Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Here is an article about two Muslims who deserve the Darwin Award. I would think that anyone who is spashing gasoline around in preparation for arson and lights a cigarette while standing in a pool of gasoline is a candidate for the Darwin.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5810

Maybe the moral of the story is that arsonists shouldn't smoke.

Here is an interesting UN report which says that individuals don't have a right to self defense. The legal language is hard for me to decipher, but I think this reflects socialist or collectivist thinking where rights are something granted by the state, not something people inherently have. As I undestand it, England's laws do not permit a person to defend himself if attacked. The UN agenda is to disarm people, so this report should be expected.

http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2006/08/un_report_procl.php

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

When I talked about California Laws, I forgot to mention that the California legislature is going to pass another law providing driver's licenses for illegal aliens. The similar law they passed last year was vetoed by the Governor. And, California is trying to pass a law reducing carbon dioxide emission levels to 1990 levels by 2020; something that admittedly will hve virtually no impact on Global Warming. They also have a committee report that says water vapor is a pollutant. If the Democrats get their agenda adopted in California I predict that most of the productive people, aside from movie stars, will leave. Then the Mexicans can take over. Maybe that is the Democrat's agenda.

Here is an interesting article about life in Cuba. It amazes me the way movie stars and other liberals suck up to Castro, and they lionize a murderer like Che Guevera. Prior to Castro Cuba had the highest standard of living in Latin America. Now it is a basket case.

http://origin.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20251894-7583,00.html

Some weird laws are being proposed in California. It appears that Universal Health Care is about to pass the legislature. This program is pretty much the Hillarycare single payer plan that Congress rejected back in the 1990's. The proposed California program would create a massive new bureaucracy that would be funded by an 8% increase in the payroll tax paid by business, and a 3 point increase in the state income tax. The other bill would make it a criminal act for anyone in a public school to say or imply that homosexuality is anything but normal, or apparently to refer to traditional marriage at all. It is likely that the Governor will veto these bills. Maybe, if and when there is a Democrat Governor, the legislature would be more reluctant to pass such laws. But, maybe not. Should these laws go into effect, I think there would be a mass exodus of businesses from California.

New revelations about the Valerie Plame case show special prosecutor Fitzgerald to be very duplicious. He seems to have shaded the truth when he had his press conference after indicting Scooter Libby when he said that Libby had been the first person to reveal Valerie Plame's identity to the press when he knew that was not the case. Here is an article from abledanger that suggests Fitxgerald had access to information with which he should have been able to stop the 911 plot but he didn't exploit it. This appears to me to be a clear case where some torture would have saved the lives of a lot of people. It seems to me that Bin Ladens spy should have been treated as such, even though he was a naturalized citizen.

http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/08/official-statement-from-peter-lance.html

I think part of the problem was in the Clinton Administration approach to terrorism which treated it as a crime. They treated it as a criminal matter where you had to wait until after an act was committed before taking action. They were focused on getting convictions rather than stopping the crime. This is a problem that most Democrats have with dealing with terrorism.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Here is an interesting article I copied from Dr. John Ray's blog. I don't know where people get ideas like this. I knew Paul McCartney was a good song writer, but I had no idea he knew what to do about global warming. In case you don't notice, the part about the carbon dioxide emitted by cattle contributes to greenhouse gas buildup is completely bogus. The cows eat grass that is formed from carbon dioxide taken from the air, so the net effect is that there is no long term addition to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is also true for people, of course.

Meat is a global warming issue. An amusing bit of nuttiness from a vegetarian below

