public confidencein the system.''

MAGICAL M.C. TRANSLATION TOOL:

"We're taking your money, and you're too stupid to appreciate how we're using it, so just sit tight and let us do our thing."

I am furious, and you should be too.
If your bank decided to take money out of your account, and not tell you why, what would you do? Change banks, at the bare minimum. Probably file a lawsuit, raise a ruckus, etc.

Now the Federal Reserve is doing essentially that, on a scale of billions. People have already given them the right to take money out of their accounts, as it were. Aren't you interested in knowing where your money that they're taking is headed?

World Changer - No more power shortages.. ever

2008-11-08T23:02:00.000-08:00

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

If this isn't an April Fool's joke (and April is a long ways off), we are talking about absolutely world-changing potential here. Nuclear fission is the safest, and vastly most efficient power technology we currently possess. This puts it in the hands of everyone, in a non-threatening format.

It doesn't produce radioactive waste, making environmentalists (honest ones, anyway) happy, and it's extremely low cost and plentiful energy for everyone. No more rolling black-outs in California, no more summer strains on the grid. Actually, the grid power can be freed up to be shifted around to wherever it's needed, with enough of these puppies planted in strategic spots.

In the longer term, it reduces a large part of our dependence on foreign oil and other forms of energy, and is a potential solution to our current economic woes. (imagine the economic boom that would roar forth if energy suddenly became practically free) It also provides a source of electricity for charging fuel cells for electric/hybrid vehicles.

All this, of course, means that it won't happen. At this point I have become totally convinced that the powers-that-be do not have the happiness, success or freedom of Americans at heart, rather the contrary. A populace worried by a looming energy crisis is a populace that is easier to control.

Something will happen to make this legally impossible, mark my words.
I can even see us banning it in this country, but selling it to another country, basically guaranteeing them economic prosperity and a firm foundation of global prominence.

But, it's nice to think that American ingenuity did indeed solve most of the major problems the country is facing in one fell swoop, a fact that won't be changed whether or not it ever gets implemented.

-()4|<

China: Heads, we pollute; Tails, you live on less.

2008-11-07T13:55:00.001-08:00

China proves yet again they are the masters of hypocrisy.

"Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and a top UNofficial urged industrialised nations Friday to alter their lifestylesand not let the global financial crisis hamper climate change efforts."

This from a country that is trying its best to become rich while shunning any forms of restraint in the way of pollution, and strongly resenting any outside suggestions that they should be held accountable.

Now, I think we've been rather schitzophrenic in our approach to being environmentally conscious in this country. One on hand, we rant about how we're destroying the world through carbon emissions. On the other hand, we pass enough regulations to make it nearly impossible to build a nuclear power plant, which is the cleanest and most efficient form of power currently known. It's as if our ancestors had spurned the printing press and kept us in the Dark ages because books are flammable.

But, even if we threw restraint to the wind, and allowed companies to dump their waste in the nearest national park on a whim, we would have a hard time catching up to China, who is apparently building one coal power plant per week, and turning the Yellow River red.

Note the irony:

"China has long resisted calls to joinrich nations in setting targets for emissions cuts, saying itsrelatively low per capita emissions and recent emergence as a majorsource of greenhouse gases should exempt it from action.

Scientists said in September that China had leapfrogged the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the principal gases that cause global warming."

They only manage the low per capita rate by having more than a billion people. All of whom are trying their best to attain the "unsustainable" lifestyle of their western counterparts.

This is also just one example of why our current policy of sucking up to China totally baffles me.

The rumors of a poll surge have been greatly exaggerated?

2008-11-06T23:09:00.001-08:00

So, according to a story on CNN, the voter turnout this year did not increase significantly over 2004. That seems to run contrary to massive voter registration reports, and predictions of unheard-of (80%, perhaps) percent turnout. Why might this be?

The story itself suggests that a lack of Republican turnout (not excited, doubtless, by McCain's gutsy middle-of-the-roadness or mavericky unconditional support of the bail-out plan) is one cause.

