Military Launches Most Complex Missile Defense Test to Date

[HT:MD]
The military Friday shot down a mock enemy missile, employing a synchronized network of sensors in what officials called the largest and most complex test of the missile defense system to date.

A mock target missile was fired from Kodiak, Alaska, at 3:04 p.m. Eastern Time. An interceptor missile was fired about 30 minutes later from a silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., with its launch directed by soldiers based at Fort Greely, Alaska. The two successfully collided off the coast of California minutes later.

This is the first time the Defense Missile Agency has synchronized its network of varied sensor types and frequencies to successfully track, report and intercept a single target, the agency’s top officer said. [snip]

In the last 20 years, the number of countries interested in having or actually having intercontinental ballistic missile capability has increased from six to more than 20, military officials said. The number of test launches has increased every year.

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Missile defense 'won't help Europe'

Nice - France's President Nicolas Sarkozy says putting a missile defence system in Europe would do nothing to help European security. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev is arguing against any unilateral moves such as the US plan to put missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

[this insane attitude is a direct result of our equally insane energy policy, which hands Russia - by virtue of our lack of energy competition - the means to blackmail Europe into whatever it wants]

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Iran test-fires sea-to-sea missile

Tehran, Iran - The Iranian navy has test-fired a sea-to-sea missile during a six-day naval maneuver in the Sea of Oman, the country's state radio reported Sunday. The report quoted Adm. Ghasem Rostamabadi, the maneuver's spokesman, who said that the mid-range missile was launched from a battleship late Saturday (Snip)

The report did not elaborate on the range or give other details about the missile, dubbed Nasr-2 or Victory-2.

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Coming Soon: UN Racists to convene conference on racism

You may recall the UN's 2001 "Conference on Racism" held in Durban, South Africa that devolved into such a horrifically anti-Semitic free for all that mild mannered Colin Powell ordered the entire American delegation to walk out in disgust.

Claudia Rosett writing in Forbes asks if you're ready for a rerun?

As in 2001, the U.N. pretext is to end racism. Or, in U.N. lingo--take a deep breath -- the aim is "the total elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."

Sounds great, right? Except the U.N.'s Orwellian twist, once again, is that this conference is configured not to end racism, but to stir up hatred. In a series of preparatory meetings over the past 16 months, the organizers have already taken aim at Israel as their prime target. Increasingly, the organizers are also priming the conference for a broader attack on other democratic nations, especially the U.S. Some are pushing for a U.N.-backed gag order that would enlist Islamic anti-blasphemy laws to stifle free speech worldwide. [snip]

Get a load of the lineup of vice chairs on the prep committee for the shindig coming up in April of 2009:

Iran, Russia, Pakistan and Cameroon (which, according to New York-based Freedom House, still tolerates slavery in its northern reaches). Cuba--where wholesale repression includes the additional frill of job discrimination against Afro-Cubans--fills two seats at this Durban II table, which features both a Cuban vice-chair and Cuba as 'Rapporteur'.

I once wrote that the UN is a useless organization because the entire body engages in a children's game of make believe. They are not serious about anything except maintaining their perks and their ability to avoid paying parking tickets in New York.

And Obama wants to rely on this organization - in part - for the security of the United States?

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Stealth Jihad: How Islam is Infiltrating Your Neighborhood

.
What if Christians demanded the following:

1. If anyone around Christians at work or school eats pork then they would get fired ...

2. All public schools must have several regularly scheduled 15 minute breaks throughout the school day for Christians to roll pray for revival ...

3. Public schools must become sex-segregated so that we, the washed, and sanctified ...

4. Any and all the stupid, violent or sexually weird stuff that misguided Christians have done and are doing is to be scrubbed from the historical record ...

5. Footbaths are to be installed in whichever universities my brethren and I attend ...

6. Any video games that that might accidentally offend Christians must be 86’ed ...

7. We must receive exemptions from the IRS from paying interest on back taxes because that’s against Christianity ...

8. When the Christian church accidentally yields up a violent vocal dillweed from our ranks who hates America and is on the State Department’s terrorist watch list, instead of throwing that loopy bastard in prison we demand that the U.S. Army make him a sergeant.

9. Encourage the Christian high school student who wants to assassinate our President by giving him the “Most Likely to Become a Martyr” award during graduation.

10. Make students in the public school system who don’t believe in Jesus memorize portions of the Gospel of John, adopt Christian names and shout in the classroom, “I love Jesus, yes I do. I love Jesus. How ‘bout you?!”

