Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The 'forgotten people' are already doing something for economic recovery
As I sat watching President Obama explain the so-called stimulus package, I felt several times that he was speaking directly to me. He kept saying that doing nothing is not an option, which is precisely what I would propose the government do.
Like many of the forgotten people in America, I have strongly recommended that the government do nothing to bring us out of this deep recession. But I know we're going to lose the argument. The debate now is really all about what politicians should do, not what the American public should do.
The sound bite of the moment, that our government must act quickly, carried the day. The media in attendance seemed to forget the fact that it was government programs to address low home ownership rates and stingy credit that caused the downturn in the first place.
Politicians may try to take the credit when we finally climb out of this hole, but in reality it will be the forgotten people who will have solved this crisis. They do not need to be stimulated by a wheelbarrow full of Washington pork.
They just need to be remembered as the ultimate source of wealth and left alone to do what they can do to create it. Forgetting that wealth ultimately comes from everywhere but Washington is what got us into this recession in the first place and continuing to forget it is not the path to recovery.
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Clinton offers peace treaty to N.Korea
New York - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday offered North Korea a peace treaty, normal ties and aid if it eliminates its nuclear arms program and stressed her desire to work more cooperatively with China..
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[Great news. Might I suggest our 'cooperation' with China start with...]
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Chinese Hackers Attack U.S. Computers
Chinese government and freelance hackers are the primary culprits behind as many as several hundred daily attacks against U.S. government, electric-utility and financial computer networks, a senior congressman said.
“Sophisticated hackers could really wreak havoc on our financial systems if they were successful,”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in an interview. The threat is“primarily from China.”
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Airborne Laser offers new era for ballistic missile defense
Unlike other missile defense systems, which require one or more interceptors to destroy a single ballistic missile, an ABL can destroy up to 20 missiles before its chemical supply is depleted and must be refilled. Thus, a handful of ABL planes potentially could provide around-the-clock protection against fairly sizable missile attacks emanating from a country such as North Korea.
Since ABL is an airborne system, it can be deployed anywhere in the world on short notice. In addition to its primary mission of intercepting ballistic missiles, it is intrinsically capable of performing other missions such as early warning of missile launches, estimation of launch and impact points, target cueing of other defensive systems and defense against airborne targets such as cruise missiles.
The Airborne Laser is the most revolutionary system in current missile defense plans, combining speed-of-light interception with low costs per kill and global mobility. Its scheduled shootdown of a ballistic target in 2009 will be the first time such a feat has ever been achieved at great distance by a high-power laser.
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Obama administration takes softer stance on missile defense
PRAGUE — The Obama administration has begun to indicate that it's willing to reconsider the Bush administration's push to deploy a ballistic missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland — if Russia helps curb Iran's push to develop nuclear weapons.
Echoing Vice President Joe Biden , who said the new administration wants to push a "reset button" on U.S.- Russia relations, Undersecretary of State William Burns told the Interfax news agency in Moscow last week that, " The United States is quite open to the possibility of new forms of cooperation" with Moscow on missile defense, Iran and "the whole range of security issues with Russia ." His remarks are posted on the Interfax Web site. [snip]
While it's a secondary issue for the U.S., missile defense is one of the most important political issues for the Czech Republic , which two decades ago helped lead Eastern Europe's march from communism to democracy.
Cancelling the project just as Moscow has taken a more aggressive stance toward the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine would strain U.S. relations with the two East European countries that risked Moscow's wrath to accept it, and with others that also worry about a revanchist Russia .
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The Coming Storm
Victor Davis Hanson
First, President Obama in his al-Arabiya interview castigated past American foreign policy, suggested the onus of poor Islamic-Western relations was on the United States. Then Joe Biden went to Munich and blathered on about hitting the reset button of foreign-policy, using more of the platitudes of “Bush did it”. Secretary of State Clinton completed the trifecta on her first tour when she cleared her throat with the now customary “too often in the recent past . . . (fill in the blanks with being too ideological, unilateral, insensitive, etc.).”
So the world can now expect a break with the awful past, and the start of some brilliant new multilateral approach?