This sounds reasonable, actually. McCain was not a candidate to be excited over. Nearly all of his support was generated by simply running against Obama. This is comparable to Kerry's campaign against Bush. If Kerry, a Democrat, could lose against Bush, who was by no means popular even then, by running a campaign that consisted mainly of "I am not Bush", then how on earth did McCain, a Republican, lose, who ran a campaign that consisted mainly of... "I am not Bush". Oh, wait.

-()4|<

The once and future Czar

2008-11-06T08:07:00.001-08:00

Perhaps this is the beginning of the time of testing that Biden so notably proclaimed. The only way to deal with Putin is to trust him like you'd trust a venomous cobra, and Obama appears, at least from previous statements, to be all about showing some cobra-love.

But we shall see...

In other news, we mourn the passing of Crichton. Whether or not you enjoy his works, you must acknowledge the genius of the man, and his accomplishments. Had he only written State of Fear, he would have been worthy of celebration...

Change Indeed

2008-11-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Having just finished watching the election coverage, I have a variety of thoughts, which I will allow to cool and coalesce before I actually write them down. At the moment, suffice to say that we are in for an interesting few years. Hopefully as uninteresting as possible, but clearly Obama has been given what is generally termed a mandate; we will see what he does with it.

However, that was not the change to which I was referring. There will be plenty to be said about that later. At the moment I would like to announce I am actually finally getting serious about this blog, and thus the level of posting in here should increase dramatically in the days ahead. (the posting of articles, that is. I can't say anything about whether we will actually obtain commenting readers, that is up to whomever wanders in and decides to check back occasionally!)

Here's to the days ahead. It will surely be an interesting ride.

-()4|<

Change?

2008-10-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

As we near that day of significance, when millions of Americans will go cast their ballot for bad or worse, it would befit us to ponder the future. On the one hand, we have a candidate who claims that he will 'change the world'. On the other, we have a candidate who is accused of being merely a continuation of the previous administration.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves: With all this talk of change, what exactly about our government suggests that they are to any extent capable of -improvement-? Indeed, change seems to happen regardless of promises; illegal migrants change into potential citizens, budget surpluses change into bloated and failing stimulus packages stolen from our own bank accounts, freedom changes into faux security and increased surveillance, and the list goes on. Clearly, our government is quite good at change already. Do we really want more change from them?

Perhaps it's time for us to be the effectors of change in this equation. Let's change the congressmen who voted for the illegal bailout with a side of pork. Let's change the national debate from ignorant, fear-based blathering to asking why no new oil refineries or nuclear power plants have been built in the last 30 years. Let's change from being sheep into being human beings, with brains and sense and character.

It may be too late to change the course of our nation, as it sags to earth like a latter-day Hindenburg, laden with incomprehensibly burdensome debt and regulation. But if anything can, it is individual Americans uniting together to solve the problems of this country. And let us not forget to list our government, ever eager to offer self-serving solutions to self-generated problems, in a prominent place among them.

-()4|<

Indignantly Unfree

2008-09-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been hanging out on Vox Day's blog. (voxdaydotblogspotdotcom)
Some very interesting discussions have taken place there, I don't agree with Vox on everything but he can normally back up his opinions with hard reasoning, and being a Libertarian his issues with our current government and cultural situation are ones that I tend to have as well.

I want to share part of a comment I read there. It is one often heard, in various forms, and uttered by well-meaning people. It is also extremely dangerous, having the appearance of compassion but being in reality one of the quicker routes to tyranny that we are currently hurtling down.

"As I said, this depends on how you define liberty... ...Does it mean having no accountability? No obligation to anyone? Does freedom mean being able to conduct free enterprise without regard for how it impacts the world and other people. Does it mean being free to step over other people dying in the gutter?"

I picked this one statement because it encapsulates the entire argument.

The answer to this question is a resounding YES.
In fact, it is imperative that the answer is yes. The fact that it is asked indignantly, as if it is a rhetorical question that could have but one answer, shows that the asker does not understand the concept of freedom.

Please consider:
Without the freedom to step over the dying man in the gutter, aiding the dying man in the gutter has no moral value. If you did not do it as a free, personal decision, you did it under compulsion. In so far as I am not free to refuse an action, that action ceases to be a morally commendable one when I do it.