Would any of points 1- 10 tick you secularists, atheists and agnostics off?

If Christians ever attempted any of the above they would be righteously ridiculed, castigated and condemned by the MSM, school administrators, cartoonists, talk radio, the blogosphere, Rosie, the coven on the View, religious leaders, the ACLU, Alec Baldwin and president elect Barack Obama.

Heck, Christians can’t even say “merry Christmas,” cheer on traditional marriage, or champion the life of an unborn baby without being called Hitler, haters of humanity and intolerant bigots of other people’s values.

But Islam can...

[Recommended > ]

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Disputes Between Russia, West Mar Security Meeting

Russia resisted pressure from the U.S. and other nations to allow international monitors into the breakaway province of South Ossetia, which has been controlled by Russia since the war.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said "Russia has an obligation ... to let in international observers" that can monitor the situation in the separatist region.

"I'm afraid they are quite reluctant for observers to be able to see what actually happened, how much destruction the policy of ethnic cleansing brought in this region,"

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Big issues unresolved in Paulson's final China dialogue

But the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, or SED as it is called, also left many large issues unresolved and served to highlight tensions between the world's biggest economy and the world's largest developing one.

For the Americans, they include efforts to open China's financial sector to U.S. securities firms and longstanding tensions over government control of the yuan, whose weakness against the dollar has helped fuel a yawning trade gap between the two countries.

Some economists say the government is intentionally pushing down its currency, a move that would help Chinese exporters by lowering prices on goods they sell overseas. Others say it's designed to warn the United States against pushing China too hard on trade, currency and other economic issues.

[being a totalitarian regime, China can, and does, use its economy as a weapon]

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Low temperatures don't chill warmist doomsayers

[HT:JG]
Despite the apocalyptic fears ginned up by the warmist cult, The UK Guardian reports:

This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week....

But don't worry - the faithful are not moved. They cite long term trends, perhaps thinking that the discredited "hockey stick graph" hasn't been discredited. The fact is that historic data on temperature in the pre-satellite era depends on thermometers that usually are near human settlements, which have increased in temperature more than the areas remote from human activity.

And forget about sunspots. The Guardian article makes no mention of solar activity. If you don't acknowledge it, then it isn't real, apparently.

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U.N. says poor nations need $130B [A YEAR] for climate change

Poznan, Poland - The U.N. climate change organization has said the world's poor countries will need $130 billion dollars a year by 2030 to help them adapt to global warming and curb their carbon emissions.


The U.N. says rich countries need to increase their payments over the next 20 years to six times the funds available now, which is about $21 billion. The figures were presented Thursday during a conference of 190 nations on a new climate treaty.

[the largest scam in the history of the solar system]

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Obama plots green jolt to economy

Washington - President-elect Barack Obama and leaders in Congress are fashioning a plan to pour billions of dollars into a jobs program to jolt the economy and lay the groundwork for a more energy-efficient economy. The details and cost of the so-called green-jobs program are still unclear, but a senior Obama aide, (Snip) said it would probably include the weatherizing of hundreds of thousands of homes, and the installation of ''smart meters'' to monitor and reduce home energy use...

[big brother is coming, camouflaged in 'green'...]

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OPEC head warns of looming oil output cuts

OPEC's president says oil markets should brace for big output cuts when the cartel meets Dec. 17. OPEC President Chakib Khelil, who is also Algeria's minister for energy and mines, told the Associated Press that a consensus has emerged among OPEC producers that a ''significant reduction'' is warranted by the current price slide.

[advanced warning of our continuing victimization by this extortion cartel {and funding mechanism to our enemies the world over}. If only we had our own resources to develop.]

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ANWR -- Trillion-dollar Arctic cathedral

Barack Obama promised change. Here is a good prospect. Few areas of public debate have been as stale - as barren of substance, focused instead on powerful emotional symbols - as the oil development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeast Alaska.

For the environmental movement, ANWR development long ago became a sacred cause that served above all as a litmus test of whether "you are with us or against us." It is time to move past all that.

The real issue in ANWR is the proper use of the fiscal assets of the U.S. government. The oil there is worth potentially $1 trillion dollars or more. With the current dire economic situation the United States can no longer afford to leave this immensely valuable economic asset to simply sit idle...