Will Obama and company, through inspired diplomacy, solve any lingering tension from the Bush administration over missile defense in Europe, the soon-to-be Iranian bomb and missiles, or the European so-so role in Afghanistan? Will they find a novel, kinder, and gentler way to thwart possible al-Qaeda Mumbai-copycat killers here at home, to defang North Korea, to talk sense to the Russians to stay in their confining borders, and to persuade Hamas to act more like Fatah?
I seriously doubt it.
Instead, this serial apologizing, promising a new age of listening and togetherness, and trashing the Bush administration will have two consequences:
Enemies will begin to think there is a tad less likelihood now that the U.S. will respond forcefully to a terrorist attack (since “Bush did it” in the past) without first consulting allies, trying to find a diplomatic solution, or going to the U.N.;
and, second, friends will slacken a bit, knowing that our prime interest is in the means of multilateralism rather than any objective ends: one now “dialogues” over troops in Afghanistan, and “discusses” whether to follow through on missile defense, and “listens” to “all the parties” like Syria and Iran for “constructive” suggestions about Middle East peace.
We are setting ourselves up for a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s “Our kindness and intellect will save the world,” but this second time as farce. In short, a bad idea to trash the past when much of it was good, and point happily to the future when it may well be far worse.
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Israel worried about U.S. delay in forging stance on Iran nukes
Israeli officials are putting together a position paper on talks between the United States and Iran for the new administration in Washington, Israeli officials say. The paper will include a list of reservations about the state of international efforts against Iran's nuclear program. One worry is that negotiations will go on for too long. The paper states that talks between the United States and Iran should be limited to a short period of time.
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Iran Is Helping Taliban in Afghanistan, Petraeus Says
Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and Iraq.“There is a willingness to provide some degree of assistance to make the life of those who are trying to help the Afghan people difficult,”
Petraeus told a conference today in the Qatari capital, Doha. Petraeus gave no details of the Iranian assistance, saying that the U.S. and its allies are watching Iran’s actions in Afghanistan “very, very closely,” adding that the Persian Gulf state continues to train and equip Shiite Muslim militias in neighboring Iraq.
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A peace sign: Iraq's Sunnis joining Shiite pilgrims
BAGHDAD - Sheikh Mohammad al-Ethawi, resplendent in his gold-trimmed robe and white headdress, hands out oranges to Shiite pilgrims walking by a striped tent on the main route to the holy city of Karbala.
Sheikh Ethawi is Sunni.
The Doura highway, where more than a million pilgrims – largely Shiite – are walking for the first time in three years, passes through what had been one of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods. Their numbers and Ethawi's presence are a sign of the easing of sectarian tensions that almost ripped this country apart. [snip]
"If we decided to separate the Sunni from Shiite we would have to divide the bedrooms," says Abbas, referring to the countless intermarriages. "It's people from outside Iraq"
Although the attacks appeared intended to reignite sectarian violence, the Shiite pilgrims were unwilling to blame their Sunni countrymen for the suicide bombers.
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Officials says Italy will not take Gitmo inmates
Italy will not accept any Guantanamo Bay detainees when the U.S. prison shuts down, a close ally of Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday after meeting with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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Jihadists celebrating Victoria fires; taking joy in the scenes
JIHADISTS are celebrating the worst tragedy in Victoria's history. Terror watchdogs said fundamentalists had blogged on websites across the globe, applauding the lives lost and destruction in the Victoria fires. Senior analyst at SITE Intelligence Group Adam Raisman said they were posting pictures of burnt homes and devastated victims and "taking joy in the scenes", the Sunday Herald Sun reports.
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Obama Administration may participate in Durban II
Well, file this info in the "this was predictable" column. Israeli officials are receiving reports from their emissaries that a movement is afoot within the Obama Administration that will lead to American participation in the UN’s World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
Sounds proper on the surface. Of course, the Conference is better known as Durban II, the sequel to the first such conference held in South Africa in September, 2001. That conference was transformed into an infamous anti-Semitic hate fest reminiscent of Nazi Germany. At the time, the prospects of such a farce occurring was evident. America honorably refused to participate, as did Canada. Not this time around. ... [snip]
The Bush administration agreed with Israel last year that the U.S. would not participate unless it received guarantees that the conference would not become a stage for anti-Semitism and one-sided criticism of Israel, as occured during the first Durban meeting in 2001.