Freedom gives us the ability to make moral choices. Morality can only exist in proportion to freedom. If I have infinite choice, I can be (potentially) infinitely good. If I have zero choice, I am neither good, nor bad, I merely follow directives.

This is how animals live. Apparently many people are more comfortable with the idea of us living a harmonious life in the zoo, with the government as our kind caretaker, always ensuring we play well with others, have enough food, and live happy lives.

Well forgive me, but I could never stomach the Soma.

-()4|<

I can't believe I'm even writing about this. (My letter to Lindsay Lohan in response to her and her Girlfriend's blog)

2008-09-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

So. It should come as no shock to you that most of the celebretards out there are Obama supporters. They usually come across as ignorant, biased, and...did I mention ignorant? I came across a blog online--and I can't believe this even made news...but let's dissect it for a second, shall we?

"I find it quite interesting that a woman who now is running to be second in command of the United States, only 4 years ago had aspirations to be a television anchor. Which is probably all she is qualified to be… Also interesting that she got her passport in 2006.. And that she is not fond of environmental protection considering she's FOR drilling for oil in some of our protected land…. Well hey, if she wants to drill for oil, she should DO IT IN HER OWN backyard. This really shows me her complete lack of real preparation to become the second most powerful person in this country."

Where to begin?
1. Aspirations to be a TV anchor. As an Obama supporter, I believe you're shooting yourself in the foot with bringing up the qualifications topic. Do you know how long the man you're sending your vote for was a senator before he decided to run for President of the US? One hundred and forty three days. That is less than half of a year, in case you can't do the math either.
2. She just got her passport in 2006. Kinda sad, I know. Especially compared to Obama...who has had his his entire life because...he hasn't lived in the US his entire life. Was he even born in the US? I haven't looked that up for sure. I don't want to make that claim...but just sayin'.
3. "She should DO IT IN HER OWN BACKYARD" Wow. This definitely shows how ignorant and idiotic you are. I recall that the House was having a vote on whether to do roll call vote to release the right to drill offshore (which, by the way you morons, is restricted heavily by the government. She could not start drilling due to endangered species ( " " For example, a rare ice worm that can maneuver through layers of ice! Too bad it's too small for the naked eye.) Anyway, yes. Roll call vote. And guess what the perfect uterus-bearing Speaker of the House "Third in Line" did? Yeah, she shut the House down, removed the Media, and shut off the lights. She did not even give the "narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe" Republicans you speak of (direct quote from later on in the blog) a chance to present the case or a chance to vote.
Now, being a celebrity, I'm sure the high gas prices haven't had any effect on you or your lifestyle. Heck, you definitely don't fill up your car much less drive it. (as you should considering the condition you've been in after a hardcore night of partying before you return to rehab the next day!)
There are environmental friendly ways to drill, you silly little actor...and whatever your girlfriend is. You should stick to what you know best--deceiving people and spending money. Not trying to sway people to vote.

"Hmmmm-All of this gets me going-Fear, Anxiety, Concern, Disappointment, and Stress come into play…"

4. You said it for me. Thanks. I know EXACTLY how you feel.

"Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe?"

5. Media Obsessed?! MEDIA OBSESSED?! What in the world?!
First of all, I think you might be a little jealous that another woman has taken a tabloid cover from you. Second of all...Obama. Have you seen how much of a media whore he is? Ignorant.

"I know that the most important thing about this election is that people need to exercise their right to vote, regardless of their choice… I would have liked to have remained impartial, however I am afraid that the "lipstick on a pig" comments will overshadow the issues and the fact that I believe Barack Obama is the best choice, in this election, for president…"

6. People do need to exercise their right to vote. The most intelligent thing you've said in the blog. I agree. Let's get down to the issues. What are Obama's? Let's discuss it.
"Change!"
Uh...is that really an issue? What does he believe? What does he stand for? Does anyone know?
I bet William Ayers, Reverend Wright, Sam Graham-Felsen, Senator James Meeks, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, The Black Panthers, Hezbolah, and countless other liars, extortionists, and terrorists know what he stands for.

"I feel it's necessary for me to clarify that I am not against Sarah Palin as a mother or woman."

Of course you're not. You're both lesbians.

"Women have come a long way in the fight to have the choice over what we do with our bodies… And its frightening to see that a woman in 2008 would negate all of that."