[Recommended > ]

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Prepackaged Failure

GM, Ford, Chrysler and Congress seem to be inching toward some sort of bailout that would give Washington unprecedented control over these major American companies. This is no way to help Detroit. Congressional Democrats are desperate to bail out the Big Three — but even more desperate to bail out the automakers' unions. After all,the UAW spent more than $11 million in the last election cycle to elect Democrats. They're owed.

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False Cures for the Recession

Times of emergency produce demands for action, and Barack Obama does not need to be urged twice. (Snip) Obama's plan is expected to call for a host of remedies — including extended unemployment benefits, aid to state governments, more infrastructure spending... [snip]

It brings to mind the character in Stephen Leacock's humorous novel "Gertrude the Governess," who "flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."

[but government taxing and spending does bring more power to government...]

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Public works 'investment' hasn't worked in Japan

As Obama promises massive public works spending, it is worthwhile looking at Japan, which has tried to use massive public works spending to lift its economy out of the doldrums for the better part of two decades.

The problem always is that when politics is in command of investment decisions, some useless projects get built at huge cost, while more pressing needs get ignored. After trying to preserve existing corporations for about a decade (known in retrospect as the "lost decade"), Japan finally bit the bullet and let major banks and other companies fail and be absorbed.

That has helped it recover, but the economy still relies far too much on government spending, which hasn't really accomplished the goal of boosting economic growth...

[when government spends money it has only two possible sources for it: robbing it from taxpayers/the private sector, or printing it afresh, making every ones' dollar less valuable. FDR showed us that massive government spending is exactly the wrong thing to do now - yet here we go...]

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Alternative to Bailout Nation

Is the U.S. really about to become bailout nation? I sure hope not. Using Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a reorganizing tool is a much better idea than federal money. The airlines have used it. Steelmakers have used it. Retailers have used it. I don’t know why we didn’t use it for Lehman and the other banks. It’s a matter of first principles — and I’m talking about market principles. Bailout nation puts us on the wrong road... [snip]

Lower tax rates will boost asset values and reward successful producers and investors. That’s what we need. A $700 billion big-spending package merely moves money from the private sector to the government and then to a government-targeted bailout. That’s not growth. That won’t create new factories or new technologies or new risk-taking. Permanently lower tax rates will.

This is the cutting-edge issue. And I sure hope the Republican party in Washington and around the country gets on this message. There is an alternative to bailout nation. It’s called supply-side tax cuts. That will jolt the economy back toward growth.

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Consensus Of Whom?

Socialized Medicine: "Consensus" has become one of the scariest words in America. It means officials have reached agreement on how to fleece the public. And it's being used in the same breath as "universal health care."(Snip)The alleged accord, says the Times, has been reached by "leading" business groups, medical facilities, physicians, unions, insurance companies, "senior lawmakers" and "members of the new Obama administration." [snip]

In other words, Democrats and Democratic Party supporters who will rule the capital for at least two years beginning in January. Meaningful Republican support, if it even exists, is not necessary. If there were a mere one or two from the GOP who had a modest role in this latest push for universal health care, the media would be calling it a "bipartisan" effort.

Before this juggernaut imposes its will on the American people, there are some questions that need to be asked and honestly answered. Who are the uninsured? How many are there? How long have they been without coverage? And most importantly, why? [snip]

A recent study found that only 38% of Americans agree the government — in reality, the taxpayers — should "definitely be responsible for health care." While there might be a consensus in Washington, there isn't one in the rest of the country.

Washington should also show why it is morally acceptable to make a portion of the population pay for the medical treatment of others, and to point to exactly which provision in the Constitution allows the national government to establish a health care system...

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Daschle-Obama Health Care Possibilities

As President-elect Obama's apparent choice for health and human services secretary and as White House health care czar, it is a fair guess that Tom Daschle's view on health care legislation may be decisive.

So it is worth reading his book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis," in which the gracious former Senate leader lays out without equivocation both the policy he recommends and the tactics for how to pass it.

On Page 179, he writes, "The Federal Health Board wouldn't be a regulatory agency, but its recommendations would have teeth because all federal health programs would have to abide by them." But here is the kicker: Although his board technically would have no say on the 68 percent of health care that is provided through the private sector, at the bottom of Page 179, Daschle modestly adds:

"Congress could opt to go further with the Board's recommendations. It could, for example, link the tax exclusion for health insurance to insurance that complies with the Board's recommendation."

Those last 19 words would spell the end of independent private-sector health care in America...

[this is important to know because we won't be told about it until after legislation passes... - Recommended > ]

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Ignoring the politically incorrect victims

Here's an interesting quote from today's Boston Globe:

Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.