There are many human activities that contribute to global warming. Among the biggest contributors are electrical generation, the use of passenger and other vehicles, over-consumption, international shipping, deforestation, smoking and militarism. (The U.S. military, for example, is the world's biggest consumer of oil and the world's biggest polluter.)What many people do not know, however, is that the production of meat also significantly increases global warming. Cow farms produce millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane per year, the two major greenhouse gases that together account for more than 90 percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions, substantially contributing to "global scorching." According to the United Nations Environment Program's Unit on Climate Change, "There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from livestock." The 2004 State of the World is more specific regarding the link between animals raised for meat and global warming: "Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world's annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas." The July 2005 issue of Physics World states: "The animals we eat emit 21 percent of all the CO2 that can be attributed to human activity." Eating meat directly contributes to this environmentally irresponsible industry and the dire threat of global warming.Additionally, rainforests are being cut down at an extremely rapid rate to both pasture cows and grow soybeans to feed cows. The clear-cutting of trees in the rainforest -- an incredibly bio-diverse area with 90 percent of all species on Earth -- not only creates more greenhouse gases through the process of destruction, but also reduces the amazing benefits that those trees provide. Rainforests have been called the "lungs of the Earth," because they filter our air by absorbing CO2, while emitting life-supporting oxygen. "In a nutshell," according to the Center for International Forestry Research, "cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil's Amazon rainforests."Of course, the U.S. should join the other 163 countries in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, we should sharply reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and shift towards renewable sources of energy. Of course, we need to stop destroying the rainforests. Of course, we need to stop the war in Iraq and drastically reduce the U.S. military budget (presently at half of the entire world's total military spending), which would increase, not decrease, national and global security. But as we're struggling and waiting for these and other structural changes, we need to make personal changes.Geophysicists Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin from the University of Chicago concluded that changing one's eating habits from the Standard American Diet (SAD) to a vegetarian diet does more to fight global warming than switching from a gas-guzzling SUV to a fuel-efficient hybrid car. Of course, you can do both. Where the environment is concerned, eating meat is like driving a huge SUV. According to Eshel, eating a vegetarian diet is like driving a mid-sized car or a reasonable sedan, and eating a vegan diet (no dairy, no eggs) is like riding a bicycle or walking. Shifting away from SUVs and SUV-style diets, to much more energy-efficient alternatives, is key to fighting the warming trend.Global warming is already having grave effects on our planet. Vegetarians help keep the planet cool in more ways than one. Paul McCartney says, "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do." Andrea Gordon, in her article "If You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?" agrees: "There is a direct relationship between eating meat and the environment. Quite simply, you can't be a meat-eating environmentalist. Sorry folks."Vegetarianism is literally about life and death -- for each of us individually and for all of us together. Eating animals simultaneously contributes to a multitude of tragedies: the animals' suffering and death; the ill-health and early death of people; the unsustainable overuse of oil, water, land, topsoil, grain, labor and other vital resources; environmental destruction, including deforestation, species extinction, mono-cropping and global warming; the legitimacy of force and violence; the mis-allocation of capital, skills, land and other assets; vast inefficiencies in the economy; tremendous waste; massive inequalities in the world; the continuation of world hunger and mass starvation; the transmission and spread of dangerous diseases; and moral failure in so-called civilized societies. Vegetarianism is an antidote to all of these unnecessary tragedies.The editors of World Watch concluded in the July/August 2004 edition that "the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future -- deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease." Lee Hall, the legal director for Friends of Animals, is more succinct: "Behind virtually every great environmental complaint there's milk and meat." Global warming may be the most serious global social problem threatening life on Earth. We need to fight global warming on the governmental and corporate levels, and we also need to fight global warming on the everyday and personal levels. Now we need to fight global warming -- with our forks.

Regarding Katrina and New Orleans, I wonder about the wisdom of re-building a city that is mostly below sea level, and is sinking. It is apparently true that the disaster was due to faulty dikes rather the the hurricane, but can we be sure that future dikes will fare any better? And Katrina actually missed New Orleans. What if it has gone directly over New Orleans.? It seems to me that we taxpayers are expected to subsidize people who live in dangerous regions.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Here is an email I sent to Bill O'Reilly in response to comments by John Kasich tonight.

I disagree with John Kasich’s assertion that the government failed us during the Katrina episode. The media, including Fox News, failed to give an accurate picture of what happened. The US military (who are lead by President Bush) performed in superb fashion pulling 50,000 people from the flooded area. They did this while the media misrepresented what was happening with some people who were high and dry, but were a bit uncomfortable in the superdome. In any other country in a similar situation there would have been tens of thousands of fatalities.

I have been in several hurricanes and I don’t recall the Federal government having any presence at all. After Hurricane Andrew, where Clinton claims to have done such a masterful job, FEMA showed up 30 days after the hurricane. For some reason, it is the fashion now to bash President Bush for everything that goes wrong. Al Gore even said that Katrina was Bush’s fault because he didn’t “sign the Kyoto Treaty,” which he couldn’t have done anyway since it had not been approved by the Senate.

The motto of the modern media seems to be “fake, but accurate.” Apparently, like Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, they feel that they have to lie to present their idea of the truth.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

On TV yesterday a Fox News I saw a commentator predict that Democrats would win the elections this November because of people's concern about the economy and dislike of the war in Iraq. Regarding the economy, despite the fact that it is good, it was reasoned that people focus on the price of gasoline. That may be true, but I can't think of any reason why gasoline prices would be lower under the policies of Democrats. They don't want to drill for more oil, or to produce energy with nuclear power. Instead they want to reduce freedom with more regulations, and enforced conservation which would impact more on poorer people that they claim as their base. The war is more problematical for the Republicans. The smart thing in a war is to take it to your enemies rather than fighting on your own turf. The Democrats think they can negotiate with people who admit that they will not be bound by any agreement, and they want to do into a purely defensive posture. In the 2004 election, as far as I could tell, the Democrat's proposed strategy was to "take the hits." Before nuclear weapons that might have been a successful strategy. It doesn't seem like a good strategy against suicidal fanatics armed with nuclear weapons. The Republicans do not seem to be a good job of countering the Democrat's arguments so far.

I see that the two Fox News men have been released after they converted to Islam. They say that they converted at the point of a gun. Of course; that's the way of Islam, and has been since the days of Mohammed; convert or die. I read commentators who say that only about 10% of Muslims support that approach. I wonder if they are correct. The Koran clearly states that Muslims have an obligation to either subjugate or kill non-believers. The charters of Hamas and Hez b'Allah are clear that their objective is to eliminate Israel and Jews. And that they intend to lie, cheat, or whatever to achieve their objective. One leader of Hez b'Allah stated that we cannot negotiate with them because the only thing they want is to kill us. Back in the days before WMD the backwardness of the Muslim culture allowed us to more or less ignore their threat to us. Now, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons we ignore them at our peril. Our liberals have made the calculation that George Bush is more of a threat than are the Muslims. I believe this lack of unity could be disastrous for us.