7. Yeah, that's where you get me. Palin is a woman. Palin is an attractive, intelligent, and strong woman. She is standing up for what she believes. I can even respect Hilary Clinton for that. Putting a woman down for believing something and taking a stand is negating it even more, you idiot. Why should you say "you're only helping the cause of women if you support abortion and the killing of innocent life and the numbing of an entire culture as to responsibility and motherhood." It's not okay to choose not to be a mother because it's inconvenient for you.

"Oh, and…Hint Hint Pali Pal- Don't pose for anymore tabloid covers, you're not a celebrity, you're running for office to represent our, your, my COUNTRY!"

8. Again, I reiterate, Have you seen how many tabloids your man has been on the cover of? Just because she's a woman...means she has to stand behind McCain? Why aren't more people complaining about the Obamamania media craze?!

"And in the words of Pamela Anderson, "She can suck it".."

9. Wow. Not only are you ignorant, but you're very classy, too.

" Lindsay- "I have faith that this country will be all that it can be with the proper guidance. I really hope that all of you make your decisions based on the facts and what feels right to you in your heart-vote for obama!"

10. Yes. Our country is great. Make decisions based on your heart feeling. What a liberal statement. Why is it that most liberals I know consider themselves free-thinkers (most are atheists / agnostic / "logic tryer outers" / extreme open mindednessers) are so careless with the big stuff? They claim to be open minded and logic users. But then they ruin it by saying they're using their hearts to vote. No. If you thought about this man. His associations. How he can't speak without a teleprompter or a speech. His lack of experience. Logic would tell you to run the other way!
Obama is a socialist, by the way. If you want this country to go to ruin, go ahead, cast your ignorant, non-researched vote.

"Samantha- "I love this country- however i wasn't born here and don't have the right to vote- so i beg of you all to really do your research and be educated when you cast your vote this coming november…. and if you're in doubt- vote for obama! Mainly because if she gets elected my green card probably won't get renewed!!!" "

11) Thanks for giving me another reason to HAPPILY cast my vote for McCain / Palin.
Too bad you or your little girlfriend haven't fully done any research to be educated for this vote. I am grateful only one of you is allowed to vote.

"xoxo
Lindsay and Samantha

Currently listening :
Obama for President 2008 Portrait Keychain
By Barack Hussein Obama" "

12. I thought his middle name was outlawed? Why is it you can use it, but when I say it, I get shushed?

Eh. Okay, I don't know why I wrote it, but I did. Mainly because I'm tired of hearing about it, and this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
Hope it either angered you or provided you some entertainment.
-W

A bit about global warming

2008-06-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

It is true that the majority of scientists support the theory of global warming being primarily anthropogenic in nature. Now let's look at that fact for a minute.

1. The majority of scientists are not climatologists, or in any way qualified to comment on the efficacy of that theory one way or another.

2. There are obvious political and social (and by connection, financial) benefits to supporting this conclusion. We should look carefully at a scientific claim with such strong motivation to come down on one side.

3. I do not accept research that is published merely to justify a foregone conclusion. If I had publicly stated that anyone who disbelieves in my theory is a moron and not a scientists, and then happen to produce a study the next year that claims to scientifically state the same thing, my claims should not be swallowed blindly.

4. That the UN and other organizations have proposed a global tax to deal with this problem is very telling. Vaclav Klaus has brought this issue to light in a very articulate manner.

All these things do not say that humans are not contributing to global warming. I suspect to some extent we necessarily must be. But collectively, when considering all these things I must pause before I jump onto the bandwagon that says the climate is controlled by us, we have broken it, and we can fix it.

-()4|<

Alabama Legislature is....well, retarded

2008-02-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

There is an Alabama politician (I use that term instead of legistlator because politicians seem to have more selfish motivation than those that actually do their jobs) that wants to ban "obese" people from eating at restaurants.

....?!