Barack Obama has always advocated a more “cooperative” approach towards the United Nations. In her maiden speech to the United Nations, Susan Rice called upon Israel to investigate itself for war crimes for its actions in Gaza (a radical request of an ally); she also expressed support for the International Criminal Court-a forum that critics of Israel have often attempted to use to indict Israel and Israeli officials (a movement to do so is currently underway).
There is no surprise that Samantha Power , newly ensconced at the National Security Council as the official in charge of multilateral organizations (and she has never met a multilateral organization that she has not admired), has pushed for America to participate in Durban II. She knows from first-hand experience that it was used to attack America, Israel and Jews. Nevertheless, she apparently has no compunction in signing up again for a sequel. She has made comments that are certainly not just anti-Israel but verge on anti-Semitism (during the campaign she complained that scrutiny of Barack Obama all came down to “what was good for the Jews” )
This time she will give an American imprimatur to a conference that may very well become a forum not just for Israel-bashing for but expressions of anti-Semitism , as well.
Our taxpayer dollars at work.
Will the mainstream media even bother to report that the UN has again been used to promote anti-Semitism (which it has a history of so doing . Indeed, Professor Anna Bayefsky has called the United Nations the Leading Global Purveyor of Anti-Semitism.
Now the US seems to be on the verge of joining the party.
UPDATE (Sunday):
Obama’s Policy Shift on Durban Racism Conference Draws Concern, Criticism
When diplomats meet at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday to continue hammering out plans for an international conference on racism in the spring, representatives of the United States will take part for the first time in years. The major policy shift, announced by the State Department over the weekend, is the strongest indication yet that the Obama administration could end up participating in the Durban Review Conference, also known as “Durban II.”
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Obama warned over ‘welfare spendathon’
RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.
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The Law Liberals Always Break
There's a law that liberals always shatter. (And no, I'm not talking about tax law.) It's the law of unintended consequences. Actually it's not so much liberals per se that break it so much as it seems liberal thinking by definition always runs afoul of this law. Leftist policy always hangs itself if given enough rope. [but the lessons have great cost]
The liberals now have the entire stage with a very liberal President, extreme leftists in control of Congress, and the main stream media. Liberal failure has nowhere to hide and no one to hide behind.* So as the Obama administration attempts to attack the country's economic woes, they find themselves stepping in one pile of liberal policy do-do after another. You might say that the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The world will have to watch as liberal policy for problem A destroys Obama goals for problem B and so on.
Consider: with Obama, Reid and Pelosi screaming for the country to accept a ridiculous stimulus package to create jobs, jobs, jobs -- liberals in Chicago are standing in the way of a Wal-Mart Super Center that would bring in construction and retail jobs to the messiah's hometown. By the way, liberals will also keep the lowest cost provider of food and clothes and home goods from being accessed by hurting Chicagoans.
The reason? The liberal principle of protecting union jobs at all costs. Remember, behind every economic disaster is a powerful union. And sometimes a community organizer.
[*I disagree: the Media is the thing to hide behind - hence the impending push of the 'Fairness' Doctrine to silence the largest opposition outlet, after which the people will believe what the MSM tells them to {worked for the election, didn't it?}.
Recommended for its many specific examples of liberalism's oxymoronitus > ]
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The Fairness Doctrine choo-choo has left the station
After assuring Republicans all last year that there would be no return to the Fairness Doctrine, it appears that Democrats lied through their teeth. The issue is beginning to pick up steam among Democrats and it will only be a matter of time before the left tries to make it a reality and muzzle all dissent:
More and more Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.
"I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," Hinchey told CNNRadio.
Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.
Democratic Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa added their voices recently to those calling for a return of the regulation.
I would urge everybody to join an anti-Fairness Doctrine group either on Facebook, Myspace, or Yahoo and become active in what promises to be a real Pier Six brawl over the future of freedom in America.
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Time Magazine's list of 25 culprits in the financial meltdown
Time Magazine has come up with a list of players who they believe are responsible for the economic mess we're in. Who's responsible? Maybe more to the point is who they left out.
Democratic politicians Christopher Dodd (who protected the finance and hedge fund industry from regulation from his perch as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) and Barney Frank (chairman of the Financial Services Committee who pressured financial committees and promoted legislation to expand homeownership to people who were incapable of meeting their debt obligations) aren't on the list.