Friday, August 25, 2006

It seems odd to me what some people study, as indicated by this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210444,00.html

I would have thought this would be blamed on either Global Warming or George Bush.

Here is a letter I sent the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Most of the media in the US, including the New York Times, CNN, CBS, and ABC bought into the propaganda put out by Hez b’Allah during the recent war in Lebanon. In fact, the media were complicit in generating the false information. This is not surprising given the media’s bias and desire to advance the Democratic Party’s agenda by spinning all news to the disadvantage of the Bush Administration. But your readers may not know that unless they watch Fox News or read internet blogs where they can get the truth. Here is an interesting item by an Arab from Betsy Newmark’s blog indicating that the Arabs know what the situation actually is:



Having lost more than 500 of its fighters, and with almost all of its medium-range missiles destroyed, Hezbollah may find it hard to sustain its claim of victory. "Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."



It is interesting that Arab Terrorists have now kidnapped two Fox News reporters. Fox was the one major media player that didn’t help them advance their propaganda, and in fact helped show the world that many of the stories about atrocities alleged to have been committed by Israel were, in fact, false. It seems logical that they are now attempting to intimidate Fox News.

Here is a letter I sent the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Most of the media in the US, including the New York Times, CNN, CBS, and ABC bought into the propaganda put out by Hez b’Allah during the recent war in Lebanon. In fact, the media were complicit in generating the false information. This is not surprising given the media’s bias and desire to advance the Democratic Party’s agenda by spinning all news to the disadvantage of the Bush Administration. But your readers may not know that unless they watch Fox News or read internet blogs where they can get the truth. Here is an interesting item by an Arab from Betsy Newmark’s blog indicating that the Arabs know what the situation actually is:



Having lost more than 500 of its fighters, and with almost all of its medium-range missiles destroyed, Hezbollah may find it hard to sustain its claim of victory. "Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."



It is interesting that Arab Terrorists have now kidnapped two Fox News reporters. Fox was the one major media player that didn’t help them advance their propaganda, and in fact helped show the world that many of the stories about atrocities alleged to have been committed by Israel were, in fact, false. It seems logical that they are now attempting to intimidate Fox News.

Here is a letter I sent the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Most of the media in the US, including the New York Times, CNN, CBS, and ABC bought into the propaganda put out by Hez b’Allah during the recent war in Lebanon. In fact, the media were complicit in generating the false information. This is not surprising given the media’s bias and desire to advance the Democratic Party’s agenda by spinning all news to the disadvantage of the Bush Administration. But your readers may not know that unless they watch Fox News or read internet blogs where they can get the truth. Here is an interesting item by an Arab from Betsy Newmark’s blog indicating that the Arabs know what the situation actually is:



Having lost more than 500 of its fighters, and with almost all of its medium-range missiles destroyed, Hezbollah may find it hard to sustain its claim of victory. "Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."



It is interesting that Arab Terrorists have now kidnapped two Fox News reporters. Fox was the one major media player that didn’t help them advance their propaganda, and in fact helped show the world that many of the stories about atrocities alleged to have been committed by Israel were, in fact, false. It seems logical that they are now attempting to intimidate Fox News.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Regarding the habit of John Karr signing things SBTC, which for him meant "shall be the conqueror," I heard on TV that some evangelists use the letters SBTC to mean "saved by the cross." I had never heard that before. It still seems likely to me that someone signing a ransom note SBTC means "shall be the conqueror" rather than "saved by the cross."

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Tonight on O'Reilly Geraldo brought up something I had not been aware of. He says that there is widespread communication between perverts over the internet; they have some sort of code not understood by the rest of us. Geraldo suggests that Karr may have gotten the information about the case that had been witheld from the public from the actual killer over the internet. Thus, if he is not guilty, he may have information about the actual killer.

Here is something I got from Mark Steyn's blog. This happened in New Zealand:

What tickled the self-described "one-man global content provider" had been Mr O'Connor's response to the inevitable point that burka-shrouded drivers are part of an important cultural tradition. Mr Steyn had been impressed by the police representative's argument "that if your cultural tradition is that you wear a burka then maybe your cultural tradition shouldn't extend to driving an automobile, which I thought got to a very good point.

I think this is a good response to the Muslim women who want to wear a veil in their driver's license photo. (Muslim countries don't allow women to drive cars, so why should we allow Muslim women to drive since it is not part of their culture.)

At first I was really dubious that this John Karr was actually involved in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. He is a really weird guy, and seemed to want time in the spotlight. This type of guy is just as happy being infamous as opposed to famous, just as long as he is becomes well known. But the letters SBTC at the bottom of the ransom note certainly is odd. Karr signed that in yearbooks and in letters to his wife. What are the chances that two people would use that signature. Apparently the letters stand for "shall be the conqueror." Is that a well known quotation? I've never heard it before. He certainly merits further investigation.