First of all, let's get to the logistic law side of this matter.
Many of our restaurants (pretty much all of them) are not self operated. They use produce from other states or are near major roads. We have fast food chains whose bases are not located in Alabama. Because of this, I would say almost 100% of our restaurants fall under jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Clause. This clause protects individual rights as far as the "protected groups" (the most protected group being race, religion, nationality, orgin, etc., the second protected group would be age and sex). Businesses cannot, under ICC, discriminate against said protected groups or deny their patronage because of their place in first or second protected group.
I said all this to ask the question:
Businesses are not allowed to discriminate on basis of aforesaid. Why should we then allow our government to create laws that not only limit patronage (I'll get to this in a second), but discriminate against a "new protected group" (being size/weight)?

This also limits the rights of the individual AND the rights of the business.

Individual rights:
How are they going to determine who is obese and who is not? Are we going to have to carry around a BMI card as well? Take a BMI test in the restaurant? Step on a scale to determine whether we are fat? What will the BMI be set at to determine whether or not you are obese? Or will you just be able to tell by looking at someone?
Whoops. That last question...aren't we told over and over and over not to be prejudice because of what a person looks like? What about pregnant people? Where do they stand in this issue? If I looked at a pregnant lady, she wouldn't exactly be a twig. Would they allow "fat" pregnant ladies to eat in the restaurants?
If you think those questions were slightly ridiculous let me give you something a lawyer would say...lawyers seem to make crazy outside the box claims, but if you think about them, they're somewhere in the realm of true:
Knowing someone's BMI, or requiring it for the person to do patronage, violates that persons guarded personal medical rights as protected under HIPAA of 1996. In effect, forcing a patron to release information regarding their health and using it to determine whether a person should be allowed to contribute to a business governed by ICC that is not a place of medicine, violates the patron's right to privacy and protection of health records and current health status.
(I love being a pre-law student...)
Besides. Wouldn't it just be embarrassing to have to stand on a scale in order to get into McDonalds?

Business infringement of rights:
I believe that even under issues of smoking in restaurants, it is up to the restaurant to decide whether they prevent smokers, or even fat people from being patrons in their restaurants. While I do love eating my meal without choking to death from clouds of cigarette smoke, it is not the right of the people to smoke wherever they please, but the right of the business to decide whether they allow it or not.
This government-imposed infringement on behalf of restaurant owners violates their rights to run their business as they please. As long as they are not violating ICC, why should they have to let the government decide whether or not someone is healthy enough to eat in their restaurant?

Not only this, but (to be quite honest and frank) "obese" people are the ones that eat out the most. Without their patronage, many restaurants/places of food business would cease to exist. Also, if you want to get really deep in this, the governement will lose money because less taxes are being paid.

Last time I checked, there are some pretty heavy set politicians...Maybe we should pass a law that all policicians have to have a healthy BMI before running for office.
Or better yet. An IQ.

Where Immigration Reform SHOULD Start:

2008-01-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I work in Human Resources at (I removed my place of employment because I realized some of the things I said about HR..). My main project right now is making our I-9s (the citizen/employment eligibility form you fill out once you're hired) compliant and working with headquarters to outsource our paperwork and E-verify (which is send it to a third party, have them run the Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, birth certificates, green cards, etc. through the government.)
Arizona passed a new bill requiring all businesses to E-Verify all of their employees--and terminating those that do not meet the verification criteria on ~~threat~~ promise of fines and loss of business license (10 days for every illegal worker/unverified worker).
Personally, I think this is a great thing. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
Why?
Well, see...what happens when you fill out an I-9 is as follows:
HR representative makes a big deal about you having all of your information on the date of hire.
You fill out the form.
You give said HR rep. your completed form and specified identification. If you do not have your identification, your HR rep. tells you to bring your identification (by law, has to be by the third day of employment or you can be terminated).
However, that's not the way it works most of the time. If you didn't bring your employment information, your paperwork is placed in a drawer somewhere among other neglected HR paperwork. HR rep. forgets.
However, if you are the good employee, you bring your identification on the date of hire/orientation date or within the alotted three days.
Copies of your identification are made.
Copies of identification are stapled to original paperwork.
Paperwork is then holepunched and placed in a binder (hopefully in alphabetical order, although obviously...not all the time -- ugh) and forgotten.
Those papers in the drawer...are eventually found covered in cracker crumbs and leftover strands of white out tape. But then to realize that the employee was terminated a year ago and the proper paperwork was never filled out.