This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the US economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Healthcare, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.

We will not see congratulatory triumphant letters coming from such pressure groups because their vested interest (as is true of all interest groups) is to perpetuate the view that a major problem (environment, global warming, you name it) not only still exists but is actually worsening.

People may not be able to take the truth precisely because many in the activist community never expose them to the truth. This is why it is surprising that such a column outlining the disproportionate effects of the economic downturn on men is such a shocker. Just don’t expect such a story to achieve widespread broadcasting...

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A EUROPEAN GENOCIDE

[history]
Starting in the late 1920s, Stalin set out to collectivize and hobble the Soviet peasantry. His aim was to crush "the peasantry of the U.S.S.R. as a whole, and the Ukrainian nation," wrote Robert Conquest in his groundbreaking book, "The Harvest of Sorrow." The result:

• An estimated 14.5 million people starved to death in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus when farmland was collectivized and harvests requisitioned; yet, the submission of Ukraine to Moscow helped prolong the Soviet Union's life for another 60 years.
• Walter Duranty, the New York Times's longtime Moscow correspondent, was Stalin's chief apologist, sending false dispatches from Ukraine; he won a Pulitzer Prize.
• The left-leaning academy condemned Conquest and the late James Mace, the leading researcher of the famine, when their work appeared in the 1980s, and the Berlin Wall's collapse shamed some of the denialists.

By remembering the Holodomor, Ukrainians say: Never again.

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Pensioner fined for littering after police knock cigarette from his hand

[UK]
A grandfather was left humiliated after being handed a £60 litter fine when his cigarette was knocked out of his hand as he walked past a scuffle between police and shoplifters. (Snip) But the pensioner did not have time to bend down and pick it up before a council warden pounced on him and hit him the fixed penalty for littering...

[he inevitable evolution of government social engineering...]

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It's Time to Speak Out Against The 'Mormon Boycott'

California
Supporters of gay marriage have reacted with anger at the passage of California Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to provide that only marriages that fit the traditional definition (one man, one woman) will be recognized. The resulting protest movement has devolved into anti-Mormon bigotry which has been met with silence by liberal civil rights groups. The anti-Mormon fervor has become so nasty, and is growing at such a pace, that it is time to speak out against the "Mormon boycott."

While the web is filled with hate speech by fringe elements directed at many groups, the anti-Mormon efforts are openly embraced and promoted by a wide range of anti-Prop. 8 groups. Anti-Mormon hate speech no longer is on the fringe, it is at the heart of the post-election anti-Prop. 8 campaign. The examples are too numerous to list completely. This sampling reflects the breadth and increasing scope of post-election anti-Mormon activities: [snip]

What is most disturbing is that there has been complete silence from groups that normally defend religious freedom. ...

[ah but 'hate speech' protections only protect some kinds of hate. Recommended > ]

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Obama pledges not to smoke in White House

WASHINGTON- Barack Obama says you won't catch him lighting up a cigarette in the smoke-free White House. "There are times where I've fallen off the wagon," the president-elect said when asked in a broadcast interview whether he has kicked the habit. "I've done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of making myself much healthier," he said. "And I think that you will not see any violations of these rules in the White House,"

[what has this country come to when this is a topic of national conversation not just among adults, but the 'leaders' of the free(?) world? PC run amok. It won't stop until stopped.]

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America Is Not Declining

Barack Obama and the next Congress will take power at a time when the financial crisis and Mesopotamian misadventures have spurred talk of America’s decline. Last week, a Russian analyst was even giddily forecasting the collapse and breakup of the United States, with Russia and China becoming joint global hegemons.

Such predictions may comfort critics and opponents of American power, but they lack any real basis. In fact, long-term demographic and economic trends suggest that the age of American dominance won’t end anytime soon.

In Futurecast (St. Martin’s Press, $26.95), economist Robert Shapiro, a founder of the Progressive Policy Institute and now chairman of the consulting firm Sonecon, examines how the relentless forces of demographics and globalization will shape the world of 2020. His analysis suggests that the United States will remain the leading global power. Europe, Japan, and China, meanwhile, have reason to worry... [snip]

In all likelihood, the United States will continue doing well in the white heat of international competition, while the highly regulated economies of continental Europe and Japan will stumble. Barring a departure from open markets, the vast and flexible U.S. economy will remain a magnet for investment that funds innovation, which will ensure that U.S. workers remain among the most productive and highly paid in the world.

[Recommended > ]

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[HT:GC]