It looks like the Iranians are going to stall on the nuclear bomb issue. They are not negotiating in good faith. I doubt the West will be willing to impose any real sanctions on Iran. I see that some of the weak-kneed politicians here in the US think we can make a deal with Iranians. Guys like Carter, Kerry, and Gergen. Even a Republican like Chuck Hagel. Given the mind-set of Muslims it seems unlikely to me that we in the West can successfully negotiate with them. Theirs is a "shame" culture while ours is a "guilt" culture. That puts us at a severe disadvantage in trying to work things out with them. They are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their objectives, while we bend over backwards to see the other guys point of view.

August 22 has passed and as far as I know, the apocalyptic event hinted at by Ahmadinejad didn't happen. It is possible that he was expecting the 12th Imam to return, so maybe the day was a big disappointment to him. I hope so.

Here is an interesting article about global warming, or maybe global cooling.

http://cheatseekingmissiles.blogspot.com/2006/08/ocean-cooling-foils-warmies-theories.html

One of the major deficiencies of the global circulation models that predict the end of the world as we know it is a total failure to predict cloud action. It seems to me that the catastrophic temperature increases predicted by some of the models can only be explained by increases in the amount of water vapor in the air. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air now absorbs almost all of the energy emitted from the earth in certain wavelengths, so adding more carbon dioxide has little impact on atmospheric temperature. Somehow, in the models, the additional carbon dioxide causes an increase in the water vapor. The increased water vapor absorbs a lot of heat, increasing the atmospheric temperature. This increases the rainfall, and affects cloud cover. Some clouds reflect sunlight back to space making earth cooler, and some prevent radiation from earth from making out to space making earth hotter. It is important for the cloud effect to be modeled correctly for the computer predictions to be accurate. Since the models do not accurately depict the clouds, the predictions of the models are not reliable. One thing Al Gore doesn't seem to realize is that Global Circulation Modeling is not really science. Of course Al seems to think that science is conducted like a legal case; a judge makes a ruling that settles the issue. Mother Nature and physics just don't work that way. The thing that must be remembered about science is that a lot of famous scientists are often wrong, all at the same time.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

I saw something interesting regarding the recent liberal judge deciding that the NSA surveillance program is unconstitutional. The judge seems to be a bit confused. She apparently does not know that mail from overseas is routinely examined without a warrant, and has been since the time of George Washington. And, when entering the United States the customs officials can search you without a warrant or even any reasonable suspicion,, and that has been going on since before George Bush was born. I have a hard time seeing any difference in opening mail from overseas without a warrant and listening to phone calls from overseas. Apparently the Democrats, including their judges, think whatever George Bush does is unconstitutional. I wonder if she realizes that the same surveillance happened under Clinton. I wonder if the Democrats realize that if it is really unconstitutional, then Congress can't pass a law permitting it. I wonder if Democrat's realize how poor their timing is, given this ruling coming just as a major terror plot is broken up.

Am I the only one that that sees hypocrisy in the Democrat's flip-flopping their position on the war on terror? They have vigorously opposed President Bush's actions in trying to protect Americans, such as monitoring communications from overseas, following money transfers, etc. Now, after the London arrests of Muslims planning to blow up airliners, detected using techniques similar to those employed by Bush, and probably with American assistance, they now say that Bush hasn't been doing enough.

The John Karr situation is a bit weird. There must be some reason that we don't know about that indicts him. Regardless of how that comes out it seems to me that more weirdo's may be encouraged to confess to crimes. Some people will do anything to get attention from the press; they don't seem to care why they are getting the attention, just as long as they get it. Karr seems to be really disturbed, whether he is guilty or not.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Here is a letter I sent to the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

The Democrats are running a campaign that says Americans want a change in our foreign policy and to our approach to the war on terror. I agree that I’d like to see a change. But, it doesn’t appear that the change I’d like is anything like what Democrats have in mind. I’d like to see the United States set a policy of seeking victory over the Islamic Jihadists, destroying them rather than containing them. The Democrats say they fear President Bush more than the Jihadists, and appear to want to return to the failed Carter-Clinton approach of dealing with the Jihadists with apology and appeasement. They want to treat Jihadist terrorism as a criminal matter rather than as a war. Based on their actions, they want to eliminate the measures of the Patriot Act, stopping NSA surveillance activities, and would re-impose Jamie Gorelick’s “wall” between the NSA and the CIA, and the FBI. They do want to create more government union jobs by increasing funding for “first responders” and port security (they seem not to realize that inspecting ship cargo at ports would not prevent a terrorist from destroying a port city by setting off a nuclear device as the ship sails into the harbor). They want to install the crook Alcee Hasting, who was a judge before being impeached for accepting a bribe, as the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and John Conyers, who supports Hez b’Allah, as head of the House Judiciary Committee. Conyers says he plans on starting impeachment proceedings against President Bush as soon as he takes over. This would be a waste of energy since there is no way Democrats could get to the 67 votes needed in the Senate to get a conviction, but it would distract our government and give encouragement to our enemies, whom Conyers supports.

Thus, I’ll have to “hold my nose” and vote Republican since the change the Democrats propose is worse than what Republicans are doing. I suspect that a great many Americans who want change also don’t want the Democrat’s program.

Friday, August 18, 2006

The recent war in Lebanon has revealed that our media are supportive of the propaganda efforts of the Jihadists. They could not possibly be so naive as to realize what was happening.