So basically, this paperwork is never 100% verfied. Why go through the task of filling it out if the company could have illegals/unverified workers for several years and not even know about it until an audit--which rarely happens.
Why should we (as HR and employees) have to fill out paperwork that is never checked? The E-verification process is very helpful and very much needed in the workplace.

How the E-verification process works:
The company sends the paperwork that is already existing to a third party.
Third party types everything in.
New hires transmit everything electronically, and copies of identification are emailed or faxed to third party.
(This cuts out a lot of work on the HR end...(haa. opening the drawer, hole punching, and eating those crackers to leave crumbs on the discarded I-9s is a lot of work...)
The third party then submits all numbers to the government.
If employee is approved and verfied, they continue working.
If employee is not verified (aka red flagged as an illegal), they are then placed in limbo and their information is again put through ten days later.

Seems good enough. I like this idea.

However. (you knew that was coming)

We cannot verify employees before their hire date. So, the employees are trained regardless if their citizenship status/eligibility is confirmed or not. Meaning, they are trained, the company is notified they have been rejected, and then the employee continues to be trained until the second run through ten days later?
I say if the employee didn't run through the first time, send them home.
WHY ten days? Why not a month? A year? Never?
We run prescreening background checks and drug tests. Why can't we check their eligibility to work in this country before they're hired, too?! Is THAT not important? Yes. That's right. BY LAW no employer can run a check to see if someone is a citizen of the United States BEFORE they are hired...but employers CAN run drug tests and background checks.
Why is this? Does this make sense to anyone?

No frickin wonder so many businesses have illegal immigrants. Some companies sincerely do NOT know they do.
Even WITH the I-9 E-verify system, they cannot send the employee home during the 10 day waiting period, so they not only have to compensate the employee for the 10 days, but can be held responsible for hiring an illegal worker?
That's a complete waste of time and resources. And a breeding ground for lawyers. *shivers*
If every company would actually get their I-9 forms confirmed, illegal immigrants would go elsewhere for jobs. They're already leaving Arizona.

Liberals Being Fiscally Responsible (aka Fiscally Conservative?)

2007-12-13T11:10:00.001-08:00

I am watching the Democratic debate in Iowa (I watched the Republican one yesterday, so I thought that it's only fair that I waste another hour and a half of my life on the rest of the liars.)

Right now, the Dem-wits are talking about how democrats make The US more fiscally responsible ("Take a look at the nineties!" <--if I had a dollar for every reference to the nineties Hitlery makes...). How do they do this?
The ideas suggested so far:
-Increase taxes on the wealthy
-Look at the nineties
-Create tax cuts for big businesses
-Take the troops out of Iraq
-Look at the nineties!!!
-Military reductions
-Stop letting the Iraq war drain our military!!!
-We've gotta grow! Let's make the middle class bigger.
-Obama: "Put money back into the pockets of hard workers" (aka-- Medicare programs, Socialized Medical care etc...)
-Reforming Medicare
-Give Medicare the right to negotiate lower drug costs for companies (aka allow Big Brother to take over Medical companies)
-Check the nineties. Yep. That was my husband. I'm going to use the same policies!
-Check my proposed Socialized Medicine. It's a right for every human. Free health care. (...)
-We're overpaying HMOs!!!
-Modernize system! (how vague)
-You gotta act!! (Not vague at all. Thanks, Biden.)
-Take the money from my crack dealer. He could save a few lives. --Obama. No, he really didn't say that...but...it was fun.
-We spent $xx million on cancer! That's two months of the Iraq war. That shows how misguided and misplaced our priorities are!! (...did he just say that??)

Um..How about we get rid of House Speaker Pelosi? Who has spent ~$16,000 on flowers and ~$3million to move her office (and for the nine months she has been in office (compared to Hastert's 1.8 million(which is still a lot to me, but what do I know?)))
Fiscally responsible?! No, I think not.
(Pelosi hasn't even changed the curtains like she promised...I guess that's why her approval ratings are at 22% (lower than Bush's).