Who's on the list? A boat load of Republicans and the founder of HGTV - after all, he "stoked desire" for home ownership...
[that's Time]
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Former astronaut speaks out on global warming
Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.
"I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect," said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.
Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels."They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming,"
Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.
Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the"global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.
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Obama package focuses on alternative power sources
Since oil gushed from Spindletop in 1901, the Houston area has been the energy capital of the United States and a major destination for federal dollars devoted to oil and gas production.
But the mammoth economic stimulus bill that is winding its way through Congress largely bypasses Houston-based energy giants and fossil-fuel development in favor of funding new technologies to glean power from crops, the sun and heat trapped beneath the earth.
“There’s not a lot of oil and gas” money in the stimulus bill, said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.
Instead, President Barack Obama’s package focuses most of its attention, and an expected $54 billion or more in energy spending, on renewable and alternative power sources, not on the fossil fuel production on which the country is dependent...
[economic and geo-political suicide]
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'We ran out of shavers': Doctors'extraordinary excuses for axing 1,000 NHS operations a week
More than 1,000 NHS operations are being cancelled at the last minute each week because of avoidable mistakes at hospitals. Lost medical records, broken equipment and a lack of beds were among the excuses given to patients whose surgery was called off.
(Snip) a Freedom of Information request, revealed that the number of operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons in 2007/08 was 57,382 ...
[This is government run health care.]
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BURGEONING GANGS BEHIND 80 PERCENT OF U.S. CRIME
Criminal gangs in the United States have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80 percent of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center.
Researchers conclude that gangs are the "primary retail-level distributor of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
Over the last 10 years, the number of gang members has steadily increased, and a rising number of U.S. gangs are intent on developing working relationships with U.S. and foreign drug-trafficking organizations and other criminal groups to gain direct access to foreign source of illicit drugs. Moreover, most regions in the United States will experience increased gang membership and increased gang-related criminal activity, say researchers.
Other findings:
A task force launched in 2004 amid concerns about the gang's rapid spread has seen some success, but a "revolving door" on the border has kept the gang's numbers steady -- about 10,000 in the United States -- even as many illegal immigrant members are deported.
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AP: Advertising Kids 'E-Book' Obama Indoctrination Effort
The Associated Press is taken with the new e-book full of letters to President Obama published by the National Education Association (NEA) a liberal teachers union. Naturally, all the kids in this book are filled to overflowing with leftist talking points like pushing the anti-military angle -- one kid even said he was "very luckey because I am not part of a military family."
The kids were all indoctrinated with concern over global warming, infused with unthinking anti-war sentiment, disdain for our soldiers, and enthusiastic for Father Obama and his big government machine.
Sadly, it appears that not one of these kids have been taught by their teachers about liberty, freedom, personal responsibility and American principles. [snip]
Lawrence Hitchcock, chief executive officer of the Web site kidthing.org where the e-book appears, told the AP of all the god-like powers Obama seems to have that teachers impressed upon kids across the country."We had, `My dad's out of work, fix the company, please get more jobs,' Hitchcock said. "There were Latino kids saying, `Please change the immigration laws so my dad can come back from Mexico.' This is a profound snapshot of a social narrative of young kids during an important moment in history. It really kind of stunned us what came in through the front door."
So, teachers are telling kids that it's Obama's job to "fix companies" and tear down our sovereignty so that there is no border between the U.S. and Mexico. I am a bit surprised that these "educators" are pretending to be "stunned" by what they've found that kids think. After all, these teachers are telling kids that they should be feeling in the first place.
[Parents, you need know what's being foisted upon your children under the guise of public 'education' > Recommended > ]
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Israel after the election
The final tabulated results do not provide a simple right/left split as described by the mainstream media. The fractionalization of Israeli politics is more complex than left/right. The "right-wing" bloc of 65 seats , includes Likud, a center -right party, at 27, Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular, largely Russian, nationalist Party with 15, religious parties with about 19 seats (Sephardic 11, Ashkenazi 8), and National Union, a right wing party with 4.
Will an ardently secular party led by a now more assertive Avigdor Lieberman, be part of a stable coalition on the right with ultra religious parties? It is hard to see how.
[he can say that again]
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"Put three Zionists in a room and they will form four political parties."Levi Eshkol.
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