A judge appointed by Jimmy Carter has decided that the NSA wire-tapping program is unconstitutional. If her opinion stands, then Congress cannot pass a law permitting the program to continue. Thus, in her view, the US constitution is a suicide pact. I find it interestng that the ACLU brought suit on behalf of reporters, who calim they have been damaged because terrorists in the Middle East will no longer talk to them on the phone. ONe could point out that if the NYT had not exposed the program they would not have been damaged. This makes me wonder why reporters are talking to people who want to kill us? The reporters could go to the Middle East for interviews, but I suppose they may be concerned about the terrorists chopping off their head, since they are wont to do that occassionally. I have serious doubts about most reporters being on our side.

Things are really going badly for the US. I don't understand why we didn't allow Israel to destroy Hezb'Allah. We have once again allowed the French to stab us in the back. The French stabbed Powell in the back during the run-up to the Iraq war, and now they have done the same thing to Rice. I wonder why the Democrats are so eager to please the French. Now Hezb'Allah and Iran are in a stronger position than before. Now an even larger war is inevitable. I think a larger war was going to happen anyway. I suppose the only way this can be good is if Bush and Rice plan on fighting at a time of their choosing. I hope that is the case.

Mike Wallace had an interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and was very impressed by him. I read a transcript of the interview. Mike didn't ask many tough questions. I wonder if he recalls how reporters were impressed by Hitler in interviews back in the 1930's. Probably not. Mike doesn't have a very good memory it seems. I saw him once on 60 Minutes when he expressed amazement on learning that President Roosevelt had violated the will of Congress by supplying arms to the British in 1939. It seems to me that no attention should be paid to a reporter that is that ignorant.

But, I really lost respect for Wallace about 20 years ago when I saw he and Peter Jennings interviewed and they said that if they were covering a war, and knew that American soldiers were about be ambushed, they would not give warning. They argued that reporters are impartial and should not take sides, etc. As far as I'm concerned, if they are not supporting America I should not wate time listening to them. I never watched Wallace or Jennings after that.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

It is interesting to look at the thwarting of the British terrorist's attack on airliners. It appears that all sorts of techniques that Democrats don't like were used. I suspect that some coercion was applied by the Pakistanis to the terrorists they arrested. And, a phone call from Pakistan to Britain was intercepted. On top of that money transfers were detected. The rights of the terrorists were clearly violated. If the authorities had not "violated" the terorists rights, then a lot of people would have died. Democrats claim they would do a better job of protecting us than Republicans. I wonder how they plan to that, since they don't want to do any surveillance, etc.

I think Islam is an existential threat to the West. It appears that the leaders of the US do not share that view. The Democrats certainly do not. They are consumed by hatred of George Bush, and seem unable to focus on anything else. And Bush seems to be unable to take effective action. I still think that the longer we wait, the more people will die. We need to get some Scots-Irish people in command, in the mold of Andrew Jackson. People who fight to win, and aren't afraid to smash the enemy.

The possibility of Islamists getting access to nuclear weapons is what makes them an existential threat to us. If they could set off nuclear weapons in their two primary target cities of Houston and Seattle, the economy of the US would be in shambles because of lack of fuel. I believe they think the US would not have the will to retaliate because of the uncertainty in who is responsibile, and because of the large numbers of civilians that would be killed. And, they don't really care if they are wrong and we wipe out huge numbers of their people. After all, they don't mind killing their own people in their indiscriminate terrorists attacks.

I recently read that Bejamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel, declines to criticize his government while Israeli troops are in Lebanon. Republicans followed that policy while we had a Democrat President. It is too bad that the Democrats don't also do that. But, Democrats are so eager for power that they don't mind harming US interests if by doing so they can damage President Bush. It is interesting to me how Middle East dictators mouth the Democrat talking points. When Kerry said, during the last election, that foreign leaders had told him they preferred him to Bush for President, I wonder if Iran and Syria were the countries he was referring to, in addition to France of course.

Friday, August 11, 2006

I'm not the only one that thinks we are in a "kill or be killed" situation with Islamists. I agree with the following assessment:

Friday, August 11, 2006
Imagining Victory
Posted by Hugh Hewitt 4:18 PM
(DEAN BARNETT HERE)
Yesterday I wrote on the need for us to confront our greatest fears. I said that we had to “imagine a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, imagine a mushroom cloud over New York” and figure out how to stop them. A commenter ridiculed this exercise in negativity, and then asked if I had imagined what victory on the Global War on Terror would look like.
Unfortunately, I have, and it’s neither pretty nor comforting.
THE FIRST STEP TO victory on the global war terror will be dropping that stupid name “global war on terror.” This is the first war in our history where we’ve declined to even identify who we’re fighting. In the Civil War, the Union didn’t pause to label the Rebs and in World War II we willingly called out the Axis Powers.
But in this war, we resolutely refuse to identify who we’re fighting. Most of the readers of this site know that we’re fighting the followers of radical Islam; they want so badly to spread their own perverse philosophy that they want and need us dead. Most people who have seriously intellectually engaged with the current struggle know this. I don’t think it’s the tiresome braying of CAIR that’s triggered our reticence. I think it’s our own highly refined reluctance to offend that shackles us.
At some point on the road to victory, we’ll figure out how many people there are that we’re actually fighting. They may be numerous and number many multiples more than the members of groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
When the neo-cons (like me) said that we would be greeted with garlands of roses in Iraq, we meant it. We couldn’t imagine anyone preferring an 8th century theocracy to freedom and liberty. But subsequent events in Iraq and Palestine have had to give any thinking person pause. The people of Palestine democratically opted for a government that promises non-stop war with a much more powerful enemy. Where the people of Iraq stand remains opaque.
We comfort ourselves with the notion that the Iranian government is wildly unpopular with its people and soon they will rise up. The evidence for this remains flimsy; the evidence for the animus that many people of the region have for America and American institutions remains all too clear.
SO HOW WILL THE WAR END? With lots of dead Jihadists. Just like World War II ended with lots of dead Nazis and imperialist troops of Japan. There were so many dead, the rest lost their will to fight on. Only when they realize their destruction is imminent (and accomplished to a great degree) will there be peace.
Until the Jihadists realize they can’t win, they will continue to fight. Every instance of Western weakness succors them. Every U.N. resolution, European cry for diplomacy and academic case for moral equivalency feeds their notion that their victory is inevitable.
Getting to victory will be an ugly thing. Our weapons will kill innocents, just as they did in Nagasaki and Dresden. And we will suffer our own losses. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that America will have to suffer a grievous loss before unshackling its own might. And our first grievous loss will not be our last. Like any global conflagration, this one will be full of horrors, horrors that most refuse to contemplate.
SO WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE? Graham Allison, Joe Nye and other Kennedy School types will tell you that we can talk Radical Islamists out of this whole crazy Jihad thing with just some judicious use of our “soft power.” We can win hearts and minds, they argue, if we just try a little tenderness.
Their argument, however, betrays a spectacular ignorance regarding Jihad philosophy . There’s nothing new going on here, nothing that’s not 14 centuries old. The only difference is that a trillion dollars in petro-dollars has given the forces of Jihad power and reach that even the Prophet never imagined. To think we can jawbone our way out of this is dangerously wishful thinking.
It’s an ugly situation. It’s a miserable reality. But denying it or creating elegant professorial sophistries won’t make it vanish.
We can win and we will win, but doing so will be neither painless, bloodless or easy.

I'm not the only one that thinks we are in a "kill or be killed" situation with Islamists. I agree with the following assessment:

Friday, August 11, 2006
Imagining Victory
Posted by Hugh Hewitt 4:18 PM
(DEAN BARNETT HERE)
Yesterday I wrote on the need for us to confront our greatest fears. I said that we had to “imagine a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, imagine a mushroom cloud over New York” and figure out how to stop them. A commenter ridiculed this exercise in negativity, and then asked if I had imagined what victory on the Global War on Terror would look like.
Unfortunately, I have, and it’s neither pretty nor comforting.
THE FIRST STEP TO victory on the global war terror will be dropping that stupid name “global war on terror.” This is the first war in our history where we’ve declined to even identify who we’re fighting. In the Civil War, the Union didn’t pause to label the Rebs and in World War II we willingly called out the Axis Powers.
But in this war, we resolutely refuse to identify who we’re fighting. Most of the readers of this site know that we’re fighting the followers of radical Islam; they want so badly to spread their own perverse philosophy that they want and need us dead. Most people who have seriously intellectually engaged with the current struggle know this. I don’t think it’s the tiresome braying of CAIR that’s triggered our reticence. I think it’s our own highly refined reluctance to offend that shackles us.
At some point on the road to victory, we’ll figure out how many people there are that we’re actually fighting. They may be numerous and number many multiples more than the members of groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
When the neo-cons (like me) said that we would be greeted with garlands of roses in Iraq, we meant it. We couldn’t imagine anyone preferring an 8th century theocracy to freedom and liberty. But subsequent events in Iraq and Palestine have had to give any thinking person pause. The people of Palestine democratically opted for a government that promises non-stop war with a much more powerful enemy. Where the people of Iraq stand remains opaque.
We comfort ourselves with the notion that the Iranian government is wildly unpopular with its people and soon they will rise up. The evidence for this remains flimsy; the evidence for the animus that many people of the region have for America and American institutions remains all too clear.
SO HOW WILL THE WAR END? With lots of dead Jihadists. Just like World War II ended with lots of dead Nazis and imperialist troops of Japan. There were so many dead, the rest lost their will to fight on. Only when they realize their destruction is imminent (and accomplished to a great degree) will there be peace.
Until the Jihadists realize they can’t win, they will continue to fight. Every instance of Western weakness succors them. Every U.N. resolution, European cry for diplomacy and academic case for moral equivalency feeds their notion that their victory is inevitable.
Getting to victory will be an ugly thing. Our weapons will kill innocents, just as they did in Nagasaki and Dresden. And we will suffer our own losses. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that America will have to suffer a grievous loss before unshackling its own might. And our first grievous loss will not be our last. Like any global conflagration, this one will be full of horrors, horrors that most refuse to contemplate.
SO WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE? Graham Allison, Joe Nye and other Kennedy School types will tell you that we can talk Radical Islamists out of this whole crazy Jihad thing with just some judicious use of our “soft power.” We can win hearts and minds, they argue, if we just try a little tenderness.
Their argument, however, betrays a spectacular ignorance regarding Jihad philosophy . There’s nothing new going on here, nothing that’s not 14 centuries old. The only difference is that a trillion dollars in petro-dollars has given the forces of Jihad power and reach that even the Prophet never imagined. To think we can jawbone our way out of this is dangerously wishful thinking.
It’s an ugly situation. It’s a miserable reality. But denying it or creating elegant professorial sophistries won’t make it vanish.
We can win and we will win, but doing so will be neither painless, bloodless or easy.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