(I posted this and reread it and came back to say:
FLOWERS!!!!!!!!! 16000!!!!!!!! ON FLOWERS?!!!!)
I think we could save a few...umm...million if we get rid of the Congressional pension. Politics was NEVER meant to be a profession. Let's stop paying them for the rest of their lives. (all of them. Not just the democrats)
Instead of letting them sit up in their offices and in the Capitol without accountability, let's elect people who actually care.
Oh. No one like that is running? Shame.

Why would this moderator ask these idiots so many money questions?

...and did anyone else catch Hillary say "WHEN I'm president..." ???
I think my heart stopped briefly...

(and..go Huckabee!)

What these stupid legislators don't want you to know.

2007-10-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthabouttoyota.com/
^ go there. (And, before you think I'm trying to pass on this message, know that I am trying to 100% disagree and call these people liars)

If you don't want to, let me explain what this is about.
There is a legislation that Congress or somebody is trying to pass that would mandate all motor companies to keep an average of 35 mpg on all vehicles.
Sounds good, right?
Let me explain why it's not.

First of all:
Of course Toyota opposes it. In fact, The Detroit Three oppose it, I'm pretty sure Honda and Nissan oppose it as well. Actually, I'm almost certain every car company opposes it. It's not just Toyota.
I'm surprised Toyota opposes it..considering Toyota has the most fuel efficient cars out there. Toyota is pretty much already at the average 35 mpg. With cars like the Prius (that gets an average of 60 mpg already, and the future models have been rumored to reach ~100 mpg) and the hybrid camry. I drive a Corolla, and I get ~40 mpg.

Wanna know why they oppose this legislation?

1. It would kill American car companies.
The American car companies have already had a hard time keeping up with Honda and Toyota. Raising the standard to 35 mpg would only hurt GM. It would force them to spend more money that they don't have. This legislation would put the last nail in the coffin for GM, Ford (who is losing $5000 per vehicle already!), Dodge, Chrysler, etc.

2. People would lose jobs.
Instead of this legislation HELPING our economy, it would cripple it. (See reason number one). People would be out of work, and the jobs won't be readily available when they do get laid off.

3. You can't force technological evolution. The car companies are slowly getting there. They will arrive there eventually. Forcing progress has never helped civilizations.

4. This average of 35 mpg also applies to BIG trucks. What about the car/motor companies that only makes/specializes in the 18 wheeler trucks? How are they going to make them to get an average of 35 mpg?!

5. There will be more fatalities on the road.
Car companies will start making their cars lighter, smaller, and...unsafer to meet the 35 mpg requirements. They will cut corners in the name of saving oil.

6. The people who drive long distances to commute, or drive a lot, most likely have already invested in smaller cars, hybrid cars, or more fuel efficient cars. The market already exists. Most of them aren't even that expensive. You can get a nice Hyundai with decent gas mileage for the cost of a used Honda or Toyota. This legislation would only increase the cost of these already fuel efficent cars. (If you think they're expensive now...!)

7. Car costs would go up. Even if the car manufacturers start cutting corners, the engines will still be more expensive to make, additional labor may be required--specialized labor, and even more plants will be built. I know how this works. I work for Toyota--where we make the engines for the Sequoia, Tundra, and Tacoma. Toyota is even making an ethanol engine in the plant effective 2008. The car companies are getting there!

8. Many cars would have to be retired--done away with. Even best selling cars like the Hummer, Lexus cars (big engines), and entire lines of trucks. This, also, would cause the loss of American jobs.

9. When this legislation passes, if they don't give the car companies a time frame to begin working, it could seriously cripple them.
Car companies can't take every single car and make it have 100 mpg overnight. There has to be research, development...You have to give TIME for development.

10. GM/Chrysler, Dodge, etc..are just now recovering from negative profits. They need time to get back on their feet.
GM was once the biggest car maker in the world. Toyota has recently replaced them.
As a capitalist, I love competition. If this bill/thing goes through, it would completely cripple competition, and Toyota would stay on top (being the closest to the average 35 mpg legislation--Toyota would be there if they drop...two car lines--Sequoia and the V8 Tundra).
So, if these legislators are really American, they would recognize the pride of GM/Ford as the biggest automakers in the world. The first automakers. AMERICAN created. Do they really want to shut down Ford and GM?
Those are questions we SHOULD be asking THEM.