I wonder if the plan to blow up airliners flying from England to the US that was thwarted in London today was Ahmadinejad's "apocalyptic event" promised for 22 August. Could he be aware of something planned by al Queda? I suspect his surprise for us is something else. If this was his event, then that is an effectively a declaration of war against the US. I doubt we will respond.

Here is an article discussing the war between the West and Islam.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5752

I agree with the article regarding the error of George Bush's view that all people desire democracy. I think that it may be that the majority of Arab Mslims would like to live in a democracy. But, Islam is a political as well as a religious sect that is not compatible with democracy. There is a large group of Arab Muslims who are willing to die to advance Islam. This group is violent and ruthless and totally intimidates any moderate Muslims.

I have always thought that Bush's attempt to spread democracy into the Middle East would fail while, at the same time, I was hoping it would succeed. If it fails then I fear that Stanley Kurtz's prediction in the above article will eventually happen. The West no longer has the political will to do what neeeds to be done, which I think is to totally destroy the governments of Iran and Syria as soon as possible. This will result in a significant loss of life, but much less than will occur in the nuclear war that will eventually happen if we continue to do nothing. The US would have to pretty much take action alone, because European Civilization no longer has the will to survive. And, there are many in the US who despise America and don't think we deserve to survive. (Think of Noam Chomski, for example.) I continue to believe that our failure to take the fight to Islam with all of the forces required to win now will lead to a major World War within a few years. The Islamists are implacable, and our only hope is to destroy them before they become strong enough to destroy us.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Here is an interesting article about why people hate Jews:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2006/08/09/why_the_world_hates_the_jews

Actually I like Jews for several reasons:

1) their religion does not demand that they kill me,

2) they don't want me to convert to their religion, and

3) they are smart (average IQ of 115 or so).

Bernard Lewis has recently made a speech in which he points out that the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) arrangement between the US and Russia during the Cold War won't work with Iran, since the Iranian leaders are suicidal. Actually I thought that should have been obvious to everyone. After all, Ahmadinejad keeps talking about preparartions for the end of the world. He has said he expects the return of the Mahdi in a year or two. I don't understand why Europeans and Democrats don't pay attention to him. They don't seem to have learned anything from Hitler. I'm seeing more mention of Ahmadinejads threat of an "apocalyptic event" on 22 August in the blogsphere, but haven't seen anything in the MSM. More and more I am concluding that the MSM doesn't really know what is happening in the world, and doesn't care much. They are busy creating news to advance their own agenda, and don't have time to actually report the news.

In my post about the leaders of the house if Democrats gain control I forgot to mention John Conyers. He would be chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and is already hard at work on the impeachment of George W. Bush.

This article indicates that Enron and Clinton rather than Halliburton and Bush are responsible for high oil prices. With futures prices much higher than spot prices, producers have no incentive to sell now. Personally I suspect George Soros is involved in this. T. Boone Pickens and Richard Rainwater have no doubt made billions from the ridiculous runup in oil prices.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5747

Saturday, August 05, 2006

I wonder if people have thought about what it would mean if the Democrats gain control of Congress. Harry Reid would be Majority Leader of the Senate. He is something of a joke, who, based on his comments about Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court Opinions, like Chauncey Gardiner, doesn't read. But, he would probably be the best of the lot. Nancy Pelosi would be Speaker of the House, and would be third in the line of succession to the Presidency. That's a scary thought. But other leaders in the House would be a regular Rouge's Gallery. Alcie Hastings would be in charge of intelligence. He is a former Federal Judge who was impeached and kicked off the bench for accepting a bribe. (And Nancy Pelosi is hypocritical enough to call Republicans the "party of corruption.") John Dingle of Michigan would be in charge of something. He supports Hezbollah, and apparently other terrorists groups. (Of course, there are a lot of Muslims in his district.) And Ron Dellums and Ethel Waters of California would be in leadership positions. These people are opposed to capitalism and their elevation would be a great victory for our enemies. They would spend the next two years trying on a Quixotic quest to kick Bush out of office, so maybe not much would happen.

Things are not going well in Iraq according to most reports, and are particularly bad according to Democrats. The Democrats appear to be hoping things go badly because they hate President Bush so much. Many of them seem to be willing to provide encouragemnet to the enemy. I think that Bush did the right thing in the war on terror even if his effort fails. If he succeeds the Islamist threat will end with relatively little loss of life. If the effort fails the Islamists will continue to attack us. If we lose out in Iraq, the Islamists will be encouraged to press their attacks on us. If that happens, I expect there to be attacks that even a Democratic President cannot ignore. The Democrat response will be horrific, in part because the Republicans will support them. If Bush's effort fails, then I expect a nuclear war during the term on the next President (who I expect to be a Democrat). The Islamists will be wiped out, but a lot of Americans will die. I suppose it is possible that a Democrat like Carter could get elected. In that case we might continue to surrender, and our survival could be in doubt. I think one plan of the Islamists with their Russian, Chinese, and French supporters is to try to get a Carter elected in the US.

The West is having trouble with asymmetrical warfare with the Islamic terrorists. Political correctness, Diversity, and Multiculturalism in the West add to the problems. The elite media hates capitalism, and loves "victims." I suppose the socialist view that life is a "zero-sum" game fits in well with the Muslim view that the West has been successful at their expense. So the media, who seem to favor the Islamists and truly hate President Bush, add to the problems of the West. The Israeli's have recently had some success with commando raids into Lebanon. I think that may be the approach that we need to adopt. The Texas Rangers used that approach in combating the Commanche terrorists back in the 1840's and 50's. The Rangers simply chased down, engaged and killed the Commanche Warriors. (One of my Great Great Grandfathers was a Ranger Captain back then.) It sounds cruel, but I think we are going to have to start seeking out the Islamists and killing them. There is no negotiation possible with people who intend on killing you.

It is interesting to me that Muslims were openly discussing their plan for taking over Britain back in the early 90's. They realize they can't take over the West by military action, so they plan to infiltrate. They are now in the second phase of their plan in which they begin to demand autonomy over certain areas including imposition of shar'ia law. All of Europe now faces the problem of Muslim immigrants who do not wish to be assimilated into the existing culture. It is even a problem in Sweden where there are signs in certain areas warning "whites" not to enter. And gangs of Muslims are raping girls who don't conform to the Islamists dress code. The Swedes, being such nice people, do not severly punish the boys involved, if they punish them at all. (Rape seems to be a favored activity of Muslim youth.) The European nations are now experiencing a lot of "honor killings." Muslims have to kill their sister if she has the misfortune to be raped to save the family "honor." The Muslims have a "shame" culture as opposed to our "guilt" culture. This was discussed by Dr. Santy recently (in the blog "Dr. Sanity"). (If you don't read Dr. Sanity, you should. She was a flight surgeon at NASA, and apparently was a Democrat until she meet Reagan after the Challenger disaster.) The point is that Muslims are not motivated by guilt over their actions. They can commit any crime, and if no one knows, it doesn't matter. I ran into this when I was a graduate student teaching engineering courses. Taking this further, it doesn't matter if people know about your crime if they approve. Thus it is acceptable to kill your suister who was raped since the community will applaud your action. In our society the brother might kill the rapist.

Apparently Iran's President Ahmadinejad has promised an "apocalyptic surprise" for the US and the West on August 22. This has not been discussed in the West, but appears to be widely anticipated by Muslims in the Middle East. They must have something in mind. Maybe a nuclear weapon test. Or widespread terrorists attacks by Hezbollah cells in Western countries. In either event, I hope the US has the military on alert, particularly in Iraq, and has a lot of stuff aimed at Iran.

August 22 is an important date for Muslims for some reason. It turns out that Sept 11 is also an important date for them. That is when John Sobieski defeated them at Vienna in 1683, and booted them out of Europe, at least for the next 300 years. As recently stated by the Ahmadinejad, they are mad at Britain for setting up the Palestine protectorate in 1917.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

It appears to me that the media now is so intent on being unbiaed that they have forgotten which side they are on. I don't recall any media outlets trying to present the German or Japanese side of things during WWII. There were, however, certain figures that did put forward Communist propaganda. In the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel the media do not seem to realize that much of what they get from Hezbollah is propaganda. Are the media actually pulling for the terrorists? It often seems that they are. Consider the Qana situation. It may well be that many children were killed in an Israeli raid. But the photo's taken there the next day were pure propaganda, even though the journalists there didn't seem to realize it. They now say there were about twenty-something people killed rather than 56. It is curious that no fighting aged men were killed in the raid.

The media attention paid to the Mel Gibson drunk driving escapade is a mystery to me. I don't know why anyone would care about an apology for something someone said while roaring drunk. Actors seem to be dysfunctional people in most cases, so why should anyone care what they think about anything; philosophy, politics, or anything else? From what I've read, most of the movie stars don't even know much about acting. I wonder why so many people are fascinated by celebrities, be they athletes, actors, or just rich.

I've always wondered why a person with all of the advantages Gibson has would be an alcoholic. I've been a tee-totaler all of my life, and I've never understood why people are willing to spend a lot of money on something which tastes bad and impairs their judgement and motor performance. I don't like to not have full control of my facilities. Apparently some people like to lose control.

Yesterday I ran into a tree limb and cracked my head open while playing ball with Ireland. Then I slipped and fell off the curb while cutting the yard and got skinned up and bruised. I was pretty stiff last night, and had a bad leg cramp. It was over 100 F today, so I was afraid I wouldn't be able to play golf well. Sure enough my tee shots were poor; I hit a tree on the first three holes. But my touch was as good as it has ever been and I chipped and putted my way to five over. Not bad for me.